And They Walked with the Creatures Who Sang

by MoonWitch96

Summary:

She gives herself a year, maybe two, before she dies. Whether as a pawn in a game she cannot possibly play, or in the hands of the many monsters that pass through her father’s mind- She is a dead girl walking in more ways than one. Or Anastasia Graham, reincarnator, realizes very quickly that to be reborn in a world of monsters, survival is a how long can you last, not the ultimate goal.

She does not mean to survive- she will, however, live in whatever little time she has left.

Notes:

• Inspired by The Beginning, The Becoming by Bridgidl

The Red Head Conspiracy, my lovely readers, it continues.

... Or your girl has only been working on this and trying desperately to flip back to my posted works.

Song Inspiration for Fic: 'Lily Rice', Paris Paloma.

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of Gore, Cannibalism

Chapter 1: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: I

Her hand is too small. 

 

The realization comes, and she knows somehow that isn’t right. When she wiggles her fingertips, she feels a ghost of what should be- these pale, porcelain pale things are not what she should have, not what she remembers to be her hands. Her skin is wrong as well, she is so pale she is leaning on blue, she realizes, where something tells her she should be darker. She wiggles her wrong fingertips, and it hurts. To move, to make them obey her thoughts. Then she realizes that her fingertips are skewed. 

 

Broken , she thinks.

 

That is why it hurts. Pain is a dull ache, familiar to her. She knows her body is always aching. But not because of anything done to her, not because she is broken outwardly. But because she is broken inwardly. But still, why is her hand so small? Why is it broken?

 

Why is it so hot? She thinks.

 

Sweat lines her brow, coats her upper lip with salt. That doesn’t seem right. It was winter. It should be cold, seeping into her bones to make her ache more . But it's hot. So hot . She feels like she's boiling . And- and then there’s this other hand. Larger. Too large to make sense, it curls around one of her's. Soothing, trembling thumb on the meat of her palm. Circles. Fingertips, she could barely feel it. They, too, looked broken. But the hand is holding her hand despite it. Vaguely, she realizes that something is burning . Heat, the scent of roasting pork. She nearly vomits. She is a vegetarian because of her health- nearly all meat does her ill. She should not be smelling cooking meat. Her- the ones that are her's do the same for her. She has not smelled the scent of meat in nearly-

 

How long? Why is it so hot?

 

The hot, the small hands, the broken fingers. The smell.  

 

She doesn't understand. She only knows that something is wrong.

 

“ Anatasia, my little Anatasia,” the voice is guttural, feminine. Russian. She follows the line of the hand, too big, too large to make sense- 

 

A woman is staring at her. Desperation in her blue eyes. Her eyes are soft, like the petals of a flower. She was beautiful once, with high cheekbones, fine brows, and a delicate chin. But her mouth-

 

It is glasgow.

 

Her lips have been forcefully pulled away, open, shattered teeth and seeping gums exposed, and gathered cuts, fresh lines on the woman's face. This- it has been imposed on the woman, it has been ripped gleefully into her. It is curled, identical on each side. It's still fresh, still bleeding, still weeping with the freshness of the injury. Someone has seen her beauty, once beauty, and been angry. Furious. Envious. 

 

This, this Woman's mutilation, it is someone's Design.

 

She realizes, faintly, stomach turning with the smell of pork, that she may have woken in hell, to danger beyond her understanding. She is small, she is broken, she is in hell-  

 

“When I tell you, Anastasia,  you run, ” the woman demands, in barely above a whisper. 

 

The name given to her that does not seem right. Does not fit against her skin. Does not seem to ring true to her. But… 

 

What is my name? She thinks, panic clawing at her throat.

 

I am Anastasia? That seems wrong, but somehow right. 

 

She will rise again. 

 

Can she run? She does not know. 

 

“ I-” the Russian flows easily.  Her voice is hoarse but high. It is not her voice. 

 

Did she know Russian? How could that be her voice?

 

She cannot remember. 

 

Why must she run? 

 

“ Run to the woods. Through the door right there, baby, and out the side door, two lefts, don't bother to lock or close the door behind you. Just keep running. Do not look back, promise me, Anastasia.”

 

It is so hot. 

 

Why is this woman mutilated before her? Why was she do desperate to talk around a face ripped open, tongue, split in two-

 

She does not know. 

 

But something small, and animal within her- Knows she must follow what she demands of her . The words from the Woman- They are truth. Obey th y- Gently, she nods. Hooks her broken pinky around the Woman's. Tears slip out of petal blue eyes, and that broken hand, that broken hand, rubbing small circles into her palm, cups her face.

 

Love. Love is her Design, the Woman only is love. Comfort slips into Anastasia at her soft touch, at her words, even in hell itself. 

 

The woman had been whispering. With a fierce nod, she croons her next words, nearly a shriek , louder. 

 

“I love you!”

 

Somewhere in the heat, in the hell she has awoken to, a Beast hears.

Chapter 2: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: II

Summary:

Trigger: Gore, Cannibalism

The Beast is- 

 

Just a woman. 

 

Average. Average hair, a mousy, not quite blonde nor quite brunette. Her face is neither pretty nor hideous. Round, firm chin, blunt brows. Marred and pale complexion. Swallow, yellow tinged as if she has not had enough sun or enough nutrients. She is not striking beyond that. With her brown eyes, neither obese nor stick thin. Average height, average, average.  Just another white woman you would pass in the street. Yet, h er lips they glisten with blood and fat. Vaguely, Anastasia,  if she really is called such, realizes it is not pork that is cooking. When she looks beyond the Woman’s face, whole chunks of the Woman's stomach and thighs have been skinned away. She sees it. She is undressed from the waist down, her shirt shoved up, just under her bra. She is being skinned, butchered. Like an animal.  

 

The Beast is eating the Woman. 

 

A whimper slips between her teeth before she can stop it. 

 

A Beast smiles, and a monster has bits of the Woman between her teeth. Flesh, cooked just above raw. 

 

Quietly, Anastasia holds back a gag. The Beast coos. Sweetly like a dove.

 

“Oh, you're awake,” her voice is calm. Simple thing. She could be greeting a neighbor, bumped into by coincidence.

 

The Woman's hands twitch. Blood is on her brow. Dried. Knocked out at one point? She cups Anastasia's face with a firmer hand, even broken, even mangled, the Woman holds her with as much pressure as she can. She tries. Tries to get closer.  She can barely move. But she does it anyway. For her. 

 

She is Love. 

 

The Beast laughs, jarring and much too sweet for Hell.

 

“Ooh, baby Anastasia is awake?” She coos, voice switching to baby talk. 

 

She is greedy. 

 

She wants. 

 

Wants. 

 

And Wants. Beauty, because that is expected of a woman, and she thinks she painfully falls short. She hates when people have it. Envy is more than a simple emotion.  It has changed,  evolved beyond that.

 

“Hello, sweetie!” She croons, and her face changes as she speaks to Anastasia. Morphs from casual to complete and utter adoration. Anastasia shivers in the wake of that unsettling change, that unnatural level of adoration. Because she can see that the Beast is forcing it, trying, trying so hard to make that seem natural.

 

 

She wants. Something to love, nurture, as she never had been, something to mold and make her own. If someone rejects what I want, they are not worthy of it.

 

In her hands, she holds a bloodied pistol, she waves it. Pistol-whipped the Woman. Pistol-whipped her, these fragile little hands are broken because she wanted . Because she likes it. The weight of her arm, the gun, coming down. The splay of blood- she is not efficient. It is about the sensation she likes.

 

This is not the first time she has done this. 

 

Her gaze looks at the Woman. 

 

A Beast's eyes are hunger itself. 

 

But- in the Woman's- all she sees is Love. 

 

When the Beast crouches over them, the Woman lunges. 

 

“RUN!” 

 

Anastasia rises . 

 

Two lefts, out the side door, to the woods. 

 

She does not look back. 

 

Even when shots ring out. 

 

One. 

 

Two. 

 

She had promised. 

Notes:

Not me posting during my lunch.

Chapter 3: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: III

It is cold . A system shock that her makes her nearly scream with the temperature difference. She shoves the scream down, slaps her broken hands over her mouth, refusing to allow it even the chance of escape. She will not make sounds, will not leave traces for the Beast behind her.  It is Winter. 

 

Less cover in the Woods. Especially so early in the morning, the sun is rising. The Woods hold some shadow. And it is still the only escape. She knows no other House is near enough. How does she know?  

 

It does not matter. What matters is distance. Vaguely, Anastasia realizes she is a child. 

 

The Woman. 

 

She is- She can only be her Mother. What else but a Mother would face a Beast for their own child? What else but a Mother would be torn in pieces and think only about the small life next to her? Somehow, she knows something is wrong. Her Mother could not be so young, so Russian. Vaguely, she thinks beneath her wounds, the Woman, the Mother is- younger than her. But her body says otherwise.  Her strides are small because she is small.

 

A child. 

 

Judging by my size, no more than five. As young as three. 

 

But- 

 

Why do I think I am beyond this? 

 

It does not matter. 

 

What does matter is that she must run. 

Chapter 4: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: IV

She is very young. Even if she feels otherwise. 

 

She can only understand that when she realizes she is only a mile or two out from the Beast, and she starts to feel the adrenaline start to fade. The cold starts to set in. She is dressed in fluffy, sweated, and bloody winter Tinkerbell pajamas.  No shoes, just fuzzy socks long soaked with snow and muck.  It is the Beast or the Cold- She will take the Cold. 

 

Like falling asleep. 

 

She is too wrought for tears, too focused on running. Too focused on getting away.  She runs until she thinks the running will be the one to take her. Feels her chest heave in large gulps of air that feel like stabs in her chest, until her thighs and calves are throbbing, burning with the strain. Slumps against a tree. Her breath was haggard, painful, and like thunder in her ears. Or is that her heart? 

 

There is little cover in the Woods. If the Beast gave chase,  she would be found. 

 

Anatasia looks up. 

 

The tree she rests against- it is bare. Yet dense. And. There is a branch, just above her height. People rarely look up. 

 

Broken fingers feel little in the cold. She picks up a weighty stone in her hands, stuffs it into her pocket. After a couple more beats to get some of her breath back, Anastasia climbs. 

Notes:

AN:

Not me being super excited writing Will, and that man won’t be here for the next couple of chapters(Chapter 11, lovely readers).

Any writing I have done has been this, and I cringe as I stare at my other active stories.

Damn you muse, damn you!

Chapter 5: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: V

The Beast calls her name. A sweet mockery of a crone, half-crazed affection unearned, unreturned. 

 

The Mother- 

 

Somewhere in her, she knows she is dead. 

 

She died to get me out.  Mourning is swift and like a wail within her. If she could make a sound, it would only be Lament. 

 

The Beast calls out like she knows her. Promises to be a good Mommy to her, to hold and love her as no other could. The thought makes something in her snarl. She doesn't know herself, and yet this Beast thinks she does. Thinks she can hold her and call her her daughter. 

 

Anastasia is a baby doll, in a long line of broken dollies that weren't right. They didn't want her, so she made sure they could not turn their imperfect affection to anyone else. 

 

Hate. 

 

She did not know hate could feel like this. Like it is its own beast within her, Becoming a new life within her. A snarled, dirty thing that has teeth and claws, nestling in the spaces between her ribs, filling her heart with what feels like palpable weight. It grows, grows, makes purchase within her throat. Something within her- It Undoes. When the Beast walks beneath her, pistol in her hand, it shakes. Fear? Exhaustion? Anticipation? It does not matter. On the other hand, it has a dying flashlight to combat the last vestige of the shadows in the white woods, and it, too, is shaking.

 

The Beast doesn't look up. 

 

Quietly, Anastasia, with her small, broken fingers curling around the stone, and throws it. Hard .  Like she knows she would, the Beast whips her dying flashlight in the growing morning light towards where the stone landed. 

 

Her tentative grip on the gun failing, her shaking, and the blood that still lines the weapon causing her to drop it. 

 

That is Anastasia’s plan. When the gun is dropped, she is already out of the tree, ready to catch it. 

Chapter 6: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: VI

She turns the second the pistol is in her hand. Does nothing but run, full kilt, away. She ignores the Beast, ignores the exhaustion within her. 

 

Distance first. 

 

Then, she can contemplate her actions. The Beast is still a hundred and something pounds heavier, nearly three feet taller than her. She is stronger, faster, and she does not have much time. Does not flatter. Don't zig-zag. Go for the thicker thicket of trees. She is smaller, she is shorter. Do not hesitate . She is the one with the gun. 

 

Automatically, she checks the safety. Snaps it on. She shouldn't run with a gun with the safety off. When she thinks she has a good mile away, she slips it into the waistband of her Tinkerbell pajamas. She climbs the nearest tree she is able. She can hear the Beast crashing after her. Maybe four hundred feet behind. She’s running. Shrieking her name. Anastasia ignores the Beast, climbs until she is ten feet off the ground, and then examines the gun. It’s a Walter PDP. 9 mm. Two shots fired. Max of 15 rounds. Is it full? No. The Beast has been busy, perhaps. She has four rounds left.

 

I will use three on the Beast, Anastasia swears. 

 

It will not be fatal. She will not allow this Beast to make her more like her. Part of her wonders where this confidence, this knowledge of the guns comes from. If she’s supposed to be this child, who in their damn right teach her these things?

 

It does not matter. 

 

The Beast is there, out of breath, leaning against a tree. A hundred feet to her five o'clock. 

 

Brace for the kick. This is a pistol. More kickback. Aim, trickery.  Two hands. 

 

She estimates her body to be about thirty pounds at best. Taking precautions, she leans back, firmly into the trunk of the tree. 

 

Loosens her shoulders and uses both hands to aim the gun. 

 

Take a breath. Aims. At the exhale-She wishes, faintly, for ear protection. A pair of glasses with yellow lenses, maybe, to combat snow glare. She has neither. She pulls her trigger at the bottom of her exhale.

 

Once.

 

Takes another breath. Exhale, bottom of-

 

Twice. 

 

Two to go. One more for the Beast. 

 

She hits where she aimed. The kneecaps shatter, blood splays. 

 

The Beast crumples. 

 

That is my Design. 

Notes:

... Me trying to desperately research gun specs, and wheather or not if YOU CAN CHECK THE clip- and now I'm wondering if I'm on some sort of watch list because of my google searches ranging from 'grades of concession' to 'how to check bullets amounts in a gun' to 'NEIGBORHOODS NEAR WOODS IN PENNSYLVANIA' I'm sorry if I got something wrong!

Chapter 7: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: VII

When the Beast tries to rise, again, Anatasia uses another shot. Aiming for her half-lifted shoulder. She should not feel this vicious satisfaction at the cry the Beast gives out. But she cannot help it. The Beast has taken from her. Taken that sweet Mother and-

 

Well. 

 

She deserves this pain. 

 

Anastasia clicks on the safety, stuffs the gun back in the waistband of her pajamas, and all but falls out of the tree. Exhaustion is cruel. Weighs her down. She ignores it, ignores the reminding ache of her fingertips, and holds the pistol tightly in her hands again. When the Beast finally looks up, she gets a two handed swing of the pistol, with all of Anastaia’s meager weight to the face. All of her weight, all of her force, aiming for the thin part of her temple. She keeps swinging, until the Beast stops trying to stand. Her breath is a jagged, achinging thing.  The Beast gurgles between mashed teeth. She breathes in a keen, disgruntled pain. Anatasia tucks the gun back in her pants, and starts walking in the direction of the Mother. She wants to see her.  Needs to see her. Dead or not. She had kept a consitantly heading Northwest, parrallel to the rising sun in the Southeast. 

 

It takes her about forty minutes to make her way back to the house, fighting her trembling legs and the urge to curl up at the base of a tree. 

 

All the while, her hands stay belt with the gun, and her gaze keeps flickering backwards in the direction of the Beast. Ready to take the last shot, if she needed it. 

Chapter 8: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: VIII

The Mother, her's, she suspects, is dead when she arrives. 

 

Petal soft eyes greying, mangled mouth parted in the slack relaxation of death. Carefully, she closes her lids. Her little broken fingertips tremble with the knowledge that this shall be the last time she can feasibly touch her. Carefully, she searches for something to cover her dignity. She shouldn't do much to her body, she knows it could make or break a conviction. She's already compromised the murder weapon- She’s covered it in the blood of the Beast, and her arms are no doubt covered in gun residue, blowback gunpowder lines her hands, invisible but findable in forensics. A small closet is proven to be full of linens just away from the powder room, where she, out of the corner of her eyes, sees brilliant red curls. She ignores the mirror, not wanting to look at the wrong face in the mirror and very pointedly does not look at it, even if she has a fleeting wish to clean herself more than she already has, the bathroom sink mocking her. She finds the softest, coolest sheet. Covers the Mother gently. Then, she searches for a phone. Finds one in the kitchen. Not a cellphone, to her surprise, but a proper landline. The old kind, curly cord and all. 

 

She wonders if it is even working. 

 

Because who even has a landline anymore? 

 

She stares, for a second, as she realizes that the stove is on. The Mother is still cooking. Quietly, she shuts the stove off. Walks away. Opening door after door until she finds a second phone. Same kind, in what looks like a study or a library. The phone works. Much to her surprise. 

 

“911, what's your emergency?”

 

“Somebody just killed my Maman,” she tells the responder, and she cannot help the exhaustion in her voice, the grief of it. Due to her apparent age, it sounds all the more devastating, the form of address slips out of her, French, she notes, strangely, “I shot them. You should probably send an ambulance.”

 

So I speak French and Russian?

 

That seems wrong to her. But nothing has been right since she woke in hell. 

 

The responder is a professional. She hears only half a breath of hesitation from her. 

 

“What is your location?”

 

That question honestly stumps her. 

 

“I don't know. Can you trace my location?”

 

“Yes. Stay on the line for me, please? I'll send the nearest patrol your way and medical. Are you hurt?”

 

“Yes. She pistol-whipped me. I think she broke several of my fingers.”

 

The Responder is solid. The only indicator that makes her emotional is a slightly sharper intake of her next breath. 

 

“What's your name?”

 

“Maman called me Anastasia.”

 

“...Anastasia, can you tell me how old you are?”

 

Anastasia sighs. 

 

“I don't know. I think maybe five?”

 

Her body seems so old. Maybe. At most- The professional responder- that is when she falters. 

 

“F-five?” The stumble is understandable. 

 

She can't seem to talk or think like a child this young. But, well, it is what it is. 

 

“I don't know.”

 

“...I- Okay, Anastasia, like the princess?”

 

“Grand Duchess,” she corrects.

 

“Right. Can you explain what happened?”

 

“The- The Beast came for us. She hurt us. Pistol-whipped us. When I woke up, she was- she was eating Maman.”

 

A shaky breath, a serious gasp. Anastasia does not blame her one bit. 

 

“Maman told me to run. Two lefts, out the side door. Don't look back. Get in the woods.”

 

“Are you- are you calling from a rest stop, honey?”

 

She sighs.

 

“No. The Beast followed after killing Maman. I-  the gun. She dropped it. I knew it would stop her. Three shots. Knees, shoulder. Then I did what she did to me and Maman. I hit her with the gun until she stopped.”

 

She blinks. 

 

Her hands are shaking. Or she is. She feels faint. And cold. 

 

“I- I-”

 

She can't seem to breathe. 

 

Adrenaline, something in her tells her, is dropping. You might be going into shock. 

 

“I need to get a blanket. I-” She shakes, “I might be going into shock.”

 

The Responder sucks in a breath.

 

“Honey, can you-”

 

“I’m going to put the phone down. One second, ma'am.”

 

“Ana-”

 

She puts the phone down, goes back to the linen closet, and grabs a fluffy blanket. Makes her way back to the room. Picks up the phone. The pain in her fingertips is stronger now. Sharper of an ache. Manhandling so many things may have made the breaks in them worse. 

 

“Hello again, I got a blanket.”

 

“Anastasia- you might want to eat something as well-”

 

“The Beast was cooking Maman in the kitchen. I turned off the stove, but I'm not going back there.”

 

“Oh, Jesus, ” the Responder says, voice cracking.

 

“What's your name?”

 

“Ah, I'm- I'm Donna, honey.”

 

“You've been very calm, Donna. Thank you. Do you have my location?”

 

“Yes. Yes, I do. The units and ambulance are en route, honey. Thirty minutes. Was your Maman a Molly Graham? She's the owner of the house.”

 

She blinks. Hands gripping hard on the gun. That might be right. She looks at the door, towards the woman who protected her. 

 

“She was Maman,” she responds. The French twists slightly, accent richer, smoother drawl than what she would associate with the true France accent. 

 

Cajun.  

 

“Alright, honey. Did you do anything else in the House after you got back?”

 

“Yes. I closed Maman's eyes and covered her with a sheet. The Beast- she undressed her, to-”

 

She swallows.

 

“To butcher her, I think. I know you shouldn't move- move a crime scene. So that the Police can know what happened. But I didn't want to leave her like that. Naked and her body to-”

 

Donna takes a shaking breath. 

 

“It's okay, honey. Do you still have the gun?”

 

“Yes. I put the safety on, I promise. Even though it only has one more bullet.”

 

“How do you know it has one more bullet?”

 

“I counted. PP Walter, 9 mm, 15 rounds. It had six in the clip. She killed Maman with two. And I think she's used it before. I think she's done this before. I think- I think she staked us out. She knew my name.”

 

“Jesus. Alright.”

 

“I'm scared, Donna,” that was the God Honest truth.

 

“Thirty minutes, honey,” she said calmly. 

 

Despite knowing her apparent age, her voice didn't shift to baby talk.  Quietly, Anastasia thought she was the best for it. 

 

“Can you stay on the line, Ma'am?” more Cajun drawl. 

 

Was she from Louisiana? The woods did not look like the right area for her accent.  Too much- Snow. Not enough swamp. 

 

“Of course, Anastasia.”

Chapter 9: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: IX

The conversation dwindles as Anastasia sits there, shaking. Holds in shivers and contemplates, truly, the fact that she is-

 

The wrong size. 

 

The wrong everything. 

 

Lips tremble. The breathing on the phone, the steady inhale of Donna's presence soothes something in her she can't name.  But there is still something frantic in her.  Something building.  She shoves it down. Forces it small and compact within her. 

 

“...I can see that I'm wearing green tinkerbell pajamas,” she mummers, staring at the mud and snow drenched sleeve poking out of her blanket burrito, one, “I can hear the wind against the trees outside of the house.”

 

Two . 

 

She squeezes on the Walter PDP.

 

Donna seems to be holding her breath now. 

 

“I can feel the cold steel of the Walter PDP.” 

 

Three. 

 

“I can s-smell-” Maman roasting, Anastasia shoves her face into her blanket burrito, shoves it into the crook of her own arm, “I can smell gunpowder.”

 

Four. 

 

“I can t-t-taste, sweat on my lips.”

 

Five. 

 

“That's good, Honey. That's good. Can you describe where you are?”

 

“I am against the wall. I can see the door, in case the Beast gets up,” she whispers to the gun. 

 

One shot. 

 

‘I'm young, scrappy and hungry-’

 

“What room-”

 

“Library. Or office? I don't- Maman doesn't like me looking in here.”

 

Like Maman, like the Russian, like the Cajun drawl, it slips out of her, a memory she doesn't actually remember,  cannot imagine. 

 

“Why is that?”

 

“I don't know. I don't- I don't remember. I can't- I can't remember. I just know things are wrong-” 

 

Donna doesn't reassure her, doesn't soothe with what she can only placate. 

 

“Twenty minutes, Honey,” she whispers, instead. 

Chapter 10: The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder: X

The Police break down the front door.

 

She hears it.   The mummer of voices, the explosion of noise as the door is wrenched from its hinges. Yet, a utomatically, her hand goes to the pistol at the harsh noise, finger cracking as she switches the safety off. She braces against the nearest strip of wall and calmly lifts the gun, level at the knees, ready to shoot the first person that enters. She keeps her aim at the knees. At the sight of the shiny badge declaring Gwynedd Police Department, she lowers her gun.

 

The safety stays off. 

 

For now. 

 

“Anastasia Graham?” The man's voice is pure Philly native, a drawl she recognizes.

 

The bar declares him T. Jeffords. 

 

Nine-Nine! Terry Crews declares in her head. She blinks. 

 

“Officer Jeffords, I'm putting down the gun. You need it, right? For evidence?” she replies, calm as she can.

 

The officer nods. Eyes round and wide at her. 

 

“That- yes.”

 

“I didn't wash. I want to. But I know you need the trace evidence.”

 

The officer blinks at her.  

 

“Ye- Yeah, we do.” 

 

Green, something in her says. That's why they sent him. Big round, baby face. His soft brown eyes looked at her like a kicked dog. 

 

She puts the gun down. Behind Jeffords, she hears the murmuring of more officers. She stands. Crumbles. Jefferson holds in a swear, scrambling forward. He catches her just before her head hits the hardwood. Anastasia- she realizes she had been so tense, so afraid with it, the knowledge that she is surrounded by much older, armed people eases something in her completely to the point of collapse.

 

She- 

 

I am safe. The Beast cannot hurt me. 

 

Anastasia can only let the Lament she locked within her burst free.

Notes:

END OF 'The Blood Ran And It Stained All The Powder' Arc.

Next chapter, Will!

Chapter 11: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: I

The Call comes in the middle of Class. 

 

Will Graham would have ignored it, full stop, if his caller ID had not declared it Gwynedd Police Department. His mind automatically goes to his ex-wife, as she was one person he knew who lived in Pennsylvania. Something, something small and quiet in him, something he tried not to think of, perks at the realization.

 

Mainly in dread, but mostly in-

 

Molly , he makes himself think. Molly Graham. She kept his name, something in him always snarled. Kept the name but not the man . 

 

The divorce-

 

It may have killed something in Will. The shattering of a family never fully formed. They had been talks of kids- and something in Will had been so eager for it. 

 

He tried not to think of it. 

 

Tried not to be like the multitude of people who saw divorce as the End. Tried not to think of the many people that came across his disk whose Design centered on divorce. He had thought, thought that their relationship was solid. Even after nearly five years to the day, he tries to understand what went wrong.

 

He had thought they had been perfect. 

 

“You are more and more like them!” Molly spits, voice turning with her native accent of Russian. 

 

It was that mixture of Russian and Cajun English that had first made it look up from his book. Made his gaze linger above his coffee cup. What had made him linger was the sweet, gentle way she had of holding her mouth. The brilliant softness of her petal blue eyes, bright with something all Molly. 

 

“I have to take this,” he tells his students,  absently, even as he's half way out the door. 

 

Am I still her emergency contact?

 

“Will Graham speaking,” he lifts his phone to his ear. 

 

And- 

 

Will Graham's world tips, spins, and shatters. The world itself undone in a handful of words. 

 

In the jagged pieces of it-

 

Will Undoes. 

Chapter 12: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: II

They don’t quite know what to do with her. 

 

Jeffords rushes her out, and a shock blanket is added on top of the one she took from the linen closet. Officer Jeffords seems to have been assigned her, and makes a point to hand off the gun in a clear evidence bag on him, and then shoves a large hand around her head as he moves her out of the house. Her head hurts, her eyes feel like they are burning with the sheer amount of crying she had done.  Jeffords seems to want to not let her see Maman.

 

As if she didn’t cover her herself. 

 

She’s set in the ambulance, even as several officers stare. Pity. Poor, little broken girl.  She wonders how they can only see that, how they can only pity the tiny girl in filthy Tinkerbell pajamas and filthy socks.  

 

Because she has put down a Beast, all by herself. 

 

“Do you need to wrap my arms in evidence bags?” she asks, Officer Jeffords.

 

He stares at her. Blinks quickly. 

 

“What?”

 

“For evidence?”   

 

He blinks quickly. 

 

“Ah-”

 

“I shot the Beast,” she says simply, and almost flinches when all sound is cut off from the rest of the police present, and all the previous pity looks shifted to something that looks like wariness, “I should have gun residue on my arms.”

 

“So you did shoot someone? Dispatch wasn’t lying?” and that's a man that looks like a detective, shield dangling from his neck, eyes wide as he rushes over. 

 

She tilts her head. Frowns. As if Donna would lie. 

 

“Donna isn’t a liar. I had to shoot The Beast. She was eating Maman. She wanted to take me. Make me her baby doll until I wasn’t the right dolly for her. She would have killed me. I think she’s done this before.”

 

The man flinches back. His brows furrow. She almost sees the moment something clicks in his brain. A case, or cases, that match this MO, she thinks.  

 

“But you shot her?”

 

She nods. 

 

“Three times. Shoulder, knees. I made sure not to aim anywhere vital.”

 

She knows she said something odd, the second the man flinches back again. She stares at him. Hard. 

 

“Two clicks,” she tells him, “Northwest from the side of the House. She should still be there unless she woke up from being pistol-whipped in the head. She might need the hospital more than I do. I didn’t want to kill her. I just wanted her too hurt to move.”

 

She points.  Part of her wishes The Beast would bleed out. But it would be better for her if she didn’t.  

 

“You shot her in the Shoulder and her knees? And hit her with the gun?”

 

“It’s what she did to Maman,” she replies, voice growing harder. 

 

The man's jaw tightens. Something like viscous pleasure crosses his face. He nods. 

 

“Alright Annie-Oakley, I will find this Beast,” he tells her, and it's a promise.

 

She nods back. 

 

“Please do.”  

Notes:

Summer is my busy period professionally so I've been mentally exhausted by the time I get home. Sorry, my lovely readers!

Chapter 13: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: III

What follows is probably what Will Graham can reasonably call a fugue state. He doesn't remember getting to his car. He doesn't remember getting on the highway. He remembers the call. 

 

Molly Graham is- 

 

Time slips between his fingers. He's halfway out of Virginia in what feels like a blink. His foot, he is nearly sure, doesn't lift off the gas until he starts seeing Gwynedd on the highway signs. He remembers flashes of his thoughts as he tries to break every feasible traffic law he can, as he weaves his way through pedestrian streets with a lack of precaution that could easily mean death-

 

“Dead .”

 

But. 

 

“ Murdered.”

 

But. 

 

“... daughter is alive.”

 

Will makes the nearly four-hour drive in two hours. Who does he find at the end-

 

He still doesn't quite register it. His chest is heaving. The papers in front of him are real, tangible, and yet he can’t believe it. 

 

The print- 

 

FATHER:

William Graham. 

 

Date of Birth:

January 13, 2008. 

 

Exactly two months before their divorce, Molly and he had started to have problems. Was it then that she knew she was pregnant? His job on the force was too dangerous, and his aspiration to go to university for forensics was not what she wanted for her husband. FBI ambitions making her furious. His attitude was too much like the people he was profiling. Exactly four months later, the ink dry and final in their marriage's destruction, his daughter Anatasia Graham had been born. Two pounds and eleven ounces. A premi. Eager to enter the world, incubated for another month until she left the hospital in Pennsylvania. While he had left the force to attend Washington State University, states away, his daughter was born to his ex-wife, and he didn’t know. 

 

It was her birthday just a few weeks ago. She just turned four this year. 

 

His daughter. 

 

His daughter was now four. Molly Graham, nee Popov, had taken those four years from him. But she’s dead now, murdered. He looks away from his daughter's birth certificate. Looks up at the officer in charge of her and Molly's case. Sergeant Brookes was an older man, married, trying to lose weight, trying to quit smoking. Failing at both.

 

“Can I see her?” Will’s voice is hoarse. 

 

“... She's being processed.”

 

“Why?” He asks, and there's something aching in him, a chasm he cannot quite name with him. 

 

“Evidence, Mr. Graham. She's covered in it. The Social Worker and the officer who found her are with her… She's- your kid is steady as rock, Sir.” 

 

Fury. 

 

He has known anger. A thousand times. Anger is a common reason why a Design is set in motion. This is the first time since the divorce that he has felt it surge within himself, instead of being slammed into him from an external source. 

 

“What do you mean? How is she covered in evidence- did she see her Mother die?” He demands. 

 

The Sergeant winces. 

 

“She was there during the initial assault- but not when Mrs.Graham died… As for the rest- she used the murder weapon. On the Perp.”

 

He blinks. 

 

“ Explain . What exactly happened to my daughter?” His voice is hoarse, dry, and thick with emotion.

 

Slowly, he tells him. Will’s hands start to shake.

Chapter 14: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: IV

She's small. 

 

His first thought of his daughter is simple. Past the way mirror, in the forensics lab of the station, sits his daughter. Because Anastasia Graham is undeniably tiny, even for a five-year-old. His hands are shaking, he realizes, as he takes her in. 

 

She has my curls. Or someone’s curls.  

 

The only difference between their hair is the color; in texture and shape,  it's much the same. Brilliant red. He swallows. His daddy, that was his hair color. He remembers it, the grizzled nature of his shocking red beard, and how he had started to go grey by the time Will was seven, hard labor taking its toll on his body. 

 

“... The suspect is in the hospital-”

 

A young officer is next to her, hand on her shoulder. Boosting her up to sit on the too-big examination table. The forensic tech winces as she murmurs something,  careful and serious. The woman, looking green in the face, carefully scrapes underneath his daughter's nails. Adjacent to her, several bags of evidence. 

 

He can't seem to stop looking at her. How- how could Molly hide this from him?

 

How could she take her from me if she was mine?

 

Doubt. Doubt that he belongs to her creeps in. How could he made such- such a life, and not known? What sort of father didn't know about his own daughter?

 

“When can she get clean?” He asks. 

 

If he were in the same state as her as a child, he would have freaked. 

 

The Sergeant winces. 

 

“Ah, as soon as Joan is done with her, and after we get her the last of her needed medical attention. You'll meet at the hospital, sir. As per Mrs. Graham's documents, you both have custody, even if you weren't aware of the little Oakely, so the social worker can leave-” 

 

Bitterness swells in him. Bitterness feeds the chasm in him. 

 

“Oakely?” 

 

The Sergeant Brookes smiled. Looking fond and why the fuck does a stranger know more about his daughter than him? 

 

“Kid's a fucking Annie Oakley, Graham. Shot the Bitch's knee caps off .”

 

Will stares. 

 

“She did what?”

Chapter 15: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: V

When she looks up at him, hours later, she meets his eyes for the first time-

 

Something in Will roars to life. Part of him had wondered if Anastasia wasn't his. The curls had made him hope, made him think of his Daddy. The timing was right, but Molly could have simply written his name because it was easier at that point, months after their divorce. 

 

But. 

 

One solid look at her eyes and he knows. 

 

Mine.

 

She’s mine. 

 

Her dark, devastating blue eyes are his, from the shade to the long nature of her red lashes. She has his daddy’s hair, brilliant copper red, soaked darker and drying in a right mess around her small face. The soft shape of her mouth, the slope of her small nose, it's all Molly. But it's Will's eyes looking back at him from that devastatingly young face. He had a daughter. She was four years old.

 

And they were strangers. 

 

“You look like Prince Charmont,” she says, directly. Her voice is sweet, high, temperate, and tinged with the slightest hint of Louisiana Cajun. Soft. Everything about her seems soft. Small and soft.

 

Will isn’t short, necessarily, but a little taller than average. But he has never felt large. In this room, he feels like he’s too big, too big to fit. 

 

You don’t belong here, with her. 

 

“Charmant is a place in France,” he tells her. It stupidly pops into his head.

 

She just keeps looking at him. His daughter. 

 

“It’s also the name of a Prince in ‘Ella Enchanted, ’ ” she replies.  

 

He doesn't know what that is. 

 

He blinks at her. Looks down at his feet. He can’t seem to regulate the sheer awe in him at her. Cannot temper it. It would scare her if she saw it. Kids were good at seeing, sensing when something was too big for another person. 

 

He sits. An uncomfortable chair in the hospital waiting room.

 

Make yourself smaller. Don’t scare her. 

 

He hunches his shoulders. Makes himself meek, less big. Grips desperately at the cuffs of his jacket. If he had had his school bag, he would be fiddling with the stra- A small, gentle hand, covered in several splints, enters his line of vision, hovering over his curled fists. Will jumps in place. Tenses. Can’t seem to look up. What will he see in her eyes? Hate? Fear?

 

She has broken fingers. Several. Less complex break-

 

“I was lucky. No surgery, no cast. Just splints. Three to six weeks to heal. I did have a grade-one concussion. But my head only hurts a little.”

 

Will swallows.

 

“Why-”

 

“Can I put my hand on yours?” she asks, “You look like you need to hold someone’s hand.” 

 

“Do you know who I am?” he blurts, desperate.

 

“... They said I have a Daddy, that he was going to come in and meet me. Sandra the Social Worker said so,” Her voice is smaller. Hesitant. 

 

She didn’t even know. Just like me, just like me, Molly took me from her.  

 

He swallows a sob. Jerks his head in a nod. Flips his hand desperately in open invitation. Her small hand stays, hovering.  

 

“Why are you asking?” he demands, “You- you can take anything you want from me.”

 

I will give you everything. Anything you ever want. Just-

 

She makes a small, affronted noise. Shakes her wild red curls. 

 

Stay . 

 

“Consent is important. Do you want to hold my hand, Daddy?”

 

“ Please .”

 

Gently, his daughter slipped her hand in his. For the first time, they touched. Quietly, Will hunched over their held hands and could not stop his desperate, heaving breaths.  

 

Chapter 16: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: VI

I’m going to die. 

 

The calmness of that thought is mildly frightening, in itself. 

 

But Anastasia Graham , as soon as she had seen Hugh Dancy’s face looking back at her with wide, earnest eyes, knew she was not long for this new world she had woken to. Suddenly remembered, like many things, that the name William Graham belonged to a book, film, and television character. This face, in particular, belonged to the television character. 

 

Molly, Maman, was also a fictional character. 

 

Maman wasn’t supposed to die. She wasn't the actress. Her face was different. She was someone else, wasn't she? That Molly Graham had a son, not a daughter. She wasn't a Russian Immigrant, wasn't-

 

But still, Anastasia feels like she will die.

 

She can only hope that when she dies, she isn’t fed to William Graham in Hannibal’s bid to make him into a more interesting, entertaining Monster. He had fed him part of Abigail, a girl he had been carefully curating to his liking, so a child like her wouldn’t be completely a stretch. She does not expect to escape him, to be spared for being a child. Maybe she will be lucky, maybe one of the other Predators will take her out before the Cheapsake Ripper comes to hunt for his larder. Plenty of them would come before Hannibal’s hands are forced. They would spare Will the pain of being fed his own child. She can see Hannibal the Cannibal liking the parallel, having been forced to eat his own baby sister, to impose something similar to Will in his own Becoming. 

 

Maybe she should just kill herself. A year and a few months to live seems so pitiful. 

 

It would be the least stressful option, certainly. She had seen the date. 2012 on the Forensic Tech, Joan’s desktop as she filled out her report on her state. The meeting of Hannibal and Will is approaching, if it's following the timeline of the show, at least. If it were marked as the year it debuted, it would be 2013 when the Ripper would set his sights on her father. But the year had been 2025, something in her screams. Why does that date sound right when everything else is indicating that the world was a decade behind her? The second she has access to Google, she will look up ‘ The Tattler’ to confirm it. To see if it was better to die before all of that. 

 

Three victims of the Shrike before Jack Crawford pulls Daddy into the Game neither will truly survive intact. In the show, Daddy dies too.  

 

She wonders if this counts as suicidal, thinking about death so easily, thinking it the best option for herself. Could her Daddy see that? See her exhaustion at the future she might have to endure? See her reluctance to survive?  He’s supposed to be good at reading people, so probably. She feels bad about that. Hates that he can't know it isn't because of him. She needs to push those thoughts away. She needs to see if her knowledge of calling her Daddy fictional was real in the first place. 

 

She blinks. 

 

Rubs soothing circles on Daddy's fingertips. His hands are trembling. Sick? She wonders. The Will Graham she had in her memories had been sick. A neurological disorder, if she remembers right. 

She hums. She tries not to cringe about the fact that ‘ Somebody to Love ’ was now firmly stuck in her head. His face had brought it to her.  Anastasia doesn't understand. Why would her father be a fictional character? Why does he have an actor's face if her memories were right? How could this be real? 

 

She blinked quickly. 

 

“Do you have custody of me?” She asked gently. First things first. 

 

Get her bearings. Understanding the probability and the concept of murder via a Cannibal later. William Graham goes still. Unmoving. And- There is a chasm within him. Greedy. A black hole. Nothing escapes; everything must stay.

 

Don't leave me.

 

Everyone leaves me. 

 

Stay.

 

Stay. 

 

“Yes. Molly made sure of it. You're coming home with me, Anatasia.” his voice was measured, precise, and full. He leaves no room for argument. 

 

He wants her. 

 

She knows it like the sky is blue. William Graham hadn't known about her. He wants her with a ferocity that should unsettle her. But it wasn't the Beast, wasn't forced. It just was. True and easy.  But with the same level of intensity. She isn't afraid of him. She doesn't know why. She just isn't. 

 

Maybe I am wrong, she thinks, maybe Hannibal the Cannibal isn't real.  Maybe it's a nightmare, this dream of a Daddy without me. Maybe I went crazy the second I saw Maman being eaten. 

 

She stares at him. This grown man, hunched over her little palm and shaking and crying as he looked at wide wide-eyed, eyes roving her face like she is the light and he is a blind man granted sight. 

If I am going to die, she thinks, I want to live the little bit I can. Maman died for at least that long . Even without confirmation of this World being what she thinks it is, she knows she cannot live her life with hesitation. 

 

Hesitation leads to doubt. Doubt leads to fear. Fear to Anger. 

 

She nearly laughs. Star Wars, who knew Yoda would dictate her life?  There is no hesitation in her. No doubt or anger.  Only a calm acceptance in her. 

 

“Can I hug you?” She whispers. 

 

A hand isn't enough. She needs to be surrounded by this person who wants her, who loves her, purely for being, not because he could change or mold her into whatever he wanted. 

 

Because Will Graham only wants Love. 

 

I can give that. I can love him until I am gone. 

 

“ Please. ”

 

She slips her hand out of his. Brings her small hands around his hot neck. He inhales. Shocked. Afraid. But so eager. 

 

Don't reject me, something screams in him. Anatasia hears it. As clear as if he had spoken aloud. Anastasia will never reject him. She doesn't flinch when he reacts, almost violently. The body jolting like a shock. He scoops her up with the ease of a man with many large pets- gentle and mindful of all of her delicate limbs- but firmly brings her into his lap. He smells of coffee, dog, and a spicy aftershave that makes her think of a man on a horse. With diamonds. 

 

She blinks.

 

Because her body completely goes limp, she relaxes against him. 

 

He gives another desperate gasp. Curls over her, as if to hide her from the world.

 

Keep her safe from anyone but himself. 

 

Softly, Anastasia hums Queen to him.

Chapter 17: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: VII

 

Will can't seem to calm down. 

 

Anastasia keeps perfectly still, head against his neck, completely relaxed in his arms. Hums. Queen. ‘ Somebody to Love’, and when she seems to finish the song, she switches to ‘Don't Go Breaking My Heart, ’ by Elton John and Kiki Dee. He thinks that several of his dogs weigh more than his daughter. She's warm. Warm and all knobbly limbs, and she smells like hospital soap. She's wearing a police department sweatshirt and some hospital scrubs. Small no no-slip patients' socks, and the tiniest, thinnest slippers he had ever seen.

 

We'll need to make a stop to buy her things. 

 

He takes a deep breath, once, twice, inhaling through his nose and forcibly exhaling through his mouth.

 

“Daddy?” Anastasia, his daughter,  his daughter, whispers. 

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Can you list five things for me?”

 

He blinks. 

 

“One for sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste?”

 

He blinks again. 

 

“I see you.”

 

He looks at her small face, pulls back enough to cup it in his palm. Her blue eyes, his eyes, look at him calmly, brilliantly. She leans against his palm. Closes her eyes softly. 

 

“One,” she counts, serious as the grave.

 

“I- I smell hospital soap.”

 

“Two.”

 

“I, I can feel the polyester of your sweatshirt.”

 

“Three.”

 

“I hear-” he strains,  “I hear you breathing.”

 

“Four.”

 

“I taste- my coffee breath of this morning.”

 

“Five,” Anastasia says, “Good Job, Daddy.”

 

He feels- so much. 

 

He's trying, for the first time, to understand someone. Instead of things seemingly being screamed at him, Will finds himself desperately trying to search every minute detail of his daughter's entire being. He- He's struggling, he realizes. He looks at her eyes. Eyes he knows are easy. Bloodshot. Lack of sleep? No. Crying. Maman is gone, so crying. 

 

“Do you know a lot of calming exercises?” he whispers, anxious. 

 

She blinks. Furrows her brow. 

 

“Yes. I need them. I get-” she furrows her brow, “Sensory Overload.”

 

Anxiety claws at him.

 

“I do too,” he whispers. 

 

She smiles. Gently. She has dimples. Two, one on each cheek, showed off in her pale skin.  

 

“Then I can teach you my exercises. Do you feel better, Daddy?” 

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” he tells her. 

 

She smiles wider, softer,  and then places her head back in the crook of his neck. 

 

“Good.”

Notes:

I feel like all these niche Hannibal Kid stories have some sort of shopping trip. Can’t help but put one in.

Chapter 18: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: VIII

They’re taken back to the station, and it makes something in Will twitch as they go through some of the banalities of a death. Paperwork. Securing Anastaisa’s birth certificate, her social security, and her vaccine records. Thankfully, that had been found in a small fire-safe box underneath Molly’s bed. It alarms him, vaguely, that Molly didn’t have a will, and that means that all of her assets are immediately given to Anastaia. A lawyer is suggested to go through the details of Molly’s estate. As a minor, he has control of them until Anastaia is old enough. He tries not to think much of the Pennsylvania Pied Piper, so named for the four murders centered on divorced single mothers, the disappearance of their very young children. He remembers the case, in passing, making the rounds in Quantaco. Not much evidence, not a lot of people are certain that it was even done by one person. Will had been sure, mentioned it to Jack Crawford absently as he had come to ask a basic question once. The children’s bodies had yet to be found,  but Will does not doubt that the children wouldn't be found alive.

The Pied Piper, Melissa Glessner, is currently in the ER. Something, something in Will he is trying to ignore nearly preens at that. Shot knee caps, shot in the shoulder bone, a grade 2 concussion. He knows he shouldn't feel more than pleased. More than proud of Anastasia, being less than four feet tall and twenty pounds and having taken down a serial killer.    

 

“Can I talk to Donna, the Dispatcher?” she asks softly. She wiggles in his arms, fiddling with the sleeves of a sweatshirt Officer Jeffords had given her when she had shivered on the car ride over. 

 

Will tenses. 

 

“Erh,” Officer Jeffords looks at his daughter with furrowed brows. 

 

“Ah, Oakley, sweetheart, that’s not standard.”

 

“I want her to know that I’m okay,” she whispers, “I told her what I did to the Beast. Please.”

 

Sergeant Brooks smiles. 

 

“Alright,” he coos, and Will feels something within him rise up in offense. 

 

The affection, it shouldn't be there. Not when Will's own connection is so new, so raw. But at one look from Anastasia and he's following behind the Sergeant. An older woman, nearly fifty, freezes at the sight of them, half lifting from her desk until her knees seem to give out. Anastasia locks on her, burrowing deeper into Will's arms for a second before her body leans forward, causing Will's grip to tighten. 

 

“Hello Donna,” she says, simply. 

 

Unquestioning. Knowing just at a glance-

 

Is she like me? Will wonders, suddenly understanding that Anastasia sometimes answered to stimuli that most people wouldn't pick up on. Her reading of social cues was advanced, more than a four-year-old should be. 

 

And-

 

Empathy, he thinks. She was reading people with a frightfully familiar precision. 

 

Was that what made her hard to read? Was she subconsciously adjusting to him, to soothe him? Just another calming technique to keep the world around her baseline?

 

Panic- it crawled in his throat. 

 

As if answering him, Anatasia slipped a hand backwards without looking away from Donna, soothing a quick pat to the side of his throat. 

 

“Oh,” the older woman, Donna, her brown eyes went wide. 

 

Anastasia leaned back again. Tilting her head carefully in careful assessment.  

 

“I wanted to say thank you. You were very calm and professional.  It helped a lot.” 

 

Tears filled Donna's brown eyes. Her mouth was wide. She was filled with pity, horror, and fear for her. 

 

“Oh, honey. Of course .” 

 

Anastasia nods. 

 

“They called my Daddy,” she tells Donna,  serious and firm, “I'll be with him.” 

 

Pleasure hums through Will, even as he shifts with Anastasia's weight in his arms. 

 

“I'll pray for you and your Daddy, sweetheart,  okay?” 

 

He didn't have to see Anastasia's face to know she smiled. 

 

“Thank you, Donna.” 

Chapter 19: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: IX

There is no booster seat in his car. 

 

He realizes it with his daughter in his arms, perched delicately. She leaned all of her slight weight on him. Her little head fell easily to the crook of his neck and stayed there. Sergeant Brooks had given them a safety travel belt in the meantime, but he knows that a booster seat is best. He also doesn’t like that he has to put her in the back seat of his Volvo. If he could get away with it, he would drive off with her in his lap. Half the station seemed to be watching them from the windows.  He feels her pull back, and her brow is furrowed.  

 

“We need to get you a booster seat,” he says. 

 

She frowns. 

 

“Probably a good idea. I'm tiny, ” she replies, “And I would really like shoes that won’t fly off, Daddy.” 

 

“Ah. Yeah. I'm assuming they didn't let you get any clothes?”

 

“No. I think they wanted me out as soon as possible.”

 

“Figures.”

 

“Do you have enough money?” 

 

“That's what credit cards are for.” 

 

She wrinkles her nose. 

 

“Doesn't seem fiscally right.”

 

He huffs. Smart. Empathetic. She was very similar to him, only not nearly as abrasive, his preferred coping mechanism.

 

“Well, I have a good job. A little credit card debit won't kill me.”

 

“We just had a Recession.”

 

He laughs. She was a baby when it happened. 

 

“I bet you have student loans. And if we can't feed our dogs because of reckless spending, I will cry.”

 

He stills. 

 

Her eyes are firm. He doesn’t even question how she knows about the dogs. He cups her face. 

 

“Our dogs will be fine. I don't have much cash on me, and most of the money is in my savings. I promise I will pay my credit card as soon as I have access to my online account at home.” 

 

She furrows her brows. For a second, something like deep unease crosses her expression, but she eventually nods. 

 

“Good.”

Chapter 20: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: X

They end up at the first Super Target off the highway. Will is hesitant, muttering about credit card leaks, but he doesn’t want to spend another minute without her secured, travel vest or not. The sheer need to have her safe is all but screaming at her from him, and he lifts her to his arms, and she has a vague feeling that she’ll keep being held until she is physically too big to do so. If I get that much. Wasn’t Hannibal over the course of two years? Huh. I won’t even hit double digits. She's blinking quickly. It feels weird in a way she can't exactly pinpoint, but she assumes it's due to feeling displaced in time, and the displays around her not being what she remembers. 

 

They get stares.

 

Her in hospital scrub pants and the police department sweatshirt, Will, being, well, Will . He's an objectively handsome, nervous man and holding what she thinks must be an adorable or an alarming-looking child. She isn’t sure. In this entire time, she’s avoided reflective surfaces. She thinks she needs privacy for that, to see what she is pretty sure is a new face looking back at her. She doesn’t want witnesses.  

 

I think I died, she thinks, and I think I’ve been reborn in a world where Will Graham is a real person.  

 

She stares longingly at the woman's section for a fraction of a second, subconsciously thinking that's right, even as Will makes a beeline for the girl's section at the front of the registers.  First thing she registers is bright, and the second is sparkle. A lot of neon.  

 

And a lot of snowflakes. 

 

Let it go- 

 

She can feel the crunch of the glitter against her skin. Feet away. She frowns at the neon. She never liked neon. 

 

“No glitter!” She begs. 

 

Doesn't ‘Frozen’ come out next year? 

 

Will looks at her, and oh. 

 

Oh no. 

 

Panic, acute and mounting on his face. 

 

“What's your size?”

 

She blinks. 

 

Blinks again. 

 

“How am I supposed to know?” She replies, bewildered. 

 

And that's the first time she says the wrong thing, because she practically feels Will is ready for a full-blown meltdown. She grips his ear tightly between two of her dully functioning fingertips. Like she would if a dog were objectively misbehaving. 

 

“Let's find out together?”

 

He nods, sharply. 

 

“No glitter?” He croaks, voice unsteady. 

 

“It'll get all over our dogs, Daddy.” 

 

He shudders. 

 

“ No glitter .” 

Chapter 21: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XI

“Why does everything have glitter? ” He hisses, hand gripping his daughter’s head. 

 

He's trying not to hyperventilate.  But nearly everything has glitter. Their cart is woefully empty. Save for the same sweater, in four different colors, they haven't made much progress. He doesn’t understand the sizes, the ambiguous measurements. He wished he had a tape measure. 

 

“Christmas and the winter holidays demand glitter to explode over little girls,” she says, with an air of an old Sage, and clear dismay. 

 

He stares at her. He can barely choose anything for her. 

 

“I like sweaters, Daddy.”

 

They're plain. Turtle neck, long sleeves. Cherry red, Navy blue, festive green, and black. It's not enough. 

 

She soothes a hand down his neck. 

 

“Pants?” he asks, woodenly. 

 

“Measure against my leg,” She wiggles her little slippered foot. 

 

He shifts her in his arms, more closely to himself, and he is ashamed to admit it. She shoots him a look. And it's so full of love that it actually stops his breath. She smiles. Pokes his cheek with an unbroken finger. 

 

“Daddy, you can't just carry me everywhere.” 

 

“I can try.”

 

“Down.”

 

“Yes, Ma'am.” 

 

She giggles. Half aborted. The smile dims. She holds tightly to his neck. He stops letting her down. She takes a breath. 

 

Another. 

 

It shakes and oh.

 

She takes another breath. Focuses on a distant point and takes breath after breath in from her nose, and then out of her mouth. Ten beats, then twenty pass as she calms herself. He- Will doesn't know what to do. He crouches and keeps her in his arms as he sits on the floor. He only sits, and he- rocks her. Rocks her softly and runs his hands through her hair to center her.

 

“I-” She blinks quickly, and he freezes at the soft, bewildered note in her voice, “It feels wrong to laugh. Maman died today. Died so I could run. ” 

 

“I know.” 

 

What else could he say? Sorry ? Yes. I wish this had never happened. Of course. His words seem stuck in his throat. 

 

“But it's not so simple. It feels so odd. Daddy, it's like I woke up for the first time in Hell with Maman hurt. And now I am all wrong and jumbled and-”

 

“You're not wrong.” 

 

“I've forgotten things. Remembered other things- I feel like I was wiped clean this morning, and awoken to a new world.” 

 

Oh, Ma Chérie, he thinks, devastated. 

 

He brings her closer. If he could reverse time, if he could change everything-

 

“We can learn this new world together, “ he promises to her, swears, “Just like your pants size. Anything that's new or wrong, we'll learn, Chérie.” 

 

She huffs. 

 

“Do you-” she seems to struggle for a moment, “I- I'm not right, Daddy. Everything about me is wrong.” 

 

He frowns. 

 

“You're perfect.” 

 

She looks at him. And he sees- exhaustion. Pure and raw. 

 

“No, I'm not.” 

 

He pulls back enough to cup her face in his hands. Delicate and careful. He runs smooth circles on the soft skin of her round cheeks. 

 

“My Chérie,” he whispers, “Horrible things have happened today. The world will always be different for you. You have lost someone, violently, horribly, and that will never go away. But you won't feel it all at once. It's okay to laugh, to smile. Grief and mourning aren't a checklist. It's... It's like the sea. It ebbs and flows. It did for me when I lost my own Daddy.” 

 

He feels exposed,  comforting Anatasia. His throat feels hoarse, as these words tumble out. She sighs. Closes her eyes as she rests against his palms. Presses a kiss to his hand with another little sigh. 

 

“Let's try the jeans, Daddy,” she settles on, face softening into a small smile as she opens her eyes. 

 

He smiles back. 

Chapter 22: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XII

“I thought we just needed a booster seat,” she whispers, but Will is steering the cart expertly, towards what looks like the toy section. 

 

She doesn't know how to feel. The sweaters, the underwater, the socks, the two pairs of shoes, shirts, jeans, pants, and the single dress she had deemed acceptable- she had calculated. It would be roughly two hundred dollars. And that's only because she didn't know what the state tax of Pennsylvania was. The booster seat? Another two hundred. She felt twitchy about it. 

 

In this economy?

 

“You need stuff like this.”

 

He vaguely gestures. She sighs. 

 

“Daddy,” she protests. 

 

“Indulge me, little Chérie?” 

 

“... Fine. One toy.” 

 

“At least four.”

 

She stared. 

 

“ One. ” 

 

His lips twitch. 

 

“Four.” 

 

“You're a troll,” she told him, flatly. 

 

“I thought I was a Prince Charmont?” He countered. 

 

She laughed. 

 

“No, a mean old troll.” 

 

“Fee Five Fo Thumb,” he said with laughter in his voice. 

 

She pinched his ear gently. 

 

“That's giants, Daddy.” 

 

“My mistake.” 

Chapter 23: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XIII

It has to be four. 

 

Will knows it. Four birthdays missed. If it wasn't already nearly closing time, he would be buying her a cake as well. 

 

Did she like cake? 

 

In the cart, she wiggled her little boots tiredly. She picked them because they looked like mine. She was buried in a nest of blankets, soft pastel things, her gaze kept flickering too. The toys? That honestly seemed to stump her, hence him. Her gaze didn't linger on anything. Didn't brighten at any plastic, any stuffed animal. She just looked tired.

 

“I don’t think I even like toys, Daddy.”

 

“Really?”

 

She looked at him, frowned.

 

“Don’t waste your money.”

 

He frowned at her.

 

“I just want something to make you happy.”

 

She smiled at him.

 

“That’s very sweet of you, Daddy. But I’m not sure I’ll be happy for a very long time.”

 

His heart wrenches in his chest.  Then her gaze flickers, once, twice, to plastic Lego. He blinks. It's an advanced set. Geared more for adults, but it's the only thing her gaze has drifted towards. He puts it in the cart. 

 

She hisses at the price. 

 

“Daddy-”

 

He eyes the rows. Picks up a general set. She shakes her head.

 

“I'm not creative that way. The set is fine!” 

 

He smiles. 

 

Confirmation. 

 

“You really are a troll.” 

 

“Fifi five fo thumb.” 

 

She sighs. 

 

“Video games?”

 

He has vague memories of a Super Nintendo and the fun he had. She blinked at him.

 

“Oh, um-”

 

Got her. 

 

He steered towards the electronics. 

 

“Daddy, they’re expensive-”

 

“Please, let me do this.”

 

“You’re like a dog to a bone.” 

 

He smiled. 

 

“Woof.” 

 

She only looked at him with-

 

Exasperated fondness that made something in Will shake .

 

Like she always seemed to, Anatasia knew it. Reached a hand in open invitation.  He took her hand, joy coursing through him.

 

“Bad dog,” she replied, dryly. 

 

He laughed. 

Chapter 24: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XIV

They spent nearly seven hundred dollars, and Anastasia, if she hadn't known that Will would be utterly distraught, she would have cried in pure frustration. Will soothes a hand through her hair. His hand is gentle, but firm. She bets the Pack fucking adores the way he treats them. Part of her wonders if she should feel offended that he was treating her like a particularly skittish lapdog at the moment.   

 

Especially because the Troll was fucking smiling.  

 

Pleased. 

 

To do something for her. Anything . If she weren’t partially aware of being an adult once, she wonders if Will would have done his damndest to spoil her rotten. She poked him with one of the few unbroken fingers she had. 

 

“Daddy, you’re mean,” she told him, and she meant not a word of it. 

 

He laughed, gently. Will had a good laugh. Solid like him, warm and rich. He soothed a massive hand through her hair again. He dipped his face to her curls and laughed gently into the crown of her head. He kissed her, gently, on the temple. Everything he did was firm, but so ineffably gentle. He must think her like a baby bird, all fragile, hollow bones. He wasn’t entirely wrong, she thinks. Losing Mamen, remembering another life, and being given limited time with her new Father… She is like Bilbo Baggins, butter, stretched thin over too much bread. She is emotionally, physically spent.   

 

Will’s affection was easy, simple, and utterly devoted. 

 

It…

 

It was so grounding, in a way she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to verbally express. Not for as long as she was given this life next to him. 

 

“Thanks for being a good sport, Chérie.”

 

She sighed. Then quickly kissed his cheek. Snuggled into his stubbly cheek firmly.  

 

“I understand that you need to provide things for me, that you’re reeling from having me suddenly in your life. It’s been a very, very strange day for both of us. I don’t want to take what you need to comfort yourself away. Even if I think the four 3DS games were extensive.”

 

The arms around her tightened. Will ducked his head, mashed it against her curls. He struggled to contain his sorrow, his joy in that instant. Anastasia gently pressed her splinted hands against him, soothed and hummed as he just…

 

Breathed. 

 

In the Target Parking lot, his lips were trembling with emotion.  

 

“We’ll get you home. We can worry about everything else, Anastasia. And, you might get bored with one! I’ll go right back and get that PlayStation 3, don’t think I won’t.”

 

She sighed. Her’s was eternal suffering. 

 

“Consumerism consumes newly Single Dad, more at eleven.”

 

He laughed. 

Chapter 25: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XV

While she knew Will had a pack of dogs, she hadn’t realized that she knew all of their names. Winston, Max, Buster, Jack, Zoe, Harley, and Ellie. As well as she knew herself. Which is to say, not at all, consciously, but like it was always there, she knew of their names as soon as she heard them, barking up a storm the second Will pulled into his so familiar home in Wolf Trap. 

 

Oh, was I a fan of the show, not just a casual watcher? The concept is funny, in a mortifying way.

 

Being a fangirl of your own new dimension. Of your father. 

 

How embarrassing.

 

She blinked tiredly at Will. 

 

Had… Had I shipped him with anyone?  

 

Three logical non-crack choices. One was the Moly Graham with the son, as Will would have married her. Anastasia was very unsure if she was real in this universe, considering her own mother’s name… Two, Alana Bloom, she supposed, if you go by the conventional framework of the show and the general American hetro-normativity and what had been pushed, intentionally.

 

And of course. 

 

The most dangerous, logical option if you consider chemistry, sexual, and emotional, that no one had intended, but the actors had made palpable. She sighed. She thinks she may have shipped her father with the man most likely to murder her. How strange.   

 

At least she would take this to her grave, very, very soon. Considering the fandom.

 

And she suddenly realized how exhausted she was. She hadn’t slept in the four-hour drive at all. Only watched the free go by in a semi-zen state.

 

“Oh,” she smiles, “ You have a Pack.”

 

“Let me introduce you.”

 

He lifts her in one arm and grabs her bags in the other. She deliberately takes the house keys from him. He stares at her. 

 

“Am I going to sleep in your room?”

 

He gives a helpless shrug. 

 

“At least until your room is set up.”

 

She squints. 

 

“You’re a bad liar, daddy.”

 

Will snorts. 

 

“Only to you, ma cherie. Only to you.” 

Chapter 26: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XVI

The dogs are meticulously trained. With so many of them, Will has no choice. 

 

But the second they see Anastasia, small, curled against him, his Pack goes nearly wild. Anastasia takes it all with a small little noise of surprise, delight, and sheer eagerness. 

 

She wiggles in his arms. 

 

The Pack’s tails wag so hard they wiggle in place. 

 

He grins. 

 

“Heel,” he tells them firmly. 

 

“Puppies,” Anastasia whispers, light and just… 

 

Eager. 

 

At her voice, Will is sure that Winston’s tail breaks the sound barrier. 

 

“... There’s no getting past this. Chérie, hands up, don't want to bump anything broken.”

 

“B-but puppies. You have to pet! That's law!”

 

He blinks.

 

Pets are given. 

 

Strictly. 

 

With Will grabbing at furry bodies that threaten to smother her. 

 

“I’ll take that death gladly.”

 

Will can’t help but giggle. 

 

Because Anastaia seems 100 % serious. 

Chapter 27: Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear: XVII

Anastasia sleeps peacefully, no tossing or turning, her head curled in the crook of Will’s arm. She’s out quickly, barely placing her head, her splinted hands carefully against his neck, before barely mumbling a ‘good night’. She’s… She’s trusting, so peaceful, without any hesitation around him. He wonders why?  Why ? 

 

Why could he not have this before? 

 

On her back, Winston huffs a breath as he snuggles into her red curls. At his feet,  Buster presses firmly into his legs. And Will- Will, looking down at his daughter’s sweet, gentle face, feels peace.  He does not fall asleep.

 

He spends time looking at her. 

 

The small shape of her lips. The trembling of her copper lashes. The way her curls press against her pale skin. The sound of her steady, even breath, a small puff of air along his arm. The weight of her, against him, weighed and steady.  

 

Not for hours. 

 

And when he does, he dreams of her little face, calm and resting against his arm. 

 

 

Will sleeps the most peacefully he has in years.  

Notes:

END OF ‘Take My Hand and Follow Me, Dear’ Arc

 

Next chapter: ‘And They Said, "Welcome home, Lily Rice."’ Arc

 

NOTE: I'm out of on Vacation for a week, see y'all Monday 25 or Tuesday the 26!

Chapter 28: And They Said, "Welcome home, Lily Rice.": I

The Tattler is real. 

 

Hannibal is real. 

 

She realizes it in a dispassionate sort of acknowledgement. The blog was a quick Google search- the second, she had to use a wayback machine to find his facu

lty profile on various hospitals’ websites. His current practice had taken longer than it should have to track down, but she suspects that with word of mouth, how quickly he must have established himself in the Baltimore Elite as a central figure, Hannibal the Cannibal wants to minimize his digital footprint if he needs to disappear quickly. 

 

I will die. There are monsters in this world, just like the one before. But with Daddy, I will always, always encounter one, one way or another.   

 

Because in two separate searches, she has found Freddie Loudres, found her , specifically. Matching her father’s face, it is a female Freddie, with curling red hair and all. Matching her memories of a television show.  She really, really, remembers correctly. It isn’t just a psychotic break with Mamen’s death and mutilation. 

 

She hums. 

 

Quickly erases her history, and returns back to reading her manga online before Will can look up from his fly fishing.

 

Well. 

 

At least that's confirmed. 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 20 of The Redhead Conspiracy