A/N: Again, thank you so much for the reviews! Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 13:

Kevin had taken a shower, gotten something to eat, and was preparing to lay down and get some sleep. He, like everyone else, had been up for days it seemed like. There was no more sleeping at night, getting up in the morning since this whole Lecter thing started. It'd been like his Army days; trying to get in a quick power nap when he could because there was no time for sleep. His mind also would not let him sleep.

Learning about Clarice Starling's family history had been a shock. She wasn't just some missing FBI agent anymore, but someone with direct ties to his family. She was a cousin. Her father had been his grandmother's brother. A great-uncle to him, whom he'd never met. And for a short amount of time, from 1972 to 1973, Clarice had lived with his grandparents on their ranch. To think that if they hadn't had sent her off to some orphanage, then he would have known her.

They never talked about Clarice. He tried to remember a time when his grandad talked about her, but couldn't. He'd seen pictures of relatives, cousins, but he had no idea if any of them were of Clarice or not. It didn't make sense to him why his grandparents sent Clarice away. Had Clarice been a troubled kid? Had she been a runaway? Did she get into fights?

He didn't know. And now he had no one to ask. His grandad had died a few years ago. His grandmother had left Montana after the divorce, and lived out in Maryland before her death. That got him thinking about the reason for the divorce. It happened in 1975, only a few years later after Clarice had stayed with them. Maybe his grandparents were conflicted on what happened with Clarice and why; it tore them apart.

So many questions and no answers. He paced around the townhouse and willed his dad to call him or come home so they could talk. Standing in the living room, he glanced around at the books, furniture, framed pictures and paintings, and the butterfly casings, and tried to work it all out in his head.

In the quiet of the townhouse, he laid in bed and listened for anything out of the ordinary. The hum of the ticking of a clock, the tapping of Jack's nails over the bare floors, the fan rotating in the corner. He'd been listening to silence since he was a kid. Both in Florida and in Montana. There wasn't much of Florida he remembered. Wasn't much he remembered before it all went so bad.

Getting up, he left the guest room and padded down to the office where there was a computer. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well work. As he waited for it to startup, he checked the paper in the printer and saw the tray empty. Opening the drawers in the desk, he searched around for the copy paper. There was none in the drawers so he went to the closet. He found a new packet of copy paper on top of a box on the top shelf. He pulled both down.

Snooping around his dad's house hadn't been his intention, but he was curious. There was a time when he thought he knew the man he called 'dad'. Talking with him at his house put him at ease when he felt that familiar comfort in his presence. He was no longer a distant memory or a stranger, or a bad dream. Instead, he was exactly what he wanted to remember about Will: a good man.

Opening the box, he saw the contents of Florida. That was the only way to put it. Everything in the box had to have been decades or more old from the photographs to the documents. Documents of a past life and the photographs of a past family.

Taking out the photo album, he flipped it open and felt himself smile before the tug of tears stung his eyes. They were pictures of their life in Florida and Virginia, their trips to Louisiana and even up to Montana. Memories of ten years of a life spent together from the time he was two until the pictures stopped after he'd turn twelve. The last year before—

Picking up the last photo in the album, he nearly laughed. "God, could those shorts be any shorter?"

On the beach sand, he was sitting and watching his dad as he fished and thought. He remembered Will not being much of a talker, but he had said so much with his silence. Then those times he did speak, it was almost always to teach him something.

What did he call himself? The Keeper of Knowledge…Or something. He wanted to remember that memory. It'd been a good one. But he mostly remembered the silence. Silence in the moments when he'd watch Will read for hours in his hammock on the beach or on the couch in the house. The silence in the moments when his parents were together, tentative smiles and looks and then more silences. Before he remembered listening as they laughed and talked through the night out on the porch or on the boat under the stars. The laughter stopped after Will got back from going after the serial killer Francis Dolarhyde.

That was when he saw the turn of the man he knew into something else entirely. Liquor bottles replaced the fishing poles and books. Engine parts were assembled, disassembled, reassembled, like he was trying to piece them back together like the pieces of his mind. The dogs that he saved and fed and obsessed over because he couldn't save himself or anyone else anymore. A gentle man turning aggressive and then distant by the simplest, most loving of touches from both his wife and son.

Fear had descended onto their house, into their hearts, and wouldn't let go. Through all the watching, he listened with both his ears and his heart. He didn't want to be afraid of his dad. He loved the man. He spent the silence learning to understand human interactions, motivations, and people. Learned to hear what was said when it was spoken, and how much was spoken in the silence.

His dad wasn't the only one good at getting into the minds of others. But just because he was good at it didn't mean he wanted to do it. He hadn't been lying when he said that he didn't want the abyss. He knew all too well the damage it could do. His dad, who wasn't even his biological father, had been divided into two pieces. At least that was what it seemed like for him. One man, two sides. One he accepted and one he feared.

He remembered when he was twelve years old, questioning his dad in the middle of the grocery store as he tried to reason out how his dad could also be a killer, and still be a good man. There was an innate sense of protection that he's always carried around since as long as he could remember. He didn't know when it developed or why it was there, until much later. It was because of the man who raised him. Will, or Gil, whatever the name, his dad put that sense of protection inside of him because there had been a real fear inside his dad that he was the one that could present the danger.

His dad feared himself more than he feared anyone else, even a serial killer. He believed deep down to his core that if he killed, even for good reasons, then he would turn into a monster. That fear lived there because of empathy. His dad couldn't rid himself of it any more than he could rid himself of his own heart. He'd die without it.

He was reminded of a Norse legend of the dragon slayer, Sigurd. After slaying a dragon, Sigurd drank the dragon's blood, thereby gaining the ability to understand the speech of birds. He also bathed in the dragon's blood, causing his skin to become invulnerable. Sigurd, due to this, was able to overhear two birds discussing an act of treachery being planned by his companion, Regin. In response, Sigurd was able to prevent the act by killing Regin, thus saving his own life and many others. He was a hero, not the villain.

His dad wouldn't see himself that way. He thought if he understood a killer, if he killed, then he would be nothing more than the same as the killers he'd killed. He would be a monster to lock away. That was why he turned into a drunk. Why he refused to, for fifteen years, to get back inside the minds of the killer in order to stop him. And why he was struggling so much now.

At twelve years old, he could reason it out. He saw his dad, knew his heart, his mind, and knew that just because he had to kill didn't make him a monster. Real monsters existed. Real evil lived on this earth and their prey was the innocent. Real people could do monstrous, evil things. They believed themselves to be God, or God-like with all their sadistic power that they threatened to use to kill just for the fun of it.

So, even in his young mind, he had asked himself: if real monsters existed in human form, then could real monster slayers exist as well?

Francis Dolarhyde had thought himself a dragon. Will had slayed it in order to save lives. How could his dad not see that a dragon slayer had to exist in a world of dragons? How could he not know that was what he was? Will had tasted the dragon's blood, he understood their language, his skin as invulnerable as theirs, and he had used it to save so many people's lives. But still, his dad could never figure out how to keep himself from breaking into two.

He didn't know how to help him. But he had to, because it was the only way to do it. There weren't many people who could do what his dad did, if any. Who else could go into the abyss with all the monsters, become one in order to stop them, and then walk out while still keeping their humanity? His dad had been given a gift, not a curse.

What scared his dad wasn't the pursuit of the monsters but the aftermath. What he feared he'd lost instead of realizing what he'd gained. Power wasn't a bad thing when used for good reasons, like slaying a monster. Again, what caused his dad pain was his empathy. It made him think he shouldn't want it; that killing monsters shouldn't feel good unless he himself was a monster.

How could he convince him otherwise? How could he tell him that people like him were needed in the world they lived in? A world with monsters and dragons.

Jack whimpered at the door. He forgot all about the computer, working, and anything else as placed the photo album on top of the box, and stood to let his dog outside. Walking up the steps, he let his dog out the backdoor and stood out on the patio as he checked around the perimeter. It was going to be a beautiful day. His dad was right about Las Vegas. The sky was big and open and it went on for miles and in the distance mountains. The air was dry with no humidity. Absolutely beautiful.

Jack started barking as a knocking came from the front door. Going back inside, he shut the door, blocking Jack from racing inside. Whoever was at the door he didn't want Jack to pounce on. It could be Sara or one of his co-workers. He headed to the door as Jack kept barking.

Peering through the peephole in the door, he saw the long auburn hair with a tint of red of a woman. Opening the door, he asked, "Can I help you?"

Everything else was lost in the aftermath of darkness.

The chatter and noise were buzzing around his house, coming at him from all sides. Trying to keep up with anything was overwhelming. Sara and Catherine were taking photos of the downstairs while Nick was processing the upstairs living room. Warrick had the perimeter. The ache in Gil's head was amplified by the constant voices, clicking of the cameras, movements of people walking by and all around. All the CSI's, the detectives, and the FBI. The questions.

It started in his chest where it always started. The clenching pain, breaths that grew shallower, as it spread outward. His anger was pushed into his ribs and he felt it wanting to rip a hole in his side and pour out the same way his blood had poured from that wound all those years ago.

His eyes were on the open box on the floor in his office. The photo album sitting on top. A photograph. Florida, the beach, him and Kevin sitting in the sand, fishing poles outstretched between, and the setting sun somewhere off to the west.

He felt the breeze on his face, smelt the salt of the ocean and heard the lapping of the waves as the tide came in. Somewhere a distance he heard the call of the great blue heron. They've been fishing for hours according to the falling sun, but hadn't spoken a word to one another.

Molly was scared of him as she didn't want him to be left alone with Kevin. He saw it in her eyes from a distance, despite her sitting right next to him in the sand.

Kevin kept watching them out of the corner of his eyes as he tried not to let it be known. All the while using his granddad's old fishing pole that he'd sent back with Kevin from Montana instead of the one that he'd bought him last Christmas.

Ever since he got back, it was like everything changed. Or, at least, the husband and father part of him. Molly's fear crept in and mixed with his own, making it hard to say anything. They made love the first night he got back, but not a day since. It'd been a week. Whenever he tried to touch her, she moved away. Then she tried to apologize and he felt cold.

The feeling that settled inside was hate. They hated him for leaving, hated him for not dying, hated him for coming back feeling like a different man. He was tired of being hated. Disliked. And being pleasantly talked to and walked around. They were tolerating him while they waited for something to happen. He smelt the fearful anticipation along with the salt water.

The phone in the house was ringing and he didn't make a move to get up to answer it. He wanted a moment alone with Kevin. Maybe if he could get Kevin to stop being so afraid of him, Molly would stop as well. After a few more rings, Molly finally got up, giving them both a look over her shoulder as she headed up the dunes. He watched her go.

"Damn it."

Snapping his eyes over to his son who'd cussed under his breath, he watched as Kevin's frustration grew. He wasn't catching anything. He was fishing too fast. Casting out over and over and then retrieving too fast. There was no patience. How was he expected to catch a big one if he had no patience? And he was using the wrong bait.

Getting up out of the sand, he waded out into the water, scooped some sand up into his hands, and caught a couple of sand fleas. "You're never going to catch anything with—"

"My grandad rigged it for me—

"For fresh water, son. You're fishing in the ocean now. Sand fleas are part of most ocean fish's natural diet." He took the Rapala off the rod and hooked the sand flea in its place. Kevin made a noise of disgust. "You want to catch some red striper and snapper, or do you want to go back home empty handed?"

"I want to catch a shark."

He nearly laughed. "Gotta learn how to catch the small fish before the big fish. Why sharks?"

"Cause they're scary and mean. They kill and eat other animals."

"They're not so bad. They keep the food chain in check by weeding out the weak and sick animals to keep the overall population healthy. If they were to ever go extinct, it could set off a chain reaction throughout the entire ocean…Even impacting us. The thing about sharks is, they don't think they're killing anything. They have no concept of good or bad. They're just eating dinner."

Kevin fiddled with the rod and then casted it out.

Lying back down in the sand, he told him, "Don't rush it. Give the fish time to come to you."

"You think I need help to fish?"

"Only when you're not catching anything."

"I don't need your help."

The way that sounded was awfully cold and distant. Kevin was still trying to push him away. He hated that more than anything. "You're always going to need my help. Do you know why? I'm your dad. The Lord High Keeper of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong." When Kevin looked over at him, he told him, "Jiminy Cricket," with a smirk and wink.

Kevin laughed. He smiled. He missed hearing that laugh. Then his son's face got serious again. "Dad," he went to ask him a question but hesitated.

"If you have a question, be a man, ask it."

Kevin asked, "Why did you build the fence to protect the baby turtles?"

"Are you sure that's the right question to ask to get the answer you really want?" he questioned him.

Kevin wrinkled his head in confusion, thought some more. He was so inquisitive. "You said that thinking like the bad people is the worst feeling in the world. What did it feel like to save her? That blind lady on the news?"

Forming his answer, he told him, "Saving Reba was the best feeling in the world. It made all the bad that I'd felt from thinking like the killer go away."

"And that's why you built the fence for the baby turtles? And why you bring home stray dogs? You want to save them, so…so the bad you feel will go away?"

He gave that some thought as he watched the dark blue and purple sky turn to night. Out on the horizon, a trawler was coming back in. He could see the white pilot light and the red and green on the port and starboard.

After a long moment, he gave a nod.

Kevin had been watching him, and once he got his answer, said, "That's what I want to do. I want to make the monsters go away so you don't have to feel the bad things anymore."

He felt his throat tighten up. Tears stung his eyes. He hoped that no matter what happened between him and Molly, that Kevin would never change the way he felt about him.

A click of a camera.

Turning his head to peer over his shoulder, he saw Molly crouching down with her camera in her hands. Her face was softer than it had been before she left for the house. In her eyes, forgiveness. He almost smiled as she stood and walked over to sit between them in the surf, but the moment she moved he saw the figure standing up on the dunes.

It stood very still as it watched and waited. The dogs sniffed around it but didn't bark or howl at its presence. It was the Dragon. And it was watching him.

Someone asked a question about Hannibal Lecter.

He answered, "This is no longer about Lecter, but Starling. Me."

"What did he say about Starling?" Catherine's voice asked somewhere behind him.

"Nothing. He avoided talking about her," his voice sounded lost, distant, even in his own head.

The anger trailed down along the scar and he felt the familiar twisting of the blade in his gut. Lecter took Kevin. He had his son.

"Then how—"

"Deviation technique," his voice said. "He was deflecting. Anytime I started talking about Starling, he changed it back around to me."

Brass appeared in front of him and said, "You're letting him lead you around like some lost puppy—"

He blinked back at the obtrusiveness as he felt the anger heating his hands, his chest and neck. If he didn't control it now, he'd snap. "I have no other choice. I can either do this and figure it out or run away. I'm done running. That leaves this. He promised not to kill anyone else. Even though he took Kevin, I have to believe him. He gave me his word. It'd be rude to go back on it."

"He says," Catherine said next to him. Then the click of a camera vibrated in his head along with her words. "What if he wants you do this so he can kill everyone—"

"He likes playing these mind games, sometimes more than killing—"

Catherine said, "He's a serial killer, Gil—"

Brass was saying, "How can you possibly know—"

He snapped. "Stop asking me why I know! I just do!"

Brass, Catherine, and everyone in the house was staring at him now with that stunned look. They were afraid of him now. He made them feel that way. Scared. They were all so damn scared.

"Okay. I think everyone needs to leave," Sara said. "Take a break. Get some lunch—"

He left the room and heard more arguing, mostly Sara and Catherine, before Jim's voice butted in. He was done. Walking upstairs, he brushed past Nick and several other FBI agents, who were all in his kitchen and living room, as he headed to the stairs up to his bedroom. Outside was the press, and they were snapping more pictures and asking more questions.

He shut the bedroom door in silence.

He needed to think.

It was like herding cats trying to get everyone out of Grissom's house. Brass knew from the look in Sara's eyes that she wanted alone time with Grissom. Well, she could have it. The Feds were threatening to take over the processing of the crime scene, only to be held back by the Sheriff. As quickly as they allowed the FBI in, they could just as easily kick them out. Not that they wanted to kick the FBI off of the investigation, but their best bet to finding FBI agent Kevin Collins and stopping Hannibal Lecter was still Gil Grissom. He heard word that Director Pearsall was heading back to Las Vegas. He was so glad he was not the Sheriff, or the Mayor, or anyone that was going to be in that room when the yelling started.

Right now, Grissom needed to cool down. He really hoped Sara knew how to do that. Warrick was done with the perimeter and was waiting for the rest of the team by the SUV. Jack, Kevin's dog, had been taken by animal control. Again, chaos.

As they exited the townhouse into the midday sun, press being held back by yellow crime scene tape, Nick said, "We failed him." Nick had seen Grissom as he went to his bedroom.

Slipping on his sunglasses, he tried to tell him, "We didn't—"

"Did you see his face? How lost he looked. We assured him that nothing would happen to any of us. We had each other's backs, but no one had Kevin's—"

Brass stopped Nick with a hand on his chest. "You need to listen to me, Nicky. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. We all had your back, and you still got taken." He saw the shadow of the past that came over Nick's face. "How we got you back was that no one blamed anyone else. We did our jobs, we found the evidence, and we found you."

Nick steadied his breathing and gave a nod. A determination filled his eyes as he said, "Yeah," before walking away over the SUV where Warrick greeted him. Sanders was back at the lab, helping Archie with the cameras as they tried to track the comings and goings of the vehicle.

Catherine didn't want to leave. She was also a supervisor and just as stubborn as Grissom. Grabbing her by the arm, he escorted her to his car. "Brass, what the hell—"

"I'm buying lunch. Get in," he said as he opened the passenger door to his sedan and waited.

Catherine huffed and pouted but got into his detective's car. He pulled out his phone and sent a text to the rest of the CSI's. Lunch, on him, at the usual diner. They all needed to cool down and come together. Right now it felt like everyone was splitting apart. Their glue that held them together was already doing enough of that for the rest of them.

As he drove, Catherine kept going on and on as she aired out her frustration. Mostly with him, and Sara, for some reason. "I can't believe you pulled me away from the scene—"

"It's for the best—"

"And you let Sara boss you around!"

"I didn't let her boss me around, but she was right. You know how Grissom gets if he doesn't have time to think about the scene. There was nothing but chaos in there. I could barely think straight."

"I'm the one who should be talking to him—"

"I have a feeling Sara's going to give him more than a talking to," he uttered under his breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If she doesn't kick his ass, she'd put him straight, that's all I'm saying." Stopping at a red light, he glanced at Catherine and saw the look on her face as realization dawned. "Oops."

Catherine gapped as she said, "They're in a relationship?"

"Keep it a secret, will you? I'm supposed to," he said before continuing driving once the light went green.

"You failed," she shot back. After a moment of silence, she said, "She's going to kick his ass."

"I'd get the proctologist on the phone, just in case."

Sara didn't give him time to think as she marched through the door and shut it behind her. "We're alone—"

He couldn't focus. He couldn't think. It was too much. "I need you to leave."

"I'm not going anywhere until we—" Feeling the annoyance in his head, without saying a word he stepped around her to leave. "Gil, stop." She tried to reach out for him to stop him, but he moved aside and headed for the door. "Don't do that—"

"Sara, I can't do this—"

"Don't walk away from me!"

Upon hearing the warning in her words, he stopped at the door but couldn't face her. But he could listen as all his anger started to boil over the edges.

"I can feel you too. All your pent-up anger and frustration. All the fear. Don't treat me like I'm everyone else! I'm not! You can yell at me, we can argue, you can…You can grab me up and throw me down if you want, I don't care! Just don't shut me out and walk away," she demanded so angrily it caused him to close his eyes against the desperation he felt in his own chest. "Whatever you're going through, I'm right here to go through it with you. I'm not afraid."

He felt so ready to fall. His head a whirl of thoughts and emotions that he didn't know where he was for a second. His hand reached out as he touched the door, grounding himself in the here and now. She said she wasn't afraid. But she would be soon enough if he stayed. Everyone feared him at some point.

He was something to be afraid of.

His mind was suffering. It was hard to focus, to root out the invading thoughts of the constant presence of the devil on his shoulder to focus on the one voice that mattered most: his own. But the moment he thought he heard his own voice, thought he had worked out what it was he was telling him, Lecter's voice was back and louder than all the others.

"The reason you caught me is we're just alike. Smell yourself." Then his words in the hospital, taunting. "It's in your nature."

His response to the question of who he was: "I'm the man that's going to put you down."

He was a monster. Frankenstein's monster. Of all the quotes he could think of from Mary Shelley's novel, there was only one that presented itself in his mind. "I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavoring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone."

Lost and alone in his head. In his mind he saw images of his life, brief moments in time, flash before him like pages in a flipbook. Moments of a life that once valued concepts that he no longer valued. Concepts like love, compassion, individuality, shame, hurt, heartbreak, fears of inadequacy, and the sense of loneliness. All human conditions that were now inconsequential to what he felt in that moment: rage.

So much rage he wanted to kill.

In his mind, two boy's lives flashed before him. A young boy, sitting quietly reading a book under a tree in an open field. Another young boy, playing keys on a piano as his father circled the air around him. Him, older, standing stoically as his father took his last breath while his mother, Betty, cried. The other boy, older, standing stoically while he watched his sister die in war as the snow fell all around him.

Him, alone, shouldering his bag to depart for college as, in the distance, his mother worked in the silence of her art gallery. Hannibal, older, feeling pleasure filled up his chest as he stuck a knife into the chest of another man. Their two lives clashing together as he watches, distantly and helplessly, as Hannibal stuck that very knife into his own gut, twisting it around before attempting to kill him.

Later, him joking and laughing with Kevin on the beach. Him, standing outside a hospital room watching Kevin cry as his mother took her last breath. Later, during the late hours, walking through the empty rooms of his empty apartment while listening to the silence. Alone, sitting and staring out the window of his townhouse. Alone, reading in his living room. Alone, in his office at the crime lab. Surrounded by others at crime scenes, but still alone.

He had long since believed that the reason he was a good supervisor, that what made him able to perform his job, was because he was alone in his existence. It made it easier to make the tough decisions, to make the hard calls, and to keep himself intact if it all came crashing down upon him. The concept of "alone" was more than how he chose to live but it had become his way of life. A family was out of his grasp due to a self-imposed isolation that he associated with his own individuality.

"You know what your problem is, Will?" Lecter voiced in his head. "You're too human."

"I told you that I am here—" Sara's voice returned to steady his mind. To center him. She was the order in the chaos. Order to his mind as he felt his sanity dwindle away. He didn't want to make her feel crazy. He grabbed the doorknob as he went to leave when he heard her say, "At least if you argue back then I know you still care. If there is nothing between us but silence…I think you're done. I think you stopped caring. Show me what you feel—"

Show me…Her desperation was his own. He wanted her so much. He didn't want to be alone anymore.

He finally turned around, letting go of the door, as he closed the distance between them. Grabbing her up as he pinned her against the wall, he told her, "The only time I'll ever grab you, would be to kiss you," right before he kissed her so hard it hurt.

Her thigh wrapped around his waist as he gripped it so tightly that he left nail impressions. She grabbed him by the back of the neck as he broke the kiss. There was a fire in her eyes as she said, "Kiss me like that again and you can do whatever you want."

He kissed her again and did just that.

A while later, he was panting for air as he started up at the ceiling. His head was dizzy, and it wasn't solely from lack of air and the pounding of his heart. That had been highly unexpected. He hadn't meant to do any of that. But everything had been spiraling inside as he felt himself falling. It was either shut down, start yelling, or…have sex. Sara didn't want the first option. She would have put up with the second, but he never wanted to yell at her.

That left the only thing he could do. Now, he was left with questions. Some many questions. Lord Byron wrote: "There are four questions of value in life...What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love."

He wondered if he could add a fifth: What was the only thing worth killing for?

Sara was lying next to him on the bed, her hand on his bare, sweaty chest. He didn't remember taking his shirt off. His pants were still on. "Well, that was different."

He started laughing. A deep, genuine laugh that even surprised him.

There was teasing in her voice as she said, "I did not think you had that in you. Angry, passionate sex. Maybe we should fight more often." She rubbed over his chest as she placed a kiss over his pounding heart. Her lips fell on his as he pulled her closer, feeling their hot bodies trying genuinely to melt into one.

Breaking the kiss, seeing her eyes staring down at him, he said, "You really aren't afraid of me."

"I have no reason to be."

Moving her hair aside, hand cupping her face, he told her, "Everyone's afraid of me. Hell, even Jack was."

The FBI saw him as a fox guarding the hen house. Afraid he'd turn on them. Molly…Kevin feared him because she did. They made him think that he should be afraid of himself too. Lecter saw that fear and had used it against him. Made him think that one day he'd be where he was. Locked away in a mental institution or in prison somewhere.

"Because of what they saw in you," she said. "You trusted them…but, what if they were wrong? What if you have no reason to be afraid?"

He didn't regret what he did. Marrying Molly, being Kevin's father, but he knew the moment Jack turned up in Florida with a picture of the Leeds family, that he hadn't wanted to quit. Molly wanted him to quit. She wanted the beach and family life. The mundane, day in and day out…She knew he would eventually hate it. Hate the sand, and in turn, hate all the good they had in it.

But he saw the future the way she saw it. He loved her, and Kevin. Of course he did. In her eyes, in her heart, he lost sight of himself. Truth was, he enjoyed going after Dolarhyde. In the hunt he knew why he existed. He knew his purpose.

Even though it took a year for Molly to leave him afterwards, he knew it was over before he got back to Florida. He couldn't return to being that guy anymore. He didn't want to be afraid of who he was, or what he saw in the mirror. But he had been. He'd been deeply terrified of his own reflection that he stopped seeing it.

A response formed in his head and before he could stop himself, he said, "I have a hard time seeing myself. It took—it took almost dying for me to understand something I never wanted to understand. I know what makes a killer. Murder is something we make for ourselves. Humans are the only ones who call it that. No other species murders but us. All the elements that make it up are inside you…inside me. I don't like it, but…I can't help what I feel. I don't ever want to see that reflected in your eyes when you look at me."

"I know you've had to kill two serial killers already. I don't think that makes you a murderer or a killer. It makes you…" She took a moment and then told him, "A savior. And you do it by going to that dark place where most people can't go."

His purpose was this: He was the only one who could find the monsters in order to stop the monsters by becoming the monster.

The fear and doubt started to plague his mind again. And the reason for all that doubt and fear was because of Hannibal Lecter. He had twisted his mind all up and put that fear into his head. Lecter drove him to madness manipulating his mind into thinking they were the same. Taunting him with it. He believed it because he had a hard time seeing himself. He had a hard time knowing where he started and where he ended. He was torn into two.

One part was the man he was now that went by Gil Grissom. The other part…The other part of him was in darkness.

He went quiet. Sara didn't like it.

"You can talk to me," Sara's words were in his head, swirling around with his thoughts.

He hesitated before telling her, "You said that crazy people make you feel crazy. I don't want to make you feel that way. Burden you with—"

"For starters, you're not crazy. And second, you need to let me worry about it. I'll let you know when it's too much. Just as I want you to let me know the same. As partners, we're supposed to carry each other's burdens. Makes it easier to deal with. If we can't trust one another, who can we trust?"

"It might upset you. Your life."

"Let it."

He smirked. "You don't want the mundane?"

"Are you kidding? Neither one of us is built for that. Even in our retirement years, we'll both be trying to save someone or something…Probably the whales—"

He pushed up off the bed and kissed her. Rolling them over, he deepened the kiss until he had to breathe. God, he loved her so much. The love that he saw in her eyes was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. No fear, no hesitation, and no pity. Just pure love and understanding. Acceptance.

Molly never had that much understanding. Even after he saved the Sherman family from being Dolarhyde's next victims, she still didn't understand why he did it. She still wanted him to work on boat motors, and to only save stray dogs and turtles due to her own fear that bled into his.

Sara was everything he always wanted in a woman. She was exactly what he needed. How did he end up so lucky?

"Think you can get back to work now?"

"As long as you come with me."

Her hand was in his hair as she smiled at him. "I'll always come with you. All you have to do is ask."

"I thought you wanted a fight," he teased.

"We have plenty of other things to fight. Mainly, a psychopath and his girlfriend." She got up and held her hand out for him to take. "Let's go find your son."

Taking her hand, he let her pull him up off the bed and then push him towards the bathroom. They had to clean up first.

TBC…