All rights to Hannibal (TV) belong to NBC.
Elk Neck State Forest, Maryland
Before Will, the only place she felt mildly close to safe was the diner, as strange as it was. She figured it was because nothing bad happened inside it despite a slaughter being only a few hundred feet away. The diner was suspended in time. Death only existed outside of it.
That was why she wasn't surprised by the sight before her.
Bodies.
Nine bodies.
Mounds of soil and decay and mushrooms.
EMT's were moving like clockwork, moving bagged bodies onto a gurney, wheeling them away.
And there she was, idly standing by, feeling just like how she did when she found the family.
She could do nothing for their lives.
But she might give them peace in death.
That was what she told herself, shaking images of that night and previous nights away.
Her eyes snapped towards the voice of Jack Crawford, his voice carrying as if he were standing over water and not the ground fertilized with the dead. He looked so strong. Despite his flaws, he was a good man, the rock in the middle of a storm, a grounding sight. A part of her almost smiled at him, feeling more at ease because there was some authority there, someone to protect her. Beside him was Will, his eyes somewhat far away, staring at the bodies. As safe as she felt with him, he was gone. Lost in his imagination, lost in the job they were both supposed to do. He was the reminder of what she was here to do. He was the reminder to push aside memories and focus on the present in hopes of saving someone else's future.
A man in his fifties, looking strong, focused, right at home, standing before the fungus ravaged corpses, was the first to speak when Will found his way to her side.
"We've got nine bodies, various stages of decay, all very well fertilized," he reported.
Bella's eyes looked towards a woman in her thirties, one with clever bright eyes that spotted the difference from the black soil and the brown clay walls of a body's grave. Off to the side was a man, also in his thirties, tall and easy on the eyes, examining one of the victims outstretched arm that was attached to a section of rebar. They looked so comfortable around the dead that it made her feel alien to it all.
A foreigner.
She didn't wait to hear the "team" talking. She wasn't like them. She didn't spend years in training. The only thing she had under her belt was a degree, which really didn't help her much. All that helped was a pair of eyes and a mind that was able to dissect gruesome art. It wasn't like Will, which she quickly saw Jack's disappointment in when she broke from the group, examining the farthest unearthed body, staring more at the fungi than the body.
It was art.
It was art in a horrid and cruel way, but art no less.
Every action taken by a person was a message in some way. Humans were nothing if not social creatures. Even at their worst, there was always something to be said, something to be expressed. It was as though there were some ancient curse that came with complex sentience, a compulsion to try to make things that weren't tangible into something that was, something to be looked at, examined, and picked apart.
A want to make the immaterial material.
That's how she had to view it. It was not a science, not an art. It was like a craft, or so Will told her. He told her that when she "saw", she was not supposed to be wishing or praying to see something. She didn't want to see anything. She was supposed to simply relying upon her will and knowledge and skill to navigate her way to a specific conclusion. That wasn't to say that she wasn't supposed to understand what she was seeing or feeling. That was Will's job. He was the empathetic tool. All she was there to do is to enhance that, or so they decided. She didn't have to understand their killer, what he was doing, where he came from, or what he was going to do next. She just had to work with what she had to understand what they were saying in that moment.
Needless to say, she was much more engaged with this job than she was waiting on tables to faceless people that she would likely never see again.
What she was particularly engaged with was the fungi.
It wasn't out of the blue to bury bodies. Murder or otherwise, burying bodies wasn't uncommon. What better way to hide something than below the surface? She could see the logic in that. What concerned her was the fungi.
In her college days, she had tried to be normal. She did normal things like go to class, socialize, attend social gatherings and such. She made "friends" and even tried her hand at dating.
Her name was Alejandra Alvarez. She had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes that reminded Bella of the night's sky, endless and, despite their color, brighter than stars. She was smarter, kinder, and all around more attractive than Bella had ever seen in a woman. Her own Puerto Rican - Dominican Princess. And that was how Bella treated her. She cherished every moment with Alejandra. She did what a girlfriend was expected to do, and then some because Alejandra deserved far more than the status quo. And, in return, Alejandra rewarded Bella with the same efforts.
For a brief moment, Bella was lost in a nostalgic memory of the glorious woman.
She regretted not being able to love her.
Not that she didn't love Alejandra.
She just didn't love the woman like she deserved to be loved.
Bella tried to sift through her memories, rummaging through files of them until she remembered a specific memory.
The fungi.
Alejandra was studying to become a botanist.
She loved plants about as much as Will loved his dogs.
This being said, on one particular date, she gifted Bella with a bouquet of fungi. Alejandra had told her the reasoning behind each one, even going further to explain the properties of them as well. Alejandra's favorite, out of all of them was the "ghost fungus", the Omphalotus nidiformis.
Alejandra and Bella were ill timed.
They found each other during the beginning of their fourth year together, a year when Bella was on the brink of breaking, finally shattering a few weeks before the winter holidays. That breaking point placed their break up a few weeks before Christmas. Despite their ill timed relationship, Alejandra was still a good girlfriend, one that cared for her, far more than Bella deserved to be cared for. One of her favorite moments was when Alejandra gave her the bouquet because of one reason: Alejandra's attempt to help her function better.
Bella was having nightmares. It lead to her having angry neighbors in her dorm by how often she would wake with screaming. Alejandra's first attempt was to offer to sleep at her side, but Bella, feeling too guilty for her girlfriend spending money on an apartment only to waste it by staying with her broken girlfriend in a dorm. And so, her next solution was to "cast some light on a dark place." Hence the ghost fungus.
The fungus was quite lovely for it being a fungus. It had a soft cream-colored caps overlain with shades of purples or oranges. It fanned out like petals on an overgrown flower. Most importantly, the Omphalotus nidiformis was a fungus that emitted phosphorescent light during the night. It was supposed to give her comfort, and for a while it had. There was the problem that, once severed, the fungi gradually decrease in intensity as it dried. That was one of the initial thoughts registering when she looked unto the bodies. She imagined that the mushrooms were used as a marker, to find one's way back to the garden, to find the graves.
But they weren't fully buried.
Her eyes found the hand held up by a bar, disregarding the light property.
A sigh left her lips.
There was something about the mushrooms.
Aside from the bio-luminescent properties, the Omphalotus nidiformis and closely related Pleurotus Nidiformis were fungi involved with saprotrophic nutrition.
"It is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of dead or decayed organic matter."
Looking around the forest opening, she could spot at handful of dead or dying trees. Yet, none of them sported the fungi. The fungi wasn't native to North America. She would bet more money than she actually had on that being true. And so, she looked back at the fungi, at the body. The fungi were there for the bodies, but not as a disposal method. Well, perhaps it was an upside to murder, but that wasn't the whole reason. There were better ways to dispose of a body, so it had to mean more than that.
She glanced at the tube, detached from the victim's mouth.
It had to be either for breathing or feeding.
Whoever did it was keeping them alive.
So what was it behind-
"You okay?"
She jolted at the sound of a voice of someone that was closer than she was able to prepare for.
Her eyes snapped upward and to the left, the direction of the voice. There she found a concerned looking man, the one in his fifties, carefully watching her. His gloved hands were dirtied by the spoil, as were his pants and coat, but other than that, he looked as calm as can be. He looked as though he should be on a commercial for office supplies rather than studying victims in shallow graves. Had she seen him elsewhere, she probably would have been less startled. Then again, elsewhere, she would have been more aware and better prepared.
"Y-yeah," she answered too quickly, ignoring his hand, helping herself to her feet, dusting off the dirt. She tried to tear her eyes away from the body in the ground. She tried to focus on him, but her eyes fell back onto the corpse with tape over its eyes nose and mouth. She imagined whoever did it was doing their best to protect the bodies. It was rather counter intuitive if they were encouraging decomposition. This thought only made her wonder all the more what was behind the fungus. "What are you trying to tell me?" she thought aloud, shaking her head slightly.
"Death by fungus is a long process," the man mused.
Bella nodded, thinking it was an obvious statement, but, politely, chose to keep that thought to herself. The last thing she needed was to be rude to a man that clearly was at this longer than she was. He was a respectable and credible crime scene investigator. She was a college dropout that had to ask her boss to take leave for the day early with the promise of coming in or staying if need be. Regardless of who either were in the end, they were both in Elk Neck State Forest, looking at the same dead body. Bella didn't know whether that made her feel better or worse about being by him. Though, out of the two options, she would much rather feel better about herself instead of worse. She thought of herself as the reigning champion of wallowing in one's failures. Perhaps it was time to put that title away. After all, what good would wallowing do for finding the person responsible for the nine graves.
"Jimmy Price," the man introduced himself as, offering a friendly smile despite their surroundings. She was comforted by the sight of a friendly face, and took his hand better than she had Jack's, giving it a firm shake. A part of her wanted to impress the man, to live up to the reputation that he and the rest of his team clearly had, the three of them, him, the young woman, and the not bad looking other man were fluid in their examining of the crime scene, clearly familiar with each other. With Jack watching nearby, not concerned with what they were doing, but more so how much they might be finding, he clearly trusted them to do their jobs.
"Bella Bennet," she introduced herself as in return.
Her name sounded foreign on her tongue, still adjusting to the sound of it.
She had to give her full name when she was issued a badge that permitted her access to the crime scene and other places that she probably would have been quickly ushered away from even looking at, if she had to take a guess by how tightly run the FBI was.
"It's not about the disposal though," she added, recalling the thoughts he interrupted.
The man, "Jimmy", raised his brows, silently inquiring what her thoughts were. A part of her didn't want to explain herself. A part of her felt as though this man, who looked so at home with everything, was testing her.
But this was a test regardless.
"The fungi," she said, pointing to the body before her before cringing and feeling as though she had defiled the memory of whoever it once belonged to by treating it like an object rather than a person.
"So, it's about the fungus?" the man asked, frowning, clearly not taken with her answer.
"It's not about the fungus," she quickly said, not wanting to be misunderstood so quickly. It was her fault for being too vague, a habitual response that she needed to curve if she was going to earn her spot. "It's about what the fungus does," she added. "If it were about the fungus, they'd better survive on a tree or in specialized soil because the mycelium found in fungus absorbs nutrients from its environment," she explained. "Though I have no doubts that a decaying body would support growth, that wouldn't give cause to keeping them alive."
"You sound like you know a lot about mushrooms," Jimmy Price said turning his body away, taking just a step before he looked back at her. "You're going to want to move before Will gets started," he added.
Bella looked back at Will, finding him waiting for a cue that he could begin his "process." He didn't look distressed. He didn't look comfortable either. He was already far away, and she could see that. She was too busy watching him as he began to walk backwards that Jimmy had to gingerly pull her away from the scene. Snapping back to attention, she followed him to the sidelines, turning her back to Will.
He didn't want her here.
If he had his way, she would still be thinking that his days were spent in front of trainees and nothing more. It felt only right to give him the luxury of privacy, even if other's eyes were on him. At least he would have one less pair on him.
"Fungi aren't as bad as they seem," she shrugged, pulling his attention to her. He, too, had been watching Will up until she spoke again.
One less pair of eyes.
"They're kind of cool," she shrugged.
Jimmy let out a breathy chuckle, amused at the word "cool." Once again, she was reminded of how below the bar she was compared to the rest of them. Trying to salvage her reputation in his eyes, she began grasping for a better explanation.
"What I mean is that fungi, the mycelium, can form a mat that can be... very big..." She cringed at her elementary descriptors. "They branch out, join together in a large structure of connectivity. Their spores react kind of like a nervous system. They can join together in ways we can't," she said, satisfied enough to stop. "So, yes. 'Cool.'"
Jimmy looked off, most likely at Will, though she couldn't tell with her back in the direction he was looking. Yet, at the same time, she could see her words being processed, him mulling over what she said, letting it sit and grow. When he accepted whatever resonated, he looked back at her, the pondering frown fading into that same friendly smile.
"Connectivity?" he echoed.
Her eyes widened as he came to a conclusion faster than she did.
Connections.
It was the very thing that was behind actions, words, art in general.
That was the art.
That was the nine graves.
Connectivity.
"I think this is the part where I go and talk to Jack," she choked out, still digesting Jimmy's words. She found herself nodding as it made more and more sense.
The man gave her a smile. It was not friendly, not completely, but it was the most welcoming she experienced when it came to those she'd usually seen in Jack Crawford's office. There was no shortage of strong standing, stone faced eyes setting sights on her, the one that wasn't matching up to their expertise. It did not sooth her growing fears of Jack - she wondered if she did truly fear him, or the things he could do, but she treated both options as if they were one - yet she appreciated it all the same.
Such appreciation gave her enough courage not to turn and run from the massive creature that Jack and all his righteous hunger for justice was. Standing before him made her uncomfortable. He was too forward, too direct, too hungryfor her liking. Unlike him, she was not the kind to go out seeking justice. She was not some heroic figure trying to make life better. All she ever found herself doing was trying to survive it. It wasn't a swell life. In fact, she found herself dying of it, growing weary with each day she was alive. She doubted he understood the agony of a life without a life.
There was a time when she almost lost all sense of self.
She spent hours on end, just staring into nothing, not a thought or feeling passing through her. She remembered how it felt as one did when they were barely waking, unable to tell if they were awake or asleep, trapped in that numbing haze that was slight consciousness. She remembered the strangeness that was going about her days on autopilot, having done things, yet feeling as though her body was not her own, as if she were not in control, just watching from a distance. What she remembered most clearly was touching her face from time to time, finding herself almost surprised by the feeling of touch, by having a face to be touched or by having a body to be felt with.
Days blurred together into months. What brought her out of it was her boss. The small hispanic man who looked at the shell of a woman and sat her down, conversing with her until she remembered what she was, that she was. She had been so focused on creating a routine, following it so rigidly in order to know when something was wrong, that she was lost in it.
And now, here she was, awake and with so much to do with her life, even if it was speaking to the hot-tempered, stone like man that was Jack Crawford. Every conversation, every look, every encounter, with jack was concerned with her merit. He was, aware or not of his own actions, concerned with how to use those around him. And she was nothing short of a tool for him, a tool to be kept at a distance, but use her all the same, he did. She could recognize the mistrust in his eyes even as she spoke her own interpretations of this crime to him. She was important enough to warrant his attention until she was done speaking, to which he returned his eyes to the man they both relied too heavily on.
She was guilty of doing the same.
Will had his back to them, facing forward to the grave she was once standing over, staring down at it with far away eyes. She almost felt compelled to rush towards him, to take his face in her hands and bring him back to the present because the expression on his face, the cold and confronting fear in his eyes, it was forever burned into her memory. Had she been braver, she would have. Instead, she shut her mouth tightly, waiting for him to breath once more. After closing his eyes, holding himself together in a poor attempt as to stop himself from hyperventilating, he opened them and let out a sigh of relief. How he could be relieved to be alone with the dead was beyond her.
That relief was short lived.
Will's terrified screams shattered what control she had over herself.
She was at his side instantaneously, uncaring for the fungus covered arm and the sound of a rattled, wet gasp from what should have been a corpse. All she cared for was him.
As much as she wished to help those who would otherwise be harmed by the people the FBI were after, she was not as righteous as to put them above those she cared for. It was entirely selfish, but understandable all the same. She knew this because Jack, in all his distrust, allowed her pull Will away.
Whether she knew it or not, this act was the one that placed her at his side, his mirror, a refection that would remind him of where he was, what he was, and who he was under all the empathy for the wicked.
While everyone else on Jack's team raced to their stations, helping the once buried man, she was there, leading Will away from the scene, away from all that would harm him.
Perhaps she had it wrong.
Perhaps she wasn't there to help innocent strangers at all.
Perhaps she was only there to save the person who once saved her.
The Office of Hannibal Lecter, Baltimore, Maryland
Will slid the letterhead of his "rubber stamped" psych eval towards his psychiatrist, half mourning the waste of time and paper that the letterhead was. Just as forcefully, Hannibal Lecter slid the letter back towards him, denying the return of it.
Will liked the refined man before him. There was something unnaturally charming about the accented psychiatrist, something that demanded appeal despite all efforts against him. In all the pushes Will gave, the man only took it in stride, returning before his eyes unscathed.
What rested between them was not friendship, but with how quickly Hannibal Lecter showed trust in him, approving a psych eval that no other doctor would otherwise give, Will could not think of what was between them as something so professional. Not since the man acted as a savior to the dark haired, blue eyed tragedy that was Abigail Hobbs, something they had not discussed since his taking on his newest case. Though, that did not mean it was far from either of their minds.
This evening, their conversation returned to the topic of a Hobbs. Not Abigail, something Will was unsure of whether he was thankful for or robbed of, but Garrett Jacob Hobbs.
Lecter seemed to agree with the subject, prompting him to discuss his view of Hobbs as a victim or justice. All Will could see the man as was "dead", or so he told Dr. Lecter. He could neither deny that it was harder to imagine killing after having done it himself, nor could he deny it was easier to understand the aftermath of some of it, the amazement and power that came with having met with death and continued living. This new experience he had to connect with the monsters he was supposed to help hunt is what turned their conversation to that: the new case, something Will was easier to let on about, trusting the man more than he was comfortable with.
But there was something else to it, too, something beyond all the talking and the reciprocation that they shared with one another, and Dr. Lecter knew this by the way Will was holding up, by how he seemed prepared. When Hannibal brought up the structure of fungus and its mirroring that of the human brain, Will's face did not give any notion of surprise, only a twitch of what should have been a nod, confirming his thoughts. Yet, he did not agree verbally. He did not encourage Hannibal to continue to build on this theory. The lack of response sparked a sense of being robbed in the older man, yet not enough to ignore the curiosity that came with such of lack of response.
"What I said does not surprise you," he said, leaning back in his chair, taking in Will's body as a whole, wanting to see the man better as to read what the man was too afraid to say.
Will hesitated.
He felt his fingertips warm, how there was a sinking in his stomach as he was confronted with the inevitable. The air around him was thinning, yet the man before him seemed to breathe fine. Once again, he felt a bout of jealousy towards the doctor. He was at the heart of major decision, to speak on something dear to him, or to hide it away in an attempt at shielding it from those that might otherwise harm or take it.
It being a scar-faced waitress with alarming insight.
"It does not," Will said, attempting to look uninterested in discussing this further. Manipulation was not his strong-suit, and by the stiffness with which he sat, Hannibal could so clearly see he was pressing on something of importance. Will's refusal only caused a grating sense of irritation to rise within him. After all, Hannibal had been nothing but courteous to the mess that was Will Graham. He had given with intentions to receive, yet Will was falling short with his offers. Hannibal told himself that it was only fair to press further if Will would not at least satisfy his curiosity.
"This was not your discovery," Hannibal assumed, staring at him more. Had it been Will's, he was certain the man would have shared. After all, his views on Hobbs were being trusted with, and that was not an easy confession. No, if it was his own, Will would have included it whenever he walked in, whenever they were going over his recent thoughts and actions. The longer his words rested, the more truth of it appeared. Will's face was twisting into a slight cringe, not wanting to go in the direction Hannibal was leading them in, but he hadn't a sound reason to turn away from it. He was bound by the trust Hannibal thrust upon him.
It was bad enough as it was for Jack to drag him and her into his office, showing a slight obsession with the young woman as she recounted her thoughts, even more when Will could only find himself in agreement with her. She was cripplingly uncomfortable in Jack's office, even more so when she answered questions in monosyllables, not wishing to give any more than what was demanded, her eyes staring anywhere other than the eyes of both Jack and him as if she were ashamed of her own findings. Will feared that she was beginning to become like him: unable to maintain eye contact. She even picked up her own method of avoiding Jack's stern gaze. She found a way of hiding her face behind her hair that made it clear how agonizing it was for her to be the object of human attention.
Human attention.
Will felt robbed by Jack when their usual nights of company were altered. Her kept her back to him, only allowing his dogs the luxury of her attentions. A part of him wanted to be angry at her for including him in her mistrust of Jack, but instead he felt more inclined to shield her, a difficult task as he understood the work, the memories, that would follow her home. The morning he saw darker colors under her eyes was the morning he insisted that she not be brought into FBI Headquarters to further examine the bodies. The last thing he wanted for her was to see them up close.
"She gave her interpretation. She's done," he told Jack.
As much as he wanted to tuck her away, somewhere far from where anyone could harm her, he found himself with a growing sense of curiosity. As long as he had known her, he wasn't able to come to much a conclusion about her. He'd seen her apartment. There were no mementos, no tokens of sentimentality. All there were was the necessities. Nothing more. On her person, when not in her waitress uniform, she was adorned in solid and neutral colors, plain and unassuming. No brand, no label. No jewelry. Nothing to identify her with, nothing to set her apart from hundreds of people. By the way she moved in those clothes, in her apartment, he knew that she was used to this, but the anonymity she adorned herself could not have been natural to her from birth. He was certain of that, but anything else was left to interpretation.
Hence why he was giving the luxury of honesty to Hannibal Lecter.
The man came to the conclusion of connectivity on his own, knowing far more about fungi than he, a well rounded skill set of understanding others.
Will would be a fool not to utilize such a skilled person's help if it came to piecing together anyone one else, yet that was the problem. This woman was not someone else. She was someone he cared for, despite knowing little of. He devoted so much of his time to looking or watching her. Even lying on the ground, napping under the protection of his watchful dogs, she was the subject of his worries. She was precious in her own right.
That preciousness was what gave him enough reason to mention her.
"Jack has a new addition to 'the team'," he explained, grimacing at the word "Team." If there were anything for certain, it was that if there was a team, the two of them would be outsiders. Unwanted and unwelcomed for the most part.
"Do you not like this new addition?"
"I do."
"So this is the cause of your displeasure?"
Will did not answer that verbally. His scowl and silence was enough.
"Tell me about this 'new addition'."
There was no question.
It was times like these when Will remembered who had power when it came to the two of them.
Lecter, in all that he gave Will, was known to assert some claim to power, especially when he wanted something. Will originally thought, for just a moment, that it might be his company. Of course, he was confused as to why, but he felt as though the man extended his graces for that purpose. It was what drew Will to him, opening his mind for the man, only to be reminded at times like this that he was still a patient. Patient. The word made his face twist with disgust. Though he was no stranger to the idea of instability, his instability, it gave him no comfort to be treated for it. If being treated is what these sessions were.
But Will would go along with it.
He told himself that it was for that rubber stamp, that he was acting only in his best interests, but, deep down, he knew that he did want to talk about her. He did want to have Dr. Lecter take a look at the woman, helping him unravel her, to see her better and more clearly.
He wanted to see her as he felt she saw him.
"She's under-qualified," Will began with.
It was insulting. The bitterness in his voice was unmasked, taking Dr. Lecter by surprise.
Those objects of scorn in the eyes of Will were not subjects that came with this much reluctance. Hannibal knew that such revulsion was not for the woman, but the position that the woman was in.
"Does her presence offend you?"
"No."
This answer was quick, stern, reading of nothing short of complete and utter honesty. The look in his eyes when he said it, such bright and burning offense taken with the idea that he would find this woman offending was a surprise. Not even the mention of Alana Bloom had brought such a rise from Will.
The right corner of Hannibal's lips lifted ever the slightly, fighting a smirk. He looked and felt proud. His pride was in having found a new asset, a new tool to pry open Will's mind, clearing it of uncertainties and inhibitions, liberating the man of some weight to make room for himself.
Hannibal was not immune to loneliness.
"I'm offended with Jack having brought her into..." Will couldn't find the right words to the state that he found himself trying to claw his way out of, the place where she was slowly sinking into. "She shouldn't have even met Jack." Their having met was like some twisted form of serendipity.
It placed him in a foul mood to even think about.
"You feel as though Jack has taken something of yours."
"I feel as though he he's taken something that isn't his," Will corrected.
As tempting as it was to think of her as "something of his", he couldn't find it within himself to do so. She wasn't tethered to anyone or anything, as far as he knew. Although she liked him - or seemed to like him - he held no doubts that if she wished, she could drop everything and become a memory that would fade over time. She felt like a ghost sometimes. Her movements were silent, never letting herself be close enough to touch most of the time. She was a doe in the woods, sometimes daring to get closer to a person, but at the slightest of sounds, she would disappear back into her surroundings. He could never have a claim to something so free.
Hannibal saw the conflicting thoughts overcome Will, so he pressed further.
"What is it that angers you about her being there?"
Will's eyes focused on the doctor. First, his gaze was blank, but slowly his thoughts began to turn like gears, working away at trying to find a safe, yet honest answer. Minutes passed by in nothing but silence. Eventually, he found himself with an answer.
"She shouldn't be in the company of the dead."
When he found her, he was almost uncertain if she was living or dead. Dull eyes glancing up from a book when he first walked into that diner. Sun deprived skin that almost looked cold colored only slightly with frustration at her dropping of the first omelet, followed by anxious glances at him in an attempt to see if he bared witness to her faults. She had the look of a ghost, especially donning an old and ill fitting uniform.
The process of seeing her back to that of the living was not easy.
To have her be undone in the same work he was escaping when he first met her seemed like a waste. It felt like a slap to the face.
She deserved to be surrounded by life.
He'd seen the way she lit up with his dogs, the smile on her face, the glimpse of vulnerability, yet strength that came over her when he'd taken her on a walk through a park one day. He could remember how mystified she looked by the sight of a butterfly, or the smell of a flower. And when the sun touched her skin, she looked as if she were touched by warmth for the first time.
In all the pleasure she took in life, in being around it, how could he not want to surround her with it?
A part of him saw her as a victim. Of what, he did not know, but he wanted to save her all the same. Even if all he could give her was a shabby, but cozy house, a place by the fireplace besides critically worn in couches and armchairs with nothing except dull books off of paint-chipping shelves to read, he would give it all to her. There was once a time when he wanted to share such a comfort with that of Alana Bloom, but such a well-put together woman wouldn't have found herself fitting in such a life. But her? Bella? He could so easily picture it from the second he came back, finding her already settled into the vision he held in his mind of home.
"I haven't known her that long."
He knew her longer than he knew Dr. Lecter.
"You seem attached to her."
"I am."
There was little time when he looked at her and didn't see something that wasn't his to care for. She may not have been his, but he would make a claim that she was his to watch over, to look after. Jack wouldn't. Zeller, Price, or Katz wouldn't. Although, he was fairly certain that Price had taken a liking to the woman, but not enough to tell her when to tap on the breaks before she crashed. She hadn't someone like Hannibal to monitor her, if that was even what Hannibal was doing. It didn't feel like the psychiatrist was monitoring her. He felt less like a patient and more...
He couldn't put his finger on what exactly he felt like they were.
Hannibal was a slippery man.
And that slippery man was looking at him with a dangerous level of curiosity, but Will was none the wiser.
Blissfully unaware that he was bringing a second lamb to the water where a lion waited to feast.
Hannibal Lecter's House, Baltimore, Maryland.
This was the second time that woman came up in a conversation.
Sitting there to his right, Jack Crawford sat at his table, feasting on "pork" loin. Loin served with a Cumberland sauce of red fruits. Strawberries, raspberries, and currants. The man went on about his lack of cooking experience, admitting to being less than adept at the art, but his appreciation for the meal set before him was genuine.
The man went on about his mother, his wife, ultimately before speaking on Will Graham after washing his guilt down with the most expensive wine he had yet to taste, unaware of this milestone.
Jack mentioned his surprise at Will seeing him, Hannibal, again when he had been "so adamant about not going" before. Hannibal pointed out that their first session was under pressure by none other than Jack himself. He pointed out that although their meeting was sour, that did not necessarily mean that they were certain to be adversaries, to which Jack made a point of saying that the real enemy to Will would be those defending the people they tried putting away. Hannibal feigned agreement.
He needed Jack.
The man was a commander, a conqueror, who was useful before and would be useful again. With each sip of wine, the man grew more relaxed, the more he spoke on Will, on how he was not sure if Will would come back into the field after "the Hobbs case."
Hannibal pressed on his past, knowing exactly who he'd lost, using that loss to pry for more weakness, more assets to his future. A dangerous future it was, always flirting with the likes of the law, but one like him needed that flirtation, a thrill in finding a safe place behind the enemy, and Jack had a strong back from the guilt Hannibal gave him years ago to hide behind.
His investment coming to his aid later than he originally anticipated pleased him.
"Will isn't happy with me," Jack mentioned. Hannibal pretended to not know why, and that was when Jack began confiding in him again. "There's this woman-"
"A woman?" he inquired. He had a professional curiosity when it came to Will and those around him, those who shaped him. Who this woman was to Will was of some importance to Hannibal.
Jack's face twisted with uncertainty.
"I don't know the nature of their relationship, if that's what you're asking, Dr. Lecter," Jack answers, more irritated with his not knowing than he was at being asked. Hannibal pictured Jack as a child, being that one student that grew angry at his teacher because of his own lack of knowledge. If he was, he had his anger better tethered down now, as he lost the tension in his shoulders at Hannibal's warm smile.
The man was so easily blinded.
"This woman is..." Jack paused, thinking on how exactly he could describe her. He couldn't find the right words. "She's like Will, but not like him, if that makes any sense. Different, yet similar."
"She has an empathy disorder?" Hannibal asked. He was enlightened with the idea of having caught not one but two empathetic fishes in his net, wanting to grasp them in his hands and tuck them into a golden cage until they were ready for true freedom. The prospect of having two, however, was a comfort. Should one fail, there would be another to replace. Another chance to do better. It would have been in poor taste not to be pragmatic, in his eyes. He was a man of the highest esteem. It would be ill fitting of his well tailored person suit to not show his interest.
"I doubt it," Jack said with a shake of his head. "No one can do what Will does. No one can empathize to the level he does. Can't say anyone would want to, though," he added with a shrug.
Hannibal disagreed.
Though, Jack was not the man to feel loneliness as one like him.
Hannibal knew the feeling of being alone, singular by his own right.
"Will views her as being under-qualified."
Jack winced at this.
"She may not have the training of a proper person in this field, but Will shouldn't be one to judge. He didn't pass the screening for it."
Hannibal wondered if Jack was going to make it a habit of trying to negate Will's words when they weren't on the subject of a killer.
"She's far more intelligent than she lets on," Jack said after being suffocated by the silence, feeling the need to defend himself and his decisions. "She may not be a prodigy for the FBI - Not that she has done anything in the opposite of the law. I checked-"
Jack looked into her background and found nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Her previous employment was short, the one Will told him about in his speech as to why Jack shouldn't have even made an offer to her. Her credit was clean. Her education concerned him. She was top of her class until she dropped out of college. However, dropping out of college was hardly unusual considering her current position before he found her. He knew that she was "under-qualified. His main concern was her criminal history. He wanted to know if there were anything as small as traffic tickets, and there was nothing.
It was spotless.
"- I simply belief that if there were a prodigy for Will's ability to interpret a crime, she would be that prodigy."
Hannibal could see how troubled Jack was by this woman. It would be a waste to let it go nowhere. Wastefulness was one of the uglier sides of rudeness.
"Yet you are worried."
"I'd be a fool not to worry. She isn't Will. She's never been involved with any law enforcement as far as anyone can tell..."
"But?" Hannibal prompted, knowing the look on Jack's face.
Despite his audacity, Jack didn't want to speak against her. She could jeopardize everything, yet, at the same time, she could carry them farther than they would have with Will alone. Either was probable, and that's what had him so torn. He was worried against speaking against her in the case that she was either.
"But I can't be certain," Jack finished, shaking his head in disappointment.
If there was one thing having his job taught him, it was that intuition didn't mean anything without proof. Intuition wasn't reliable until there was something to back a claim. How many times had he brought news to a family that someone they knew and loved was a monster underneath all that familiarity? How many times did they claim that there was no possible way it was them?
Jack's reservations were not uncalled for, but he couldn't continue treating her with a volatile mix of welcome and distance.
But he could have his fears silenced with Hannibal's help, and the doctor knew this all too well as shown by the smirk on his face, the one mistaken as a crooked smile.
"I would like to offer up my services once again, should you want it," Hannibal suggested.
Jack latched onto the offer faster than he should have, allowing an unspoken power shift to occur, but he needed this alternative to worrying. He was beginning to recognize the irritable, unpleasant, unhappy person he was when he was first put on the job: the person he thought he left behind when Will retired into a teaching position.
"Do you think she'll take to you like Will did?" Jack asked somewhat bitterly. There was a sour taste on his tongue every time Will looked at him. The last thing he needed was for this woman to look at him that way as well.
There was an innocence about her, one that he wanted to trust in, but it was too unorthodox for his conscience to fully go through with trusting. He blamed it on her having the look of a victim. And he knew all too well that victims of horrible crimes did not exclude them of having done things just as horrible. His suspicions of Abigail Hobbs was enough to prove this.
"I believe everyone likes talking. It rids of the feeling of loneliness. Our minds want us to share."
Even someone like him grew lonely.
The Office of Hannibal Lecter, Baltimore, Maryland
She liked Saturdays. She liked them because she would spend it at Will's. All sentimental things set aside, his house was relatively unfrequented: not only was it far out from the usual cities, but because it so easily fell invisible in all its innocuous nature. Usually, a Saturday entailed spending her time on the floor beside the couch, staring out at the quiet world around his house or reading one of the books from Will's shelf. But on one Saturday, Jack decided to knock on their door, breaking that peaceful silence, calling on them. He directed Will to the FBI Headquarters, and her in the opposite direction of Baltimore, Maryland. He took her favorite things about Saturdays and split them down the middle.
She despised him before she even realized where he sent her.
The building itself didn't look like the typical haphazard maze that were psychiatrists offices.
It looked elegant as much on the outside as it did on the inside. On the outside, it looked to be a historical building, one that was taken over by the very person that was standing before her.
It was beautiful.
When walking in, she entered through an arched doorway, only to be met with a room even more so. The room was high, with arches that supported a catwalk above its pristine grey columns. On the same level as the catwalk was a personal library. Looking at them, she felt as though she knew the man before her prided intelligence, setting personal enlightenment high above anything else.
He was a renaissance man.
She could tell by the uniformity of the office. The decorum that came together fluidly like the strings to a renowned composition.
There was a proud brilliance in all of it, even in the single colored red wall, an unorthodox choice of coloring for a psychiatrist, yet proud all the same.
Everything was elevated to a level of art...
But she felt it.
An unnerving slash of violence beneath the elegance.
He drained the air out of her lungs with his welcoming her inside.
She didn't feel safe, and he knew it.
She saw him adjust himself subtly. She saw the charming smile slowly form on his lips, and she felt her heart almost rip itself apart in fear of this man, this creature, before her.
She knew her place the second she stepped inside the building.
His smile did nothing for that god forsaken sense of fear.
He was a handsome man. She let her eyes wander over his features, drowning in his sculpted features. The smile was as well crafted as his suit. She imagined that he was the kind of man to smile at someone, causing them to be assaulted with feelings of warmth spreading in their chests, completely charmed.
But she was not charmed.
She was scared.
It disturbed her on a level that shook her to her core. She felt as though she was being threatened by simply breathing the same air as him, as if she were defying some sort of natural order.
That smile held power.
He knew his place and that was above her. He knew that she recognizes what he is, but that she was too afraid to do anything about it. The smile was knowing.
Without speaking, in the short few moments they were in each other's company, he could see it. The obedient nature in the woman's eyes as her nature bowed before that of something stronger, something elevated in life. She knew that obedience would be the wisest way to keep her skin on her back, but what unnerved her even more was that she felt almost pleased with the obedience.
It felt sinful.
"Would you like to take a seat, Ms. Bennet?" he asked, stepping aside.
She knew it wasn't a request, and soon found herself seated directly across from him.
She tried to stop her squirming.
He noticed this.
He was pleased by it.
There was silence.
By then, he would have taken control for a moment, if only to direct the person before him. However, this time, he wanted to see her, how she reacted with being given control when she so clearly recognized it was not for her to possess.
Her discomfort struck him at first. Her ability to pick up on his own nature, even just a hint of it, was stunning. He could see why Jack wanted her in the field.
She had so much potential.
She was rough around the edges, yes. She, like Will, lacked the refinement that Hannibal surrounded himself with, but she, like Will, was a perfect opportunity to craft something exquisite. With someone already shaped into the person they would undoubtedly always be, someone like Alana Bloom or Jack Crawford, there was no potential to see life and everything in it in the way he saw it. But here they were, two perfect specimens that could be shaped in his image.
It was enticing.
To his surprise she was the one who took it upon herself to speak first. She trained her eyes on him, as if waiting for his sophistication to drop and whatever he kept underneath such grace to rise up. She kept her eyes on him to flee the moment things became too dangerous. A part of him wondered if she would be able to get away.
"I tried to prepare for this," she admitted carefully, letting each syllable fall from her lip slowly. She reminded him of Bedelia in that moment. The difference was that Bedelia had seen him only because he wanted her to see him. He was the one to reveal himself. With this woman, she had picked up on enough that she knew well enough to be as cautious as she was.
"Do you believe that was necessary?" he asked, wondering if such preparation was because of Jack digging too deep or if she simply would prepare for this regardless. Was this personal or professional preparation? He wondered what would please him more, if it was for Jack or for him.
"I believe it's useless now," she answered. He saw her clench her jaw, how she swallowed the fear brewing within her.
"Why is that?"
Her eyes flashed with something daring. Her lips parted as if to make a quick response. He felt robbed when he saw those lips close without any sound leaving her. At first, he thought her to be holding back her words in fear of offending him, but the look in her eyes told him different. She was trying to draw him out, just as he was trying to draw her out. He found it endearing to some degree, deciding to humor her, if only for a moment.
"You know why you are here," he stated.
"I know who wants me here. I guess I can understand his reasons," she said. He saw something flash over her face. It was well hidden, only shown by a spiteful twitch of the lips.
She was angry.
"You say you can understand his reasons." She gave a slight nod. "Yet, you seem angry. One might think you are offended."
She let a scoff leave her lips.
"Offended?" she echoed, bitterness all but dripping from lightly chapped lips. "I'm angry less with his wanting to be careful than I am with him purposefully keeping me from an investigation that I can help with."
It was partially true. Only, she was using anger to hide her worry. Now that she knew what Will was seeing, she didn't want him left alone in it all.
Hannibal didn't know this. He only suspected that she had within her that same drive Will had in him. A compulsion to save others.
"Do you feel he has slighted you by preventing your participation in this investigation?" he asked, wanting to keep a focuson her anger.
This is where he sees how much she resembles a doe in foreign territory.
She knew she was out of place. She felt as though she were a stain on the grand masterpiece that was his office when she first walked in. He knew she felt this way. He'd seen that cautious woman subtly search for all exits when she'd stepped fully inside. It reminded him of patients that survived cruelty. What reminded him even more of this is the careful way she walks, taking in her surroundings, changing to each new circumstance. He knew she was well versed in the art of survival. Yet, now he sees it. He has not moved against her in a hostile or aggressive manner, yet he could see tension run through her body, travelling through her. In a manner of seconds, she looked prepared to walk straight out the door and never look back.
She would be forsaking her job with the FBI in doing so, but he suspected by how she compared to Will that she was not as concerned with staying. In this, he suspected that there was more to her anger than Jack's keeping her at a distance.
"I don't feel slighted," she said with a shake of her head. "I feel afraid."
This was when he truly felt she was testing him, watching how he reacted to fear.
He wondered who made her this way.
What had she seen?
He could not linger on that though. He was too focused on that fear. He was wondering why she was scared.
Perhaps Jack was right to suspect she was hiding something.
"I know Jack is looking at me. Though, I cannot imagine that it is purely professional. I've heard from Will. Psych evals are not a formality," she states, echoing Will.
Hannibal knew she was placing trust in him. She knew that by admitting to her fear in Jack looking at her gave enough to suspect there was something she didn't want to be found. She was trusting him not to let Jack know of this. She wanted to test him.
He could see it now.
She was prepared to drop everything and leave.
He couldn't simply let her go.
Shifting in his seat, ignoring how she sat straighter, shifting some weight to her feet, truly readying herself to at least attempt at running, he reached for his pen. Most would have been comforted by the sight of his hands being busied with something else. She did not. This time she did stand.
She was faster than he expected.
She was at a safer distance away, to the side of her chair, hand on the shoulder of it, readied to move it, to use it to obstruct a direct path to her.
He took no offense to this. In fact, he found himself even more curious than before, wondering who hurt her to the point of her having learned to react in such a fashion.
"You and Will have spoke of our sessions," he stated, purposefully turning his back to her as he walked across his office towards his desk. He hoped to calm her by doing this.
"I did."
She sounded farther than she should have. He imagined she took the opportunity to put more distance between them than he gave.
"Then you know you needn't worry," he said, letting his pen glide over a paper he had prepared since the moment Jack decided on allowing him to give her an evaluation.
There was silence as he finished signing his name. For a moment, he thought she'd left. Looking over his shoulder, he was delighted to find her, still present, looking carefully interested. It was clear that Will did not divulge this part of their first session. He was leaning towards Will not wanting to worry her rather than maintain an image for himself.
Yes. He could see the appeal of wanting to shield a woman like her.
He plucked the piece of high quality stationary from the desk, holding it out to her, an offer.
She stared at him, not the offering, for a moment, contemplating if it was worth her safety to go near him. And when her eyes left his face, they searched for his other hand, the one not holding the paper.
She was looking for a weapon.
He turned his body, fully facing her.
And she stared at him.
Yet, slowly, but surely, she came to him like a lamb to the water.
She took the paper from him, delicate fingers curling over the textured page, letting her eyes move over the words.
And she knew.
She was taken back for a moment, when her eyes fell back upon this man.
It had been her eighteenth birthday. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her fifth time crying that day.
She found herself hiding in a church, knowing it was the last place her family would suspect her to be hiding. She seated herself on a pew, eventually falling onto the kneeler. She hadn't prayed since her brother's funeral. She hadn't prayed in two years, yet her fingers laced together. Leaning her head forward, she touched her hands to her forehead, as if connecting her "prayer hands" to her head would amplify the sound of her prayers, as if the god she was supposed to believe in would finally hear her.
She didn't know if she stayed there for minutes or hours, but somewhere in that time, she'd begun crying. Sobs began wrecking through her body until she could no longer hear anything except her own sorrows. She hadn't heard the sounds of heel's striking the tiled floors until she heard the woman's voice.
"What do you think you're doin'?"
When she looked up, she saw her grandmother, staring down at her with a coldness she hadn't always knew.
"Praying," she answered brokenly, wiping her eyes. Crying was unacceptable in her family. She could still hear her mother's voice in her youth, echoing in her ears, saying, 'Stop crying, or I'll give you something to really cry about.'
"Why would you do that?" her grandmother asked. She could remember how confused she was. Her grandmother was always leaning towards being too zealous. She couldn't find words in time. "Don't you know?"
"Know what, Ama?"
"God will not hear you," her grandmother said. "John 9:31 'Now we know that god heareth not sinnners'. He will not answer you."
She could remember a time when her grandmother was kind, but now the woman was just like everyone else. Her grandmother left her with a desperation for what everyone wants - love, affection, attention.
How deeply her grandmother's words cut her.
She could still feel the pain resting on her chest.
Her grandmother scoffed, shaking her head, disgust in her eyes.
Looking back now, Bella thought maybe she was right to. Maybe her grandmother saw exactly who she would run to in the end.
"Best go and hide elsewhere. You may plead for redemption, but you won't find it here. He won't answer to someone like you."
And she didn't.
She ran and hid herself far from the church, from the eyes of god.
She could remember the sinful feeling that filled her in that moment when she walked out of the church, abandoning faith in one that never seemed to answer her.
She remembered that feeling in this moment, when she looked at Dr. Lecter, seeing that same smile that took her by storm.
"Your Psychological Evaluation. You're totally functional and more or less sane," he said, his voice sounding more seductive than she remembered it.
She studied him for a moment, understanding that if she accepted it, she would be in his debt.
She glanced back at the door, contemplating if it was worth it. She remembered how easy it was to leave. She'd done it more times than she could count. It shouldn't have been hard.
But it was.
All those times before, she had nothing to lose by leaving.
This time she did.
And so, she looked back at him, turning her body fully towards him. If she hadn't walked out of that church all those years ago, she would have prayed that she wouldn't regret this.
"Thank you, Dr. Lecter."
"Would you like to continue, now?"
The price of this rubber stamp would be continuing therapy.
Did Will pay the same price? Or did he simply come to Hannibal of his own volition?
"Of course," she answered, looking back at the two empty chairs.
They were the color of ashes.
How fitting, she thought as she took a seat.
As she settled into her seat, she could almost hear her grandmother's voice.
"You ought run to the devil. He'll be waiting."
And as she looked at him, seated like a king across from her, she knew it.
I ran to the devil, and he was waiting.
Okay, so initially, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but I really wanted to put something out since I didn't last week... Or the week before that...
But, in my defense, I was AP testing! And this week is finals!
So, I hope you guys don't hate me too much for cutting this shorter than I intended, but I promise the next chapter will be just as... Eventful?
In the next chapter, I'm looking forward to introducing Alana and Abigail to this story so... Stick with me?
Once again, I am so thankful for people reading this! Especially those who reviewed because they really motivate me to continue, to know people enjoy this!
That being said, thank you all, and I hope you stay.