They sat together for a long moment, letting the engine rumble quietly as they stared at the back of Jack Crawford's head. The man was on the phone more often than not, and Will tended to believe that had something to do with his interrupted speech patterns. He was constantly holding two or three conversations at once, but insisted on believing he was the heavyweight in those interactions and that he needed the final word. In the weeks since the fire at his home in Wolf Trap, Will Graham had numerous times been left to Jack Crawford's devices. Now that he was accessible, the man was keen to offer him rides to the academy and crime scenes, and lunch, and wherever else it was most convenient for him to be in Jack's opinion at that given moment. It took weeks still for him to broach the subject with Alana and Hannibal, that maybe the head of CIA's investigative department did not need to be his solo method of transportation. Thus, they had arranged to take a trip back to the farm to see if his backup vehicle was still functional, but Jack had intervened again, offering to send an agent to do that and issue Will a federal vehicle 'in the interim'. Said vehicle had yet to materialize.

Hannibal's words over dinner had illuminated an aspect of his relationship with Jack that he had not previously been aware of. Usually, when Jack railroaded a conversation, it ended before anyone had the opportunity to disagree with him. His refusal to yell at Hannibal and Alana was the singular exception Will had seen to his simple directive that his will be done. Hannibal and Alana, as consultants, were technically on his payroll but not under his supervision. Will, as a teaching associate and lecturer for the academy, tended to be a little more malleable. After prolonged contact, Jack's numerous frustrations began to focus on those nearest, so he would batter at Will like a new toy. Will found silence to be his most productive method of dealing with the man at that point in the day. With nothing to snag on, Jack's temper was reduced to a directionless tantrum, and that embarrassed him after a moment. Will defended himself when necessary, but it had never been more apparent to him that what most people wrote off as blunt and tenacious was actually forcible domination of a conversation. In a word, rude. The man was effective, however, Will would grant him that. Considering the amount of responsibility that he shouldered every day, he would grant Jack Crawford a lot, actually.

Hannibal, not so much.

Jack could work Hannibal into a rage if left to his own devices. The men's camaraderie was a sad thing to witness. Jack tried very, very hard to be considered worthy of Hannibal's friendship, and Hannibal, on his best day, tolerated him. Not with the same derision he reserved for strangers and some of the CIA staff, but with a teeth-clenched, polished façade that Will only knew existed because he'd seen its shadow. He felt tension creeping into Hannibal's form, but couldn't explain exactly how. Just knowing that they shared the urge to steel themselves before dealing with Jack made him feel somewhat privy to the entity that was Home-Hannibal. Hannibal at Rest. Quiet Hannibal. Fuck.

The quiet was broken as the therapist turned his chin slightly to address Will, "Do you know what my first, greatest annoyance is, Will?"

"Hm?"

"Being interrupted." Will nodded to that, sipping his coffee, and Hannibal continued. "My second? Being contradicted."

That was a loaded sentiment and Will's brow furrowed, but Hannibal was opening his door to let the damnable chill in. He closed it gently, and made his way over to Jack. Will muttered to himself, "Every time you speak, the floor threatens to give way."

The phone dropped, a voice mumbling quietly into the empty air as Jack ignored it, speaking before they were truly within earshot, "Look, you've been very accommodating, Dr. Lecter, but I'm not convinced that it wasn't arson, and until my team tells me otherwise, I'm sticking to this course."

"No one brought it up, Jack. I was asking-"

Jack cut him off, his expression wounded, but his voice commanding, "Your expressions say a lot."

"I'm also a grown man standing less than two feet from you, Jack, I'll make my own excuses if you don't mind." Will shoved his hands in his pockets. "Mine are better anyway. How are my dogs?"

"Fat and happy. You should come see them."

"He needs a vehicle for that, Jack." Jack's eyes widened in surprise, and Will wondered if Hannibal knew what hell he'd just wrought on some poor desk jockey at the motor pool. "As for the rest, Will and I have worked out a rental arrangement for the spare rooms on my second floor. He will be staying there for the foreseeable future."

It took every shred of control Will had not to…contradict him. Jack's defensive posture dropped with a satisfied grunt, and he dismissed a stream of emails from his phone's screen. "Alright. That's alright then, good. You'll have the car today, I'm not sure what the delay is. Thank you both for your patience."

Will felt Hannibal take a deep breath and relax as well, though he couldn't say exactly how. They exchanged a glance, but the therapist was wearing his mask too well for him to guess at how serious that announcement was. Will roughed a hand through his hair, scratching the nape of his neck as he nodded to the box on the tarmac at Jack's side. "Is that for me?"

"Yes, these are crime scene files from the last six months. I'm granting you a month of leave to review them in your own time and see if you can turn up any new leads. There are also four solved cases in there that I'm not entirely satisfied with that I'd like you to review. If our guts don't agree, that's for me to get over…use them to build lectures. Yes, that's official permission."

And then, at times like this, Jack surprised him. There was no real reason for him to take the time off, and the added gift of cases that had already been solved…had an answer…was an opportune way for him to regain himself without being taken off the payroll. It suggested the three of them, Alana, Hannibal, and Jack, all were working in ways he was unaware of to ease this time of transition. He remembered Alana's soft smile when they picked him up from the scene, and wondered to himself how involved she was. They had barely spoken over the years, but there was enough of her that seemed familiar to him, fit within in his definition of friendship that he was fond of her despite their distance. The pre-emptive answer on the lectures was nice, it spared him a lot of red tape and gave him a year's worth of teaching material from which to work. He smiled broadly, and swept the box up, turning back to Hannibal's car without saying goodbye. It would feel good to work again. Mostly.

He left Hannibal with Jack at the foot of the stairs and after another sip of coffee from his thermos, convinced himself that Dr. Lecter would say his goodbyes for him. Dr. Lecter removed his own cell phone and showed Jack something on its screen. There was a tense exchange, and both men set their shoulders resolutely, but from what Will could tell, no one won. Hannibal turned away while speaking and Jack nodded, raising his phone to his ear again.

The heat coming off Hannibal when he returned to the car was palpable. Will resisted the urge to make himself smaller by compromising, and refusing to interact with the therapist at all, instead turning his focus inward to pounce on that feeling. That. What the hell was that? Will was not a shy man, not a quiet man, and though aspects of his mind were decidedly fluid, he did not yield…especially to instinct. Yet, pulling out of the parking lot, he was claustrophobic in the weight of Hannibal's…annoyance. Hannibal seemed a man of action. Will wondered what his rage looked like. On second thought, no….No he didn't.

The heat subsided slowly. Very slowly. Will was rather sure that it didn't actually go away, Hannibal just folded it neatly into a subsection of his head and like a magician's trick, it had never happened. He was supposed to believe that at least. His thermos was empty, but he fidgeted with the slide, clearing his throat a bit. Hannibal's grip on the steering wheel loosened as though Will had cracked his knuckles with a ruler. He took a deep even breath, his voice barely audible over the heat. "I apologize. Jack's method of conversation leaves sand in my mouth."

"That's one way of putting it. The two of you disagreed on something after I walked away." It was a statement, not a question, but he hoped it was leading enough that Hannibal wouldn't make him ask. The stretch of highway between Richmond and Baltimore was long and straight, it would seem a lot longer if this kept up. Will was very bad at not picking up the moods of those in his immediate vicinity, but unlike Hannibal, he was very acidic when he was irritated.

"Will, I would like to blur the line between friend and therapist and ask this question as both." Hannibal paused, picking his cell phone up again and resting it facedown on his thigh. Will felt like was suddenly part of the conversation somehow. " Do you want to work? Truly?"

"Work….Solve cases? No. Yes." Will blinked hard, staring at the flurries of snow rolling over the windshield, pretending to have the conversation with himself. "I want this kind of work. Reviewing the narrative without having to step into it. This isn't the same kind of work I do in the field. Similar, but not as taxing."

Hannibal nodded. "Perhaps I was wrong then."

"But you won't apologize." Will smiled, nudging his feet closer around the box.

"No…I won't." Hannibal lifted his own thermos and held the coffee on his tongue a moment, and Will could almost feel him channeling through his options of presentation. He settled on direct. "Alana was concerned that casework may not be the healthiest outlet for you at the moment. She and I disagreed, and Jack listened to neither party. Jack insisted on giving you that box. He and I disagreed."

"It seems there are a lot of conversations going on when I'm not around." Will bristled slightly. "It's not like I was injured. It was a fire. I wasn't home. Those opinions would make sense if I'd wrecked my truck on the interstate, or otherwise grievously wounded. I'm not so fragile as that."

"I know that." Hannibal replied, and his calm façade was suddenly infuriating. Will bit his lip. "I live with you."

"How did all of those conversations happen and no one thought to ask me, then?"

"Will, you haven't spoken to anyone in six weeks. You're more or less at my disposal, living in my house, it seemed prudent to them to dig information out of me rather than interrupt whatever mental process you had employed in the meantime."

"That…is a cop out." Will bit off, but it was true. He had withdrawn enough that he communicated only his basic needs to those around him, and they had given him a wide berth. He could understand how that would seem to be request for one, but really, he was just terrible at asking for help. Hannibal's insight and arrogance was bitter to him, but well intentioned, just as Jack's hamfisted efforts to shelter him. "You knew why he was bringing us out to Richmond today. If you were so against the idea of my working again, why bring me?"

"I am not against the idea of you working, Will. Industry is helpful in the recovery process. I was against throwing you back into the field, which was Jack's original suggestion."

"Oh."

"Yes." Hannibal chuckled a bit, lifting his phone and opening the device without taking his eyes from the road. "I thought Alana was going to burn his office down. She threatened to drop out of the organization altogether if he dared try. It took him aback. The box was my compromise with Jack. I have made two compromises on your behalf so far."

Will sat there, stunned, and his bitterness of moments before tasted like ash now. Of course Jack's first answer was to put him in the field. He was still convinced the fire was arson, and it was easier to justify the travel and lodging expenses if Will was working. That kind of travel would have drained him to the point of a coma in short order. Alana was right. Hannibal was better. Wait. "Two?"

"This is in equal part compromise with Alana, and a gift to you." Hannibal handed his phone over, and his personal email was displayed on the screen. "The top five are delivery notifications. Be a gentleman and do not read the entire invoice, just the contents."

Don't look at the price tag. They were gifts? Will looked, and then took the phone into his own hands so Hannibal could drive while he read them. The first was a desk. A beautiful writing desk, with two towers of small compartment drawers a wide, flat workspace. Its purpose was evident in the next email, from one of his favorite gear sites. A broad selection of feathers, beads, bone trinkets and iridescent metal scales, several threads and a roll of Spyder wire, an assortment of hooks, a magnifying glass light with clamps, and a set of pliers and craft knives in a wooden case with—

Will dropped the phone, looking completely at the man's profile, "Hannibal, what the hell is this."

"That didn't sound like a question." The older man smiled, relaxing into his seat. It didn't feel smug, but it screamed smug. Will squinted and went back to reading.

"A 10x8 portable storage building?"

"Ah, that one went to Jack's house. He's building a climate controlled kennel for the dogs. That's why you haven't seen them. He didn't want to explain the mess until he had time to put the parts into place."

"Mess?"

"His back porch has a tower of dog beds on it. They've all been microchipped; he has purchased the AC unit…I should stop, I will ruin his gift."

Will's voice was suddenly very lost in his chest, a little more hoarse. "What?"

"Apparently, his wife, Bella, loves dogs."

The next two were orders from Amazon, each with at least thirty titles listed under the address. He wasn't familiar with some of them, but after opening both, he realized he was looking at the full contents of his two bookshelves. The ones on either side of his old fireplace. "…You replaced my books."

"As many as I could remember, and a few that I wanted to suggest, but that conversation never happened."

Will closed the phone and set it back on the console, rubbing both hands over his face. Hannibal spared him a glance. "I wanted to apologize. For my part in our silence the last two months. I am designed to apply pressure, much like Jack is, but much more subtle, and in ways that you would find very invasive. I was not sure how to…'cohabitate' without overriding your instinctive quiet, so I opted not to at all. It wasn't until we spoke last week that I realized how unapproachable that seemed to you."

He was nodding emphatically, still grappling with the pressure in his chest, something torn and desperate between laughing and crying. He gripped his knees, wanting nothing more than to be dogpiled in his living room floor in a mess of wagging tails and wet noses. That had always been his happiest moment, for once being the one to outpour his emotion into others. He couldn't swallow, his throat was so tight, and speaking seemed impossible. He wanted to call Alana. Call Jack. Wanted to hide in the empty closets at Hannibal's with his dogs and pretend he wasn't a real person for an hour or two. "You meant it then, that I can rent those rooms, formally?"

"Yes. This was my compromise with Alana. It effectively frees you from their mother-henning, and grants you similar freedom to be at home with me. Turn those spaces into whatever you need them to be. I have an unused work room attached to the garage that you may purchase tools and use for your mechanic work, if you need extra money. I will, however, continue to cook. And your clothes will likely be cleaner than they have been since the day you bought them."

"My dogs?"

Hannibal smirked broadly, pausing over his coffee, "Jack lives fifteen minutes away from my house."

Dead. Surely he was going to die before he ever made it back to the house. This was too much. Intentionally too much. It was hardly a whisper, but to his credit, he said it, "Thank you."

"You're terrible at asking for help. And while I respect someone who has the emotional density of a sponge being stand-offish and closed after losing everything, you are human, Will. Very, very much so. I encourage it. Further, considering their blatant use of your ability as a bargaining chip and career bolster, I feel they owed you this. Rather, they owed you the consideration at least. Jack is not truly out to kill you, but he's the sort of man that runs a man down and then drags him by the belt until the job is done. Alana's heart is the consistency of brie. The slightest contact leaves an impression, and she thinks very highly of you. And between them, the two of them…there is me. And I think I see you more plainly than either."

"It didn't feel like a loss until five minutes ago."

"That, Will, is called 'shock'. There is a reason it is dangerous. You must afford yourself the opportunity to grieve."

"You've never seemed more like Jack to me than in this moment. Battering me open like a locked door that's inconvenienced you." Will bit his tongue, taking a shaky breath. "That sounded more caustic than I intended."

"I know."

"Shut up, Hannibal." Will was still worrying at his lips, staring blankly into the snow ahead. "You're making my ears ring."