Will tried to remember the last time he had followed a normal sleep schedule. After thinking for far too long, he came to the conclusion that the answer was 'never'.
After two days of being stuck in a hotel room without any news, he decided that there was no point in staying inside and drowning in his own uncertainty and insomnia. Luckily, this time he didn't have a guard always on his heels. And he finally had his gun reassuringly back in his possession. Will held it in his hand, still baffled that Jack hadn't changed his mind about this. But there it was, fitting almost perfectly in his palm, as if it had never left him. Will made sure to fasten the firearm before stepping out the door.
His rational side told him that it was idiotic to walk out into the city during the impending night, especially when his face had been all over the news. But Will quickly shushed this voice and tried to enjoy the first evening he truly felt free.
He could finally walk somewhere without having to give someone an explanation as to where he was going or why. And this simple piece of normality was enough calm down the demons in his head. At least for a little while.
After hours of walking, Will realized that he hadn't simply wandered randomly around the city. He mentally scolded himself when it dawned on him that all this time his legs had been heading towards Alana's house. It wasn't like him to just drop by unexpectedly. But he'd already walked this far. And, most importantly, it had been too long since he'd seen his dogs.
It was late in the evening when he finally found himself in front of her home. Will felt a bit uncomfortable intruding, as he knocked on the door a few times. But a smile instantly appeared on his face when he heard the familiar outbreak of barking and scampering.
Alana didn't look surprised when she answered. "Hi. What's going on?"
He wanted to tell her that he didn't want to spend another night trapped in his own head, especially when there was still a killer out there that knew who he was and who he cared about and could use that information against him. And that while Jack could take care of himself and owned a gun, he was pretty sure that she didn't.
But he wasn't sure how to summarize all of that, so instead, he heard himself blurting out, "I'm really sick of hotel rooms."
She let out a laugh. "Come on in" Alana said, stepping aside.
It was strange being in her home and seeing the dogs, and knowing that his past self would never have been bold enough to just show up on her doorstep unexpectedly. And even though he was too tired and stressed and sick of it all to even consider something romantic in his actions, he found it interesting that it took two serial killers to make him stop being so unsure of himself. At least for the moment.
He took a few minutes to say hello to the dogs and appreciate how much they had missed him. He loved it how quickly they transported him back to his home and the late evenings he usually spent just watching and waiting for all of them to run around in the field.
"It's pretty funny that you showed up here" Alana said. "I was actually thinking of dropping by your room tomorrow morning."
There was a flirtatious joke in there somewhere, but Will decided not to say anything. He wasn't good with jokes anyway.
"I've been thinking about that book I gave you. The one about how psychedelics can help trigger lost memories."
"And you said that it wasn't a good idea to do anything about that."
He could tell by her demeanor that she tensed a bit. "I think we can both agree that quite a few things changed since that conversation."
"All right" Will said wary. "How's your head doing?"
"It's fine" Alana said, waving it off. "Now come on, I need your thoughts on something."
Will followed her into the living room, a flood of wagging tails and paws trailing after him. For a moment, he couldn't figure out what Alana needed his opinion on.
He had to stop when he noticed a plate with some strange ingredients he failed to recognize sitting on the table by the sofa. When it clicked in his head, Will wanted to laugh because he couldn't believe Alana had actually managed to get hold of some psychedelics.
"You're not serious" he said, slightly amused.
"It was pretty tricky and I couldn't get my hands on the exact drugs in the book" she said, "but it comes close enough."
He kept staring, taken aback. "So whatever's in there can get me to access my memories?"
Alana nodded. "It's a mix of trichocereus bridgesii and morning glory seeds. I've researched enough to know that it should work. And it's relatively safe."
"Relatively?"
"Nothing can be perfectly safe when hallucinogenics are involved." She smiled a bit. "Luckily, you have a doctor around."
They both sat down around the coffee table, but Will couldn't help but regard everything as if it was alien.
"I don't suppose you've done something like this before and know what to expect?" Alana asked, noticing his expression.
He shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint."
"I don't know why I'm surprised" she said, trying not to smile. "So what do you think?"
"You mean if I want to get high on the off-chance that it can trigger some long lost memories?"
There was an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
"Will, last time we talked about this, you were so desperate to remember that you drugged two officers and ran off."
"The difference is that now I'm scared of what I can find out about myself."
Alana's face softened. "I think that's a fear most of us share, Will."
He nodded, still staring at whatever was on the plate. "So how is this going to work exactly?"
"It's not that different from hypnosis. Once you're able to enter a state of relaxation and the drugs start to work, you'll be able to access your blocked memories. I'll be here to guide you through those memories and ask you to tell me what you see." She paused. "Provided you manage to get access to them."
"And if I can't?"
Alana looked away for a second. "I'm not sure. But whatever happens, it's going to be hard to anticipate. Especially given your empathy disorder."
Will suddenly felt a smile curling his lips.
She was surprised as she saw the change in his expression. "You're looking forward to this all of a sudden?"
"No, I was just thinking that I've seen so many crime scenes over the years and was even shot twice in my life... and yet this moment right here is starting to worry me more than anything else." He took a deep breath. "I mean, what if things that are rooted deep in my subconscious start to surface?"
"Isn't that the point to all this?"
"I'm not talking about memories. I mean... thoughts that maybe even I'm not aware of on some level."
Alana thought for a moment. "Okay, how's this: I promise that if you start talking about something you're not supposed to, I'll pretend I didn't hear it and won't ever mention it."
"I have a feeling the health board would take away your license if they heard you say that."
She smiled for a moment, but the grin quickly faded. "If we do manage to untangle your memories... there's no way this can end well for everyone, can it?"
Will's eyes were fixated on the wall as he shook his head slowly.
-o-
He wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since he had lied down on the sofa and waited for the ingredients to do whatever they were supposed to.
"Not to criticize" he began, his eyes glued to the ceiling, "but I think your Chemistry skills are a little rusty. I feel perfectly fine."
He could tell Alana struggled to hold back a laugh. "Will, you've been lying on the sofa for twenty minutes now. In all the years I've know you, I've never been this still and calm."
Will blinked a few times, realizing that his eyesight was becoming blurry. "So I guess it relaxes me, but how are we supposed to know if this is working the way it's supposed to?"
The moment he blinked again, Will found himself in Hannibal's empty office. The room was veiled in diffuse shadows that moved about without coherence. The rain outside also seemed peculiar, and when Will moved over to take a closer look, he realized that it was raining upside down.
"Okay" he said, spooked, "it's working."
"So what are we looking for?"
He was startled for a moment until he saw Alana beside him as if she had materialized out of thin air. "Not that I'm complaining" Will said "but I'm a bit confused as to how you're here right now."
"It's probably easier for your mind to process all of this if the one guiding you is physically present."
He furrowed his brow. "Isn't that just a way of saying that I'd be too scared to do this on my own?"
"Will, you're trying to dig inside your head while high on psychedelics. I think you're allowed to feel a little anxious."
The office door suddenly opened with a creak, and Dr. Lecter walked inside. Will's face fell when he saw who was with him. A tall man with gray hair stood in the doorway.
"This was a bad idea" Will said, taking a few steps back instinctively. "A very bad idea."
Alana looked between them, worried. "Will?"
"Apparently, my mind interprets a psychedelic drug trip as the perfect time to bring my father into this."
"It's all right" she said "it's normal to have some of your fears mix into this. We just need to focus on Hannibal."
"I just don't know what to do anymore" Will's father said, sighing. He then settled down on the seat in front of Hannibal. "I mean you try to raise your kid right and you tell him what to do and how to act and then he turns out a complete mess anyway."
"And what does Mrs. Graham think of this?" Hannibal asked with his usual calm tone.
"Oh, she's not even in the picture. I sometimes think that she took one look at what a pathetic little boy she brought into the world, and she just couldn't take it."
A spark of great interest appeared in Hannibal's eyes. "And what makes you say that?"
"I mean I always knew something was off about him. Like for instance, when he was little, I took him to this kid's house for a birthday party. And then when I come back to pick him up at the end of the day, this kid's mother told me that Will just sat in the corner by himself all the time, like he was some sort of degenerate."
Alana placed a hand on Will's shoulder for support, but he remained motionless. "It's fine. Just let him get it out of his system so we can move on."
"And that upsets you" Hannibal said, still engrossed in the conversation.
"Well of course it does" the graying man said "how would you like it if your only kid turns out to be so scared of the world that he can't even function in it. You should've seen him following me around all his life like I was some goddamn anchor or something. I mean it's ridiculous."
As difficult as it was, Will took a deep breath and struggled to readjust where his focus was. He wasn't here to try and figure out why his father had never been warm towards him or why he tended to drink too much. Will had come here to try and unblock different memories.
So he dug his fingernails in his palm and moved the spotlight. And as soon as he did, he found himself in front of Hannibal, as if they were in the midst of another session. His father was gone.
"You are quite a peculiar patient, aren't you?" Hannibal asked.
Will blinked a few more times, and turned in his seat. Alana was nowhere to be seen. "What's going on?"
"Did you lose time again, Will? We're in the middle of a session."
Will glanced around the office, realizing that it was no longer sunken in strange shadows, and that the rain had stopped. Everything looked real and palpable this time. There were no signs that he was just stuck in a memory.
"Will?" Hannibal asked.
"Right, sorry. I just... got confused for a moment."
Dr. Lecter moved over to his desk to retrieve a pad of paper and a pen. "You should always do the test to ground yourself when you feel uncertain."
Will eyed the paper for a minute before taking it from his grasp. He grabbed the pen and tried drawing, but his right arm began to move completely on its own, tracing the outline of the clock. He looked in awe as the pen moved on the paper haphazardly, sketching the numbers on the face of the clock.
They were all disjointed and their position bizarre, all slanting towards the right. He attempted to correct himself, but whenever he tried to control his arm, it simply refused to comply. And as soon as he was done, Will handed the paper back mechanically.
Hannibal glanced at it for a moment before looking at Will with the hint of a smile. "Everything seems to be in order."
The sound of a voice began to distort the very reality Will thought he was seeing, and the image contracted and snapped.
He found himself at the FBI headquarters. The examination room was cold and empty, only one overhead lamp sending a cone of light around him.
Alana soon walked into view. "I thought I lost you for a second there."
"He knew" Will said, still stuck in disbelief. "Ever since the first few sessions, he knew."
Her expression softened. "You know that what we're doing right now has no scientific basis. You can't know for sure that what you saw is a real memory or just your mind trying to find logic in a place filled with confusion."
"But it makes sense. It makes sense why he was always so interested in me and my condition. He wanted to push me just to see how long I could hold on before everyone would think I was-"
The picture before his eyes changed again, morphing into nothing but darkness.
"... wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong" a voice said. "He's too far gone to recover. I believe we're truly run out of options at this point."
When Will peeled his eyes open, his heart began to hammer. He couldn't see anything, but he could feel that he was lying on a bed. With his arms and legs restrained. Will could hear someone talking right outside the room he was in, the man's voice droning on and on as if it was sounding from within his head.
"Alana?" he called out. He gave the restraints a tug. "I don't think I like the idea of digging in my head anymore."
"You need to stop focusing on what you're afraid of" Alana said from somewhere in the darkness, but exactly where, he couldn't pin-point.
"If I had that much control over my mind, I wouldn't even be in this situation in the first place."
"It's all right, just take a deep breath and try to ground yourself."
But Will's breathing was starting to increase no matter what he did, and the restraints were digging into his skin. "This feels a little too real right now" he said aloud.
"Will, just listen to me. I want you to close your eyes and think of somewhere you feel safe."
He shook his head. "I don't think it's going to be that easy."
"You're in a highly suggestible state right now, and you should be able to manipulate the world around you. Just stop thinking about what you're scared of and control the flow of your thoughts."
It sounded so easy, but Will felt as if he had been asked to move a wall. But he closed his eyes and struggled to calm himself down. It was strange how quickly his own mind attacked him and blamed him for anything and everything. How scared he was of the way he was perceived now that everything was out in the open.
Will thought back to his little home and how safe and calm it looked in the middle of the night when it resembled a boat floating on the ocean. A small haven where no one could judge or poke or prod his mind. Just him and the dogs.
A cold nose pushed Will's arm, and he awoke in his living room. Judging by the look he was giving him, Winston seemed slightly upset at being ignored. Will smiled a bit and then moved to pet him for a moment.
The scene felt familiar, but not in a mundane manner. He had lived this moment before. Will glanced around and saw the remnants of a motor boat sitting next to his bed. The brickwork above his fireplace was also damaged. And when he turned his head back, Alana was standing a few inches in front of him.
"When I said safe" Alana began, "I didn't exactly have this in mind."
Will looked sheepish and took a few steps behind him. "Sorry. Is it all right to employ the you-not-mentioning-this rule right now?"
She looked amused. "Sure."
"I feel like I'm getting lost in my own subconscious" Will said to himself, "I'm drowning in all this chaos. I just didn't think it would be this difficult to access a few memories."
"Then maybe it's time to try a different kind of approach."
"What do you mean?"
"You told me once that the memory you want to access the most to is the night you came back from Minnesota."
He nodded, wary.
"I want you to manipulate this very scene so that it matches that night. Exactly."
Will looked at her with a furrowed brow. He wanted to protest, wanted to tell her that he didn't like the idea of purposefully modifying this specific scene, one of the few good memories he had. But if he refused, then he'd just spend all his time running around in circles.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Will thought back to the night he feverishly stumbled back home, confused and tired beyond belief. Without Abigail. He could still remember specks of what had happened that night. Stumbling back home, feeling completely unlike himself and barely hanging onto consciousness.
In the blink of an eye, Will found himself sprawled out on his bed. The fog swirling in his mind was so thick that he had a hard time recognizing where he was. Slowly but surely, he waded through the haze. There was no daylight filtering through his windows, which meant it had to be a few hours since his return.
And as soon as he began to come to, realization struck him. There was someone else in the room.
The person had his back to him, but soon began to walk towards the bed. Will felt like his limbs were made of lead and his head was heavy with fatigue. Soon enough, a familiar face stood in front of him. Hannibal moved around his house as if he wasn't a mere guest but like he had done it so many times before. He was retrieving something from nearby, but Will couldn't quite see what it was. He attempted to move his head to get a better view, but his muscles refused to listen. A few seconds later it became clear what Hannibal was carrying.
Will had to blink a few times, trying to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. But they weren't. Hannibal brought a fondue fork close to his head and settled it down.
The severity of the situation suddenly dawned on Will. Red flags were going off in every corner of his mind, but he couldn't do anything about it.
Hannibal went back to grab something else before returning. He was carrying an ice box this time. He settled it with care on the foot of the bed and the popped the latches off. Will couldn't believe what he was seeing. A human ear.
A few mumbled words ran somewhere in the distance, but Will couldn't quite hear them. Alana seemed way too far away, as if she was a great distance above. He knew he had to use her voice as an anchor to the real world, and not let himself get lost just as he had in the reconstruction involving the Georgia Madchen case.
But all attempts to think rationally and focus dissolved the moment he stared at the human ear. He knew who it belonged to, and the image of his old psychiatrist carrying it with such calm rattled him deeply. Because Will suddenly knew exactly what would happen next.
As Hannibal picked up the ear in his left hand and headed towards him, Will struggled to move, to scream, to do anything to get off of that bed. But he felt paralyzed. All he could do was stare at Hannibal drawing close.
This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening because it was just impossible and insane and wrong, wrong, wrong. But there was his psychiatrist, impaling a human ear onto a fondue fork. Will watched with wide eyes as a few droplets of blood fell down the fork, but Hannibal showed no signs of being perturbed. He was moving calm and collected, almost mechanical. Like he'd done it before.
Will tried closing his eyes to block out the memory. Surely he'd wake up at any moment. He had to. It didn't matter that his memory had been unblocked anymore because he wanted out, he wanted to snap out of it and go back to the world where this man was no longer around him and in control.
But no matter how much he strained, Will couldn't change the reality he was seeing.
With the same calm expression he always sported, Hannibal moved over and opened his mouth while raising the impaled ear on the fork.
He began to force the ear down his throat, and for a moment Will couldn't move or breathe or cough. His eyes had gone bugged and every fiber of his being was screaming that this wasn't happening. A second later his throat began to burn, and his lugs were working overtime to keep him breathing even if Will wanted them to just stop and let him pass out. He kept waiting for the scene to snap shut and send him back to the real world, but the seconds stretched on painfully slow as the ear made its way down to his stomach, burning everywhere it touched.
And suddenly it was over, just as abruptly as it started. Will saw as Hannibal retrieved the ice box from the bed. And, before turning away, the doctor gave a little smile.
When Will awoke, he realized that he was shaking and his vision was terribly blurred by tears. Sometime in his delusion he had managed to stand upright, with his knees brought up to his chest. And Alana was next to him, looking shaken.
"You stopped talking to me around the end" she said. "You just went dead silent."
Will shook his head while remembering what he had seen. "I could— I couldn't move."
"You don't have to tell me what you saw if you don't want to."
"I think I have to" he said, voice trembling. "And then I want you to tell me that I've lost my mind and there's no way what I saw is possible."
Alana looked at him, worry written all over her features.
He spent a good few minutes telling her what he had experienced, all the while resisting the urge to simply run off and forget everything he had seen and felt. He gave her all the details he could remember, which were surprisingly plentiful. The scene he had experienced was still vivid in his mind, and he could remember everything he had seen, even the pattern and color of the tie Hannibal had been wearing.
The more he talked, the more he saw Alana's expression change, quickly dissolving from surprise to shock. Finally, sadness crept in.
Once he had finished talking, a tense silence fell on the room. And Will quickly noticed that there were tears forming in the corners of Alana's eyes. He wasn't sure if he should attempt to try and comfort her when all the words he could think of sounded so trite in his own mind.
"I didn't want to believe it" she said softly. "I really didn't. I mean I knew there was something a bit strange about him, but to find out he's-" She shook her head.
He saw in her eyes how the last bits of credibility that her former mentor was a good man began to chip away. And the pieces were beginning to slot into place in her mind, leaving little doubt that someone she considered a good friend was only masquerading as a normal human being. And Will had been the one to cause this fracture in her life.
"I'm sorry..." he said. It wasn't enough to fix the situation or offer comfort, but there was nothing else he could think to say.
"We have to tell Jack, don't we?"
Will shook his head frantically. "You can't tell him anything about this. He's good friends with him and would never believe anything without proof. Besides, it's better if everyone thinks you don't know anything."
"So we're supposed to do this on our own?"
"Just until we have enough proof."
Alana nodded, her gaze anchored somewhere far away.
They spent the next few hours sitting on the sofa and staring at nothing in particular, just two people trying to deal with the reality of an unprecedented situation that most likely couldn't be fixed. No words were shared between them, the patter of paws being the only thing that filled the silence.
Which is why Will felt like his heart would explode out his chest when Alana's phone rang.
"Jack" Alana said, surprised, "I really didn't expect you to call this late. Did something happen?"
After hearing the reply, she leaned over and handed the phone to Will.
"You're not at home" Jack said with a deadpan tone.
"I'm sorry" Will said without thinking. He was beginning to hate that his split-second reaction to hearing Jack's aggravated voice was apologizing.
"We've had a break in the case, and we think we found our killer."
Will froze for a second. "How? Did the accomplice crack?"
"No, so we had the team conduct interviews with his friends and family and his roommate told us the guy was spotted with a strange individual multiple times. We were able to pull his image from a hardware store camera and once we showed our accomplice the picture, his expression betrayed him. He still refused to say anything on the basis that he was promised he'd die if he did. But we managed to get an ID without his help. The name is Warren Hurley." Jack paused. "And you were right. He inherited a lot of money a few months ago. There's more, but I'll explain at the scene."
"You've got his address?"
"The whole team is already on-road and I want you there at the scene with us."
"You're expecting a crime scene?"
"No one is sure what to expect, that's why we're not taking any chances. I want you there as soon as possible."
Once Jack let him know where the house was, Will tried to get his head to stop spinning long enough to get his jacket on. But he found himself stopped in front of Alana. Somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that if he left without her, the next time he saw her it would be in a body bag.
"How do you feel about visiting a criminal's house?" he asked her.
-o-
Hannibal couldn't shake the annoyance he was feeling. There he was ready to prepare what was left of Freddie Lounds into a meal for two, and his guest had decided to cancel last minute. But he knew the excuse was just that. An excuse.
Alana had never passed up one of his dinners before and the fact that she had suddenly found something better to do on a Friday night didn't sit well with him.
Now that he was free, Will would have already attempted to sway her to his side. There was actually no doubt in his mind that his former patient had been behind this. He had a good heart, of course, trying to keep her safe from the world. But it was fruitless and Hannibal knew that attempting to shield people from the inevitable horrors of life never worked.
But he found it interesting and a little amusing that Will was trying to work behind his back, struggling to gain the upper hand. It was rather sad that a scenario in Will's favor would mostly likely never happen. Hannibal saw him as a frantic but scared gerbil who was constantly attempting to escape his cage. Too bad the time would never come.
Hannibal sighed, disappointed he wouldn't be able to dine with anyone that night. And as he began to clear the plates from his dinning room, the doorbell rang. Well, when one door closed...
He went over to the front door and decided to open it without checking who it might be. An exhausted looking man with a jittery demeanor stood before him.
"Mr. Hurley" Hannibal said, taken aback to see the face of one of his former patients.
-o-
Will found himself outside a rather modest looking home, definitely unlike what he imagined wealthy people owning. He was sitting behind along with the rest of Jack's team, waiting for the house to be swept over before they could enter.
Once the SWAT team had thoroughly searched it, they had to admit there was no chance their killer was still hiding in a room somewhere. It appeared that Warren Hurley had long since left.
"Just a warning" Beverly said, as she approached Will, "stay out of Jack's way until his anger deflates."
"Or until he finds someone to take it on" Brian offered.
"I want everyone in here" Jack's voice came from within the house. As expected, he was upset that the killer had slipped away.
Will suddenly felt very glad that he had brought Alana along. Hopefully, Jack would be able to keep his temper in check around her. Will approached the house and climbed the creaky steps of the porch.
He froze only a few inches past the threshold. Because he felt as if he had stepped into a slightly altered version of his own home. Will was disturbed by all the similarities he could spot.
The bookcase on the wall was filled by paperbacks that were worn and now stood under a thick layer of dust. The fireplace was unlit, also forgotten, much like the papers on his desk. And there was a mattress tucked into the corner of the living room filled with blankets and scattered articles of clothing. Whoever lived there most likely felt alone and abandoned, and had lost hope of expecting any visits from friends or family.
The house looked haunted to Will.
"Anything?" Jack asked, startling him.
Will struggled to erase the expression of surprise from his face. "Nothing yet" he said a bit too quickly.
"You know the deal: you see something, you yell."
He nodded as Jack distanced himself.
Alana walked up next to Will, looking just as spooked. "You see it too?" she whispered.
"For a second I thought I was going crazy again." He paused to look over the living room, almost expecting to see seven dogs trotting inside. "I'm just not completely sure what this all means yet."
A/N: I know that the whole psychedelic scene isn't even remotely realistic (much like the rest of the story) and I apologize for the whole suspension of disbelief business. But after spending a lot of time googling "how to make LSD at home" I decided that there's no way I can pull it off in the story. So I tried to find some middle ground. (I basically just wanted an excuse to see what Will's mind would be like high on psychedelics.)
Thanks for reading! I know I don't really show it, but I really appreciate that there are people who take the time to read this silly little story. Many thanks for keeping me motivated.