Chapter Text
Hannibal was aware of being shaken awake.
Consciousness came quickly and easily — a habit leftover from the orphanage — and the bleariness in his blinking was a performance, really. Abigail's face was inches from his, crumpled in panic. There was something smeared across her forehead, almost black in the darkness.
"Papa," she whispered. "I need help."
That was evident. He glanced at his bedmate. Will slept soundly, one hand lying loosely in the trench between their pillows. He was careful not to jostle him as he stood, and took Abigail's shaking form out to the hallway.
The door shut very softly behind them. Out here, in the moonlight streaming through the skylights, he could get a better look at her. Her eyes were brimmed with tears, which had left bright tracks in the smears of darkness — he still couldn't quite place the substance — on her cheeks, and her hands shook when he took them in his.
"Tell me what happened," he said. He didn't try to inject any emotion into his voice — what she needed right now was stable objectivity.
"I — I —"
Her breath wheezed through her chest, forcing her shoulders to rise and fall rapidly as she tried to regulate her breathing and found that she couldn't. It was all she could do not to sob, it seemed, and disturb her other father, asleep just behind the door.
"Abigail. I need you to calm down. What did you do?"
"I didn't—" a big, gulping breath rocked her—"I didn't do anything, I — I was walking, and I — I —"
She hiccuped out another breath. He regulated his own breathing, made it clear and steady, and she followed. Eventually, she looked at him and let out a long, shaking breath through pursed lips.
"I went walking," she said unsteadily, "and I — I went through the park, and — and —" she closed her eyes, blinked them open again when tears started rolling down her cheeks—"Marissa. Someone — someone killed her. She was just — just lying there, and — and —"
He wasn't sure whether he believed her. He knew it didn't matter.
"Abigail." He took both of her wrists, making her look at him. "Did you touch her?"
She paused, and then her face crumpled with realization and she nodded frantically. "I — I turned her over."
"Alright," he said. "We can fix this. Give me one moment."
He went to go back into the bedroom, but she caught his hand.
"I didn't — I didn't kill her."
Although he had no reason to, although she had woken him up in the middle of the night frantic and covered in blood, he was inclined to believe her.
"Come here."
With her grip on his hand, he guided her into him and slipped his arms around her shaking shoulders. One hand protected the back of her head, feeling the bump where her inion slipped into her trapezius. It was a delicate, terrifying space.
"Is that necessary?"
Abigail was looking at his suit. He hadn't had much time to dress himself, and he would admit that the plastic was uncomfortable on his bare arms. It was custom made to accommodate a suit underneath, not the thin t-shirt that he had slept in.
"It's perfectly necessary. Come, help me lift her."
Her jaw tightened, but she stepped carefully into the marsh and slipped a gloved hand under Marissa's shoulders. The girl bent at the waist, and Hannibal pressed a hand to her chest to prevent her dead weight from over-balancing her. Abigail winced apologetically and adjusted her grip.
"It looks ridiculous," she said.
He tied the girl's wrists. "It prevents the transferal of useful DNA evidence. It isn't meant to be fashionable."
"Shouldn't you have, like, a hair net or something?"
"No more questions, please."
Working together, they managed to hoist Marissa's body up and secured among the trees. They climbed back up the bank, clinging to each other for balance, and stripped themselves of gloves and plastic covers.
A quiet, tinny sound caught his attention, and he glanced up and down the path for a moment. There didn't seem to be anybody around. He hoped not; for all Abigail had already seen tonight, he didn't want her to see that too.
It took him a further moment to realize where it was coming from: a phone, lying face-down on the path a few feet away. He crouched to pick it up, and pause the music. The cracked lockscreen was of a few smiling girls, one of whom he recognized as the girl he had just strung up.
He removed the sim card and crushed it beneath his boot, and tucked the phone in amongst his hunting supplies.
When he looked back at Abigail, she was staring at their handiwork. Admiring it, perhaps. She turned away sharply when she noticed him, staring at her feet.
"Can we go home?"
They walked back, taking back alleys and avoiding lit spaces, and eventually arrived at their back gate. He reached over the top to unlatch it and let her through first. The dogs didn't fuss when they slipped in through the back door. Abigail let out a deep, rattling breath into the silence of the kitchen.
"Should I ask why you had all that stuff?" she asked the stairs.
He locked the door. "If you would like the answer, I will tell you."
He turned, opening his body language out to her to prove that he had nothing to hide. Nothing that he wanted to hide. If she asked, he would tell her the truth. No questions asked. Despite his morbid hobby, he was not in the business of lying. That was one truism he held onto. One sin he did not, regularly, commit.
She shook her head.
"I don't need to know." She looked at him, with a little smile that didn't betray anything but tired gratitude. "Thanks, Papa."
"Goodnight, teacup."
He took the supplies out to the garage and tucked them into the trunk of his car — he would dispose of them in the morning, when appropriate — and went upstairs. Abigail passed him in the hallway, freshly showered, and only smiled at him as she retreated to her bedroom. He showered in the main bathroom, rather than the en-suite, and slipped silently into their bedroom afterwards.
Will was still asleep. There was no way to know if he had stirred while they had been out, but he seemed to be undisturbed. He smoothed his thumb over the high point of his cheekbone, tracing the line of his beard, and Will smiled a little in his sleep and leaned into the touch. Hannibal pressed a kiss, ever so gently, to his forehead and watched Will's eyelashes flutter. Felt him breathe, and stretch, and turn into him. He slipped both arms around him, breathed in his smell, and let him rest.