Work Text:
The logs were crackling in the fireplace; snow was falling silently outside the window and, to the softly playing sounds of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Hannibal was sketching. His last, albeit unofficial, patient Will Graham had just left and now he was mentally as well as physically preparing himself for the upcoming holidays; a glass of wine by his side, his jacket and waistcoat hung over the head cushion of the chaise longue while the charcoal pen in his hand neatly chased along the lines of Archangel Michael, whose figure came to life on the paper. He liked to study angel depictions during Christmas time; they gave him a feeling of calmness, a touch of what he’d once felt when he thought of Christmas: the reverent, saintly manner of masses; a boys’ choir, high voices innocently singing carols; candlelight and the smell of Christmas bakery. One of the few bright memories of his childhood.
Christmas would be different this year and yet very much the same as the past few years: Hannibal liked to spend Christmas Eve alone in his study with his music; sketching and letting his mind wander. This much peace he allowed himself before, on the first day of Christmas, he gave his famous Christmas Dinner Party to his elected circle of high society members who came for the food and to exchange gossip; in return they granted him a special position in their circle for another year. It was an incredibly easy game.
This year however it was harder than usual to give his mind a moment of rest; too many thoughts were still swirling around in his head and they all ultimately led to the man he’d just wished a farewell and, rather half-heartedly, a Merry Christmas, which Will had accepted with an equally half-hearted smile. They both knew that nothing about this Christmas would be merry for Will; not in his condition. Next to Hannibal on the table still lay the closed black notebook, the black biro sticking out and marking the page on which Will had drawn his distorted clock; witness to an illness only Hannibal knew the name of. He had suspected it for quite a while, but hadn’t said anything. It was too fascinating a thing to watch when someone was slowly losing his mind. Hannibal wondered what Will was doing in this moment; probably lying in his bed in Wolf Trap, sweating through one of his nightmares; or maybe, momentarily awake, panicking once more about how much time had passed that he had no memory of. Encephalitis was a severe condition.
The Archangel’s wings were of a rather beautiful shape. The glorious Saint Michael, Hannibal thought, who defeated Satan and threw him down to earth; he looked so gentle in his drawing - not a trace of a warrior. The patron of the soldiers and the police, but also the saint protecting medicine and healing; Will was certainly in urgent need of his blessing.
Absorbed in his thoughts and lulled into the calming music, Hannibal must have missed how much time had passed, because when he heard the voice that would set into motion a chain of events that Hannibal would never have expected, the logs had already burnt down and the room was lying in darkness except for the dusky light coming from the desk lamp.
“Saint Michael again? I thought you had grown tired of him.”
It was soft and young, a female voice. And Hannibal recognized it immediately, even though he hadn’t heard it for a very long time.
“Mischa?”
“Hello, Hannibal.”
There on the chaise longue - using Hannibal’s jacket as a pillow - a young girl was lying; turned to her side and looking at Hannibal with her big brown eyes. He felt a sting shoot through his chest at the sight of her. She looked so real, almost tangible, but he knew that she wasn’t. She wasn’t real because she wasn’t here; couldn’t be, because she was dead. It was not the first time she’d visited him, but all the other times he’d only seen her in his dreams, not here in the middle of his study while he was still very much awake. Or was he?
“Are you surprised to see me dear brother? I had planned to visit you for a long time; I thought you might feel lonely being here all on your own on Christmas.” She smiled at him, revealing a small gap in the front row of her teeth which Hannibal had always found particularly charming.
“I am pleased to see you,” Hannibal replied, trying to keep his voice calm, as far as feasible due to the circumstances. “So you plan to keep me company tonight?”
“I can’t stay for long, but you will have company tonight, I can assure you of that.”
Hannibal frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Put away that picture of an angel; tonight you will face some demons instead,” she said reverently. “They’ll come to remind you of who you once were, make you see what you’ve become and show you what this will lead to.”
“Is this a game, Mischa?” Hannibal asked skeptically. “Am I dreaming this?”
She rose from the longue and reached out for him. “Just play along, my brother. You have no other choice anyway.”
And before Hannibal could respond, before he could even make another move, the room around them flew away and, after seconds of utter darkness, was replaced by a completely different scene.
♠♣♥♦
Like watching it through a window from the outside, Hannibal stared at the scenery unfolding before his eyes: The interior of a church illuminated by the light of a hundred candles and decorated with fir branches and holly. A crowd of two or maybe three hundred people in warm winter coats were sitting in the pews, each of them holding a candle of their own. The warm sound of organ music reached Hannibal’s ears and he listened attentively to the familiar piece of music. Slowly he began to recognize the place: the ornamented altar, the pictures of saints on the walls, and at the chancel a boys’ choir was standing, their youthful high voices singing a carol.
Hannibal’s eyes were wandering over the heads of the audience, searching for the faces he knew he’d find there, even if he didn’t want to see them. There, in the first row a couple with a child was sitting; the man with his arm around the woman’s waist whose face was glowing and filled with tears at the beautiful sound of the choir. The child was a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, and she snuggled at her mother’s side; turning her head away to hide her yawning in the woman’s jacket. It was natural that she was tired; this was the midnight mass on Christmas Eve. When the choir paused before a new carol began the mother tugged at her daughters arm to direct her attention to the chancel where a young boy positioned himself in front of the choir. He had ashen blond hair that fell a little over his eyes when he lowered his head and was dressed in a dark suit that made him look older than he was.
Hannibal held his breath when the organ set in again and after a few moments the boy’s voice filled the church, instantly enthralling every listener. It was a soprano’s voice, clear and young, but a slight hoarseness in the higher notes hinted at the beginning of puberty vocal change. It was a beautiful voice nonetheless.
“They were always proud of you,” Mischa whispered, even though they both knew nobody could hear them. They weren’t actually there. “You were such a talented boy.”
Hannibal’s attention was drawn to the expression on his parents’ faces. They looked so calm, completely captured by the music and the magic of the atmosphere; and yes, they looked proud, very proud indeed. How come he didn’t remember seeing them like this? Had he never actually looked at them, or was it just his own memory, blurred and changed by the way he’d always wished it to happen but never had happened in reality?
“Whose memory is this? Mine or yours?” he asked his sister.
“It is our memory of the last Christmas you took part in the choir’s performance. The year afterwards your voice had become too low for a soprano and they wouldn’t let you sing the solo part anymore. You were so angry and frustrated about it that you refused to accompany us to Christmas mass.”
“I never liked masses anyway,” Hannibal replied, almost whispering not to miss a single tone of the boy’s vocal performance.
“No.” Mischa smiled. “But you’ve always liked being the center of attention; the performer; the one who leaves a mark simply by his appearance.”
Hannibal couldn’t really deny it, it was true. It had always astounded him how his sister was able to look through every layer of disguise he’d put up and point with her finger at each little weakness he tried to hide. How he’d hated this feeling of being seen; and yet how much he’d missed it for so many years. The first time he’d felt that understood was when he’d turned up in one of Will’s lectures to hear his analysis of the Ripper scene. Back then he hadn’t been able to hide his smile at how cleverly Will had peeked through the web of riddles and symbols the Ripper had weaved so thoroughly; but despite Hannibal’s glee about Will’s empathic skills he’d also known that if Will got too close there had to be put an end to it. And the end was what was happening now.
When the last note had faded away the church was filled by reverent silence. Nobody dared to applaud or even whisper; too fragile was the atmosphere the boy’s song had created.
“When was the last time you visited a church?” Mischa asked.
“That must have been in Italy probably, decades ago. Palermo maybe, the Norman Chapel. But I’ve been there often in recent times.”
Mischa smiled. “You are still building your Mind Palaces? I remember you already did this as a boy. Tell me, do I live there, too?”
Hannibal’s eyes were sad when he denied it. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t welcome her there, but she never showed up. Maybe she was there, behind one of the doors that he could never open.
Mischa nodded, understanding. “Is he there? Will, I mean. Did you let him in?”
“Not yet; but he is coming very close.” Hannibal watched the younger version of himself step back into the rows of the boys’ choir for the next carol while the priest spoke a prayer in Latin. The boy’s young eyes sparkled with pride about his own flawless performance.
“Sometimes,” Hannibal continued thoughtfully, “I see shadows scurry at the windows, sometimes they even linger and I catch a sight of the person they belong to. Sometimes I think it might be him; or just some old ghosts.”
“Speaking of which,” Mischa interjected and took his hand. “I think we should go back, don’t you? There is more for you to see.”
Hannibal didn’t even have time to reply when suddenly he found himself back in his study, sitting in his brown leather chair with his head sunken down onto his desk. Apart from himself the room was empty; no trace of Mischa or anyone else. Had he fallen asleep? He must have, it was the only explanation for his strange dream. He could have sworn she’d been here, talked to him. When he went over to gently run his fingertips over the soft leather cover of the chaise longue he almost expected it to be warm.
♠♣♥♦
Still confused and starting to feel very uneasy Hannibal decided to turn his attention to the preparation for tomorrow’s dinner. He’d already had some cooking assistants over today to cook the main course and servants were scheduled for the next day, but there was some frozen dessert that required being prepared this evening. When he started cutting fruit Hannibal noticed that his hands were slightly trembling and he had to be careful not to spill anything while whipping the cream. Nervousness was a state he didn’t often find himself in and so, not without a certain fascination for this crack in his solid wall of self-control, he tried to work out what about his conversation with Mischa it had been that had unsettled him that much. The pride in his parent’s eyes... he had never noticed something like that. For a stupid little second he wondered whether they’d still be proud of him if they saw him now; alone in his kitchen with his heart full of secrets and his cellar full of bodies. Probably not. They had been kind-hearted – at least most of the time; his father had beaten him once when he was ten because he had caught Hannibal stealing money from his mother’s purse. Hannibal couldn’t even remember the reason why he’d needed the money, but he could remember very well how much it had hurt when the cane came down on his backside. He had cried, his mother had screamed at his father, his father had screamed back and then Mischa had cried, too. It was the first and last time his parents had ever punished him physically. Hannibal had forgiven his father. It had been different times after all.
Caught up in his memories he wouldn’t have noticed the other man entering even if he’d come through the door instead of just appearing in the middle of the kitchen out of nowhere. The man’s empty eyes took in the room’s interior and a maniacal grin spread on his face at the sight of Hannibal who stared at him with a blank expression.
“I see you have far better equipment than I did; I expected nothing else from someone like you,” said Garret Jacob Hobbs.
Hannibal didn’t reply; he just held his glance, the bowl of whipped cream in his hands completely forgotten.
“Are you surprised to see me again? To be fair, I’ve paid dear Will more visits recently, which have not been very welcome as I understand. I’m sure he told you about it.”
Hobbs started walking around the kitchen, observing the interior, paying special attention to the knife block in doing so. He appeared totally calm as opposed to the maniacal state he’d been in the last time Hannibal had seen him.
“Two little words, Dr. Lecter. That’s all it took you to rip my life into pieces as well as my wife’s and daughter’s lives. How is my Abigail by the way?”
Hannibal put the cream bowl down and started cleaning up the surface where he’d cut the fruit to keep his still trembling hands occupied. “You should have thought about what horror your deeds would bring to her.”
Hobbs drew a wide and ugly grin at this. “There’s no use in trying to talk sense into me now, Dr. Lecter. Remember that I’m not really here, Mr Graham shot me.”
It began to dawn on Hannibal. “You are one of the ghosts Mischa mentioned?”
“You told Mr Graham I was a hallucination; I’m haunting him, constantly. Of course you helped quite a bit in the mission with your little pharmaceutical and psychological tricks. It worked perfectly, didn’t it? Do you enjoy watching him losing the ability to tell what is real? Do you ever really see what you’re doing to him?” He paused to turn his full attention to Hannibal, his grin growing even wider. “Don’t answer that, you don’t have a choice anyway. I will show you what you do to him; how he really feels.”
Within a matter of seconds the scene changed once more and through the thickly falling snowflakes around him it took Hannibal a moment to realise that he had ended up right in front of Will’s house in Wolf Trap.
♠♣♥♦
Will had once told him he liked to take a walk in the night but always left the lights in his house on so he could see it like a beacon in the night; that it gave him a feeling of safety and home. Hannibal had not really understood the attraction in this thought; but then home had never meant safety to him. Colder even than the winter storm around them he felt Garret Jacob Hobbs’ presence by his side.
“Shall we take a closer look?” he asked.
Careful, even though he knew Will couldn’t see him, Hannibal stepped closer to the window, risking a peek inside. The living room was illuminated and looked chaotic as usual; there was no Christmas decoration anywhere, not even a single candle or mistletoe. The dogs were lying around on the floor on top of several patched blankets; most of them were half asleep. Will himself was nowhere to be seen.
Hannibal turned at Hobbs. “Is this what’s happening right now?”
“In this very moment,” Hobbs confirmed.
“Can we go inside?”
There was this cold grin again when Hobbs spoke; “I rather suggest we wait. I’m sure the one you’re waiting for will show up very soon.”
He was right. Just seconds later barking sounded from the near woods, growing louder as the dog broke through the trees and approached the house. It was the latest addition to Will’s pack of strays; that much Hannibal could tell even if he’d forgotten the dog’s name. Shortly afterwards a person followed the dog’s trail, hastening into the open space on the lawn to check his hands in the moonlight. For blood, Hannibal thought. There was none; for once Will Graham’s hands were clean after one of his sleepwalking episodes to the forest and he released an audible sigh. He was clearly underdressed for the weather, wearing nothing but his pyjama pants, a thin pullover and slippers. When Will turned his eyes towards him and they widened momentarily, Hannibal held his breath, his heart pounding loudly.
“Can he see me?” he whispered to Hobbs.
“You know he always sees you, Doctor; but at the moment no, he can’t; it’s just his encephalitis doing things again; turning trees into people and shadows into monsters. It wouldn’t matter anyway, soon he won’t have any memory of this moment; or of any other moment that he thought he’d seen you. Time is running through his fingers; reality and imagination blurring into a perfect maniacal nightmare. You know what will happen, Doctor, you have seen the symptoms. These funny little clocks you let him draw are just a tiny promise of what there is to come for him if his fever gets worse. He will lose his mind; his beautiful, brilliant mind you adore so much. Will you stand there watching when it falls apart?”
With shaking hands and rattling breath Will was now groping for the key under the doormat; he’d kept it there since his sleepwalking started in case he locked himself out. The dog was running round his feet and barked at him impatiently. When he’d finally managed to open the door he ushered the dog inside and immediately closed the door behind him. Hannibal watched him walk straight to the nightstand where paper and pencil were ready for use, and Will began to draw a clock; his lips were moving while doing so and even though Hannibal couldn’t hear a word through the closed window he still knew what Will was murmuring: My name is Will Graham, I am in Wolf Trap, Virginia, my name is Will Graham...
“Good boy, obeying his doctor’s advice,” Hobbs said derisively. “So much unconditional trust.”
Hannibal lowered his head, somehow not able to watch Will’s misery any longer. “He’s coming too close to the truth. I can’t allow that.”
“You told him you cared about his life more than about those he saved.”
“I do care about his life,” Hannibal replied.
“Is that so?” Hobbs laughed sardonically. “Then why are you taking it from him; allowing him to drift off into madness?”
Hannibal had no proper answer to this. He did, he really did care for Will, but he had to do what was necessary, hadn’t he? Because he cared about his own life just as much.
“You cared for your daughter’s life, too,” he finally said. “And yet you tried to take it.”
“I’m dead, Doctor Lecter. Just like Will Graham will be. We are all part of your collection. Graham didn’t kill me; you did when you called me; just like you killed my wife and almost my daughter. You don’t save, you just take, take, take. If you want to learn to care you first must learn to give.”
Hannibal frowned. “How do you suggest I learn that?”
“Well, it’s Christmas after all – the holiday of giving; I suggest you use your imagination.”
Hannibal had many more questions, but as soon as he opened his mouth the scene around him blurred once more and Wolf Trap disappeared.
♠♣♥♦
Back in his kitchen, alone again, the first thing Hannibal did was pour himself a glass of wine, a few drops falling on the perfectly white tablecloth, and gulped it down in a few mouthfuls. It took a lot to make Hannibal Lecter lose control over his body; that only ever happened when he couldn’t explain something; when his ingenious mind was outwitted; and that was certainly the case here. There was no way Hobbs’ visit had been a dream; he’d been perfectly awake when they’d left for Wolf Trap together and likewise awake when he’d returned, ending up standing at the exact same spot in his kitchen. The clock told him half an hour had passed in the meantime. Had he begun to lose time as well? Far too unsettled to return back to his task of preparing the dessert, he decided to put the cream into the fridge and go straight to bed.
To his own surprise it didn’t take him long to fall asleep; he ended up chasing one restless dream after the other, episodes from his childhood mixed with memories of his murders and Garret Jacob Hobbs’ grinning face everywhere. He’d dreamt of these things before, but had never considered them nightmares until now; simply because he’d been feeling nothing.
When he woke up again the whole room lay in utter darkness. Hannibal couldn’t tell what had awoken him; normally he slept soundly through the entire night, but somehow he knew what was about to happen. They’ll come to remind you of who you once were, make you see what you’ve become and show you what this will lead to. Mischa had reminded him of the little boy he once was, Garret Jacob Hobbs had made him see what person he’d become and now he was waiting for the last one; the one who’d show him what his deeds would lead to. Lying there motionless and staring into the darkness he was suddenly afraid. Fear – a feeling he had suppressed for so many years – it still felt too familiar.
He heard the door creak open, soft moonlight falling into the room from the corridor; and on the doorstep a shadow grew to the ceiling, black and huge and soundless; the shadow of a creature with antlers, hooves instead of feet and long thin fingers that stretched out towards the bed in which Hannibal was sitting upright. He crawled backwards when the shadow almost touched him. The creature bent one finger in a gesture to beckon Hannibal to follow it. He obeyed unresisting; he knew it had to happen.
♠♣♥♦
This time neither he himself nor Will was present at the scene where Hannibal ended up. He recognized the room immediately. How could he ever forget it, the office where he first laid eyes on Will Graham some months ago? Now the chair where Will had been sitting was occupied by Alana Bloom, the chair next to her by Frederick Chilton. Jack Crawford himself was sitting at the other side of the desk. Dusky daylight was seeping into the room, and the thin clothing the three of them were wearing indicated that winter was over.
“I’m sorry, Jack, I know you trusted him.” It was Alana Bloom speaking; her hair was longer than the last time Hannibal had seen her.
Jack’s glance was directed at the window; his eyes were empty and he looked weary and exhausted. “I never thought him capable. I never knew him well, that’s true, but I thought I knew him well enough to trust him.”
“I thought I knew him, too,” Alana said, tears sparkling in her eyes. “But even the people we know best can surprise us in the most horrible ways.”
“Well, at least now the Ripper murders will have an end,” Chilton interjected with a smug tone in his voice. “And it will make a very good story. I’m already thinking about turning it into a book.”
The two others gave him angry glances.
“Don’t you dare try to make profit from this story,” Alana said warningly. “It’s a tragedy and we will do everything we can to protect those that are affected by it.”
Chilton leaned back in his chair, his mask of self-confidence slightly cracked by Alana’s words.
“So when is the… date?” Jack asked after a while.
“Three weeks from now,” Alana replied. “It’s all over the press already. Some of the readers’ comments are disgusting. It’s shocking to see how many people get off on the thought of an execution.”
“I don’t understand how they didn’t find him insane at the trial.” Jack thumped the desk with his fist. “We could’ve kept him in custody; interviewed him and tried to understand his motives.”
Hannibal looked around to find the shadow of the antlered man behind him. “Who are they talking about?” he asked, panic seeping through his words. The shadow remained mute.
“How will it be done?” Jack asked further.
“Electric chair I think,” Chilton replied.
Jack lowered his head; he looked defeated and ten years older. “I wish I’d known about Graham’s condition earlier.”
“We all wish we had,” Alana said silently. “Things would have turned out differently, maybe.”
“He misled us all, Dr Bloom. The answer lay before our eyes, but we didn’t see.”
Hannibal stood frozen on the spot. He wanted to say something, shout, scream: Who are you talking about? Who is going to be executed? But the shadow behind him began to grow along the wall and over the floor and the ceiling; the creature’s long fingers, made from nothing but black fog, crept over Hannibal’s face and covered his eyes, ripping him from the scene once more.
♠♣♥♦
When the shadow released him again, he was standing in a graveyard. It was winter and thick snowflakes were falling, adding to the white caps on the tombstones and trees. It was quiet; almost a peaceful view. The stone on the grave in front of him was completely covered in snow except for one part in the middle of the tomb slab where someone had uncovered the inscription “known as the infamous Chesapeake Ripper.” Hannibal looked around for the creature, but found he was alone in the graveyard; only his own shadow falling over the tomb in front of him when moonlight peeked through the clouds from behind him.
“Whose grave is this?” He was almost screaming now. “Who is buried here? Tell me! I need to know!”
He wanted to whip away the snow and read the name on the grave, though in his heart he already knew.
“Just tell me,” he asked the silence around him. “Are these things that will be, or things that may be only?”
But the silence gave no answer. The wind around him began to howl louder and louder until Hannibal felt the urge to cover his ears, even though he knew it wouldn’t help, because it was all happening inside his head. Then his own shadow suddenly morphed; its fingers and limbs grew longer, on its head antlers began to grow; and finally Hannibal screamed.
He awoke sitting upright in his bed; sweating and panting and his heart racing. Hectically he fumbled for his watch on the nightstand: half past eleven. It wasn’t too late yet. He knew what to do.
♠♣♥♦
Will looked disheveled and utterly confused when he opened the door. He was wearing the same pajama pants and pullover Hannibal had seen him wear in his dream (or rather vision) and from the exhausted look on his face Hannibal could tell he’d probably had another nightmare.
“What are you doing here?” Charming as ever.
“May I come in, Will?”
Will took a step back and let Hannibal pass; frowning at the pile of food containers Hannibal was carrying.
“Did you bring me food?”
Hannibal smiled at him. “I thought you might enjoy a small Christmas meal with me. We are both alone tonight after all.”
Will seemed even more confused than before. “Well… yeah, I guess. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Hannibal went right to the kitchen and started unpacking the containers he’d brought: roasted lamb, potato salad, baked vegetables, red berry sauce, mushrooms,… Will’s eyes widened at the sight of all the food; it was more than he’d ever had for a Christmas meal before.
“Did you make all of this for me?” he asked in astonishment.
“Well, not entirely, I have to admit,” Hannibal replied while setting the table with the finest plates and cutlery he could find in Will’s kitchen. “It’s part of the banquet for my dinner party tomorrow. To which you are invited, of course,” he added with a gentle look at Will.
“Oh – ok, thank you, Dr. Lecter,” Will said, still not sure what was going on.
“It’s Hannibal, please. We’re on a first name basis, remember?”
It took Will a moment to pull himself together before he sat down and they both started eating. It was absolutely delicious and Hannibal inwardly congratulated himself for his choice of assistant cooks.
“Will,” he began after a while. “Referring to your symptoms; I have my doubts about the result of the brain scan; I suggest you get a second opinion from another neurologist.”
Will looked up from his plate. “Well, if you think so. Will you accompany me?”
Hannibal smiled at him warmly. “If you wish, certainly.”
It was the first of many Christmas evenings they spent together and Hannibal’s last Christmas as a cannibal.
♠♣♥♦
“That’s a funny little story, Will, but you let your imagination run wild I’m afraid; it became a bit too dramatic at the end.”
“You can’t blame me for my imagination and you are a very dramatic person.”
“Maybe you’re right, but unfortunately I never got visited by any ghosts.”
“Yeah, it’s a pity. It would have saved us so much trouble!”
“Most certainly; but then we wouldn’t be here now.”
“No, we probably wouldn’t.”
The light of the sinking sun fell through the high windows of the Norman Chapel, reflected in the gold décor of the chancel and fell warm onto their faces, highlightening the thin scars on Will’s cheek and forehead. The light was paler than in summer, but apart from that nothing outside gave the indication that it was Christmas; the city of Palermo was snow-free as usual.
“Aren’t we supposed to leave?” Will asked after a while.
“We can stay as long as you like,” Hannibal replied with a smile.
“You could tell me a story, too.”
“I’m afraid I’m not the best storyteller; but I’d like to play something for you on the organ.”
Will frowned. “Don’t you think we’ll be heard from the outside?”
“We’ll be gone before anyone will notice.”
Will remained sitting on the pew, Hannibal climbed the stairs to the organ, sat down and started playing “Hark the herald angels sing” beautifully and slowly; the notes dropped from the instrument like melted wax. It reminded Will of the last time he’d been in this church, with Abigail. It felt like an eternity ago.
But even if their story had been different; they both, he and Hannibal, had created their own ghosts in the past and now and then they’d come to visit; that was for sure.