Chapter Text
“Mail!” Beverly announced as she entered the apartment, the door clicking shut behind her.
Will made a sound of acknowledgment from his place on the couch, his eyes still closed. He didn’t expect there to be anything for him that mattered. Most of the mail these days were cards of congratulations for Beverly, because she had graduated from the academy and officially been hired on as an FBI forensic scientist. Specializing in fibers, as she had wanted.
While Will had graduated with her, and Jack Crawford had immediately hired him to work in the BAU as promised, there wasn’t anyone to send a card to him. His uncles were very careful not to contact him for any reason, though he hadn’t instructed them to be that way. He thought they were afraid of him, which was nearly comical, all things considered. He had no friends outside of the FBI and Quantico, so no cards had been coming with his name on them. Jack had offered his congratulations and support in person the day after the ceremony, and that was it for the most part. Even Beverly’s flow of mail had begun to dwindle now, as they were working on cases and graduation wasn't as fresh.
He was fine with being forgotten. It was easier. Better than all the attention he had been getting during and after the case of the Holy Butcher.
“Wake up, psycho boy,” Beverly said, “two of them are for you today. Come read your fanmail.”
Will frowned and sat up, wincing as he opened his eyes to see that Beverly was holding up two envelopes. His shoulder still hurt him sometimes, when he moved wrong. He wasn’t very good at keeping up with his physical therapy, though he did try. They were the kind of envelopes for cards, rather than official mail. Will didn’t know who they could possibly be from.
Will got up and took the cards from her, seeing that one had no return address, while the other was sent from the Verger estate.
Margot had sent him a card. In hindsight, that wasn’t as much of a surprise as it might have been. He hadn’t been expecting it, but he wasn’t shocked.
Will brought the cards back over to the couch and laid down again to open them. He didn’t want Beverly to know there was anything strange or interesting about them. He opened the card sent from Margot first, curious why she would send anything.
-Special Agent Will Graham,
Congratulations on your graduation and subsequent hiring on in the FBI. You are sure to do great work within the bureau, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. I am sorry if I have ever been an i rritation to you, and hope you will forgive me. You have great potential, and I have been privileged to be witness to your growth. I hope you do not let the past haunt you as we so often do, and that you will continue to do great things with your talents.
Regards,
Margot Verger
and
Alana Bloom. -
Will stared at the sign off for a long moment, curious why Doctor Bloom would be sending a joint card with Margot. It was as if Margot intended to have her apology extend to Doctor Bloom, and by extent Will’s potential forgiveness would also apply to her. If that was the case, they must be very close. He wondered how long they had known each other, and how they had occasioned to meet.
These were all things he could think about later, so he turned his attention to the other card, the one with no return address. The one that was even more of a mystery to him.
The envelope was made of smooth, high quality paper, and he could tell immediately that it was expensive. Almost pretentiously so. Surely, such a casual well wish didn’t necessitate such care and expense.
Will opened the envelope and found an equally expensive card within. It was plain, no decoration or obvious fanfare. It wasn’t a hallmark card, like all the ones Beverly had been getting. The paper was thick and creamy under Will’s fingers, and he didn’t know why anyone would bother with these details.
The moment Will opened the card, he understood. The handwriting was recognizable, because he had pored over the casefile for months, and every detail had been seared into his mind. It was the handwriting that he saw every time he looked at the file folder full of sketches, each one with a title neatly tucked into the corner. He would have recognized this handwriting anywhere he saw it.
It was Hannibal.
-My dearest Will,
Congratulations on your progress. You are climbing higher and higher, and I admire your determination to do what you believe is right. I told you many times that I have faith in you, and you have not once disappointed me.
I will not be telling you where I am, of course, but I have taken a leaf from your book and reconnected with my past and my home. Not all the rooms in my mind are safe, and there are holes in the floor that I must avoid, but your courage has inspired me to face such things. I know you will feel compelled to hunt me, as if I am some prey animal, and I only hope you will not be made into prey yourself. The FBI can be a dangerous place, even for those it holds aloft as ideal.
Mais le lâcher en attendant, je tiens pour moi que c’est folie; car de le rattraper il n’est pas trop certain.
I hope your recovery went smoothly, and that you are doing the recommended physical therapy, though I imagine you often forget or skip it intentionally. As a doctor, I must chide you, as you will not recover full range of motion if you do not keep up on it. A shoulder injury is no small matter.
I wonder if you still feel haunted by your mother. Do you find yourself still striving to prove her opinion of you was wrong, and fighting to shrug off the influence on your mind that she was for years? Have you accepted that which is beyond your control at last? Have you embraced it?
If we ever occasion to meet again, I hope you will answer these questions for me.
I wish you the best of luck in your professional endeavors.
Yours,
Hannibal Lecter-
Will knew this was a trap of sorts. Not for him. For the FBI. If Will turned this over to Jack, for the forensics lab to process as evidence, they would be sent on a wild goose chase.
Two separate wild goose chases, actually.
Hannibal had purposefully laid false trails about where he was right now, with the mention of his homeland, and the use of French. If Jack saw this, he would think Hannibal was trying to tell Will he was in either Lithuania or France. Both places he had lived once, and would make sense for him to be.
But Will knew that Hannibal couldn’t go back to Lithuania, and he wouldn’t go to France. It was too obvious. France was exactly the kind of place the FBI would look for him.
Will believed Hannibal was in Italy somewhere. He had been spending the months of his recovery and new employment in the FBI searching for where Hannibal had started his career as a killer, knowing it was in Europe somewhere, and he had found one promising lead. In Florence, there had once been a killer they had called a monster, who had killed lovers and displayed them as Zephyrus and Chloris from the Primavera. A painting that was in the Uffizi gallery in that very city.
It resonated with Hannibal’s style, and his tastes. Will recognized him in every grainy picture. The timeline matched up, and Will was sure it had been him.
It was where he had fully come into his identity as a killer. He would consider it home.
There was that, and the reference to Dante with Chilton’s display immediately after his escape. Will hadn’t been sure what connections he was supposed to make about that, but this made sense now that he was looking at it. Florence felt right.
That was where he would be, and he wouldn’t be easy to find. Even for Will, and even if he wanted to be found, he wouldn’t be a sitting duck.
Will had to convince Jack to send him to Italy.
Will was preparing a proposition. He had found the details for an inspector who had worked the case of the monster of Florence. He was still alive, and still working on the force. Will was going to convince Jack to let him reach out to inspector Pazzi, and see if he would ask for their help in catching the killer that had gotten away from him.
Will believed he would gladly accept the help, and if Jack saw that, he would be more than willing to send Will. Of course, there would be a whole team involved, and perhaps Jack himself would also be going, but getting to Florence was all that mattered to Will. He just had to get there, so he could find the clues Hannibal was leaving for him.
Will’s greatest worry about it all was that maybe Hannibal wasn’t leaving him anything. Maybe Hannibal really did mean to cut him off and never see him again. He might be the fool here, chasing after a man who wanted nothing more to do with him.
He didn’t believe it, and this card reinforced his belief in this course of action, but the small, frightened voice in his head that had always predicted abandonment was persistent. Everyone always left him, so why not Hannibal?
That was why Will had to find him. Even if Hannibal didn’t want to be found, Will would hunt him down and confront him. Because he refused to be left behind this time. He wouldn’t allow Hannibal to abandon him. He would kill Hannibal first, or be killed by him.
“You good?” Beverly asked, and Will realized he had been staring at the cards in silence for a long time.
He looked up and smiled, not wanting her to be worried about him.
Pretend. Be fucking normal.
“Yeah. Just from some family I hadn’t heard from in a while. I didn’t realize they knew I was graduating.”
Beverly accepted that easily. She was more easygoing these days, now content in the belief that Hannibal wasn’t about to break in and kill them both while they slept. As time passed, she had begun to believe Will that they were not in danger, and she had relaxed.
Chester had stopped coming around, and Will guessed it was a combination of his fear of Hannibal and the feeling of discomfort around Will after what had happened between them. Will didn’t know how to feel about it, because he wished he wasn’t becoming more isolated, but he understood how Chester felt about it.
It was also possible Chester resented both Will and Beverly for having gotten into the specialized fields they had been wanting. He had ended up abandoning entomology on behalf of entering the FBI workforce as a regular agent, working in the field. While that was no small feat by any stretch of the imagination, he felt ashamed that he hadn’t been able to succeed in entomology.
Claws clacked on the floor, and Will sat up again, grinning as Marguerite padded up to him, her tail wagging.
Beverly had gotten him a puppy for graduation. She was a beautiful little beagle, and Will had fallen in love with her at first sight.
He had worried, before his mother had died, that he wasn’t capable of loving anyone or anything. He had told her once that he had never had a goldfish as a kid, and maybe that had made it so he had never learned to love something he had to care for that way. When he had met this dog, he had learned he had been wrong. Because he loved this dog. From the very first. It really was his mother that he couldn’t love.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said, petting her thoroughly and watching as her tail whipped back and forth, “you want to go for a walk?”
Marguerite yipped, stepping back and spinning in a quick circle. That was how she agreed, he was sure, and he couldn’t help but laugh. She was just so cute. He stood up from the couch, putting both cards into his pocket as he reached for the leash. He didn’t want Bev to get her hands on these cards, either one really, so he had to be careful not to leave them lying around.
“I’m taking the dog out,” Will told Beverly, “I’ll see you later.”
Beverly waved him off, and Will took Marguerite out. She was a well behaved little dog, and Will enjoyed training her and playing with her. He took her to the nearest park, and let her off the leash to run around. She didn’t wander far from him, sniffing at everything and pawing at the ground. He watched her with a smile, just pleased to be there with her.
He was careful to take time to relax, now. When he had been working on the case of Ezekiel Butcher, he had been dealing with so many things he was never truly at rest. Even when he slept, his mind whirled with fragmented thoughts and images pertaining to what he dealt with in his waking life. Now, he had Marguerite, who required walks and play, so he had to give himself leisure time as well. A part of him wondered if that wasn’t part of why Beverly had gotten him a dog. She had been worried about him.
Will recognized the quote Hannibal had used in the card. That fragment of french meant to throw the FBI off his trail. It was from a fable that had been in a book Will had read as a kid. There was no way Hannibal knew Will had read it. He might have just made a really good guess.
The story was about a fisherman and a small carp. Will wondered if the message was also for the FBI, or if this was meant for him.
But to let him go while you wait is folly in my opinion; because you can’t be too sure of catching him again.