CHAPTER SEVEN: SUGAR QUILLS PART ONE

Hannibal Lecter's P.O.V

It was the white stick. Such an innocuous object. As Hannibal and Hemlock made their way across the landing of the Hobbs home, past the three stags heads mounted on mahogany, Alana Bloom sauntering out from the darkened room off to the side in front of them, none the wiser to the pair, Abigail Hobbs lurching up the stairs they were all converging on, ashen and dewy-eyed, blood on her hands, it was the white stick Hemlock carried with her that finally emphasized that Hemlock Potter, as Hannibal first thought when he had first met her, was irrevocably exceptional.

You see, Hemlock didn't have it on her. Not in her hair. Not up her cropped sleeves. Not strapped to her side or hidden in shoe. Heretofore, as Alana Bloom's head began to turn, towards the stairs and Abigail with her blood soaked hands, as Hannibal himself took a single crisp step forward to intercept and incapacitate Alana, Hannibal saw it appear. Her wrist flicked, like one would with flicking open a butterfly knife, and there, with a small crack, between her fingers, appeared the white bone stick, right out of thin air.

The lone step was all Hannibal had time to take before Hemlock was in movement, swishing the stick in an intricate pattern, so fast it was hard to keep track of, as light, so lambent and burning, as ruddy as the congealing blood on Abigail's hands, came flashing from the tip, hurtling through the stagnant taut air, crashing like a wave into Alana Bloom's back. The force of the hit, had it been corporeal, should have sent Alana flying into the bricked wall beside her, or down the stairs head first, but none of that sort happened. It merely… Went into her. Absorbed. Ingested. The good doctor simply crumbled to the floor, like a puppet with her strings cut.

"She's fine. Just unconscious. Strange things, Hannibal. Remember? Strange things."

Not here, and not right now. Later. That was what Hemlock was really asking. Still, Hannibal could not stop his gaze from lingering on that arm, that delicate wrist, white stick still in nimble fingers. Piano hands, many would call them. No. There was no string or strap on her arm, something tied to the wrist so she could pull the stick free from her biceps should she twist the joint a certain way. Neither was there any belt or pocket around her side that could have hidden the stick. Nothing but air, and there, lingering in the space between them, an acute increase in that zingy, mouthwatering smell Hemlock obliviously carried with her everywhere she went. Moreover, even if the stick had been hidden or concealed, what was the light? How did it come from a carved limb of wood? No, Hannibal quickly refuted. The stick was a conduit. Hemlock was the source. Strange things indeed.

"What… How… I… There..."

Abigail started to babble, frozen near the top deck of the stairs like the doe she and her father had hunted, in human and animal form. Yet, Hemlock would not move, gazing steadily at him, unwavering and, for once, patient. It was his move. Accept this objectionable twist of actuality, or thrust and question, flip Hemlock's chessboard on its head by stalling her in such a crucial time of action. Hannibal would admit, the latter was tempting. Hannibal would be able to witness what she would do on her feet, confined by time, with an obviously phrenetic and deteriorating teen. How well would Hemlock be able to manipulate Abigail with Hannibal acting as confused and frantic as she? Abigail would not be so easy to sculpt if he too seemed weary and distressed by Hemlock. Abigail trusted him, she would take Hannibal's lead, and if Hannibal was to condemn Hemlock, act the part of scared cattle… Well, wouldn't that be the test?

Nevertheless, the former proved more delectably enticing. It would allow Hannibal to see what Hemlock had planned since standing on the decking, since witnessing the copycat, him, for what he was worth, rose petals and anthrax, she had said, and to see all the dominoes she had set come toppling down in a sequence he had not saw coming. Another rarity. Additionally, it would gain him the one thing he wanted most. Trust. And trust, as most knew, was the gateway to familiarity, and familiarity bled into friendliness, friendliness was one line away from closeness, and that, with time and patience, and trust, morphed into intimacy.

Hemlock, by nature and nurture, was a guarded individual. Exceedingly guarded. All of Hannibal's attempts so far, at constructing any sort of affinity between the two, had been proven in vain. In point of fact, she seemed abhorrently detested by it all. Until tonight. Trust did not come easy to her. He supposed it never had. But here she was, looking at him, asking him to trust her in not so many words, and in turn, by offering trust, he would gain it back and that was the door handle turning, the crack opening, just a slither. Hannibal gave a slight incline of the head. Hemlock was off towards the stairs before his chin righted itself, and through the open door Hemlock had left cracked open inside herself, Hannibal would slink through. Hemlock may not have been a naturally patient individual, but Hannibal was.

"Abigail, what have you done?"

Abigail could only stutter at Hemlock's incredulous question. Her tone was pitched a fraction too high, a shade pantomime shock rather than true stupor, but, again, it was a good mimicry even if it did ring a bit hollow.

"I… I… I..."

The stick was still in Hemlock's hands, thumb lapping at the polished handle, languid wrist and, Hannibal knew, there was more to come, more to see, more to know. The police officer outside, dazed and blank, until a click of the fingers, Alana at their feet, breath swelling steady in her bosom, but out cold. Hypnosis? No. The triggers were too separate and, as a practitioner of hypnosis himself, Hannibal could not connect the apparent reactions to any practices he had preformed himself. Drugs? No. Hemlock could have reached Alana, dabbled in her food, but knowing which police officer would find Freddie Lounds, in fact, knowing Freddie would be there at all was improbable, and Hannibal had seen, with his own eyes, the bright light and snap of the fingers, and there was no way Hemlock had gotten to his food without coming to the understanding he was the copycat.

So, Hannibal was not drugged. His pulse, as always, stood at a steady 72. His vision was clear. His senses untainted. He was not under hypnosis. Hannibal had never hallucinated before, or been prone to bouts of psychosis, induced or otherwise. This was no delusion. Hemlock could, and had, clicked her fingers and given a man's mind back after somehow taking it away, flicked a stick at a woman's back and stolen her consciousness, and with the stick in her hand still, there was more to come. There was one solution.

As any good doctor, or scientist, you had to see all the variables, understand the limitations, observe the actions in progress to come to a conclusion, as outlandish as that conclusion might be, and so, Hannibal had to see more. Ah. His heart stood at 78 now. He was excited. Extremely. Hannibal slid in behind Hemlock, staring down at Abigail.

"Show us what happened."

And show me what you can do, Hemlock. In a daze, caught between disillusionment and stupefaction, Abigail retraced her steps back down the stairs again, this time, followed by Hemlock and, of course, Hannibal. The body was in the front room, between the carpet and the open plan dining room beside it. Nicholas Boyle was spread eagled on the floor, plaid shirt torn, blood pooling around him, cooling, a serrated hunting knife carelessly dropped beside him, into his own growing puddle of blood. His eyes stared listlessly up at the ceiling, mouth open in a small fissure of a gap, never to close and never to blink again.

"He was going to kill me."

Abigail's voice was glacial, far-away, disassociated. She took across the distance to the body, just beside his blood, and fell to her knees, though those childlike eyes never strayed from the large glass patio doors, staring out into the night lit woods. Hemlock stayed close by the door of the stairs, watching the girl, and Hannibal himself stood behind her, in the shadows, a step above, watching Hemlock in an almost perverse train of voyeurism. Hannibal spoke softly. Not once did his eyes leave Hemlock.

"Was he?"

Hemlock had known Nicholas Boyle would come tonight. Perhaps, like Alana, the police officer, she had implanted that idea into his inferior mind. Had she used the stick? Her fingers? No, too easy for Hemlock. She enjoyed the game as much as he did. She had used only her tongue. Hannibal wondered what other suggestions and dark little innuendo's that tongue had given. What that tongue would taste like. Personally, Hannibal would pair it with an Adoboloco sauce. Or perhaps with saliva, still attached, still alive. Just a nip, a slice of fang, gentle, a taste. Hemlock was a spicy enough individual all by herself. Then again, she might very well bite his own tongue out just for the hell of it. He couldn't quite guess.

"He could have killed me in the woods. He didn't. He only got scared and knocked me out."

So that was the angle Hemlock was aiming for. Formulate Nicholas Boyle into some unstable, convulsive threat, to leave Abigail and the police sure of his violence, and then, when Abigail was most distressed, contort the narrative into Nicholas being the victim, a poor, hapless chap Abigail had needlessly slaughtered. In her shattered state, Abigail would buy into the story, her guilt forcing her to do so. Then it struck him. This was a two sided attack. Abigail would have to, if, say, Nicholas Boyle's body was not hidden and instead given over to the police, exasperate the story of the unhinged Boyle brother to solidify her own innocence, and in doing so, Abigail was, unwittingly, creating a scape-goat for Hemlock to use herself, for the murder of Marissa Schurr.

Boyle had simply lost it, murdered Abigail's friend, who he had seen the previous day, sent a 'message' to the copycat, which had killed his sister, declaring war for the vengeance of a lost sibling, and in the end, gone after the daughter of the man so very much like the man who had slain his sister. All the while, Hemlock could continue on with her work, her now private correspondence and hunt with the copycat, without the prying eyes of the FBI or the police breathing down her neck. There it was. Pretty as a parcel wrapped in a silk bow. All ends tied.

Apart from Will Graham. Will would see right through this. He would see right through everything, given time. And, given Will's unique abilities, this would only ring his alarm bells louder. Hemlock knew that. She wasn't trying to deceive him, Hannibal thought, she was only buying time. Enough time to get her to the copycat that, in reality, was standing right beside her this very moment.

But what would happen when the clock struck twelve? When Will saw the truth? Would Hemlock do what was necessary to protect herself and kill Will? No. Hannibal did not think so. She liked Will. More than she was willing to admit and more than she was comfortable with, and more than even she knew or could verbalize. All this, the murders and games, had, in fact, been for Will. Did she know why she was doing this? Again, Hannibal didn't think so, not in its full sincerity, because, standing where he was, knowing what he knew, Hannibal thought this rather looked like a courting gift. For Will or the copycat, however, was the debatable recipient. Hemlock had proven to be more likely to kill those she felt for, Tom Riddle being a point in fact.

Hannibal's heart rate was now at 82, the highest it had been in years. Hemlock kicked away from the door, rolling her hair up and away from her face, stabbing the white stick through the balled mass of curls, holding it into place. Slinking over to Abigail's side, Hemlock squatted down just shy of her side, towards her back, lifting a nimble hand to gently lay on Abigail's quaking shoulder. And, Hannibal thought, what would Will do when he knew the truth? Would Hemlock be another Garret Jacob Hobbs? No. Like Hemlock, like Hannibal, Will did not do easy. What a complex dance they were all beginning.

"Look at him, Abigail. Look at what you did. He was just mourning his sister. The sister your father killed. He was scared and hurting and now, here he is, cold and gone. Gutted like the stags you hunted."

Abigail's trembling picked up, blurring her outline as she fought against the current dragging her under. It was pointless. That current was Hemlock and, Hannibal had seen first hand, she had a strong grip when she wanted to.

"He was going to kill me, I know-"

"No, he wasn't. He only wanted answers. This was not self defence. You slit him from navel to larynx. You butchered him."

Hemlock was laying it on a bit thick, in his humble opinion, but the harsh tug on Abigail's quaking and aching guilt was working. The wound itself, from Hannibal's vantage point, and what he could see through the matting and soaked clothing, was a from kidney and had, yes, there was the flap of plaid, slid up a few inches, likely from the struggle, to rest under ribcage before the knife was pulled free. It was probable that the knife had slipped in the conflict after the initial stab. Nevertheless, Hemlock's own slip gave Hannibal a little morsel to feast on. When she and Will had been working on the inelegantly named mushroom killer, she had only refereed to the cavity as chest and neck, where the mushrooms of victim number four had been most prominent. Now there was a larynx in her vocabulary. His girl had been studying anatomy. Readying for this? Or just curious? Questions, questions, questions.

"I didn't. You have to believe me."

Hemlock's hand fluttered away from Abigail's shoulder to her hair, fiddling with a dark brown lock by the side of her head. Her hand, not once, touched skin. Hemlock was still adverse to physical contact, even the slightest of brushes, so then… Ah. The pictures of the family on the mantle place. Abigail's mother, in the photo's depicting the two, had always had a hand in her daughters hair, quite close to where Hemlock had put her own, a comforting gesture from a comfortable mother. Hemlock was drawing on close memories, ghosts Abigail missed, wearing their skin. Her masks were, as Will said, masterfully crafted in such short time. The photo's had only been turned over and put back an hour before, while they were out. She had only this moment, these few seconds of being in this room, to pick it apart.

"I know. I believe you. I always have. But look at him, Abigail. Do you really think the police are going to believe you did this in self defence? Do you know why I came here? Why Crawford sent both me and Will? We were meant to be looking for clues for your involvement into your father's murders. Crawford already suspects it. So does Alana. I tried holding them back. I tried helping you. But… This… They're going to see this and all they'll see you as is an accessory to the crimes of your father."

And Hemlock was using this mask to show Abigail she was on her side, she had been all along, the diligent mother caring for her shivering lamb. Hannibal, if Hemlock had not been present, would have done the same and, here, there, everywhere, was another reflection. They were in a hall of mirrors. Was she conscious of the fact she was copying his behavioural patterns, or unaware that she had accidental soaked him in? Hemlock's gift, mapping and copying behavioural patterns, it seemed, was as double edged as Will's empathy and imagination. They took in, sometimes unwittingly, and it became a part of them, they took a bit of the darkness back every time they left the shadows for the light of day to play at being normal people. And there Hannibal was, in Hemlock, whether she knew it or not, already a part of her. His heart stood at 89 now, the highest since Inspector Popil and the crude butcher, back when he was Hemlock's age, back when he was new to the game too.

"I wasn't. I wasn't! I-… I-"

Hemlock cut her off with a soft hushing noise.

"I know. But I know how this ends. They'll blame you like they blamed me for Tom. Only, you didn't kill your dad, you didn't do anything to stop it. Will Graham did. That, killing Tom, protected me, but you have no protection. All the blame, all the anger, all the hate, it has to go somewhere and it will go to you. You saw the crowd outside. Didn't you notice the graffiti? It said cannibals, not cannibal. Plural, Abigail. You heard the woman too. They're going to come for you Abigail. They're going to burn you at the stake for this."

Now that Hannibal had seen, for himself, that Hemlock did take in the behaviour of those around her, like Will absorbed emotions, adopted it as her own, inadvertently, the crack inside her for Hannibal to slip through ruptured just an inch more and Hannibal could see so clearly, in his mind, Hemlock for who she was. A still pond reflecting anything that peeped into its depths, and like a pond, it had no say in what mirror it took, what features it bounced back, what rippling face it wore. Even here, her speech had taken Abigail's broken tincture. Sentences not fully formed, chopped and crudely stitched together, yet, when she spoke to him, her words were long, elegant, paintings described through metaphor and sweet analogies. And she was completely unaware of it all. The meaning behind it all was her own, she had her own personality, opinion and beliefs, but she could only ever act through others behaviour, mapped and stored away in that brilliant mind of hers.

As Will had difficulty identifying what foul emotions where his or who he tracked, Hemlock could not determine what actions were exclusively her own or those she had caught in her own hunts. What would happen if she was solely around him for a long period of time? Or Will? Mmm. He would have to have a discussion with Doctor Bloom and Crawford when they arrived back in Baltimore. Emotions spilled like ink on blood splotches, and then sucked back in, mingling into one, black and red to burgundy, and it was beautiful. 91.

Well, Hannibal had always worked in sounders of three, did he not? Here was another trinity. Hannibal Will. Hemlock. He rather liked the thought of that. A tad too much, but that introspection could come later. Hemlock would like that too, with her insatiable need for 'balance'. Will would not be far behind. Where one went, the other followed, and Will, as much as he denied it to himself and to anyone who would eventually ask, for all his already improper thoughts and feelings, had come to, rather inappropriately, desire Hemlock as well. Hannibal saw that all too clearly too. And, in the end, it would not take much work, would it? Hannibal already had a step in the door, in Will's emotions, in Hemlock's behaviour, right there, he was already in, and the two were already bleeding into one another, a limbic system rooted in mind and heart, and he, the lizard part of the brain that secured survival and instinct.

"It was an accident… I tried… But he grabbed me and there was a knife in my hand and… I didn't..."

Hemlock pulled away from Abigail, waving her hand around them.

"I can make this all go away."

Finally, Abigail looked at Hemlock.

"How?"

Yes. That was the most pressing question, wasn't it? How? If Hannibal was to do, or say, or act in any way, he first needed to know Hemlock's limitations, abilities, anything she could use against him. Know thy enemy, or, in this case, know what thy covet.

"You saw me upstairs, didn't you? The red light?"

Abigail nodded and Hannibal crept into the room, his shoes silent on the carpeted floor as he settled behind the pair. Once again, Hemlock clicked and the change was instant. No more blood. Not in a large puddle on the carpet. Not splashed in an arch on the wall. No where. Not a drop. Only on Abigail it stood starkly in the dark light of the living room, a reminder left of her sins. The stick was a conduit. It was Hemlock. 95. Mischa in a tin bathtub.

"I'm special. Like Tom. Like the rare few others out there. I can do things, Abigail. I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if, I want to."

The vases on the mantle floated up, dancing in the air, as did the dining room chairs, Boyle's body, the cushions on the sofa, books laying on coffee table, up, up and away, swirling like a forming tornado above their heads as Hannibal, on instinct, dropped down on his haunches to miss the flying bible nearly smacking into his temple as it flew across the room to join its dancing brethren.

The patio door, open just an inch, allowed in a grass snake, a green little fellow of shiny scales and gleaming fangs, as it slithered over to Hemlock who, without ever taking her eyes away from Abigail, lowered her hand for the creature to coil and wrap around, hissing as Hemlock hissed back. Then it contorted, unnaturally, squirming, more earthworm than regal snake, hissing and crying as it, with a snap, seemingly imploded in on itself, and in Hemlocks hand was nothing but a writhing ball of bloodied scale and shattered rib and spine bone. With another blink, it was on fire, ashes in the air, gone, not even a smear of residue on her palm.

Then everything was flying back, right back to where it came from, settling and thunking, the blood back in startling contrast and hue, and no one would have ever known, if they did not see it with their own eyes, these things of everyday mundane life once flew and vanished on the touch of magic. The air hung heavy with that smell of crackling energy, so much so, it was all Hannibal could breathe, in dark rattling eyes, Hemlock was all he could see. He had been right. If magic had a smell, he had thought, it would be this and… 101, the taste of Mischa on his tongue.

"And I can make problems go away. As if they never happened. I can make it all go away. I can point the anger and the hate to someone else. I can help you, if you ask me to. All you have to do is ask, Abigail. You have a choice. You can tell them you were defending yourself, when you gutted this man, or we can make this problem someone else's."

This changed everything. The sounder of three, the trinity, was no longer an option, not to Hannibal. It was the only conclusion. Hannibal had always been a man of science, facts and logic. Magic was a long disputed contemptuous idea birthed from ignorance and superstition. Nevertheless, Hannibal trusted his senses more than anything else. He knew what he saw. What he felt. What he smelt. As implausible as it was, there, before him, was something outside his grasp of understanding. Of course, there was likely an entirely scientific explanation waiting to be discovered, which he would come to himself, perhaps a mutation in the genes? Atomic manipulation? A subsect of evolution that allowed one strain of humanity to germinate differently?

Either way, without this knowledge currently, all Hannibal could call it was magic. And he craved it. The possibilities. They say, when you get older, the world gets smaller, and to some extent Hannibal had found this saying to be true. Everything became routine, quantifiable, blissfully boring. Yet, with a flick of her pretty wrist, Hemlock had atrophied the world larger than Hannibal had ever thought possible, with so much he had not thought, so much to experience and understand, to see and do. And he wanted it all. He wanted Hemlock.

"Can you… Can you make… him go away?"

Abigail asked as she gestured towards Boyle, back on the floor, in the exact position he had been in previously before his little flying trip. Hemlock smiled.

"Yes. But, we shouldn't do that. Remember the crowd outside? The plural? The anger? There needs to be a diversion, an outlet, something to take their focus away from you so you can go back to having a normal life. Doesn't that sound nice, Abigail? A normal life filled with normal things and normal days? No more living in the shadow of your father? I can give you that if you ask."

Abigail stuttered, an injured seal bleeding in the vast sea, and like the great white she was, Hemlock sniffed out the blood.

"How do we..."

And bit.

"Freddie Lounds told Nicholas where you were, Abigail. She gave him the address and aimed him right at you just for a story to print. That's all you are to her. A story. She's dangerous. She'll keep asking questions. She'll keep digging. She won't stop. She'll find out what you did. She's a problem. And what do we do with problems?"

There it was. Hemlock would use Freddie as a patsy for this, for Abigail, and in turn, both Nicholas and Abigail would be a whipping boy for herself, and with Nicholas dead, there would be no questioning for him, and her fall-guy, apart from Will, was air tight. That was why she wanted Freddie's card, why she told the redhead to stay close and wait for her call. Dominoes falling one by one. He was seeing the pattern now. A noose swinging on a scaffold. The hangman coming to call. Hannibal wanted that too. He wanted everything Hemlock could give. He had always had a big appetite.

"We make them go away."

Abigail answered and the last domino fell.

"Good girl. So, how about we make both Nicholas and Freddie go away? How about we aim that hatred somewhere it is deserved to be? I can do that, if you ask for my help."

"Why? Why do you want to help me?"

Hemlock's mouth opened, but then stalled. Blink. Blink. Blink. Closed. She looked confused. Truly befuddled. She knew she was, in a round about way, doing this for Will, while also feeding into her own appetite for balance and bloodshed, but why was she doing this for Will? Why? Hemlock, by the momentary shock and confusion, did not know herself. Hannibal did. He had known since watching the two circling around, bouncing off one another back in Crawford's office. Earth and lightning touching down, electric attraction in action. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be as amusing to give the game away too soon, and so, Hannibal kept silent. Hemlock's mask was strapped back on and she was looking as innocent as a child with cookie crumbs all over her mouth and sticky chocolate on her fingers.

"Why wouldn't I?"

Hemlock delved a hand into her pocket, pulling out Freddie's business card. She flicked it around her fingers, like one would bounce a coin between knuckles, around and over, showing Abigail the face and number before snatching it away in dizzying intervals. Yes. No. Yes. No. Make a decision. The clock is ticking. It was silent for a long while before Abigail managed to pull her gaze away from the swinging card, deadlocking with Hemlock's own emerald eyes.

"Can you help me, please?"

Hemlock smiled lightly as she stood up and walked over to the landline perched on the side table by the living room sofa, plucking it up from the cradle. She scanned the card once before tapping in the numbers, burning the card with nothing but a thought after memorizing the number, holding the phone to her ear. It rang only three times before there was a muffled voice from the other side.

"Miss Lounds? This is Hemlock, I was wondering if you could meet me around the back of the Hobbs house? You can? Brilliant."

Freddie Lounds P.O.V

"Please, stop! Don't do this!"

Freddie Lounds's heart thundered in her chest, more rapid than even her skittering steps. The twigs and sharp pebbles dug into the soft skin of her knees as she stumbled up the drive-way, falling, crashing, wincing as the hand in her hair wound tighter, heaving her up. The hand twisted viciously, snapping her head back and Freddie let out a short, keen cry of pain as her scalp thrummed at the pressure. Why was no one doing anything? She was screaming, pleading, and the police were just down the driveway, right there, and they weren't turning around, looking for the cause of the screams and pleas, as if she and Hemlock were invisible. Her face loomed out of the dark night around them, half aflame by the orange porch-light. But nothing, nought, could outshine those unnatural green eyes.

"If you don't stop struggling, I'm going to remove a limb. Do you understand?"

Hemlock Potter looked so calm, her voice mildly chiding like a mother speaking to her babe and Freddie couldn't put the young woman she had met in that hospital room to the same person who had lured her here, dragged her through the woods, threatened bodily mutilation as if telling her if she didn't eat her greens, it was time out. Before Freddie could plead some more, ask, beg, damn, even snivel, the shorter, younger woman was dragging her towards the old Hobbs's residence front door. Just as they landed on the porch, Freddie nearly losing balance once more, the front door swung open and Freddie nearly cried from relief.

"Abigail! Oh, Abigail! Help, call the police!... Abigail?"

The brunette stood there, watching, leaning against the door, and it was then that Freddie saw it. The blood. On her shirt. On her hands, up Abigail's arms. Hemlock didn't hesitate, releasing her hold on Freddie's hair, she locked her fingers into the collar of her shirt before Freddie could bolt and was shoving her through the door, down the hall way. Behind her, Freddie could hear Abigail follow and her soft, slightly tremulous voice echoed after them, playing catch up to Hemlocks swift march.

"What are you going to do to her?"

Once again, Freddie cried out as Hemlock came to a doorway and booted her into the room. Freddie fell, her knees flaring in pain, her elbows too as her head bounced off the hardwood flooring. The world swam, so many colours, swirling, dancing and Freddie couldn't find her footing as she scrambled on the floor like a fish. Something wet and thick was making her lose any grip she could form. When the world stopped spinning, Freddie came face to face with reality. The wetness… It was a puddle of cooling blood.

Nicholas Boyle, the brother to the murdered girl, the man Freddie herself had given this exact address to, laid staring blankly at her, stomach split open like a ripe pumpkin. Freddie cried out, tried to push away, but a shoe, Hemlock's, planted itself onto her back and stamped her onto the floor like a butterfly pinned to a collector's parchment paper.

"Nothing she will remember. Now, be quiet. I have to concentrate. The last thing we need right now is for me to botch her memories and leave her a babbling mess that believes she's a goat."

Botch her memories? What was she going to do? What was happening? A story… All Freddie wanted was a story, she never intended for herself to be a part of it, though. With tears blossoming in her eyes, Freddie turned her neck as far as it could and stared up at the woman… Child really, that was keeping her still and trapped.

"You won't get away with this."

Hemlock smiled at her, as she reached up and behind her head, towards her bun and slowly pulled free the long, white stick she had holding her hair up. Her curls flopped down, all tangles and rebellion, as she aimed the tip of the wooden stick right at Freddie's face. It wasn't a knife. It wasn't a gun. Just a stick. A stick! And still, something lurched in Freddie's gut, something screamed in the back of her mind and her blood ran cold. As cold and tauntingly biting as Hemlock's voice had become.

"No… Actually, it will be you who won't get away with this. Look at what you did Freddie… Look at who you killed… You slit him from naval to sternum…"

Freddie's breathing became erratic, her fingers clawing into the wood and the shoe pressed down harder as Hemlock dropped to her haunches to jab the stick into her temple. The wood felt frigid, abnormally so.

"I didn't do anything! I-"

The tip of the stick trailed downwards, curving across Freddie's cheekbone and jawline to tickle at the underneath of her chin before it was savagely butting in, forcing Freddie to tilt her head back unless she wanted the stick to tear into the soft skin there. Not once did Hemlock's gaze ever leave Freddie's own.

"Oh, didn't you? You're a reporter, aren't you? You like good stories. Well, Miss Lounds, you're about to become a headline yourself. How does victims grieving brother slain in struggle with news reporter sound? You did, after all, lead him here."

Freddie's body began to shiver, a tear fell and her mind was jumbled. Run. She needed to get away. Crazy. They were all crazy.

"I-I-… I didn't kill him! I didn't do this! No one will believe you!"

Hemlock chuckled and Freddie wanted to cry as the stick went back to pressing into her temple, grinding.

"They won't have to believe me. They'll believe you when you confess."

No. It wouldn't end like this. It couldn't. Frantically, Freddie's eyes darted around the room looking for anything, anyone to help. They landed on a shadow in the very corner of the living room, a lonely watcher standing guard. Observing. Freddie went to shout, to ask for help, but all her words and pleas died on her tongue as Dr Hannibal Lecter simply cocked his head and smiled. His face, that lopsided grin, those dark eyes, were the last thing Freddie saw before Hemlock was whispering in her ear and the world burst to black.

"Imperio."

Hannibal's P.O.V

"Can you go over your statement once more, Miss Lounds?"

Hannibal canted his head forward as a medic wrapped one of those thin, scratchy grey blankets around his shoulders, giving him the silent nod of dismissal. Standing up from the back of the ambulance, Hannibal stepped down and over to one of the police cars, close enough to the last ambulance to eavesdrop on Freddie Lounds who, strapped to a gurney, was being questioned by two police officers and one of Crawford's men in a cheap beige trench coat. The Hobbs residency was abuzz in movement, officers with torches slinking through dense woods, trying to pick up on trails of blood. The front door opening with a creak as a body bag on chrome wheels was wheeled out by two sickly looking morgue workers. Doctor Alana Bloom in the spare ambulance he had vacated, another medic, light being flickered into her eyes to ensure her concussion wasn't too severe. Abigail Hobbs surrounded by two FBI agents, one handing her a hot paper cup of tea as the other rubbed a hand up and down her back consolingly. Hemlock had the last ambulance of the three, and from his angle, he could neither see nor hear her, though, he supposed, they would be working on her thigh.

"I told you. I was covering the Minnesota Shrike case, I was approached by Nicholas Boyle about my article on his sister. I didn't know how deranged he was. I swear it. I just thought if I gave him the address, if I could be there when he questioned Abigail Hobbs, I could… I could..."

The detective scribbled down a few notes before jabbing back.

"Run a story?"

Freddie Lounds's shoulder was a mess of hastily wrapped bandages, and still, crimson was seeping through the pristine white. Hemlock had really did a number on that joint. Hannibal wouldn't be too surprised if Miss Lounds never regained full mobility from the joint.

"Yes. But then I heard about the murder in the Hobbs cabin. The girl with her head cut off? And I remember… I remember Boyle saying the whole world had snakes in their bellies. Lies. Filled with lies like big pythons and… I was rooting around… I found the morgue report… There was a python sewn alive inside her, Marissa Schurr, wasn't there? I came back, thinking he might attack Abigail, I was going to warn someone, but they kept pushing me behind the police line and no one was listening. I knew he would come back. There was a darkness in his eyes. I was just trying to..."

The snake was a good touch, Hannibal would admit. Only the morgue workers who had conducted the autopsy knew that a python had been stitched inside Marissa Schurr. Even he, Will, and Crawford had not been informed of those turn of events yet. The only ones who could possibly know would be those who had worked on Marissa, the killer, and whoever the killer had told or boasted to. Having Freddie regurgitate the knowledge of the snake, having Nicholas Boyle hint at the happenchance, only secured the conviction in Nicholas Boyle's guilt which was staggeringly being built rapidly.

"So you broke into the Hobbs house?"

"Yes. I snuck around the back and came in through the back door. Dr Bloom was already unconscious and I heard a scream. I ran down stairs and Abigail Hobbs was running past me. Nicholas had a knife and I panicked. He was shouting that he was going to cut the bitches head off."

"And this is the time Miss Potter became involved?"

"Yes. She was on the floor, I think she was stabbed somewhere, the thigh? Her leg was covered in blood, but she got back up, she jumped at him, but he threw her off. Doctor Lecter was getting up too, there was a broken vase beside him. I think Boyle had smashed it over his head on the way down. But Hemlock smashed into him when Boyle threw her off his back and the two went sailing over the sofa and I heard the table smash and-"

Hemlock had been meticulous in setting the stage. Floating the knife, wanting the serrated edges to match her wound should the paramedic's dig too deep, she had flew it into her own right thigh, at an angle she could not hold herself, but could magic, to make it seem as if Nicholas had scrabbled with her, slipped and missed her stomach, stabbing thigh instead. Of course, that was after she had trailed the house, flipping furniture with a wave of her hand, blasting photo frames off walls, and knocking over tables, to display a struggle that had never taken place, not wanting to track her own blood around the house before it was due to be tracked in just the right spots to match the narrative.

She had even snipped a bit of his and her hair and left it, with a spot of their blood, on the corner of the coffee table, over the overturned sofa, where, 'unconscious', the two had been found by police officers in a bed of broken wood and shattered glass. She had even thought of dusting some vase fragments into his hair for the paramedic, who had been tending to his head, to find in the back of the ambulance, which they had and promptly bagged as evidence.

The largest shard had Nicholas Boyle's finger print magicked on. Price would pick that thread up later when he dusted for prints, and Nicholas's guilt would become concrete. However, the bruise on Hannibal's temple was nothing more than an illusion, swished on with Hemlock's stick, wand, she had called it. Yet, the cut to the back of his head, where it had 'struck the corner of the coffee table', as with hers, was real, hesitantly given by Hemlock as she had needed real blood and some real wounds to work with to craft her little narrative.

She had been contrarily apologetic as she had gently parted his hair, held the tip of her stick to his scalp and sliced, deep but not too deep, nothing but a sting, she could make it look deeper and worse than what it truly was, she had said. She had been less hesitant and gentle with her own wounds, rather savage actually, unflinching as she aimed her wand at her own head and blasted with a hot purple light. The blood had dribbled down her neck, settling in her collarbone, Hannibal remembered. Right before they fixed down and played at being asleep, two fallen heroes protecting an innocent girl running for her life. Hemlock was a natural story teller, it seemed. A bit of an aggravating flare for the dramatics, but bluntly poetic in her own way. Vladimir Nabokov intermingled with Mark Twain.

"Boyle was found outside the Hobbs home, in the woods out back. How did he get out there?"

"I told Abigail to run. I threw another vase at him. Got his attention. He chased after me and Abigail ran out the front door. That's when she ran for you. To get help. I tried to run out back, to get to the woods. I thought I could loose him in there."

"But you didn't, did you?"

"No. He caught up to me. I remember him slashing my arm. I remember the pain and a flash of green-… Red. A flash of red. I think it was my own blood. We fell to the floor. He was trying to cut my head off. I was struggling and then we were rolling and..."

"And somehow, Nicholas Boyle ended up with a fatal wound to his abdomen."

"I don't know how. I can't remember much. We were rolling and… The flash of red… My arm..."

Two uniformed officers pulled away from the little group gathered around the body bag, trailing towards the three questioning Freddie Lounds. It was the middle and shortest one that spoke from beneath a bristled moustache, voice aged beyond his years from the cigarettes he smoked consecutively.

"The wreckage in the house matches what she's told us. So does the area in the woods where Boyle's body was found. Abigail Hobbs, Hemlock Potter's, and Doctor Lecter's statements match too. Forensics will tell the rest."

Lounds, for once in her life, sounded afraid and uncertain.

"Am I going to be arrested?"

The leading inspector didn't mince his words, not like he minced his wardrobe with cheap knock-offs from market stalls in hopes of fitting an apery of his department's head, Jack Crawford.

"You need medical treatment for the wound to your shoulder joint, Miss Lounds. However, you will be under police guard until, by medical approval, it is acceptable to bring you into the station for further questioning and, perhaps, to await trail."

The paramedics around her were already unlocking the gurney's legs, kicking up chrome wheels to slide her back into the ambulance.

"It was self defence! He was insane!"

"That will be up for the judge to decide."

The inspector prodded as the two men beside him departed and heaved themselves into the back of the ambulance along with Freddie and the paramedics, the cold, thick doors clanking shut with a crank of the handles locking, cutting off Freddie's frenzied rebuttal. Someone stepped up beside him, their footsteps uneven, one dragging in the gravel. Injured. Right leg. Hemlock. Pulling into his side, close enough their arms nearly brushed, draped in identical grey blankets, the two watched as the ambulance pulled away, Freddie's face streaming with tears through the small glass slats in the back, their last sight as it turned the corner of the drive way.

"I guess you have questions."

Hemlock only spoke when the ambulance was completely out of sight, siren blaring softly in the distance, heading towards the nearest hospital.

"Many."

He could feel her shrug by the warm wash of air by his side.

"Well, I have just been traumatized by another serial killer, the sociopath who butchered Marissa Schurr. I'm sure Alana will push for me to have a therapy session when we get back to Baltimore to talk about my experiences and feelings. Seems like the perfect time for questions. I don't suppose I need to say not to… Well, no one will believe you anyway. That's the positive of being what I am. No one will believe a word you or Abigail say."

There was no threat in her voice. She wasn't warning him. She, in fact, seemed bittersweet about it. No one will believe you, and I am sorry they won't. It was like she had told them the greatest joke of all time, only, they would never get to share the punchline. Not with any soul but herself, and she was sorry she had curbed them that way, sorry she had ruined every other joke forever, sorry she had come along and smashed their tiny world into flyspeck shards. Perhaps Abigail would feel that way. Hannibal didn't. He was salivating.

"And what is it exactly that you are?"

Hannibal looked down at her, so small, so unmindfully powerful,barely up to his shoulder, still staring out at the road, her green eyes glinting red in the throbbing lights of the cop cars around them. The blood was still on her, black in this light, painting half her face and thin neck onyx. Red eyes and black skin, she was half monster, half human. A Nephilim rendered in pulsing light.

"What are any of us, doctor Lecter? Captured by this fancy, where all that we see, or seem, is but a dream within a dream."

Edgar Allen Poe; A dream within a dream. A poem dramatizing the confusion felt by the narrator as he watches the important things in life slip away, realizing he cannot hold on to even one grain of sand, he is led to his final question to whether all things are just a dream. Hemlock's adrenalin was waning now, the thrill of it all, the chase, and Hemlock was only left with the question that had plagued her in the house. Why? It would eat at her, Hannibal knew, this phantom why hanging above her head like a noose. The Noose. She was changing, had changed, and she didn't, or couldn't, understand the why of it. She couldn't understand the why of Will Graham, why she had reacted so impulsively to the perceived threat to him, why it should bother her at all if he was threatened by this 'copycat', or why she had trusted Hannibal with what she had tonight, or why she was becoming what she had always been becoming.

Why. Why. Why. Like the grains of sand, it was slipping through her fingers. She was slipping through her fingers, the old her dead, and that, well, it was a hard realisation to come to, as Hannibal had to, once, struggle to find after Mischa. She would get there, he knew, as he had once done. Hannibal lifted his own hand and held it out to her, palm up, fingers splayed, pale in the light. He would help her find the why.

"You're not losing anything, yourself included, but finding. It is hard, and it hurts, and it breaks you in ways you never thought you could be broken. You'll find yourself doing and saying things you never thought you would ever say or do. But you will grow. You will be you. And you'll find your world a bigger and brighter place for it. You are not alone Hemlock. Not any more. Tom is gone, but I am here."

It was the most truthful Hannibal had been in years. And Hannibal would not be so achingly alone either. Not with Hemlock and Will. Three of the same. Balance. Slowly, Hemlock reached up and clasped his hand, fingers locking through his own like weeds breaking through pavement, tight but thin. It was the first time she had willingly touched someone, from what Hannibal had seen, of her own violation without any ulterior motive. Only comfort and acceptance. Their clasped hands fell to their side, meshed still, and Hannibal shirked off his blanket to rest over both their shoulders, heat bleeding into more heat in the chilly night air, their own little cocoon of sanctuary.

"I'll tell you everything. But later. Away. Where the ground and trees don't have ears. At the moment, I'm just… Tired."

Hemlock sank into his side, fitting underneath his arm, the high rise of the blanket from his taller shoulders cutting her face in half, only green eyes peeking over edge, a butterfly only half emerging from its chrysalis. What beauty would she bring when she had fully broken out? Marvellous.

"Do you wish to head back to the motel? Alana is staying until Crawford arrives on scene, with Abigail, but you can come stay with me, if you wish? Will is waiting back there. He rang while you were being attended to by the paramedics after Crawford had informed him of what transpired, but could not come as Crawford ordered him back until the area has been swept over by forensics. He seemed most worried."

Hannibal felt her shift, through guilt at having Will feel worried about something she had done to herself and others, or because her leg pained her, for she had stabbed herself right down to the hilt of the knife, perhaps both, but Hannibal shifted too, allowed her to balance herself off his side, taking her weight off her injured leg.

"Just us three?"

She asked.

"Just us three."

Hannibal thought the crease by her eye might mean she was smiling.

"I'd like that."

The rumble of gravel under tire made Hannibal chuckle as he saw the little silver car swerve around the nook of the road, up onto the driveway with a screech of rubber burning.

"It would appear Will has grown tired of waiting."

The engine cut, and as Hannibal had suspected, Will, half dressed in T-shirt and jeans, rolled out.

"Hemlock?! Hannibal?!"

An officer tried to catch him, but Will flashed his badge and pushed through, and the officer backed down. Hannibal did note it was Hemlock and himself Will was calling for, not Crawford. Not Alana. Not Abigail. Hemlock and Hannibal. For two of the smartest people he knew, they, Will and Hemlock, were entirely too blind to their own emotional and behavioural patterns. Hannibal shifted once more, taking most of Hemlock's weight as he began to lead them down to Will.

"How about we cut him off, yes? It would appear he's forgotten his shoes."

"Never mind that, his shirt is a pyjama top and on backwards. It's three in the morning. He's going to catch a bloody cold."

Well, here's chapter Nine! I really hope you all like it and it lived up to your expectations! I know I had quite a lot of fun writing this one up. Romance does start to pick up next chapter, but, don't fear, they're not just going to hop right into bed.

THANK YOU for all the follows, favourites and of course, the reviews! You guys have all been so wonderful and lovely and I hope, at least one part of this chapter, has made you guys smile as a thank you for all the kind words.

As always, if you have a moment, please drop a review off, they keep my muses spinning on their heads.