After what felt like forever, this fic will get back on its tracks.
Sorry and thank you for all those who will keep on reading this after all this time! Hope you like this new chapter and those that will come next.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and blablabla.

As usual, reviews and critics are much much much appreciated :)

Enjoy :D

Will woke with a start, sitting up abruptly, sheets rustled from his restless sleep and clothes hanging from his chest, damp with sweat. He blinked a few times in the dark, taking in the surroundings while trying to calm his ragged breath and frantic heart, remembering only a few seconds later where he was.

Groaning, he pressed the heels of his palms on his eyes until seeing stars and let out a long trembling breath. What were those dreams? Ok, they were actually better than the ones he usually had: flashbacks of murders committed by others in all their gory details, with him sometimes being the perpetrator, sometimes the helpless victim. He always had a hard time shaking those obscene dreams off him, but these ones...these ones he couldn't forget for an entire different reason.

The cut on his forehead was throbbing, his head feeling both light and heavy at the same time, every muscle in his body aching. He wasn't surprised, after having crashed into a tree it was the least he could expect as an aftereffect. Damn, he was lucky it hadn't gone worse.

Will let himself fall against the mattress, eyes still shut and covered, and breathed out. His hands ran down his scruffy cheeks and came to a halt with the fingertips barely touching his lips, a lingering pressure burned deep in them, the ghost of a kiss. He gulped soundly, feeling heat spreading on his cheeks and goosebumps on his forearms. Stiffly, he shifted on the side and blinked in the dark of the room, a pale shadow of light barely peeking from under the door.

Despite the uneasiness deeply set in his gut, he couldn't fight the exhausted feeling that washed over him, lulling him to sleep, gradually silencing his screaming thoughts. He didn't fight his heaving eyelids, an edge of curiousness accompanying him into a deep sleep once again.

In the morning he couldn't tell if the hands he had felt caressing his face between wake and sleep were a leftover from his dreams or real.

After having shared a rich and sumptuous breakfast and undergone a checkup and a change of bandages, Will would have wanted nothing more than to continue their conversation from the previous night, aching for clarity and a reasonable explanation for all that's been birthed from his mind in the last days. Sure, he'd been derisive of even the possibility that had been nudging the recess of his mind since Hannibal had mentioned King Arthur, and he sure wasn't gonna put it into words, the absurdity of it laughable, but even so he couldn't help but be curious about it, like a piece of a puzzle that could possibly fit and could as well not.

Sadly, fate wouldn't have him have his way with things, for Jack called him before Hannibal was even done placing the new gauze on his forehead: another body had been discovered, and his presence was needed as soon as he could get there.

"I'm afraid I have to leave" Will told him, as soon as Jack hung up.

"Jack confides in your abilities, would have surprised me hadn't you gotten any call from him."

"There's a body, there's a call?"

"There's a body, there's a call" Hannibal agreed, the ghost of a smile upturning the corners of his lips, his hands pressing lightly on the plaster to keep it in place on his forehead, before descending slowly onto his cheeks. Firmly, they made Will tilt his head up, meeting Hannibal's gaze. "You might feel some mild aches in your body due to the accident, but nothing that would incapacitate you. Since your car isn't up to function, I have to suggest either a taxi or someone from the FBI to come pick you up: I would drive you, but I'm afraid my first patient will be here before I get the chance to be back."

"Oh no, I wouldn't ask that of you. I troubled you enough already."

"Let me assure you, Will, having you was no trouble at all."

Will managed to smiled at him, lowering his gaze and doing so freeing himself from the warm grasp of Hannibal's hands. As he stood up from the same stool he had occupied only a few hours before, the lingering feeling on his cheeks almost had him raise his hand to touch them, to rub it away with his own, for it reminded him too much of the firm cage that had him trapped while warm lips and scruffy cheeks slid against his.

He didn't mention his last dream, nor the previously discussed ones as he gathered his things and called for a cab: as much as he would have liked to (of course skipping on some details), that was a conversation that was not to be started only to be interrupted after only a few minutes by the arrival of his ride.

As expected, the cab honked outside the door after just a short while.

"Goodbye Will. Till next time."

"Yes, goodbye. And thank you. For everything."

"Don't be late for our next appointment" Hannibal teased with a light smirk.

Huffing out a chuckle and a "I won't" Will waved a little goodbye and went out, into the cold morning and into another chilling day. Into another crime scene.

As expected, the case was as complex as it's always been, corpses broken and arranged to form exquisite works of art, gory and beautiful, a heavy reminder that the Chesapeake Ripper was still on the loose, and not one step closer to be caught.

The feeling of impotence weighted terribly on Will, for yes, he could sense and revive how it's all been done, but that hasn't been of any help in the investigation so far, only making him soak up the killer's mind a bit more every time he could see his work and get lost in it. As the saying goes, once you open a door you're able to peek and see what's on the other side, but you can't control what comes through…and sometimes you cannot even close the door anymore.

Jack for his part seemed equally frustrated, if not even more, since he had to worry about Will's mental state on top of it all, but on the plus side, his mind was solid and firm as a rock, as 'bedrock' as he used to say.

As days went on, Will kept himself occupied between classes and other cases that required his empathy to get a push in the right direction. As Hannibal had said, his body had started aching from the impact, a dull pain settled deep in his bones, every move reminding him what happened a few days prior, and that he was in need of a new car for his was still at the mechanic's.

One late evening, as he lied exhausted among his dogs, fingers buried in their thick fur, Will let his mind wander for he was too tired to keep it reigned. He thought about all those dreams, those people, those times he had no recognition of, but also so familiar…those faces, he felt, were family to him, closer than any blood tie. Yet, he didn't know them. He knew them, but at the same time didn't. It was both frustrating and disheartening.

With a groan, he took up and went to bed, removing his clothes but not bothering to fold them, and turned off the lights. Pulling the duvet over his chest, Will let out a long sigh and tried to quiet his mind for a moment: what was he to do about the matter?

Avoiding it hadn't worked so far, for those flashes of another life had kept appearing in his dreams, sometimes barely images, sounds, smells, flavors, sometimes full-on scenes that played in front of his eyes like a recital with him as the main actor, but barely enough to leave him with tons of questions. He hadn't had the time nor the occasion to speak with Hannibal again about all this, so his brain kept running on empty, not going anywhere, always rummaging on the few memories he had, all so feeble he felt they were about to escape from his grasp were he to get distracted.

'This isn't going anywhere' he thought to himself, 'it feels like I'm peeking through the curtains that separate stage and audience, only getting fragments and pieces but not understanding the plot.'

In the dark quiet of the room that seemed to engulf him and swallow him whole, feeling as safe as he could feel with raging murderers on the loose (he knew better than to think that four walls were enough to stop any of them if they were to target him directly), in the intimacy of the night, a urge came to him.

"Galahad" he murmured, his voice barely audible, the name foreign only on his lips. He tried to visualize his reflection as he saw it in the water bowl and in the mirror, with the unforgettable beard and unruly, well, unrulier hair, and tried again. "Galahad" he repeated, "Galahad" again and again and again he kept on going, like a mantra that would eventually make sense to him but that only succeeded in making the name sound like a jumble of sounds with no meaning, as it always happens when you repeat a single word countless times.

Huffing out of frustration he finally gave up, deciding that that had been the most idiotic way to spend the last ten or so minutes, and turned on the side closing his eyes again. Despite his exhaustion, falling asleep was always hard for him, but in the end managed to quiet his mind long enough for oblivion to wash over him and, as his eyelids got heavier, for a split second it didn't feel like he was in his bed anymore.