Physical or spiritual laziness.

"I'm sorry to wake you." Jack said, his voice thick and rough with sleep. "We have another murder."

"Do not apologise. I'm awake." Dr. Lecter had been on the verge of dreaming, never a good thing for a man like him. His eyelashes felt fused together. A glance at the clock confirmed he had only gone to bed four hours ago.

4:02

"Is everything alright Jack? Is it Willow?"

"Yes... But not just yet." There was a lengthy pause. "Albert Reynolds has just been discovered. It's been done by the Encompassed Killer."

"Albert..." he paused, let that sink in. "Willow's Bert? Her father figure, publisher...?"

"Encourager of AA meetings, yes." Hannibal could hear the man search for words, actively choosing what he had to say. "I have not... informed Em, nor Will, of this."

"Why would that be?" he gracefully rolled out of bed, reaching out for his clothes, finding a warm sweater with the phone trapped between his ear and shoulder.

"They're - closer, than I expected them to be." he took another moment to think of his words. "Will seems to be - attached."

"And you didn't expect Will to attach to her? Like Abigail?"

"It's not like that." He made a disgruntled noise. "They have a certain... kinship, in the place where Abigail has reservations. He doesn't protect her. She embraces him and his- ... Gift."

"Abigail has reservations because he thought in the mind of her father."

"Exactly. Willow doesn't have that boundary because they're similarly inclined." He heard the kettle boil. Jack would undoubtedly be making something heavily caffeinated. It pleased Hannibal that he was ranked so highly in people Jack trusted to involve in delicate situations; to know that his information came before Jack had so much as left his house. "I spoke to you about this at the scene. You said that they were connecting."

"I've recognised it, yes." he waited a beat. "They think in the minds of murderers. You think they are bonding because of it."

"They are."

Hannibal couldn't disagree.

"Why is that a problem, Jack?"

"It's not a problem. It's a variable."

"You think that they will be equally as fragile, when it comes time for them to be informed?"

"Em? Absolutely. Will? Most likely. I'd like you to run interference, Dr. Lecter. I'm hoping you can soften the blow."

"I doubt I will be able to do much." but he could, however, be present in the event Will did fall apart. And if he did, Hannibal would just have to put him back together. With maybe a few stray pieces missing, here and there. "How was he discovered?"

"With his head removed."

"No, no, you misunderstand. I meant to ask if the correspondence had been received?"

"Oh. Yes." he cleared his throat, and Hannibal could hear how tired he was. "Kept his head down and back to the cameras and dropped it off outside her room - we gave chase but he got away in a brown sedan, we're running plates now. We picked it up before she could, luckily. Bert's photos were in it. It was progressive... he was still alive in some of them."

"Personal." he noted, and picked out a pair of his less expensive slacks. He envisioned that there would be tears, or at least a trip to Will's home, with all the pack the empath had assembled.

"Yes. I don't think this was coincidence."

"Nor I. The killer wanted her to see him suffer."

"Exactly. Now, I don't know how to handle it, outside of calling her and giving her time to pull herself together."

"You're assuming she's going to shatter, Jack. I do not think E.M Hart is made of glass."

"Assuming you catch her being Em, and not Willow. There is a difference."

"Notably. But I think that she will handle it, none the less." how well she would handle it, and to what end, however, he wasn't entirely sure. "Give me the address of her current residence, please, and I will be there as soon as I can."

"Willow." he addressed her on purpose. The girl was not sleep worn, though she was in soft cotton pajamas and a knitted jumper - a laptop was open on her desk, the writing too small to read but in novel format. Her glasses perched on her nose, the broken frame held together by nothing but hope and strategic wear.

"Do you want some coffee?" she seemed pleased with her ability to be so alert and at ease when everyone around her was lethargic and cross. It was like the world had reversed.

"No, thank you." he was sitting before her on the cheap lounge. She took a seat beside him, curled up like a cat, lazily stretching her arms upward with a smile at him, ignoring the strip of pale skin she flashed in her movements.

"So, what 'correspondence' wasn't I allowed to see?" she mused. "Honestly, Jack thinks I haven't gotten used to this yet. The guy snatched it off of me, you know, just about bowled me over when I went for it. I guess you're here to be the buffer. I'm telling you it won't get any worse than seeing the model with the baby shoved into her."

"It will." he promised softly, and she sharpened almost instantly at his gentle tone. She swept her eyes over the curiously peeking officers from between the curtains, who shamefully looked away. She frowned, unfurled, setting both feet on the floor like she might try and run away.

"What?" she cocked her head at him. "What is it?"

"It's someone you know." he said quietly. "Someone you love. Brace yourself."

He didn't have to tell her because the second he mentioned it was someone she loved, she knew. She already knew just from the careful way he had angled his body, like he was expecting her to throw herself at him and slobber all over his nice suit. He repeated the statement again, just to make sure she was hearing him clearly, but the information still jarred in her brain, a spanner lodged in the cogs of her mind.

He uttered the name a third time and she blinked at him stupidly, an owlish expression on her face.

"Uh huh." she said, and stood. "When do we leave?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we're going to the crime scene." she said evenly. "Have you told Will yet?"

He paused, studying the relaxed set of her shoulders. If he didn't know any better, he'd accuse her of being Bert's killer. But the girl had looked on him with such love and affection, he knew she couldn't so much as lift her hand against him in jest. She might have been violently inclined, but she wasn't a psychopath. Even if she detached from Willow as Em, she couldn't let go of her love for Bert.

"No, not yet."

"Would you mind if I did it?" she turned blazing amber eyes onto his person, still blinking repetitively.

"Of course." he handed her his phone.

"Thank you. Oh, and thank you for telling me." then she retreated into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her.

"Will, it's me."

"... Em. Hi." she could hear his blankets, hear the muffled heavy breathing. "Is everything alright?"

"Not really."

"Are you calling from Dr. Lecter's phone?"

"Yes, I am. How are you?"

"I'm...O...kay?"

"Sleeping?"

"Yes."

"You sound ill."

"I'm... Okay."

"Nightmares, huh?"

"Yes." she heard him swallow, imagined him all curled up and snoozy in a bed, with his cute curls and long lashes and blue eyes. Nawh.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm- I'm good, thanks."

"You should have some bourbon. Always does the trick for me. I think I was dreaming about ballet last night, so that was a pleasant break from everything. Except it got really dark... Black Swan style, except without the babes eating each other out. I've gotta say, Mila Kunis can come at me under the influence, but Natalie Portman I could probably snap over my knee. Not that I can talk, but I like a little bit of cushin' for the pushin', you know?"

She heard blankets rustling, the light clicking on.

"I've never heard you talk so much."

"You've never been around me at five in the morning. I'm nocturnal, dear. I'm also waiting for you to wake up a little bit more."

"Why? What's happened?"

"What, can't a girl call her friend at some ungodly hour in the morning? I missed you. I've been writing, you know? I wrote this guy that reminds me a lot of you. I don't know where it's going, or if it's going, but I mean, I'm kinda drunk and I don't usually go to sleep until the sun rises, so I'm good. Everyone else is pretty shitty, pretty grumpy-arsed. But I'm like hey, welcome to my world. Take a shot every time you yawn, you'll be fine."

"...Right."

"Hmm. Hey listen. Don't freak out."

"So something has happened?"

"You could say that. You could also say it's the same old, same old. Except it's just a little closer to home this time. Brace yourself. Are you braced?"

"Yes."

"It's someone I know. Before I tell you - as you're probably going to figure out - I want you to know that I am okay. I feel fine. I am not under any duress, okay?"

"Who is it?"

"I'm coping. You're going to cope too."

"Em-"

"Will. I need you to cope too, okay? If you get all your feels, I won't handle it. I need to handle it. So you're going to cope." it was told to him with a matter-of-fact certainty, a slight darkness behind the calm.

"Is it... Bert?"

"Yeah. Yeah it is. But I'm okay." her voice pitched. "And you're okay. Okay?"

"I'm okay."

"Okay. Yeah, good. We've got a crime scene to see, you know? So, put something warm on. Could you bring a bottle of something alcoholic?"

"I have whiskey?"

"Sure! That'd be great. Thanks, Will. Uhm, so Jack will probably get the deets to you. I'll see you soon."

"Okay." he swallowed heavily. "Willow?"

"Nope. Em. I'll see you soon, Will." her voice had warmed, gone sticky sweet.

He was grateful Dr. Lecter was there to pick up the pieces.

"Have you looked into Melissa Bell?" Em had a hand mostly over her mouth, and her eyes were glazed. She was sobering up and in shock, but had very calmly conducted herself into warm clothes and into Jack's truck after returning Hannibal's mobile.

"Melissa Bell?" Jack repeated.

"She's Tom Blithely's-... Excuse me." she closed her eyes, brow creasing in a small frown. "Timothy Bell's... ex-wife. The one who, supposedly set him on his killing spree."

"What makes you say that?" Will prodded carefully.

"Was a chemist." she mumbled. "Her mother-in-law was a photographer."

"We'll look into it, Em." Jack promised her in a soothingly low voice. She made a noise like an agreement, and stared out the window.

Bert's jolly head was still attached to the fat yellow parts of his neck, a large hook punched through the cartilage of one ear and strung up to the ceiling, swinging in a slight breeze. Drops of blood splattered down in a bloody arc on the floor.

His body was on a modified table bolted to the middle of the floor, inclined so that the cement poured on his shoulders ran down, sticking him fast to the surface. Em examined it with a rapidly draining colour, then paced through the room with her shoulders around her ears like hackles on a wolf.

Recognising this, Will strode over to her, easing around into her peripheral vision, showing his hands.

"Em." Will said carefully.

"Get me out of here." she was drawing slow, heavy breaths, and swaying. "Get me- get me out of here. Will -"

Hannibal caught her forearm and pulled her head to his chest - she caught two fistfuls of his jacket and gasped in his cologne, trying to ruin the scent of her dead friend in her nose. Will cringed from the noise of her desperate breathing, so used to her be so strong. He peeled off his latex glove and took one of her arms as the esteemed doctor braced the other one, leading her away.

Her lips were parted and she was trembling before she cast one last look back to the dead body of her long time friend. Her expression crumpled, and knees buckled. Hannibal held her arm in one hand and her waist in the other, while Will steered her gaze away, making her head sag, defeated, onto her chest.

She took her hand away from Hannibal and covered her mouth with it, breathing hard through her nose, gagging slightly. Will jerked his head towards his car and Hannibal nodded, directing them there. She was steadily breaking, pieces of Em flaking away to reveal the much more vulnerable Willow. Privately, Dr. Lecter would've liked to see what she'd be had he stoked her rage, but this was a satisfying revelation in itself.

Until Freddie Lounds happened.

"Hello, Willow." she was propped against Will's car. "Nice to see you." the implication that she liked to see the young girl in such a wretched state was only thinly veiled.

"Go to Hell." came the sharp, wavering retort.

"Do you want me to quote you on that?" it didn't faze her that the girl was crying, trying in vain to breathe. She watched her with a removed, but interested air. Willow turned away and Dr. Lecter once again brought her to his chest, smoothing a hand over her hair. "So it is Bert then."

"I think you should leave." Will said through his teeth.

"I'm not crossing any police lines. I've got the owner's permission to be on his property. Unlike Bert, who I'd think was-"

Willow pulled out from the relatively harmless circle of the doctor's arms and took two long steps, swinging her fist up and across. It hit Freddie square in the hinge of her jaw, making an audible crack as her teeth clashed together. She half spun, her hand flying up to brace her face, and Willow took another step, bringing her fist down again in the same place, half punching the reporter's hand. Will put his arm around her upper chest to hold her back, though she didn't advance again.

Her upper lip was drawn back, and she shook all over, resonating in the empath. Her fingernails were so tightly pressed into her palms she was drawing blood, but she couldn't feel it. Her entire world had narrowed in on the reporter who was holding her face, eyes slightly unfocused.

"I'll sue." the redhead promised, her voice a deadly quiet hiss.

"I double dog dare you."was the drawled taunt. The woman turned in a fantastic flourish of red hair, and Willow continued: "May I remind you that you certainly aren't the only one capable of dishing up dirt, Lounds."

The woman paused her stride but didn't reply, nor return. She picked up her pace, pacing determinedly to her car, inclined to one side. She slammed her door shut and proceeded to spin her tires in the mud, speeding out of the farm. Willow leaned into Will's arm and sagged, exhausted, no longer on the verge of crying.

"Can you take me-... Somewhere?" she looked up at him, the bags under her eyes horribly pronounced. Dr. Lecter could see that her bloodied palms were smearing Will's coat - she pressed her hands into his arm with desperation, keeping it around her chest. "Somewhere... that isn't my home? The hotel? I can't-"

"Come to my home." Hannibal said calmly. "Will knows the way. If you wish to stay, I will make up the guest room."

"I-... Too many memories. Too unfamiliar. I'm sorry to be difficult." she put her temple down on Will's collar bone, to which he curled around her, hiding his face in her hair. It had been a long time since someone had hugged him. And while he could feel the grief in her, the comfort the simple gesture brought forth was enough to keep him there.

"It's completely fine. You are not difficult. Do not apologise." Dr. Lecter opened the car door for her, and guided her down into the backseat away from Will, reaching in to click her seat belt in place when she made no move to do it herself. "I will need to bandage your hands when we get there. Hold onto your scarf."

She blinked stupidly at her wounded hands. Will, already in the driver's seat, glanced back, slightly mortified. Then he drove, breaking a few laws as he went.

"Last time I was here." she said simply, but apparently forgot to finish her sentence, because she doesn't add anything on and doesn't attempt to. Will was only slightly confused, but Hannibal was not.

Last time I was here, I was with Bert. And I was happy.

"If I find him first," she said in a small, broken slur. "You won't ever find him again. I will end him."

There was a blaring silence.

"You're drunk." Hannibal said quietly. He had seen her take a few swigs from the bottle concealed at her hand, but now he took note of the significantly dark colour of her wine. He inhaled, and hinted at rum.

"I am an alcoholic, it's my character." she pressed the rim of the glass to her mouth, but only in thought. "I do my best writing drunk. Which is why I'm thinking... I'm thinking about Jon Doe."

"Jon Doe is a term used for unidentified victims." Will offered. "Not the murderers."

"Like I said." her golden stare hit him with all the weight of a woman scorned. "If I find him first. Jon Doe."

Will bowed his head. Her rage knew no bounds. If sitting in a room with Chilton had caused her mind to kill him, then the gravity of her morbid confirmation was heavy. She meant every word, and her imagination left no idea unturned. He didn't doubt for a second that in the moment, the little writer would kill and get away with the murder. If she could chase him down in nothing but a big t-shirt and sleep-half-drunk mind, she'd be a force to be reckoned with, sober.

"You shouldn't say that out loud." Will commented dryly, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

"I've been saying it out loud for years." she stared at the drink in her glass. "I'm a killer. I kill people. I create people to kill people. And I am the people that are killed. I should go back to my ward, clearly I'm schizophrenic."

"Having known several schizophrenics," Dr. Lecter ventured. "I can confirm that you are, at least, of the high functioning kind."

She laughed, her innocent, girlish giggle. It was hollow, though, and somewhat forced, like she appreciated the humour but couldn't quite feel it.

"I'm just thinking of his motives. What- How-? What could obsess a man to think this way? Is it me? Did I ever meet him? Or is it the work I've written? Maybe I've struck a chord in him. Maybe I've painted a picture that he sees when he closes his eyes. Maybe I've replicated some - horrific memory, accidentally written a scene from a crime he's been involved in... Maybe that's... I don't know."

"I'd say it's you." Will commented. "Maybe more the fact that you're on a different plain to him. There's- malice, in his work, but it's precision, and passionate. He adores you. He wants to create your world. He wants you involved in solving them, which is why he keeps contacting you, why he applies such - delicacies, into the murders. Things only you can see. Why he's made them personal, with the last one being your worst fears... And this one..."

He paused.

"You're his god, and your novels are his bible. These murders are an offering on your own personal pew."

"Shouldn't I be...Goddess?" she quirked her brow. "That doesn't make me feel powerful."

"What does it make you feel?"

"Stupid." she took a long sip of her drink.

"It's not about power. It's about the message." he met her golden eyed stare. "What where the these killings about? At their core. What were the stories? What were the motives?"

"Oh, Will, I can't-..." she looked at Dr. Lecter, who'd sat forward upon Will's line of questioning. "Can I?"

"I think you can." he replied with an encouraging nod. "Em can, if Willow cannot."

"You really aren't helping the idea of my schizophrenia, here." she told him with a small smile. She took a very long drink and rubbed her lips together after, as if numbing her mouth to the words she was about to say.

"The first murder he committed was the third murder my killer committed, but it was his perfect trial. He'd gone through his, evolving, his escalating stages, found out that he wasn't fond of bodily fluids, his optimal excitement came from being in total control. Strangulation. Suffocation." she swallowed a mouthful of nervous saliva. "I don't usually talk about this... You're going to have to forgive if I use first person."

"I'd say I'm used to it." Will told her in a dark way.

Her lips twitched. Then she took another drink.

"It was - the one that set him off. This woman. His first perfect kill. He was a homeless guy and he saw this woman eating lunch. She was clearly finished, so he asked to have the rest, nice, polite, she wasn't with anyone so she couldn't have been embarrassed... and she sat there and ate it all to spite him." she supressed a burp. "She watched him starve while she finished food she didn't want."

"And the batteries in her uterus?" Will prodded, and the Doctor's eyebrows rose.

"To charge her." she replied simply, ignoring the look she was receiving. "I told you, you had to be there."

"Usually am."

"Which is probably why you aren't flinching from it." she scowled playfully at him. "What did you see, when you saw that?"

He shrugged a shoulder.

"Bugs and batteries. Don't go together."

"Sure they do. Those bugs crack open and start devouring what they've been embedded in. It's - just. Can you not see how that's-? I mean, she let him starve, it took it out of his control. So he fed her up and tried to take away fro her what she'd once denied him."

"I see it." Will agreed. "I just don't feel it."

"Well... that's because you haven't read it." she said with a wiggle of her brows. "Only twenty five ninety five at all good outlets."

"Bugs are organic." Will said with a small grin at her shameless self promotion. "They're living. They nest. They move. Batteries are not. They don't match."

"Looky here, Mr. FB and I." she pointed her flask at him. "She said something to the effect of needing it more than him because she needed energy for all the important things she had to do, so... batteries. To charge her. He was mentally disturbed, it isn't my fault." she drawled the last part with a twist to her lips, a joke only half offered.

"The dirt was...?"

"Cause of death. He shoveled it into her face to stop her screaming. And, I guess- spoiler alert." she told Dr. Lecter. "There were two different kinds of dirt. The dirt in her esophagus was nutrient rich to encourage growth for the bugs he hid in her tonsils. The dirt on her hands and under her nails was not. It bore high levels of metal... basically it lead them to narrow down their precarious list of potential sociopaths and that's how they caught him. I can't remember what it was."

"The second one, the twins." Will took a short breath in. "He wasn't- disgusted, by them like you imply the book killer was. It was the message he wanted to get across."

"What did you get from the message?"

"I'm conflicted." he told her, and ducked his head to rub his temples. "I can hear echoes of your killer and the Encompassed killer at the same time. Which why I need to figure out who is saying what."

"That can't be easy." she inclined her head. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise."

"I will apologise." she scowled at her beverage. "The twins' death is from the book Dr. Lecter is reading now. The twins were killed because they were lovers... I mean, he was married, but she wasn't. He had already killed his instigator with the dirt and he was rapidly gaining speed. What he wanted was motives. He convinced himself that he wasn't killing any one bad - these people had it coming. To, uh, his mind. My mind. Are you sure I'm not clinically insane?"

"Yes." Hannibal said with a small smile.

"He took her cervix." Will pressed. "The twin. He tortured the man and made her watch. Why?"

"Because it grossed out a lot of people. I don't know. These killings are - superficial, Will. I just wrote them, I wasn't connected to them. They are clinical to me. The third murder was one of my first, and I've told you I hated that character. It was a book based on a stable boy and a noble's daughter in this bizarre best friendship - courtship... He was the king, but only for about an hour. I let him have his moment, this thing he'd worked all his life for, what he'd killed and backstabbed to get... Then I killed him. He didn't deserve to have a kind death, dying fat and happy and rich. I wanted him to suffer, so I could've gotten him sick, but it wasn't quick enough. He was a self centered child, he didn't deserve" her entire expression changed.

"He was... greedy." her eyes glazed, and went up. She appeared to be reading something on the ceiling, her lips pursed like she was looking for words.

"Em?"

"The fourth killing was a nightmare I had about aborting my baby." she went on with a small twitch under her lower eye. "I was watching myself do it and I was mortified. Not that I'm against abortion. It was the way I did it... with a shoehorn. So I wrote a little thing to get it out of my head and I hated her, too. This character, this woman, this mother, who'd kill her own baby before wearing the stretch marks and the extra weight. She was a throwaway, a moment I got lost in the crevice of my own brain... And then she was the pinpoint. I made her everything." she paused.

"Because she was so used to being..." she blinked, lurched up from her chair, taking short steps, brow drawn low in concentration. She wasn't muttering, exactly, but her mouth was moving like she was talking to herself. Finally she turned to address Will.

"Lavender, historically, is the flower that spoke of devotion or distrust, depending on with what flowers you coupled it with. Floral language plays an important part in the earlier stories - I was going through a symbolism thing." she was dreamily speaking now, looking like someone had just whacked her around the head with a shovel. "And he chose lavender for devotion. For me. Distrust for her. The last- that..."

She hiccupped.

"Bert." she caught her breath like she'd been shoved in the diaphragm. "That-... That was from a different series. Not Encompassed. It was a different book, one set in an... era, that sacrifice ran rampant in. That was the way to offer the god of wisdom and sight - uh, premonitions - to offer a head..." she wasn't making sense, and they were both fairly certain it had everything to do with how much alcohol she had consumed. The realization fully seemed to dawn on her then, making her mouth turn into an unhappy line. "Bert is dead."

"Yes." Hannibal said gently. "He is."

"Oh." she drained her glass, wiped under her eyes, and set the crystal on the table. "On that note, I'm going to throw up and go to bed. Which I realise is a charming visual for you both, my apologies. Goodnight."

"Do you need help navigating the stairs?"

"You'll hear me if I do. I could probably use a good concussion right about now, any way."

"Don't say that." Will said quietly.

"Well, it'd be nice for me, at least." she patted his shoulder on the way past. "Good night, gentlemen."