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“Hello Will.”
After two years, the pleasant accented voice sounds much the same. Will doesn’t know what he’d expected; a quiet rasp perhaps, cold from disuse, or at least a slight ring of humility. But no, here they stand just feet from each other and Hannibal greets him as though they are beginning a session.
It is 7:30, I am in Baltimore, Maryland. My name is Will Graham.
But it’s not the same, and the knowledge rests heavily between them. Warmer memories of sitting across from each other in Hannibal’s office melt in the wake of other, less pleasant ones; when it was Will who stood behind these very bars and not a carefully blank-faced Hannibal.
“Hello Dr. Lecter,” Will says, continuing the illusion, if only for a moment. He is proud of the steadiness to his voice. Hannibal’s eyes close, as if memorizing the sound of the words. Will doesn’t need to.
They’ve never left him.
When the doctor’s eyes open again, the smooth courtesy is back, no sign of anything deeper then polite interest.
“I assume you are here because of the Jacobi case,” he tuts, “Nasty business. Such a nice family. And Mrs. Jacobi…” he sucks in a breath through his teeth. His eyes are like needles.
Will says nothing.
“How’s your family, Will?” Hannibal continues when he gets no reaction, “Have you stopped hearing Abigail’s screams?”
It hurts Will, as it was surely intended to. Hannibal is clawing at old wounds, and Will’s resolve is breaking. His eyes betray him, his chest feels tight, and this was probably a mistake but dammit, people are dying.
He stands in front of the bars, and he will bleed out if that’s what Hannibal wants.
Hannibal smiles, and drinks it in.
“There have been two families now: the Jacobis and the Leedses,” Will begins, not acknowledging Hannibal’s other comments, “I’m sure you know that. Unless you’re getting rusty in your… retirement.”
A danger glimmers in Hannibal’s eyes at the little jab, but there is amusement as well, and it is the latter that wins out. There is a shadow of an old familiarity, even a fondness when he speaks.
“Ah, Will. You know me as well as I you. An unfortunate symptom of being so alike in nature.”
Will doesn’t answer, but in his silence there is agreement.
“Did you bring me pictures?” Hannibal asks pleasantly. Will holds up the case file, a sheaf of paper with the staples and rubber bands removed.
The hand that reaches out between the bars is still an artist’s palm; skinnier through the fingers and wrist, yes, but familiar. Will remembers too vividly what that hand feels like against skin, what it looks like wrapped around the handle of a knife.
He hesitates, his body still fearful of new scars despite the bars between them. As if he senses it, Hannibal looks up lazily through predator’s eyes. Daring him.
Will doesn’t look away as he passes the paper through. It is something he feels he has to do, so that Hannibal can see that there is nothing of him left there. For a moment it is fine, better than fine because Will is alive and living, and is the one outside of these bars. He has ripped down the walls of his mind, eradicated everything there that Hannibal has ever touched and started anew. Hannibal can surely read this in the salt on his skin, the smell of the sea and of Molly on his clothes.
Their fingers touch.
It sings through Will, hot at the points where skin brushes, cold up his arms and legs, raising his hair and prickling his scalp. Hannibal must feel it too; his throat bobs and his eyes mirror Will’s own—want, regret, pain. For the moment, it is as though the monster never existed, and Will feels an impulse not unlike the urge he sometimes gets to throw his keys into the tide. Pointless and destructive, he wants more of that contact, wants to grab the wrist that stretches toward him, to pull Hannibal up against the bars and crush their lips together like so much water against the shore. He remembers the feel of fever, and this is it.
It is Molly that brings him back. She is standing on the shore in his mind, jeans rolled up, waves creaming gently about her ankles. She is just as he left her, looking slyly at him through wet hair, saying ‘We’ll be here, honey. Come back to me in one piece, okay?’
The spell is broken. Will pulls back with a shudder that he hopes in vain Hannibal won’t see. Their faces betray nothing. It is as though nothing has passed between them. They are used to this particular game of pretend.
A breath that might be a sigh escapes Hannibal’s lips as he flips through the photos, the hand-spreads and bite-marks that Will has looked over hundreds of times. He takes a long time with the photo of Mrs. Leeds, mirrors shining wetly behind her eyes
“I see why Jack Crawford felt the need to bring you out of retirement,” he says, brows raised. Will bites back a reply, deciding he would rather not know. He doesn’t want to draw this out and risk another moment of madness.
“What is he trying to do?” he asks, knowing that he’s pushing, that Hannibal will try to make this as painful as possible.
Hannibal cocks his head, purses his lips.
“Did you go to the crime scene?”
“After local PD went through.”
“In the morgue then. When you looked into Mrs. Leeds’ eyes, did you see yourself?”
Will swallows and nods. It is nothing that hasn’t already occurred to him.
“This kind of death should be familiar to you,” Hannibal’s eyes glitter with mirth.
“It’s… a becoming,” Will states, his voice quiet and flat. Hannibal smiles, really smiles then, but it’s soured by his words,
“We all want to be seen, Will.”
The accusation is sharp, too close to a rainy night that Will has fought to forget. Suddenly he is angry, tired of this quiet destruction.
“I saw you,” he dares. The silence falls thick. Hannibal’s smile fades. It is his turn to break, and Will tears him down gladly.
“I saw you,” he continues, “and you are not what you pretend to be or what you really think you are.”
To anyone else, Hannibal would seem as composed as ever as he politely asks, “What am I Will? Please, enlighten me,“ but Will is well-read in the nuances of that face, knows each line and curve, and he sees the cracks. Hannibal may as well be screaming. He readies himself.
“You’re afraid, just like anyone else. Just like the lowest animal.”
“Of what?” Hannibal scoffs.
“You’re afraid that it’s already over. That this is the last chapter, and it ends with me walking out of this hole to my family and my life, while you stay here alone. The last fading notes of your composition, sour and unfinished, won’t be heard by anyone after all, and certainly not by me.”
His words strike exactly as he means them to, and he is briefly ecstatic with the feeling of having won. He devours the quick flash of horror that mars Hannibal’s features, tightening his eyes and pulling his mouth into a wince.
“Why did you come here?” Hannibal demands, “This was always your gift, not mine. I cannot tell you anything about this killer that you haven’t already seen.”
It’s true. The justifications he gave to Jack on the phone earlier fall flat, even to Will’s own ears.
“Maybe I’m just trying to get into the right mindset,” he says cooly, “It’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with murderers.”
“Has it?” Hannibal seems to have recovered a bit of himself, “And what of the murderer that you see in the mirror, Will? Do you not deal with him?”
Another blow, but one that Will can handle. He feels no guilt for the deaths Hannibal tries to lay at his feet, not anymore. That was one gift that he kept from their time together.
“You can’t make me feel responsible for killing the… the psychopaths you constantly put in my path, Dr. Lecter.”
Hannibal licks his lips. Will feels a cool tendril of fear, warning him he has just walked directly into a trap.
“I was not referring to Garret Jacob Hobbs. Or Randall Tier, for that matter.”
Will turns to leave.
“What about Abigail? If you had not betrayed us, she would have lived. She would have gotten a fresh start; she would have been happy,” Hannibal says quickly. Although Will’s back is turned now, he shakes his head, trying to think again of Molly, but the image is weak and fades in the wake of Hannibal’s words.
“Or Beverly Katz, so clever and so quick. You set her in my path, though you knew better. You knew that, in the end, she could not be clever or quick enough.”
Will’s footsteps are faster now, sounding too much like escape, and Hannibal’s voice echoes through the hall behind him,
“We are just alike, you and I. That is why you really came here.”
The doors have to be opened from the control panel above. Will slams the buzzer with shaking hands.
“You are here because you have to face the darkness once again, and you cannot do it alone.”
The doors open. Will leaves, but it is hours before Hannibal’s last shouted words, ringing of promise, leave his ears.