Chapter 27
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H&W
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They stayed in southern Poland for a couple weeks, getting into a strange routine that seemed to satisfy the little Kitsune that followed them in their shadows.
Hannibal remembered the days when Will saw the strange stag that followed him around, though he had assumed the hallucinations came with the encephalitis but when Saskia came along, Will had started to see the fox along with the stag.
It was strange because Hannibal had started to see the wolf and the fox, Will's and Saskia's natures in day to day life. It would only be for a few moments every now and then but it was not usual for him and so he was concerned.
Hannibal had gotten Will to speak of the stag and how it reminded him of the psychiatrist, and how the fox was a great reminder of the writer, and eventually Hannibal understood.
It took them months to figure out what these animals meant. They weren't real, that was something the three of them knew, but these animals meant something.
When Saskia had mentioned that she was like a Kitsune, and Will was like a Lycan, and Hannibal was like a Wendigo, Hannibal understood why the animals were following them.
Saskia had called him a demon in human form, uncaring for those around him and he had to agree with that. He didn't care about the social construct that society forced upon everyone, but he did not actually hate the rude, he preferred to have a reason to kill someone other than the fact that he didn't like them.
He did find kinship in Will and Saskia, wanting to keep both of them happy. He did keep Abigail alive and healthy because Will had created a lesser bond with the Hobbs girl.
He had this twisted desire to extend his taste for a certain type of meat to Will who had quite quickly gained a taste for it too, and soon Saskia even took it upon herself to truly accept them both and found a plentiful ginger meat for consumption.
He had been surprised by how easily Saskia took to eating that meat, though she refused to eat animal meat that wasn't prepared by him.
Hannibal was greedy to keep both of these people to himself, wanting to keep them safe and yet in danger by being in his mere presence. He knew he himself was in danger all of the time by staying with them.
Will was dual natured, a Lycan with the tendency to choose whichever side would benefit him more. He had found kinship in the two Lithuanians, seeing himself in them but he was never confused with who he was when he was with them compared to other people.
There was always a little whisper in his mind that asked him what he wanted to do, asking what if, what if. And sometimes he entertained the thoughts of destruction and chaos, and other times he ignored them. Whenever Will did good or bad, he was still the predator waiting.
They didn't try to change him, force him to choose to be good or bad when they themselves were as grey as Old Testament God was. They did good and bad, switching between them as they felt like it.
Hannibal noticed that Saskia had very similar traits to the Kitsune she described herself as.
He had thought she was a concubus, a demon who feed on fear and sex but it wasn't the case.
Kistunes weren't evil, though they could be. Saskia liked the fact that she could get inside their heads and she knew they couldn't seem to get rid of her. She found fun in creating chaos such as Leroy Harris, taking over a person easily like a Kistune who possessed an unlikely person. She wasn't happy about losing control of the chaos in Leroy Harris, but she didn't let it stop her using him.
She was dangerous like the sea, never knowing when she would draw back and hide for a few moments before coming back with the full wrath she was capable of. As the fox gained tails, it signified Saskia's acceptance of her nature and theirs, and eventually their relationship.
All of the creatures could strive to become deadly dangerous, enough that even the best monster hunters couldn't kill them.
They all liked killing things, liked killing people, and a little bit of pain here and there. The sudden rush and the high of a great game of chase was exhilarating and addictive. They were a danger to others but never to themselves. They were never a danger to the three of them.
None of them would allow any of the others to go into danger if it could be helped.
Wendigos had a desire, a want, a need to extend their nature to others and that was what Hannibal did. He collected and found a family.
Lyans had a need to create a family, binding people together to make a trustworthy pack. He could rely on the other two.
Kitsunes often attached themselves to a person or a household, becoming a sort of protetor to them and keeping bad luck away. She made sure to have plans in place.
These animals that they saw, the stag, the wolf, the fox, they were the lesser forms of the true nature of each of them.
The Kitsune followed Hannibal and Will, staying as a protector in their shadows, while the Wendigo and Lycan stayed as a great reminder of their feelings.
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More times than she would have liked to admit, she found herself being lonely.
She would make a cup of tea, English Breakfast tea with three sugars and a dash of milk in her favorite black cup, Blood of my enemies written in white, before sitting on the couch that faced the mantel where Samson's body had been strung up a few years ago.
It was a good memory of her. It was the day she had met them, already knowing they weren't like everyone else but not completely sure of what they exactly were.
They were hers as much as she was theirs.
It was as simple as that.
She looked back on the memory with a curl of the lips and the softening of her eyes being the only indications of her emotions.
The flicker of emotions was becoming warm, flaring into a mix of happy sadness at their memory as what she would call anguish pulled at her chest. There was regret somewhere in the bundle, she didn't know why but she suspected it being from them leaving. There was an overwhelming amount of contentment, shadowing most of everything else she felt, only letting longing fall through the tiny cracks.
Longing.
She missed them.
In times like these, when she missed them to a point where she felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes but she didn't feel true sadness about their leaving, she escaped into her mind.
Her mind palace was just as deadly as before, but now it had even more room with hallways that led to dead ends or their deaths. Rarely were there rooms dedicated to one thing but there were only few like that.
The Gallery was one of her favourite places to visit in her mind. A long, dark room with the end not in sight. It was by far the best and worst room in her mind palace.
Picture frames lined the walls, simple in their gold engraved frames but with the realism to be like photos taken in time. If she desired, she could walk down the galley of her life and see how she had changed.
The left wall began with a painting of her earliest memory, her blowing out her candles for her third birthday. And then there was another memory when she was older, and then older, and then older. The whole room was pitch black besides for the lights that seemed to be emitted from the paintings.
If she looked up, she would have seen the clear night sky that could be seen through the glass ceiling. She liked it, watching the unmoving sky, stuck in the position that it was at her birth.
Against her better judgement, Saskia had to force herself to put some up from her childhood. There were good moments in her childhood, not all of it was heartbreak and hatred and fighting. There were snapshots of memories put up. Of her grandparents, visiting them every summer for a time before she moved through Europe to visit her father. Times where her sisters and she would get together and celebrate Christmas with their mother as teens and kids, getting gifts and receiving love.
There were good memories even if she had a bad childhood.
As the paintings went on, she could watch herself grow.
Snapshots of her being a happy, rose cheeked child, to a cheeky preteen, to a teen who was staring to lose her smile, to a young adult with the gleam of pure lack of empathy, before fear would fill the lack and bruises filled her skin, and to the end of the still growing line. The paintings were still being made, another was now added with her and her blank face and emotions and a cup of hot tea as the rain fell outside.
The last couple weeks weren't as tough as she would have thought, but they were tougher than before she had met Hannibal and Will.
She was surrounded by dogs but even Countess and Hades and Winston couldn't make her feel any less alone. Spending her days as busy as possible, she eventually got back into the swing of writing again.
She slowly started to write up each scene of Tarot Killer's cards, matching up what she saw and what she saw. Five bodies so far, five cards out of seventy eight of the deck. Three from the Minor Arcana and two out of the Major Arcana.
She wrote it all by hand with a standard pen and large pad of paper which you could get anywhere, and she wrote with her left hand.
She wasn't perfectly ambidextrous but her left hand was neat enough for now.
These papers, these words would not be published until after the Tarot Killers were caught. Saskia would publish these works under a different name, one she hadn't decided on yet. It was to taunt the FBI and other agencies, a little fun wouldn't hurt her!
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H&W
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Hannibal pretended to be this calm, collected man which no one could decipher but they knew his nature better than anyone. He pretended to be this man who was centered securely and wasn't driven by anything but logic, but both Will and Saskia knew this to be false.
Hannibal Lecter was fueled by his possessive nature to take what he wanted and never look back. With one family taken from him, he made another, more sturdy one that wouldn't fall to the pressures of society and would fight to the end.
He hid his true nature, the one that felt the deep variety of emotions he tried to keep secret and hidden away from everyone but the two he trusted. His nature was obsessive, possessive and impulsive though not impatient with the need to care and provide deeply set into his bones.
Will Graham was on the other side of the scales with emotions being forced onto the surface so people like Jack Crawford who dealt with serial killers and psychopaths wouldn't question his truer self. He was a cold man, ruling his body and mind with logic. He was the calculating one whose truer nature kept him in control of himself and a lot of others around him.
He was also the one out of all of them that didn't like to share. While Hannibal was alright with Saskia dancing with other men and women at the Lily Flower after Leroy Harris was convicted, Will was also alright with it but he didn't like the idea of strange people thinking they had a right to her.
Even he knew that he and Hannibal had no right to speak of her as an object or as just theirs.
She was only theirs as they were hers.
They were both dangerous people, their true natures pulling them to opposite sides of the scale but levelling them out. But Saskia was just dangerous.
Saskia Alasite showed off her true nature every day. She didn't hide behind the human suit, her human suit was as her true nature was, calculating but impulsive person who made decisions with logic and emotion.
She balanced between them, logic and emotion at the forefront of her mind but she kept a strict no sides allowed regimen when with them.
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"Don't even think about it, Hannibal," Will said as he and one of his lovers walked through the Polish market place at noon on a saturday. "Remember what Saskia said. Nothing that would bring attention to us while we're here."
"I would rather not do as she said for once," Hannibal muttered carefully. "People should keep their distance."
Will laughed quietly. "They already do, 'Annibal. One glare from you and they rethink their recent decisions quickly."
"Good," Hannibal stopped at a fruit stand, looking over a few pears to choose the best ones between them. "They mustn't touch what isn't theirs."
Will gave him a dark look for that comment. Hannibal just smiled, placing a hand on Will's jaw.
"I meant to say they mustn't touch what is off limits to everyone but us," Hannibal said carefully, watching the dark look in Will's eyes disappear back behind the mask.
Will shook off his hand, taking it into his own for a second and squeezed it for reassurance before dropping it. "Better. Neither Saskia nor I like being treated as objects."
"I would never do that," Hannibal mused, a thoughtful look on his face. "Even if you both are like gifts from the gods coming down to grace earth with your mere presences."
"You're such a sap," Will rolled his eyes, both of them continuing to stride through the market to find more ingredients.
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Hospitals were eerie and almost unnatural in nature.
All hallways were clear, clean and clinical, almost like there was no human touch to it, no human feeling as you walked down the halls. Rooms were usually open, doctors and nurses running in out to try and save a life but sometimes being too late, or trying to stop a life coming too early and finding it already there.
Hospitals seemed timeless to her. She hadn't spent much time in them when she was younger, barely ever needing to actually go to the doctor besides for the sprained ankle or two. The only times she had spent extended time in a hospital were the two times Leroy almost killed her, the first by drowning and slicing the back of her neck, and the second being the knife in the shoulder. The only other time was when she was stabbed and had to get rid of her womb or risk infection or severe malformation of her abdomen.
It was strange to think the last time she was here was to get rid of a vital reproduction organ and now she was sitting in Margot's delivery room, sitting on a chair as Margot was in the bed with contractions and Alana was trying to comfort her.
Saskia sat quietly, flipping a magazine page as she read it and had her left hand be crushed by Margot as contractions wrecked through her body.
"Next time," Margot said, looking at Alana as the woman softly smiled at her lover. "You are doing this instead of me!"
"These are the moments I'm glad I'm not capable of this," Saskia muttered, laughing when Margot tried to wack her in the shoulder.
"You're supposed to be supporting me, Saskia Alasite!" Margot swore, her face pink in pain and slight frustration and anger. "I have a living being within my uterus and it wants out!"
"Do you want pain meds?" Alana asked, watching Margot nod as another contraction went through her. She left to get the nurse.
Margot turned to Saskia who was calmly reading. "How are you so calm?"
"0.0174 percent of mothers die during childbirth," Saskia said. "I think it increases if the mother has had miscarriages before or has mothers dying in their family line. Humans give birth, it's natural and happens every day. It hurts, sure, but it's natural. And I am glad I will never have to go through what you are going through right now."
Margot laughed, a tone with a little less humour than normal. "I've always wanted children but I never thought I would have any."
"And now you're in labour." Saskia laughed with her. "Which I will not witness."
"You don't want to witness the birth of your GodSon?
"Not if it means I have to watch you push him out of your vagina, Margot,"
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Instead of the single son Margot was expecting, she had a son and a daughter. Morgan and Megan Verger came into the world with quiet cries.
"He looks like a potato." Saskia cuddled Morgan Verger closer to her as he whinied and almost fell asleep after his breastfeeding from his mother, his sister now having her turn.
"Saskia!" Alana gasped while Margot just laughed, her daughter on her chest.
Saskia laughed, "He does, Margot. Alright, he looks like a mini you. Still a potato to me though."
She got to hold both of the twins before she headed out of the room to let them rest with their parents.
Saskia took a wrong turn down a hallway, and ended up near the NICU area where parents could watch their infants through glass.
Near the glass, a tiny preterm baby was laying in its tiny hospital bed, a whole machine connected to it with its vitals showing up on the screen. The baby was called Baby Doe, probably because her mother died during birth and the hospital hadn't been given a name before she died.
It was kind of sad.
The poor girl was going to have a harsh life if she survived this time in the hospital.
"You look sad," A doctor came up next to her, blonde hair curling down her shoulder as her coat said she was a PEDS doctor. "Any of them yours?"
"No," She said. "I went down a wrong hall and ended up here. Can't stop looking at them now."
"You're watching Baby Doe, aren't you?" The doctor named Susan Lite said. She had a sad smile tugging at her lips.
"What happened to her, if I may ask?"
"Her mother died a couple hours ago, premature labour and a lot of bloodlost. I'm surprised she made it through."
Saskia looked back at Baby Doe. "After all of that, she will be a survivor."
"Do you have any children?"
"Nope. Never will."
"Because you don't want to?"
"And I literally can't." Saskia said. "Hysterectomy. I was stabbed and needed to have it removed."
"Oh," There was a surprised note in Doctor Lite's voice.
She shrugged. "My friend just went through labour to give birth to twins. I rather not go through that."
"Worth it in the end,"
"Perhaps…"
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With a darling smile, Saskia ended her day in the hospital with her sitting in a chair in the NICU, Baby Doe laying on her bare chest.
It was a kangaroo hold, something that sometimes helped infants live a little longer. The heartbeat of anyone could work to restart the infant's failing system. It didn't always work but as Baby Doe laid on Saskia's barely covered chest, her vitals seemed to rise.
After seeing Margot and Alana with Morgan and Margot, Saskia felt the barely there rush of maternal instincts.
She never wanted children but having the choice taken was worse than not having them at all. She would have prefered to have the choice, she could have gotten to a stage of her life where she wanted to bring life into the world. She probably wouldn't have even if she had the choice but it wasn't there anymore and it angered her more.
If Saskia had the choice, she still wouldn't have a baby.
She knew she didn't have maternal instincts, not the kind that was needed to raise a child without traumsting them like her own mother had.
She liked offspring in small amounts, like other people's children where she didn't have to look after a living thing and had to constantly worry about it.
She had Countess, that canine was enough. Hades and Winston were a great addition as were the other dogs.
But nothing compared to having an infant in your arms.
Baby Doe was a survivor, she already knew. The tiny little girl refused to die in Saskia's arms, holding onto like with a deadly grip.
Not even Saskia's victims had this strong of a will to live, and Saskia found it endearing.
After a few hours of holding Baby Doe, Saskia left the hospital with a plan to make Baby Doe a small trust fund for when she survived.
Saskia knew Silas Kimmer always wanted another child after Kenna, and Kenna wanted a sibling for a long time. A phone call here and there, and Silas would be able to foster to adopt Baby Doe.
Saskia knew Baby Doe would survive.
Andria Kimmer, once Baby Doe, would find her home within the Kimmer Household and would know love that Alexandria could not.
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