DISCLAIMER: I claim no ownership of Hannibal NBC or affiliated branding (sadly).
SUMMARY: Still shaken from Baltimore, Will is thrust into the midst of a horrific new case: a killer targeting close to home. He struggles between clinging to personal morality and fighting new influences. He reaches his breaking point and, horrified by the aftermath, becomes desperate for emotional stability. Solace is found in the only person he knows will understand. Set mid season two.
NOTES: See chapter end.
Chapter Three: Sconfitta
Michelle Spencer. Child protection and welfare officer, specific to the profiling and psychological department. Will had even met her a few times. Talked with her. Discussed Abigail, amongst other things.
His skin prickled.
Jack took five minutes to process the theory. Another five to find the matching profile in his team. Another five to be unconvinced of the betrayal. Another five to gather a few cars together. Another five to get on the road.
Will counted the seconds. Each one rang like a death toll. Another person has died, as Jack rebuked the proposal. Another person had died, as he sighed at Will through the phone.
Hannibal drove Will. His hands were less shaky. His confidence was intangible. Like bedrock.
Will didn't like that implication.
The snow piled high on either side. Trapped in a blizzard; ideal conditions for getting away with murder. Will swore as they reached another jam in the road. Hannibal's lips thinned. Will ignored him.
Flashing lights appeared in the wing mirror. Jack and the rest of the team. The traffic parted. They sped past Hannibal's car.
"Pull out," Will said. "Follow them."
Hannibal obeyed. He put weight on the accelerator. They shot forward after the rest.
Will shut his eyes. He wrapped a solitary finger around the grip of his gun. He clamped his teeth together like a dog gnawing on a twist of rope.
"Will," Hannibal said. His voice was quiet, barely audible over the sirens. "You cannot be rash tonight. You cannot follow your own impulses, for the sake of our protection."
"The evidence is solid. Jack will bring her in. He will."
Hannibal half-faced him, eyes on the road. Snow shadow brushed his face. "And if he doesn't?"
"He will."
"You put faith in a system that is more flaw than justice."
Will swallowed. "I know."
(He knows. He knows better than anyone.)
A crimson shadow appeared from the grey. Hannibal slammed on the brakes. It was the FBI car they'd tailed, pulled to the side of the road. Will unbuckled his seatbelt. He shoved the door open. Hannibal called his name. He ignored it.
He slipped as he ran through the snow. The glow of the roadside house shone yellow. The cars surrounded it like a net. Will pushed past the on-guard officers, flashing his badge. Jack stood under the front porch. Grim acknowledgment on his face. "Will."
"Jack," Will breathed. "Where is she? Did you get her?"
"I knocked."
"Knocked? Break the damn door down, Jack! She's probably not in. She's out killing. We've got to find her before -"
"Will." Jack's voice pierced through the cacophony drumming in Will's head. "Dr. Spencer has been one of mine for years. I trust your initiative, but I trust her more."
"Jack, we can't afford -"
"Agent Graham. Gun away. Now."
Will glared at Jack. His heart tore his ribs into paper slips. He couldn't swallow. He put the gun away. Jack knocked again. They waited.
"Jack, look, she's not coming! Don't you get it, we've got to find her! Trace her phone, or -"
The door opened. The woman shielded her eyes from the red and blue splash illuminating her hallway. "Jack?"
"Dr. Spencer. This is Agent Will Graham. May we come in?"
"Of - of course," her voice was tentative. But honeyed. Will's determination wavered. "Has there been an accident? I wondered about the sirens."
"Not quite. May we?" Jack gestured to the hall. Will glanced back. Hannibal stood, shadowy and tall in the snow by the car. He nodded at Will.
Will followed Jack into the house. He felt like a dog on a lead. Again.
Another person has died.
Warmth flooded through his arms, chasing away the scream building in his oesophagus. Bile dissolved the flesh at the back of his throat and he forced it down, drinking in the lamplight like water.
"I'm so sorry for the mess. I didn't expect company, not in this weather." Spencer laughed, and it weaselled its way into Will's brain and sank like a dead fish.
"Where were you Tuesday night?" Will asked, his teeth clamped around a venomous tone.
"Will, easy," Jack warned. "Dr. Spencer. We have reason to suggest you have been involved in the newest case."
To her credit, Dr. Spencer morphed her face into a stomachable expression of confusion. But Will's contempt was brimming at the rim. She inhaled shakily. "The one with those children?"
"Yes. That one. I believe you've been helping with the profile, correct?"
"Only briefly. I've been swamped with other cases, you know how it is."
Will smiled, the chill running through his grin. He hoped the parody would be enough to fool Dr. Spencer, if not Jack. "Any of those cases happen to include susceptible teenagers?"
Dr. Spencer looked at him. He couldn't meet her eyes. He stared at the white handkerchief spilling from her blouse pocket: artfully placed just so to pose no threat, to welcome with an illusion of unkempt disinterest and informality. "I am the supervisor of many vulnerable young people. I think… that's why these recent events have been harder to stomach."
Will nodded, thin lipped. "I'm sure. It is awful, isn't it?"
Another person has died.
Jack eyed Will, admonition behind every movement.
"Ever so awful. I worked with two of those boys last year. They'd done so well to get back on their feet. To have it all crumble now is crushing, for all of us, I'm sure." She faced Jack, her eyes crinkling in the corners. "How are you both holding up?"
Jack coughed up a small smile. "Fine, thank you Michelle. I appreciate your concern, always, but time is short."
"Oh, of course. I am so sorry. I struggle to switch between therapist and colleague."
"I've found the two can often become interlinked." Will stooped slightly to stare at Dr. Spencer's framed photos. Family pictures, educational awards and a lot of natural photography. "Though I'd mark it as a sign of a not-so-good psychologist." He balanced his voice, steady like scales resting on a smooth table. But his panic curled around his skull, digging into his eyes.
Another person has died.
"Perhaps," Dr. Spencer replied. "But people don't attach to blank doctors. Children need someone real to hold onto. A person who sees value in them from a human perspective. Not a medical one."
(And Will has needed all of those things, he's been clinging to that dream for as long as he can remember, and he's found it just as much an illusion as everything else in his mind.)
Another person has died.
Dr. Spencer was every bit as honest as Jack asserted. Not a hint of manipulation behind her tongue. Will could have unpicked her voice into neat compartments, arranged by organ and victim and motivation, and would have had nothing but empty boxes and a skewered doctor's blood on his hands. He scrubbed at his forehead with both hands, scraping away his failings. It was her. It had to be her. It had to be her.
Another person has died.
"I am still confused as to the purpose of your visit. Am I to be a consultant on this case?" Dr. Spencer's voice was kind. It was genuine. It was so distinctly unlike Hannibal's, soft in cadence and tone and lilt.
It had to be her.
But Will was wrong. He couldn't be wrong. He was wrong. Something shattered in his brain, his presumptions dropped like marbles over the floor and scattered into far corners as he stood, arms limp by his sides. He was wrong.
A sharp knock sounded on the front door. Jack admitted the offending junior officer. Will's entire focus was on holding himself together at the seams. He didn't hear the exchanged words. He clutched Dr. Spencer's table. He clutched it until his fingers tore at the tips.
"Will." Jack's voice was uncharacteristically soft, faded in intensity. Defeat written in the slump of his shoulders. "They found the first body. East side of the city."
"No."
"Will -"
"I know this is right. It adds up. I know it." His joints weakened, his jaw aching, a strange pain shooting through his teeth.
"I want you back in the car. Get your head into gear."
Will swallowed. "One body. Four more to go."
Jack's forehead creased with confusion. Will stuttered. "Jack - Jack, I can't do this, I don't have any leads, I'm not -"
"Agent Graham?" Dr. Spencer's voice. "You're incredibly pale. Do you need to sit down?"
Will, stomach turning over and over, raised his head. His eyes fluttered around the room like a moth yet, obsessive over Dr. Spencer, he met her gaze.
His body pooled into blood on the floor, on his hands, dripping from his hair and into his eyes. He caught a scream with a hand to his mouth, holding back vomit and flesh and organs and pain and death as he retched. The doctor dissolved into dark, leaving Will gore-stained and hungry on his knees, curled in within himself. His senses hung on a lurid parody of realism. One second and he'd strung up the boy in the museum, tugging fistfuls of hair away in unbridled glee. One second and he'd peeled away the skin of the girl in the river, her teeth white like andesite in the ice. One second and he'd tied the boy, still squirming and screaming like a wounded cat, to the back of his car.
Dead-eyed faces swallowed him whole. He fell hand-first, heart beating with glee, body seized with predatory triumph.
Will gasped for air and he came up from the bloody water. The room was warm, Jack's hand heavy on his shoulder.
Dr. Spencer held his eyes. The kindness he'd mistaken for truth before was dotted around the iris in a colourful lure. But her pupils reached out like grimacing maws.
"Will?"
"I have to - I have to get out - Jack, I -" Will lurched away, tearing from Jack's hand.
Will stumbled through the front door. He pushed forward, he pushed until the ghost of Jack's hand was faint on his shoulder. People yelled after him. The shouts were near mute in his ears.
He barrelled into the snow. His fingers dug into his jaw. His chest heaved. It was blindingly white. Ice clogged his throat and soaked his bones.
His knees gave way. He fell forward.
Will's fingers found the rough material of a coat. He clutched onto it. He bit his tongue until it stung, dribbling blood into a dark stain on the snow. His lip trembled and he scrunched his eyes tight.
Hannibal let him stay like that, knelt before him in a gruesome worship on his knees. Will's fists tightened around his coat. Hannibal laid his hand on the back of his head. But it wasn't comforting. It was heavy. Weighing him down, forcing him back into the water where the dead childrens' mouths threatened to chew him alive.
He straightened. Hannibal's face was cast in the dark red of the police sirens. Will, shaking his head, stared into his eyes. "It's her. It's her. I know it is."
"I take it Jack does not believe you."
"It's her. He has to see. I need to show him. She's here, right now. She's killed one and I - I don't know how, but we can stop the rest. Tonight. Jack will see, when he comes out, I - I'll show him, I -"
"I warned you not to place faith in Jack, Will."
"It feels - It feels like my head is… it's like when you were in there. Playing around. I'm skewed." Will inhaled sharply. He stepped back. "I - I feel like a lab rat. You - you haven't been messing with me, Doctor Lecter? You're - you're not still in my head, are you?"
"Will, there is nobody in your head except you. I passed you the reins."
"Then why do I feel like this, Hannibal?" Will's voice cracked. "I'm so… I feel wrong."
Jack approached. He stood a pace behind Will and Hannibal. The snow dusted them all with a fine layer of obscurity.
"Hannibal," Will repeated imploringly. "Why do I feel like this?"
"Only you can tell yourself that."
"Hannibal, please." A resort to begging. His voice split.
Hannibal tilted his head. He studied him. Will clung to the edges of his coat like he could pull meaning from the threads he unpicked in his exterior. Jack stood close enough to hear them now, and still Hannibal's brow betrayed no interior turmoil, no absence of his stoicism, and he shook his head. "Go with Jack. You two still have a chance of catching this murderer before sunrise."
And, like that, Will's hands fell from Hannibal's clothing. His expression slipped from his face, a mask falling over his eyes as his muscles stilled. Hannibal had been his last chance. Hannibal was the only one who believed him. But he was too wrapped up in twisting him around into a pet marionette, strung up by the neck.
Hannibal nodded at Jack, his stare professional. "I am sorry we led you astray with this. I was convinced. As was Will."
Will willed his eyes to betray his feelings. He wanted his emotions to overflow and spill at Hannibal's shoes, laid out like a dissected bird on the snow for Hannibal to analyse and organise and label in neat drawers. "Hannibal," he said blankly.
"Thank you, doctor," Jack said. He pulled Will away with a firm hand. "Will. The car."
"Hannibal."
But Hannibal turned away. Will's voice failed, the strings of comfort he'd torn from him last week nowhere in sight. Jack forced him back. Will's limbs were numb. He ducked into the car. Jack shut the door then slid into the driver's seat, kickstarting the engine. A blast of heat hit them. Will fixated on Hannibal, half-visible even in the blizzard, his lips set into a small smile.
"Don't shut down, Will," Jack ordered. "Not yet."
Will didn't move. "I don't get to make that choice anymore."
And, as Jack pulled out, Will broke his steady focus. His eyes found Dr. Spencer's soft silhouette in her door frame. The electric lamplight behind her head drilled into her cheeks like a skull.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who faved/followed, hope the update was enjoyable! Or much as it can be when I insist on torturing Will so :D
