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Jack Crawford came to see her in the hospital. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. She didn't hear a word he said. From the look in his eyes, she knew.
She wanted to slap him, or curse, or scream. She wanted the great, gulping sobs she felt welling up in her chest. But on the outside, she was frozen. There was a roaring in her ears, and a moment of awful vertigo. She pressed her free hand to her lips and felt them trembling. She felt her wedding band cool against her cheek.
"He was very brave, Molly," she heard Crawford saying, from somewhere far away. "He -- we think he went fighting. Took both the dragon and Hannibal Lecter with him. He saved lives doing that. We'll never know how many."
"Good," she said, without ever deciding to say it. "That's good. It's what he would have wanted." Her voice sounded flat and tinny to her, like a radio left playing in an empty room. "Can I see him?"
"No," Crawford said, and then amended, "that is, it would be better if you didn't. The way he is... he wouldn't want you to see him like that. It's not how he'd want you to remember him."
She nodded, cold, cold down to the marrow. She understood too well, then, what they had down in the morgue. What was left of him.
Crawford took something from an inner pocket, pressed it into her hand. "You should have this," he said, and stood, and turned to go. "I'm truly sorry for your loss."
Molly's fingers closed around Will's wedding ring, and the first tears came.