Chapter Text
In her life, Alana can say she's seen a lot. She's seen good men go bad, she's seen people she trusted commit horrendous acts of betrayal; she's seen liars, despair, tragedy. She's seen love and joy and worship; courtship and lust and passion and melancholy.
Most of the notable turning points in her life contained several of the same people. So it is not surprising, she supposes, that when the tides rise and she stands, once again, on the turn of something momentous, it takes her into the office of Jack Crawford.
Jack should have retired years ago; his hair has gone from salt and pepper, to only salt, to now bare wisps of ghost-like burrs sitting in a little ring around his head, above his ears. His already-deep frown lines have grown so much it's a wonder she cannot see his skull through his skin. Age has been as kind to him as any of them; places sagging now, joints more easily getting tired, complaints from bone and muscle that have grown weary from the weight of the world.
But his eyes are sharp as ever, when she enters and takes her seat. His lips thin out, gaze raking over her as if giving a similar assessment; the growing streaks of grey in her hair that she stopped bothering to dye once Margot had jokingly called them 'distinguished' and 'regal', the deeper lines around her mouth and eyes, the sagged weariness of her shoulders.
He sits forward, folded hands on his desk. The pale line around his ring finger is still there. "There's been another one," he tells her. She nods, looking down at her own hands, the raised lines of veins and slightly less elastic skin around her wrists and forearms. "Butchered and displayed, same as the others."
She nods again.
"I'd like you to try talking to Hannibal again."
She already knows that's what he asked her here to do. She had prepared for it, but hearing his name is like a sucker-punch to the gut, and takes her right back to the moment she crashed through the window and almost lost her life against the concrete, in the rain. Then the last time she'd actually seen him, before his escape. The promise he made to her.
She's only visited him once since they caught him again, just to see him, to confirm that it was real before she told Margot it was safe to bring Morgan back. He had looked exactly the same, except somehow different – brighter, maybe, like a fallen star glittering stubbornly against the blackness of the world.
He had not smiled at her, barely even glanced her way. Jack told her he spends most of his time reading, nowadays. When he's not reading, he's sleeping, or looking up through the ceiling at the stars. They, the all-knowing, blinded 'they', say he's gone mad, retreated into himself and is no longer dangerous. They are stupid for saying so.
She breathes in. Lets it out slowly, and says; "Surely there are other ways to catch this killer."
Jack's exhale, through his nose, is loud and impatient, like a snorting horse. "This killer has a certain way about him," he replies. "One that Hannibal will respond to."
She winces. "Do you think it's…Will?" She forces herself to say his name. It stings in a different way; not crushing weight and bleeding out, but something sharp that drags nails down her spine and makes her want to run.
"Not Will," Jack says. "But maybe someone like him enough to get Hannibal curious."
"You shouldn't want Hannibal curious," Alana spits. Her fingers curl and she glares at Jack. "You should want him dead."
"I do want him dead, but I can't have that, so I'll settle for helpful if I have to," Jack replies, and for all he's impatient and aggravated, his voice is cold and stern as unyielding rock. He is the barrier between evil and mortal men, after all. He holds the keys to Hannibal's jail cell. He's the one that visits every day to provide him food, and probably case files. All holed up in the deepest pit, he is the one who travels down there every time.
One day Orpheus will look back, and turn to salt.
"You were close to him, once," Jack reminds her. As if she needs reminding. She still has dreams about his hands on her, his mouth on her. Sometimes he turns to something clawed and monstrous and devours her whole. Sometimes it's good, it's a good dream, and she can't look at herself in the mirror come morning.
"Will was closer," she replies. "Look how that turned out."
"People are dying, Alana." She winces again, sucks in a breath, presses her lips together and turns her face away from him. There's a board on the wall, riddled with photographs from crime scenes, mug shots of suspects, though they are markedly few, red string tying location to victim in a macabre spiderweb. All centered around Baltimore and D.C. and all of them spanning the last two months, growing more vicious and brutal as time goes on. This killer has no cooling off period, it seems – he kills without hesitation, sometimes two or three in a single day, all of them arranged in a way she knows someone like Will or Hannibal would call artful. Would call beautiful.
She wishes, just for a moment, that she were blind.
"People die every day," she replies, her own voice sounding flat and lifeless. Maybe the moment Hannibal promised to take her life, she has been living on borrowed time, and with each passing second she can hear the hoofbeats of death, feel his chill in the room, sees him, lingering, in the corner of her eye.
"Did he ask for me?" Alana murmurs.
Jack shakes his head. "He only ever asks for one person these days."
She nods, and wonders what exactly happened that fateful day that saw Hannibal back in chains. She dared not ask when it was happening, for truthfully she hadn't believed it was real, until she'd seen it.
She hums quietly, leg jostling in place. "What happened, Jack?" she asks.
Jack rubs his hands over his face, ages ten years in a single breath, and sits back in his chair. His eyes follow her line of sight to the board, and darken.
"We found them in France," he tells her, his voice growing low, brooding like old men do when reliving war crimes. "There was a chase, and a car crash over a cliff. We fished Hannibal out of the car, but Will wasn't there. He'd been swept out to sea."
"They've survived that kind of thing before," Alana replies. "You're sure Will was with him during the crash?"
"Yes," Jack says, nodding. "Eyewitnesses have them both in the vehicle when it went over. We combed the entire shore, and out three miles into the ocean. Couldn't find his body, couldn't even find pieces of a body. But…" His head tilts. "Lecter barely survived. He was in the driver's seat. The passenger airbag had been deployed, there was blood on it. Will's. He was in the car, and then he wasn't."
"You should know better than to presume one of them dead until you have a body in the morgue," Alana says sharply.
"We have people looking for him," Jack replies, just as sharp. His eyes land on hers. "Will you go talk to him or not?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Of course." Jack blinks, as though surprised that she would ask. Maybe he doesn't remember the time when his word was law and he wielded his authority with all the confidence of God. Alana does, though – she remembers. She will never let herself be blinded, never let herself forget.
She should not be brave. There is Margot and Morgan to consider; Hannibal has proven that guards and barriers and things like the law of the world mean nothing to him. Even under lock and key and buried in the Earth, he's dangerous.
But she must concede that Jack is right – the quickest way to finding someone as violent and depraved as their newest killer would be to speak with the Devil himself, who birthed such things. She swallows, and draws her knees together, flattening her hands over her dress so that it falls around her ankles.
"Will you come with me?" she asks, and wonders if she sounds more like a child asking for her father to check under the bed for monsters, or someone who's smart enough to know she shouldn't go in alone.
Jack nods, and gives nothing away in his expression to tell her which person he thinks she is, to ask. "I'm going to be visiting him this evening," he tells her. "I can pick you up, or we can meet there."
"I'll meet you there," she says. She doesn't want Margot and Jack talking. "What time?"
His mind palace is vast, and has only grown in the recent years. Doubling the laborers meant he could expand it, fill it with golden light and giant arches, marble and filigree and the glistening pinkness of blood and life. Hannibal resides within a room etched deep in the mountains of his mind, unconquerable, undisturbed, except for a single brush of air along his cheek that feels like a kiss.
"You always did look most beautiful when you were miserable," a voice – his voice – says to him, low and soft and thick with adoration. His lips twitch in a smile, and he turns his head, sees the outline of Will, solid in the shadows. Will's eyes shine from a light that has no origin, maybe something burning inside himself.
"Did I?" he replies. His voice is hoarse from disuse. He rarely speaks these days, finding the effort of forcing his messy vocal cords and weak lungs to make noise too much for him. The crash had not been kind to him – a jagged piece of metal had found its way through his collar, almost slicing his throat clean open. His ribs had been broken, puncturing one of his lungs, filling it with saltwater to the point of drowning. He had been declared legally dead for almost two minutes.
Will smiles, and approaches him, flattens a hand along the back of his chair and leans down to share breath. He's warm in Hannibal's mind, and Hannibal's eyes close, blocking out the light, when Will's fingers grace over the raised scar tissue on his temple, marring his hairline and forcing him to wear his hair in a perma-flop across his forehead.
Will hums. "I liked it when you were miserable," he says, cheeks dimpled, lashes low. "I liked wiping that misery away. Knowing I was the only one who could."
Hannibal smiles, and opens his eyes to gaze at him.
Will kisses him, no more substantial than a brush of air, and yet Hannibal's memory is razor-sharp when it comes to Will, clinging savagely to the memory of his touch, his heat, the way he would move and breathe and prowl through the world. God above, he is beautiful, and untouchable as time; those that would seek to harness or control him met a swift end by their hand throughout the years. It is the most offensive thing of all.
"Even now," Hannibal murmurs, "you are the only solace I have."
Will smiles at him, feline and lovely, and his nails drag below Hannibal's chin, lift his head, and he kisses again – softly, to his forehead, nuzzling at his hair. In the part of his mind that is awake and aware, Hannibal presses his nose to his scratchy pillow and breathes in.
"Not much longer, baby, I promise," Will tells him. He started using pet names as Hannibal would, once they were settled into their aliases. First in Italy, then England, then Spain, and finally France. Before they were forced apart again. 'Baby's and 'Sweetheart's and, when he was feeling particularly happy and in a mood to tease, he would purr 'Doctor Lecter' as intimately as any sweet nothing, when the nights grew dark and he would draw Hannibal to their bed.
Hannibal wants to believe him. They share this palace, after all, and there's no reason he cannot believe Will is, somehow, actually with him, moving about this place they both inhabit where time and physics mean nothing. They are not men bound by the laws of nature, after all.
Hannibal reaches for him, and grips his wrist tender and tight. An encroaching fog is coming, smearing the gold like paint touched before it's dried. Will begins to blur as Hannibal's mind edges towards the land of the living.
He breathes in, and tastes gunpowder and perfume.
Will smiles. "Jack is here," he says, telling Hannibal what he already knew. The man reeks of decay these days, a body moving only through sheer force of will – admirable, for certain, but aggravating. He smells of gun oil and papers and pain. That perfume, though, it is new. Foreign.
His head tilts, and he looks over his shoulder to where the dawn is breaking. His own awareness, threatening to sweep away the shadows, and Will with them.
Will kisses him again, fierce and loving, and melts into nothingness before his very eyes. Every time Hannibal sleeps, it is the same, and yet every time that awful ache burgeons within him, makes him want to rise and rage and howl like a captive animal seeking its mate. What he would give, what he would do, to have Will in his arms again.
He sighs, and lets the fire die, and turns towards the light.
They did not put him back in the Criminally Insane Hospital. Chilton is in no condition to keep running it, after all, and when Alana fled she turned all her claim on that place over to the state. Now, Hannibal is kept in a facility much like an underground research lab. Every agent and orderly is doggedly, carefully screened. It's the hardest place to get a job, and a place where even one dip in the mandatory weekly psychiatric evaluations means a swift and permanent termination.
There are guards and gates upon guards and gates, claxon calls as each barrier seals behind them. Jack and Alana surrender their phones and go through a myriad of metal detectors, particle detectors, and then, finally, a single flight of stairs that look like they were carved into the mountain from days of old; a place for a wealthy king to hoard his treasure. A place where monsters sleep.
The air is violently cold, bracing, and she shivers and pulls her coat tighter around herself as she follows Jack down the stairs. It opens to a single room, flanked with two more guards, and a giant metal door that looks more like the vault of a bank than anything else. One of the guards rises with a nod, and opens the door by the pin pad, and it disengages. He opens it, and lets them through.
The room Hannibal is in is much like the one Alana kept him in. It's split in half, with a single, thick glass wall with holes too high to reach, to allow airflow and ventilation. It's furnished in a utilitarian fashion, only a bookshelf lined with worn books on one side, a bed on the other side, and a toilet in the back corner. From her understanding, Hannibal is allowed no correspondence with the outside world.
Hannibal is stirring, woken undoubtedly by the sound of the door opening and closing, the single guard coming in behind them and standing watch. Alana finds herself holding her breath, unwilling to step closer as Jack does.
Hannibal lifts his head, and he still, somehow, looks exactly the same. Age has touched Jack and Alana, and everyone else she knows, but not him. There is more grey in his hair, perhaps, and of course the marked scarring on his forehead and throat, but otherwise he looks whole. He looks alive, and she hates that about him.
He sits up with a soft grunt, rubbing his hands over his face, and looks up as Jack approaches. His face splits in a welcoming, indulgent smile, and he pushes himself to his feet, his grey-green prison clothes clinging to his thighs, his shoulders, his stomach. Much more flattering than the jumpsuit Alana put him in, but still hinting at no growing, weakening body. He looks just as strong and capable as when last she saw him.
"Good evening, Doctor Lecter," Jack greets.
Hannibal nods to him. He looks paler, robbed of sunlight. "Is it?" he replies, and Alana blinks at the sound of his voice. It's raspier, throaty. Her eyes fall to the knotted scar on his neck and she thinks of Abigail. "I'll have to take your word for it."
A flash of humor passes behind his eyes, cold enough to make her shiver. She doesn't want to know what he's thinking.
Hannibal's chin lifts, his nostrils flaring, and then his gaze slides to her, and sharpens. Oh, God, she would have happily lived the rest of her life without ever meeting his eyes again, but she forces herself to. She digs her hands into the pockets of her coat, swallows harshly, and comes to stand beside Jack.
"Doctor Bloom," he purrs, his smile like a wolf that has finally caught a limping animal separated from the herd. "What a pleasant surprise."
"Not so pleasant, for me," Alana replies.
Hannibal huffs a laugh, more like a growl around his ruined throat. He breathes in again. "You've changed your perfume," he murmurs, and steps closer, and it takes all her fortitude not to step back. Even with the wall between them, he feels too close. "It compliments your wife's scent, as I remember it."
"Don't you dare -." She forces herself to stop, breathes in slowly, and looks at Jack.
Hannibal's eyes are bright with mirth, reddened in the fake light, and he looks at Jack as well. "Am I to receive another plea for my assistance in catching your killer, Agent Crawford?" he murmurs. "You must be growing quite desperate. How many has he killed now? A dozen? Two?"
"The latest number is twenty-seven," Jack replies darkly. "Probably twenty-eight by morning."
"Our friend moves quickly," Hannibal says. "I wonder how long he's been waiting, to be able to act with such…efficiency."
The pride in his voice makes Alana's stomach turn.
Jack growls lowly, and holds up the file. "Do you want to look?"
"Jack," Alana warns.
Hannibal smiles. "I can certainly look," he replies.
Jack nods, ignoring Alana's discomforted sound. "If you look, you have to promise to help."
Hannibal laughs. "You severely overestimate my curiosity for your case, Agent Crawford. My conditions for assisting you remain the same as they always have." He tilts his head, and his gaze slides to Alana again. "Bring me Will, and I'll be the most eager little helper you can find."
Alana frowns. "Will is dead," she hisses.
Hannibal smiles at her, as if she is an adorable child throwing a tantrum. "No, he isn't." His mouth flattens, his eyes grow cold once again, and he looks back at Jack. "You're keeping him somewhere, away from me. If you want my help you will bring him to me immediately."
Jack huffs. "Will is missing, presumed dead," he says, like he has had to say this many times before. "We don't know where he is – I couldn't bring him to you even if I wanted to."
Hannibal sighs, looking rather put upon, and turns away. "Then I'm sorry, Agent Crawford, I cannot help you."
"Hannibal," Alana says before she can stop herself. Hannibal pauses, but does not turn back around. She wets her lips, and whispers, "Please."
He laughs at her. "Give my regards to your wife and son, Alana," he says, and then goes back to his bed. There's a book on his pillow, which he takes, and opens, determinedly dismissing them, resolutely ignoring them. Clearly his time with Will made him more inclined to be rude. Jack growls, and turns away, Alana close behind.
"Play him some music," he tells the guards once the doors are closed. "Loud, and constant. Something irritating." The guards nod, and Jack goes to the stairs. "We'll see if a little sleep deprivation makes him more cooperative."
Alana presses her lips together, unable to stop herself looking back as they ascend the stairs.
"It's not true, right?" she asks. "Will is dead. You don't have him holed up anywhere?"
"Of course not," Jack replies with a growl. "If I did, I'd be going to him instead. God knows he was always easier to work with."
Alana wants to believe him. She tries to put it out of her mind. She tries, she tries, but it follows her like something black and horned, a creature from her nightmares that does not gain ground, but does not relent, and is always watching.
It follows her home. It follows her to her office, and bids her look up the information for the best private eye Margot's inherited money can buy. The same one that followed Will and found Hannibal in Italy. If Will is alive, she will find him. What she does then, she has no idea, but if nothing else, confirming he's dead will put her mind at ease.
She tells herself that, as she ghosts her way through dinner and then to bed. The creature follows her there, too.