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"Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy."
- Red Dragon, chapter seventeen
*
Oh, I can tell
She's raising hell to give to me
She got me warm
So please don't get me rescued
*
He is waiting until he sees Alana.
It shouldn't be long. Even now, a year after his trial and sentencing, she still comes two, sometimes even three, times each week. Will isn't the most talkative conversationalist, these days, but Alana has grown adept at filling the silence. She comes armed with information about his appeal, or briefs being filed on his behalf, or research about past pardons and overturned sentences. After the past year, Alana could probably hold her own on a state bar exam.
Now, as he waits for her to visit, Will spends a lot of time lying on his bunk, murmuring quietly to himself. He rattles off long, unconnected strings of random words, just getting reacquainted with the sound of his own voice, stretching dormant muscles.
It's a Thursday evening when she shows up. Will knows before he even sees her, as the narrow corridor fills with the familiar jeering catcalls that usually mean there's a good probability it's Alana walking the gauntlet that is Death Row.
Will's sentencing had been the week immediately after the guilty verdict was handed down. It had essentially been a condensed version of the trial itself: the prosecution had once again paraded out the families of Will's supposed victims, begging for justice. They'd emphasized Garret Jacob Hobbs, his supposed phone call, claiming his work with an accomplice, as well as his quick thinking to warn him when police were on the way, were inconsistent with a dissociative state. They insisted Will's encephalitis was a coincidence the defense was now trying to capitalize on. They had reminded the jury about Will's fishing reels, seen as trophies. About the way Abigail Hobbs' ear was discovered, and the probable cannibalism of other victims.
And all the jury had seen was serial killer.
He'd been moved from Baltimore to a regular state prison - no longer criminally insane, only criminal - to be housed among other men condemned to die.
Strings had been pulled, influence thrown around, and somehow Alana - as an FBI psychiatrist working on Will's case - had been given the status of a prison nurse, or one of the spiritual advisors who came to pray with inmates. She did not abide by weekly visiting hours, did not have to meet with Will with glass between them or speak through a telephone. She could come as often as she wanted and walk right up to his cell, outfitted in the required flak jacket.
The yelling gets louder, at the cells closest to Will, as she approaches. He winces, feeling the familiar lurch of his stomach at the reminder that Alana deals with this several times a week because of him.
Hey, baby, you here for me?
Why you waste all your time with Graham, you know I'd treat you real nice.
Get over here, bitch, I got somethin' to show you.
Still, Alana's face is completely unperturbed when she steps into view. "Hey."
"Hi." He stands up from the cot and approaches the bars. Will smiles with some difficulty, feeling like certain muscles in his face are coming alive for the first time in years.
Already Alana looks taken aback. It's been awhile since Will bothered to get up from his bed during her visits. She immediately closes the little space between herself and the cell, reaching through the bars out of pure instinct. It's been so long since she touched him, and she feels strangely panicked, like the opportunity won't come around again. Her hand closes pointlessly around his wrist. "Is...everything okay?"
Will's face softens, and suddenly the smile doesn't feel like such a strain to hold. His eyes flick to her hand, holding tight lest he move away again, and Will gently lifts his arm to rest his hand around the bars, allowing Alana to release her hold on his wrist and instead slide her hand on top of his. He moves his eyes to meet hers for a brief second, and says, with complete sincerity, "Right now? Everything's great."
You wouldn't know from his voice that Alana was here three days ago, or four days before that, or three before that; Will sounds like he hasn't seen her in years.
"Okay..." Slowly, Alana smiles back, still puzzled, but unable to deny how good it feels to see him smile. "I met with Derek earlier." Derek is Will's defense attorney. "I gave him the research on the case I was telling you about on Monday, the one where the sentence was overturned at the District Court-"
"Alana?"
Again, she looks momentarily thrown; Will never interrupts, barely even responds. Her visits are essentially comprised of lengthy monologues. "Yeah?"
"Today...could we maybe not talk about the case?"
"Of course," she says immediately, quirking a corner of her lips. "We can talk about - or not talk about - whatever you want."
Will leans his forehead against the bars, just beside their hands, and closes his eyes. "Tell me about the dogs."
Alana's chest tightens. They used to do this in the early days of Will's incarceration, back when he was still in Baltimore. "Okay." She thinks for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is quiet and slow, painting him a picture with her words. "I woke up this morning and my legs were asleep. Total pins and needles. So I look up, and Winston's draped across over my thighs. Rolled over on his side, tongue hanging out, his hind leg twitching...and completely on top of me."
Will grins lazily, eyes still shut. "Great, now I'm jealous of my own dog."
A laugh bursts out of her, sudden and surprising, and Alana squeezes Will's hand before continuing. She spends twenty minutes describing moments with the dogs: Bear's newfound fascination with mirrors, Kylie's recent habit of falling asleep on top of Alana's closed laptop, presumably enjoying the warmth.
After awhile, Will opens his eyes and watches her instead. He notices the way she purses her lips every few words, like she's tasting the finale syllable. He memorizes the exact shade of blue in her eyes, how soft and warm they are when she speaks about the animals. He observes the tilt of her head as she looks up at him.
Will takes note of it all, committing everything about her to memory, in case these details are things he can take with him.
When she finally runs out of stories, Alana exhales slowly, and gives him a half-smile. "Want more?"
"That's good. Thanks." Will smiles back, but he can already feel his stomach beginning to knot up, hot dread already pooling in his gut for the moment she leaves.
"Do you still hang out with Beverly?" he asks dumbly after a quiet beat.
Alana looks perplexed by the question, but answers easily, "Yeah. She basically kidnaps me and drags me out. Or she just shows up at my house. With beer."
"That's good." Will nods, thinking. "And your brother. The one who came from my trial. You see him much?"
Giving him a strange look, Alana answers, "Uhhh sometimes. He lives about two hours away. But he calls twice a week." Her brow furrows. "Why?"
"I don't know." Will hesitates, his eyes flicking to the ground, and then back up to their still stacked hands. Finally, he glances up at her. "One more question?"
"Of course." She lifts an eyebrow. "If I get one after yours."
"Sure." Will swallows, going quiet for a moment before he asks haltingly, "If...if I hadn't been convicted. If...they'd let me out after Baltimore, if I'd gone home..." Alana's face falls, eyes swelling with sadness before he even gets to his question. "...do you think you would have...gone on a date? With me?"
Her face muscles contract, throat narrowing. Alana curls her lips together, and it takes a second before she can extract an answer from her throat.
Off her silence, Will hastily clarifies, "I, I mean when the encephalitis was better-"
"I know." Alana lifts her free hand and snakes it through the narrow gap in the bars to touch his face, the edges of her words falling away, voice flannel soft as she answers, "Of course I would have."
A smile breaks across his face, and Will's eyes go hazy and far away, like he's imagining another life. Alana watches, gauging him, and after a moment of scrutiny she tentatively prompts, "What would we have done?"
Will doesn't answer right away, and Alana quickly regrets the question, doubting her own guess that he wanted to imagine it.
Seconds before she can take it back, tell him to forget it, Will starts to speak, slow but intensely focused, like this is answer he needs to get right. "There's this...lake. Where I fish. It's got a pier. We could have...made sandwiches or - no, wait, gotten takeout Chinese to take there and eat. It's...it's nice out, when the sun's setting over the lake." His eyes flick up toward hers, then away again. "Or maybe we should've just started with dinner and a movie."
"No," she whispers in a small voice. There are tears in her eyes, and her lips are trembling. When she looks up and meets his eyes, her smile spreads like a fault line during an earthquake. "No, the lake sounds perfect."
A tear rolls down her face, and Will reaches through and cups her cheek, brushing it away with his thumb. "It would've been good, right?"
"Me and you?" Her voice is tight. "Yeah. It would've been really, really good, Will." Alana inhales sharply, closing her eyes for a brief moment before saying resolutely, "It's not over. Okay? We're working really hard on this next appeal, I swear."
"I know you are." Will can't look at her when he says it. He traces his thumb over the curve of her cheekbone, letting the silence linger for a bit. Eventually, Will breaks it, saying, "What was yours?"
It takes a second for Alana to shake herself out of the moment. "My what?"
"Your question." He quirks his lips. "You said you had a question after mine, remember?"
"Right..." She squints a little, refocusing, then looks at him uncertainly. "Did something happen?" Off his look, she clarifies. "You seem different. I mean. Good different, but...did something happen?"
Will doesn't have to lie when he tells her, "No. Nothing happened." Because nothing has. Not yet. "I just...I've been wanting to see you."
"I can come back tomorrow," she offers immediately, pressing her fingers down a bit and weaving them between his.
"Okay." He doesn't think about tomorrow. Can't.
Will takes another moment just to look at Alana. She is so beautiful. In that moment, her fingers intertwined with his, his hand on her cheek, Will can almost believe it is enough. He can still have this every few days, can keep getting up from his bunk and walking to the bars, can hold her hand and talk and maybe it can be enough.
But it won't be. He's had over a year to learn that.
"COs will be coming soon," Alana says in a quiet, reluctant voice after awhile. "With dinner." Will's lungs shrink, and he has to tighten his grip on the bars so she doesn't feel his hand shaking beneath her own. "But I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay." It takes effort to force the word out. He lets go of the bar and takes her hand and lifting it to his lips. Alana reaches up with her free hand, tangling her fingers in his limp curls for just a moment. "Tomorrow."
She gives him a small, unsteady smile before gently pulling away. "See you."
His throat closes up, and Alana's three steps away with her back to him before he calls out, "Alana?" She turns. Will's word pile up in his throat for a second, tangling, but eventually he manages to extract a single, shaky, "Thank you."
She gives him another smile laced with confusion, nodding a little. "Bye, Will."
And then she's gone.
*
Four hours after she left Will, Alana lets the dogs out, as she does every night before bed. She's felt strange ever since she left the prison. Something's gnawing at the edge of her brain, more feeling than thought. She doesn't know what it is that's worrying her, hasn't even tried to theorize.
But it's strong enough that by eleven, she's teetering on the edge of panic without really understanding why. So she brings the dogs back inside and, trying not to analyze her own actions, drives to the prison for the second time that day.
She gets lucky. Peter's one of the COs on the night shift. They're friendly enough; Alana did a study on one of their death row inmates a few years ago, and she and Peter would exchange small talk on her way in and out to interview him. Since Will was transferred here, Peter's been good about letting her stay as long as she wants, and letting her know the best stretches of time for uninterrupted visits.
Still, even he's uncertain when she shows up so late.
"It's just past lights out, Doc. You know I can't-"
"Look, Peter, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. It's kind of an emergency."
He gives her a skeptical look. "A psychiatric emergency?"
She hesitates. "I'll be quick. If he's asleep, I'm in and out. If he's awake, we'll talk fast." Alana looks at Peter, sensing he's close to giving in. "Please."
Peter sighs, passing her a flak jacket. "Make it fast."
The light's dim on the maximum security tier, and it's quieter than she's ever heard it. Most of the inmates are lying on their bunks, either asleep or zoned out; she's in tennis shoes instead of heels, so they don't look up when she walks by. Alana can hear the rhythmic squeaking of someone's mattress, accompanied by soft grunting, and Alana makes sure to keep her eyes straight ahead.
She knows the exact space between the security door and Will's cell; she could close her eyes and still sense the moment she gets to him.
Alana stops in front of the cell and freezes.
Will standing in the back of the tiny room, tugging on bedsheets that have been ripped into strips and tied on the bars above his window.
There's a monster clawing at Alana's chest. Her legs go liquid, her throat narrowing. For a moment she can't speak, can only watch, stricken, waiting for the image to in front of her to change, for this not to be happening.
Then Will grabs the end of the bedsheet, pulling it into a loop and knotting it.
"Will?" Her voice is tiny; she sounds about seven years old.
His head snaps around to look at her, his eyes in the darkness huge and white and, when he registers her presence, horrified, like an animal caught in a trap.
For a long, still moment they stare at each other. Then fear registers on Will's face, and he drops the bedsheets and steps toward the bars, one hand out, placating. "Alana. Please..."
She physically shuffles a few inches back, unconsciously shaking her head like she's rejecting the reality in front of her. "Will..."
"Alana, please, don't..." He comes right up against the bars, eyes wild, a desperately pleading look on his face. "Don't tell them. I'll have to go to solitary, please, please don't let them put me on suicide watch..."
She emits a soft cry at that, the word suicide slamming into her chest. For a second, she's genuinely afraid her legs will give out from beneath her; her body jackknifes, and she ends up half kneeling on the ground at the edge of the cell, one hand clutching the bars for support.
"Please." Will drops down on one knee, right in front of her. Please, Alana." His voice is so raw, equal parts terrified and desperate.
"Will..." Alana's voice is shaking, and there's nothing behind it, barely a breath. She screws her eyes shut, so tight it feels like she's fighting back blood instead of tears. She gets a sudden, flashing image of her mother, lying in the floor of the bathroom, the bathtub overflowing, blood mingling with water and spilled cleaning supplies, the knife from the kitchen beside her. "Why?"
"You have to know why," he counters quietly. "You know, Alana, they're gonna kill me anyway - "
She opens her eyes to look at him, finally. "We are years away from that, Will-"
"I don't want years," he insists desperately, the final syllable cracking. "Not like this, Alana, please...please just let me go."
Alana physically reels back from the bars, her voice splitting in two, "I can't."
"You have to, you have to, please-"
"Will, you still have appeals, I can still fix this, just let me try, please let me try-"
His forehead thumps against the bars. "Derek already said the best we can hope for is try to commune the sentence down to life, and that's even worse."
Panicked, Alana blurts out, "Fuck Derek, then, we'll get you someone else -"
Will painstakingly lifts his eyes, giving her a weary look. "No lawyer's gonna say anything different. Everyone's already decided that I'm a serial killer-"
"I haven't," she hisses fiercely. "I haven't decided that."
"But you can't fix this," Will counters quietly, tone hollow. "I know you want to, and I know you've tried, but...you can't." He covers her hand with his, gripping tightly, both of them shaking. "You have to let me go, please..."
"No. You can't, I won't let you." She can feel herself unraveling. "I'm not finished with you yet, Will, okay? I'm not."
"I'm gonna die in here, Alana, no matter what I'm gonna die here. Either tonight, or they kill me in ten years, or that make me stay here my whole life until this place is what kills me..." His voice unspools, and the tears come, for both of them. "I can't do it anymore, please don't make me, please don't make me..."
"But I need you." The words slip out, soaked in tears, before Alana can stop it.
"Not from in here. You don't, you can't."
"Will, please-"
A crooked, gasping sound lifts from his throat, and Will lifts his head and looks directly into Alana's eyes. The level of pain and neediness she reads there shoots straight to her chest, sending flames licking around the edges of her heart. "I'm dying, Alana," he whispers in a broken, begging voice. "It's all dying now, all the time, and I just..." His voice catches and trembles. "I want it to stop." Will's gaze is locked on hers, for once not flicking away. "Please," he whispers. "Please let me go, please, Alana, please..."
Alana's quiet for a long moment, scrambling for words, for some rock solid argument, a way to explain to him that she is not ready to live in a world without him. Her throat feels like it's tearing open in her frantic desperation to say something that will matter.
It has been a year and a half. He spent five months at Baltimore, before the trial, and just over a year here, only a fraction of the time it will take for his death sentence to be carried out. In that time, Alana has watched Will become a shell, watched the light extinguish behind his eyes, watched the fight drain out of him by degrees. It has been so long since he even mentioned Hannibal, since he mentioned his theories. Since he asked a question about the appeals. Since he even cared.
She has watched this break him. And there's not a second since his arrest that it hasn't ripped Alana to shreds to see him hurt.
She doesn't want to put him through anymore pain. But she knows that, right now, pain is all he has left.
"Will..." Her voice shatters, and Alana drops her head against the bars as she starts to cry, whole body shuddering with hard, quiet sobs.
It is this, the giving in, that nearly undoes him; Will is a convicted murderer whose downfall is his inability to cause pain. Especially to her.
He reaches out, maneuvering his hand through the bars and to the back of Alana's head, gently threading his fingers in her dark hair, the closest he can get to holding her as she cries.
For the first time, his panic at being caught fades just enough to finally register the fact that Alana came back. That some part of her must have suspected this, and that she'd been scared enough to come check on him only hours after her first visit.
It has been a long time since Will has been able to register anyone's misery but his home. Solitude had beaten the empathy - once his most notable trait - right out of him.
But now, the sound of Alana crying cuts him to the quick. In this moment, he would do anything for her. He will take his hurt, if it means sparing her some.
Will leans forward, brushing his lips against the crown of her head between the small gap in the bars, and he lifts the hand not stroking her hair to duck low and touch her cheek. "Okay," he murmurs, a raspy, soothing whisper. "It's okay. I'll stay, alright? I'm not going anywhere, Alana, it's okay."
It takes a moment before she lifts her head to look at him and chokes out softly, "Are you lying?"
The pad of his thumb sweeps over the tracks of Alana's tears. "We said we wouldn't do that, remember?"
She stares at him for a moment, gauging his sincerity, then her whole body sags, a sound that's half-sigh and half-sob slipping from her lips. She reaches out, wrapping a hand around the nape of his neck, keeping him close. "I'm so sorry."
Will isn't sure what she's apologizing for: not being able to keep him out of prison in the first place; or convincing him to stick around now.
Alana gives him a helpless look. "How can I make this easier for you? What can I do?"
Will's quiet for a moment, his expression pained when he tells her honestly, "Nothing." Alana's face falls as the truth of it registers, the fact that there truly is no way to make his day to day life better. Will adds, "You already do so much."
"I'm gonna keep doing it," she tells him fiercely. "I know what you said, Will, but I'm not giving up on this appeal. I still think you have a shot...I'll make sure you do. Please don't give up on that."
"I won't," he agrees, but the sentiment is for her rather than himself.
For a long moment they stay there, crouched in a tiny corner of the prison cell, the bars between them, holding onto each other as best they can.
After awhile of silence, Alana's eyes flick over Will's shoulder and immediately darken. "Will you take those down, please?"
He follows her gaze to the hanging, torn bedsheets and nods, reluctantly relinquishing contact and standing up. He walks to the back of the cell and fumbles with the knot of the sheets, feeling the first of many pangs of regret as they fall to a heap on the floor. Will can feel a distant panic stirring, the sort of panic that comes when your way out, the only possible choice you could make, is no longer an option.
Alana stands up, swiping her fingers over her face and watches him dismantle the homemade noose. "CO'll be wondering," she mutters. "Didn't even want me coming in."
Will looks at her, observing the naked fear in her eyes, her reluctance to let him out of her sight. "It's okay," he tells her. "I promise."
Alana nods for a long time, swallowing. Her face softens. "Come here."
Will walks back to the bars, and Alana reaches up, resting her hands on either side of his face and it takes her a moment to figure out what to say. Eventually, she simply whispers a quiet, fierce "Thank you."
*
Alana walks the length of the tier away from Will feeling like she's made of glass, impossibly fragile and thin walled.
She goes back to CO pod to find an older officer with Peter; he gives him a disapproving look when she appears. Alana looks from one to the other, and then says in a flat, empty voice, "Will Graham needs to be put on suicide watch. Look at his sheets and you'll see." She tries not to think about what that will mean for him: three days in an empty solitary cell. But it's the only way she'll be able to walk out of this prison.
They look at each other, and the older CO immediately stands up and heads for the tier. Peter follows, but hesitates at the door, turning. "Dr. Bloom?"
Suddenly exhausted, it takes a monumental effort to look up at him. "What?"
Peter looks at her, noting her eyes, red and swollen from crying, and, with as much gentleness as he can manage, he says, "Just...word of advice? It gets ugly...in there. Suicide attempt, it's...not even neccessarily rock bottom. Just...don't get too close, okay?"
She gives a harsh, ironic laugh, thinking back to her warning to Jack Crawford.
"Too late."