Chapter 14: You're my victory.

Alana could not move. She recognized that she was naked and lying on her side on a hard floor, only able to see the wooden slates for a few feet in front of her and then there was nothing but inky darkness that she stared into with unblinking eyes. The darkness surrounding her seemed to swarm and loom around her, waiting for a chance to come into her. Panic constricted her muscles as her mind tried desperately to will herself to get up but she remained frozen in place. Then a plodding, menacing clicking sound echoed from the blackness, drawing nearer and nearer until Alana could see a figure emerging from it.

At first it appeared to be a woman floating towards her until she realize the woman was actually impaled on the antlers of a great, black stag, its head lowered with the weight of his victim as it moved toward her. The clacking of his hooves finally stopped as he stood before her presenting her with death and she could see that the body speared on his horns was Margot, her eyes clouded over and unseeing. She felt the horror and despair; she wanted to scream but could do nothing but lie there frightened and devastated. Then it looked as though a red curtain dropped behind the stag, but it was not made of cloth. A waterfall of blood cascaded down, filling the room with a dull roar. It crashed around the stag and Margot and began pooling around Alana's prone form. The viscous red liquid rising and rising around her until in seeped up her nose and into her ears. She couldn't breath or perhaps had not been breathing the whole time. The crimson tide swam into her vision until finally she was completely swallowed by it.

Alana jolted awake, gasping for air like she hadn't been breathing in her sleep. On the ceiling above her, shadows of tree branches and the scant few leaves that clung to the limbs rattled in the breeze; the pattern rippling to appear as if Hannibal Lecter's face hovered over her, finding a way to menace her even when he was half way across the globe. She sat up in bed and raked her fingers through her hair, trying to regain control of her thoughts as her nightmare lingered around her. Looking frantically around the darkened room Alana found that she was alone; her adrenaline spiked more. She was about to call out for Margot when she noticed soft, orange light to her right. There was a study connected to this bedroom by a sliding door, which was cracked open revealing the glow from the other side. The doctor gingerly swung her legs out of the bed, wincing in pain as her body remembered its injuries. She had to shuffle awkwardly to retrieve her cane that rested against the end of the bed. Her body moved frustratingly slow as she walked to the closet and wrapped a robe over her black negligee before making her way to the sliver of reassuring light.

She slid the door open a little more to reveal Margot sitting in a velvet green armchair in her striped navy pajamas, illuminate only by a delicate stained-glass lamp on the end table beside her. She looked pensive as she gazed off into the distance, running her middle finger repeated over her bottom lip. The heiress startled when Alana interrupted her solitude. She began to explain; "I got a call from Interpol about 'transporting the cargo'. I think its all settled now. I'm sorry I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't..." Alana said leaning against the doorframe. After a beat she spontaneous said, "Let's get out of here."

"What do you mean?" Margot asked taken aback. She took a few rough steps further into the room and tried to ignore how shaken she felt.

"I have a decent amount of money saved up, from before and then I have what your brother has paid me. I'd imagine you have some stashed away. We wouldn't be destitute." Alana began to ramble, her words picking up steam. "We can take whatever we can grab and just leave, find a corner of the world to hide in. Let the monsters destroy each other and we can be gone, away from all this chaos. We don't have to do this."

"You don't think Mason will be able to kill Hannibal?" Margot asked with slow understanding.

"I think that Hannibal is a predator. We think were goading him into a trap but what if he is the one goading us?" Alana squeezed her cane tighter and remembered the feeling of entering Hannibal's home with the handgun in her grip. She'd felt in control speaking with Hannibal until she pulled the trigger and there was only a hollow clicking sound. He had removed the bullets from her gun long before she even realized that she would be using it on him, he'd removed her security.

Margot studied her and Alana waited for her response. She felt strangely fortified under the Verger's gaze as if it were holding her up. Now that her unbidden thoughts were out between them they felt foolish. To ask for Margot to abandon everything was too big of a thing to ask now; especially after the equally improbable conversation they'd had that afternoon. She wanted a baby and Alana had inexplicably promised to help her get one, though what that plan looked like was a gaping unknown. Margot wanted to up the ante while Alana wanted to cut their losses and run. They both wanted too much, security, money, revenge, power, and now each other. Their desires and needs were overlapping and sometimes verging on contradictory of each other. And then a baby, Alana thought; what a bizarre notion. Though the concept was becoming less strange even now as she considered how they would achieve this feat. If they were able to get Mason's sperm, would they use a surrogate? That could lead to further complications. It would make the most sense if Alana could carry the child. Her heart palpitated and her head swam heavily with the sudden knowledge that it was something that she would willingly do for Margot, wanted to do for Margot.

The heiress held her hand out to Alana beckoning her, "Come here."

The brunette went to her with a flooding sense of relief, the buzzing of thoughts and fears in her mind hushed as she drew nearer to Margot. Her arms wrapped around Alana's waist and pulled her down to sit across her lap. She sank into the warmth of the other woman's embrace, gently pressing her forehead against Margot's and focusing on the feeling of her fingers rubbing her thigh. They were quiet for a long stretch until the auburn-haired woman inquired, "Where is this coming from? It's not like you to run."

Alana left another pause before trying to explain, "I dreamt you were dead. You were mounted on stag's antlers like- like he did. And I think I was dead. Then there was all this blood filling the room and I was consumed by all the vicious redness."

"Hmm, sounds prophetic." She replies simply.

Alana glares at her blasé tone, affronted by her reaction to her being frightened. She starts to push herself off of Margot but the other woman held tight to stop her from getting up and asking. "You know about dream analysis?"

The question seemed irrelevant but she answered dubiously. "There is very little scientific evidence to support systems of dream interpretation. There is too much variance and any attempted at creating a catalog of meanings is just the creator's own idiosyncratic interpretation of dream images, which reveals more about the interpreter than the dreamer."

"You're cross when you don't get enough sleep." Margot said glibly.

"Margot…" Her anger rose and she tried to push away again but the arms around her waist remained firmly in place.

She finally got onto her point, "One of the more common beliefs in analyzing dreams is that to experience your own death usually means that significant changes are ahead. You're moving on to new beginnings and leaving the past behind."

Margot ran her fingers over her brow, smoothing away the tension. "And if you don't believe that then it's just a meaningless bad dream."

"Yes," Alana sighed. "But I had these dreams of black nothingness, before when Will was zeroing in on Hannibal and his illusion was fracturing. They felt like this, like darkness was coming into me, poisoning me. It does feel like a bad omen."

Margot's hand slid to cup her neck comfortingly, her thumb brushing along her jaw line. Alana grabbed her wrist, asserting with some desperation to try and make Margot understand, "I didn't have anything to lose before. And now I have you."

"It's true; now we have each other. Every time I've come up against my brother I've lost but this time is different, I'm not alone. You're not alone. We are in this together."

Margot's words filled Alana, replacing the insidious nightmares and swelling fear with something softer and lighter but still grounding like her veins were overflowing with molten gold. A smile ghost over her lips and Margot's lips twitch upward as they soaked in each other's presence. Nothing was all right and yet it was as Margot spoke, "I don't dream much. But I was having one before I woke up. Do you want to know what I was dreaming?"

Alana nodded.

"I dreamt I was walking through the statue garden of the Louvre. I wanted to see the headless Nike, the one you looked at over and over again when you were in Paris. But when I finally stood before for her I found her whole and her face looked exactly like yours. The stone morphed into flesh and it was you floating toward me with brilliant golden wings. You came right into my arms…" Margot relayed to her in a marveled tone. "No matter how this all plays out, you're my victory."

"And you're mine." Alana echoed, sealing the sentiment with a lingering kiss.

When they reluctantly broke off the kiss, Margot shifted under her, "Let's go back to bed."

Alana struggled a little to her feet and with Margot's assistance they wandered back into the bedroom. Margot excused herself for a moment while Alana settled underneath the covers though sitting up. The other woman returned with a glass of water and a small cedar chest. She sat on the edge of the bed, presenting Alana with two pills that looked to be Percocet, "Here. For the pain."

Alana downed them gratefully as Margot opened the box she had set on her lap, the contents clinking together as she rummaged around in it, "And this is for the bad dreams."

She held up a vial with dried-out green buds. Alana scoffed, "Pot? Are we 16?"

"Trust me. You won't have any trouble sleeping with this. It's a specialized strain."

"Have anything in there that will make me see pink elephants?"

"Maybe." Margot smirked, ignoring her skepticism. "But that's for a different time."

Alana smiled a little and didn't say anymore as she relaxed back to watch Margot roll a joint. Using the box as a make shift table, she laid out a cigarette paper, crumbled the bud into a healthy line, and rolled it all together with nimble fingers. Her green eyes gazed adoringly in Alana's as she ran her tongue along the edge of the paper sealing it. Placing the joint between her lips Margot pulled a sliver lighter from the breast pocket of her pajamas. The flame snapped on, burning orange in the blue dark of the room, and the Verger took a long hit. The smell of the unique smoke immediately pervaded the air, skunked and herbal and a little sweet.

Pale blue smoke clouded from Margot's mouth as she passed the joint to Alana. She held it between her thumb and index finger, drawing the smoke into her mouth then letting it curl out to inhale it through her nose. She held the heavy smoke in her lungs, letting it soak into her system. Margot looked surprise but amused; she asked in a faux scandalized tone, "Why Dr. Bloom were did you learn such a trick?"

"Harvard Poetry Club, sophomore year." Alana coughed a couple times as she released her breath.

Margot took the joint back this time inhaling then pushing out smoke rings. Alana lifted a brow, "And where did you learn that trick?"

"Phillips Exeter Academy, junior year, girl's lacrosse team."

They passed the joint back and forth trading stories about their first experiences getting high. Then Alana insisted that Margot tell her about her days in lacrosse, amusedly imagining a younger Margot who was lanky limbs and bruised knees with wild curls charging down a pitch. As they talked, the drugs steadily built up in her system, like a fog rolling in, leaving Alana feeling loose and full of space. All traces of pain and fear were a distant, indistinct memory. Finally they lay back down in the sheets, her blood sung through her veins making it feel as if she were contentedly floating down. When Alana looked up now, the shadows of the branches that rustled above her were merely the random shapes of nature, Hannibal's ominous mirage no longer there to watch over her. Alana turned on her side to rest her head against Margot's shoulder, shut her eyes, and slipped off into a blissful nothingness.