Chapter Text
Will hears loud ringing, especially in his bad ear, and that’s all he can pay attention to for a moment. Once that settles down, he manages to open his eyes.
He’s in a ditch, the ambulance door he must have gotten thrown out of hanging off its hinges next to him. There’s a car on the side of the road, the front tires hangin off to the ditch. He hears vague shouting, but when he moves over to see why, pain shoots up his arm. “Guh,” he chokes out, squeezing his eyes tightly. Broken arm. Okay. Power through it. You had worse, Will reminds himself.
When he opens his eyes again, Will sees the blurring shapes of Hannibal on his back, next to him, with Jack on top of him. He can’t understand what Jack is screaming, but Will thinks it might be cursing.
Jack’s killing Hannibal, Will thinks hazily. Choking him. It takes a minute for that to sink in.
Get up, Will says to himself, suddenly urgent. Get up get up get up!
He tries to turn over, tries to find the truncheon, to do anything, but his vision shifts violently, and all he can do is try not to vomit. Power through it, Will commands himself again. He reaches out to the slowly clearer shapes of Hannibal and Jack, just trying to distract Jack at least. Hannibal is barely moving, his fingers weakly twitching against the ones on his throat, unable to pry them off. Will’s fingers brush Jack’s sleeve. He tries to grip Jack’s arm, to pull him away, but-
WACK!
Jack lets out a pained sound, dropping to the ground between Hannibal and Will. Will can hear the sweet sound of Hannibal’s broken inhale as air forcefully tries to get in his lungs. “Will?” Hannibal’s voice is hoarse, but there.
“Hannibal,” Will lets out a relieved sigh. He turns his head to see who took out Jack, and then blinks in surprise. “Clarice?”
Clarice is standing over them, shaking, eyes wide, the full moon casting a ghostly halo around her. In her hands is the truncheon that Will took. There is blood on it. Will looks back down at Jack, and presses his shaky fingers to the side of Jack’s neck. No pulse. He moves his hand to the back of the neck, where the wound is, dripping warm blood. It doesn’t feel that deep. Internal decapitation, he guesses.
“I-” Clarice blinks rapidly at them both. “He was-” She drops the truncheon, clumsily backing away. Will looks away from her to quickly glance over Hannibal. Hannibal rubs his throat, which Will can see as already bruising, but nods. He is okay. They stand up together, helping each for balance. The world swims in front of Will for a second before his equilibrium comes to.
“Did I kill him?” Clarice whispers, shuddering, eyes locked on her boss’s corpse.
“Yes,” Hannibal confirms, voice rough, looking back at Jack, unconcerned. “It seems you did. Good job.” Will would roll his eyes, but he has a feeling in doing so he would lose his lunch. He still feels a little dizzy.
Clarice looks back and forth between the two of them, looking at them as if they had the answers to a puzzle she just could not figure out. Will wonders if that’s what he looked like when he killed Garret Jacob Hobbs.
“It’s okay, Clarice,” Will tries to comfort, walking towards her slowly. She stays where she is. “It’s okay, now.”
“Because I killed him.”
Will nods as he puts the hand of his good arm on her shoulder, carefully moving Clarice away from the scene, so that her back was towards both Jack’s body and Hannibal. Will thinks about all the options he and Hannibal have here. Will hums soothingly at her as he thinks, like he used to do to one of his new dogs, before they got used to being trained, one hand stroking her hair softly. The dark locks have Jack’s blood in it now, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her bottom lip quivers, and one of her hands shoots out to grip almost painfully at the wrist of the hand stroking her hair, making sure he doesn’t let go. Will thinks she’s using her grip on him to stable herself, using his steady pulse to anchor herself to him, to this moment. Even though his attention is on Clarice, he can feel Hannibal’s eyes on him. It always had interested Hannibal how Will was able to swing back and forth between genuine affection and genuine cruelty, just as Will is interested in the same, with Hannibal.
“He didn’t deserve to die?” Clarice phrases it as a question- Unknowingly, Will believes.
“Maybe,” He’s iffy on the aspect himself. In the long run, Jack probably deserved to live, but Will had wanted him dead, one way or another, since before Florence. He’s killed many people at this point in his life, and some of those had a sin list much shorter than Jack, and some much, much longer. Jack though- Jack simply had cost him too much personally. Will will shed no tears over Jack Crawford.
“I just wanted...”
“You wanted to kill him.” Will tells Clarice. She looks up at him, eyes wide. Is this how Hannibal felt when he came across Abigail standing over Nicholas Boyle’s body?
“No,” Clarice denies weakly.
“You wanted him to die,” It's not a correction on his previous statement, just another aspect of the truth, but he knows it would be easier for Clarice to swallow. She doesn’t deny this one. Oh, Clarice , Will thinks dotingly. Our nescient wolf in Shepard clothing. “How about another deal, Clarice?” Will suddenly decides. “You didn’t kill him. I did.”
“What?” Clarice cries, dropping her hand from his wrist. Will stops stroking her hair, but keeps his hand on her head. “I did! I- you couldn't have, I did, I just- Hannibal was dying and-”
“I killed him.” Will repeats with conviction, cutting her off. “You saw Jack attacking Hannibal, and rushed to incapacitate me so I couldn't stop him. You were too slow. I broke Jack’s neck.”
“His neck’s not-” Will looks over Clarice’s shoulder, and makes eye contact with Hannibal. He nods, and swiftly bends down and breaks Jack’s neck. Clarice’s eyes widen further at the sound. “After I broke his neck,” Will goes on. “I hit him in the head, enraged. You managed to get the truncheon out of my hand, but then I knocked you out, okay?”
Clarice shakes her head, taking a step back. Will lets his hand drop. “No, I- don’t I have to-?”
“You don’t have to do anything, Clarice,” Hannibal says, limping towards them. “But let us lie for you,”
“Why?” Clarice begs, desperate. “I’m not Abigail, I’m not her phantom, I’m not your daughter, I’m just- I’m no one to you!”
“You’re something.” Will argues, tucking a wild strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re a chance for all of us.”
“A chance to what?” She asks, voice small.
Will doesn’t hesitant. “To leave a legacy.”
Clarice shakes her head. “I don’t-“ She takes in an unsteady breath. “What if I don’t want to lie? What if I regret it- regret killing Crawford- and think I should go to jail?”
“Do you?” Will questions. He knows the answer.
“I should.” Clarice tries, not answering. “I know I should.”
“You should do whatever you want.” Will tells her.
“I don’t think I’m what you think I am.” She says that hesitant, as if she was unsure if she was lying or not.
“We don’t think you’re anything besides what you are, and what you could be, Clarice.” Hannibal says.
“And what is that?” Clarice asks. “What can I be?”
“I have thought of you, just now as you saved my life, as a Shepherd- Or, perhaps more accurately, a wolf wearing the clothes of the Shepherd.” Hannibal smiles at her, and Will smiles at him.
“Sworn to protect the sheep, yet not afraid to take a bite when no one is looking.”
“But here is the more important question: What do you want to be?” Hannibal places a hand on her shoulder in a very fatherly manner. Will is unsure how much of the gesture is manipulation and how much a desire to comfort for comfort sakes. He's surprised by the feeling that it's not mostly manipulation.
“I…” She licked her lips, brows furrowed in thought. “I don’t know what I am yet; I- I only know what I am not.” Will sees Hannibal looking pleased. He imagines his expression is the same. Clarice looks between the two of them. Will thinks back upon his image of her as a child; Wide, vulnerable eyes, but not weak. Never weak. “So, don’t...don’t kill me.”
Will gives her an honest smile. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I can’t promise it will be painless,” Hannibal informs her. “But it will be quick, and you will wake up.”
Hannibal moves swiftly, wrapping his arm around her neck, but not choking her, not yet. Clarice gently puts her hands on his arm for balance.
Will is momentarily taken back to Hannibal’s Baltimore kitchen, holding his guts in and watching Hannibal cut Abigail’s throat. The image is gone as quickly as it arrives.
“A parting gift for you, for when you wake up, Clarice,” Hannibal tells Clarice softly. “Remember this: didn’t those random scattering of sites seem desperately random?”
“Like the elaborations of a bad liar,” Will adds.
“What-” Clarice isn’t able to say more than that, as Hannibal tightens his hold. She lets it happen for a second, before her survival instincts kick in, causing her to try to claw at Hannibal. Will grabs her hands in his, ignoring the pain it causes in his arm.
“None of that, Clarice,” he says. “Just go to sleep.” She kicks, once, twice, three times, before fading out. Hannibal quickly loosens his grip, nose briefly going to her hair, a curious sniff. He gently places her on the ground, head on the soft grass. Will watches her chest rise and fall, and feels relief. He trusted Hannibal not to kill her, but is still relieved. He supposes he should not be surprised, though; Hannibal cares about her too, in his own way.
Will lets out a breath. “Did she smell afraid?”
“Yes, very much so.” Hannibal limps up to Will. “Though I believe not all of that fear is directed towards us, but her general situation. There was also the citrusy scent of something akin to triumph.”
“Triumph has a scent?” Will raises a brow, amused.
“Something akin to triumph has a scent, yes.”
Will nods, absorbing the information. How Hannibal is able to detect all that is still beyond him. “How’s your throat?” He asks, reaching out with his good arm to tenderly touch the bruises.
“I think I’ll live,” Hannibal says humorously, before asking more seriously, “Your arm?”
“Broken,” Will answers. ”Just the humerus, I think.” He shrugs, which hurts. “I might be concussed though.”
Hannibal makes one of his displeased sounds, cupping Will’s cheek, lightly stroking it. Will hums, content, closing his eyes. After a minute, Will twists his head to kiss Hannibal’s scarred wrist, before walking out of his grasp. “C’mon,” he says, picking up the truncheon. “Before anyone else gets here.”
***
When Clarice wakes up, it's a blur. She has to answer to the local police, as well as her supervisors in the FBI. She tells them the story that Will weaved, and they all buy it.
Of course , she can tell they're thinking. Kill the man who's been chasing you for years, incapacitate the green agent, and run. She’s asked if she wants paid emotional leave, and she says no, and then, hesitantly, asks about the Buffalo Bill case. They only have a day left before Catherine will die. She’s told to get back on it, then. Jack Crawford, apparently, never told anyone else that he was kicking her off the case.
She gets a motel room in Memphis, showers, and then facetimes Ardelia.
“Are you okay?” Ardelia quickly asks her once she answers. “I saw the news- Lecter and Graham escaped?”
“Yeah, killed their guards and left the courthouse in an ambulance.” Clarice pauses. “They also killed Agent Crawford.” There’s a strange sort of relief that washes over her as she says that. No one will know.
Ardelia’s eyes go wide. “Oh shit . Wait, are they gonna-“
“They’re not going to go after me.” Clarice says firmly. She can see the doubt in Ardelia’s face, so she adds. “They would find it rude.” It’s technically not a lie, but Clarice also knows the real reason they won’t go after her, at least not to kill her.
Ardellia seemed to believe her, and after that, they go through what Will and Hannibal told her about Buffalo Bill. She doesn’t tell Ardelia that they whispered to her as they strangled her.
Transformation. Moths. Desperately random. Coveting.
Together, they figure it out. Alone, Clarice boards a morning plane to Ohio, to the first victim’s house. Ardellia sends her a link when she’s on the plane, and Clarice looks only at the title of the article before closing out.
MURDER HUSBANDS ON THE LOOSE! The TittleCrime article says, and below that, in smaller print, Killed FBI Agent Jack Crawford in escape- images below!
She doesn’t have to look at the images. She was there, after all. She did it. Your first one, her brain whispers insidiously. She can’t sweep the thought away.
Buffalo Bill is found, the FBI thinks, by sheer luck. A young agent who gets a hunch. Agent Clarice Starling, who went to the first victim's house. A hidden photo of her with another woman, someone the parents didn’t know about. On the back of the photo, the words Jamie and me, a heart drawn next to it.
A loose address book was found, J. Gump written in it, a heart drawn in it as well, accompanied by a small doodle of a bug; a butterfly, or, perhaps, a moth.
Fredrica Bimmel, the now ex-girlfriend of Jamie Gump.
They met when Gump visited Bimmel’s workplace multiple times, friends will later say, they didn’t think it was serious; When they met, Gump was getting supplies for her moth nursery, they will add.
Agent Starling , the FBI thinks, making jumps that weren't there.
The evidence , she would say if asked, was there.
No one notices how the timeline of when Clarice called her superiors for backup-2:12pm- is strangely close to Buffalo Bill’s time of death- around 2pm to 2:30pm; an alarmist, someone suspicious, would notice how the call could have been after the shots already came. That notion is never brought up, and never thought of at all.
Jamie Gump is found on her kitchen floor with one shot in the head, one shot in the shoulder, and three in the chest. Clarice Starling is found helping Catherine Martin out of a hole in the ground in the basement. The door to the moth nursery is broken, and they are surrounded.
She goes to Crawford’s funeral a week later, and as she watches the casket lower into the ground, she feels a sick thrill of amazement. She’s going to get away with it. No one will know that she killed the head of the BAU. No one will know that she murdered her boss to save two serial killers- except for the serial killers themselves.
Price says something, as does Zeller, and a few others that Clarice doesn’t know of, but she doesn’t pay attention. She listens to her heart beat steadily in her chest. She doesn’t feel guilty, but she knows she should. She can’t regret saving Hannibal and Will, even at the cost of Crawford’s life, and at the cost of whoever they will find in the future to be their next victim.
She wonders what that makes her. If they were right about her. The words ‘Not afraid to take a bite’ play on repeat in her head.
Later at the wake, she stays close to the edge of the crowd, not in it, but not outside it either. She doesn't talk to anyone, though she notices Dr. Chilton in the crowd; he looks at her, but when she goes to meet his eyes, he quickly looks down, walking away. She absently wonders if he suspects her in anything- In the escape, in the murder. Clarice isn’t afraid, if he does. She doesn’t think he would say anything, even if he did- he’s too afraid of Will and Hannibal at this point, and, she assumes, by association, maybe her too.
She feels like she's floating, her back against the waves of the sea, in rhythm to her heart. It takes her longer than she would like to realize that her phone was ringing.
She thinks it must be Ardellia, away on a case somewhere in Maine, thinks that that's the only person who would call her during this, the only person who knows she is here, so she doesn’t bother looking at the caller ID as she pulls it out of her pocket. “Hello?”
“Congratulations, Clarice.” says Will’s voice on the other end. Her breath gets caught in her throat.
“Hello, Clarice. Have you come to find music in the screams of your lambs?” Hannibal’s voice says.
“Will, Hannibal.” She breathes out, quickly walking away from the crowd.
“We won’t be on long enough for a trace to get set up, so don’t worry about warning anyone.” Will tells her. “Just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m- did you actually trust me?” Clarice questions, squeezing her eyes shut, her grip painful on the phone. “Or did you just know that I would try to get y’all transferred, knew that I wouldn't be able to? Knew that I would have to travel with you, that I would-” She can’t say it. That I would slip you something that might help. “Did you just know what I would do?”
“Isn’t that what trust is, Clarice?” Hannibal asks. She couldn't see his face, but she knew he was smiling. She hopes it is kind. “An inherent knowledge of the action of others, fully believing and allowing their actions to continue, either adjacent or against your own?”
“Tell us, Clairce,” Will adds, and she could hear the rhythm and timbre of Hannibal’s voice in his words, a ghost of many conversations past. “Do you trust us?”
“Trust you to what?”
“To keep your secret.”
“Yes ,” Clarice gasps, as if the words were stolen from her. Of course she does. “Where are you?”
“We’re not going to tell you.” Will consoles. “Hope you understand.”
“Time for us to go now,” Hannibal says. “We’re having an old friend for dinner, and it would be rude to make them wait any longer.”
Her eyes snap open.
“Hannibal is thinking about making Pork shogayaki,” Will tells her, gleeful.
“Hannibal, Will-”
“Farewell, Clarice,” Hannibal says.
“And good luck,” Will adds, and with that, the line goes dead. She listens to the silence on the other end, hands shaking faintly. Goodbye, She thinks painfully.
After a minute, she hangs slips her phone back in her pocket, and returns to the party.
It’s on the news two days later- Freddie Lounds found dead in her hotel room in Virginia, killed by the men that unwillingly made her famous. The news on the tv doesn’t tell what happened to her, but the ones online do. There’s photos included.
Freddie was alive when her tongue was cut out, as well as her ears, and both her eyes. Her chest cavity, as well as her abdomen, was cut open, ribs broken. All but one of her organs were either cut and pushed down, or taken out to reveal her heart, a hotel pen in it. She was alive for most of that, only dying when they took her lungs. The ears, eyes, and tongue were found in the mini fridge with a note saying ‘ help yourselves .’ She doesn’t know what they did with the organs they couldn’t shove down in her, but the flesh that they took, the meat from her abdomen, Clarice knows. She doesn’t tell anyone that it was probably used for a delicious pork shogayaki.
Grilled ginger pork.
Freddie was placed in a chair, fabric wrapped around her head like a shawl. She was holding a tablet to her tenderly, like it was a loved one. The tablet, once opened, revealed that it on the page of the TittleCrime article of the Murder Husbands escape. Before it was opened however, the lock screen was a lamb.
The tableau, all in all, bears an eerie similarity to a Pieta.
As Clarice looks at the photos, she becomes aware of both meanings in the work. The first one, the obvious one, the one that the authorities will find out and talk about is this: Freddie Lounds saw too much, talked too much, heard too much, and spent her life to the flimsy cause of journalism, and now, through her, it's dead. Or more accurately, now, through it, she’s dead.
The second one, however, is just for Clarice. The tableau is good luck , it is thank you , it is you’re welcome , but most of all it is this: a gift.
She irks me, Clarice told them. Did you see TattleCrime? She asked them.
Clarice can’t help but smile, looking at the photo of Freddie holding the virtual lamb.
Clarice has a dream that night. She’s standing in a barn, the same one in her last dream. Clarice looks to her left. Will is there, smiling. He’s not wearing his prison jumpsuit, nor the outfit she last saw him in. Instead, he is wearing a dark blue button up and black slacks. His hair is swept neatly to the side. She looks to her right. Hannibal is there, eyes twinkling with humor. He’s wearing a matching dark brown sweater vest, blazer and pants, accompanied by a tie a dark reddish brown color. They would look like any normal rich couple, except for the blood that coats both their hands, shining in the moonlight.
“Now what?” She asks them, taking a step forward in the barn. They take a step with her.
“That’s entirely up to you.” Hannibal tells her.
“We’ll keep an eye out for you, though.” Will says.
Clarice turns around to face them. They’ve moved closer to each other, hips touching, and Hannibal has an arm around Will’s shoulders. In Will’s arms are a lamb, which struggles to escape his grasp, bleating out in terror. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“What will you do now?” Hannibal asks her, angling his head to gesture behind her. She can hear the curiosity that colors his voice.
She turns and sees Jamie Gump standing there, eyes glazed over in death, with still bleeding bullet wounds. Jamie looks at her, not saying anything, but aware, and Clarice feels a surge of power. I did that, she thinks gleefully.
She takes a step forward towards Jamie, walking so she’s behind her, looking over Jamie’s shoulder to see Will and Hannibal. They looks back at her. She thinks they look proud. She grabs Jamie where her head meets her neck, Jamie turning her head to look back at her from the corner of her eye.
“This is your transformation.” Jamie promises her. The blood from the bullet wound in her head dribbles into her mouth, staining her lips red like lipstick.
“I think you’re right.” Clarice agrees, before snapping Jamie’s neck like she imagines Hannibal did to Crawford.
Jamie’s body drops, and the moment it hits the ground it bursts into moths, hundreds, maybe thousands of them filling the air.
It’s beautiful, Clarice thinks.
The lambs bleats out in fear louder.
Clarice looks back up at Hannibal and Will. Their smiles are an awful thing; both horrific and encouraging wonder.
She smiles back, mirroring them.
She’s still smiling when she wakes up.