Chapter Text
“I dream darkness comes into me. It comes and it’s insidious.”
In the bright light of the morning she wakes and runs into her adjoining bathroom to vomit. Kneeling on the cold tile floor, she half expects to see the same black ink of her dreams in her toilet bowl.
Freddie Lounds is alive.
Hannibal Lecter is a monster.
I feel wounded. I feel empty. I feel poisoned.
Right now all she feels is sick.
She vomited right into the trashcan after Freddie had asked how her funeral was.
“That bad, huh?”
Jack had asked her if she was okay, if she wanted water, a rough hand on her back as she tried to contain her rage, sorrow, wrath, despair. A myriad of feelings all piled on top of one another. Soon enough the pile will be too tall and it’ll all just fall.
How are you feeling, Alana? The monster asks.
Like I’m filled to the brim and I’m drowning.
Now she sits on the tile, arms wrapped around her bare legs, brows furrowed. Her mind goes back to the picture of her and Hannibal that used to sit somewhere on her tall bookshelf in her living room, along with pictures of her other friends as well.
It was from a Christmas dinner he had hosted three years back. His hair was longer, hers was shorter. After everyone had gone home, Alana helped him clean, not that he needed help, he had hired help for that, but because she wanted to. She loved the way the corners of his eyes would crinkle when she made him smile by blowing soapy bubbles at him through her hands.
When he went to walk her out to the cab he had called for her, she tugged him by the collar into a sloppy, drunken kiss underneath the mistletoe.
Now, her left foot has become numb and the picture has shattered into pieces on her living room floor, she would be content to leave it there if it were not for Applesauce’s wellbeing.
You are filled my dear, but not with poison. The monster chuckles, knowingly.
Her hand wanders underneath her nightshirt to slide across her flat stomach as another wave of nausea subsides.
In the hysteria and the mania she didn’t even notice she was late.
-
The cashier at the corner store gives her a fake smile and a sympathetic look as she pushes the receipt and small blue box into her hands, not bothering with a bag.
She’s not surprised at the results, when she picks up the stick off the edge of her marble counter after five minutes to see the two pink lines staring at her, she almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Of course it would happen to her. Of course she would climb into bed with the devil and of course she would fall pregnant because of it.
Poisoned indeed.
The first thing she wants to do is call her mom. The first thing she does do is run out to buy boxes.
-
The plane on the edge of nowhere is flat, on one side, you can stay static, and the other side is dark. Plunge yourself into the unknown or continue to exist as you are.
The plane looks oddly like an empty bus station.
Alana stands, staring at the luminescent glow of the arrival and departure times. She’s not entirely sure where she’s running, only that she is and that she can’t stop.
The rain only worsens the freezing cold temperature and she decides, as she absently rubs circle over her abdomen, that someplace warm might be a nice place to start.
The choice would’ve been easy, if she had just had to choose for herself. She would’ve stayed and fought. For Beverly Katz. For Abigail Hobbs.
In her mind she sees herself staring Hannibal Lecter down the barrel of her gun. She’d shoot him, nothing fatal, the ambulance would already be on its way. Whether for her sake or his, it doesn’t matter. She could never deny him his life, like he’d denied so many others theirs.
As a doctor, she knows all of her options. She doesn’t have to carry the baby; no one would fault her for destroying the child of a monster. Except she knows in her line of work that children are not their parents.
If Hannibal Lecter is truly the monster of this story, then she wants the last, maybe the only, good piece of him to belong to her.
Behind her, dragging her from her thoughts, she hears a car screech to a halt, an engine stop, and she turns to see a woman fling herself out of the driver’s side.
The woman doesn’t even register Alana’s presence, running straight towards the ladies room and slamming the door shut behind her.
Curious, Alana approaches the restroom and jiggles the handle only to find it locked.
She knocks. “Hey, are you okay in there?” She calls out, ear pressed against the door, trying to hear what’s going on inside over the sound of pouring rain.
The door opens quickly, knocking Alana in the face, and a manicured hand reaches out and grabs her by her coat before pulling her inside the cramped bus stop bathroom.
Alana rubs the side of her head, expecting a bruise in the morning.
“Sorry,” a husky voice says.
Alana opens her eyes to find a young woman, shaking like a leaf, pale skin looking sickly underneath the flickering fluorescent light.
“It’s nothing,” she says, before going into therapist mode, she reaches out a hand and runs it down woman’s arm, before grabbing the other one, trying to steady her. “Are you okay? My name is Alana Bloom, I’m a doctor.”
She stands in front of her, trying to meet her eyes, when the woman finally looks up, Alana is startled by how green they are, like an open field in the springtime.
“Wha- what kind of doctor are you?” The woman says, but her voice sounds far away, distracted, like she’s just trying to make conversation.
“I’m a psychiatrist.” Alana says, and then the woman bursts out laughing.
“I’m sorry it’s just… of course you are.”
Alana is confused, but she doesn’t dwell on it.
She looks over to the bathroom sink, where a knife rests on its edge. Except it’s not a pocketknife or a hunting knife, it looks more like it comes from silverware set, old money and glistening.
“Who are you running from?” Alana asks, lowering her voice, taking a hand and brushing the woman’s hair behind her shoulder before giving it a squeeze. “You can trust me, I promise.”
“I didn’t think I was even going to make it this far. I thought for sure he was going to find me, and make me come back.” Her lip quivers, eyes fixed on the blank wall over Alana’s shoulder. “I can’t go back there. Not now.”
Abusive boyfriend? Alana isn’t sure, but she’s sure she’s pressed enough for tonight. She gathers the woman in her arms, gently rocking her as she begins to cry in earnest, her eyes had been glassy with unshed tears the entire time.
“It’s going to be alright. I’m going to make sure he can’t find you, and that he can never hurt you ever again,” she pulls back and looks deep into this woman’s eyes, a stranger in a public bathroom at ten pm on a Sunday night.
She really shouldn’t be putting herself in the middle of whatever this is, but the day Alana decided to become a doctor is the day she unofficially dedicated her life to helping others. A collector of broken things, fixing everyone but herself, but that’s okay.
The woman nods, wiping away her tears, smudging her mascara, but it doesn’t make her any less attractive.
“Okay, okay, good.” Alana says, not sure whether to herself or the woman in front of her, who’s arm she’s been absently stroking while trying to think of what to do. “Now, I think we should get out of this bathroom, or the smell is going to stick to your beautiful clothes.”
She blushes and turns to grab the knife slide it back into her coat pocket, before bending over to pick her hat off the floor and placing it back on top of her head.
They walk back out onto the concrete platform together, Alana’s hand on the small of her back while the woman’s eyes scan the perimeter, searching for a monster that isn’t there. And even if there was, Alana’s got a lifetime of experience at keeping monsters at bay, not to mention the gun that rests in her purse, hanging off her shoulder.
“So, where are you going? I can stay with you until your bus comes.”
“I’m not sure, but I think someplace warm would be a good place to start.” Alana feels her heart flutter at the words, and something she’s never felt before shifts within her, sliding into place, sliding home.
The woman gives her a weak smile before extending her hand. “Margot, nice to meet you.”
-
They end up somewhere in a hotel in Raleigh that night (technically morning), Margot’s worn out, resting on her stomach and leaving lipstick stains on the pillowcase.
They’d agreed that Florida sounded nice. Neither had ever been, the farthest south Alana had ever gone being her family’s vacation home in North Carolina.
They’d talked the whole bus ride. Only little things, innocent things, wholly unaware of the space around them, leaning into one another as the bus made it’s way down the coast, picking up passengers and letting them off.
Margot had started to doze off about thirty minutes before they reached their stop; Alana had an arm around her waist as she checked them in, exhaustion allowing her to carry all three of their bags with only mild discomfort. There’d only been rooms with one bed available when they arrived, but neither woman seemed bothered by this.
“You know you should probably get undressed before going to bed. You’ll be uncomfortable.”
“I’ve been uncomfortable my entire life, I can stand a little more.” Margot says lazily before rolling over and patting the empty space next to her. “Lie with me.”
Alana looks at Margot, a woman she’s known for only approximately five and a half hours now, and wonders what exactly it is that she’s doing. They’re both pregnant. Margot had confessed to her after they’d been on the bus for an hour that she was with child. Alana had actually laughed out loud, for the first time in weeks.
What a beautiful mess they make.
“I smell like a public bathroom. Thank you for that, by the way.” She teases.
“So do I. Come, we can smell like bathrooms together.” Margot says before grabbing onto Alana’s wrist and pulling her into the bed.
Alana lets herself fall, let’s Margot wrap around her like an octopus, burying her face in her hair and taking a deep breath. “My house growing up had stables. That’s where I spent most of my time. As you can probably imagine, it didn’t have the most pleasant smell in the world.”
Margot idly traces the bones in her hand, sighing against the back of her neck. “You smell much nicer than the stables.”
“Why, Margot, that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever told me.” Alana drawls, giggling, out of her mind with exhaustion but wide-awake because of the beautiful creature slotted behind her, touching her with lightning ended fingers.
Margot snorts, which surprises her, and surprises Alana too, because it’s the single most inelegant sound she’s ever heard, and the most endearing one too.
They both laugh until their bellies hurt, then Alana flips over to face her, peering into those springtime eyes.
She slides a hand onto Margot’s neck, thumb rubbing softly over her clavicle.
“I think we should stick together for a little while longer.” Margot whispers after a moment.
“I’d like that.” Alana replies, reaching out to tuck a piece of hair behind Margot’s ear.
They fall asleep after that, knees touching, Alana’s hand finding her way into Margot’s hair, a tether, and for the first time in weeks, she doesn’t dream.