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Hannibal Lecter’s office is dim, and warm enough that even under Will Graham’s layers it feels like no temperature at all
"I think we should take Abigail out for dinner,” Will Graham says. It breaks the silence in a way Will doesn’t expect it to. Hannibal looks up at him from where he writes in one of his journals.
“I can arrange that,” Hannibal says.
“No, not something you've cooked. Something...normal," Will says. Hannibal narrows his eyes. "Something more familial,” Hannibal concludes. Will sighs.
"Something more like what a teenager would do. It might help her to feel less like a…daughter of a serial killer. Clear her mind"
"Reconciling with an unsatisfactory adolescence, are you, Will?"
"No," Will scoffs. Hannibal nods. "I think it would be good for all of us to do something normal."
"Do you have someplace in mind?" Hannibal asks.
“No. Do you want to analyze that too?"
"That depends on what you would say."
"I don't know where kids like to go these days. We always...well, I didn't have friends, not really, but kids my age always went to diners.”
“I will see what I can arrange,” Hannibal says.
“Nothing fancy, Hannibal. Please,” Will says. Hannibal is already thinking, Will can tell. He wonders if Hannibal knows that Will is testing him. He probably does, Hannibal usually does, and he responds in kind. But Hannibal looks thoughtful this time, less cunning. It’s grotesque, somehow. Will bites his lips together and looks away.
—
Hannibal Lecter knocks at Alana Bloom’s office door. She calls for him to enter without asking who it is. Too trusting, Hannibal thinks, or perhaps too confident.
“Doctor Bloom,” Hannibal greets her. Not for the first time, her small, temporary office strikes him as unusually stark. She guards herself so carefully.
“Doctor Lecter! I wasn’t expecting you.”
“We rarely expect the most obvious things,” he says. He isn’t sure what it means himself, but she nods anyway. He resists a smile.
“What brings you here?”
“I have an inquiry I imagined you would be equipped to answer,” Hannibal says. Alana watches him expectantly. He waits for her mouth to twitch with her discomfort.
“Well, I’ll try,” she says.
“Where do young people prefer to dine out?” Hannibal asks.
“How young?” Alana asks, always good at asking the right questions.
“A teenager,” Hannibal says. Alana narrows her eyes.
“Is this about Abigail Hobbs?” Alana asks warily.
“It is about Will Graham,“ Hannibal admits, and Alana’s brows furrow. She sighs. “He was lamenting the loss of his youth and said he would appreciate a youthful experience. I thought it would be a nice treat for him, even if it is...less palatable to myself.”
Alana looks him up and down suspiciously. He watches her do it. She sighs.
“My niece had her birthday party at Rainforest Cafe last week,” Alana says. Hannibal raises an eyebrow - he hasn’t heard of it, and it sounds perfectly unrefined as Will Graham wanted. “It’s a...novelty restaurant, at the mall. It’s all done up like a jungle, with robot animals.”
“That sounds perfect,” Hannibal offers a smile. It seems to put her at ease, though she still bristles with suspicion.
“Be careful with him,” Alana says. Hannibal offers her another smile as he turns to go.
“Always, Doctor Bloom, he is as dear to me as he is to you - if not more. Thank you very much.”
Hannibal feels a faint thrill in his chest - one he has learned to be something akin to excitement and apprehension.
—
Hannibal Lecter promises Will Graham that he has made reservations somewhere modest for the two of them and Abigail Hobbs. He picks Will up from his home, and leaves Will alone in the car as he goes to collect Abigail.
Alana Bloom will be cross, Will thinks, but he doesn’t care. He likes when she’s cross. It brings him a satisfaction he elects not to understand. Jack Crawford will be furious that they took Abigail out. Will contemplates it, feels a panic rise up in him until he reminds himself that Jack Crawford is always furious, about all things, no matter what.
Hannibal returns to the car with a wary, tired Abigail. Will offers her the front seat, and she quietly refuses. The ride is silent except for the faint hum of Hannibal’s expensive wheels on the asphalt and his occasional meditations on the things they pass. Will feels too conscious of Abigail’s presence in the backseat.
They arrive at the mall, and Hannibal tsks about a sloppily-parked car as he neatly parks next to it, as if to set some kind of example. Will looks to Abigail, who appears just as confused as Will feels.
“The mall?” Will asks as they get out of the car.
“Yes,” Hannibal says simply. Abigail looks wary.
“There are places to eat that are a middle ground between your dining room and a mall food court,” Will says. Hannibal looks mildly irritated.
“Please, Will, I would not subject either of you to a food court. This was recommended by Alana.”
“Doctor Bloom knows about this?” Abigail asks.
“She knows that I am taking Will to dinner,” Hannibal says. “She does not know that you are here, however.”
Abigail nods in understanding. Will buries himself in his jacket as they walk through the parking lot. Hannibal leads them into the mall and past a few outlet stores, finally stopping at the overly-decorated entrance to Rainforest Cafe. Will suddenly feels compelled to flee.
“Really?” Abigail and Will ask incredulously at the same time.
“Doctor Bloom suggested this?” Abigail asks.
“She did,” Hannibal says. “I thought it would be a good aide in maintaining your inner children.”
The restaurant is entirely too stimulating before Will even sets foot into the artificial rainforest. An animatronic crocodile hisses and opens its mouth, filled with tarnished coins. The air is damp and smells of dry ice.
They stand in the odd purgatory of the restaurant’s too-bright gift shop. Will keeps his hands deep in his pockets.
“I always thought you could tell a lot about someone by where they sit in Rainforest Cafe,” Will says, hoping only to break some of the silence and put Abigail at ease. They really are terrible company for her.
“You’ve been here before,” Hannibal observes.
“Yes,” Will says, and he has, many times, though he doesn’t quite remember with who, or why, or when.
“Well, I can certainly ascertain the value in that framework,” Hannibal looks around the restaurant. “Those who sit by the fishtanks may be more inclined toward escapism, while those who sit under the false sky of stars may harbor an adventurer’s spirit.”
“Only a sociopath or a masochist would sit by the elephants,” Will says. “It takes a certain psychological disposition to elect to have your meal interrupted by trumpeting through some lousy speaker.”
A teenage waiter approaches them and asks if they’ve been seated. Hannibal offers a sly smile to Will and asks to be seated near the elephants, if possible. So he brought them here to study them. Will should have known.
The waiter seats them before the animatronic elephants, which sway their trunks robotically. The seats are too smooth, the table faintly sticky, and the restaurant too dark. Will sees his own panic mirrored in Abigail’s face.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Will tells Hannibal. Hannibal only picks up a menu. Abigail opens her own, straining to maintain her composure as she looks at it. Hannibal looks entirely puzzled by the novelty items on the menu. The words swim as Will tries to read them.
The waiter returns, and Will realizes he has not decided on something to order. He grinds his teeth anxiously as Hannibal and Abigail order their food. When the waiter looks to him, he stammers and orders chicken nuggets as a last resort. Hannibal looks at him without any expression. Will looks away.
They sit in silence. Abigail’s eyes dart around the restaurant nervously. Hannibal, appearing largely unbothered, places his napkin in his lap. Will puts his head in his hands and listens to the simulated rainstorm play out, the animals howling and whirring mechanically. A child starts crying somewhere. Will wonders if it may actually be within himself somehow.
He looks up to see Abigail looking far away. He asks if she’s okay, but she hardly hears him, and he hardly hears himself.
“It is believed,” Hannibal begins, “that elephants possess a genetic memory of sorts. They are highly intelligent mammals, much like ourselves, only moreso. It is an interesting thing, to receive a memory passed down from an ancestor - “ he looks to Abigail, who holds his eyes coldly and expectantly, “or from a parent.”
The waiter returns with their food. Will stares at his dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Abigail eats hungrily and graciously, and Hannibal eats with the disturbed restraint that he’s shown since they set foot in the restaurant. Will feels studied when he finally picks up a vaguely brachiosaur-shaped nugget. He misses his TV dinners.
—
Abigail Hobbs finds herself staring into the lifeless blue eyes of an animatronic face in a plastic tree. It seems to sense her, and its eyes roll and blink.
“Hello, I’m Tracy Tree,” it says in a cheerful voice. Abigail looks around. She sees Will and Hannibal paying the bill across the gift shop. The colorful stuffed toys, the fuzzy stereo system, the bright lights all make her vision swim.
Abigail turns back to the tree, which is now happily sharing facts about rainforest conservation. She hardly hears its buzzing speaker under the sound of the whining animatronics in the tree’s face and the noise of her surroundings. Still, her heart pounds, thinking of articles she’s read about how many acres of rainforest are destroyed each day, animals going extinct, uncontacted tribes being displaced.
Her chest is heaving. She reaches out for the tree’s face with an open hand. Fingers close around her wrist through her coat sleeve. Will Graham looks down at her.
“Abigail,” Will says, and it seems to ground her, almost.
“I want to leave,” she says.
“Hannibal is paying right now,” Will tells her. He gently leads her away from Tracy Tree’s overly-cheerful voice.
“It’s backwards,” Abigail says, and she can feel the panic bubbling up in her voice. “We make entire corporate restaurants themed after things we’re destroying every day. What does that say about us? That we sit by and watch the world fall down around us while we live in this...constructed experience and pretend it does something to make a difference?”
Will looks at her, his face tired and vaguely panicked.
“That’s something to bring up with Doctor Lecter, I think,” Will says with resignation. He nods toward Hannibal, who is tucking his wallet into his breast pocket.
“Shall we?” Hannibal asks, and he leads them out of the restaurant. Abigail doesn’t breathe until she returns to the cold outside air. Will slips a small plastic figure into her hand - the articulated bipedal tree frog that graces every part of Rainforest Cafe.
—
Alana Bloom quietly enters Abigail Hobbs’s room. They told her Abigail has been anxious recently. She can see it in Abigail’s face as she sits down in the uncomfortable chair she always uses, that never strays far from Abigail’s bedside.
“I brought you some books,” Alana says. She sets them on the edge of the bed. Abigail looks at them blankly.
Alana talks, because she’s supposed to. Abigail answers sometimes, but mostly just nods along. When she does speak, it is brief and about environmental crises.
Alana sees something bright on Abigail’s nightstand. A familiar character, a vaguely anthropomorphic red-eyed tree frog. She ponders where she’s seen it before, rolling through cartoons and comics in her mind.
Rainforest Cafe, she realizes. It’s the mascot of Rainforest Cafe. Alana abruptly wishes Abigail a good day and rises from her chair, gathering her coat and her bag. She returns to work, her heels clicking authoritatively across the tiles as she makes her way to Jack Crawford’s office.
Conveniently, she finds Hannibal Lecter seated in Jack’s office with him. She greets Jack quickly and turns to Hannibal, not caring that she’s interrupting.
“You took Abigail Hobbs to Rainforest Cafe without my permission,” Alana accuses him. Hannibal looks at her with his ever-blank expression. Jack looks between them in confusion. “You just set back months of recovery. She was hardly speaking today except about habitat loss.”
“Has Abigail not lost her own habitat?” Hannibal asks. “Is she so different from, say, a red-eyed tree frog?”
Alana stands before him, fuming. Jack watches them with exhaustion clear in his face. Alana realizes that she is alone.
“Cha Cha the frog is not so different from Abigail Hobbs. He tells her she is not alone. Tracy Tree tells her she can accept help.”
Alana looks to Jack, hoping he might realize how absurd Hannibal sounds. He looks entirely distracted.
“Stop taking Abigail out,” Alana points at Hannibal. She slams Jack’s door as she storms out.
—
Jack Crawford arrives home after dark, a puff of his breath steaming in the cold air and fogging the glasses that as of recently he needs more often than not. He closes his car door and looks up at the sky, the few stars he can see through the suburban glare glinting brightly in the cold. He remembers from Boy Scouts, the cold air making the stars brighter, or something like that. Things he’s long forgotten without someone else to teach them to.
The sound of his shoes against the driveway is too loud in the night, and he feels observed as he unlocks his door. Bella must be in bed already, or cross with him. She would have opened the door for him otherwise, like she used to. He can’t remember the last time she met him at the door.
He toes off his shoes and pads through the house. The day feels heavier on him with every step. Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham breaking protocol again - and worse, breaking his rules. And for Rainforest Cafe? Out of character for Hannibal, so it must have been Will’s idea, but for Will to be so independent in anything but his snide comments is out of character as well. Jack sighs.
He should have done more to reprimand them when Alana Bloom came into his office and exposed Hannibal’s behavior. But he had been distracted, as he finds himself feeling more and more often these days. The frustration hadn’t hit him until he had gotten into his car as he left work late again.
Jack feels enormously heavy as he enters the bedroom. Bella has the light on, a welcome warmth after such a day, even if she’s still so unusually cold to him. She greets him, watches him over the top of her book as he moves in his long-practiced way between the bedroom and the bathroom as he gets ready for bed.
Jack wonders if he’s losing his grip, if this Abigail Hobbs ordeal has hurtled things out of his control with whatever it seems to have awoken in Will and also, it seems, in Hannibal. Paternalism, Hannibal had told him. Not something with which you are so unfamiliar, Hannibal had said.
Perhaps the insubordination was less dire than Jack has made it out to be. Could he be jealous, he wonders? That Will has an outlet for those odd, domestic desires of which men like them are so deprived.
Jack resists the urge to look over to Bella, that warm reminder of everything that he has, of all that has been good in his life, but also of everything he has missed. He pulls on his pajamas and gets into bed, the sheets cool and smooth.
“How was your day?” Bella finally asks him.
“Long,” Jack says.
“I’m sure,” Bella says. So she doesn’t want to hear about it. Of course. Jack kisses her cheek.
“I think we should go out to dinner,” Jack says. Bella looks at him skeptically.
“Doctor Lecter’s again?”
“No, something a little more fun. I was thinking…Rainforest Cafe," Jack says. They had walked past it in the mall many times, but, childless and busy, had never had a reason to even consider entering.
“Rainforest Cafe?” Bella asks, her face a contortion of confused, contrasting lines? Jack can tell she’s trying not to scoff at him. “Is this some new crisis of yours?”
“No,” Jack says. He feels his heart sink. “I just thought it would be nice to do something different.”
“So you can feel sorry for yourself in a novel atmosphere?” Bella asks. She’s probably right, Jack thinks. She usually is.
“I just thought it would be nice. We don’t have to,” Jack says. He rolls over and turns out the light.