The sirens came but Will was still, lying motionless amongst the rocky brush of the shore, like a fawn left behind by its mother. Every instinct kept him frozen, hiding, waiting with hope that they would not find him. He was not ready to be found. He was split open and broken and waiting for Hannibal to return. Waiting for his husky whisper of Will and (despite how he disliked it) his arms hooking beneath him, carrying him. Carrying him away to a place they could be which Will himself could not see. He wanted to close his eyes and tilt his head back and be carried to the place where they could make sense and antlers could be antlers and teeth could be teeth and blood—well, you know.

But the sirens howled louder and he knew that the louder they were the further Hannibal was. Dimly he heard shouts, orders, voices familiar and foreign—he could hear Jack, and instead of deriving comfort or fear he laughed. He laughed, a rough cough that spat blood from his mouth and filled his chest with the feeling of broken glass crunching together.

Because Jack and Hannibal were opposing forces, repulsing magnets, two south poles that shoved the other away. And if Jack was here, calling his name ("Will? Will! Can you hear me, Will?") then Hannibal was far, far away. Even if Will found the strength to call his name Hannibal would not hear, even if divine intervention came down upon him and carried him upright he would be left searching the darkness forever, bare soles tearing upon the rocky shore, because if Hannibal did not want to be found he would not be.

It never truly hit Will until that moment what that meant. How Hannibal was smoke and the only time he was with Will was because he wanted to be. That Will had no control over his presence, his company. That he may never again.

Will laughed. A single, rasping choke-cough-gasp. He heard Jack's voice falter. Then it grew louder, louder, louder. Will didn't call. Didn't laugh again. He laid still in the grass, hoping he would not be found.

But, of course, he was.

. . .

Will's world became a series of hands, touches, concerned voices and rugged ups-and-downs. He felt Jack's broad hands grasp at his shoulders and then recoil, heard him curse under his breath, faint and mortified. He touched at his face, and Will hated that he did: because previously his cheek still burned from where Hannibal stroked, but now it washed away into nothing. He called his name, squeezed his jaw, tried to coax Will to look at him but Will—didn't.

He retreated into himself. At first he sought the fledging palace that had sprung in Hannibal's wake, his respite and waypoint amongst the blue-black waves, but he found himself off-path and without map. Without route. Without compass. He remembered how it had felt, he remembered the two ivory tusks on the mantle and the long, unbroken dark of Hannibal's dining table, but could not find his way inside. He circled paths that he thought were familiar until he gave in, and he sought out the place he knew he could find: the stream.

He came to briefly before he found his shallow, clear waters. His body was restrained and pinned down, and the world rocked back-and-forth in an unsettlingly similar manner to how the ocean had cradled him; but as he slowly blinked his eyes he saw white walls, wires, and a glimpse of Jack's eyes-wide, slack-jawed look of shock. Jack mouthed his name, drew closer, but his face left a trail and the edges of Will's world began to fade. He let his eyes close. He returned to his stream.

He found the waters easy enough. They were down a well-trodden path, one he could sense even if struck blind or deaf. He lingered on the bank, listening to the quiet whisper of the stream rolling over rocks and the distant birdsong. He looked towards the trees and all their autumn colours, but they were not warm. The water did not flow as it did before, with an innate and unavoidable elegance. It tumbled haphazardly over itself, reflecting the ragged poor-fitting mix-match of grey clouds above his head.

The stream was not the same. Will lingered on the bank and lowered his head. He made no attempts to wade forward.

. . .

Not for the first time, Will came to in a hospital bed.

He came to, drifted, came to, and drifted again. Each time he peered open his eyes the scene before him would change, sometimes minutely and other times dramatically. Sometimes there would be a small herd of people in whitecoats stood around his bedside, peering down at him and scribbling on clipboards while others spoke in quick, focused voices. Other times the chair in the corner of the room would be filled, often with familiar faces. He saw Jack (who looked tired and vacant), Alana (who looked shell-shocked and tearful), and even once Price and Zeller, who stood in the doorway and looked uncomfortable and sad.

Will would peer at their faces in the scant seconds his consciousness allowed him, but within their expressions, both forlorn and broken, he saw nothing worth resurfacing for. It wasn't until much later that he realised he should have been looking for Molly. He didn't question her absence. He didn't expect her. There was only one person he was expecting (hoping, traitorously and unreasonably praying) to see, and He made no appearance. Will didn't expect to see Him. But some small, unrealistic, child-like version of him hoped that all logic and reason would cease to exist and that he would open his eyes and see His tall form spread out in the chair beside him. His mind stole memories of years before, and moulded the image of Him into the present.

But it was only images. Ghosts. Wishes. It could never be tangible or true. Will knew. But after everything, it would be wrong not to hope. Wouldn't it?

Lucidity returned to him despite how he rejected it. He wasn't sure how long it had been, but a morning came where his eyes peered open and did not immediately flutter shut, when the bland hospital furniture spread out around him and the vine-like white wires swam into focus rather than trailing and blurring. Will resented how time returned to him, how no longer he could slip into the darkness of his mind and wait for the world to move on without him enduring each day. But no matter how he lay still under his thin sheets, his mind did not sink. His body began to warm and work. The dulled noise around him became clear. There was a shape in the chair beside him, and after a moment he saw familiar dark hair and teary eyes.

"Will," Alana breathed, her words revenant and whispered, as if the sight before her was somehow holy. "Will, oh, Will. Can you hear me?"

Will stared at her. Her words were familiar, somehow. He waited for a moment, as if drawing out time would make it go away, but in the end he managed a slow, barely-there nod. "Yes."

Alana leapt to her feet in one fluid motion and then slowed as she approached his bed. She reached out with shaking palms as if about to touch something sacred and fragile. She paused a breath away from his arm. "How do you feel?"

Dead. Otherworldly. Drifting. "Tired."

Alana smiled, a wobbly barely-there-almost-broken smile that drew out wrinkles on her face born surely from exhaustion. "But you're here. You're really, really here."

She wanted him to smile back. She wanted him to smile back and say yes, I am, and then give a tired laugh, a I-suffered-but-I-lived laugh, but Will couldn't bring himself to fake it. Instead, numbly, he rasped, "I'm here."

Sympathy coloured Alana's eyes, but Will found himself repulsed by it. He didn't want sympathy. He didn't know what he wanted. But it wasn't sympathy and it wasn't Alana, it wasn't this hospital bed and it wasn't this time, this world, this anything. He wanted a different ending (what ending?) a different world (what world?) and he wanted different company (he knew what company). He wanted sense and there was only one person who would make this make sense. But that person was the only one to not arrive.

Alana opened her mouth to speak, shut it, and then opened it again. "Are you thirsty?"

It (clearly) wasn't what she intended to say, but Will knew that she wanted to feel useful or helpful so despite feeling absolutely nothing except a grand emptiness, he nodded his head. She picked up a cup of water from the side and held the straw to his lips, and he drank—but as soon as the water touched his tongue something in his brain flared, and he spat a cough. Pain followed, the type of pain that blacks out your vision and flashes white behind your eyes—it burnt Will's throat, it filled his chest with glass, and suddenly he couldn't catch his breath. He was dimly aware of Alana trying to help him, touching his arm and holding his shoulder, but it took several long and painful seconds for him to be able to breathe again. When he could, his body wilted backwards and all he could do is close his eyes and wheeze.

When he came to, Alana was once more looking at him with sympathy. On some low level, it bothered him more. But on most levels, he couldn't summon a reaction. His body suddenly felt so tired, so defeated and heavy. There was a question on his tongue, but he knew he didn't need to hurt himself to voice it—it was what Alana was about to tell him, a weight that everybody felt but him. He imagined instead what he would say. My relationship with ignorance died long ago, Alana. Tell me what happened to me.

Alana looked decidedly uncomfortable, wringing her hands before putting on a brave face. "You'll recover," she started, which was not a good sign at-fucking-all. "You have broken bones, some damage to your lungs, and they'll need to assess you to see if there's any damage to your brain from the lack of oxygen."

"Broken bones?" Will rasped questioningly.

"Your sternum," Alana explained, her eyes flicking down to Will's chest. "And… most of your ribs. The doctors said the tides must have thrown you against the cliff. I don't suppose you remember—?"

Alana trailed off. Will stared forward. Instinct, deep in his gut, warned him against the truth. He remembered well enough, but he knew not to admit to it, not yet. He also knew that if He was here, He'd tell him much the same. To guard his recollection of the events carefully, if he wanted to tell the version of events he wanted and be believed. Instead of answering directly, Will offered her a vague but tired look. Alana could read whatever she wanted within it and if it later contradicted what Will said, he could claim she read him wrong. It wouldn't be the first (or last) time that somebody misunderstood him.

"Apart from that," Alana continued, sinking back down into her chair. "You have some cuts, some bruises. The worst is the one on your face. They said you got that one before you fell, that it was from a blade. Was that from…?"

She trailed off again. Will knew the question was not was but who. He knew that she wanted him to say His name so she didn't have to, like he was speaking some curse, that if he said His name three times in a mirror He would appear behind him. In a way Will understood her, because he certainly didn't want to speak His name. Didn't want to bring Him into the room in a way that wasn't complete. Didn't want to summon the image of Him when it would only make his emptiness worse. Like a widower turning down photos of the one she lost because the memories are never quite the same, and they often only make it hurt all the more, like terrible taunts burned into the walls of the mind.

"Will," Alana broke his reprieve, her voice gaining a faint, but firm edge. "I know that you're tired, and that you're still in pain. But they're going to be asking you questions, and they won't take silence for an answer."

Will fought the urge to turn his head away. He didn't like it when she took that tone, when it felt like she was trying to mother him, mostly because it felt strange. It was lifetimes ago, sure, but he still remembered when he kissed her and she'd rejected him, not because he resented her for that choice but because it made him wonder. He wondered often what would have happened if she hadn't, if the stars above their heads had been different, if the moon was higher or the grass was dew-tipped rather than frost-bit. He would have been miserable, sure, he knew that much. But things would have different. Wouldn't they?

For the first time his thoughts drifted to Molly, and he supposed they wouldn't have. Because he already tried that. He tried to be normal and do as normal people do, he took a wife and a child and did the fishing-with-dad-on-Saturday and no-cartoons-before-dinner and did-you-pick-up-milk-I-told-you-to-pick-up-milk-yes-I-can-go-tomorrow-just-leave-enough-for-cereal. And look where he ended up. Look where it took him. Look how three years did nothing when it came down to it. How gravity and satellites and solar winds carried him back here, broken and longing. Thinking not about Molly or Wally or Jack or anyone. Anyone but Him. As if there was something bound between them, a scarlet string wound around their fingers, one that could stretch and stretch and stretch but would always snap back, pulling them inescapably close.

But how many times could they snap back? He, surely, could survive it each time, but Will? He was loathe to think it, to resent it, because he knew the certainty of their return to each other was one of the only parts of his life that felt real and stable, but he knew it was unsustainable. He knew that if he didn't slice off his finger that one day he would die, that he should have died a hundred times before now, that the right thing to do would be to hold his wrist to the table and bring the guillotine down and if he bled out, so be it. Surely it was better to bleed out. Surely it was the right thing to do.

The thought constricted his chest. He blinked away a stab of pain and avoided Alana's gaze as she broken the cocoon of their room with what they had both avoided. "They didn't find his body, Will. You have guards posted outside your door."

"You think he'd reduce himself down to coming in through a door?" Will rasped, unable to help himself. But from the look on Alana's face, it wasn't the response she wanted. Or liked.

"They want to know what happened," Alana said slowly. "They want to know what you did, and where he is."

"And I'm supposed to know?"

Alana pursed her lips. "You were the last one with him," she said softly. "And he didn't kill you."

Will remembered how He'd carried him through the tides, fought unflinching against the waves, guided him with his voice. Why didn't you let me drown? Why didn't we drown together? "So?" he rasped.

"You're either alive because he's dead, but we have no body. Or you're alive because he kept you alive, and that means you might know where he is. He may have told you."

"You're overestimating Doctor Lecter's transparency."

"With anybody but you, I would be," Alana said, with a sudden knowing look in her eyes that made Will feel dull inside. "But, you two…"

Will looked away. Found a place on the wall to focus his eyes on. A hanging white wire with a slit along its length. "For all you know, Alana, I don't remember a thing."

"Is that what you're going to tell the FBI?"

Silence crept around them like an unwelcome guest. Will broke it without looking at Alana, his eyes tracing the split in the cable, just a few scant fibres away from breaking completely. Becoming two different ends. Possessing their own start and beginning. Individual, but all the lesser for their separation. Individuality at the cost of the death of purpose. "I'll tell them the truth," he murmured. "I don't know where Hannibal Lecter is. And, for the sake of my best interest, it might be time for me to stop pursuing him."

. . .

All in all, Will concluded that his stay in hospital wasn't his worst.

The eight months of recovery required by his stomach injury (he called it that, The Stomach Injury, rather than attributing blame or cause, not because he questioned intentions but because it was part of his plan) was far worse. This time around with all the breaks in his chest he didn't have to re-learn to eat or drink (although, perhaps he did have to relearn to drink, to accept water on his tongue) or walk. It was a great deal of resting but not too much resting, stop-moving-so-much and you're-not-moving-enough, be careful of your breathing but breathe deeply, yes-you-have-to-sleep-with-this-ice-on-your-chest, no-you-can't-stop-taking-your-medication-yet-stop-asking.

The nurses were tolerable enough at first but grew annoying the more they took notice of him. His mind was such a battleground of stormy thoughts and endless hanging questions that he couldn't find it within himself to fake smiles or optimism, and it didn't take long for them to try to fix him. They'd waltz into his room with upbeat greetings, sing-songing oh, good morning mister Graham! followed shortly by so, what are your plans for today then? in such a sickly-sweet, everything-is-fine, I-have-never-looked-into-the-eyes-of-the-devil-and-saw-more-than-just-the-flames way. Will had never fit into society before Him, and he didn't exactly find a place after Him, but he didn't realise just how isolated and out-of-place he'd become until he had to endure the nurses day-in, day-out.

Will didn't belong here, among them. Among the people whose worst experience of humanity was being mugged by daylight or simple, serene selfishness. He felt like a man who'd been scooped up by some higher being (he avoided the G word or the D word, but he leant more towards the latter) and shown the world on some other plane, past the gaze and shape of mortals, where colours were abound and emotions and feelings struck deeper than anyone could have hoped. Then, after observing this other place, this expansive newness, this other side, he was promptly dropped back into the grey-drab-nothing, the nurse-offering-water, the did-you-see-that-squirrel-outside-your-window-mister-Graham?-Oh-I-love-squirrels-with-their-bushy-tails—

But as much as he didn't belong here, he didn't know how to belong elsewhere. The realm he'd glimpsed was not made for him. He didn't know how to make a place for himself within those walls made of colours he had no name for. It didn't matter how he longed or yearned for it. He wasn't going to force himself to make peace with where he was but he had to stop wanting for the alternative. He had to take the guillotine to his wrist and accept the misery that bled out.

Will had no choice. That was his plan. He wouldn't make himself enjoy where he was, but he had to stop yearning for the other place.

As weeks passed, he learned to tolerate the nurses. They would prompt him for the date each time they saw him (they'd noticed, it seemed, his general disregard for the passage of time) and he answered them, just as long as they didn't start pulling out notebooks and asking him to draw a clock. The breaks in his chest healed well enough, but his coughing never quite went away. Alana visited often, and he would often have another fit in her presence when he spoke too quickly or didn't level his voice and tone, and she would look at him with that same sympathy that he wished he could gouge out and erase completely. The look she would surely give to a doll her son owned if after several weeks of rough playing it lost an arm. The you're-broken-and-you'll-never-be-the-same-but-this-was-bound-to-happen-and-maybe-this-will-teach-you-a-lesson look.

Will hated it. Almost as much as he hated how his body betrayed him. He took to avoiding his mouth completely. He talked less and soon was given smaller gowns to wear by the nurses when he shrunk inside his frame. Whenever he drank water he'd have nightmares that night about being alone in the dark-blue-black, and whenever he forced down food it tasted as flavourful as damp bark. The nurses assumed he was nauseous from his pain medication. He didn't bother telling them that he had given up entirely on this life.

The FBI came (of course they did) with familiar and foreign faces. Mostly Jack, sometimes Kade Purnell, and other times people that Will didn't care to know or remember. They asked him mostly the same questions in different tones of voice and from changing body compositions. Jack would sink into the chair beside his bed like a man deflated and defeated, while Kade Purnell would sit upright and glower at him with her beady bird eyes and snippy harpy voice. They tried every approach on him possible. They all wanted to know the same thing. Will gave them the same answer, over and over.

"I don't know where he is," he repeated, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month, his voice wilting with each repetition, barely-there petals drooping to their death until his words were nothing but a decayed stem. "I don't want to know where he is. I want to go home. I want this to be over."

Jack would sigh in the way that he always did, holding his chin and rubbing his cheek and looking far too old for this life. Will wondered how much of a mirror he was. He'd stopped looking in mirror years ago, aware that the pallid, one-dimensional reflection no longer showed who he really was. It baffled him that he used to rely on mirrors to understand himself. Now it felt silly. Who he was was skin-deep and unseen by all but Him.

But it made sense in terms of his plan so Will allowed himself to believe it, and soon it became part of his mantra. "I don't know where he is," he'd say, over-and-over, to Kade Purnell and all her avian hostility. "I don't want to know where he is. I'm too old for this life. I want this to be over."

"He'll come after you," she snapped, high and chirping. "Unless you help us. Unless you find him first and put him down for good."

For a moment Will paused, and in the storms of his mind he allowed himself to think the words he wished he could say. The honesty that could never be. I'm not too old for this life. My life with Him was the only life I ever wanted. But I cannot find a place for Him, for me, for us. I don't know how to fit Him into my life and I don't know how to fit into His. It does not matter what I want. It does not matter that I wish more than anything that there was a place for us. Because I don't know where that place is. I don't know how to make it. I would need His help. And He is not here.

But of course he didn't say that. He let his gaze drift across the room until he saw the slit cable. The threads had broken just a day ago, when a busy nurse hustled in and haphazardly arranged the various medical equipment that surrounded him like faceless observers. Will had seen it snap and fall away, but he didn't mention it. It wouldn't mean anything to anyone but him. The snapped cable didn't seem to affect any of the machines. Alana didn't notice. Jack didn't notice. To them, it was nothing.

To Will, it was everything.

"I don't know where he is," he repeated, finally, in a barely-there murmur. "And it's best for me that I don't. I just want to go home."

. . .

"You bought my house?"

The day was overcast and Will had forgotten how fresh air felt in his chest. It chased down, raw and cold, and for the first time in six long months, he felt like he could breathe.

It didn't last long (of course it didn't) because as Alana was helping him into her car, something caught in his chest and he started coughing. Alana was patient, placing a hand on his shoulder and waiting for it to pass before she shut the door behind him and climbed into the driver's seat. It wasn't supposed to be six months. The doctors had told him he needed to stay only five, but when his coughing fits persisted they kept him longer. They ran tests, took blood, forced him through x-rays and all manner of scans and came up with no real explanation and certainly no solution. "It could get better," said one barely helpful doctor with a disinterested look on his face as he leafed through several pages attached to his ratty clipboard. "This might be temporary. Just try not to stress yourself out or put yourself in situations that might lead to heavy breathing."

There was an implication in his voice that Will ignored, because it had been months since he was in the mood to laugh. He didn't even have it in him to feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. He just replied, dull and numb, "and if it doesn't get better?"

"I've heard you tell a few people that you're too old for this life, mister Graham," the doctor replied with a shrug. "Maybe you are. Considering the life you've lived, some coughing fits is a small price to pay for your life. Nobody would blame you for retiring."

Alana buckled in and watched as Will did the same. "Well, it was up for sale. And something told me you would want to return to it one day."

"Margot didn't mind?"

"Of course not," Alana shook her head, putting the key in the engine. Her car rumbled to life beneath them, and she slowly reversed. She'd told Will that she'd drive slow, and he'd just looked away. He didn't like being treated delicate. "Besides, it wasn't that expensive."

Alana looked at him, a teasing smile at the edges of her tired lips, and though Will felt more inclined to try and show emotion to Alana rather than anyone else, he still couldn't manage it. He just sort of stared at her, wishing he could be the person she clearly wanted him to be, until she looked back to the road and sighed. "I don't think you're ready to leave hospital, Will."

"The doctors seem too."

Alana looked at him. Sadness darkened her gaze. Will couldn't meet her gaze for more than a second. "They don't know you," she said softly. "And neither do I, because this isn't you. You went through something that noneof us can imagine, Will, and these past six months I've just been waiting for you to come back. Thinking that one of these days I'll walk into your hospital room and I'll see you again, but…"

Alana trailed off. Will stared out of the window, wanting nothing more than to withdraw into the isolation of his mind. He never found the palace again, and the stream was never the same, but it was the only place he could be truly alone. "You didn't have to keep visiting me."

"Don't," Alana said softly. "Don't do that, Will."

"I'm not doing anything."

Alana opened her mouth to speak. Then, slowly, she closed it. She took her eyes off Will and stared straight ahead, and Will ignored the tears that gleamed in the curve of her eyes. They drove. Will stared out of his window. Neither made an attempt to speak again.

Not until the familiar arched silhouette of Will's farmhouse came into sight, looking just as it had the last time Will saw it. The only difference was in nature's encroaching grasp, how in just a short amount of time the grass had grown long and the bushes had become wiry and untamed. The sparse tendrils of ivy that clung to the second floor windows had become thick and stubborn, no doubt crawling with all sorts of insects that would sneak through his drafting windows to appropriate the warmth of his house.

It was home, the home that Will had longed for and asked for for six entire months. The subject of every discussion with Kade, Jack, and multiple doctors. I want to go home, he repeated. I want to go home.

But here he was, home. And it didn't feel like home. He stared at the house before him and felt dull and empty and lost, like his final attachment to this world had snapped and he was finally drifting in the vast-unknown-nothing.

Alana cut the engine. Dogs began to bark. Will sat up (a little too fast, his chest strained and ached with it) and shot a look at her.

"I've been looking after them, too," she nodded. "Margot helped. Sometimes she brought Morgan with her. He likes dogs. He must take after you."

"I don't think you want that, Alana."

She looked at him sadly. "Will, I don't care what the doctors say. You're my friend, you're all our friend. Jack, Price, Zeller, Margot… we care about you, and it's not good for you to be out here by yourself."

Dull panic flared inside Will. He looked at her sharply, nervously. "You drove me here just to taunt me?"

"No," Alana said quickly. "But… let us visit you. I want Morgan to know you. I don't want Winston to forget me. I know you need time, Will, and you can have that time. But you're fading, Will. Let us keep you afloat."

"What are you going to do if I say no?"

Alana simply stared at him. Will, reluctantly, met her gaze and lowered his head in defeat. It wouldn't help him. It would only make him feel worse. Jack and Alana felt like relics from the past, taunting pillars of a time he could no longer return to. Will could still hear His voice wound around them, His energy, His everything. All of them were bound together in a bloody lump of misery. We're all just a failed suicide pact, he thought morosely. It doesn't make sense to be scattered and living. We owed death to each other. This is just borrowed, ugly time.

But he didn't want Alana to feel sad. He didn't want anyone to feel sad because of him. He wanted to find a place to slip out of their lives without leaving a single impression of his presence. He'd find a way to do that eventually, but if letting Alana or Jack visit every other day would make them feel better, then whatever. He'd do it for as long as they needed. Then, when they had their fill and felt better, he could drift.

"Come on," Alana said, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning over to do the same for Will. "They're all waiting for you."

As if on cue, his dogs began to bark louder. Trying to out-pace Alana, Will opened his door and tried to shuffle out to prove that he could do it alone, but she was there before he could put a single foot on the ground. Her hands hovered, guiding and supporting him, and he decided to allow her that. If it was what she needed. "I don't want to ruin any of your plans, Alana, but all I want to do right now is sleep in my own bed."

Alana finally stepped back from him as they reached his porch. For a moment it felt strange walking the short steps, as if time itself around him shifted for a second. As quickly as the feeling came it went, and Alana's voice brought him back to the present. "I know. But you can humour me for a cup of coffee, can't you?"

Will made a I suppose noise and waited while she unlocked his front-door. Will barely had time to consider the safety of having a whole pack of dogs charge at him in his state before they appeared, a fluffy mass of lolling tongues and dark eyes lighting up like starlight at the sight of him. Alana seemed to recognise the danger at the last second, but Will ignored her call of concern in favour of the sudden light he felt in his chest.

Buster was there first, with his tiny and stout body shaking like a leaf as he leapt around Will's feet, his dark and floppy ears bouncing like wings. Max and Harley were behind, barking the loudest, while Zoe and Ellie hung back as if they couldn't quite believe their eyes at the sight of their returning master. Jack came bounding downstairs at the very last moment (Will supposed he must have been staring out the upstairs window) and crashed through them all, his single orange ear bending inside out as he leapt high enough to cover Will's face in kisses.

For the first time in months, Will smiled. He ran his fingers all through Jack's fur, he carefully knelt down to scoop Buster up while Max and Harley circled up and sniffed him all over, their tails wagging hard enough to thud-thud-thud against the wall. Zoe and Ellie dashed forward with triumphant yips and yaps, adding to the congestion of fur and lolling tongues and happy faces. But, as Will let his dogs surround him, he frowned. "Where's Winston?"

Alana was stood behind him, still on the porch, kept stuck by the congestion of lolling tongues, happy eyes and bundles of fur. "He isn't here?"

"No."

"He might be out back," she suggested. "Maybe he got out." She survived the blocked entryway and laughed softly. "I'll go check. I can enter the kitchen through the backdoor. It might be safer than trying to wade through this."

Will laughed back, faint but there. Alana footsteps grew faint, and he set Buster down to bury his fingers in the thick fur around Max's neck, giving him a firm scritch-and-scratch before standing back up. Wading through his little pack was no easy task, but he wanted to find Winston. He took but two steps into his house when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Something inside Will froze. The temperature in the room dropped. His fingers twitched.

Then, slowly, he turned. Towards the fireplace. Towards the chair still sat in the corner. Towards the person who neatly filled it. The person with his long, swan-neck fingers delicately stroking behind Winston's ears. Will's faithful hound lounging at his feet.

"Hello, Will," said Hannibal, and he inclined his head towards the kitchen, where Alana could be heard fiddling with coffee cups. "Am I interrupting?"