It was bitterly cold from the salty wind whipping itself straight off of the ocean. The movement made the very air feel that it held knives within it as it savagely moved through and around the chilled living who studied the complex dead.

"Sometimes, I really hate this job." Will sighed, looking rough in this bleak AM of grey. Though he slept more calmly in Hannibal's bed, Will still suffered from night terrors, more so than usual after the ordeal with Tobias. This week had been practically bad. Hannibal theorized that it had to do with Will leaving Tobias in his very capable hands, some lingering guilt or doubt nagging his awake, keeping him up.

"Only sometimes?" Hannibal mused as he tilted his head a bit to take it all in. It wasn't everyday that one got to see a totem pole made of corpses. They crossed the beach to join the rest of the team. "It is certainly imaginative."

"World's sickest jigsaw puzzle." Zeller said as he paused between taking pictures.

"Yeah, but where are the corners?" Price asked as he studied the abomination before them, taking down details as well.

"What?"

"Mom always said, start a jigsaw with the corners."

"Uh, the heads are the corners, I guess?"

"We've got too many corners." Beverly noted with a sigh, "Seven graves. Way too many heads."

"The headpiece appears to be the only recent victim. The others are years, even decades, old." Hannibal said as he strolled around the structure. It was impressive, though his own totem pole would be far more immense. It would easily dwarf this one several times over.

"We know that seven of the bodies were buried out here." Jack said as he joined them.

"No shit? You mean that's why there are seven open graves around it?" Will muttered under his breath, loud enough for Hannibal to hear. "Whoever dug them up knew exactly where they were buried." He said in far more normal tones.

"I guess it wasn't enough for him to kill them once," Jack said, giving his usual lack of insight, "He had to come back and defile his victims."

"These graves weren't desecrated, Jack." Will sounded as tired as he looked. "They were exposed. Huge difference."

"This place is only sacred to our killer, Jack." Hannibal clarified when it became apparent that Will had no intention to do so. "This is not blessed soil, and these victims were not their given last rites by anyone of their particular faith. These people were stolen, hidden away. Our killer is revealing them. What we have here is the stolen lost being found."

"Only because he wanted them to be." Will grumbled.

"Ok, everybody, let's go! Let's clear the scene!" Jack yelled, clapping his hands. He left as well without the usual fuss, but still managed to give Will a pointed look for the back talk. Hannibal was amused to see that the recipient of Jack's offended ire was too far beyond caring to notice.

Will didn't want to do this, even more so than usual. Hannibal wondered if it was because the crime scene was a large open space. While Jack and the others were away from them, they were still present enough to make Will feel self-conscious about his ever growing, evolving abilities.

"Focus on me. I'm the only one here that matters." Hannibal said.

"Of course you are." Will said with an eye roll. He did that a lot with Hannibal who chose to ignore it. His words worked though, he was pleased to note, Will visibly relaxing.

After taking few moments to breathe, Will began, the change upon his being noticeable. His posture and the cadence of his walk entirely changed. His posture and stride held a casual confidence within them that was not there before. Hannibal followed after Will, keeping a close eye on him. The more cases Will got involved in, the greater he was experiencing his empathy, to the point that he started to go through the actual physical motions of the murder. It was fascinating to behold and even more so to study.

"I planned this moment," Will talking aloud now through his recreations was something becoming consistently new as well. "This monument with precision. Collected all my raw materials."

Kneeling down on the sand, Will continued, going through the motions of building. "I position the bodies carefully, according to their rightful place. Peace in the pieces disassembled."

Pausing, Will looked over that something or someone who wasn't there in that space anymore. "My latest victim, I save for last. I want him to watch me work. I want him to know my design. This is my resume. This is my body of work. This is my legacy."

And with that, Will snapped out of whatever he was experiencing. "I need to sit down." Will rasped out, looking grey around his edges as the sea that lay before them. Falling back onto his behind to put his legs out in front of him, Will did just that, ignoring the moisture seeping into his jeans from the cold damp sand. Sitting like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, he stared blankly off into the distance, as if the churning water was going to give him some inner insight. Will didn't respond or acknowledge anyone as the others ran over to them, peppering their incoming steps with questions.

"What's wrong with him?" Jack asked, brow furrowed as he studied Will.

"He's dissociating." Hannibal announced loud enough for all the team to hear. He wasn't about to pass up this golden opportunity to put Jack on the spot, make him suffer. "It's a desperate survival mechanism for a psyche that endures repeated abuse."

"He's not abused." Jack growled, going immediately on the defensive, which was just what Hannibal wanted.

"Will has an empathy disorder. What he's feeling is overwhelming him." Hannibal said with just enough fire and ice in his voice, something very befitting a worried lover while still remaining professional. "Yet you and him chose to ignore it. That's the abuse I'm referring to."

"You want him to quit!" Jack yelled, not even bothering to make it a question.

"And you want him to continue, despite everything it's doing to him." Hannibal said far more calmly, ready to go more in on the agent. They were interrupted by Will reaching over to tug gently at Hannibal's pant leg.

"You don't speak for me." Will said quietly to Hannibal and to Jack, he said, "And neither do you. I'm not quitting. I save lives, and that feels good."

"Does it?" Hannibal asked.

"Generally speaking." Will shrugged.

"What about your life?" Hannibal asked, genuinely curious while still building towards his goals.

"What about it?"

"I don't care about the lives you save." Which was true, "I care about your life." Which was also astonishingly true, or at least, it was astonishing to Hannibal. How refreshingly odd it was to experience all these strange new depths of love.

Will stared off into the distance again, studying the ocean and the soft grey sky above it.

"It's a totem pole of bodies. That's a new one for me. You?" Will eventually asked him.

"Yes."

"Damn, isn't that something." Will chuckled. Hannibal offered his hand to help Will up, pulling him easily to his feet.

"You okay?" Beverly asked, clearly concerned, concerned enough to risk Jack's wrath. Hannibal appreciated her for seeing the true value in Will.

"Fit as a fiddle." Will smiled, looking anything but healthy.

"What have you got?" Jack snapped, cutting short anymore coddling. Though they backed off, the team exchanged a round of looks between them. There was the lovely beginning of dissent in their ranks, a spark that he fully intended to fan. Hannibal decided that he would have to invite them all over for dinner one night to keep that spark alive so it would grow into wildfire.

"A whole lot of body piled up." Will answered glibly, turning his weary attention back to Jack.

"In some cultures, crimes and guilt are made manifest so that everyone can see them and see their shame." Zeller tried.

"Does that look like shame to you?" Will asked, arching a brow at Zeller.

"No, it isn't shame. This is a celebration. He's marking his achievements." Hannibal said, already genuinely pleased with this day. He decided that an interesting killer, an unsettled team, and an angry Jack were an excellent way to start his morning.

"Oh goodie. Another serial killer who takes pride in his work." Price grimaced, "I don't suppose the Ripper can take care of this one for us too?"

"I wouldn't count on it." Hannibal told them. Or at least, he wouldn't unless Will asked him to. There had been something so satisfying about Will knowing about a work in progress, witnessing its becoming from beginning to end.

Tobias had been transformed into a fine cello. The process had involved cutting off his legs at his groin and his arms to his pits to create the upper and lower bouts of the instrument…all while Tobias was kept alive, of course. Hannibal cauterized his wounds to keep the man from bleeding out, and used adrenaline to keep Tobias conscious so he could experience everything Hannibal had planned for him. Tobias was allowed to die only after his large and small intestines were slowly removed from a small incision at the base of his belly. Hannibal took his time pulling them out like a long ingrown hair.

One arm was kept to eat while the other was dissected for its parts. An ulna was transformed into a bow made of bone with some lengths of tendon for the string. The legs became the neck, Tobias's torso the body of the cello. Tobias's head was then removed so that his strapped together leg bones could be connected to his neck at its base, his toes representing the pegs. Hannibal left the meat and skin of them all around the human cello, looking as if the instrument had just violently emerged from a cocoon that had once been Tobias's body.

The torso was given the same treatment, the bones revealed red, white, and wet, part of his radius becoming the endpin. The chest was emptied of its heart, lungs, and all the rest to be replaced by Tobias's head, the curvature of the rib cage keeping it nicely in place. His bowels were used to create the strings.

His masterpiece was found the next day by some unfortunate officers who had been sent there to collect Tobias with Will. Hannibal had tagged along. He wanted to see Will's reaction firsthand, feeling a combination of excitement and uncharacteristically impatient.

The officers ran out the basement, calling in the incident in between their cries of horror and gibbering. There was a stir of something undefinable within Hannibal as he witnessed Will's own phone call.

"Jack, get down here. Bring the team. It's the Ripper." Was all Will said as he studied his present, his words a symphony unto themselves to Hannibal's ears.

"What do you think?" Hannibal asked softly. The officers were not going to come back down anytime soon so they were alone with Tobias at the moment.

"I feel very…complicated about it." Will said, his being giving nothing away about his inner workings. "I don't think I did the right thing. I know I didn't."

"That's subjective. He would have tried to kill us both," Hannibal started to say to be waved off.

"I don't need to hear a sales pitch about it." Will sighed, "I don't feel bad though. I don't know how I feel, but it's not bad. Like I said."

"It's complicated."