The excessive desire and pursuit of material possessions.

They assembled first, in Jack's office. Ed Scarab and Theodore Knott were in a corner, heads together, quietly discussing the football scandal that had been the topic of conversation all week. Em was very quiet, with her head in her hands, eyes shut tight, feet tucked under her rear in an arm chair in front of Jack. Dr. Lecter was impeccable as always in a blue grey suit and lavender tie, legs crossed neatly, casting a level look over the police officers, his lips drawn tight together.

Will was sleep worn, still reeling from his night terrors.

"The correspondence came." was Jack's how-do-you-do. "More photos. And this time, a pair of eyes."

He paused.

"I see."

"Apt word choice." Em drawled from behind her hands.

"What do you see?" Jack asked him, spreading the photos on the table like a macabre fashion shoot. He could see gold, glittering jewels, a thick quilted coat. He could see a direct beam of light playing on all the reflective decorations the dead body wore, twinkling under the developed gloss on the paper.

But there were echoes - the two voices of murderers in his mind. On one hand he heard their murderer, the real live one who committed these acts for Em and her attention. On the other, the pointed drawl of Tom Blithely, of Timothy Bell, the book killer who they were based on.

"What..." he said slowly, directing it to Em. "...Do you see?"

"I don't know." she cracked open blood shot eyes, looking haunted, old and tired. "It doesn't make any sense. This isn't in chronological order. This murder was -... this comes from a different book. It's not in the Encompassed series, it's not Tom Blithely. The others went in order and were done by the same character. This is weird."

"Wait, now it's weird?"

"Mr. Scarab, kindly keep you mouth closed in my office." Jack didn't bother looking at him, studying both the writer and the profiler. "Em?"

"'A golden crown for the king who would rule no men, and govern no land'. It was my first published piece." her scowl intensified. "It was satisfying to kill him."

"Do you think before you speak?" Theodore muttered.

"Do you?" she barely graced him with an unimpressed look. Jack's much more heated glare shut both him and his co-worker up, made them shrink into their corner. Em took a moment to study the photos, her eyes lingered on parts of the pictures that showed the bubbled and cracked skin, before seeking out Will. "What do you see?"

He shook his head. The echoes were at war.

"I'm gonna need to see it." he murmured. "In person."

Jack's frown intensified.

"Well you can't. This is all we have. We have a team working on the remains of the hotel this man was killed in. The bastard set it on fire and burned it to the ground."

"I didn't write that." Em volunteered, and deflated slightly. "This isn't like the others." her hand braced the throbbing migraine pounding at her right temple.

"This novel - the themes - the murder itself - it's not-..."

"It's not internationally famous." Jack finished.

"No, it isn't." she agreed easily. "It isn't written under my pen name either. Which is... worrying. There are only a few people who can claim they know that Willow Hammond is E.M Hart. Most of my fans think I'm a man in my forties."

"The way you write is evolved." Hannibal offered. "I have begun Enveloped."

"Thoughts?" she quirked a smile in his direction, her blood shot eyes half lidded.

"I am enjoying it." his smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I have just surpassed the second murder by your Tom Blithely."

"My Tom?"

"Is he not your Tom?"

"If he's anyone's, he's mine." she agreed, and turned her eyes back to the king's blood covered face. "He looks... familiar."

"He should be. That's Nathan Gold."

"You're joking."

"That makes a lot of sense, actually." Em considered it. "Nathan Gold... He just won TIME's man of the year, right?"

"And he disappeared not long after, the same day."

Em swallowed a heavy mouthful of what felt to her like carpet.

"Well that's where all the detail went. Spends his life trying to reach the top. Gets an hour in. Then gets offed. That's pretty much the premise of that murder."

Hannibal wondered where exactly the girl got her ideas from.

She could certainly paint a pretty picture in his head, and her killers were well flushed out, the killings scripted, but with certain plausible things going astray. Certain victims behaved in decided ways that he had experienced, so he wondered to what degree she knew the mind of victims personally.

"What's different about this?' Jack prodded.

"The robes are store brought, for example, and while they're very nice, they aren't - blue, for starters. They don't fit him well. They don't make him look a royal highness. They are quilted, not velvet. The bracelets from his wrists are missing. His hands have been nailed down, not seared into place. There are only four rings instead of ten and one of them is silver. What, did he get lazy?"

"The details are more personal." Will repeated. "These rings - don't properly fit him. They aren't his. Nathan Gold graduated nearly thirteen years ago... This is a Class of 2010 stamp."

Em's brows contracted. She looked at Dr. Lecter.

"This doesn't make any sense." she told him in an annoyed way, and rounded on Will. "Tell me what you see."

"I don't share."

"Well I'm typically all about sharing."

"Over-sharing." Theodore muttered, and Em shot him a very dirty look.

"That's it. That is it." she got to her feet, tipping dangerously to one side. "I have had it up to here with your bullshit. Get out."

"What?"

"Get up. Get out."

"Ah, you can't-"

"I can and am, buddy."

"You're a kid, how the hell do you think you can tell me what to do?" was the disgusted reply. "You can't just stamp your foot and get your way. You might be famous, but that doesn't give you magic powers."

She appeared to take that as a challenge, her eyebrows shooting up, hip popped to one side.

"Magic powers, huh?" she just about hissed at him. "I'll give you magic fucking powers. You clearly have no idea who I am."

"No." he scoffed. "Just because you wrote a book doesn't mean I know who you are, princess."

"Princess." she nodded, pulling an unattractive face. "Magic powers. Uh huh. Please, if there's anything you wanna say, don't hold back."

"Wasn't gonna."

"Clearly." she promptly left the room, digging for her phone. Will and Jack shared a look - Jack sighed, glared at the rookie cop, and followed after her in a stride.

"Em, there's no need for that..." which only served to have Theodore looked utterly bewildered, for a second, then bend at the waist and shut his mouth.

Dr. Lecter stared at the cop for a long second, then turned his eyes up to Will.

"How are you, Will?"

"Seen better days."

"Have you been sleeping?"

"No." he swallowed, ventured closer to the pictures. They were individually in bags, so he sorted through the loudly crackling masses with no concern over fingerprints. "Have you had a look at these?"

"Not closely, no." He got up, buttoning his suit, and peering at them by Will's side. "Is this case getting into your dreams, Will?"

"Not exactly." was his tight reply. He uncovered a picture depicting the man's burned scalp, the bubbling skin and flesh barely present over the blindingly white skull and ring of shiny gold around it. His hair was in thick black chunks on his shoulders, and there was a congealed mess of blood cupped in the curve of the robes at his neck. "He wasn't alive when he had the crown melted into his scalp, was he?"

Dr. Lecter lifted one of the photographs for closer inspection.

"Hard to say, without inspecting the body." he commented with a frown. "The implement was possibly cauterizing the skin, but head wounds are notorious for heavy bleeding. I would assume that perhaps Ms Hart would know the answer to that question."

"I'm not liking the probable answer, Dr. Lecter." Will muttered.

"See? She even freaks him out, and he's-"

"Dude, shut-the-fuck-up."

"Woah, what the fuck for?"

"You're gonna get us both in trouble, idiot."

"Idiot? Oh, really? You're scared of that little spitfire?"

"You are an idiot." he scoffed. "Did you not hear the captain when he put us on this case?"

Theodore apparently had to think about that. Then he went pale.

"Oh, for fucks sake."

"Yeah, exactly. You idiot."

"Someone wants a word with you." was the declaration as she came back in, with the energy of a thunderstorm.

"What? Who?"

She tossed him her phone and wiggled her fingers at it.

"Magic powers. That's your captain, don't keep him waiting. You got anything to add, Beetle?" it was a nasty play on his partner's last name, and he flushed, apparently cowed. He shook his head with a little shrug and turned his face down to his notes, looking very determined.

"But captain-... Yes sir. Yes, sir. Of course, sir." he pressed the red hang up button and very gently handed the phone back. "I'm sorry for my behaviour, Miss Hart. You will receive my full -written - apology in the mail."

"Thanks, Theo." she drawled. "Arrivaderci, friend." and she stared at him for a long second after until he was out of sight, then returned her attention to back Will.

"Did you just get him fired?"

"I'm not that petty, nor that hungover. I just had him write up his misdemeanours for the rest of the day." she sighed. "Now. What do you see?"

He looked from Jack to her, to the pictures.

"I can see what you wrote - Tom Blithely's murders, and his intentions. And I can see where our Encompassed killer is cracking through the mask. His voice is going through a wall; it's muffled. I can't make sense of both of them at once."

"Talk to me." she said evenly. "I'll tell you what is and isn't mine. But I'll tell you now, he's cracking for sure. That mask? It's practically falling off. A lot of this is not what I wrote."

"It's progressively personal." He murmured, self-conscious. She nodded along, encouraging his outward thought process. "Just little things that make it... more his to own."

"Is he escalating?" she asked, stepping beside him, so that he was flanked by the doctor and the writer.

"Probably just adding his own flourishes."

"I don't like flourishes." she scowled.

"He wants to impress you." he murmured.

"That's not gonna make it any better, Will."

"He-... Wants... To show you he understands you. So he's showing you how he agrees... and how he substitutes his work and yours."

"So..." she flicked blood shot, hazy yellow eyes up to him. "This is Fan Fiction."

"Essentially." he managed to maintain the shared look. "He wants you to know that he knows who you are. You're E. M Hart, and you're Willow Hammond. He knows you."

"Do you think he knows me personally?"

"Yes." he looked at the photos. "Almost definitely."

"Brilliant. That's just what I like to hear. My friends are murderously inclined sociopaths."

"He's probably just a psychopath."

"Semantics. Some bastard I know is killing people. How did I miss him?"

"Psychopaths are adept at blending. Applying camouflage to fit in to regular society." Jack offered. "I would say he has an obsession with you, if that weren't blindingly plain."

"Maybe he has an obsession with Tom Blithely." Em suggested, but Will shook his head, studying the pictures.

"No, no, no. This guy - it's intense, the way he feels about you. And no amount of, of words, no amount of fan mail or videos, none of that was enough. He's displaying these affections for you in a way that only you are supposed to recognise. You said once that your killer thought in riddles that you could describe..."

"Riddles. At nine forty in the morning?" she sighed. "So what set him off? This doesn't make sense. The motive. I don't get the motive." she rubbed her eyes, perching on Jack's desk.

"You don't have to get the motive." Jack murmured. "That's what Will is for. You're here to decipher the murders, not the murderer himself."

"Herself." she mused in muted reply. She swiped a hand around the back of her neck and scowled down at the photos. "Why now? There's no significant star or moon charts, no special pagan holidays, no - otherworldly, time lines."

"Em," Jack said firmly. "That's not what you're here to think about. Leave that to us. Tell Will what you see that's wrong, here."

"I told you. The character is nigh spot on. He was greedy, rich from birth, famous but internationally hated. The clothes are wrong, the bling is wrong... There's a lot wrong with this one." she paused. "So the Encompassed killer knows where I live, and he knows who I am... I'll get in contact with Bert. He will know who has access to that information."

"Bert?"

"Mm." she traced a long line of blood on Nathan Gold's throat. "He's my publisher. Father figure. Confidant." her eyes flicked to Dr. Lecter then down again before she added:

"Encourager of AA meetings."

"I see." he said quietly, but made no further judgement nor comment. Em excused herself from the room and made a phone call, then came back into the office and fell sound asleep in the armchair.

Bert was a heavy man in expensive shoes. His fingers were thick and he was sweating, breathing heavy, as he swung dramatically into the office. Jack's receptionist was loudly protesting, but neither Bert nor Willow noticed. She was already on her feet, bracing the chair, and she was undoubtedly Willow, not Em.

Em could brace a crime scene, fire a rookie cop with pre-made contacts in the force, and spot sneaky psychological profiling a mile off, but Willow was twenty years old, and she was scared. She skipped over to the man who bent from his behemoth height to scoop her up into a hug, lifting her feet inches off the ground.

There were tears, and quick, muted whispers. He held her tightly, his cheek to her head, his massive palms on her face, hiding her expression. His eyes were red ringed when he opened them, a blazing crystal blue, wet at his pale lashes. She took a moment to wipe her face and find composure, before she swung back around, Em once more.

"This is Bert." she offered, and the man inflated with pride, striding forward to offer a solid handshake to all men present in the room, including the dozing officer Scarab.

"Nice to see you again, Jack." he offered, and shook his hand again. "S'been too damn long."

"Likewise, Bert. How's Murph?"

"Eh. How's Bella?"

"Fine, thank you. Has Em filled you in on things?"

"You know my Em." he put an arm over her stick thin shoulders, and she sunk into his fleshy side, her face peaceful, posture lax. "There are only so many people who know for certain who Em is." he said, rubbing his free hand over his scruffy face.

"Not that they haven't tried." she smiled at the side of his head, tired and content. "When Timothy Bell was wrecking my life, he tried to get it out of Bert who I was."

He motioned to a light scar on the side of his forehead to show for what he had gone through.

"Not my girl." he rubbed her arm, and she positively beamed. "Between me and the printing press, there's about twelve people who might've put it together. I kept names quiet. Those who know for certain aren't capable of these crimes, physically."

"I've only had about four stalkers." she muttered. "If that helps at all."

"Any of them been violent?" Jack prodded.

"Not so much as vocal." she replied. "Just present."

They took their time - Bert went through an extensive pocket book of people who had access to the information necessary to figure out who E.M Hart was. He produced a two hundred person list of names in regards to the publishing industry alone; the one he started in regards to civilians (caterers, dog walkers, die-hard fans who requested they meet upon their death beds) that list was eighty strong and still building.

"I need a shower." Em muttered, four hours later. "I need a drink. And food."

"I would offer my services, dear, but you know I'm more useful banging my head against a wall than in the kitchen." Bert's hand settled on her shoulder and rubbed in a soothing circle she leaned into.

"You could come to dinner at my house." Hannibal said amiably. "If you give me an hour I can have something ready for you both."

"I don't know." Em said. "Wouldn't wanna impose."

"Nonsense." he waved the thought away like a bad smell. "I'd love to pick your brains at my dinner table."

"Well, I don't see why not, Emmy." Bert squeezed her shoulder. "Would you like to?"

"I guess. Don't take my lack of enthusiasm the wrong way, doctor, I'm just grumpy because I'm tired."

"It's completely understandable." he waited a moment. "Shall we say, six o'clock?"

Bert had driven the both of them - Em appeared to be at ease, if not slightly tipsy, in a modest cream coat that smelt brand new.

"Please, come in."

"Thank you. I brought Merlot -" he lifted the bottle to inspect it further, as opposed to hand it to the man. "I heard you were a man of taste. I had to have it recommended so I apologise in advance if it's terrible - I'm somewhat a brandy man."

"Thank you, this will go lovely with our meal." his smile was quite genuine. "How are you, Em?"

"Well," she smiled easily, no doubt because Bert was there, and there were no dead bodies (in sight). "I'm out of my head, so that's a good thing. It smells amazing in here, Doctor."

"Thank you." He gestured for her to turn around, and took the coat from her shoulders. Her black hair had been fashioned into a circled bun at the back of her head, and removing the wool from her skin revealed that her dress, while quite modest, had a low back.

Her spine was knobbly and shadowed - if he were to eat her, he'd be going hungry.

"What a beautiful dress." he said, hanging up the coat. "Navy compliments your skin tone brilliantly."

"Flatterer." she replied, almost entirely nonplussed. "You'll get me bothered if you keep that nonsense up."

"I never nonsense my guests. Unless they ask me the secret to my secret sauce. Then, I'm afraid, nonsense is required. Please, come in. Wine?"

They both accepted the offer. Hannibal poured their beverages and took his seat at the head of the table - Bert to his left, Em to his right. When the appetizer was severed Bert inhaled his, while Em picked at hers. Hannibal had refilled her glass twice, and thought it quite safe to start his prodding.

"How long have you known the police chief?"

She looked at him from under her lashes.

"Captain. And for about ten years." so they'd met around the same time as her parents died. Interesting. "He's on my christmas card list."

"And mine." Bert said with a haughty chuckle. "I always send him a candy basket and a book to read. He's yet to pick any of them up."

"He's a busy man." Em told him fondly. "And a diabetic."

He just chuckled.

While the silence was comfortable - filled with approving noises from Bert as he ate his food - Hannibal rose to collect plates and present the main meal. He refilled Em's glass, cracked open another bottle of wine, and proceeded his prodding.

"Do you mind if I ask how your parents died?"

"Yes, I do." she took another gulp of red. "But I suppose morbid curiosity will probably paint a darker picture than the truth. And you're a psychiatrist, so it'll probably be worse than a layman's ideas."

"Em, it's not really something to talk about over dinner." Bert mused.

"Nothing I talk about ever is. I have little to no tact." she informed the doctor, who was already well aware. "I was ten. I was kidnapped with my elder sister. My father was in a bad way with a bunch of people on the...shady, side of life. We were collateral."

Hannibal pursed his lips, she took a long pull of wine, looking at him over the rim.

"My sister was sixteen to my ten. She was apparently old enough for all the terrible things men do to unwilling girls. I didn't hear it or see it, but she came back bloody in all the wrong places and hysterical. We were only there for three days or so before we got found. When we went through the police system, it was fine, we got sent home and my dad paid his debts. Then my sister figured she was pregnant and decided the best way to handle that would be to slit her wrists. Ma sent me to a private school in the country so she could kill my dad with a butcher's knife to the eye. When she was waiting for her trial a few weeks later she hung herself with her prison issue jumpsuit." she casually cut into her meat, lifted it to her mouth, and thought some more, before adding: "I was the one to find my sister's body."

Then she went about consuming her dinner, like she'd made a factual comment on the weather.

"Way to ruin the ambiance," Bert said with a hearty snort. "You've never mentioned you found your sister."

"You've never asked."

"You never volunteered."

"You're not as pretty as he is." she jerked her head at the doctor, who shook himself out of a dark reprieve and lifted broccoli to his lips.

"Now who is the flatterer?"

"Me." Bert injected, and they shared a small chuckle. "Now tell us, Doctor, what is this? 'M going to try and get my wife to replicate it."

"Bert, he's not your wife. He's your husband."

''He's not here to defend himself."

"No, but I am."

He sighed dramatically.

"Yes, dear."

She rolled her eyes, stabbing into a piece of meat.

"Well, doctor? Come now, I wouldn't tell a soul. It is so good."

"It is a secret."

"Oh, come on. What's it called, at least?"

He proceeded to tell him, in fluid French that neither of them would've understood, even if he'd slowed down to pronounce it.

"What's the meat?"

"If I told you, I'm afraid you wouldn't even try it."

"Story of my life!" he said with a chuckle.

Em cocked her head as if stung by something, leveling a look across the table at the doctor. She rolled the food around her mouth, chewing slowly, her yellow eyes glazed as she fixed them on him. Her nose wrinkled as she swallowed, and reached for an empty glass with a disappointed: 'Oh.'

"More wine, Em?" he returned the stare without blinking.

"Yes, please." she matched it, curious expression on her face as she swallowed and watched him walk over to her to pour for her. She looked into his face as he tipped the bottle to the rim of her glass, eyes going every detail and crevice. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome." he smiled at her. "Now. I find myself inclined to ask a question that may further ruin the mood."

"Well you did just do your digging in regards to my dead family." she said and took a long swig of her drink. "I honestly don't think it'll be that bad. Go on ahead."

He offered the wine to Bert, who again, politely declined, watching him with good-natured worry in his twinkly blue eyes. He waited until he had taken his seat and picked up his own glass before asking.

"Do you have any idea on who is performing the murders?"

"I don't know who's doing them. Honestly, I don't care."

"Willow."

"Look, I'm just saying. I can't figure it out. I'm not omnipresent. I'm working on the why. If I get the why of it all, I can maybe get the who."

"Jack would be turning you away from such things."

"Jack doesn't like to admit I'm good at it. Next time you see him, ask him why Timothy Bell ended up in prison. Aside from the fact I was bait. I figured him out. Flushed out his character."

"Profiled him." Bert offered.

"Ugh, don't you start. He's already trying to subliminally recruit me. Although given my history..."

"You'll probably end up like the curly fellow." Bert said brightly. "A special agent."

"Will? Huh. Yeah, probably, if writing ever gets old."

Hannibal watched how carefully she was now consuming her food, how she drank after every bite, as if to get the taste out of her tongue.

"Do you have any interesting theories about our Encompassed killer?"

"All of them are interesting. Some of them are stupid. Most aren't even plausible for a book." she set her glass down and pointedly cut and ate another slice of meat.

"Do you think it's someone who hates you?" Bert ventured, rubbing his moustache. "Hates Timothy Bell, maybe?"

"You don't replicate fake murders inspired by true life events." she shook her head, brow contracted as she further prodded at her food. "I have this feeling it's not a hate thing. It's an ode."

"An ode?" Bert scoffed. "You are not that self obsessed."

"No, I'm not. It's- a serenade. A parody."

"A performance?"

"Not exactly. I think it's what Will said it was." she murmured. "Fan Fiction."

"Not the kind of Fan Fiction you usually deal with." Bert mused. "We have a few bought to our attention by friends and family, some times. Some are actually very good."

"So it has been obvious to you for a while that people are inspired by your work?"

"Mm." she swallowed. "Hang on. Most of what people take from it is Tom Blithely fucking around between slaughtering people. Don't give me that look Bert, it's straight up smut. And I mean, that's fine, he's a man, and men fuck, and some of the ways I - he - kills his victims, he gets a little... Hot and bothered." she stabbed a head of broccoli.

"But that's all. Smut. Tom Blithely is my exorcism of Timothy Bell. Spoiler alert, they're the same person, only I have total control over one of them and the other is in a mental high security facility. My Tom has depth and character and - spoiler alert - I kill him. It was my way of correcting the mistake I made in missing his jugular, or his skull, with that gun. I can stare him down now because I killed him. I killed him to get him out of my head."

"And you thought you'd kill the mood." Bert said lightly.

Em wasn't finished.

"The people who go through the motions of Fan Fiction recognise something in the characters portrayed. They have control. They answer their what if questions. The play with worlds and people already set up for them, already with histories and dramas, like we are trained to do when we're kids. We're given Barbies with Ken dolls and told that they are a couple. Fan Fiction is the maturing way to say: 'Hey, what if Ken didn't love Barbie, what if Ken loved Dave?'"

"It would explain the horrendous floral ensemble he ends up wearing half the time." Bert nodded. "I can't remember playing kissy kissy with my G.I Joes, though."

"But you did play with them." she smiled at him, then obscured the smile and turned back to Dr. Lecter. "Aside from that, it's a way to connect with other people who admire the same things, an easy way to take the worst and weirdest parts of you and put them into the world to see if anyone understands you, too."

"But can the same be applied to the Encompassed killer?"

"Absolutely." she finished her wine and her food, sat back and brooded. Bert made light conversation and Hannibal reciprocated, but his mind was working on three or four different layers, most of which were far away from the dinner table.

They ate desert, of which Em completely demolished, and when they went to leave she was just tipsy enough to embrace the doctor, lingering for a moment to comment on how nice he smelled and how she would be seeing him soon.