Chapter Text
It’s late, and Wally is asleep, naturally, since he only gets to stay up past bedtime on weekends. By all rights they should be in bed already too, since Will has to be up just as early to make breakfast and drop him off at school, and Molly has work tomorrow. The shop has been extra busy of late with holidays just around the corner, however, and he can tell that she’s tired of being tired, tired of coming home late and that meaning her husband has to wait until late to put dinner on the table so she won’t have to reheat leftovers after Walter and Will have already eaten, tired of getting only an hour or so of downtime at home at best before it’s off to bed and another day starts the cycle anew, so Will opts instead to offer her another glass of wine after dinner and a foot rub to alleviate some of the ache from standing on them all day.
“Mm,” she hums contentedly in her sprawl across the couch, practically half on her way to sleep anyway, her glass still half full and waiting forgotten on the end table behind her head. Earlier, as he started, she’d joked that no wonder men from the so-called “golden age” were upset when their wives started to get jobs instead of staying home with the kids all day, if this was the sort of treatment they were used to getting all the time before. They both laughed as he’d fired back that she’d better not come home tomorrow with a frilly white apron for him to wear, knowing that she’d probably do exactly that and struggle to keep a straight face as she presented it to him.
Her phone vibrates loudly against the coffee table, startling them both. “Noooo, it’s too late for this,” she groans. “Don’t robo-callers have to sleep too?” she adds, the facetious remark pulling another dry quirk from Will’s mouth as she bats ineffectually at the phone without looking until her finger finally swipes along the end call button successfully.
It rings again moments later. Molly grumbles as she pulls her feet out of Will’s lap and sits up, grabbing the phone off the table this time. She freezes. Will doesn’t need to ask why, having glimpsed the screen for himself as she brought the phone closer and reacted similarly—the name “Walt” accompanied by a face he has only ever seen in pictures.
“On speaker,” he tells her automatically, voice rough. If someone’s playing a sick practical joke on his wife, he wants to hear what they have to say for himself so he can learn what he can about them and quickly assess any possible danger. She darts an uneasy glance at him but swiftly obeys.
“Molly? Molls, honey, are you there?” All thoughts of it being a simple prank crumble away to dust as Will watches her face. Recognition. Shock. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you answering?”
“Say something. Make sure it’s not a recording.” Will whispers it too quietly for the phone’s speaker to pick up. She looks at him again, staring at Will like he’s her anchor. He keeps his expression steady since he can’t let her know how ironic that is, that something in him has already started to come unmoored and adrift since the call started, his own inexplicable certainty that it’s not a prerecorded message stronger than his logical doubts.
“Walt?” she finally says, still looking at Will, her voice cracking just a bit. “Is that really you?”
“Oh, thank God. Honey, of course it’s me. What happened? Why do you sound so freaked out?”
Molly finally drops his gaze, which makes it marginally easier to think though it does nothing to stem the flood of astounded hope he’d seen that now breaks into the empty spaces between his ribs. “Walter. Oh my God, I, I can’t, how, I don’t even know where to begin, I—”
“Are you and Wally okay?” Molly nods, a reflexive gesture since he obviously won’t be able to see.
“Yes! Yes, we’re both fine. Everything’s fine.” The voice on the other end sighs in audible relief.
“Good, because I’m about one step away from freaking out myself,” the voice chuckles. “Honey…” Tentative now. “There’s…there’s someone else in our house. A Hispanic couple. They seemed as freaked out as I was and, and the furniture’s all different too. I thought they were gonna call the cops on me…” Another wry, humorless chuckle. “But then they, the woman, she got a phone call and I couldn’t understand what was said, but whatever it was freaked them out some more but they were also…happy? It’s like they forgot I was there and I-I didn’t know what else to do. You and Wally obviously weren’t home so I just…left while they were distracted and, and then I called you.” A brief, weighty pause, and then, with a hint of desperation, “Do you have any idea what the fuck is going on? Because all I know is it’s really fucking cold out and I have no idea where the hell you and Wally are.”
Molly and Will are both on their feet before he’s finished speaking. “Baby, you just stay right where you are and I’ll come pick you up,” she says, sounding far more like her usual confident self now that she has a clear goal in mind. Will wordlessly grabs her shoes and coat from the front foyer while she’s still talking and brings them over to her. “Are you still on our old street?”
“Y-yeah.” The man’s voice shakes. Will can’t be sure if it’s shivering from the cold or a delayed reaction to what must be the most disconcerting night of Walter Foster Sr.’s life. For Will and Molly and about half of everyone else on the planet, this would only rank in second place for that spot. Not that it’s a competition anyone would particularly wish to win.
“I won’t be long then. Stay put. I’m on my way now.” Molly hurriedly shimmies into her coat after she hangs up and fishes around in the pockets for her keys.
“You’re sure you’re okay to drive?” Will asks, picking up her forgotten wine glass and noting to himself with relief that it’s fuller than he thought. He doesn’t offer to drive her himself or even to go with her. He would if he still thought it might be a trick, but this doesn’t feel like one. This is really happening. This is real. He can’t even muster up shock that’s anything more than a residual reflection of Molly’s. It feels more like…like he should have seen this coming, somehow.
“Yeah, all clear for takeoff.” Even as she says it, her movements slow. She’s looking at him again, clearly fishing in her thoughts for something to say as desperately as she had fished for her keys before finding them. “Babe…”
“Be careful on the road.” If Walt Foster is back and showed up right where he disappeared, then who knows how many others…? That’s not a safe avenue of thought to be traversing right now, for reasons that have nothing to do with wayward pedestrians Molly may have to keep an eye out for on the drive, and he swiftly slams the door to it shut again. “I’ll stay here with Wally and hold the fort til you guys get back.”
“Wally…” she mumbles, glancing down the hallway where her son sleeps. “Do you think I should…no. No, this is already so…” She gestures widely with her hands. Overwhelming is the word that most readily comes to mind, but he can understand why even that one would seem too small and insufficient for what she’s trying to say.
“I’ll stay here with him,” Will repeats. “It’s best so you can explain to Walt on the drive back, give him some time to…prepare.” Prepare him to face the reality that his son who recently finished first grade in his last living memory is now almost a preteen, is what Will really means, but of course he’s not surprised when it returns to the forefront of Molly’s mind what he’d been trying to forestall them talking about just a few seconds ago. She’s staring at him now like she wants badly to reach out and lay a grounding touch on his arm but isn’t sure of her welcome, her lips forming the shape of his name without quite bringing herself to voice it aloud.
He calls up a warm, reliable, reassuring smile for her now and lays that touch on her arm instead. It’s one of her own smiles actually, though he’s fairly confident she won’t recognize it as such, at least for the moment. “Later. I’ve got a handle on things here,” he tells her. “Now go.”
She grabs him by the shirt and pulls him in closer to brush a sweet, surprisingly fierce kiss over his closed mouth, and then she’s gone. The lingering taste of it burns and he finds himself downing the rest of her glass without a second thought, then returns to the kitchen to wash it with the rest of the remaining dishes. Pulls back on the sweater he’d left draped over the back of a dining room chair, since it’s chillier in there than in their cozy living room with its fire still going in the hearth. Eyes the whiskey at the liquor corner on the countertop as he passes it by, though it’s been years since he’s overindulged that heavily.
Because he has the water running and his thoughts, entirely against his wishes, are already trying to pull him miles and miles away once more (a little over seven hundred miles, to be a bit more precise), he doesn’t hear the creak of weathered wooden flooring in the hallway followed by footsteps on tile coming up behind him.
“Dad?” Were the ceramic bowl he was scrubbing a little more delicate, like the crystal stemware he just placed on the drying rack, it might have snapped under the extra pressure exerted by his fingertips. Will rinses it before shutting the water off and drying his hands, turning with the towel still in them to give them something safe and not in danger of shattering to hold onto.
“Hey, champ,” he says, Molly’s favorite nickname for Wally falling easily past his lips. “What are you doing up?”
“I got up to pee, then I heard a car pulling out of the driveway. Did Mom leave?”
Will nods but he doesn’t elaborate beyond that. He’s not sure whether it’s his place to tell him or not. Perhaps he and Molly should have discussed things a bit more before she took off.
“Why? Is something the matter?” Wally shifts from one foot to the other, toes bare against the kitchen tiles. “Is it my grandparents?” he asks, suddenly anxious. A kid far too used to preparing himself to hear the worst after his last experience with grief and loss, which of course Will should have been expecting.
“No, no, nothing like that. This is a good thing actually.” Wally looks at him skeptically. Will gestures to one of the barstools at the kitchen island. “Maybe you should sit.” He doesn’t, naturally, just continues to stand there and stare at Will curiously. Will sighs, leaning on his hands against the island counter himself. For all his empathy, this kind of talk is not his forte, never has been. Maybe it’s best to get it all out the same as one does with bad news, like ripping off a band-aid.
“It’s your dad. He’s alive.” Will’s staring at his own hands, but he doesn’t have to be looking at Walter to feel the shift in the room as the boy stands at straighter attention. “Showed up back at your old house just like he was, as if he never left it. Your mom’s on her way to pick him up now and bring him home.”
“Are you…is this a joke?” Wally asks. Suspicious. Scared to get his hopes up. Will shakes his head, feels the tension snap as caution gives way to careful enthusiasm. “My dad’s alive?!” Walter seems not to know what to do at first with his sudden burst of excited energy before running hurriedly into the living room. Will follows at a much more sedate pace to find him turning on the television to the first news station he can find.
“—repeat, the stories you have been hearing are true. We’re here with you live to report that the Missing from the Decimation Event five years ago have all returned.” The anchorwoman on camera is beaming, and lifts a manicured hand to her eye to catch a tear before it can fall and run through her makeup. “Excuse me. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is a miracle that touches us all tonight in a very real, very tangible and personal way.” There are several cuts away as she continues to recompose herself off camera, most of it phone or camcorder footage of traffic coming to a standstill as hordes of confused pedestrians suddenly materialize safely on the sidewalks out of nowhere, even ones that clearly expect to be gripping steering wheels and now inexplicably find themselves standing on solid ground and holding empty air. Tearful reunions in the middle of suddenly overcrowded malls and town plazas. In every public sphere and some private ones clearly hastily uploaded to various social media, a sea of jubilant chaos spreads all across the planet.
“Rescue teams are being deployed over land and sea to the last known trajectories of all flights and cruises at the time of the Decimation,” the news anchor continues, “but sources everywhere are already confirming that, amazingly, even those counted among the Missing at elevations of thirty thousand feet or more above sea level are in fact being found on the ground, perfectly safe and free from harm.” Oh, Hannibal would hate that, Will realizes, a strange smile tugging unconsciously at the corners of his lips. Too few tragedies amidst the triumphs to take clippings of and add to his collection of church collapses.
The smile falls away as quickly as it comes. Hannibal. Will’s fingers twitch. Without a word, he turns around and heads back to the kitchen, the anchor’s voice trailing off into background noise as he walks away, “…contact yet with Tony Stark or the other Avengers, leading many to speculate whether they may currently be at the center of…” He wraps fingers around the neck of a bottle of Maker’s Mark with one hand and nabs a tumbler from the drying rack still speckled by droplets of water with the other.
“You think this means the first Spider-Man and the King of Wakanda are back too?” Wally asks, wandering back into the kitchen as Will finishes his pour.
“Probably,” he answers, another brief smile flitting across his face at the eleven-year-old’s predictable priorities taking shape after the initial news about his father.
“Awesome!” Wally darts off back to his room, leaving Will to stand there bemused for a second before he returns with his phone in hand.
“Hey, don’t text your mom while she’s driving, bud, alright?”
“I’m not!” Wally dials one of his contacts and brings the phone up to his ear. “Granddad, hi! Are you awake? Sorry, I know, sorry, but you and Grandma gotta get up and turn on the news right now…” The boy wanders back into the living room where Will can just make out the sound of his voice over the drone of the TV.
Will lifts the glass up to his lips but barely tastes anything as he sips at its contents. Though not one to check his phone constantly, he pulls it out of his pocket now. No new notifications. It’s hardly surprising, considering only a tiny handful of people know his current number and he’s far from the first on anyone’s list to share their own good news with, outside of Molly and Walter, of course. With a deep breath and a glance toward the noisy den to confirm that Wally isn’t likely to get off the phone anytime soon, Will steps out through the kitchen door onto the backside of the wraparound porch in just his socks and jeans and oversized sweater, relying on another gulp of whiskey to warm him through a bit more.
The dogs snuffle and snore from their cozy nest of old rugs and blankets under the porch as he lowers himself into one of the patio chairs and makes a call of his own. He half-expects it’ll go to voicemail, but the recipient picks up finally after the fourth ring.
“I was wondering if we would hear from you tonight.” She doesn’t bother with a proper greeting. Alana sounds tired and a bit terse, and there’s a flurry of frantic shuffling and multiple voices in the background behind her. Will is perversely glad he’s not the only one having a more somber reaction to current events than a celebratory one.
“Hey there, Alana. How’s the wife and kid? Taking the news well, I trust. Mine are doing just fantastically, by the way.” He wonders if it’s the whiskey making him rude, or just the specter of their old lives hanging over them both now like the proverbial Sword of Damocles.
Alana, stolid as she often is now since her defenestration, doesn’t rise to the bait. “What do you want, Will?”
“My dogs.” He waits out the stunned silence that follows, broken at last a few moments later by a single sharp, cutting laugh and a muttered aside he may or may not be meant to overhear but it sounds like she’s telling herself, ‘Of course.’
“Scusi,” he hears her say next, presumably stopping one of the numerous servants still moving around frantically in the background. Things must be quite busy at the Bloom-Verger manor indeed. “How many was it, Will?”
“Two. Winston and Zoe.” Most of the pack got to come home with him and eventually made the move to Maine with him as well, but those were the two who didn’t survive when the global population was mysteriously halved. All the rest he had at that time have since been given away to other good homes, namely friends of Molly’s or Walter’s, or passed on from old age. None of the animals currently asleep under the boards beneath his feet are from the original core pack he had in Wolf Trap. Will swallows past a curious lump in his throat.
“I need you to check the guest kennels,” she says, clearly speaking to the servant once more. Will rolls his eyes at the existence of something as pretentious as ‘guest kennels,’ though he acknowledges that Alana’s foresight to place them there when she first moved onto Muskrat Farm half a decade ago is likely the only reason his pack and Applesauce weren’t shredded to pieces by the underfed mongrels and trained, hyper-aggressive hunters Mason liked to keep around when he was still alive. “You’re looking for a spotted grey-and-tawny retriever mix and, ah,” she pauses a moment to think about it, “a small white dog with an underbite. Thank you.” Will is a bit touched in spite of himself that she would remember which dogs he meant by name alone after all these years.
‘Sì signora,’ comes in distant and tinny through the speakers. “I will admit, this is not the reason I was expecting your call,” Alana says to him once she has some relative privacy once more. “But I’ll look into a service that would be willing to transport Winston and Zoe that far of a distance. If there’s no other option, I should be able to spare a member or two of my own staff within a few weeks to bring them to you.”
“Actually, I was planning on coming down to pick them up myself.” In truth, Will has no idea this is his plan at all until the words come tumbling out of his own mouth. Maybe he really isn’t used to this much alcohol in one night anymore. He doesn’t feel drunk, however, and it seems really cheap to blame everything on the bourbon.
There is another lengthy silence on the other end of the line. “You understand that my family and I intend to be out of the country by tomorrow evening at the latest,” she informs him at last.
“Running is only going to make you and Margot look guiltier, you know.” The timing of the world’s greatest universal tragedy had been rather fortuitous for the two of them, allowing them to cover up what happened to Mason and his loyal lackeys by branding them all among the Missing, though he bets they regret that now since there will be no miraculously recovered Verger scion nor dozens of other faithful former employees around to corroborate that particular tale.
“Nonetheless, there is a certain promise I haven’t forgotten which I would strongly prefer not to see fulfilled in the wake of this happiest of global celebrations,” she responds wryly. “Frankly, we’d be on the jet already if it wasn’t logistically impossible to put together a viable last-minute flight plan, tonight of all nights. I have to also confess myself woefully underprepared for this eventuality.”
“Usually the dead do tend to stay that way. Difficult to build plans around mass spontaneous resurrection,” says Will agreeably. The newly risen know nothing of their own lost time, however, and therefore some may be ready to proceed however they wish like nothing ever happened. Ready or not, world, here he comes. He rolls his bottom lip into his mouth to wet it before asking, “Have you sent any feelers out to Wolf Trap yet?”
“Have I? No. Unlike Mason, I understand that no amount of money thrown at the problem is going to keep employee retention rates up if I treat the people under my management as expendable. Jack, on the other hand…” That’s not exactly fair to Jack, Will thinks, but on the other hand, the man hasn’t seemed any keener than either of them on maintaining bridges since Lecter slipped out of his grasp once more. In the end, not even death could satisfy that vendetta, likely because it wasn’t Jack himself who got to deliver the final blow, instead being made to watch helplessly as his victory was snatched out from under him.
“I hear his people have already found the two uniformed officers who were also taken by the Event at Hannibal’s arrest,” she continues. “The bodies were mostly left intact.” She allows him a moment to absorb this before adding, “I don’t envy whoever they’ll assign the task of informing the families that unlike the rest of the world, they won’t be getting their happy reunions after all.” Will spins his wedding ring idly on his finger, waiting for his empathy to drive the horror of that statement up to an unmanageable level. It never happens. He’s too caught up in an altogether different feeling at this confirmation of Hannibal’s escape that he would be hard-pressed to describe to anyone, not least of all to himself.
“Do they have any other leads?” he asks her.
Alana turns that around on him with a question of her own. “What is it you expect to find once you get here, Will?” He blinks, spins his ring once more, not sure of the answer to that himself.
“I expect…that it won’t take long for him to understand what’s happening, if he hasn’t figured it out already. He’ll use all the turmoil and confusion on the roads and in the skies to his advantage. Bigger and busier crowds to fade into, not just in sheer volume but in the fact that suddenly everyone has someone to get back to, and they’re all gonna be in a hurry to get there.”
“Everyone has someone to get back to,” Alana murmurs thoughtfully. “I wonder.”
Will sits impassively in his chair, in the cold, not having much to say to that either.
From outside, he can hear the crunch of tires against the gravel road leading up to the house that much sooner. “I have to get going now,” he tells her.
“Guess we’ll be seeing each other tomorrow then,” says Alana. She hangs up. Will slips his phone into his pocket and steps back inside, setting his empty glass in the sink. He stands there for a bit and waits. Listens to the front door opening. Wally’s delighted, excitable chatter. Walter Sr.’s equally joyous and astonished response. Molly’s soft murmur, sounding a bit more subdued than normal but also still pleased. A quiet chime from his phone.
Will pulls the device out of his pocket again to find that he has an email. No, an email and a text, one sent right after the other in rapid succession. The second is a message from Alana: ‘That was the earliest return flight available. Try for a rental if you want to get back sooner. Lucky they even had a seat left on anything heading into BWI tonight.’ The email is an automated confirmation for a first-class ticket in his name, round trip from Bangor International to Baltimore-Washington International and back again. The return flight is set for a week from tomorrow. The initial flight out is on the next available red-eye, only a few hours from now. Will is torn between equal and opposite urges to both thank Alana and curse her for it. Bangor is a far enough drive from Moosehead Lake that he pretty much has to leave right away and book it to the airport as fast as legally possible to have any hope of making it by boarding time.
“Where’s Will?” Molly’s voice drifts in from the living room again, easier to make out now. That’s his cue, he supposes. He puts his phone away again and steps out from the kitchen. She smiles when she sees him, radiating warmth and affection, as well as a healthy dose of nerves.
From the way Walt Foster sizes him up, then appears somewhat embarrassed and unsure as he catches himself doing so, Molly must have already told him exactly who Will is to her and Wally on the drive back. Frustrated and a little bit resentful as anyone in his position might be—for no matter how he tries to drown it out or reason with it, there must a niggling voice in the man’s head which points out sullenly that he’d been replaced—Walt nonetheless seems to be doing his best to work through those feelings already despite the newness of his own knowledge about the situation. He is not the sort of man who would consider it justified or fair to lash out against a stranger or his own wife for choices that were made in his absence and with no expectation that he would one day show back up to complicate everything.
He is exactly the sort of morally decent, honorable, considerate, good man Will Graham has spent most of his life trying to imitate, in other words. The man even smiles and it’s only a little bit forced, for god’s sake, as he steps forward to offer his wife’s other husband a handshake.
Will reacts about a second too late for it to not be even more uncomfortable between them, only remembering that he’s supposed to reciprocate by actually taking Walt’s hand in his own right as the other man lowers it again. Will wishes he could blame it on something like misplaced jealousy and not the fact that he’s too fucking distracted by his desire to be on the road five minutes ago to respond correctly to social cues.
“Don’t take it personally, Dad. Will’s awkward to everybody he meets.” This comment earns a quick, genuine laugh from Will and a chastising “Walter!” from the boy’s mother. He’s silently grateful that he’s back to being Will, at least for the moment. Wally has a habit of referring to him either by his name or as Dad almost interchangeably at times, but it will make the transition much smoother for everyone if he refrains from the latter from now on for Walt Sr.’s sake.
“He’s, uh, he’s right unfortunately,” Will says, subtly making himself smaller, eyes cast away, and oh how easy it is to slip right into this old, comfortably worn skin, that of someone apologetic and sheepish and, as Wally had put it quite well, awkward. Some of the tension bleeds out of the other man’s shoulders at the display, and a hidden piece of that skin itches though this was the intended result, almost guilty. It’s not that Will’s nonthreatening persona is a lie, being pulled from a facet of himself that really is apologetic and does have a habit of missing cues if he’s not fully focusing his energies on being sociable, but his conscientious use of it now serves as one more reminder that Will Graham isn’t quite the good man he presents himself as.
“Hey, no worries, I get it. This is a crazy night for all of us, not just me.” Walt stuffs his hands in his pockets and eyes the now muted television. “And not just for us either, from what I’m gathering.”
“True. Speaking of…” Will clears his throat, feigning discomfort and regret when in reality the one thing he enjoys about being ‘awkward’ is that it lets him be blunt and straightforward without coming across as deliberately rude. “I’m afraid I can’t stay long. I really have to get going now if I want to make it to the airport in time.”
“The airport?” Molly asks. Wally looks just as confused as his mom. Walt’s face, on the other hand, lights up in understanding and with also the tiniest hint of relief.
“Of course, you must have other loved ones to meet up with as well.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Will doesn’t have anybody besides us.” This time the stern and aghast “Walter!” comes from both mother and father at the same time, which would actually be pretty funny under normal circumstances. Will turns away slightly from both adults to address the all-too-observant sixth grader more directly.
“Actually, buddy, I do. Remember all those dogs I had when we met? Some of them disappeared the way your dad and others did. Since they’re back now too, a friend of mine in Baltimore is taking care of them again. I have to go get them now before she has to leave for somewhere else too.”
“Oh, okay then.” Wally’s ready acceptance of this answer makes the itch worsen. Will reminds the person suit he’s wearing that he hasn’t uttered a single lie so far, but that does little to appease it. When did it begin to feel more like an ill-fitting suit again than his natural default state of being in the first place? An unnecessary question to which he already knows the answer.
“Hold on, you’re going back to Baltimore? Tonight?” Will doesn’t meet Molly’s eyes, not wanting to see the sudden concern in them she’s being careful to keep out of her voice for Wally’s sake.
Walt must be good at picking up on her moods as well, as he shifts his focus back to Wally and says, “Hey, I’m starving! Mind showing me where all the good junk food is, pal?” Wally leads him into the kitchen, and Will heads for the master bedroom, Molly following close on his heels.
“What’s going on, Will?” Will pulls one of their rolling suitcases out from under the bed and starts grabbing socks and underwear out of his bedside drawer. He also takes the passport tucked away at the bottom for safekeeping, scooping it up along with the stack of T-shirts it had been lying under. Deliberately doesn’t think about why he should bother packing it for a domestic flight.
“Nothing,” he answers without looking up. “It’s like I said out there. I’ve got to get Winston and Zoe back from Alana before she skips town.”
“And why would she be skipping town?” Will doesn’t respond to that since they both already know the answer. At least, Molly knows part of the answer, the most relevant one, not all of the extra factors surrounding Mason’s disappearance. “Babe, this is nuts. You can’t do this now, not so soon after…whatever is happening tonight. Wolf Trap is only, what, an hour or two away from where you’ll be going at most? Oh Christ, please tell me you’re not going out there.”
“I’m not,” he assures her immediately. Goes to the closet and starts pulling pants and shirts down from hangers at random, uncaring of wrinkles as he balls them up as tightly as he can to make them all fit with the rest of his luggage. “Hannibal’s long gone from there anyway. Hell, he’s probably on another plane out of the country by now.” Doesn’t think about why his throat clenches briefly as he admits this thought aloud. “He’s too smart to let himself be caught twice.” And therefore likely won’t return to any of his old haunts in Italy just yet, or openly flaunt his more extravagant habits that made him so easy to find the last time, which of course is not Will’s problem anymore since he already told the man five years ago that he wouldn’t go looking again and it obviously has nothing to do with why he’s traveling back to Baltimore tonight in the first place.
It feels strange even talking to Molly about Hannibal, hearing the other man’s name in his own voice as it passes from his lips into Molly’s ears, like he’s tainting her with it. Always has, but he never felt it this acutely when he spoke of that time as before, as a chapter of his life that had been closed permanently. Prematurely.
“That’s a lot of clothes for a quick jaunt south to grab the dogs,” she observes quietly.
“Earliest return trip available was for next week, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?” Will pauses in his packing just long enough to pull the email back up on his phone and hands it to her. “First class? Jesus, Will, this is a lot of money.”
“I know.” He has no idea actually. He honestly hasn’t even looked at the price, not really caring since he knows it won’t be a drop in the bucket compared to what Margot and Alana can afford. “Luckily it’s on the Verger-Blooms’ dime, not ours.”
“Really? That’s generous of them.” It really isn’t, and by the flat tone of her voice, Molly knows it as well as he does. “You know, when rich people are willing to spend this kind of cash on someone else, it usually means they have an agenda.” It does, and in this case he suspects that agenda would be Alana hedging her bets by putting Will between herself and Hannibal in case the latter does show up before she can make her escape. The phrase ‘human meat shield’ had come to mind as he read her message, as a matter of fact, but he doesn’t want to tell Molly any of this and worry her more than she already is.
“Oh yeah, this is all part of the slow burn seduction plan Alana’s been secretly orchestrating for years. She wants to lure me into being her hot little sidepiece by becoming my sugar mama.”
“And with that, we’re officially at the part of the conversation where you try to get out of actually talking to me by being a smartass.” She hands the phone back to him, a wry smile on her face that doesn’t quite mask its own brittleness, at least not to his eyes. “That tactic’s not always as cute as you think it is, by the by.”
“But you admit that it is cute sometimes.” This quip rings just as hollow as the last. She’s right after all. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation now, and probably wouldn’t even without the time constraint hanging over them as an excuse.
“Come on, who are you trying to fool here more, me or you?” It’s rare to hear Molly’s voice so serious, so completely devoid of even the pretense of good natured humor, even when she’s upset. “We both know what you’re really doing right now.” Will’s fingers tighten on the lid of his suitcase for a moment before he closes it. “At least you came up with a more creative excuse than, ‘Dad’s just popping out to the store for a minute to buy cigarettes,’ I’ll grant you that.” Will flinches. Swallows past the tightness building up again in his throat for another reason.
“Molly—”
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me when that flight back to Bangor takes off a week from now, you’re going to be on it.” It takes a second too long for him to come up with a response that would sound believable to either of them. In that time, she lowers herself to sit on the bed, her back turned to him, with a softly muttered, “Goddammit.”
There is no time for this, but there is also no other time they can sit and talk about it before he’s gone, so for now Will bottles away the selfish urgency he’s been operating under to instead make his movements slower, more languid, and lowers himself to sit beside her, hands folded in his lap, staring at the wall ahead of them.
“I knew it,” she says. There’s a waver to her voice that makes him want to reach over and take hold of her hand, but now it is he who’s uncertain how welcome his touch would be. “Before I even got in the car earlier. I knew when you smiled like you really thought you could fool me. When you hesitated before you kissed me back.” Her fingertips ghost over her own lips now. “The thought crossed my mind that if it weren’t for Wally staying home, you might even be gone already by the time I got back.” That waver finally cracks on her son’s name.
“What am I supposed to tell him?” she asks, turning her head toward her husband. It’s harder than ever now to look at her. “Three years of marriage, Will. Three years that you’ve been the only father he’s known.” It’s hard to see at all actually. His vision’s gone too blurry and he has to bite down on his lip to keep his mouth from trembling, cover his face behind his hands not because that will make it any less obvious, but because he needs to block out the light of the room and be alone in the darkness behind his eyelids, if only for a moment.
After that moment passes, just a breath, in and out, he pulls his hands inward rather than away, palm to palm as if in mockery of a prayer, still leaning his forehead against pointer fingers and thumbs, and tilts his head just enough to be able to glance roughly at her shoulder. Listens to the tiny click of his lips parting, says, “This is a second chance for you, Molly. For you and Walt. For Wally. That’s a—” His breath catches, before he finishes the sentence exactly as it had started to form on his tongue anyway, “That’s a rare gift, and there’ll never be another one like it. Don’t let it go to waste.”
Molly’s eyes are wet too, and the look she gives him is one that tries to be incredulous but really isn’t all that surprised. She huffs something almost like a laugh. “So, this is you being back on your old self-martyring bullshit, is that right?” Breaths escape him in barely-there chuckles that are little more humored than hers. “Don’t insult me by telling me the years that we’ve had are supposed to somehow weigh less on the scales than the ones I had with Walt.”
Will shakes his head. “I’m not,” he promises her softly. “But they can’t hang in balance indefinitely either. They have to tip sooner or later.”
“And you’re so damn sure they wouldn’t have tipped in your favor that you picked ‘sooner’ and took yourself off them before my head’s even had a chance to stop spinning yet,” she mutters, sounding weary. All Will can think about is how selfish he truly is, that even now he won’t admit to her that Walt’s not the only reason he’s taking the cowardly option of simply bowing out of their lives with as little fuss as he can hope to get away with. Molly deserves better than the truth.
“There’s no talking you out of this, is there?” Molly asks, though her tone makes it sound rhetorical. Will shakes his head again anyway. “I guess that’s…good,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut. “Means you know what you want well enough not to let my feelings sway yours or, or convince you to drag this out longer for my sake only to make the same decision in the end anyway.” She sniffs and wipes the moisture away from her eyes before opening them again. “Okay,” she says despite still being anything but okay about any of it. She stands. “Let me just grab my coat again and tell them we’re heading out now.”
“You don’t have to do that, Molly. It’s no problem for me to drive myself there.”
“Maybe not, but at least I’m not charging any exorbitant fees for you to leave the Volvo parked here for awhile.” He nearly tells her it doesn’t matter, that he’ll pay them out of his early retirement fund so she won’t have to worry about it dipping into their shared finances, but the look on her face stops him. “Just let me do this much at least,” she implores softly. Will’s throat sticks again.
“Okay,” he breathes. Molly gives him another conflicted smile before stepping out of the room.
Will takes longer to get up, despite his earlier rush, staring listlessly at the doorframe for a minute. Then, with another centering breath he stands, carefully picks up his tightly packed baggage, and quietly follows her out.