He's looking at an elegant and very calm man, gun ready.
Will doesn't want to shoot - but he will if he has to. Because the needle the man has could have poison. Part of him really does want to shoot him, pull the trigger, even if the man is not a threat. Because he deserves it. Because his actions have caused him so much pain, so much anguish, so many lost hours. Even if he is to blame too, it was ultimately this man's fault, all the suffering, all the days he'd spent in that hospital, how he suddenly broke down. He broke his paddle and broke him on the way. He'd been hanging by a thread and this man had attacked and practically severed it. He'd cost him dear.
And not to mention what Doctor Lecter had gone through, the pain he could only begin to imagine and the lasting effects who knew this could have. Who knew how many people this man had killed that making them passed as natural causes. Clean, efficient, undetectable.
He had to stop him.
The man merely smiled while Will held out his gun. He smiled.
That morning
He had moaned and waited long enough. After Katz's visit, Will had been thinking and he'd been putting together some theories of who Hannibal's attacker might be. Someone as clever as he was. Someone who knew what he was doing, perfectly.
It was two day later when Katz went back with the results of the tests.
There were some odd numbers, some things that shouldn't have been there and some things that were missing, but nothing that explained what was wrong.
There were also traces of the medicine they had given the man, a dangerous cocktail of chemicals, medicines, salines and all types of allegedly therapeutic things. The medical personnel had tried everything, all possible treatments, even risked meds reacting badly to each other just to try and figure out what was wrong. To get any sort of clue, which they didn't have, and made their top-notch equipment and their experience appear useless.
But still, even in that mess, there was a clue. The only clue he needed. The one clue that solved the mystery. Hiding in plain sight.
It was the medicine. It had always been the medicine.
Will saw himself through the man's eyes. A man of an extraordinary intelligence but not always recognised as he would want to be. He enjoyed this. The process. He wasn't in it for the killing, no, that was only the unavoidable end. No, he liked seeing his peers lost, seeing them struggle and he liked watching the decadence he had created. The unfathomable mystery he had created.
And no one knows what is happening.
Only me.
Not only am I killing this man, I am puzzling the entire medical community. I am above all of them.
This man enjoyed the cards, the visitors, the doctors teaming up trying to find a response. The rest of them didn't know and they would never know, and that was the beauty of it. He could heal and kill at his will, even drag out the agony of the patients he chose without anybody closing in on him. He was hiding in plain sight, in front of them all. He wondered the halls and entered the rooms, and no one looked twice because he was a doctor. He injected poisons into people and nobody seemed to mind because he was a doctor and they know what they're doing.
He probably liked choosing remarkable people, people with studies and a good status. Intelligent people that were suddenly defenceless in his hands. So when Hannibal Lecter -the renowned psychiatrist- appeared in his hospital it was like a gift.
And they didn't know. The rest of them. They called the symptoms idiopathic because they simply didn't know. But he did. And the beauty was in the mystery. In them not knowing while you do. In the decay you have provoked even in the greatest minds and bodies while the rest of the world remains powerless.
Like a magician's trick. Once people know how it's done, it loses all its charm.
And I am the best magician of them all.
He probably goes by the room, every now and then, to admire his work. Not when they died, no, his interest is in the process, entirely on it. That's why it's so progressive. He likes to see the little things he goes achieving, the pallor, the ventilator, everything. Until they die and everybody rules it off as natural causes and it's another mission accomplished. Proof that he is so much better.
There are no cameras in the rooms and the he only uses things that have the same composition as prescribed drugs, so there would be no proof.
I am God.
I save and end lives as I please, and no one can stop me.
Will was barefoot when he came to this realisation and ran to the hall. He didn't even care. He was almost certain this was how it was happening. And he had to stop it.
While going around the hallway he saw an orderly that had worked many nights and already knew him by name. As he did.
"Jason, has anyone been on the room while I was gone? Maybe a doctor that is not related to the case, someone who's being on Doctor Lecter's room more than once... who seemed interested but kind of happy... maybe even read the get well cards."
The orderly looked at Will as if he was crazy.
Maybe he was.
"Please, it's important."
The man thought about for a minute. He didn't know every patient in the ward, but he knew the coma guy Will visited. Tall, good-looking. Bad prognosis. And there was another presence besides nice scruffy Will Graham, come think of it.
"Now that you mention it, there's a surgeon who comes by every now and then, Dr. Kingsley, says he is fond of medical mysteries. He's apparently one of the top assets of the hospital... An arrogant snob if you ask me. And Shauna mentioned he'd seen him on the room reading the cards, we just assumed he knew the man."
Gotcha.
"Where is this doctor now?"
"Sorry, I don't know. Wait, you think Dr. Kingsley has done something funky to your friend?"
"Could be."
And without more talking, Will left a confused Jason standing there and went to find someone who could help him. The nurse's station. Someone there probably knew where that doctor was.
"I'm looking for Dr. Kingsley."
"Let me see...He doesn't come in till four. Why?"
"Just... nothing, thank you."
He had him. He freaking had him. But he needed proof. Right now, it was all a big hunch. Yes, it was probable that if he remained there and asked that the doctor wasn't allowed on the room Lecter would get better, but that was circumstantial at best. No, if he wanted this guy out of the streets for good if he would have to catch him at it.
But of course, the man was too careful to show himself when he was around. So instead, Will pretended to leave while hiding in a staff room. Shauna, the nurse that had noticed dr. Kingsley in the room was on duty that night, and she'd been told to warn them if Kingsley came by again.
The hours went by slowly. Four. Five. Six, seven, eight - people were having dinner now. Not Will. He was waiting.
At 1am, Shauna called and said Kingsley was going Lecter's way. Of course. He probably had someone to tip him off when Will was absent so he could do his business. Or some other method of knowing. Maybe a camera in Dr. Lecter's room. Who knew.
He was about to inject something transparent on Lecter's IV when Will stopped him.
"Stop right there!"
The man threw him a dismissive look.
"Why? What are you going to do to me if I won't?"
He was smiling. He was asking for it.
And Will could do it. He could. Part of him wanted to. That could be poison on the needle he was holding, it could be deadly. He would be just defending someone who couldn't defend himself.
There was a minute of pure tension.
And Kingsley was smiling.
"What the hell is that, Kingsley? What were you doing with my patient?" A familiar voice said behind Will. It was Dr. Hammett, the woman that had attended Hannibal when he got here. And there were some members of hospital security with her. Kingsley's smile dropped. It was over. It was finally over.
The following days Dr. Kingsley was on the news several times. There were details of how he messed the proportions of meds, how he used masking agents in an almost undetectable way. How he played with side effects and drug on drug interactions to get the symptoms he wanted. The man was extremely unhappy about that. He liked creating mysteries, illusions and now the damn guts of his tricks were being exposed to the public. The had investigated him and has uncovered the cases of four more people that had previously died due to unknown or unclear causes after being treated by him or in a ward where he worked. They were calling him The Reaper Doctor.
Will slept better, much better. He realised that if he hadn't been so infatuated with Lecter's disease, if he had said farewell to the man and simply went back to his life Hannibal would have probably died, while Kingsley was free. His craziness had saved him.
It was a welcome nice thought after weeks of hell.
There were still things that remained unclear, like why had Hannibal fainted in the consult in the first place, or if Kingsley had been in this alone of if he had accomplices (in the pharmacy department, perhaps?) but those seemed less important. Dr. Lecter was getting better, quickly.
Many people congratulated him on uncovering Kingsley on his own. Even if he wasn't a fan of people and their attention, he could appreciate the kind words. A sister of one of the previous victims had even wrote him a letter and called him a hero.
It was a sunny tuesday and Will was reading quietly in the hospital room. The white, quiet, peaceful room. But not silent. Because silence was finally broken.
"Wh-...Where am I?"
Hannibal had woken up feeling horribly, as if his body was made of lead. His whole being hurt and he didn't remember how he got there. The dark eyes looked around trying to recognise the room, until they landed on a familiar figure.
"Will?"
Will smiled.
"Welcome back."
A/N: I did an in media res! Experimentiiiing! Could be continued with hurt/comfort scenes of recovery and an explanation of how Hannibal became sick in the first place or not. Hope you enjoyed it! Edit: Corrected some of the mistakes. That's what happens when you upload things at 2am. Hope this is better ;)
Please do review! Make an author happy!