Chapter Text
A black, shiny hearse pulls up outside the coroner’s office in downtown Baltimore. When the driver’s door opens, a man exits, dressed much like you would expect of a mortician, but the fit might be just a little bit better. His black suit is tailor made, looking like it was poured over his body.
He takes a few seconds to look in the car window, to make sure that his tie is straight. When he’s happy, he puts on black leather gloves, and buttons his black wool overcoat. The faint October sun isn’t doing much to heat him up, where it shines on him from a pale sky.
He is Hannibal Lecter, and he is here to pick up a body.
Hannibal has been told that the coroner is done with the autopsy. There are no questions regarding the death, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in charge of the funeral, not yet.
It’s been a while since Hannibal arranged a funeral, and this time he’s only doing it as a favor to an old friend. He was hesitant at first, but he soon realized that he wanted to do this favor to this particular friend, even if it’s more of a strain on him than his friend understands.
He opens the doors in the back of the van and rolls out the gurney. He knows that the next few days will be… difficult, but hopefully not too much so. You never know, some bodies are harder to deal with than others.
Hannibal steps through the door with his gurney in tow but stops in his tracks. Instead of being greeted by Pamela behind the desk, Alana Bloom is standing there. She smiles when she sees Hannibal.
“Hannibal! Long time, no see.” She smiles brightly and moves closer, carefully, like he’s an injured animal. And maybe he is, but with his wounds mostly on the inside. “How are you?”
Hannibal isn’t quite sure how to answer. He hasn’t seen Alana in a long time, and while she’s a sight for sore eyes, she’s also a reminder of the life he once had, a totally unwelcome reminder.
“Alana. What are you doing here?” He smiles cordially, but he keeps his distance, his amber eyes studying her intently. “Have you started working for the coroner’s office?”
She laughs a little, her cheeks slightly pink with embarrassment. “Oh no, I’m still working at the hospital. But Beverly told me she’d asked you to handle this funeral, and since you haven’t returned my calls…”
She looks innocently at Hannibal, but he knows exactly what she means.
“I’ve been busy.” His tone is colder now. He doesn’t need these kinds of surprises. “And I am busy today, too. Do you know if Pamela has all the paperwork in order?”
Alana drops the façade, she knew that Hannibal might not appreciate her being here.
“Hannibal. How long are you going to keep this up?”
Hannibal pushes his gurney halfway through the doors in the back, he knows where the bodies are being stored. He swiftly steps around Alana, and finds the folder on top of the desk, bearing the same name as he got when he spoke to Beverly yesterday, Will Graham.
“Alana. This is of no concern to you.” He has pushed the gurney through, but stays in the door opening. He wants Alana to leave. Partly because he doesn’t want this conversation, but also because he doesn’t want her to see him behave in a way that she would consider crazy. “I am perfectly happy with my life. I simply changed my line of work, that’s all there is to it.”
Alana looks unhappily at him. “We miss seeing you, miss your dinner parties. Can’t you please come out with us, come to dinner tomorrow night? My treat.”
Hannibal looks at her. She has tried so very hard to be his friend these past five years, but he doesn’t really want that. Alana recommended more than one therapist, one expert on violent trauma after the other. But Hannibal doesn’t want that either.
He knows all the techniques, he knows all the tools to use, the mindsets you can adopt. And he has discarded them, one by one, finding satisfaction in how his life is now. He wants to be left alone.
“If I say that I’ll think about it, will you leave?”
Alana looks miserable. She knows he won’t come, but she also knows she can’t make him say yes.
“Fine. But please, call me sometimes. I just want to know that you’re alright.” She walks around the desk and picks up her coat from the chair. “I’ve met the man your burying, by the way. He was a good person.”
Hannibal nods. “I’m sure he was. I’ll treat him with respect, you know that.”
Alana nods. “I know, Hannibal. I’ll… we’ll see each other at the funeral, I guess. Beverly might give you a call, she was his friend. Jack, too. And there are things you need to know, but it’s not my place to tell.”
Hannibal shivers, the ripples of anxiety making his skin itch. Alana’s words bring nasty memories to life, things he’s buried during these past five years. He starts to think that there is more than coincidence at work here, so many people from his past coming together around the body he’s about to pick up.
He’s not a religious man, but he believes in fate. And this might be just that.
“Thank you for letting me know. Good day, Alana.”
Hannibal slips through the door and let it close behind him. He stands still, waiting until he hears the front door slam shut. Only then does he turn towards the far corner right beside the rows of hatches.
He can see a man standing there, in the darkness. Well, not quite a man, the remains of a man, the slightly translucent spirit that lingers in this world. Hannibal moves closer.
He is used to seeing the spirits of the dead by now, but it’s always a bit of a shock when he sees the particular spirit the first time. And this time is no exception.
The man looks young. Hannibal knows that he’s in his late 30’s, by the information he’s received, about 10 years younger than Hannibal. But in this state, the man looks even younger. He’s looking at Hannibal, his blue eyes bright in his otherwise pale face, dark hair forming soft curls over his forehead. There is a softness to the edges of him, as with all spirits, like the world is slowly trying to erase him. Which, Hannibal guesses, is what is actually happening.
Hannibal always get the feeling that if he squints, he could see the wall through the spirit, and if the sun would happen to shine straight at a spirit, it would be true. But here, where the light is muted, the spirit appears somewhat solid.
Will Graham is standing straight, arms relaxed at his sides, but the confusion on his face suggests that he’s not as calm as he looks. He’s got a plaid shirt on, a pair of dark green cargo pants. He looks unharmed, but not alive.
He also looks a little more aware than most spirits Hannibal has encountered.
“Hello. I can see you, and if you want to talk to me, I can hear you.”
Hannibal watches as the spirit’s eyes widen in shock. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but seems to change his mind and closes it again. Hannibal goes on.
“I know this is disconcerting to you, but I will try to answer all the questions you might have. Will you join me in the car?”
The spirit slowly nods and Hannibal gives him a reassuring smile.
“Very good. I’m Hannibal Lecter. I’m pleased to meet you, Will Graham.”
When Hannibal introduces himself, the spirits eyes widen even more, and he almost speaks, but Hannibal doesn’t see that, as he’s busy moving the body.
As soon as Hannibal has pulled out the tray with Will’s body from the cooler, Will stops looking at Hannibal and instead looks at himself. He’s naked in a plastic body bag, and it looks like the spirit is blushing a bit. Hannibal stops in his tracks as he’s got the cart fully rolled out. He thinks that something is wrong, but he doesn’t want to upset the spirit. Discreetly, he lets his eyes wander between the body and the spirit a couple of times, not being able to wrap his head around what he is seeing.
Knowing that he can’t stand here all day, he doesn’t say a word, he simply transfers Will’s body from the cart to his gurney, whilst putting it in a thicker body bag. It’s usually done by two people, but Hannibal has always worked alone, he can manage just fine.
When he’s done, he looks at Will again.
“I am ready to leave. You can just slip through the door on the passenger side and sit down next to me.”
They move together, Hannibal expertly maneuvering the gurney and then rolling it into the black van. He gets in the driver’s seat, pleased to see that the spirit is already there.
“I feel like I want to put on the seatbelt, but it’s too late for that, right?” Will speaks quietly, like he’s not sure he’s supposed to.
“Was that what happened to you? A car accident?” Hannibal pulls out into traffic, at this time of day it’s slow. He glances at his companion. The spirit has a frown on his face. “I beg your pardon, I shouldn’t pry.”
Will shakes his head. When he speaks, his voice sounds thin, like he’s speaking through a tin can, or through the telephone, on a landline, from far away.
“No, it’s alright. Yeah, it was a car crash. It was my fault, I wasn’t paying attention, my mind was elsewhere. There was a crash, and then… nothing. All of a sudden, I was just standing on the road, looking at EMT’s working on me.”
He shivers and looks so incredibly sad and young that Hannibal’s heart aches a little bit.
“I’m sorry.” He’d like to offer his support by touching the spirit, but knows it wouldn’t feel good for either. “Can I call you Will, would that be alright?”
Will nods, but doesn’t say anything else, and Hannibal doesn’t actually expect him to. Most spirits he’s met have mostly wanted to be left alone. A couple of them have been very talkative, but still kept to themselves. They have been ready to move on by the time Hannibal has encountered them.
Something tells Hannibal that Will is different. The way he keeps looking out the window, seemingly committing things to memory is the first clue. The second is that he moves like a human. He rubs his face, clasps his hands, scratches his neck.
Other spirits have sat quietly and still, like they’re waiting for something to happen, to get things over with. Will seems almost alive, still, despite being very clearly not, as the edges of his body shimmers like he’s got an internal light that is flickering.
The drive to the funeral home takes about half an hour. It’s a few miles outside of town, at the edge of a sleepy suburb. Hannibal turns left onto a side street, and Will takes in the sight.
There seems to be two houses on the same plot, the one closest to the street a one-story building, and the other, maybe 20 yards behind it, is a brown two-story building.
Hannibal drives around the one-story building, where a sign says ‘Neal Funeral Home’, and Will can see that the two buildings are conjoined by a walkway with glass walls and a wooded roof, the walkway connecting to what appears to be the backside of the two-story house.
Hannibal puts the van in Neutral and turns off the key.
“Here we are. I will take your body to the cooler and then I can answer any questions you might have. Or if you just want to be alone, it’s up to you.”
“I… alright. I can… When I was at the morgue, I experimented with how far from my body I can move.”
Hannibal raises his eyebrows. No other spirit has claimed to have done anything like that. “Is that so? And what did your experiment show?”
Will shrugs. “About 100 yards, give or take. Is that your home in the back?”
Hannibal nods. “It is. You are welcome to look around.”
Will smiles slightly at Hannibal. “Would you be able to stop me even if I weren’t welcome to look around?”
Hannibal smiles a little bigger. This spirit has a sense of humor, it’s refreshing. “I would not. But you are welcome nonetheless.”
Will nods and watches in silence as Hannibal rolls the gurney inside. There is a discrete entrance in the back, much unlike the more magnificent entrance in the front.
As Hannibal transfers the bag with Will’s body to the cooler, Will speaks up.
“Will you embalm me, the body, today?”
“Yes. I will take care of that after lunch. Would you like to watch?”
Will shakes his head, just a little, but Hannibal perceives him as interested, nonetheless. Neither man speak, but Will follows Hannibal as he leaves the funeral home via the walkway.
“I will go upstairs to change and have a shower, and then I’ll be back down to make lunch.”
Will looks at Hannibal, hands in his pockets. “It’s weird to not feel hungry. Or thirsty. Or tired, for that matter.”
“I could say that I understand, but I don’t. I will say, though, that you are a bit more put together than the other spirits I have met.” In Hannibal’s experience, it’s always better to be honest and blunt when dealing with spirits. “You seem to take this calmly.”
Will shrugs. “I’m dead. There’s nothing I can do about that now, is there?” His distant voice carries well, and Hannibal fleetingly wonders how he sounded when he was alive.
Will walks away, in the direction of where they came in, and slips through the door to the walkway. Before Hannibal has the chance to speak, Will is gone. The living man stands for a few seconds, looking at the closed door through which Will disappeared.
He’s been in Will’s company for less than an hour, and already he has the feeling of this being more than coincidence. This will affect him more than he likes, he’s certain.
Hannibal goes upstairs and discards his clothes in the laundry bin. He left his overcoat at the funeral home. He has a shower and a washing machine there too, he will utilize those after the embalming. But for a normal pickup, he can shower and do laundry in his home.
As Hannibal steps into the shower, his mind drifts from Will to Alana. She said that she had known Will. And that both Beverly and Jack had, too.
Not wanting to dwell too long on past events, scars still not faded, Hannibal tries to settle for thinking about Alana. They had been friendly before, he was her mentor when she went through medical school. He’d seen firsthand what a good physician, and then psychiatrist, she became. He was always delighted to have her at his dinner table for one of his parties, or sometimes just the two of them. If… the incident hadn’t happened, who knows what would have become of his and Alana’s relationship.
His minds slip to the incident. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it, not really, but the slim ridge of scarred flesh reaching from his sternum all the way down to his pubis won’t let him pretend it never happened. His fingers slip to the scar over his throat. That one harder to conceal, but Alana hadn’t looked at it. She knew better.
Hannibal shudders and soaps his body faster, harder, trying to get rid of filth and germs as well as unwanted memories. He is short of breath, like the cut across his throat has reopened and his life is draining out of him again.
Hannibal gasps. He rinses the soap away, turning the water to the hottest setting, the last of his waking nightmare burning away with the heat.
He rubs his skin briskly and finds a soft burgundy cashmere sweater in the closet, and a pair of grey slacks. Silk underwear on, ash brown hair brushed lightly back, and donned in proper clothes, Hannibal feels ready to deal with anything.
He is left alone during lunch. He can spot Will in the corner of his eye a couple of times, as he passes just outside the kitchen and also outside the house. He’s roaming the property, and Hannibal find it interesting that Will seems so free, especially considering that the other spirits Hannibal has met have all mostly hovered close to either their body, or to Hannibal.
One of them refused to say a word to Hannibal, but she followed him around, even when he used the bathroom and slept. It was disconcerting, but as soon as the body was put in the ground, the spirit vanished, moved away to somewhere else.
As Hannibal is doing the dishes after lunch, Will appears in the door to the kitchen.
“This isn’t your house, is it?”
Hannibal thinks he’s prepared for anything. But once again Will proves him wrong. “What do you mean?”
“This house. The bedroom feels like you, the kitchen, too. And I am sure that the drawings in the living room are yours, and the desk where you most certainly sit when you draw. But the rest feels like someone else.”
Hannibal dries his hands. He doesn’t know if he’s to smile or frown, but chooses the former.
“You’re correct. You are very perceptive.” He turns to look at Will. “Might I ask, what did you do for a living?”
Will makes a face. “Nothing. I just… fixed stuff for my neighbors, making do.” He leaves and heads in the direction of the living room. Hannibal follows. Will speaks over his shoulder. “But since Alana Bloom was at the coroner’s office, I’m guessing you already know that I knew her. I consulted for the FBI for a while, we met there. How do you know her?”
Hannibal sits down in an armchair in front of the fireplace. It’s soon cold enough outside to start using it, he thinks, as he puts one leg over the other, clasping his hands in front of him, looking ever so cool, but feeling slightly jarred.
“I’ve known her for a long time. I mentored her during medical school, and we’ve kept in touch through the years.” He looks at Will, trying not to let his true self show. The look he gets in return says that Will already has a deeper understanding of things than Hannibal will appreciate.
“And why won’t you return her calls?”
Will sits down in the chair opposite Hannibal’s. He looks more solid than he did an hour ago, his edges are a little sharper, not shimmering quite as much. Hannibal has seen it before, when the spirits feels that they are settled, even if it’s only temporarily, they begin to seem just a little bit more real.
It also means that it makes it even harder to remember that it’s not a person sitting opposite him, it’s a spirit, that will leave within days. The feeling that he’d better protect himself, lest the spirit will get under his skin persists.
“I… do not wish to talk about that. Is there anything else you have questions about?”
Will shakes his head. He looks almost apologetically at Hannibal as he keeps speaking.
“I know how you got the scar on your throat.” Will speaks softly, almost like a whisper.
Hannibal pales. He feels the cold sweat break out all over his body. He usually tries to stay composed, but he lets his emotions get the better of him and he stands up.
“I have things to do. Join me or not, it’s up to you. But this conversation is over.”
Before Will can say anything else, Hannibal has left the room.