Work Text:
Baltimore State Hospital’s new nurse kept to herself. No one knew much about her. She’d specialized in long term care, according to the glance one nurse had gotten at her resume.
She was small and quiet and when she did speak, it was with an accent. No one had any complaints about her. She showed up on time, did her work, obeyed all the rules scrupulously, and leant a hand whenever needed.
Hannibal watched her, but she never approached him. Her eyes never met his if they were in the same room. But she maintained an awareness of him that he couldn’t fail to miss, although it went unnoticed by the staff and the other inmates.
Weeks passed before he had a moment with her.
“I thought you said not in a cage,” he murmured.
Her expression didn’t change. “Perhaps I had a change of heart,” she whispered back.
The day after Will and Hannibal escaped, Nurse Chiyoh didn’t show up for work.
The next night she materialized out of the mist at the base of a cliff, lips pinched and brows furrowed.
“See, Hannibal, you do need watching,” she said as she pulled his limp body from the surf, laying him out atop one of the rocks that jutted from the water. With a frown, she waded back out to retrieve the second body that floated nearby. “And that means this one too now,” she said, hoisting Will up next to him. “But only until you are well enough to watch out for each other.”
A low moan escaped Hannibal’s lips, and she nodded.
“So glad you agree.”
Her bedside manner left much to be desired, but she was a skilled nurse. One morning, weeks later, Will hobbled out to the porch of the small house she'd taken them to and was greeted by the sight of her retreating back, bag in hand.
"I guess she thinks we're well enough, now," Hannibal said. Somehow he'd snuck up on Will, despite his pronounced limp.
"I guess so," Will replied.
"So will you take care of me?" asked Hannibal, a bit of the old familiar sparkle in his eyes.
"I will. One way or another."