Will's head tilts back into the stream, allowing water to swim past his ears. There is a slow and steady heat swelling from the sun. Abigail giggles, feet away, slightly splashing as she stretches flat against the water. Alana brings her easy calm as she hums a soft melody from the shore. Jack slathers on sun block as he floats in an inflatable chair. Beverly dives from a high boulder. Will is dumbfounded. Even with his wild imagination, he could never have predicted such a perfect moment in time. But, after all, the summer is inevitable

Low murmurs in the room. A strangled sob. Steady beeping. Cold.

"When I was little, I would imagine I was adopted. That I had a perfect mom and dad that would take me away from himand then you saved me," Abigail muses as she and Will continue to float along a river without end.

"I used to imagine I adopted you. I wanted tohelp you feel safe. I knew you needed that, and II didn't know how to give it to you. I failed you," Will admits slowly.

"You could have stopped him. You were going to. But you weren't the only one who knew how to use a lure."

"I told him to go inside, Jack," Alana whispers in a broken voice.

Will feels a hand on his. He cannot move. He can hardly think. He's swimming…

"I. Pushed. Him. Alana. I pushed him when I knew he was baiting the Ripper. I pushed him when I knew that the Ripper wanted nothing more than to destroy us all. Hell, I told Will he needed therapy and had to see Hannibal, I…" even the unshakable Jack Crawford is weeping. Will's nearly lifeless body lies still in the hospital bed, invaded by tubes and machines working tirelessly to keep him alive. If only he could tell them he'd worked all this out in therapy weeks ago. That he was ready to sink back and out of this life. He wondered if the next would be peaceful…

"He can't hurt us anymore, ya know," Abigail says with a smile.

"He will always live in a room inside my head," Will warns her.

"Yeah. But what makes you think you'll be in your head much longer? I think all we have to do is close our eyes, and we'll float away into the calm forever."

"I want to."

Hannibal Lecter sips absently at an espresso. Bedelia glances calmly at the busy Rue. A tablet lies on the small table between them, aglow with an article open. There is a large image of a mortally wounded man lying half naked on a hospital bed, skin pale but for the sickly green light the monitors cast against his skin.

"Tasteless," Bedelia finally utters.

"It's archaic. She's placing his head on a spike for the villagers to see," Hannibal says in an even tone. He does not want to reveal any emotion in front of his equal. He has paid the price of vulnerability and refuses to admit that the image before him sickens him. He knows that Will had to pay dearly for his deception, but in the end, he is pleased that Will is strong enough to survive his gutting. Now that the teacup is broken beyond repair, there is no longer a threat.

"Mr. Graham has suffered enough," Bedelia agrees.

"Do we not all suffer?"

Bedelia looks dubious. "You cannot deny that few mortal men have endured what Will Graham has…and lived."

"Do you call what Will is doing now, 'living'?"

"No," she responds quickly. "But one day, he may rise from the ashes."

Hannibal smiles. "Nothing would make me happier than to look up and see him walking towards me."

"What will prevent him from doing just that?"

"I took away his reason to live. As Jack Crawford took away mine."

"You believe that had it not been for Mr. Crawford, you would have succeeded in a total seduction of his mind?"

"All alternative scenarios thrum with kinetic energy before the fatality of occurrence decimates them."

Hannibal signals for a dessert menu.

"I used to imagine what it would be like to be with you. Wake up naked, covered in puppies and look over at you…"

Alana's eyes trace the tube from the respirator to Will's lips. His chest is exposed and covered in wires and bandages. A nurse is stationed just outside the room. The team has had a close call with him already tonight. Everyone is on edge.

"I should have trusted you…the way I trusted him…but you scared me, Will. You didn't hold anything back, and I…hold everything back. Just the way he taught me to…" she buries her face in her hands. She is still in a wheelchair-both of her legs broke during her fall, not to mention the damage to her spine. But she doesn't care. She is lucky. Compared to what happened to Will. To Abigail. Her throat constricts. Darkness enters her heart like an old friend.

And then she feels his pointer finger twitch.

12 Weeks Later

The sun is hot against Will's hand as he steadies the gun. His trigger finger itches. A team of agents flank him.

His perp grins dumbly at him and scratches his groin. "What are you going to do with that, pretty boy?"

"Martin Ramsey, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you-"

"Waiiiiit. You're that guy. That guy. The one that saved that little Hobbs bitch."

The gun fires before the electrons in Will's brain connect.

"WILL."

He saunters into Jack's office, then slouches in the chair in front of him, looking bored.

"What the hell happened back there? We were covering you." Jack eyes his protege with distrust. Ever since he returned to the FBI, he had seemed different. At least in the hospital, Jack could read him. A Broken Man. This person sitting before him had an entirely different sensibility. He was throwing Jack off, and he didn't like it.

"He had a knife, Jack."

"He had a knife. And you had a gun. And backup. And now he's in the ICU."

"Sometimes bad things happen to bad people," he says with a shrug.

"What is wrong with you? Is your brain inflamed again or did Hannibal dig his hands so deeply into your skull that you can't comprehend right and wrong anymore!" Jack bellows.

Will makes laser beam eye contact. The intensity of his gaze bores into Jack's stone brown eyes. "I know the difference between right and wrong, Jack. Martin Ramsey destroyed seven women. I destroyed his ability to do that again. One just sin is a small price for seven devastations."

"A 'just' sin? Now you're arguing that there can be justice in sinning…you know who you sound like, don't you." This is not a question. This is an accusation.

"Ramsey lost an appendage, Jack. That doesn't mean I'm going to eat it. He was apprehended because of me and will serve his jail sentence. I don't see what the problem is."

The unshakable Jack Crawford is at a loss for words. The man sitting before him is cocky, narcissistic, aggressive and unaffected.

"The problem is that you broke the law, Will. You disfigured Ramsey unnecessarily-"

"The poetry of his body will be written in articles read all over the world," Will says slowly, a strange glint in his eyes. The first glint that Jack fully comprehends.

"No. Will, no. You can't do this. You can't bait him. Not again."

"I don't know what you're taking about," Will says with a smile.

"No. He won't buy it this time. And you can't afford to make any more mistakes. My superiors have been debating whether or not to arrest you and have you evaluated again. What happened today may given them cause enough to do it."

Will considers this. "If they put me in Baltimore again, I'll give Freddie Lounds the exclusive interview of the year. Her fan base is already in the hundred thousands. I'll tell her how the FBI has been abusing me, and that now you've decided to sweep me under the rug to keep Hannibal's escape under wraps."

Jack gazes at Will sadly. He cannot dispute that that is exactly what his superiors want. Purnell kept pressing Jack to have Will brought in for a new psych eval, but he just hadn't had the heart to do it. She was worried, with good reason, that Will was a loose cannon the FBI just couldn't afford.

"You can't bait Hannibal by committing crimes. There was a time when you understood that. Now…you're still under his influence."

"I'm not."

"You aren't yourself. Your moral compass has been tampered with, Will."

"All I want to do is catch him."

"Consequences don't matter to a man that doesn't care what happens to him as long as he gets what he wants."

"What are you saying? I'm being masochistic?" Will's shoulders crack involuntarily.

"I'm saying I think you've chose to play a dangerous game."

Will's back straightens. "Chosen? Ever since you invited Hannibal Lecter to psychoanalyze me, I've been forced to play his game. Play or die. Be interesting or be dessert. But the rules have changed."

"And what rules were those?"

"As long as I was weaker than he was, he could move me like one of so many pawns. But he was bored with pawns and no true opponent. He built me up into…someone he liked, but someone that could potentially hurt him. He enjoyed the danger…enjoys…"

"Even so, Hannibal doesn't make mistakes. He would never risk coming back here."

"Maybe not. But what do you think he would do if I came to him?"

"He tried to kill you, Will. He tried to kill us all. He is stronger and smarter than you'll ever be. What makes you think he won't do to you what he did to Miriam Lass? To Abigail?"

"I'll have backup."

"I can't guarantee that. Not that it matters, since we don't know where he is."

"No, we don't. Not yet."