Chapter Text
He’s tidying up the apartment into some semblance of order, glancing every so often through the window at the sandy road leading from the main street all the way to his house. Whenever he’s expecting a client, he always wonders what kind of car they would arrive in. Will it be an expensive luxury vehicle, or a battered old wreck? Or maybe something in between - an ordinary family car. The means of transportation his client uses can tell him more than a conversation ever will. Then again, keeping a conversation was never one of his talents. People accuse him of losing focus and drifting off topic, while in reality he’s doing everything he can, so they won't notice he’s imagining the quickest way to kill them.
He picks up a medium-sized milky white canvas and places it on the easel positioned directly opposite the black leather sofa. He tucks the brushes into his apron so they are within easy reach.
Hannah Smith. A name so painfully ordinary it hurts his eyes whenever he sees it written in the calendar; it conjures no image of dazzling beauty begging to be immortalized on canvas. Looking out the window, he imagines the woman driving a completely unremarkable Ford F-150, probably red or brown. Nothing special.
Will Graham. Former FBI employee who himself doesn’t quite know how he ended up a struggling painter creating commissioned portraits. Once, it never would have crossed his mind that he could do something so relaxing and devoid of violence.
It’s been four years since he left the FBI. He couldn’t force himself to work in a place that brings back such painful memories, or remain among people who - though they try to hide it - pity him and treat him like fragile porcelain. Those factors did nothing to aid his recovery, so returned home for good and cut himself off from his previous life.
Knife, kitchen, blood, deer, her brown hair drenched in blood…
The growl of an engine coming from the yard interrupts his thoughts. Will looks out the window and spots a slender woman with chestnut hair stepping out of the car, dressed in a gray two-piece suit. She looks around for a moment, frowning as though wondering whether this is really the place she’s supposed to come to. A moment later, the sharp click of her heels echoes across the yard and onto the porch.
Will’s gaze lingers on the car she arrived in. A black Bentley. Somehow, it looks familiar.
The doorbell rings. Will quickly pulls the handle and finds himself face to face with Hannah Smith.
“Good afternoon,” he says with a faint smile. “You’re right on time.”
“Of course. It’s a matter of good manners,” the woman replies. “Will Graham?”
“Yes. Please, come in.” Will holds the door open, letting Hannah inside. He barely has time to react before the entire cheerful pack of dogs hurls themselves at the two of them.
“Max, Winston, enough!” Will grabs the animals by their collars and ushers them outside. “I’m so sorry about them," he adds quickly as he shuts the door.
“It’s fine,” Hannah replies, looking around the apartment. “I like dogs and yours are exceptionally adorable.”
Will raises an eyebrow.
“You seem like a successful woman. Very… distinguished, too. I wouldn’t have guessed that-”
“That people like me enjoy animals?” Hannah laughs. “Maybe at work I’m cold and ruthless because that’s what’s expected of me, but in everyday life I’m actually pretty laid-back.”
Will smiles faintly, already feeling a warm fondness for the woman. One kind word about his dogs, and she practically steals his heart.
He leads Hannah into the living room and invites her to sit on the sofa while he takes a chair opposite her. He asks her to describe what she wants to include in the portrait.
Hannah stares at him for far too long. Will assumes she has some concept in mind but can’t quite put it into words.
“You really don’t recognize me?” he finally hears her say, followed by a quiet sigh.
He stiffens. His eyes flick involuntarily toward the writing desk, calculating how quickly he can reach it and unholster the gun.
“Should I?” he asks, calmly rising to his feet and walking toward the easel without haste. He reaches for a brush, but then Hannah grabs his wrist. How the hell does she get there so quickly?
“I’ll tell you who I really am,” she says, “but you have to swear that no one - absolutely no one - will ever learn the truth.”
Will shudders, but curiosity overpowers common sense.
“All right,” he replies, feeling the pressure on his wrist loosen. “I didn’t expect today to be the day I got myself into trouble again.”
Hannah sits back down on the sofa, gesturing for him to do the same.
“This may sound unbelievable, but… My name is Clarice Starling.”
Will studies her more carefully, only now noticing that unmistakable mole on her cheek.
That mole - and she herself - shouldn’t be here.
“You’re dead,” he says quietly, staring into her eyes.
Yes. It’s her. He knows it now.
“How can you be alive?”
“As you can see, I’m doing just fine,” she replies with a faint smile.
Will closes his eyes. The memories flood through him like icy water. Reflexively, he places a hand over his lower abdomen, feeling beneath his fingers the uneven scar stretching from one hip bone to the other.
“You took over my position after I left, didn’t you?” he asks.
Clarice nods.
“But how is that possible?” Will squeezes his eyes shut even tighter, trying to sort through the hundreds of thoughts crashing violently through his mind. “Jack said you were most likely dead. So why aren’t you? And why did you come here hiding behind a fake name? Why...?”
Clarice places a hand on his knee, leaving him stunned. When was the last time he felt something so intimate? He looks into her eyes and catches a glimpse of uncertainty there.
“Can we start from the beginning?” she asks slowly.
Will nods.
“I’ll make coffee,” he says quickly.
*
The canvas is still blank. The pure white radiating from it stands in stark contrast to the dirty room furnished in shades of gray and black.
For Will, every fresh canvas is a promise of something new; something that, if only for a moment, might bring life into his empty, silent house. Something that would make him feel a little less lonely, a little less broken by what happened. By what he allowed to happen.
“I can see you’re nervous,” Clarice’s voice reaches him as though from far away. He notices that he is clutching his coffee cup to hide the trembling in his hands - apparently too late.
“I’m wondering how I’m supposed to tell Jack about all this.”
“No!” Clarice shouts, and Will nearly spills coffee onto his trousers. “Sorry,” she adds quickly. “What I mean is… everything I’m about to tell you has to stay strictly between us. Everything you learn - you have to keep it to yourself. Please.”
For a moment, Will stares into her cold dark-blue eyes, searching for some fracture in them. He wants proof that she’s not as hard as she seems, but her gaze remains stern and unwavering.
“All right,” he sighs in resignation, lifting the coffee cup to his lips and drinking the sweet foam.
Clarice smiles faintly.
“Why did you leave the FBI?” she asks, moving a little closer to him. “I never had the courage to ask Agent Crawford, and he never seemed willing to explain why you resigned.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Will scoffs. “After what happened at the house to…”
He cuts himself off when he realizes that Abigail’s name won’t pass his lips no matter how hard he tries. Instead, he slowly lifts his shirt, revealing the uneven scarlet scar across his lower abdomen.
Clarice stares at it with something close to fascination. Her fingers visibly tremble, yet she doesn’t ask for permission to touch it. To her, the scar is where everything begins; to him, it’s a testament to his final moments with Abigail and with him. With the monster.
“I took over your position three weeks later,” she says quietly after Will lowers his shirt. “Crawford gave me one assignment almost immediately. To capture Hannibal Lecter.”
The name hangs heavily in the air, becoming a threat of future events. Will feels sudden pressure tighten around his throat as cold sweat spreads across the back of his neck. Why, after all these years, does everything connected to Lecter still provoke such panic in him?
“Hannibal,” he whispers, trying to steady the tremor in his voice. “Hannibal.”
For a moment, he savors the way the name spreads across his tongue, the way his lips press tighter together as though unwilling to let go of those three bitter syllables.
Maybe that’s why, for four years, he’s been unable - or unwilling - to say them aloud.
He lets out a heavy sigh and wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Looking up, he finds Clarice studying his face in silence.
“For the first several months, Hannibal wrote me letters,” Will says at last. “You couldn’t really call it correspondence, because I never replied to a single one. I didn’t care where he was, who he was with, or what he was doing. I wanted him out of my life as brutally as he decided to cast Abigail and me out of his.”
Clarice taps her fingernails against her coffee cup, likely wondering whether she should really tell him her story. But there is no other choice. He has a right to know.
“I found him after a year,” she says quietly.
Will freezes. No words come.
Clarice continues.
“In the case files, I read that he was most likely traveling with his psychiatrist, Bedelia du Maurier. She wasn’t with him. To this day, I don’t know what happened to her.”
Will nods. He cares very little about Bedelia. What he wants to know is how an average rookie - a young, inexperienced woman - manages to find one of the most wanted murderers in the world.
He asks her exactly that.
“I suspect he let himself be caught.”
Will scoffs.
“Dr. Lecter would never allow himself to be captured. His narcissism and his damned intelligence would never permit it. Unless he did it solely to kill you or betray you, the way he betrayed me - but I don’t think that’s it,” he growls.
Only a moment later he realizes he might have reacted too harshly. He looks at her and sees unease in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I-”
“I have no idea,” Clarice interrupts softly. “I honestly have no idea how to tell you this.”
A muffled laugh escapes her lips, bitter and humorless.
“Hannibal really did let himself be caught. But I didn’t do anything about it.”
“Then where is he?” Will asks firmly. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
He struggles to keep his voice from rising. Clarice lowers her gaze to the coffee in her hands. For several long seconds, the room is silent except for the ticking of the clock on the wall.
Then she looks back at him. The color slowly drains from Will’s face. Like he knows what she’s going to say, but every particle in his body wants to protect him from the truth.
“Hannibal never does anything without a reason.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Clarice swallows.
“Because he was waiting. But you… you didn’t come. You never came. So he…
For the first time since arriving, Clarice seems genuinely afraid. She looks him in the eyes. Perhaps she thinks she won't have to say the words aloud. That Will will understand. That he'll accept it and somehow continue living with the knowledge.
She may be able to deceive herself, but not Will. He may not want the answer, but would ignorance really be any better?
“Hannibal and I are together.”
Her voice forces its way into his mind uninvited, crashing into his thoughts and setting off a shrill ringing deep inside his ears.
In a fraction of a second, Will Graham’s world shatters into a thousand pieces.