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Nothing could have prepared Jack for this call. Nothing. In a matter of seconds after picking up the phone on the nightstand beside his bed, dread filled him.
He was brought back to that call years ago. Miriam Lass’ voice whispering through the receiver, “Jack? Jack?”
Finding a severed arm that DNA proved to belong to Miriam. Jack ignored Katz, Price, and Zeller, who were trying to tell him that her blood was still flowing when the arm was severed from the rest of her body. He hadn’t wanted to hear it. Listening to them would mean that for two years, he could have rescued her, and every time he had failed. That he had continuously failed her, and continued to fail her after she was returned to them due to Hannibal’s manipulations of her mind.
That Hannibal had enough power to manipulate Jack into believing he was innocent. So innocent was Jack was willing to think Will would have killed so many people, including Abigail.
Jack still didn’t think Abigail was innocent of the crimes of her father, but he knew that Will loved that girl. The look Will gave her reminded Jack of the few times he witnessed Will looking and talking to his dogs. If Jack were to think about that court case now, after years of knowing both Will and Hannibal, he’d know that nothing short of torture could have gotten Will to kill Abigail and eat her ear.
“Jack!” But that call from Miriam was so much different than this one. Miriam’s call was whispered, terrified. While this call was terrifying, it was far from quiet. In fact, it sounded like the person was running. Now and then, there was a sound similar to branches being pushed out of the way of leaves crunching underfoot. “It’s Will!”
The blood drained from Jack’s face. Now that he was more awake, he recognized the voice, but he didn’t want to believe that it was Will. If that were the case, then that meant Jack was failing Will in the same way that he had failed Miriam. He shivered when Will continued.
“I don’t know where I am,” Will pants. Leaves crunched beneath his feet as twigs snapped. Jack hears what he could only associate with looking behind him. There was a sound in the distance that sounded like a voice that wasn’t Will’s. Will began to speed up based on how quickly his breathing became.
“Please, Jack. I don’t want to die-” Will was cut off by a laugh that chilled Jack to his bones. That was Hannibal’s laugh. Jack would recognize that malicious laughter from anywhere. It had been rare that the man would laugh, but when he did, it was beyond horrifying. So hearing it once again brought horror from the back of his mind, into the forefront.
Jack had been so certain that Hannibal and Will had died that night when they went over the cliff. But now he was hearing both men for the first time in three years.
And now Jack was faced with the realization that Will was alive. Or, at least, he had been. There was no doubt in Jack’s mind that Hannibal would kill him after his attempted escape. The man had made it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate disobedience from those he was manipulating.
Nothing Jack could have done would have prepared him for realizing that he had failed once again to save one of his own.
First Miriam, then Beverly, and now Will.
~*~*~*~
Once the call was ended, Will turned off the treadmill. The leaves under his feet are almost dust from how many times he had stomped on them. Broken twigs and branches were in a pile on the floor beside Hannibal.
Will gets off the treadmill, panting and breathing deeply. “I forgot how fast we needed to increase the speed to.” Hannibal helped his partner to the couch with a gentle, guiding hand. “It definitely doesn’t help that even with it healed, I still had a hole in my cheek.” The grin on his lips showed that he wasn’t as angry over that fact as his words insinuated.
“I was having quite a hard time not laughing until the end,” Hannibal told him. Will laughed, knowing what he meant.
“I know what you mean. The only thing that stopped me from laughing was that I was running.”
Unbeknownst to them, on the other side of the world, Jack Crawford was coming to terms with his failure to save another member of his team. Even though Will was no longer working for the FBI, Jack still took the hit mentally.
After all, it was he who brought Will back into the fray. Realistically, Jack knew that Hannibal had more culpability in what happened to Will, Beverly, and Miriam. But mentally, all he could think was how if he had just left Will alone, maybe he’d still be alive.
Jack cried himself to sleep for the first time since his wife died.