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01 | 🕐 | audio

[ 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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[ So Abigail is an inmate here. It shouldn't come as a shock, considering who all else has been caught in this web in which he's found himself. Nicholas Boyle, the girls she led to certain death and devour. Abigail's ledger is one with a few stains on it, but she's most certainly not beyond redemption.

He thinks. He has a tendency to believe the very best in Abigail Hobbs. ]

I can't tell how decidedly good of ones they'd be. You know I'm her guardian, then. You know we're close. [ He pauses a beat, letting it sink in a bit more. ] And you know I was the one who orphaned her.

[ For the best, he can't help but hiss within himself. ]

[It would have been obvious sooner rather than later, and Ben has never been very cunning-minded. It doesn't occur to him that maybe he shared something Abigail wouldn't have wanted shared for these very reasons. Before he can think of anything else to say, though, Will says something that makes Ben's voice considerably sharper.]

Were. [The correction is swift and firm, and he leaves it hanging for a beat too long to miss, but a beat too short to allow for an interruption.] You were her guardian.

Yes, I know the rest. I bear you no ill will for myself, but it is my priority to make certain that your presence and your influence does not negatively affect Abigail against her wishes.

Am. [ Will's correction is just as firm, perhaps even territorial. Abigail is alive, Abigail is back, and he's already failed from protecting her once. He'll be damned if he doesn't have some part in keeping watch over her here as well. ] You might be her warden. Mine's on paper.

[ He pauses a moment, mulling the words over in his head and trying to figure out the lightest way to word this. There's already anger rising in his throat like bile, but if Ben is Abigail's warden, he's not exactly the first person Will wants to piss off. ]

Do you think I will have a negative effect on Abigail?

Your argument is that somehow something existing on a sheet of paper makes it more valid than something that simply is...

[But Ben trails off as he remembers that baffling fact that so many of the people here are from worlds exactly like that. The kind of worlds that would, he knows, argue that Ben doesn't even exist as a person because he has a serial number instead of a name, because the stamp on the back of his neck is a copyright and a brand, because he is property. It took him a long, hard fight to understand that none of this is true. It is not in Abigail's best interests to argue that with this man, because his opinion won't change what simply is, either.

His voice is still sharp when he replies, much moreso than he is normally given to being.]

That is not for you or for me to determine. I am unable to say either way with any manner of certainty, regardless. What I am certain of is that the presence of someone that is recognized in this place, especially as an inmate, never fails to produce a very complicated reaction, very rarely of a singular emotional variety.

[ Fine. That's fine. That's a solid reasoning, actually. Were he Abigail's warden, he'd advise the same thing. "Too unstable," he believed was the usual reasoning. ]

My argument is that that piece of paper is why I won't let you question the validity of my [ stake in ] relationship with Abigail Hobbs.

[ Will's voice sharpens as Ben does, a bit territorial given the nature of the conversation. Bad influence or not, it's Abigail. He just got her back. He keeps telling himself that, but he just got her back. There's no taking that from him now. ]

It's complicated, my turning up here. But you can't tell me to stay away.

Please consider - [Ben's tone suggests this is less of a request, and more a statement of fact.] - the possibility that your piece of paper, your guardianship, is obviously extremely valid from your perspective, but not from all. Potentially not from Abigail's. I will not verbally challenge you further, but do consider that.

[Ben certainly doesn't intend to back down simply for Will's sake, for the sake of his claim; only for Abigail's. Which is why he does back down just a little, less inflammatory as informative when he says:]

On the contrary, I can. And I can enforce it if I decide it becomes necessary. I would not be alone in this.

But I do not believe it would be beneficial at this point. To Abigail, to you, or to the Barge community as a whole. It remains, however, well within my purview should it become necessary.

[A pause, and then:] It is neither my intention nor my desire to fight with you, Will Graham. I intend merely to make it clear that Abigail is my priority. In all things.

[ Could Ben do that? He's a warden. Will can't help but be harshly reminded that he's back into some old patterns, where maybe he's allowed to make a few calls but he's certainly lost more of his freedom than he's expected. Ben could most definitely keep him away from Abigail if he so saw it fit.

It coils angrily in Will's spine, festers there like an open wound that his stability isn't so stable as he thinks. For now, he's allowed. For now, he's deigned fit to see her. What happens later? What happens with whatever this place - Hannibal, but also this ship - can push him to do? He can't let it, not if he wants what's - What he considers rightfully his own.

There's very little he can call that's rightfully his own.

Brought down by a man who couldn't be out of his twenties by the sound of him. It makes his voice tight, his teeth nearly clenched. ]

You have no idea what she means to me.

No, I don't. And in this matter, I don't care.

[Not harsh this time, not the twist of a knife, not cruelty or possessiveness; a statement of fact. What Abigail means to Will means nothing to Ben, if Will's interaction with her becomes harmful to Abigail.

He isn't certain which direction the obvious emotion sways him, whether it means Will would be more inclined to protect her - truly protect her, to do what's best for her and not only what he thinks is best for her - or more insanely possessive of her, as her father was. Her real father. The first to sink his claws in to her and try to pull her apart and put her back together into something he deemed more perfect.

But Ben doesn't look away, and he doesn't have to admit to what he does next, his voice quiet and low, steadied with the bald truth of it, neither threat nor rebuttal nor card played, but plainspoken honesty:] You have no idea what she means to me, either.

I would never - hurt her.

[ Not purposefully, not willingly. There are things that still plague him, the image of her body mounted up high onto those antlers, lungs gasping for breath; the ear in his sink and the dirt on his feet and the flakes of blood underneath his fingernails; that harrowing thought that had plagued him for hours, the idea that he'd truly lost himself and killed Abigail Hobbs.

He can't have that again. Not after Baltimore, not after calm days of fishing and even her head in his hands as she confessed to another murder, as she turned from victim to bait to hunter all within one fell swoop. He has so much adoration for this girl; he's not sure what he wouldn't eventually forgive her. ]

If you know how much she means to you, you won't take her from me. I know who I am, Ben. [ He can hear it underneath his voice, the careful tones and the prods and pokes to see which direction he's found himself leaning in. ] I'm not her father. I'm just - I was - I remain the closest thing she has.

[ You are not. You are something else entirely. ]

You misunderstand me.

[He listens, waits, weighs the words, but the fact of the matter is that not only does the argument for father - or something close to it - mean next to nothing to a soldier created in a lab, but it's there: you won't take her from me. Possession. On either part.]

I will support what Abigail wants from you. I will support her right to that decision. If she wishes to interact with you, I will not stand in the way of that.

If she wants nothing to do with you, I will enforce that. It is her decision, as it always should have been.

[Ben doesn't want to be her father, her brother, her blood; he is something else entirely, both literally and figuratively. But he doesn't intend to explain that to this man, and that's fortunate because he's not entirely sure that he can.]

As it should be.

[ It should. Frightens him a bit, that she could cut this off at the legs no matter how long she wanted to wait to do so. Whatever it would be of his to push her over that edge and into something too afraid to meet with him, perhaps too angry, too upset - He doesn't know what this hypothetical future self would have done, but he knows he's scared her before. He knows it's not the first time she would have wanted away from him. ]

I'm not trying to argue. [ Evidence to the contrary. ] I just needed to speak my peace. You need to know it's not something that can come - lightly.

[Ben considers this. Most conversations involving him come with long pauses, consideration and weights and balances, making a thoughtful decision and careful word choice. This one is a little longer than normal, considering his natural tendency to want to put others at ease - the why doesn't matter much as time goes on - his duty to be clearcut and consistent, and the deeply buried, ugly whim to deal back to this man some of what everyone who ever failed Abigail dealt to her. To scare him as he scared her.

But despite his scalpel sharp temper, he is not given to cruelty. He never was, even at his most monstrous. Ben clears his throat.]

We do not know each other well. You will need to take it on faith that anything I do, I do not do lightly. It is commonly a source of confusion for others.

Ask, if you have questions. I will answer as honestly as I am capable.

[ Oh, he has plenty of questions. Most of them pertaining to Abigail, very few of them he assumes that Ben can or will feasibly answer.

There's a side of him that's coiled and ready and he knows it, the half that puts Hannibal first and foremost on his list of interests whether he likes it or not. This is the side that scares Abigail, and yet he's seen her celebrate in it just the same.

So he only has one question, and it's not necessarily scared when he asks it, just genuinely curious. ]

What do you suppose it would take for me to successfully - push her away from me, to cause this hypothetical situation? You have the probability of knowing her better than anybody on this boat.

Attempting to possess her.

[Ben barely has to think about it: he knows instantly what the greatest danger is, in many different ways. He also knows, the moment he says it, that this is also the situation most likely to draw Abigail to Will.

He doesn't see a reason to point that out, though. It's not what he was asked.]

Others have been attempting to shape her for their own purposes all of her life. She has long since realized it, but only very recently been given the opportunity to defy that. A real opportunity, enforced and protected, not merely in word.

I expect she would quite possibly react very strongly to anyone attempting to do so against her wishes, now.

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