Chapter Text
he says, you are something awful
but i’m keeping you anyway
does that make me your bad thing? your wild
thing? something worth hunting across the country?
—excerpt by
yves olade, when rome falls
*
A SERIAL KILLER IN ARGENTINA? OR THE GHOST OF HANNIBAL LECTER?
This deadly killer cuts the organs out of his victims while they’re still alive. Shockingly similar to the methods of the late Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
He’s been on a spree...
Jack has the newspaper slapped onto his desk first thing in the morning when arriving at Quantico. He scans through the front page, but what shocks him most is not the words on the page, but Alana Bloom standing in front of him.
“Jack, it’s him,” Alana says with certainty in her voice. She doesn’t sound scared. Though she should, especially for someone who was promised death by his hand. Every second of her life is borrowed time.
Jack doesn’t bother to argue to her that Hannibal Lecter is for all intents and purposes, dead. He and Alana both had feelings Hannibal survived, they were however unsure of Will’s survival.
“Then I guess I’m on my way to Argentina.” Alana nods, accepting this answer.
“I’m coming too.” He doesn’t expect this. He thought she’d disappear; hide Margot and Morgan Verger somewhere Hannibal Lecter can never find them.
Jack nods. They leave in the morning.
*
Will wakes to darkness. The last thing he remembers is clouded; he recalls being at the farmers market in town picking up vegetables on the list Hannibal handed to him. Then nothing.
He can feel the rough burn of ropes around his wrists. There’s a sharp pain emanating from his skull like he had been struck. But all he can think about is Hannibal if he thinks Will left him. Disappeared without leaving a trace behind, rejecting him for the fourth time, after Will promised over and over he wouldn’t leave. After Will has attempted to right his wrongs.
His heart feels split open. Perhaps this time he’ll be the one giving Hannibal his heart.
“You’re awake.”
Will looks up. He can’t quite make out the man hovering in the shadows. The face seems almost familiar, but the features are too hazy. They can't seem to come together and Will can't focus long enough to make out anything discernable. He most likely has a concussion.
He wishes for Hannibal by his side.
“We’re going to have fun together. You and I.”
Then he feels a knife slice deep into his thigh, without any warning. He bites back a scream, that's at the tip of his tongue.
*
Jack and Alana land in Buenos Aires, the air is warm and humid, not unlike Virginia in the summers.
The policía greets them when they arrive. They show them the files of the victims over the last few days. They’re all gruesome, surgically ripped apart while still breathing, the only difference is the organs had all been left behind. Jack knows it’s Lecter, has no doubts about it. But something about this feels different. Desperate.
Desperation is a feeling he's sure Lecter has never experienced and he's unsure what would've caused it.
Alana is speaking in careful Spanish to the chief, explaining who they think has done this. Jack catches a few words here and there that he recognizes. The chief then turns to Jack and says in accented English, “This Hannibal Lecter… if he eats the organs of his victims, why are you so sure that it’s him? They are all left behind, perhaps it's a copycat.”
Jack is prepared to answer when the doors to the station fling open. An officer stumbles in, a knife sticking out of his forearm, holds his fresh bleeding wound with one hand, and speaks directly to Jack, “I w-was told to deliver this to you.” In his other hand, he holds out a letter.
Jack Crawford. The outside says in Lecter’s handwriting. Exactly as it did when he wrote to him after Bella died.
Around him the station bursts into life, scrambling to see if the suspect—Alana and he stare at each other, they know the truth—who stabbed their officer is still nearby, scrambling to get the officer medical attention. Jack knows better. Lecter is long gone and left the officer plenty alive for his own reasons.
He opens the letter.
My beloved Will has been taken. I am not permitted to have him back without your and Alana’s help.
I’ll be at La Parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción at 6pm. Don't be late.
*
Jack parks the car at 5:52 pm outside the church. It’s fitting Hannibal would pick another after the last time abroad.
The name translates to Parish of Immaculate Conception in English. It’s fitting, he’s sure, for whatever Hannibal has coming and the name itself fits Hannibal's eccentric tastes.
He looks over at Alana. She’s hiding her emotions well, her hands are unmoving and her face reveals nothing. Though he knows she’s worried, not afraid, to see Lecter again. She voiced this to him after he told her of the letter.
He asked her how she isn’t afraid and she told him she refuses to be. I won't let him dictate my life, she told him, he wants me afraid.
Alana stares ahead. “Let’s get this over with.”
The church is closed for the night, seemingly under lock and key. Jack knows Lecter has his ways. As suspected when they reach the doors they are unlocked and Alana slips inside ahead of him. He follows after her.
*
“I had hoped you would remember me, Mr. Graham,” The man says. Will shudders, he’s met a lot of people who could hold a grudge against him. Whether during his time with the FBI or when he slowly drifted from them into Hannibal’s ever awaiting grasp.
Will doesn’t respond. He hasn’t decided the best course of action to take with this man. And the concussion is only making it harder for him to think.
“I want you to hurt. That will only happen by hurting him.” Will swallows. This man can’t possibly know of his intimacy with Hannibal. It’s something Will himself has only been recently aware of.
Or is it?
But do you ache for him?
He thinks, perhaps he always has.
*
Alana hesitates for a moment when she realizes the church is shrouded in darkness before she carries on. There are no lights on, save for a single candle on the altar.
There’s a figure sitting in a pew, head bowed. Alana continues forward, Jack at her back, his gun raised. Hannibal doesn’t look up when she approaches, his head stays buried in his hands. She assumes a seat in the pew across him.
Jack stays standing, gun pointed at him. “No sudden movements, Lecter.” Hannibal looks up then. His eyes are shining with unshed tears, something Alana has never seen before. He looks distraught and unkempt. Something she's sure Hannibal Lecter despises and even hates himself for.
“Where’s Will?” Alana asks, a hint of bitterness in her voice. At the question, Hannibal’s eyes darken. He doesn't answer for what seems like hours. They sit and watch the candle burn. She's sure Hannibal has some fancy metaphor for it.
When he speaks, his voice does not waver. “Don’t insinuate that I hurt him, Dr. Bloom. I would surely rather be caged again than to hurt him.”
Alana almost scoffs. She’s seen Hannibal hurt Will time and time again. “So you didn’t take him? After the fight with Dolarhyde?”
Hannibal looks straight into her eyes. “No. I was fully prepared to be back in FBI custody.”
Alana puts the pieces together with what he's given to her. Will made the step to fall over the bluff. Not Hannibal.
It takes Jack longer. “Will wouldn’t—”
Hannibal cuts Jack off, “I only contacted you because I am unable to get him back without your help.” She notices his stiff, closed-off posture at the suggestion of Will not having his agency.
Jack frowns. He's never liked being put in his place. “Now the big bad cannibal can’t do something alone?”
Alana sees the irony in that statement. Ever since Will, Hannibal hasn’t wanted to do anything alone. It's a courtship, she recalls her own words. The Chesapeake Ripper and Will, working in tandem. All he wants now is Will back.
Hannibal doesn't rise to the bait. “Ah, but it seems this kidnapper has a bone to pick with us all.”
*
Will dreams of Hannibal.
He vividly sees Hannibal tending to his knuckles after he killed Randall Tier. Remembering now, he sees the intimacy of that moment. How softly Hannibal held his hands, made sure to not apply too much pressure. Whoever has him now clearly saw what Will couldn’t ever quite see.
Stay with me.
Where else would I go?
Will wades into the quiet of the stream.
Will escapes into his memory palace where he’s sure to find more of Hannibal waiting.
*
Hannibal shows Alana and Jack the note from Will’s captor. It asks for Hannibal, Alana, and Jack and no other outside involvement, then:
If only he hadn’t asked me.
Along with a picture of Will, not quite staring at the camera. Alana isn't sure if it's his aversion to eye contact or something else, something she doesn't want to think too much about. Will also is tied up but otherwise looks unhurt.
“What does that even mean?” Jack asks, anger bleeding through his voice. Alana notes that Jack still can’t help but care for Will, even though Will chose Hannibal. She seems to find herself having the same problem.
Hannibal answers calmly, “I assume we’ll have another note in due time. This kidnapper wanted you two here as well. It’s someone we all wronged or he thinks we wronged.”
“What’s he going to do with Will?”
Alana answers, “He wants to hurt him.”
“And us?”
Hannibal says, anguish dripping through his voice, “He wants me.” He pauses, looks to the candle, away from their gaze. He doesn't want to betray too much in his eyes. “He understands hurting me will hurt Will.”
And hurting Will hurts you, Alana thinks. It goes unspoken.
*
“Why should we help you?” Jack asks. It's what Alana has been thinking all along, she had these false hopes that perhaps he'd—
“I will break my promise,” Hannibal says looking directly at Alana. He knows Alana is aware of what this means. She finds her throat has gone dry. Her false hopes can be a reality. No more looking over her shoulder or hiding Morgan. She can live her life again.
“Okay,” She finds herself saying too quickly.
Jack whips his head towards her. “Really?”
“I would like to live in one place, Jack.”
Hannibal almost smiles, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. He might be able to put on a convincing show for Jack but Alana knows the truth, he's being cut deep with every moment he knows Will to be in danger. “I thought you weren’t afraid, Alana.”
“I’m not.” She raises her chin, refuses to bend to him. “My wife and child are.”
“If you help me, they no longer will need to be.”
She wishes for nothing more, so she nods. Jack eventually agrees.