Chapter 10

Hannibal returned to his home alone armed with a cooler of human meat he had no plans on consuming unless he had to. His house was big, empty and cold. Usually he would find solace in it but now it felt foreign.

Walking to his room, he stopped as soon as his knees touched the bed. Unable to get in it and sleep for her scent was all over it; he turned around and went to his spare room. That room had no memories and the sleep that had eluded him for hours was finally willing to reach him. He chose not to acknowledge he was gripping her kimono robe tightly in his hands placed under his nose.

When his 2 o' clock arrived he was still groggy and barely functional. Good, rich, expensive coffee was the only thing that kept him going and when it was time for dinner he decided to get revenge on Will. So he cooked the one thing he hated eating and seeing the younger man eat the ortolan bird was oddly satisfying especially since Will made the disgusted face all children do when they eat a plate of greens.

It was petty to take out his frustrations on Will but amusing. Especially since the younger man was trying something. What? Hannibal wasn't sure. It could have been true that Will was trying to see how killing worked for him but the timing was interesting.

Timing. Isn't that what everything is about?

Alana had immersed herself in her work. If she was busy with exams and grades and shaping young eager minds then she had no time to think about her weekend in New England, nor everything that had come of it.

She also very actively avoided Hannibal, Will, Jack, Freddie, everyone. Not that avoidance was difficult. She had been low on Jack's list for assistance ever since he found out about her nighttime rendezvous with Hannibal and her choice to believe him over Will. Similarly she had no contact with Will and Freddie had been surprisingly quiet ever since the Dinner last week.

She had a long over the phone session with Dr Cambell, her old psychiatrist, but since the episodes were seemingly over he didn't have a lot of advice for her, besides his advices hadn't helped much, if any, ten years ago... His brass monkey was a better therapist than him.

She was so busy that when her cell phone rang with Jack's number flashing on the screen she did not answer. When the phone kept ringing and made her sick of the ring tone, she answered and was summoned by a cold Jack to report to his office.

So there she was now. Watching Jack question Will about Freddie going missing a few miles from his house. Will acting guilty yet defiant, Hannibal dismissive, and Jack himself acting as a puppet master. She remained quiet, remembering the glances Will and Hannibal gave each other last week at dinner and Hannibal's insistence for their weekend getaway.

Was anything not planned in advance with these 3 men?

"She was a slim and delicate pig"

Hannibal stared at Will. The younger man had just handed him two pieces of meat letting him deduce it was Freddie with a straight face. Danger bells began clanging in his head.

Could it truly be that Will was turning to a killer? First Randall Tier (that he believed for he had seen the bruised and torn knuckles Will was sporting) and now Freddie?

Earlier in Jack's office he felt as if he was being played. Will was too calm, Jack was too docile to truly be accusing Will of murder and Alana... Alana kept her gaze away from him, locked on Will or Jack and her expression was clear as day. She didn't want to be there. His ego wanted him to believe she waned to be away from him but his brain believed it was because it was amateur hour at the FBI.

Yet... if this piece of meat truly was Freddie and the nosy ginger had been killed by Will, what had he created? And how could he be free of it, when the time came? He wore a smile to hide his thoughts

"I'll make you lomo saltado. We will make it together. You slice the ginger"

He accompanied the bad pun by handing Will a sharp knife. He wanted to see if Will had any skill with a knife that would point that the two finely cut pieces of meat were cut by him and not a professional butcher. Freddie's charred corpse had beautifully preserved teeth and Will's ramblings about fire had him internally grinning.

Poor poor peasants, so naive in their thinking.

"Right when I think I'm out, I'm yanked right back in"

Alana grumbled under her breath for being the universe's puppet once again. She had been woken up far too early by the brass monkey that decided to open its mouth (she certainly regretted laying all the muses on her floors now) and send her looking for answers. Will's happiness at her sudden visit was replaced by a frown when she told him she wasn't there for a friendly visit and after a vague threat he rewarded her with a gun.

What she noticed though wasn't his threats so much as the state he was in. trembling and soggier than a mop. More hallucinations? And now that she knew who and what Hannibal was, what did it mean about Will? Was he playing a part, was he becoming a killer or was he slowly reverting to his unstable status?

Most importantly, why did she feel ready to wash her hands off of him?

Hannibal pushed a pawn in his mental chessboard, told a two truths and one lie, patting himself on the back when all three were accepted as truths.

He didn't blame Will for their game. He didn't blame himself either. He had done his homework on his opponent and knew how to play. It was most interesting how his opponents hadn't done their homework on him.

If only they had...

Alana was having dinner with her sister. Sharon was in town for a meeting and the two sisters were having a pleasant meal talking about their parents and brother, their work and even the weather. They weren't close growing up but now they were and Alana found herself asking her sister's professional opinion about recent events and liability. Sharon, who was a lawyer working mainly with immigration issues, had squinted at her younger sister a lot but kept her curiosity to herself and answered.

In her expert opinion, Alana should cut strings and distance herself ASAP. Alana snorted in her beer and let her sister change the subject and talk about the woman she was seeing.

They were driving towards Alana's home when a car with blue and red lights stopped her with a message from Jack. Alana had signed annoyed, lent her car to her sister and let the cop drive her to the cemetery.

Crime scene techs, Will and Jack were around a thing. On a closer inspection she saw what it was. A skeleton formed in the shape of a Shiva. She wasn't sure what was shockier. The statue or Will's casualness around it. Or Jack's for that matter.

Once again she found herself wondering if she was going to get dinner with the show she was attending

"This killer wants attention"

Jack prodded

"Whoever killed Freddie killed Randall Tier, mutilated him, dismembered him, and put him on display"

She responded feeling like a child in the school production.

"Freddie Lounds and Randall Tier have a connection"

Jack read his script

"Will"

Alana knew she was supposed to say Hannibal's name but she uttered Will's instead. The man in question looked at her so she twisted her words just to see how the producers of the amateuristic play would respond when their actress refused to comply with the given script

She wasn't disappointed when Will began prattling about benefactors and the meaning of the statue with the abnormally white teeth.

"Maybe Freddie's killer didn't do this... maybe his benefactor did. It's a courtship"

She said what she was supposed to say but couldn't help herself before adding (or simply pointing) the flaw in the logic

"But to whom?"

"What do you mean?"

Jack turned to look at her only Alana kept her eyes on Will's.

"You're assuming there is one killer and one benefactor, yet Shiva is a deity with six hands. It requires three bodies. To me it looks more like a class project. Three killers, not one"

Will opened his mouth to object but Alana spoke over him

"You're also choosing to overlook something important. If there is a teacher and a student, what stops the teacher from having many students or the student from having many teachers? When you have one master and one student, the student becomes nothing more than the master's minion. A Mini-them. No master wants that incase the minion surpasses them. Not to mention that the student copies so well that it's easy for them to pay for their master's crimes. If you've killed Randall using the Ripper method Will, what stops the Ripper from letting you take the blame for all his killings? The Ripper gave you freedom taking credit for the Copycat murders once... "

Alana smirked at the shock on Will's face and the doubt on Jack's

"The Ripper giveth, and the Ripper taketh away"

With that she walked away from the carnage knowing Jack's already crumbling faith in Will was shaken even more and Will had to acknowledge his own faults. If he had terrors and hallucinations again he wasn't safe to be around. Not for her, not for Hannibal (despite his own plans), not for Jack, not for anyone.

And she was done with it all.