Chapter Text
It was quarter past ten in the morning when Will Graham received the call.
He had just finished a warm cup of coffee on the front porch and was letting the dogs out for a morning romp when he heard his phone buzz, setting his pants pocket ablaze in vibrations. Will registered in his mind that it was Jack Crawford as he pressed “talk,” cradling the phone in between his ear and shoulder as he bent down to throw a ball for Winston.
“Will?” Jack’s voice came harshly serious over the line even just through the sound of Will’s name; his tone was even more disgruntled than usual.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” Will responded, standing up straight and moving the phone so it was pressed against his other ear and he could hear Jack more clearly. He watched Winston drop the ball, panting lightly, and start digging incessantly into the grass surrounding the porch. The other dogs gallivanted around, relishing in the early morning air and the damp dew beneath their paws.
“It’s Chilton,” Jack said bluntly, voice unreadable through the ambiguous statement.
This was the first news about the psychiatrist since the initial call the previous day. Then, Jack had informed Will that the man had been shot by Miriam Lass post-arrest. Will’s chest tightened uncomfortably. The agent’s mouth went dry as Jack went on.
“He didn’t make it.”
Will forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. His brain was fuzzy and he was feeling more and more lightheaded by the second. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, but he knew this wasn’t a good situation in any case. Chilton was a valuable asset to them in helping catch Hannibal, even through the means of revenge-seeking on Chilton’s part alone, and without him, Will didn’t know where they stood in the case against Hannibal Lecter.
He did, however, know how Jack felt about the man, even prior to Jack’s assumption that Chilton was the Ripper. Jack found him petty and fake, mainly a class act and a complete fool living in an entirely ego-fueled existence. Will didn’t necessarily disagree, especially having witnessed.
“There will be a small funeral service at the cemetery tomorrow,” Jack continued, forcing the reality farther into Will’s brain. “Just some of his employees and probably a few of ours. Two o’clock.”
“Okay,” Will answered in a shaky voice, trying to suppress the sickening feelings of guilt washing over him. He didn’t know what else to say, and he didn’t trust himself to speak anymore. He didn’t even have the heart to blame Jack right now. At least it seemed that since the bullet, Jack had finally accepted that Chilton wasn’t the Ripper. Will made an awkward noise in the back of his throat before clearing it and continuing, hoping Jack wouldn’t notice. “See you then,” he finished lamely. After he hung up, Will retreated inside, walking aimlessly in small circles around his living room for several minutes before collapsing in a chair, head in his hands.
An image of the man lying cold in a small blue hospital bed flashed through Will’s mind. Cheek burst open, a gaping red gash, the tender flesh around the wound burned and dead as air died in his lungs and he breathed his last unbalanced breath. Will shook his head, urging his mind to think of something else, anything else.
And then he remembered the forlorn, vulnerable man who had appeared on his doorstep only a day earlier, covered in dried, dark red blood and genuinely asking for help, having no other person in the world to turn to. The psychiatrist has been shaking visibly as he stepped into Will’s house, making his way to the shower at the top of the stairs. Will had called Jack immediately, almost a spur of the moment decision, not wanting to deal with having a wanted fugitive hiding out in his house. My life is complicated enough already, he had thought selfishly.
Walking up to the bathroom door, intending to knock and obtain Chilton’s bloodied clothes to give to Jack for additional evidence, Will had stopped mid-knock at the sound of Chilton crying in the shower. Chilton, the egotistical, self-indulged, strong-willed therapist, whom Will would not previously have thought to be capable of even producing tears, was choking down sobs—loudly—in Will’s shower, obviously thinking that the stream of water would muffle his emotions. This had thrown Will off as he realized all too severely how deeply traumatized this man was. He was so afraid for his life, so unsure of his next course of action…and Will had betrayed him.
Instantly, Will wished he hadn’t dialed Jack’s number. He racked his brain for some sort of remediation. He immediately wanted to call Jack again and lie. He considered making up a story, perhaps telling him Chilton had run away and escaped his sight. However, he knew somewhere inside him that there was nothing he could do now. What was done was done.
Suppressing the heavy remorse in his chest, Will had retreated back down the stairs, pretending like everything was fine. He had put on a show for Chilton, pretending not to feel blame coursing through his veins, already lamenting the loss of a life but never really considering that the man would end up dying as a direct result of the events that day. When Chilton had come back downstairs, it was with a broken voice and angry expression that he had pulled a gun on Will.
Will had let Chilton run. He had let him get captured, had let him take the fall.
And now he was gone.
Will felt sick.
It wasn’t that he cared personally for Chilton. He hated the man the first time he met him, he hated him when he was his psychiatrist, he hated him even after he, Will, was set free. But a twisted, tight feeling in his stomach told him that at least part of this was Will’s own fault.
Frederick Chilton’s final conscious moments, Will realized, had been lived while maintaining the realization that in a matter of a few hours, he had been betrayed by four people—three he had considered friends and one woman he didn’t even know.
As a special agent and former cop, Will was used to forcing himself to accept the least amount of responsibility for deaths, whether they were direct results of his actions or not. However, ever since Hobbes, it had been getting harder. Will meandered about his house for the rest of the day, attempting to kill time. That is, until he ended up in the bathroom.
Chilton’s blood-stained clothes were still lying in Will’s bathroom as unwanted and unnecessary reminders. Now, Will knew, they would haunt him.
Will grabbed the shirt, suit, and tie off the side of the bathtub, inadvertently screwing his face up as the stench of caked blood of dead FBI agents met his nose. Beneath the musky smell, Will swore he could detect the fragrance of Chilton himself, all tweed, flowers, and sharp, spiced cologne. Will had originally intended to simply remove the clothes from his bathroom, perhaps throw them away, but it seemed a disgrace to Chilton’s memory to not wash and clean the outfit. He pinned this conclusion on the memory of Chilton’s always clean, sharp appearance, which had often irritated Will. He ran a hot stream of water from the faucet into the sink, dipping the striped shirt first into the warm bath he had made, scrubbing the stains vigorously with a sponge. Will didn’t know what he was doing even as he went through the motions; obviously these ruined clothes benefitted nobody, but as the blood slowly streamed into the water, coloring the clear liquid a pinkish red, he had to admit he felt better.
Once he had thoroughly washed all Chilton’s clothes and hung them up to dry, he made a quick choice. It was spur of the moment action, but definitely a better decision than the one he had made a day before. He grabbed a pair of scissors from the bathroom drawer and began to snip away at his hair. He cropped down the messy, tangled curls, taming them down to short, wavy locks. He did not want any reminder of the filthy, unkempt prisoner he had been to stare back at him every time he looked in a mirror. Shaving didn’t seem like a bad idea either. Swallowing his pride and the lump in his throat, he dressed in a salmon colored button-up that accented his newly cropped hair.
He needed to talk to his former psychiatrist. He was out of jail, and it was time to resume his therapy.
**
“Where shall we begin?” Hannibal asked, peering at Will from the opposite chair. He had obviously been surprised to see Will, but he wasted no time in asking the question.
Will was silent for several moments, concocting an idea of how to respond. He could not delve into the topic of Chilton’s framing, but discussion of the man himself would be acceptable.
“I take it you heard about Dr. Chilton?” Hannibal inquired, monitoring Will for a reaction.
Will simply nodded, the guilt washing over him again.
“Not such a shame, really,” Hannibal commented, apparently fishing for feedback from Will.
Will kept his mouth shut, not wanting to say the wrong thing. He tried to ignore the lump that had returned to his throat.
“What’s the matter, Will?” Hannibal pressed, leaning forward in his chair. “From the insight I gleaned from him, I was under the impression you refused to speak with him. Don’t tell me you grew to care for the man while under his care.”
Will sighed. “When does moral obligation mesh with caring?”
Hannibal tilted his head slightly as encouragement, apparently wanting Will to delve further and elaborate on his thoughts.
“It was my fault,” Will breathed, admitting it out loud for the first time, trying to force himself to accept the words in order to ease the guilt.
“Will—” Hannibal began, but Will held up his hand and continued on.
“You can’t try and talk me out of believing it was,” Will stated firmly. “I don’t know if you know this, but he showed up at my house. If I hadn’t sold him out to Jack, he would never have been taken to Quantico, he would never have been shot…”
“Will, consequence does not constitute blame on your part,” Hannibal attempted to reason. “What would you have done as an alternative? Would you really have wanted Frederick Chilton hiding out in your home?”
“I guess not,” Will replied. But it would have been better than dealing with the guilt of his death, he thought, but didn’t speak it. “But the guilt is drowning me. I feel like I’m suspended in a waterfall—I keep falling and falling, and the guilt surrounds me and fills my senses—but I can’t ever land. And even if I do, I’ll drown.”
“You can’t blame yourself for something you obviously felt compelled to do,” Hannibal reminded him, and as much as Will wanted to receive this suggestion, he found the acceptance just out of reach. “It’s out of your hands now, Will. Frederick Chilton is dead. There is not anything you can do.”
Will nodded, but his gut kept nudging his emotions and keeping him latched onto that feeling of guilt. If it was truly and completely taken care of, why did he feel such a crippling obligation and lack of conclusion?