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[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

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[Alana doesn't know what Will means by Hannibal liking or. Or rather, she'd rather not and can force that kind of ignorance on herself only so far. It's not as though she can pretend that she hadn't ever entertained the thought, that they never moved closer to something more than what they had before one or the other made up a seemingly solid excuse not to.]

[Alana's skin crawls and for a moment, it feels difficult to get a breath as though instead of air she's suddenly found herself in suffocating miasma that hardens her lungs. The thoughts are enough to make Alana feel as though she needs to be alone, that she needs a thousand scalding showers to try and erase whatever it is Hannibal was or might have been to her. But she doesn't and instead focuses on pour Will's coffee.]

No. Hannibal is the product of someone's imagination in some of the other worlds.

[Alana didn't dig deeper than that. She didn't want to know. She still doesn't if only because she doesn't see what difference it would make, what exactly it would change to know the possibility of all of Hannibal's crimes, just how deeply the darkness goes. She's brushed close enough to it now that she still feels infected, still swallowed whole by it no matter how much she pushes and fights back towards the light again.]

[Hannibal is inexplicably intertwined in all of their lives now. There's no going back. There is no unringing the bell.]

That's - funny.

[ Maybe not the reaction she was expecting.

But that is funny. That's funny to him in a way that's certainly laced with morbidity but it's still, in its own way, funny. Hannibal is the product of someone's imagination just as he has permeated Will's own, an oil slick polluting the waters of his mind - they ripple, and it spreads daily, it seems. Clean-up is possible, but it is time consuming, and it is improbable that every last bit will be purged of him.

It's funny in a way that his life, his trials and errors, are set on display, some sort of entertainment in a media frenzy, and not in the sort that involved reporters swarming the court house with Will's arrival and departure, the dozens requesting interviews to get the latest scoop on the Copycat Killer. It's fictional instead, someone's dark ideas transcribed.

In some world, someone wrote about Hannibal. Someone created Hannibal.

His arms are still crossed, but he finds himself wandering over closer to her as she pours the coffee out, intent on getting something warm and potentially comforting inside of him. Plus, caffeine. She seems reasonably upset, and he's found that proximity with another person (or perhaps a pet) can often induce a calming sort of feeling, a balm for the situation. It doesn't hurt that this is the closest they've actually been in weeks.

He has memories of hands, her own on his own and grasping firmly, beseechingly. He's not sure if they still mean anything. ]

I suppose that means, in some world, I'm a product of someone's imagination too. [ He sets a hand on the surface, intent on retrieving the cup. ] Imagine being reduced to a fiction, your tribulations aired with the same passiveness as one might regard a clown at the circus.

[ His smile is tight, and not entirely hinged. ]

People have bled for that entertainment.

[Will moves closer to Alana and it's a move all too familiar to her, at least the intentions behind it are. It's not one of Will's romantic overtures, but it comes from a similar place. He wants to protect Alana, to shelter her from something intangible, something he can never protect her from whether because by now it's too late or because Alana won't let him knowing how very poorly he can even protect himself. Even if he had found his way back to steady footing, she doesn't know if she could allow herself to be protected by Will. Hannibal had sheltered Alana and look at where she ended up. While it's true that Will is innocent of the crimes Hannibal orchestrated, Hannibal is a strong and lean predator and Alana feels that everything she's known about Will Graham could come unraveled faster than everything she believed of Hannibal if Hannibal willed it to be so.]

[All she wants to do is save Will Graham. And she has no idea how to do it. Alana has even less of an idea now that Will is here and Hannibal has, more or less, unlimited access to continue whatever sick manipulations he wants with Will and Abigail both. And then there is simply the matter of Abigail even without Hannibal in the picture. Will and Abigail are not good for each other. Their relationship isn't healthy as they constantly push and pull one another under Garret Jacob Hobbs' shadow and Hannibal's careful eye. Alana can keep her head above the waters, but can Will with all of that tethering him down?]

[Alana pushes the cup towards Will, fingers lingering on it for only a second before she pulls her hand away again.]

Most people are okay with monsters as long as they aren't real. Hannibal's just...a grown-up's version of a monster in the closet to them. As long as he stays that way, they stay entertained and guilt-free.

Yeah, well -

[ He nods in silent thanks for the coffee, watching her fingers as they move away. His eyes stay on the mug, lingering too long and too absently. ]

Ignorant to the fact that there are some beds under which he finds himself creeping. Waiting for the limbs to dangle over the edge, to let him know they're willing.

[ On that note, where's the sugar? He slides his mug nearer to him. ]

Then again, I suppose that makes me a particular kind of rude to some universe that's plagued by teems of chupacabras.

[ His version of lightening the mood really isn't on par with one's general idea of a social structure, but he does try, when he can. It's Alana he tries a particular amount for. She's not wrong. There is something within him that's bred to try to protect her - his loved ones, in general, but also her - from what he can; in this case, that means Hannibal. Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal. A name no longer recognizable as separate from his own. ]

[His effort earns him a wry smile, but a smile nonetheless. This conversation, on the whole, isn't one for smiles. Nor is the topic that Alana is pointedly, at this juncture, trying to both avoid and figure out how to broach.]

[After a moment - or two, it's hard to tell how long a moment actually lasts for before it's punctuated into a second or third - she decides there really is no other way beyond simply asking. Although she can be gentle, and Alana almost always is when it comes to Will, she needs to be blunt about this for both her sake and his. It's something that needs to be discussed no matter how much he might not want to and she's afraid to.]

I guess what I'm having a difficult time understanding now is why you're here, Will.

Hannibal lied and he framed you for things you didn't do, but that wouldn't bring you here as an inmate.

[ It certainly is one of the somethings they've been dancing around the entirety of this conversation, and it lingers heavy in the air like a particularly thick blanket, with none of the comfort of it. Like everything else they've discussed, things neither of them particularly want to broach but need to be thoroughly broached.

He was the one who brought it up initially. he still isn't sure he has an answer, so he's not sure why he was the one who did in the first place. He'd figured it best to get out of the way; Alana apparently agreed. Not exactly unreasonable.

One of his hands scrubs tiredly at his face, fingers pressing deeply into his eyes - the kind that makes the white spots across your vision, the kind that feels like a trip and an escape all in one. He very carefully doesn't meet her eyes - or anything at all, they stay closed as he sets his hands on the counter in front of him, fingers spread. ]

Have you ever been so deeply entrenched into something - [ He hesitates, looking down at his coffee again and screwing up his face as he parses over his words. ] That you couldn't find the door, you couldn't - you couldn't find your way back out again?

[Alana shakes her head a little even though Will isn't looking at her now. Finding her voice is difficult and breathing is following shortly behind. The answer isn't something she wants to hear, she can tell now just from the simple fact he won't look at her, he won't meet her eyes anymore.]

[Oh, she knew she wouldn't like the answer from the start. The moment it became clear he was an inmate, not a warden, her stomach dropped and the dread settled in right in the middle of her chest. But she had tried to believe that there was a good explanation for all of this. Maybe a misunderstanding. Hopeless hopes, but ones she held onto right up until he looked away.]

[Alana finds her voice, slowly.]

Will... What did you do?

[What did Hannibal do to him?]

[ i liberated myself to do something greater i'm serving my own breed of righteousness to the man who most deserves it i'm doing what's right and just and i'm doing it with meaning alana i'm

He can word it delicately as he wants. He could lie completely, he could weave her whatever kind of victim story he wanted and she wouldn't know, nobody would know. His eventual warden would know, but who was to say how far down the road that would be?

Rhetorical questions aren't going to cut it. And he doesn't want to have to go for blunt, but, well - ]

"You hook him." [ He quotes, and taps a finger against the counter. ] "I'll catch him." Jack told me that. [ It all seems unreal now. Far away, like it's not his own anymore. ] I sent someone to kill him. [ And he smiles flatly, wryly. ] So he sent someone to kill me.

[ But, oh, he does look at Alana then. He wants to gauge her reaction, he doesn't want to meet her eyes but he does want to see every bit of her face that moves, whatever expression she's about to fall into, if she hasn't already. ]

I killed him. [ Had to, needed to, he tells himself with the utmost of confidence. ] With my bare hands.

[Alana can't smile. But she also can't frown or scream and cry. She can barely even register Will's words as intelligible and true much less feel anything at this news. She instead just feels the ground shift out from under her, feels herself fall apart and melt away from the inside out into a void, leaving nothing but a shell or a fragment of herself behind.]

[For months, she has held onto the belief that Will was innocent. She was given validation for those beliefs. She only saw the good in Will because she had to believe that it existed somewhere to make all of this worth it. And it wasn't Hannibal that took that away from her.]

[Alana looks away from Will, eyes wet and a hand coming up to cover her mouth. Is it to keep the bile she feels rising down or to keep any sign that could be construed as a sob tucked away? She doesn't know, feeling all of it at once alongside the nothingness. She's slower in her movement away from him, stopping short of leaving the kitchen and heading back into the living room. She turns to face Will again, gaze pointedly looking down for a moment. Alana opens her mouth to say something, anything, but the moment she looks at Will again she stops.]

[She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't think there's anything she can say.]

[ Oh, Alana.

She's lucky she doesn't know the whole truth. She's lucky she doesn't know about Randall Tier and his face molded jarringly, messily, newly over a skeleton, his jaw in his freezer, Freddie Lounds' hair tangled ruthlessly in his hands -

All he can see is Randall now, that - display, that sort of artwork that makes you feel something viscerally, though you may not be able to identify the emotion. He's somewhere between a strict sense of disgust, the taste of bile in his own mouth, and yet that strange and skewed, cracked sense of pride that wriggles its way into his mind, settles in deep and doesn't let go. ]

If I was his friend - [ he elaborates, carefully, the one person on this entire Barge he'd trust with this information ] Say, if I were to gain his trust, soundly, believably - If even a modicum of evidence made itself known, it -

[ He swallows thick and bites back the joyous smile he finds himself wanting to break out into. Vindictive. It would be worth it. ]

No. [Alana shakes her head and repeats herself, hardly realizing she even said it once already. There is hardly anything thinking required for this because it's not even an option.] No.

Will, Hannibal is dangerous.

The encephalitis is gone. [ As if that changes everything. ] They found it, they treated it, and I'm clearer than ever. I have truly - seen the devil for what he is, and I will not - cannot - let that keep -

[ He sucks his bottom lip between clenched teeth, giving a minute shake of his head. Nope. ] Nah. No. [ It's something stalwart, a clear message that he's not going to be talked out of this. ]

I have been - fastidious. [ In detail, in careful careful words, in theatrical performance that ought to earn him some sort of award, he finds himself thinking. ] I have been successful, I was so close.

[ And then he ended up here. ]

Will, you have to let this go. [Alana steps back over to stand across the kitchen's island from him.] You have to let Hannibal go.

[For now. At least like this. Will can't walk down this path to try and put Hannibal where he belongs. How far down the line can he possibly go before he becomes something he'll never be able to escape?]

[ As if it could be so easy. Snap his fingers and he was gone.

The Chesapeake Ripper. The Copycat Killer, he blamed him for, implicated, he killed Abigail, he -

Will's eyes have skittered again, and he drinks his coffee black just as a distraction of sorts, an extra barrier between himself and Alana both just for a moment. It's bitter all the way down and he doesn't have a single complaint; it suits the situation. ]

I saw Beverly Katz's body divided into individual, human-sized slides. [ His voice shakes and shudders as much as the hand that vehemently sets the mug back on the counter, almost enough to spill. ] Abigail, Alana, he -

[ His tone gets stranger, almost beseeching her to leave it be. ]

What he did to me alone, and your professional opinion - is to take the high road?

I'm not asking you... [Alana pauses, looking down at the counter for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts into something coherent, but it's along the same lines as trying to herd feral cats.]

[She speaks low. Although they're the only two people in the room, her voice is soft and quiet. It's her quiet plea. Her last stand in trying to save Will Graham not just from Hannibal Lecter, but from himself.]

I'm asking you to not take that road, Will. Because I'm afraid, [she admits, looking up as the first tears fall. Alana's lips move in motions to speak, but it takes a moment before she can.] I'm afraid that if you go down that road, you won't come back. And there will be nothing I can do to save you.

[She swallows hard. Alana is already so afraid that maybe it's already too late.]

That's not-- That's not my professional opinion, Will. That's my opinion as your friend.

[ Friend, it's been a long time since he's heard that word out of a voice that wasn't laden with snake venom. She cries and Will can feel every one of the muscles in his shoulders tightening, a harsh and sharp consideration of the facts laid out before him.

He knows where this could lead him, he knows exactly where this could wind up because he's already played the role of social experiment. He knows now, he knows better (he thinks, he hopes, he knows). Keeping himself grounded is no easy feat when walking on tiptoes, across eggshells, taking the tightrope, whatever metaphor one wants to apply.

He doesn't nod, he doesn't agree or disagree, though his brows furrow curiously as both of his hands come to rest on the counter, careful weight being pressed against them. ]

Save me? [ Something broken, fragile, in need of fixing. ] Or stop me?

Is there still a difference?

[It's not a question that Alana really wants to contemplate or ask, but she does anyway. She doesn't know how far Will's gone. He's already tried to kill Hannibal. He's already taken another life. Will's stability was in question long before all of this, but it is now more than ever. She doesn't know if most people could operate in such morally grey areas to catch Hannibal, but she doubts Will more than most though.]

[Even without the encephalitis confusing his reality, Alana doesn't know if she can trust him not to go too far now.]

[ It's not even a question he's sure he can answer. But there's a harsh determination there that he can't help but feel down to a bone-deep level, almost a primal urge to see Hannibal get his proper - comeuppance, whichever form that may come in and whichever way that may end up happening.

He'd do anything to stop him, he's sure. Nearly anything, he's already mutilated one body. He has no idea how far this is going to go. ]

Does it matter now?

[ He eyes her warily, eyebrows raised. ]

All there is from here is - rehabilitation. My impending graduation. What's to be done about Hannibal here other than to just let him - [ Oh, he doesn't know. But the word sounds ugly in his mouth, bitter. ] exist within his realm?

[ The king atop his throne of skeletons. ]

[Alana shakes her head.]

I don't think he's capable of rehabilitating. He'll stay here possibly forever or until the Admiral gives up on the idea.

And then he'll be sent back and he will be dealt with.

[It's a sure thing to Alana. It has to be. She doesn't believe that there's enough trace amounts of humanity left to Hannibal for anything more than that. He can't be redeemed after all that he's done, all that he stands for.]

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