Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The constant roar of the jets overhead drifts to the tarmac below, teasing at a life of adventure just out of reach. The loudness causes safety and health hazards, and puts everyone on edge to the point where there’s a high turnover among employees in his area. But for Will, it helps drown out all the noise in his head.

He thinks too much. His inner mind-noise goes full-turbo, all damn day.

Though truth be told, it may be his conscience nagging at him. He’s on the upper-side of his thirties. And this job, which would be rough for any straight-laced citizen, is just part of his side-hustle.

The mail haul lands and Will slips the cart into the freight hold where he rifles through the envelopes, feeling for newly issued credit cards. He pockets several into his backpack -- it's a good take today -- and then pushes the cart onto the conveyor belt. Easy peasy.

He punches out at the employee exit and goes through security where he places his bag. Jimmy Price pats down his bright blue onesie with the fluorescent vest that all the baggage handlers wear. Will suspects that he likes feeling him up. Jimmy gives a cursory look into his backpack.

“Have a good weekend, Will,” Jimmy gives him that husky voice after, like he needs a cigarette.

Will nods his goodbye. Always a pleasure for them both. Whatever it takes for Jimmy to get his rocks off and for Will to make it to his car again. When he settles in the driver’s seat, he catches how fast his heart is racing. His fingers are shaking so hard he can barely start the car. He really is getting too old for this.

It’s a quick drive up 95 to Catonsville, once he gets a handle on himself. He lives in a quasi-suburban enclave on the Southside, a townhouse community next to the highway that used to be acres of cow fields. Now, one of the most notorious criminal enterprises has taken up residence in its rolling hills. Very few expensive cars are on these streets. It’s solidly working class and the rest of the community is too busy trying to survive to notice what’s going on under their noses.

The only giveaway of the gangster in their midst is the solid steel front door on the two-story brick townhouse. Jack Crawford reigns here. Will parks down the block. He lives a few streets over, and the walk home after he turns in his haul will bring his blood pressure down.

He dreads the walk up the stoop to Jack’s house. He tries to ignore the low grumble in the pit of his stomach. A weak protest at that.

Beverly Katz, Jack’s enforcer, sits in the corner of the porch in the shadows. She approaches with a headnod. Exchanges a look with Will.

She pats him down. She does not do this for kicks, like Jimmy. This is serious business for her. And while Will has been vouched for, he’s not from around here. He’s still treated as a stranger. She’s Jack’s eyes and ears, and she never seems to like what she sees when she looks at Will.

“Sleeping much, Will?” Beverly asks in a way that makes it clear she doesn’t give a shit, but warns that his sagging appearance is raising alarms for her.

“Alana doesn’t allow for that much,” he overshares around Beverly. Another red flag.

Beverly doesn’t comment, which means he offended not only his girlfriend but a woman who could stab him by his balls and serve them up for Alana’s lunch. He recoils as the screen door slams shut behind him.

Beverly probably saw Alana today, as she runs small errands for Jack and his crew. This is the way things have worked around this block for decades and that’s the way it always will be. Alana sees nothing wrong with it. A little extra pocket money, she calls it. And he believed her, until it began to feel like it cost too much for this little bit of change.

Alana and Beverly were born and raised in this cow patch and went way back. The Bloom and Katz family ate Thanksgiving dinners together, the turkey provided by Jack. Beverly will no doubt pass along Will’s inappropriate comments to Alana the first chance she gets.

Will dumps his shoes next to the grandfather clock in the small foyer. There are two upstairs levels, that’s strictly reserved for the private residence. He doesn’t even look at the formal living room, decorated in cool grays and blues and modest crystals.

He heads down to the basement, where the operation is in full swing in the tight space. Money is counted. Drugs weighed. Guns stripped of serial numbers. Will tries to avoid looking at this.

He drifts over to Brian Zeller, in a corner keeping an eye on everybody, who extends his hand for the envelopes. Long ago, Will made the mistake of thinking he’d wanted a handshake and had avoided his touch like the plague. Zeller had not been amused that Will found his hands too dirty to shake. They are not on the best of terms.

Zeller slices open the envelopes with an antique switchblade and makes Will wait as he activates the accounts on his phone. He will sell the identities. Because they were just issued, it may take several weeks before the people get the bill for the charges and realize they’ve been hacked. It’s a good racket. Zeller hands Will a nice cut for his part in the deal.

Now that Brian has assumed the new identities and therefore access to thousands of dollars of credit lines, Will usually heads home. But today, a hand is held out to wait. A mumble about Jack wanting to see him.

This is unexpected. Will is still in his baggage uniform. As Beverly noted, he looks like shit.

He catches sight of Jack and Brian huddling in the foyer. Beverly steps into the house, joining them. It is unsettling, to say the least. If Beverly reports that he has trouble sleeping because the thought of getting caught keeps him up at night...

Will exhales shallowly. Beverly does not know this about him, despite how close she is to Alana. Hell, he’s even managed to keep this from Alana. He’s had to. She's one of them.

Will watches the trio talk amongst themselves. Jack has lost some weight as of late, maybe out of his sympathy for his sick wife. The rumors about what she has are pretty bleak, and Jack has been scarce, letting Beverly and Brian handle the more day-to-day work.

But the times Will has seen Jack have been odd. He has been talking of children lately. Building a legacy. Primed to make a move to something bigger and better than this block. He’s a man with a plan, and Will thinks, better for it.

“Will,” Jack calls out in greeting from a distance.

Will waves. He remains where he is. He feels clammy and he twists an empty credit card envelope in his hand.

With Zeller out of sight, the operation has come to a halt. The rest of the Crawford crew steps outside for a smoke break or a bite of lunch. Much to Will’s surprise, he may actually be left alone with the boss.

Over the years, he’s gotten to know all of these guys. BBQs. Birthdays. Jack treats his crew well. But his mouth twists as the basement empties out. He knows, deep down, that no one will bail him out when Jimmy calls airport security to take him out of the employee exit in bracelets.

Will tries to prepare himself if called to give Jack an update about his work. He wants to warn Jack that his racket isn’t sustainable. Security moves cameras around every week. Eventually, they’ll get wise to the loading docks. Already, they keep a closer eye on all the employees. One day, he’ll get caught.

Jack beckons him closer, to join them in the foyer. Will shuts his eyes tightly. Blinking hard. Beads of sweat course down his cheeks. He crosses towards them.

One minute he is standing in front of Jack Crawford and the next Will is passing out.

*

When Will comes to, they’ve dragged him onto a couch in Jack’s living room and called Alana to his side. She’s a smart woman. She pocketed all the cash from his cut, just in case.

The commotion has brought Bella out of her bedroom. She brings Will a glass of water. When Jack sees Will’s eyes refocus, he leans in close.

“You alright, Will?” Jack asks, but he’s swimming in triplicate in Will’s eyes. Even in a set of three Jacks, Will can see Jack knows, knows that something is up with him. He wants to tell Jack he’s right. He is not made for this life.

“I’m fine,” Will insists. And his stomach lurches. He clutches it, forcing the bile back down.

He looks to Alana for reassurance. She has the money and that’s what counts. He’s doing this for her. She likes designer clothes. A man who drives a good car. She keeps herself up with her mani-pedis and hair appointments. This is the cost of being with someone as beautiful as Alana. And extra luxuries are outside his pay range as it stands.

“Did you eat anything on your shift at all today?” Alana coaxes him to lie back.

He thinks for a moment. They are too busy to break for lunch, despite the union rules. He could, but lately, he hasn’t been able to keep anything down. He simply waves the question away.

But he finds his head sinking back into the cushion and gazing up at Jack. For a quick flash, their eyes meet. And Jack’s breath is taken away. He had never been this close to Will Graham. He is a beautiful man once the focus is taken off the uniform and scruff he wears like a second skin.

Will recognizes that look of appreciation. He’s heard the noise about his eyes. His curls. His full lips. Most men will dismiss him as looking too feminine. Even Alana’s mother, without fail every Sunday brunch after church, will comment on what pretty babies he will make with Alana. Over time, he’s created his armor to redirect those surprised stares. But now Jack's noticed and he sees the wheels turning.

Jack sets the empty glass of water down on the coffee table and shoots the hovering figures that suddenly surround them with a hard look.

“Everyone out,” Jack commands.

The room clears immediately. Will crests a second wave of nausea. He’s afraid Jack will ask him to take his hand and propose. Whatever is happening at this moment feels extremely intimate.

Will forces himself to sit up at least. Jack gives him a hand. Will catches Jack giving him an appraising look, again.

“What is it, Jack?” Will asks, his voice rasping out feeble sounds. Jack's brow furrows, making his concern very clear. At least it’s true that Jack is now longer swimming before his eyes. Will waves this off, his eyes clear again. They settle, on somewhat normal terms.

“I have a job for you,” a solemn tone has been taken, as if he knows Will can’t do one more thing.

He thinks of Alana, and reminds himself that he wants to give her more than his heart. He wants to take her around the world. In style. Flying first class.

“What is it?” Will repeats.

“Delivering a message to the funny farm up the road,” Jack reveals, casually.

“The Baltimore State Hospital?” Will starts.

“For the Criminally Insane,” Jack finishes. “I know. But it won’t be for long. And you get to walk out of there, right?”

Jack smiles encouragingly at his own joke. Will doesn’t. He knows that hospital. He knows the kind of people who get sent there. Hell, depending on his mood, he could land there one day himself. Today being a case in point.

Will considers his options. He looks at the steel door. He wonders what will happen if he goes through that door and never comes back.

He looks at Jack. He has zero options. They both know he can’t say no.

“If I do this,” Will negotiates, “you need to find someone else for the mail caper.”

Will can’t believe how easy that was. He asks for more money, too. Jack accepts his terms. Without hesitation. He should have known then that it was too good to be true.

*

Alana likes to go out when she’s happy. His friends have recently re-opened The Brass Elephant, a legendary Baltimore restaurant that closed during the recession. Everything that was down is looking up again.

A lot of glad-handing and champagne to be had at the Elephant. Even with a friends and family discount, the bill is astronomical. And Alana mostly had a liquid dinner.

The bonus that Jack had given him empties from his overstuffed wallet. Alana’s eyebrow raises. Even with as drunk as she is, she can’t resist asking what exactly does Jack have him delivering.

“A message,” is all Will can say. And he’s being honest.

“Is it a dangerous message?” Alana considers him.

“It depends, I guess,” Will shrugs. The messenger is certainly a known entity. The receiver, considering where he’s going… Will fixes a well-practiced smile on his face.

“Be careful,” is all Alana will say on the matter.

*

Will had scrubbed the stench of the runway off of him, but no matter how hard he sloughed, the dirt never seems to come off his hands. Alana would regard them too with disgust. She preferred him to use his lips and keep the lights dimmed.

Tonight, they stagger into their little rowhome, with their hands all over each other. The alcohol makes them forget the world outside their door. Will should feel safe. They’ve celebrated their good fortune. Things are only going to get better for Will as this job moves forward.

But his erection flags. Strangely, he opts to be honest with her. He shares how nervous he is about the new job. He doesn’t know what he’s walking into. If he were smarter, he would have asked Jack who he was meeting with. And why he was chosen to deliver this message.

He pulls Alana up from her knees and brings her to his chest. He tells her that he just wants her to hold him. He hopes it’s alright to just want to be held from time to time. He hopes she realizes that it can be just as intimate as any other sexual act. If not better.

But she wants him to be normal, functioning. The opposite of broken or damaged or unable to get it up. He knows he’ll hear the jokes whenever the erectile dysfunction ads appear on television. The pressure to be like other men. He’s familiar with her brand of humor. And he’s sure all of her boyfriends, who all came up in Jack’s crew before going to jail or getting killed, have had moments like this. She’s been programmed to expect more though.

Alana doesn’t pretend to understand the need to simply cuddle after the night they’ve had. The disappointment comes off her in waves. And he knows that lately his behavior has been off-putting. That she realizes how sensitive he is and that it’s not working for her.

How did he ruin such a great night?

*

He staggers, bleary-eyed, down the corridor leading to the visiting room. At the crack of dawn, Beverly had dropped by to give Will the message, and right away, Will knew. He just knew, in his gut, that he was fucked.

He lurches into the chair and almost expects the orderly to cuff him to the ring in the center of the table. He is told to wait and is left alone. The credentials that had gotten him this far apparently provided for a private meeting.

Will smoothes his suit. Beverly had also provided him with this too since he was to be a junior attorney, from a well-respected firm in the city. The business card looked real enough. Will pocketed it in his bureau in advance. In case he’d need an attorney for his own arrest down the road.

Will takes off the jacket. Baltimore swamp heat and institutional funk assail his senses. He places his briefcase on the table, but it’s unnecessary to pull out the letter. He knows its contents by heart.

The door creaks open. He catches a flash of the pale gray jumpsuit, much like his own airport-issued one. While Will is clear where he is, he’s still surprised by the sight of the man approaching in chains.

He shuffles into his seat across from Will. An orderly secures the prisoner’s handcuffs for limited mobility to the hook in the center of the table. Will swallows before looking up to consider the man before him.

The prisoner looms above. His face a death mask. His jumpsuit clinging to his lean body.

Most criminals recognize another criminal in their midst. Will doesn’t get this sense with this particular man. He seems polite, educated, mild-mannered. Aristocratic, even.

He’s not what Will’s expecting, at all. He contemplates if he had been Jack’s accountant. What he could have possibly done to end up here. To Will, he looks too good for this world.

The two sit across from each other, one in chains and one free, assessing. They wait until the guard closes the door and the locks latch into place. Will remembers to exhale. He’s made it this far.

“I was expecting someone from the firm, Mr. Harris,” a silky voice reduces Will to his real station in life.

Caught, Will pulls his gaze away from the man’s mouth and insists, “I am from the firm.”

“Which attorney do you answer to?”

Will realizes he’s in some kind of trance from being in this guy’s presence. He shudders, then straightens in his seat. He clasps his hands in front of him to stop them from shaking.

He meets the challenge in the prisoner’s gaze. He reminds himself that he will walk out of here and receive another whopping amount of money for a 30 second conversation.

“If you’re who you say you are, your shoes would match the quality of your suit,” the prisoner reasons. “Your aftershave would not be found in the local drugstore. You would not have remained standing until I sat down like the poor little Southern boy you are deep down. Where are you really from, Mr. Harris?”

A searing gaze is exchanged. Will feels this man’s eyes could bear down into his skull and seep into his bones.

“You’re not an attorney, any more than I am,” the prisoner concludes. “Who are you and why are you here?”

Will looks down at his scuffed shoes, the tell-tale wear and tear on the briefcase he’d had in better days and thinks of his dad falling out in the parking lot of a dive bar and dying there in a drunken heap. He reddens in shame. He gathers himself, not out of defiance but out of fear. He doesn’t want to look too closely at himself, let alone have this man see what he fears everyone can see.

“Jack Crawford sent me,” Will whispers.

“I don’t remember seeing you on his block.”

“I didn’t grow up in Baltimore,” Will concedes. “You wouldn’t’ve seen me.”

“But I see you now.”

“Yes,” Will sighs. “And I see you.”

Amused by this: “Oh, you do? And what do you see?”

Will allows himself to settle back in his seat and he spreads his legs slightly. A confidence is projected. This is the one gift he has. Mirroring others. And he doesn’t believe it will fail him now.

“You sabotaged yourself. Got too bored being Jack’s whipping boy. And you hurt him. Because you wanted out.” Will looks around at the caged room. “You pretend being here is no different from being out there. You think you can endure this.”

The room fills with silence. And the death mask has cracked. The eyes are no longer mocking and superior. Will has leveled him. They are equals now.

“He knows,” Will states. “That you slept with Mrs. Crawford. That you promised to run away with her. That you broke her heart. And that you had no intention of honoring any of that. This… was a way of letting you marinate with that. He’s patient. His reckoning will come.”

Will absorbs that he delivered Jack’s message with more sound and fury than he had imagined. His blood is pumping. He stands, righteous. Done.

Anyone else would be shaking in their prison-issued sneakers. Instead, Jack’s prisoner remains unmovable as a statue. They share a look of what Will considers to be admiration.

“You don’t care,” Will realizes, in awe.

A slight smile dawns on those full lips. Will shakes his head and pulls himself from his righteous stand. He leans closer to the prisoner, to whisper this:

“The next time he won’t send some country bumpkin to deliver a message,” Will warns him. “He will send a killer and –“

“He sent you.” This is said simply.

“I’m not an enforcer. I’m merely the one who brings the message.”

“Jack’s messenger. Will you return the favor?”

Will swallows. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the guard standing in the window, but their closeness hasn’t alarmed him. He nods.

“First, a message for you, one that I hope you’ll take to heart.”

Another look exchanged. Will waits with baited breath.

“There’s nothing wrong with you…”

A relieved half-smile escapes Will’s lips before he can pull them back into line. It is beginning to disturb him, the effect this man has on him. And the prisoner feels it too. He stops and considers Will.

“It strikes me at once that I failed to introduce myself. Dr. Hannibal Lecter.”

So there’s the source for the formality, the precision of his verbal cuts. Will holds back. Jack had warned him not to get personal.

“Dr. Lecter –“

“Aren’t we past the point of formalities?”

Will has forgotten the fake name he usually gives to everyone else not associated with Jack Crawford. He has forgotten all falsities it would seem around this name. Will relents. “Hannibal, I’m Will.”

Each man seems grateful that they’re being treated as human beings. Will returns to his seat. He understands the appeal of this place now. Hannibal’s company is certainly better than what is waiting for him out there.

“Besides your observation that I did not exactly dress the part,” Will teases, “what would you like me to tell Jack?”

“The message isn’t for Jack. It’s for you, Will.”

“Me?”

“I don’t care about Jack. I care that you have the same look in your eyes that Bella Crawford does,” Hannibal frowns.

Will shifts in his seat. A dark cloud drifts over his features. His eyes find a sincerity in Hannibal. Sympathy, even.

“I don’t feel sorry for you, as I did for her,” Hannibal continues. “Her situation is more complicated. So I have to ask you, what would it take for you to walk away from Jack? What do you need to leave?”

Will catches how startled he must look. How wrecked.

“Dr. Lecter, don’t,” Will shakes his head. He stares down at his fingernails, digging into his palm.

“Don’t what, Will?”

“Don’t tempt me like that.”

Will looks at him, raw. Hannibal leans forward until his fingers brush against Will’s. The touch creates a current between them.

“She was trapped, as you are trapped. I offered a way out. That was all. I’ve known for a long time that Jack’s known. Every moment that I’m in here, I’m reminded of who put me here.”

“If this is true,” Will releases a shaky breath, “why send me here?”

“The warning is not for me. But for you. Whatever you were planning to do, consider another option. Or wind up here. Or worse.”

Will takes another breath. He refuses to see things Hannibal’s way.

“You were her doctor,” Will surmises. “Why would you do something so reckless with Jack Crawford’s wife?”

“Love can mend and it can destroy. It can be passionate and obsessive. It hinges on one thing – if you can’t live without the person...”

Will considers Hannibal. He remembers Bella Crawford handing him a glass of water when he fainted. She is still beautiful. Even in her heartbreak.

“I offered her a new life,” Hannibal continues. “A last wish before dying. She’d wanted to do this one thing for some time. It was a dream come true.”

“She wanted to escape?”

“Will," Hannibal admits, "I didn’t think I’d end up here.”

A rueful micro-smile. Will smiles back. “Neither did I.”

Will assesses him. The enormity of trying to help Bella Crawford escape her life makes Will gaze upon Hannibal with a reverence, an admiration that he’s never felt before. He has been in the presence of powerful men, Bella’s husband being one of them, but never one with integrity and grace. A heart that alights as well as burns. Hannibal considers how much a savior Will Graham needs and lets him find his way forward.

“How is Bella?” Hannibal can’t resist asking.

“Not herself,” Will concedes. “So you’ll just sit in here and rot? An innocent man.”

“Not so innocent.”

Will’s sense of fairness flares up. Hannibal is truthful, to a point. Will wants to say more, but Beverly is outside waiting. He nods his goodbye to Hannibal.

*

Will unknots his tie and unbuttons his shirt. He misses the coolness of the silk against his skin. Expensive things are nice, he has to admit. He had promised Beverly he would return the suit and report into Jack. He wonders what would happen if he didn’t return it? If he defied Jack.

He stands in front of Alana’s full-length mirror and regards himself in his birthday suit. He can count the flat bones along his breastplate. His ribs. His shoulders are wider because of all the bags he lifts. He wonders what Hannibal would think of his body. Why he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Hannibal.

He slides on his own clothes. Baggy black shirt that hides his figure. Tight navy dungarees that shows off his ass. A natural blush rests on his cheeks, as if he has climbed a mountain. He looks the same, but he doesn’t feel like the same man from this morning. It feels as though Hannibal had left the hospital with him and wouldn’t let go.

He hears Alana moving around downstairs. Probably back from her own errand for Jack. Or one of her many shopping sprees. He doesn’t want to share anything about his. He wants to keep it all to himself.

He catches his reflection in the mirror, startled. Why keep Hannibal a secret between them –

Another figure steps into the reflection of the mirror. Will practically jumps out of his skin. It’s Bella Crawford.

“You scared me,” Will breathes.

“I heard you saw Hannibal today,” Bella steps in delicately and takes a seat on Will’s bed. Will grimaces. He imagines this is how Hannibal got in trouble.

“He asked about you,” Will gives her, as a gift.

In her hand, she holds the familiar folder of a travel agent package. The tickets and itinerary would be inside. Will licks his lips.

“Tickets to Fiji,” Bella states the obvious, “still good, still insured.”

He isn’t sure what Bella is asking him. He waits. She clears her throat.

“They shouldn’t go to waste,” she says. “You and Alana should have them.”

The package sits between them. The possibilities take his breath away. She stares openly at him.

“Hannibal has that effect on people. What do you know about Dr. Lecter?” she inquires innocently.

Will shrugs. He only knows what Hannibal opened up inside of himself. Some long-lost, hidden treasure. It’s enough, but he can’t tell her that.

Bella describes Hannibal’s dinner parties. The cushions and pillows thrown on the floors and the guests sitting sprawled out, drunk, feeding each other grapes and canapés. Her eyes light up describing how comfortable he made his guests feel. How alive the parties made Bella feel.

Will’s lip curl. He can only imagine how the rest of the nights went. The wine and laughter, the cover of night.

She has moved on to the present without him, and Will struggles to keep up.

“Paradise would have that effect on people. And that’s where you’ll be going. Do you know much about Fiji?”

From his job, Will’s aware it’s a honeymoon destination, but that’s all. He pulls up his desk chair and takes a seat across from Bella. She knows that Jack has allowed them to buy everything in this house. He might as well own it. He definitely owns them.

“Cannibalism was a way of life in Fiji. The men who settled there came from across the sea and that’s how they survived the journey. Whoever they were at war with over the centuries they would break their arms and then roast over the fire, or if someone was recently buried they would rob their graves. The flesh tasted like pork, they said. Their weapons are designed to crush human bones. Hannibal said if Jack landed on shore, he would arm himself and eat him.”

She laughs. She seems delirious. Why is she talking about cannibalism? Will reaches to steady her.

“You’ll be safe if you go there,” Bella insists.

“Is Jack poisoning your food, Bella?” Will surmises. “Should I –“ They both look away, Calling the cops would be ridiculous. Jack owns the cops too.

“Is he safe there?” Bella gathers herself.

“No,” Will responds, firm. Their eyes meet. She has to see that he blames her. He feels compelled to appeal to her sense of righteousness. “Hannibal doesn’t belong there, Bella.”

“What can I do?”

“A statement from you would go far to clear his name --“

“A confession?” she scoffs.

“I got inside,” Will spells out for her. “Jack now knows he can get someone else to him. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Don’t ask this of me, Will,” Bella rises, backing out of the room. “Go to Fiji and forget about this. Forget about him."

She has left the package. Evidence that he’ll need. Proof that that was the extent of all the courage she had to give.

He follows her down the stairs. For a moment, he thinks he has the same floor plan she must in her home. How much they have common between them now.

“I think you loved him once, Bella,” Will tells her. “You save the people you love.”

“Up to a point and then you let go,” she sighs. “Use the tickets, Will.”

She closes the door, leaving with a finality that sharpens his resolve.

*

Will has changed back into the silk dress shirt and sits at the dining room table, waiting.

Alana finally comes home. He realizes he has no idea what she does all day. Especially when it concerns Jack.

It’s the secrets that fracture their future more than any promise could.

She approaches the dining room table with caution. Since Will hasn’t been eating lately, it makes her cautious just to see him sitting there.

“What have you done?” she raises an eyebrow, her hand drifting over the travel agent package. He doesn’t answer. Waits for her reaction.

She opens the folder and touches the two first-class, one-way tickets to Fiji. She flips through the folder, beyond the brochures and paperwork, searching.

“What about coming back?” she pouts.

“Why bother?”

He looks around. They have nothing worth taking, nothing worth coming back to. This is their chance.

She gives a choked laugh. Her eyes dart around the room. She can’t imagine leaving the place she called home for any length of time.

“But my family is here, Will,” she gives excuse after excuse. “My shops. My doctors.” As if there aren’t doctors in Fiji. She then throws it back in Will’s face.

“Don’t you want to come home?”

He shrugs. Fingers the silk cuff lining his wrist. He levels his gaze at her.

“I want to get far, far away from this place and start over,” he declares.

They are unable to reach any truce. She refuses to come without reassurances that there will be a return date. Will refuses to make any promises he can’t keep.

He loved her once. With all his heart. Now he knows what Bella meant. It will come back around, if it were meant to be.

He rises, easing the shirt off his broad shoulders on the way upstairs. He will return the suit to Jack. And pack a few things for the trip.

*

Beverly opens the steel door and takes the suit bag off Will’s hands. Will doesn’t remove his shoes in the foyer. It’s a tactic used to slow down anyone who may run. He wants to keep his options open.

Jack brings him up to his private area, past the ornate dining room and the old-fashioned kitchen, where Bella sits, having her nails done. She doesn’t look at Will when he passes.

“We’ll sit outside,” Jack takes in how pale Will looks. “You look like you need to soak up some vitamin D.”

Jack stalls to grab a few shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. Will almost runs into the back of him. Will holds open the door, as if he’d done this a million times, and Jack barrels out, setting their drinks on a high table in the sun. They mosey onto the stools, throwing back the shots.

“All we need are some steamed crabs and Natty Boh,” Jack sighs.

“Just like down in the ocean, hon,” Will repeats the standard Baltimore reply, that even an outsider like him knows.

It forces a laugh out of Jack. They share a smile. Jack’s a good guy, someone he would’ve enjoyed hanging out with, if it weren’t for the business between them.

And the business is always there. Will realizes Jack can hear everything that is happening in the basement, out here. Beverly takes up her post out by the tool shed, eyes always on Jack.

Jack wants Will’s report. The time in which Dr. Chilton took to look Will over rather than his documents. How his briefcase was given a cursory scan by an orderly. The number of guards that escorted him to the private conference room. Where the cameras were posted. The lack of attention paid to them once in the conference room. The medical room that had one unguarded nurse inside.

At the end of it, Will surprises Jack by telling him he could get back in. “It’s always easier the second time,” he sells it hard.

“You?” Jack’s mouth is open, stunned. “You’re not a killer, Will.”

That’s the second time he’s heard that in the course of one day.

He thinks of all the things people have killed for in Jack’s crew. Money. Drugs. Family. Honor. Territory.

He is not killing for those things. He’s not quite ready to explore the reasons for doing this yet. But he knows it's outside the usual box.

Jack is looking at him. Expecting an answer. Will composes himself.

“Hannibal talked about love and passion,” Will reveals. Jack's messenger, Hannibal called him. He steals a pointed glance over at Bella, whom they can see clearly through the window.

The implication is cemented. Jack throws back another shot. Will does the same.

“Let me do this for you,” Will heralds.

Jack’s eyes narrow. He’d never known Will to be ambitious. To want to be part of his inner circle.

But then his eyes fall on the gauzy screen of the door, through which he can see his wife. And the betrayal clouds what he knows about Will.

Jack gives his nod of approval and then Will is dismissed. He reaches for the bottle, and chases the bitter taste in his mouth with another shot.

*

Another sleepless night. Whenever he closes his eyes, he sees Hannibal’s face, looming.

An early morning knock at the door. This time, Beverly takes him out to a field to practice shooting. The gun feels heavy in his hand.

She fits the gun into a hidden compartment in a new briefcase. He is handed the briefcase. He is given a full suit with new shoes too.

The whole look is quite a distraction for Dr. Chilton. Will makes sure he flirts back this time. Dr. Chilton lingers with him as his briefcase is looked over.

“Is there some new development with Hannibal’s case?” Chilton angles for gossip.

“The lion’s share of his case was built on a lie,” Will whispers conspiratorially to him. “I plan to get him off.”

Chilton hands him his card. “I certainly hope that you do, Mr. Harris.” Their fingers brush as Will takes it. If Chilton feels how fast his pulse is going, he doesn’t let on.

“I’ll call you if anything develops,” Will smiles, keeping it professional.

As he moves down the hall, the warmth he exuded disappears. A frost has descended over his features. But then he sees Hannibal in the window of the door, and a bloom spreads over his cheeks.

Hannibal soaks in the man who Jack sent to kill him. The new suit. The new shoes. The new briefcase.

“Mr. Harris, I wasn’t expecting for it to be you to kill me,” he signals, low, to the briefcase.

“My name’s Will Graham,” Will corrects, “and I’m going to get you out of here.”

Hannibal’s eyes widen as the gun slaps against his jaw and he collapses in a heap to the floor. Faintly, he hears Will call for the guard. He is lifted onto a gurney and taken to the medical wing.

He tries to fight the dizziness that threatens to take him under, but in the end, he succumbs to it. Hannibal’s last thought is that Jack will get word quickly that there was an incident at the hospital. Getting out of Chilton’s grasp will not be the major hurdle.

Escaping Baltimore when Jack’s eyes are everywhere will be something else entirely. Hannibal is in awe of this Will Graham, who squeezes his hand at his side, coaxing him to back to consciousness. He can't imagine Will's life before they met. How Fate brought them into the back of a stolen ambulance. How far Will must have fallen before he decided to crawl out of the abyss and pull them out of the long reach of Jack Crawford.

Chapter Text

Will has blacked out. He had been hyperventilating the moment he had climbed into the back of the ambulance with Hannibal.

He has really done this. He is running away, in a public way, over something so private and painful.

He loses time. He has no idea how far down the road they've gone or if they are moments away from being caught.

Hannibal has lost consciousness from the blow to his head. The rough ride has jostled and separated them and slammed them against the tight space in the cab, and Will crawls back towards him, tightening his arms around him, cradling Hannibal's head against his chest.

Will braces them against the corner to resist the swaying as their getaway driver takes a sharp turn. He worries if Hannibal's neck could break. The siren has his heart racing. The motion of cab of the ambulance is filled with the red light from the flashing cherries. It's surreal, and heightens Will's sense of alarm.

He looks down at the man in his arms and fears he's made a mistake. He should have let him rot in his cage. The world that awaits will be unavoidable, and he knows he doesn't have the capacity to navigate his feelings and their freedom simultaneously.

He still has time to run alone.

It sinks in, the word "alone". The loneliness he's felt even when he was in his long-term relationship. Even over the hornet's nest buzzing in his head of "let him go", he can feel what the separation could do to him. It would cleve Will in half. He would only be denying his body oxygen and fuel. It would be a slow death, but a withering away nonetheless.

The hospital where their getaway car is parked comes into view.

He takes a gulp of air for courage. The ambulance has finally slowed and is pulling into the lot. He could leave Hannibal. Security would be drawn to the abandoned vehicle eventually.

Hannibal groans against his chest, consciousness scrambling back to the surface. Tears spill down Will's cheeks. He is overwhelmed by what he has to face, but hurriedly wipes his cheeks dry.

The doors creak open in protest, as if picking up Will's fears. Will pulls away from Hannibal and leaves him on the gurney.

The getaway driver is a work-for-hire that had a good reputation among the bank robbers Will knew. He also had it in for Jack, over money he felt he was owed. Will had paid off Jack’s debt and then some, for his silence.

They are supposed to part ways at a hospital parking lot in a Baltimore suburb. While it looked odd not to go into the city with the ambo, Will wanted to stay off the main highways and away from BWI, where there were too many versions of Will roaming around, working as Jack’s lackeys.

Hannibal has a bump rising on his head, from the blow to the gun and had sustained other cuts and bruises during the transfer into the back of the ambulance. The getaway driver steals a glance at him in the back, and offers to help Will load him into the station wagon. The man is not going to be able to walk on his own.

“I got him,” Will dismisses the driver, with some heat.

As the driver salutes his goodbye, it sticks with Will that he became absolutely vexed at the thought of another man’s hands on Hannibal. He worries what the driver will say about this exchange when the inevitable knock arrives at his door, whereby Jack will torture every detail out of him. People will conclude that he is in love with Hannibal. That he wanted to run away with another man.

When they see the videotape of him pulling Hannibal’s limp form flush against his chest, what will they speculate about him? What will Alana say? Will she even tell them what she suspected about him all along?

When he bought his little rowhouse in Catonsville, he kept to himself. Wasn’t rude to his neighbors, but kept his curtains drawn and his nods of hello brief. He was beginning to notice the activity of Jack’s crew around him, insidious and troubling. One house in particular only seemed to come alive at night, with a steady stream of men walking in and out of it. He called the police to complain.

And instead of a vice squad coming around to ask him questions or to even shut the place down, Alana dropped by instead. She stood with one leg up on his stoop, holding a cherry pie, looking up with him with a smile. He was about to shut the door in her face, when she used her foot as a stopper and stepped right on inside. “Welcome wagon,” she chuckled, showing herself around.

She was cute then as she is now. And so innocent looking. She wasn’t trying to hide who sent her or why. She was trying to understand why he would try to have a pop-up whorehouse raided.

“Don’t you like girls?” she teased. “Don’t you support a woman’s right to work?”

He was laughing and serving her coffee before he thought better of it. They shared a piece of pie together. He managed to show her the renovations he was making on his house, to his fireplace. He thought he had impressed her. He found himself stumbling into a much wanted kiss. She was kissable, and very beautiful.

“Is this going to work – the way you are?” she asked, stroking his face, holding back from a second kiss.

He revealed he wasn't exactly on the straight and narrow, to impress her. He's not a complete twig. She had heard of the crew he hung with in New Orleans. She told him about Jack.

“I’m trying to get away from all that,” he had conceded. “I’m trying to start over.”

She considered this answer, him, his new surroundings. He had all but admitted he’d taken his ill-gotten money, and landed in the heart of a criminal enterprise. Even to his own ears, it sounded weak.

But that’s not what she meant. She asked what she had been holding back, since she’d been watching him from her mother’s house, across the street. She made him look her in the eye.

“You’re gay, Will,” Alana told him, despite how close they were, his hands on her body, her hands on his face. She had seen the men he'd brought home, then, late at night.

“Bisexual,” he corrected her. Obviously.

“So then if I’m attracted to a bisexual man,” Alana theorized, “what does that make me? What does that say to the way I am.”

“That you’re willing to takes risks,” he supplied. “That you can handle all the competition.”

Her brows furrowed. She’s troubled by whatever is needling her.

“Does that make me gay -- Bisexual?” she corrected, hurriedly.

He doesn’t answer her because she knows the answer. She pressed their foreheads together, not wanting to see it.

“I don’t want you to look at other men,” she made him promise.

And he had behaved himself. She was a good distraction. Until he saw Hannibal.

But back then, she had moved into his bedroom and then his house with a swiftness that took his breath away. He met her mother, across the way. And then Jack, just a few blocks over. At the time, Jack was dating Freddie Lounds, the neighborhood gossip.

Jack and Freddie made quite the couple and were delighted by Alana snagging Will. Jack had thrown his arm around Will’s shoulders, much to Alana’s chagrin, and directed him down to the basement with some sage advice about what is needed to keep a woman like Alana happy. Apparently, retail therapy was a way of life. Jack got him a job at BWI, through his connections. Will's rap sheet didn't derail the hiring process for a legit job, for once. He loved it, even though it came with strings attached.

Alana went shopping. So that was going his way. But his airport coveralls had not done much in the way of turning on Alana. When he had walked through the front door with his designer suit on, he saw the way the light came on in her eyes. She had never been in love with who he actually was, just in who he could be.

It grated at him. That tried as he might, he couldn’t escape who he was. He had tried to run once before and it had all caught up with him, with its usual messy violence.

Hannibal is coming to again. His eyes fluttering and then focusing. He knows he not in the hospital anymore. But they’re still in Baltimore.

Will hasn’t moved. Not out of any disrespect to his genius escape plan or to Hannibal’s injuries. He physically can’t move, terrified of facing what he needs to come to terms with inside of himself.

Hannibal reaches out and touches Will’s face.

“Will,” Hannibal attempts to bring him back to the present, “we can’t stay here.”

Will nods, knowing. He clasps his hand against Hannibal’s. What was he thinking, falling in love with this man? He darts his eyes hastily away and gathers himself.

“We’ll wait it out,” Will says out loud.

“Where?” Hannibal asks as if his life depends on it. Because it does.

If he had learned one thing in all his years in living in Jack’s orbit is this – hide in plain sight.

Will buckles Hannibal in and then himself. He pulls the station wagon out of the parking lot and heads back to Baltimore. He doesn’t know where he’s going usually, he’s discovered about himself, until he gets there.

He points the car towards Catonsville. Going back to his old hunting grounds will be as good a place as any.

Chapter Text

Alana Bloom was a mama’s girl, and so out of respect to all the kindness and love she had for the nosy old woman, Will had given Hannibal’s tickets to Fiji to her. Alana was pissed off about it, even when he bought her the flight back and her friend a ticket too.

Alana had just dropped off the two biddies at BWI and was coming home to feed her mom’s cat when she noticed the bloody cotton balls and bandaid tabs in the trash. She had already talked to the cops earlier today about Will, and they had gone through their house and tossed it, and Jack was blowing a fucking gasket, and even Freddie Lounds, the gossip that she was, had the nerve to send her a text asking what was up, and just when she thought the day couldn’t get any worse, she sees blood.

She looks out the back, to her mother’s carport. A station wagon sits in the space, beside her mother’s car.

Alana checks every room and closet in the house and then moves to the basement, past curio cabinet after curio cabinet stuffed to the gills with beanie babies and antique dolls. Like mother, like daughter, the older Bloom is a vast shopper and collector of strange things. Although maybe Alana goes stranger. Alana grimaces when she catches sight of Hannibal stretched out in the La-Z-Boy that her mother liked to sit in and watch her soaps.

She gasps when his eyes meet hers. His eyes are glazed from whatever meds he’s withdrawing from. Will has to force himself to pull his eyes away from Hannibal and look at her.

Alana headnods towards the laundry room and Will follows her inside where she ducks the drying line and starts the washer machine. They assess each other.

“Does he know how you feel about him?” she blurts out.

Will folds his arms across his chest. He considers the lie and then opts for honesty: “The sight of him is enough.”

“You have five senses, Will, and deprivation is usually unsustainable.”

She’s not mad at him. It’s been over between them for awhile it seems. Now that it’s so obviously over. She sighs.

“It’s not safe here,” she states the obvious. “Jack –“

“All I’m asking is to give us a few days, until he detoxes,” Will begs.

“And then what?”

Will thinks that with time, he’ll find out.

One thing he can trust about Alana, she knows how to keep a secret. She returns to their house across the street and doesn’t have to fake the heartbreak. Jack sends Beverly and Zeller over to replace the door that the police rammed down a few hours ago. Casseroles and pies are sent over, like someone died.

Later that night, Bella finds her way to Will’s house and Alana stands aside to let her cross over the threshold of the new door. Alana helps her into a chair in the living room. Red miniature roses that Will had given her on his big payday are bunched in a vase beside her. Alana has to move the flowers as Bella’s coughs rack through her system.

Alana huffs a breath out as an out-of-place hair floats in her eyeline. It has been a long day. She likes Bella though. She wants to warn her that Freddie senses blood in the water and is coming back around.

Instead, they wait for the other to show her hand.

Bella goes first. “Jack should have found them by now.”

“I hope he does – he will – soon,” Alana reassures her.

“Aren’t you afraid for him?” Bella takes in how casual Alana seems about all of this.

“Afraid of what?”

“That Will saw something worth leaving this place for?” Bella peers at her.

“You should be careful, Bella,” Alana stands. “Jack shouldn’t hear you talk like that.”

Bella feels the chill radiating off of Alana. She finds the strength to lean away from Alana even when she offers her arm. Alana closes the door after her, glad to be alone.

*

The nights are the worst for Hannibal. The fever dreams of withdrawal. The headaches. The depression. He refuses to eat.

Hannibal is miserable, dry-mouthed and pensive. Will catches himself smiling. He tries not to appear too delighted as he wipes down Hannibal’s sweaty skin with a cloth. Feeds him canned soup. Presses against him when the shakes get too bad.

At some point in the night, Hannibal throws off the blankets and then he's shivering cold. He draws himself next to Will on the couch and Will wraps Hannibal in his arms. He waits until Hannibal is asleep and then gets his fill. His arm is thrown over his eyes and so Will ducks his head down to Hannibal's armpit. Soaks in his scent. Ghosts his fingers over his nipples. Hovers over the bulge in his underwear. He wants so badly to touch him. And then he touches him.

Hannibal's breath freezes. He's close to waking. Will pulls away and turns his back, afraid to be caught.

And then he smells the day when the toxins leave Hannibal’s flesh enough where he can distinctly tell where Hannibal begins. Not quite out of the woods yet, but getting there.

“I’m still out of sorts,” Hannibal complains.

“You will be for some time,” Will reminds him.

Will draws himself to Hannibal’s side and gives him a glass of water. He changes Hannibal’s bandages and tilts the pillow beneath his head.

Hannibal takes a breath, fighting tears. He shyly looks at Will. “Thank you.”

*

On the third night, Hannibal wakes up screaming, in the throes of the worst of the withdrawals, muscles aching from tension. Will reminds himself that sight should be enough. That he’s not allowed to touch.

Hannibal reaches out for Will, as if to make sure he’s alive. That this is real. Will grips the hands that are worrying over his chest.

“I dreamt I killed you, then myself,” Hannibal confesses.

“It’s the medicine – “

“But I have put your life in danger, Will. Jack – “

Will shushes him. Everyone wants to blame Jack. But Will owns this decision. After all, Will asked to go back into the lion’s den. And he has emerged with his prize.

Will reaches out and strokes Hannibal’s face. Hannibal’s eyes roll back in his head at the touch. He’s hypersensitive. Will sneaks a look at his mouth, at the way his lips part, how his tongue flickers between his teeth.

Suddenly, he finds Hannibal’s gaze catching his. Will’s mask clamps on. But Hannibal’s eyes narrow in the darkness, he has made his calculation.

“Do you want to touch me again, Will?” he asks, nonplussed.

“Again?” Will jokes and returns the crochet blanket up to Hannibal’s shoulders. He is slick about it, but his heart is racing again. He knows he's been caught. That Hannibal can hold that over his head. “Go back to sleep.”

“Why are you here and not with Alana?”

“Hannibal,” he warns.

The lights in the house are on a timer, but won’t come on for a few more hours. The police are still patrolling the neighborhood. The darkness and quiet are inviting, but Will remains cautious. He hasn’t gotten his fill of Hannibal yet.

“Please tell me why you are helping me, Will,” Hannibal insists.

“I want to take care of Jack,” Will dangles, “once and for all. You can be with Bella. In the time that she has left. Without worry.”

“We’re in the heart of his fortress,” Hannibal points out.

“Pierce the heart and the fortress falls.” Will wants to add, but he bites his tongue. Hannibal searches his face for the lie. But Will doesn’t flinch from his gaze.

“This is madness,” Hannibal says to himself. “I must be, truly and completely, going mad.”

Before Will can quip that it’s a madness shared by two, Hannibal has drifted back into his nightmares. Will moves away from the La-Z-Boy chair and returns to his place on the couch, waiting for the lights to click on throughout the house.

*

For the most part, Alana has liked the attention she’s been getting. She had a good man, who did something really, really bad. The notoriety gives her a certain power.

But she’s had enough of people’s pity. Time now for some payback. Will’s days are numbered and she is determined to have a front room view of his takedown.

She calls Freddie over to watch. Freddie will tell everyone how Alana figured out where Will was hiding. How she was the one to tip off Jack.

But Freddie doesn’t pick up.

Neither does Beverly.

Nor Zeller.

She decides to see Jack directly than call.

She walks through the maze of yards and reaches Jack’s house. No answer at his door. She looks at the house as if she is not quite sure if she’s in the right place.

She goes around back. No one is out at the toolshed. Jack’s perch on the deck is empty. The basement is quiet.

It frightens her… the silence.

Never in a million years would Will Graham have it in him to run Jack Crawford’s operation into the ground. It isn’t possible. And Hannibal. She may have seen Hannibal at his worst, curled into himself and losing the battle with his mind, but even Bella would not be worth the risk.

Her mother doesn’t return for ten more days. If Alana wasn’t certain of that fact, she would be running now to her house to check on her. To call her whole family in for the search.

She stands in the middle of Jack Crawford’s backyard, looking up at his house, trembling like a leaf exposed to the first winds of winter. Something has changed in this neighborhood.

A horn blasts from on high, setting Alana even further on edge. When she looks up, she realizes it’s just a flock of geese, flying South for the winter.

Her heart soars for them. They’ve tasted freedom. Without any regard to boundaries. Or conventions.

Once, when Jack had asked her to pick up a package in DC, Alana found herself in a club, unlike any she'd ever gone to. It was a warehouse filled with beautiful people, angels really, not meant for this earth. A wonder of lights and smoke and a relentless techno beat.

A sprite woman ruled the dance floor there, completely, without the need for a partner or liquid courage, without a care in the world. A dance just to dance. It was mesmerizing. Because she was free. She was who she was. And she didn’t care what anyone thought. Not her mother. Not her friends. Not anyone.

Long after she had retrieved what she came to get, she stayed and watched, hoping the woman would take a break or would approach her and invite her to her little party. She felt parched watching. Like she’d been left out on her island of Catonsville, unmoored for too long.

And then Will came into her life. She had something to hold onto. For a little while at least.

And she’s grateful he left her standing. She has that. She remembers she has the capacity to start over again. Somewhere.

One foot in front of the other.

Step after step.

But it’s like her feet are moored in quicksand. She lands in front of a familiar door. Beverly had even painted it red.

She’ll wait here. Until her strength returns. Until life returns to normal. Until Jack comes back and gives her the tools to kill Will Graham.

Chapter Text

After crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore, a little unknown gem of a park can be found under its shadow. A trail made of oyster shells curves close to the shoreline, and in the early morning light as the mist rolls in off the Bay, it's like another world. It is here an amateur photographer paid a visit and saw the bodies from Jack's crew floating onto the beach.

The trail of bodies leads the investigators back to Catonsville and Jack's various homes are raided. The spotlight quickly falls off of the manhunt for Will and Hannibal.

Evidence in the houses goes back years and years. For the cameras, the neighbors and elected officials and various board members claim to be shocked at what went on in their backyards for decades. The police are of two beliefs -- a rival gang took out Jack's crew or Jack himself cleaned house and ran. So far, they've found no trace of him.

It takes weeks, but Bella is discovered at a hospice nearby, and is now hounded by the press and the police for answers. She emerges as the face of the criminal enterprise. Her deterioration is hastened by being confronted with the worst of what was done under her roof.

She admits to everything, even the things she didn’t know about, and the thing she does – Jack's play on Hannibal – she attempts to clean up. What she won’t reveal – Jack's whereabouts – may die with her. But her exchange with Will changed her, and she is at her most lucid when talking to the police of the Hannibal she used to love. Her work on his behalf makes it safe for him to emerge again.

She is adrift, except at night when she can sit with Hannibal and her morphine drip. He feeds her a light broth as that is all she can handle at this stage. She is grateful for his care, that he is at her side, once again. They talk of his days filled with clearing his name and the hurdle he faces with the bureaucratic red tape.

Jack's name is off limits, but he looms large between them. Especially when Hannibal feeds her the broth. She is indifferent to food at this point, but she makes the choice to stop eating when she realizes what it could be made from. Hannibal may have forgotten that she knows who he is. She's seen the reasons Jack employed him. When the dead from a turf war would pile up, Hannibal would be deployed and the next week Jack was passing out Easter hams. Jack referred to Hannibal as The Butcher when Hannibal was needed for his services.

She had turned a blind eye to most of Jack's practices. When he suspected that she was going to leave with Hannibal, he made sure she knew exactly who Hannibal was and what Hannibal had been doing.

She wishes now that she had remained in the dark. She can almost forget when she speaks to Hannibal why she stayed in Baltimore. She looks at him fully. This beautiful, tragic man.

"No more broth?" Hannibal asks, holding up the bowl.

She shakes her head no. He sets the bowl down and reaches for the ice chips. She considers what could be in an ice chip. She declines that, too.

They are at an impasse. Hannibal looks down at his hands. She has a strong body that can hold on for a long time. She will still need to eat and drink. She is not at that point yet where she can't. He levels his gaze at her, frustrated.

"Did you kill Jack?" she rasps out.

His eyes flit around the room, at the nurses just out of earshot.

"I wanted to be Jack, or rather, I wanted the things Jack had," Hannibal admits. "A community, the respect of the city, the company of a good woman."

Bella smiles at this. He sets aside the trays and the equipment that crowd her space and bed. He climbs into bed with her and holds her. She doesn't know how he knew she needed this type of closeness, his touch, but he does. Despite what he is, he grasped this and it never ceases to surprise her.

A small sob escapes her. She buries her face in the warmth of his embrace. She forces herself to remember this is Hannibal at his best. She wonders how she convinced herself to forget this.

"I was a coward, when it came to us," Bella confesses. She cranes her neck and looks up at him. He nuzzles her jaw with kisses, refusing to listen to such talk. The past is the past. He dwells now on the future.

"I can rebuild his operation, Bella," Hannibal whispers against the top of her head, dreaming a little. "The whole city is under watch. By the time anyone notices, I'll have things up and running -- "

"Open for business," she finishes. "Who will be your lieutenant?"

She thinks of Beverly, but Beverly is dead. The police had made Bella identify all the bodies that had surfaced. Day after day, the remains were carted out for her to view from the observation glass of the morgue. Death, it seemed, was her constant companion. It had taken months before the police had given up trying to match Beverly to a real identity. It was the only time Bella had lost her bearings and placed her hand on the glass. She had hoped Beverly hadn't fallen to this. She had allowed herself to cry out for her, for not being able to protect her protector.

The list of people who can step up are few and far between. She worries Hannibal will be alone.

"The city is a fickle child and will turn on you," she advises. "The community, too. You have to find someone you can trust, who will be at your side, through thick and thin."

She had heard the news talk about Will Graham's role in freeing Hannibal. Despite the gains Hannibal has made, she recalls that Will is still underground. She'd never known Will Graham to be lieutenant material though. She fears Will had served his purpose and has gone the way of Jack. Before she can ask, the nurses come in and chastise Hannibal for being in bed with her. He lingers as they check the tubes and straighten her bedding.

The emptiness and the cold greet her. She misses the cocoon Hannibal provides for her. She reaches for his hand.

"You can't rebuild alone, and you certainly can't depend on me," she points at the door. "Don't waste your time here. Don't come back. You have work to do."

His protests fall on an audience that will brook no argument. Bella is firm with him.

"Find someone you can lean on," she reminds him.

She curls towards the window and looks out at the blue skies and picture perfect round treetops. She refuses to condemn him as a witness to her death, when he is so very much alive. And eventually, he goes.

*

Will emerges from the basement from checking up on Jack. He holds an empty plate, an empty glass.

As he crosses to the sink, Hannibal enters the house that he had bought with the first phase of compensation he was getting from his "mistaken" imprisonment. The house is not far from Catonsville. It sits on the border between civilization and the wild, at the end of residential street, overlooking the woods that make up Gwynn Falls Park. The woods spread for miles. It's where Jack used to bury the bodies before he met Hannibal. Hannibal had always liked to walk these trails with Jack.

Will turns to get his first glimpse of Hannibal for the day. Even if he goes the rest of the day without seeing him, this one moment will be sufficient. A feast, actually.

Today's sight though startles Will. Hannibal has clearly been crying. He is disheveled, which is also a rare sight.

Will sets down the plate and glass. He approaches Hannibal, carefully.

"Hannibal?"

Hannibal doesn't trust his voice. He clears his throat and manages to mumble, "Just give me a moment."

Will watches as Hannibal stalks down the stairs. It is dark down there, and he hears the screams bounce off the walls and closes the door. Hannibal usually pays their prisoner a visit after seeing Bella, but today seems different. From the sounds of it, today may be Jack's last.

Will stands at the top of the stairs, like a sentry. He wants to be there for Hannibal when he emerges.

*

Hannibal is wearing his best suit when he knocks on the red door that used to be Will's old house.

Alana pulls the door open wide, and stares at him. She swallows and looks askance, gulping, as her mouth visibly waters at the sight of him. He looks good to her, powerful, in these clothes. Her imagination runs with what he looks like without them.

Hannibal makes his presence fill the small space. He soaks in the amount of Amazon Prime boxes piling up in the kitchen, the telltale Costco/Google deliveries. He would question if her mother was a shut-in, but her mother lives across the street and was sent on a cruise to Alaska.

He unbuttons his jacket, slowly. Teasingly. He ripples his shoulders, shrugging off the jacket. He ignores how hungry she looks, watching his back in his white dress shirt.

“You’re still keeping up Jack’s deliveries,” Hannibal comments, all business.

She is curious how he knows this, but refuses to ask a question she doesn't know the answer to. “It’s a good route,” she explains, heading to the fridge. “They trust me and it’s the devil I know.”

She hands him a beer. She sucks down the one she was already on, watching him.

“Why are you here?” she demands sharply.

“You’re maintaining Jack's business, Alana, and I came to kiss your ring.”

She waves her hand away, laughing this off. When she settles down, she sees his eyes have remained fixed on her, serious.

“You’re alone here and you need reinforcements,” he states simply. And as if to reassure her: “You need a partner."

“Not really.“

“Protection, then. I can protect you.”

"I can protect myself."

She licks her lips, taking him in. She opens another beer and takes a long swallow.

“It always gets so hot before Winter sets in,” she explains.

“Will told me you talk a lot when you’re nervous.”

“Will is okay with you being here?”

“Why wouldn't he be? We're friends. Sitting here having a beer and conversation."

She is confused. She thought this was a business call.

“Everyone needs something, Alana. What is it that you need?”

No one has ever asked her that before. She is speechless.

"Another beer?" he asks and she blinks, and a new one appears.

Only this time, he takes the bottle and tilts it into her lap. Her cotton skirt is soaked. Her panties too. The liquid seeps through and soaks into her skin. She flies out of her seat, ready to launch into him, only to be guided back down by Hannibal's firm grip on her arm. She can't break the hold he has as they look at each other.

A shocked gasp escapes her mouth, when he kneels in front of her and raises the wet material over her hips, pressing his lips against the beer soaked panties. His tongue strokes against the sensitive bulb of her vagina. She moans and presses his head at the right spot. "Right there," she moans, "right there." She doesn't move him away until she's satisfied.

"What are you doing?" she knows the answer to this, but she still thinks to ask.

"Forming an alliance."

Chapter Text

Alana wraps herself in the wool coat that had arrived in tissue paper and ribbon yesterday. She walks through the neighborhood with Hannibal at her side, head held high. As with all things in Baltimore, she finds the one day extreme from the next. The wind carries quite the chill. She had anticipated this; hence, the coat. Yesterday, it had been blazing hot. It impacts the goal they have today. Not as many people outside, but there's enough.

And since Freddie's not around anymore, Alana takes it upon herself to spread the news. Jack is not coming back. Will went the way of the rest of Jack's crew. Their little neighborhood has gone through it, but they'll see through this too.

Hannibal lets her take the lead. These folks are familiar to her. They need to feel reassured she came out stronger and tougher for all her troubles. And she has.

She makes the needed introductions. And with some padding to make up for the loss in income, the operation is back in business.

Alana foresees that they will have to keep a closer eye on things, as Hannibal's leadership will be tested. She suggests that he remains at her house. Hannibal doesn't want to argue with her, but he tells her about a home he has a few hours away, that overlooks the Chesapeake.

Her eyes crinkle up, imagining the land, the stream, the horses that roam in the fields. When she looks fully at him, he sees it has no appeal. It makes him curious. He's never met someone who has wanted to stick it out in a place as bleak as here.

"There's beauty to behold there," Hannibal tries to convince her to at least see.

"Beautiful things are fleeting. They require travel and observation -- and it's easier to stay home," she looks around her. "It's pretty enough here."

He looks around them. It's pretty fucking bleak. Faded blacktop. Dilapidated rowhomes. Gray skies. Then again, there are worse places -- like the BSHCI.

She doesn't tell him that there are whole paintings in his eyes that she will never see. But that's what she likes about him.

They have reached the red door. He realizes that incurious people are the norm and he should not find her lacking. But he does.

She holds the door open for him. Expectantly. He forces himself to march inside.

*

Hannibal does not return for a week. Will wants to be angry with him, how he had crossed the line with Alana, but he forgets about his rage the moment Hannibal walks through the door. All that matters is that he's here now.

They go over the problems Hannibal has been dealing with. And they are numerous, indicative of what it takes to rebuild an empire. Will provides solutions and ways of getting out of a jam Hannibal wouldn't've thought of. That's why he returns time after time.

Will had made some chili for the week. He puts the leftovers in the crockpot, and after hours of talk of strategy, they sit down to eat.

Will looks down at his plate. There's not a morsel left on it. Even Hannibal is pleased by this. Will drinks in the sight of him, once more, and admits, "I was starving."

This declaration hangs heavy in the air between them for some reason. Will cringes, remembering how he had groped Hannibal in his sleep. Of course, he knows what he really meant.

"I have something to tell you," Hannibal breaks the silence.

Will looks away, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for the inevitable disappearing act to become a permanent feature. He doesn't know if he can survive that. A week had been too much.

"Bella's only got a few days left," Hannibal shares. "Maybe only tomorrow."

Will reaches out. Hannibal lets Will's hand remain over his.

"I'm sorry, Hannibal. I know how much she meant to you."

"She was my friend. That's all."

He meets Will's gaze. Will wants to correct him, he has to believe there was more than that, but doesn't want to examine why Hannibal feels the need to deny it. Why he shouldn't grieve even for a friend.

What Will can't deny is wanting to turn Hannibal's loss into his opportunity. Her death stirs so many dreams in him. There's the conscious one -- of being able to comfort Hannibal. And the subconscious understanding of becoming. The hope that he can take her place. In whatever capacity Hannibal will allow.

Will squeezes Hannibal's hand and pulls away. He had wanted to avoid this, but the rush of possibility has engulfed the part of him that's rational.

"You have to go to the funeral, of course, as everyone who is anyone will be there," Will begins.

Hannibal knows this. They had been pretty clear on discussing all of the various players who had been making moves to assert themselves in his territory. The week he had spent managing the various uprisings and barely containing it.

"Don't take Alana. Go there alone and let them see you as weak. As someone who would let love knock you on your ass."

"But --" Hannibal can see the logic, but he can also see Will's motives behind it.

"Everyone thinks you had an affair with Bella. Let them."

"Alana won't forgive me for this."

Good.

*

Hannibal knows that Will lets his emotions get the best of him, but Alana may have him beat on this one. She is furious that she's not at his side when the entire neighborhood is coming out to mourn Bella.

"You told me Jack misunderstood why you wanted to take her away. Now all of Baltimore is going to share this misunderstanding," she blasted him.

Before Bella had ordered him away, Hannibal had been listed as her emergency contact. The doctor had obeyed the order not to resuscitate when her heart seized in the night. Hannibal was called shortly thereafter.

Bella had made all the funeral arrangements so as not to be a burden. That had become her mantra at the end, which was ridiculous. So he changes a few things with the funeral home to his liking, to give it "more", to have her memorial service be the type of party she deserves. He is doing the catering, feeding only the choice cuts of Jack's crew to his rivals. It would be just desserts.

In public, Hannibal gives the appearance of being on autopilot, knowing that the funeral director will report that he really was out of his element now, and by sidelining Alana, who did he have in his corner.

Hannibal has time on his hands, leaving Alana to run things, to reflect. He gave himself a chance to mourn a lot of things. Namely, the time he'd lost under Chilton's care.

He returns to the hospice and showers the staff with gifts. He'll pay Chilton and his staff a visit one day, showing his appreciation for playing a role in his becoming. It was a fateful step. One that led him to Will. To being a boss.

At the memorial service, it's a full house. The charity foundations and elected officials Bella had supported even show up. She was loved and liked, despite society labeling her a monster by association.

Hannibal sits in the front rows with a handful of Bella's family. It reminds him that he will have few who will truly mourn him. He considers Bella's last words to him. He doesn't have to fight the tears. He lets them flow freely in front of the others who want him six feet in the ground and the daggers Alana shoots him as she sits a few rows away.

He listens to the speakers as they stand at the podium and talk about a woman who was kind and generous to others, and gracious in her cancer fight. When it is his turn to speak, Hannibal buttons his jacket as he gets to his feet. He wants all eyes to be on him.

He reaches the podium and looks out at the mourners. This is the show they wanted for the notorious gangland wife and her lover. A tragic end.

He delivers his remarks with a sad smile. "I opened the refrigerator this morning and saw a box of saltwater taffy. These were candies I'd gotten for Bella, when I visited the Eastern Shore a few months ago. I don't know if anyone knew Bella back when she was a child, but her family would stop at Kent Island every summer on the way to the Eastern Shore. There, she was sure to find her favorite flavors of taffy. She never wanted to fight the crowds on the beach for it." He was off to a good start in a tough crowd, getting some laughter out of them to boot.

But he could see the harder faces watching him, calculating the purchase and noting the place and adding up where the bodies had drifted ashore by the oyster shell trail. They hear the warning in the subtext.

He continues weaving his story. "I didn't know her back then, when she was a girl. I knew her when she was a ball buster and liked to brag about all the things she had bought with Jack's blood money." There is a collective burst of shocked laughter in the hall. Most people knew that Bella. Most people admired that he was telling that version of her. There were murmurs and clothes rustling as people shifted uncomfortable and looked around the room, embarrassed. He waits for the shock to burn off.

"She had everything at the end that anyone could ever want. Good days and bad days and a man who really loved her. And Jack really loved her," Hannibal's jaw sets. "When I met her, she was having a good day. She had an appetite and we sat down in my office, and on my desk, there was a jar of saltwater taffy. Her favorite candy. She sat and talked and stayed long enough to eat the entire contents of that jar. But what I remember are the stories she told. She told me of her trips down to the ocean. Her hatred of seagulls -- If I had known her then, I would've given her a pellet gun to shoot them down. I would've done anything to make her young and happy again. But I had met her at the beginning of her illness, and the stages got worse after awhile, as things do, and I was blamed for a lot of bad choices she made."

He sees Will standing in the doorway in the back of the hall. All eyes are on Hannibal, so it's safe to say no one else saw Will. Hannibal nods his acknowledgment at his friend, yet a different type of ghost in his life. A man considered dead but barely living.

"She was not so innocent," Hannibal declares flatly, as if he could set the record straight in this room.

Many allies he'd made in the crowd bristle at this. Warning looks are shot his way of the variety to not speak ill of the dead and so forth. As if Bella can hear him. Alana looks ready to deck him herself with her new Prada purse. But now that Will's here, he can wrap it up and let the real fun begin.

He finishes, "The last time she was in my kitchen, she came to say goodbye. We talked of the ocean and I unwrapped the wax candy wrappers, and she was able to eat three pieces of taffy. It was a feat for her, and I could hope, that for one of us, at least, life could only get sweeter from there."

Hannibal stops. He's said enough. Will is gone, and there's no point in warning him that Bella thought he was cold and incapable of letting anyone get close to him. That in the end, she chose not to go to Fiji because of who Hannibal is.

The mourners file out of the hall and cross into the banquet room, where the buffet of Jack and the inner circle of his crew await. It strikes him for the first time that Will had overseen the preparation of this and had not protested once. It moves Hannibal to be understood like this.

People approach him to comfort him for his loss and he brushes their worry aside. His feelings for Bella are too complicated to be soothed by a stranger. His enemies make a point of greeting him, too. This amuses him, because if he'd had the actual service at the cemetery, they would have pissed on her grave. Instead, he has to tolerate the false smiles and donation cards filled with money.

Alana is the last to find him. They stand directly across from each other, but a river could've raged between them.

"She didn't want to be buried?" Alana asks, to say something.

"She wanted to be burned and tossed out to sea," Hannibal replies.

"What a sendoff," Alana huffs. She puts on her wool coat and wraps her arms around herself. She is freezing cold and so angry at Hannibal. "I'll see you at home?"

Hannibal hesitates. He knows Will would prefer that his arrangement with Alana would cease. She has been useful, vital even, to getting things up and running, but she can hold down the fort on her own. They can also count on her to provide his alibi so he can take out some threats tonight.

He considers Alana an adult. Who can handle rejection. He does not take into account that she grew up in Baltimore and raised on a block where she didn't have to grow up. Where everyone still sees her as that young girl who ran around barefoot and squealing. Where the men who told her they'd protect her were stolen away and never heard from again.

He reaches behind the catering table where Will left a new Louis Vuitton bag, something Alana has coveted for years. When he brings it into view, her eyes widen. It is an expensive gift and it is filled with bricks of cash. Hannibal has made his choice, as Will knew he would.

"I'm not going home," Hannibal breaks it to her, gently. She takes the bag and feels the heaviness inside. She doesn't have to look to know what's there. "I need to take care of some business."

His eyes dart around the room. He is surrounded by men who want to take what he lost years of his life to get. The message is clear. Alana grasps it without even needing the explanation. She's a big girl, but a child at heart. And he had played her. The money would have soothed her at night, but it's the purse that gets under her skin.

She had told only Will about this purse. She treated him like one of her girlfriends half the time, showing him things online that she wanted to buy. The purse had sat at the top of her wishlist for years, and she had trusted that one day, he'd pull off a big score and buy it for her. She never thought he'd send a purse rather than himself, and steal her boyfriend out of spite.

She follows through the city, watching Hannibal wreak havoc and mayhem in his wake. He will be exhausted by the time the night is done. And then she'll be waiting.

Chapter Text

It is dark out, and the light from her phone catches an animal’s eyes, glowing and distinct, in its wake. It scurries off, but it was big. Maybe a fox or a raccoon. Even the woods, sensing it isn’t quite safe yet, keeps quiet.

Alana stuffs the phone in her pocket. She doesn’t want to alert the other animal she’s stalking, as she stands in the shadows of the embankment that overlooks Gwynn Falls and Hannibal’s house at the end. He has trampled into the forest that cuts through the city three times now and is circling around for a fourth.

Even the police do not go near this place, unless they absolutely have to. Hannibal seems at home here. A brisk wind picks up and Alana draws her wool coat around her.

She can’t see the bodies he’s laying out for the animals to feed on, but she remembers the faces who came to the memorial service. She’s heard Jack grumble about them over the years. Their names are legendary, but Jack reduced them to assholes and motherfuckers. Jack never crossed the line beyond the namecalling, because that put his top spot at risk. If he went after the top guys, then it would become open season. And Jack cared too much about his own position to allow that.

Hannibal is sending a powerful message from the rough trade to the regulators about who runs Baltimore now. If she did the count right, he took out not only the head of the rival gangs but their enforcers, too. No one would make a move against him or his turf for a long time to come.

She is counting on him not seeing an attack coming from his own crew. That he would not put it to her to gather enough support for a coup. But he’s given her the means. She has made more money over the past few months during Hannibal’s rise than she knows what to do with. And she’d like nothing more than for her mother to come home and stay for awhile.

She waits for Hannibal, even after he departs the woods and goes into his house, because Gwynn Falls is too close to be his actual safe house. He told her himself of at least one other, and besides, Will is not in the house on the hill. She would bet he’d packed up and cleaned out hours ago.

Eventually, Hannibal emerges from the woods, and walks right up the stairs to the front door of his house, brazen. The houses that face the woods are all dark and sleeping. She hands it to Hannibal for only turning on the upstairs bedroom light. She imagines she can hear the shower running.

He is making good time, striding to his car only a few minutes later. She could lose him, but if she waits to tail him, taking an educated guess on where he’s heading, there is only one highway he could travel on from here.

By the time she waits for him to pull away and gives him a good lead, she is lucky to find him cruising down 295 to Annapolis. He is in the slow lane, going the speed limit, totally law-abiding out in the world where it counts. If she weren’t so angry at him, she would be marveling at how he was able to keep up appearances between the man she saw emerge from the woods and this run-of-the-mill driver.

The moon still clings to its dominance in the sky when they reach the Bay Bridge. She dares a moment to look away from Hannibal’s car, four car-lengths ahead, to take in the view of Kent Island and rowers carving their way in the dark and the water below. Bella comes to mind and Hannibal’s story of her trip to the ocean.

To find such a place of beauty and peace so close to Baltimore. She wishes she had discovered this escape for herself earlier. When she didn’t associate it with Hannibal. Now there’s this flavor to her world, this sour, bitter aftertaste.

She can name what the precise taste is – her newly discovered desire to kill a man. Hannibal and Will fostered this in her. Imprisoning them wouldn't bring her enough comfort. She wants to kill them, to have them killed. She hasn’t decided yet if she wants to do it herself, but she thinks she will be able when it came down to it. Sure, she has thought of what she would do if she had to protect herself, especially considering the places she went late at night or the people she had to work with. But that was self-defense.

This she considers self-preservation. And payback. Not exactly pure, righteous thoughts. Not exactly easy to swallow. And she worries if it will be hard to live with. How this will weigh on her and she shoves that aside. She will put it aside, like she has done everything else.

Her lips pucker as she sees Hannibal’s car turn off. She merges with the early morning commuter traffic and takes note of the exit and the route. Her headlights illuminate a winding road and the tall pines that dot along it. The air is cleaner here for it too.

He turns off again, and this time Alana can’t follow. She notes the mile marker and the pebble driveway, which more than likely leads to a house along the coast, facing Virginia. She drives by and waits to do a U-turn a few miles down.

Hannibal arrives as the sun begins to peek out on the horizon. He snaps off his headlights and stretches as he gets out of the car. He’d had a lot to think about on the long drive down.

Will had been the foremost in his mind. How he had made the choice to tell him everything. His time spent being Jack’s butcher. Being Bella’s doctor. Delighting in merging his two worlds at his sordid parties to let everyone discover the taste of the forbidden, to taste the fruit that had been forbidden to him.

Will had only listened as they prepared the meal for Bella’s service. They had been in the kitchen at Gwynn Falls and Hannibal had chopped the parsley as a garnish. And Will had been impressed with that, how the garnish had transformed the dishes. How Bella’s death had opened something up in Hannibal that allowed him to tell Will about himself.

Bella had rejected him for his offenses, which were many. He had made a mistake letting her walk away. And here he was taking the gamble again.

Thick, tall coastal grass sways in the winter breeze. The horses feed on it. The land overlooks the tidal waters and the house reflects the elements around them, with its widow walks and large bay windows. This is a house that allows a person to wait for love to return to their life.

The side door bangs open. Will has waited up for him.

They stride towards each other, the gravel crunching underfoot, and the rest of the world and their worries fade away. A ringing fills his ears instead. How will they greet each other – in this charged place they inhabited in friendship and brotherhood? As partners?

Hannibal’s confidence falters and he slows. He doesn't know when he decided, but maybe the decision wasn't his all along. He watches as Will doesn’t shy from stepping right up to him, drinking him in. A burst of sunlight swells between them, framing their profiles. Perhaps it’s the light that makes Will stumble and Hannibal surge forward. Their mouths crash and collide.

Their passion for each other is all-consuming. It makes their faces flush and red. The veins pop in their necks, the vessels burst in their eyes. They lie in each other’s arms, panting from it, mouths watering, gravel digging into their flesh.

They manage to get upright again and make it into the house. The stairs prove more difficult to make out on than the driveway. Will practically launches him onto the bed, caging his body over his, exploring and devouring him with his mouth, his eyes even.

Hannibal does not see any fear or rejection of his past nor of their future as far as he can tell. It pleases him and relaxes him in the most unexpected way. He had not realized how on edge he had walked most of his life. How Will peels that all away.

What they don’t know is that the texts to his muscle have been sent detailing his location. And that those new lieutenants belong to her. Her three brothers had been low-key in Jack's time. But Hannibal had been told he could trust them, despite that by blood they would remain loyal to Alana. How it only takes a word from her to convince them that Hannibal went too far killing Jack and the rest of the bosses in Baltimore.

They leave the cars by the horse barn and surround the house. Alana follows the trail of clothes that lead up to the open side door. She takes off her shoes, as Jack had trained her to do. She pulls a knife off the kitchen counter that she recognizes as Zeller’s antique switchblade. It pleases her that Will was no angel in this. It strengthens her resolve as she reaches the room where they lie asleep, tangled in each other’s arms.

She will make the cut across their necks herself. She will watch as they bleed out. She will take the credit for ending the butcher and his lover, who she both loved once, because that’s poetic justice, to be the only one left standing, to be the girl whose mother looked at Jack and told her “you can run this better than him”.