Chapter Text
The roll of the Atlantic doesn’t hurt as much as the initial impact had, but it’s a close second. Will’s body feels like it’s being mauled in an animal attack, his limbs being thrashed and pulled in different directions. If he wasn’t entombed by the ocean, his own blood would soak him just the same as the water.
His only steadying point of contact is the iron grip he has on what he thinks is Hannibal’s sweater. There’s a solid weight at the end of the fabric that placates Will for now. Further evidence of Hannibal’s continued survival is the painful grip Will feels in his hair, unrelenting in its hold.
It’s probably the only thing he could find to cling to once they started getting bashed around like loose change in the wash, and Will doesn’t mind the placement of the grip or the pain. If he could find Hannibal’s head, he’d do the same thing back.
Will had tried clinging to the other man, adjusting his hold on him on the way down from the cliff, and Hannibal had been like minded in his maneuvering. In the chill of the ocean, the recent memory of strong arms cradling his head and locked around his waist offered some imagined warmth.
His lungs began to burn in a more urgent way than a few seconds ago and the fact that they were both still underwater meant Hannibal was equally as unsuccessful in finding a way to the surface. Death stopped being a large concern for Will a while ago though, and Hannibal had always embraced the idea of his own end as another entertaining prospect in life.
Whatever happened, Will would be satisfied as long as it happened to both of them.
His back met a hard edge of rock and the force of it caused him to lose the grip he had on the doctor’s sweater as well as the last of the air he’d been hoarding in his lungs. His arms swung out trying to find the surface — no, still trying to find Hannibal, it’s always Hannibal — but he had no luck.
With a pang of clarity, Will realized the grip in his hair was also gone, and they had likely both hit the same rock, severing their connection. Forcing his eyes open, he was met only with the pitch black of the water around him with no other discernible shapes or figures making themselves known. Will was about to try blindly swimming for the surface when a swish of movement at his side displaced the water around him and caught his attention. Hannibal’s arm was reaching out to him, trying to snatch him up before the water could pull them both down.
Abandoning his quest for the surface, Will reached back to the hand he could only barely make out, but his uncoordinated attempt to link them back together failed. The last of his air escaped him in a trail of bubbles and Will’s vision went completely black as his body began the descent to the ocean floor.
Even knowing now how it all turned out, Will couldn’t find any feelings of regret to wallow in. Molly and Walter would be fine — better without him in all honesty. The world was rid of both him and Hannibal Lecter, their stalemate finally broken and resolved as fittingly as anyone could hope for. He’d never have to live another day without Hannibal, imagining his reactions or playful remarks to the things Will experienced alone in the world.
Will would die knowing that at least in his final moments, he hadn't been alone. That could be good enough for him.
His body loftily sank and his eyes closed a final time, burning from the salty ocean water.
***
“…Graham. Wake up.” An accented male voice broke through Will’s consciousness and his eyes shot open as his body sprung up ready to go to blows with whatever had come for him.
“It’s alright. Easy.” An older man in official looking clothing held his hands out as if confronting a cornered animal. He had a thick, gray beard and a full head of hair the same color. He also somehow knew who Will was.
Had they been fished out of the ocean and apprehended? Where was Hannibal?
“Komisaras.” The strange word came out of Will’s mouth, unbidden.
Who?
Despite having no idea what he had just said, Will watched as the man put his hands down and sighed. “The night terrors still follow you, William. You were too young when you saw the violence of this world.” He shook his head sadly and turned for the door. Will didn’t know what to say to that, or how he apparently knew this man and was known to him as ‘William’. “Collect yourself and head home for today. Try to sleep early and rest your mind.”
Confusion swept through him and he didn’t recover in time to ask anything else. The man was already halfway out the door when Will looked at the bunk-bed style cots he was surrounded by and took in the slightly musty air from the sheets that covered them.
It reminded Will of the ‘cradle’ back in his old precinct in New Orleans. Lots of cops or detectives would use the room to catch any sleep they could in between cases or during an overnight shift. He decided his best bet was to follow the man out of the room and if he wasn’t immediately placed in handcuffs, maybe he could find out where Hannibal was being kept.
And then…we kill Hannibal.
Jack's final word on the plan to capture the Dragon echoed in his mind as he got off the bed and approached the door. If he’d been here for a while and they had already whisked Hannibal away in a covert detail to enact Jack’s ultimate plan, Will was running out of time to boost a car from the staff lot and head them off.
Once he swung the door open, a cacophony of noises from the large room on the other side hit him. Several phones rang shrilly, and uniformed men sat at most of the desks speaking on the phone or writing in notepads.
No one seemed especially panicked or in a rush which filled him with dread. Even the implication of ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ being set loose on the streets again would invoke a mass gathering of every available state and federal agency who all shared the common goal of his recapture or — ideally — death.
Will’s body chose that moment to kick into autopilot as his feet thoughtlessly led him to an empty desk at the far back of the room. He sat down without meaning to and looked at the items on the desk. A landline phone, notepad, and some random office supplies. This wasn’t the office back at Quantico, but it didn’t seem completely foreign to Will either. His movements came as if someone was pulling his strings and he reached into the top set of desk drawers, pulling out a badge and a brown leather bound wallet. Will had no say in hand’s decision to open the wallet where he found an ID card and a picture of its owner.
This man was him and it wasn’t. A young man with his exact facial features and hair looked back at him but everything else was wrong.
Did he even have his wallet when he went with Hannibal to his cliffside property? Will didn’t think so. He moved to stand up but his legs locked up on him and kept him planted in the borrowed chair he was occupying. His traitorous body was another issue. Was this a trauma response to everything his body had been put through in the last however long ago?
Scrubbing a hand down his face in confusion and frustration, a new mystery made itself known. The cheek that the Dragon had torn through with a steel blade was inexplicably smooth and uninjured. No ragged bits of flesh hung from him and the mix of blood and seawater he was just choking on was nowhere to be found.
Will suddenly wanted too many things at once. He wanted to see Hannibal. Wanted to speak with Jack and Alana, find a mirror and confirm what should be impossible.
In his turmoil, he lost the grip he had on the wallet in his hands and it fell to the dirty hardwood floor beneath him. Picking it back up, he decided to end his racing thoughts and focus on the information printed on the enclosed ID card.
William James Graham was born on June 9, 1948 and apparently lived…in Lithuania.
The night terrors still follow you, William. The man who had woken Will up had called him William. Unless he’d aged to the point of looking like a 70 something year old fugitive, the man with the beard —this Komisaras as Will had blurted out, would have no reason to believe Will Graham from Baltimore was William Graham of Lithuania.
Having no choice but to investigate any possibilities, Will yanked open the drawer again and fished out a small paper calendar he caught a glimpse of earlier. It was bare of any notable dates, but it very clearly had the current date marked as September 9, 1978. Looking back up at the room around him, not a single person was using a cellphone or computer. Landline phones sat at every desk and Will couldn’t find a single trace of internet capable technology in the room.
A large flag he couldn’t place sat in one corner of the room and on the walls around them were different paper bulletins all written mostly in what Will would guess was Lithuanian. Thankfully, some parts had been translated to English.
Will walked up to one that looked mostly translated and read the small print.
Official Police Notice for the Public: All citizens are urged to take necessary precautions to preserve life and livestock during the incoming winter storms. Temperatures are likely to drop to dangerous conditions at a rapid rate and if you are traveling outdoors, it is advised you do so with the appropriate clothing and supplies for an unforeseen emergency.
— Precinct #9562; 2, September 1978
Each piece of paper had a date on it and Will couldn’t find anything older than March of that year or more recent than the weather notice he had first read. Scanning the room again, he took in the clothes worn by everyone in the room and himself. Green official looking uniforms, chunky black boots that would be good for the snow, and buzzed hair for most of the men around him.
He should be dead. He should be dead or dying on the sandy shores he’d thrown himself to the mercy of.
Maybe he did die.
Maybe the universe thought it was funny to make him wake up in the birthplace of the man he had just doomed and lost to the ocean, but it still didn’t explain how his mind came up with names of people he had never met before or his ability to walk through this place like he’d done it a thousand times.
It didn’t explain the lack of stares he should surely be getting or the lack of injuries that he had been close to death because of.
“Inspektorius!” A man’s voice called from Will’s right before an arm was flung over his shoulder in a familiar embrace. He only barely managed not to throw it off him. “The patrols are good today, spirits are high and the town is full of life even though it’s so cold.” A voice even more accented than the man from earlier spoke cheerily in his ear.
The man was young, younger than Will but college-aged he’d guess. His uniform was different from Will’s too, a simple dark green ensemble with a yellow reflective vest over it and the word “Policija” stamped on the front in big block lettering. Will’s own clothing was decidedly more authoritative with a button down overcoat in the same shade of green the other man wore and pressed slacks, only a little wrinkled from his ‘nap’.
“Matas.” His mind again supplied.
Judging by their difference in apparel, he’d guess the man in front of him was likely an unranked police officer with no other distinguishing title. He also looked quite young, so maybe he was still a bit fresh from whatever police academy ‘Lithuania’ had to offer. ‘Inspektorius’ is what he had called Will. It wouldn’t be a great leap to guess that it roughly translated to ‘Inspector’. Probably something akin to a detective then. Either way, it seemed that he and ‘William’ had forged an easy enough friendship.
“You should be done now, yes? Let’s go see motina for dinner.” Will’s body allowed itself to be taken from the precinct and out into the open space of the outside streets.
As he was herded down the streets and chatted at by his companion, Will sorted his thoughts into piles of ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’.
The events with the Dragon and his entire life from Louisiana boatyards to his small home in Wolf Trap was a figment of his imagination and he really was ‘William Graham’.
Impossible.
He died in the ocean and the afterlife was mocking him.
Possible.
Hannibal would be somewhere nearby either with some of his own memories or not at all.
Possible.
Even with his mind grasping for straws, that made no sense. Will went into the ocean bloody and battered in the year 2018. He also woke up perfectly unharmed in a new country and with a slightly altered name in 1978. He continued spiraling and getting tangled in his own thoughts for the short walk to wherever ‘Matas’ was leading them and they ended up outside a small brick shop that appeared to be a restaurant.
Of fucking course. If Will was going to find Hannibal anywhere in this twisted scenario it would be a place responsible for feeding the masses. His shoulders tensed as they closed in on the building.
Matas pushed open the door and they were immediately greeted by an elderly woman with a worn apron tied around her waist and a smile aimed directly at them. “William, Matas! Come in, the food is just coming out of the oven now.” She was a remarkably short woman, and her hair was tied neatly back hidden under a knitted bandana.
“Motina!” Will’s companion called out as he took a seat at a barstool in front of her. “I know you are psychic and one day I will prove it. You always have the food ready when we get off from work. William doesn’t believe me, but I think you have spies hidden all around town that tell you when we leave work.”
“I have been serving policemen for 30 years and William for the past six years. I know how the shifts work.”
She placed two steaming plates of food in front of them, each with a hearty serving of what looked like shepard’s pie. “Inspektorius Graham has been coming here every week — sometimes twice since he was just starting out as an officer, just like you Matas. This has always been his favorite meal.”
That’s helpful to know.
There was no sign of Hannibal yet, but Will was constantly looking over his shoulder and at the doors that led to the back kitchen. The food itself lacked the doctor’s distinct abilities, but it was still delicious.
“I’ve seen him climb the ranks all the way to Inspektorius. Maybe one day you will follow in his footsteps.” ‘Motina’ looked every bit like the proud mother of two rambunctious boys.
“You say that every time we come. I can only hope.” The two men ate silently for a while and Will enjoyed the food more than he thought he would. He understood why this figmented version of himself was supposedly a regular. He looked around for more clues or a lurking team of undercover agents ready to scoop him up, but the room was only filled with other patrons — mostly elderly.
He wasn't sure if the realization that Hannibal wasn't going to come sweeping in from the kitchen was a bigger source of relief or disappointment for him.
During the meal, it hadn’t been his intention to stay silent either. Every time he thought to say something, it was like someone else took over again and stopped him from saying anything at all. He was helpless to do anything but shovel food in his mouth and listen to what his companions were talking about.
Neither of them seemed to expect much conversation from him anyways and carried on between themselves as the elder woman saw to other customers. He learned that she had a husband, five children and eight grandchildren. Matas lived at home with his mother and younger brother, but didn’t mention his father. When they finished their meals, both men paid and Will silently followed him out of the restaurant.
“I will see you tomorrow, Inspektorius!” He called out as he turned to walk in the other direction. Will stayed in his spot a moment, before turning away and staring down at his feet. They had managed to get him through the beginning of his time here without any assistance on his end, maybe they could get him to wherever ‘home’ was. Just as he had for countless crime scenes, Will closed his eyes and let the world around him fall away until his body moved on its own and he began walking in what he was sure would end up being the ‘right’ direction.
Almost ten minutes later, he had passed a tavern, a barbershop, and a dog kennel before stopping in front of an apartment building. It was large and not shabby looking which was fine enough for Will. Letting himself get carried further in, he walked up a flight of stairs and came to a stop at a door labeled 212. Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a set of keys and tried one of the two keys in a game of chance. The first attempt failed, but the second key got him in.
Slowly walking into the room, Will surveyed the small, sparsely furnished area. There was a small couch and a table to the side of it littered with papers and a small radio that sat on top of them. The adjoining space was obviously the kitchen which had a single stove and fridge, with a few cabinets off to the side. Will walked further inside to the bedroom consisting only of a bed, a chest of drawers and off to the side, a black medium sized domed travel trunk.
Walking over and kneeing in front of it, Will ran his hand over the wooden surface of it, noting that it looked older, but felt remarkably sturdy under his palm. The black paint was scuffed in some areas, but he did not see any damage that wasn't cosmetic. On the front of it the letters ‘TG’ had been carved into the lid and Will ran his finger over it to feel the depth of the etches. Noticing the small lock on it, Will then brought out his keys again and tried the one that had not worked on the front door. A small ‘click’ as they key turned opened the trunk and he peered inside.
There were a few pictures and papers at the very top that Will pulled out first, and as he did so, he saw a pile of folded clothing that was underneath. They looked military issued and felt scratchy between Will’s fingers. He turned back to the items in his hands and the first one he saw explained the clothing, but added a new pile of questions onto what was already a mountain of them.
Once again he was met with a face identical to his own. A young man with his exact facial features and shorter hair, smiling widely, surrounded by a small group of men Will also didn’t recognize. Quickly flipping the photo over, Will read the inscription:
4th Infantry Division, United States Army, 1969.
He sat on the floor with a long sigh, left to puzzle out this new insight.
Will was born in 1978, and certainly had never participated in what would have been — the Vietnam War? His father was an only child, and had never joined the army, eliminating the possibility of a look-a-like relative.
Next, he read through the letters. There were three in total, all from ‘William’s’ father. They all expressed some degree of concern for his well-being out in the war zones and they all ended with a reminder of the love he held for him back home in the states. A newspaper clipping was tucked into the last letter, and it read as an obituary for ‘Thomas Richard Graham’, beloved father survived only by his son William.
TG. Thomas Graham. This was his father’s trunk.
Reaching back inside, Will found a few more pictures and after reading their inscriptions, he was able to come to a few preliminary conclusions. Thomas Graham died in 1971 from causes not listed in the letters or obituary. Shortly after the death of his father, William Graham left the Army which he had joined right out of high school, and moved directly to Lithuania for reasons also not clarified. Within the year, he had become a patrolman and thanks to a final picture of this William at his promotional ceremony, he had been promoted to ‘Inspektorius’ close to a year ago.
A photo labeled ‘Tom and Willy, 1956’ depicted a child version of William Graham and his father smiling as they stood in a filled plastic pool together, presumably during the summer months of wherever they were living.
Another snapshot showed an adult William behind the wheel of an older looking car. The window was rolled down and a cigarette hung loosely from his mouth. Whoever had taken the photo was standing next to the car instead of sitting in it. There was no caption in the back of this one, but Will got what he needed from it.
Most of the other photos were of similar moments. Inconsequential individually, but helpful to Will in learning who he was supposed to be.
He leaned against his father’s trunk — Thomas’ trunk, he corrected himself — and let this new information wash over him. He hoped this was just a trick of the mind or some elaborate punishment for dying before he could face justice for all the wrongs he’d done, but on the off chance he had to face another day in this body he would learn all that he could.
Walking into the bathroom, Will stripped the clothes from his upper body and looked himself in the mirror to confirm a few more things. The stab wound to his cheek and shoulder courtesy of the Dragon was gone. Not only that, but the gunshot wound Jack had left him with had also been erased. The scars on his forehead and abdomen Hannibal gifted him were gone too, and he found himself feeling the most out of place in the wake of their absence.
There was scarring he couldn’t account for to consider as well. On his right pectoral, the skin was jagged and raised, and Will’s best guess was that it was a burn of some kind. It didn’t hurt to touch but the skin was notably disfigured in a way that if people saw it, it would be hard not to stare at first.
With no cellphone and no computer, he had no way of doing any further investigation tonight. The apartment had given him some precious insight into his alternate self’s life, but if he wasn’t careful around the people that seemed to know him well enough, he would slip and not be able to answer basic questions.
The temperature was quickly dropping outside, and Will knew it would be a dumb idea to go out and try to navigate a city he didn’t know anything about. He had no way of contacting Hannibal, and if it really was September 1978, there was no one for him to contact at all. He wouldn’t be ‘born’ for another two months.
Despite the cold outside, he had begun to sweat under all the layers of clothing he’d been wearing all day. After a quick shower, he laid down in the only available bed and closed his eyes, hoping that he either opened them back in America as Will Graham or not at all.
***
“Did you consider this as a possibility when you made your plans?”
Hannibal stood in front of him back at the beach house the Dragon confronted them in, the same glass of wine being offered to Will.
“I don’t even know what this is.” He said. “Are you here too as someone else? Some version of you that joins the PeaceCorps or something?”
“Humor cannot shield you from this Will.” Hannibal said chidingly. “You must decide whether to confront what is to come, or allow things to unfold in the same way.” He took an annoyingly casual sip of his wine, softly smiling at the taste.
“Is this real? I’m sleeping now, I’m sure of that, but back there…’Inspektorius Graham’. Is that really happening? Did I kill us?”
“We often trust the things we can see, but in this case, you cannot reconcile the life you know to be yours with the one you’ve awoken to.”
“Great synopsis, feel free to start offering a helpful piece of direction now.” Will took an agitated gulp of his drink, chasing it with a lungful of oxygen. “Where are you?” he asked quieter now. “Are you here with me or are you still ripping clumps of my hair out in the ocean?”
“I’m here, Will. Once again, I remain somewhere you can always find me.”
“Lecter castle.” Will nodded. “I can go to you, and we can try to find a way back or…I don’t know, away?”
Hannibal shook his head. “You won’t find the version of me you wish for there. I have yet to be shown the cruelty of the world and am on an entirely different path. But not for long. I told you of my family's demise, and if you think about it, the timelines will start to come together for you.”
Will thought back to the calendar he’d found on his desk.
September 1978. 35 years before they met in Baltimore in his original timeline. Hannibal would be around 10 or so if Will had to guess, which was right around the time his family had been killed.
Soldiers — army deserters broke into the castle in the early afternoon and were upon us before we had time to run. Hannibal’s words from the past came back to Will. There were too many of them, and my parents were killed as they tried to protect my sister and I.
“You’re family’s alive. For now?” He guessed.
But not for long. Hannibal’s words from moments earlier filtered back in.
“You’re going to be attacked soon, everything that happened before will happen again.” Horror filled Will at the prospect. “Hannibal you can stop this, you know they're coming.”
“I cannot. My childhood self remains blissfully unaware of what’s to pass, and will remain so until it is too late.”
“You want me to intervene. To prevent their deaths.” Will concluded.
“I don’t want you to do or not do anything.” Hannibal countered. “You asked me questions regarding your current circumstances and I have answered them to the best of my abilities.”
“If I do nothing, your family will die.”
“Just as they did before, yes.”
His flippancy angered Will. “That’s it? That’s the whole of your thoughts on it?”
“I’m not in a position to stop it, just as I wasn’t before.”
Will turned away, in anger. Angry at Hannibal’s complacency; angry that he was right. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Hannibal! I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be here and now you want me to decide whether or not your family lives or dies? And you want me to believe you have no feelings about it one way or another? What the hell do you even expect me to do—”
As he turned back to look at the older man, he discovered he was gone, and the scene around him changed from a calm moonlit night to a snowy terrain, sometime during the day. Will could see his breath misting out in front of him in a panting rhythm and his hands were empty now, clenched at his side.
Looking around he saw nothing but snow covered trees and patches of empty space between the thick of them. He walked a few steps forward and began to see the outline of a large, ornate gate.
Hannibal’s gate. He remembered the sight from his brief excursion to Lithuania when he was seeking clarity about who the doctor was. He met Chiyoh there and the starved man she kept in the basement before he set the board up to facilitate his murder at her hands.
Chiyoh wouldn’t be here now though. It was too early for her, and the castle would still be occupied by the Lecter family, whole and ignorant of the bloodshed to come.
From the corner of his eye, Will caught movement and turned to see six haggard looking men lurch forward in the snow, making a beeline for the castle. This was the group that would be responsible for the greatest known tragedy of Hannibal Lecter’s life.
If Will couldn’t get there first.
“No…hey! Hey!” Will unthinkingly stumbled forward, tripping over his own feet in his haste to intercept the group. He could see the front door of the house now where the soldiers were closing in on the entrance. Getting to his feet again, he watched as a finely dressed man — Hannibal’s father if Will had to guess — walked out to confront the group. Instinctively, he reached for the gun he usually kept holstered at his waist, but the space there was predictably empty.
“Get back!” Will called out uselessly to the other man. He was running as fast as he could, but it never seemed like he made it any closer. Will was helpless to do anything as one of the soldiers pulled out a handgun and with one shot, ended the life of the Lecter patriarch.
“Fuck!” Will cursed as he continued moving until he had a better look at the front door to the estate where the Countess and children were huddled together. “Get inside!” He yelled but instead the Countess fell to her knees from the shock of seeing her husband executed a few feet in front of her. She sprung up to a kneeled position, turning to push the children further inside, but it was too late. Another shot rang out and her body crumpled to the ground, partially hanging over the steps.
The older child — Hannibal — grabbed his younger sister and began to run in the opposite direction of the carnage, but the soldiers were quick to give chase and the door slammed shut behind them, sealing everyone inside.
Finally making some progress, Will ran straight into the door, grabbing for the handle and trying to force his way inside. The nearest windows were too high to be reached and would offer no entry to him without a ladder he didn't have the time to search for.
The sound of the children screaming just past the entrance spurred him on and he threw his shoulder into the door repeatedly, but it showed no signs of giving way. Will’s cry of frustration mixed with the sound of horror coming from inside and his body jolted backwards at his next attempt at breaking down the obstacle in front of him.
Suddenly he wasn’t outside the Lecter estate or in the beach house with Hannibal. He was back in his borrowed apartment with his heart racing and the lingering adrenaline making his hands tremble at his sides.
He had been dreaming. He was aware of it when he was with Hannibal, but in the snow, as he chased the group of soldiers and lost his chance to save a single member of the Lecter family, it felt more like sinking into the mind of a killer where Will is both there and not.
The clock on the far end of the wall told him it was just past 5:30 in the morning, so Will decided to get up and try finding his way back to the police precinct he’d been at yesterday.
The Hannibal from his dream seemed certain that despite Will’s arrival here, everything else would unfold exactly as it had the first time around. He was currently the only one who knew about the deserters and subsequent murder of the Lecter family. Therefore, it stood to reason that he was also the only one who could try to prevent it. The sound of a young Hannibal and Mischa screaming in terror still echoed in his mind, and Will knew there really was no choice to be made.
He would save the Lecters from what was to come. He would give Hannibal the chance at a life that wasn’t defined by death and cruelty. Even if he was just hallucinating this whole situation or if it is just a ploy for him to fail again and again like in his dream, he would still do what he could to change the outcome.