silverusagi

Word Count: 5400
Genre: Slash, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence

Summary: Sequel to When the Devil Smiles Back. Three years after Hannibal Lecter’s escape in Memphis, Clarice profiles Will Graham. From there, nothing at all goes as expected.

-----

2

Clarice fleshed out her profile of Will over the next few days, but after that, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. She was certain Crawford wouldn’t welcome a profile of Will Graham declaring him a righteous killer, especially since he’d told her that Dr. Lecter and Will weren’t currently her concern.

However, her own profile had made Clarice interested in what else had been said about Will over the years. She couldn’t find any instance of him being officially profiled. There were the statements Dr. Chilton had made at his trial, as well as comments made to the press that his own research on Will Graham would be forthcoming. However, when all charges against Will had been dropped and Dr. Chilton had been framed as the Chesapeake Ripper, Dr. Chilton’s analysis of Will had never seen the light of day.

There were the expected articles in the Tattle Crime archives, including an interview Will had actually given to Freddie Lounds, though there wasn’t anything of real sustenance there. Freddie Lounds was prolific, but she could hardly be described as a balanced source.

Except for a brief period of time when Will had been in the public eye, there had been more interest in Dr. Lecter than there had been in him, at least in academic circles. In the media, Will’s story had also been overshadowed by Dr. Lecter’s, but Will had gotten a fair amount of press in his day. Then after Dr. Lecter’s second escape, when it had gotten out that not only was Will Graham alive, but that he and Dr. Lecter were together at large, a fair amount of talk had been generated.

There were the Tattle Crime forums, of course, but Clarice also found other, even less savory, places online. She knew, objectively, that many serial killers had cult followings and even received marriage proposals while incarcerated, but reading comments from people who seemed to revere Dr. Lecter and Will Graham was extremely disturbing.

But in general, Will remained a mystery, both to academics and to the public at large. And while Clarice was satisfied with her profile, she was at a loss to see a practical use for it, at least just at the moment.

It was very likely he and Dr. Lecter weren’t even in the country. And even if they were, Will was the best profiler the FBI had ever had, and his particular gifts would make him very hard to catch. How could anyone predict the movements of a killer who was hunting targets the FBI didn’t have a lead on to begin with?

Clarice pursed her lips. She knew there was an answer there; she just had to figure out what it was.

----

Time passed.

Clarice set aside her project on Will Graham, and instead used her free time to unwind after stressful days. There were weeks at a time when she had enough killers on her plate without figuratively taking others home with her.

She mentally thought of her profile of Will as her pet project, but she was still resolved in not making it her very own crusade. She had personal interest in catching them, but she didn’t have a personal vendetta, and she didn’t let herself become obsessed. Clarice considered it an unofficial side project that hadn’t panned out yet; if she ever had a legitimate breakthrough, she would take it to Crawford.

She did start paying extra attention to any particularly grisly murders that came through Behavioral Sciences, but there was nothing about them that made her think any were related to Will Graham.

Once or twice, Clarice used the FBI’s access to international databases to look for any unusual murders abroad, but it was just more of the same.

Life went on.

The holidays soon arrived, and with them, another Christmas card from Dr. Lecter. It had an elegant print of holly leaves on the front, with his signature beneath the standard printed message inside. Clarice inspected the envelope, but as always, there were no clues as to its starting point.

She tucked the card away with the others.

Clarice wondered why she was keeping them at all. They were hardly evidence; the FBI received similar cards every year that were inspected and filed, for all the good it did.

It just seemed impolite to throw them away.

-----

It was weeks later that Clarice had her first real breakthrough about how her profile could lead to anything. She had been working on a completely different case when the thought struck her.

Instead of watching for murder victims that seemed like the work of Dr. Lecter or Will, what she needed to be doing was looking for unsolved serial killer crimes.

Clarice realized the absurdity of the statement on the surface. After all, looking at unsolved crimes was what Behavioral Sciences did all day long. But she needed to be looking at them in a different light. She didn’t need to look at the ones they were currently trying to solve; she needed to look at the ones that were on their way to becoming cold cases.

If Will was killing killers, those cases would likely never be solved. Even if he had displayed his victims, it might not have been done in a way that allowed them to be connected to the victims of his victim.

The prospect of going through cold cases without knowing exactly what she was looking for was daunting. Clarice began slowly, making notes on the locations of victims, notes on the killer’s profile, and most importantly, if the killer had gone silent for a longer period of time than normal.

It was a project she only worked on sporadically, being slow going as well as the least rewarding use of her time. She briefly considered going to Crawford and telling him her theory, in a bid to get more manpower on the project, but she suspected he wouldn’t assign more agents or be pleased. When she found an actual pattern, she could go to him. Until then, this whole project was based on an informed hunch.

Clarice also considered bringing Ardelia in, but dismissed that idea quickly. Even though this was grunt work and nothing more, she didn’t want Ardelia involved. On the incredibly slim chance that this did lead to Dr. Lecter’s arrest, she didn’t want Ardelia near anything that had to do with capturing him. She knew enough of Dr. Lecter to know that even the barest involvement with him meant nothing was safe. While Clarice knew Ardelia would scoff at her precautions and would gladly sort through paperwork with her, she couldn’t bring herself to ask Ardelia to assume the risk, despite the risk they both assumed every day.

But Clarice’s work went nowhere quickly. Some killers went months or even years without killing again. There was nothing that pointed to them being stopped by any force other than their own urges. She knew the chance of her finding anything was unlikely, but she had to try.

There were several cases that she followed up on, making a few calls to clarify things, but there was nothing strange enough to merit more attention. Once, she even made a day trip to a small town in North Carolina to review the locations of former crime scenes of a killer who had dropped a body a week for five weeks before simply stopping. But she couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary to suggest that he had been stopped by someone else.

Clarice kept at it, reviewing old files in her down time, even though she was beginning to think it was an exercise in futility.

Then she came across the case from Minnesota.

Three girls dead—Mary Andrews, Erica Jones, and Holly Ferguson.

She remembered the investigation of it, though at the time she had been working a case involving a killer in Kentucky who was murdering hitchhikers by dragging them behind his truck. But nearly a year ago, six separate pieces of a girl were found scattered throughout her hometown in Minnesota, leading to a day of grisly discoveries for unsuspecting residents. Two months later, there had been another girl found divided the exact same way in the next town up the highway, then another body roughly three months after that in the following town. Residents of the fourth town on the road were understandably alarmed, but there hadn’t been another body since.

It had been in no way long enough to assume that the killer wasn’t still operating. And while his pattern suggested that another body should have appeared by now, it was also not impossible that the killer simply hadn’t had the opportunity to kill again. This was hardly a cold case.

And yet there was something about the case that made her reluctant to dismiss it. The case that had brought Dr. Lecter and Will Graham into each other’s path had been in Minnesota. The Hobbs case had been ten years ago, but besides the victims being young women, the cases had nothing else in common. The killer’s methods were completely different, and the bodies had been found in the northern part of the state, near one of the national forests.

There was certainly nothing to suggest any sort of legitimate connection to Will. There was nothing even to suggest any tentative connection to Will, besides her own ideas of Will and her growing gut feeling that this was important somehow.

As Clarice dug deeper into the case, she found nothing that hadn’t been found before, but that still didn’t quell her feeling that she could, if only she could see things from just the right angle. She was aware that she was looking at things from a different angle to begin with, if she was operating under the assumption that this killer wouldn’t kill again because he himself had already been killed.

After several weeks of spending her free time looking at case notes and mapping locations on Google Street View, Clarice decided she simply needed to go for herself. It was a long shot, and she knew that she would probably find nothing, but the idea wouldn’t let go of her. She had the same feeling that she’d had the one and only time she’d bought a lottery ticket: the logical acknowledgement that she had a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning, combined with the passionate conviction that it didn’t matter because she was going to win (she hadn’t).

Clarice knew she would most likely find nothing, but she couldn’t stop thinking of the possibility that she might. Once decided, she was then faced with the logistics of the trip. She didn’t have enough to go to Crawford with; what she had in general was a wild theory that hinged on two lines Dr. Lecter had spoken three years ago, and what she had specifically was a supposition based on that theory that Will Graham had done away with a killer in Minnesota even though there was no evidence for it whatsoever.

Walking around looking for something to substantiate her profile of Will Graham in what was basically an arbitrary location was not something Crawford was going to support. But if she found something, she could take her profile of Will to him, get more manpower on the task of creating parameters for what they should be looking for in the future.

Clarice resolved to make the trip on her own time.

It had been a relatively slow week at work, all things considered, and she arranged to take Friday off. She again considered telling Ardelia, but rejected the idea. If she told Ardelia, Ardelia would insist on coming. And while Clarice ultimately would not make a trip by herself if she thought it was going to be dangerous, she couldn’t eliminate the possibility of finding exactly what she was looking for.

Clarice’s highest hope for this trip was finding a lead, no matter how small. But it had occurred to her that the absolute worst case scenario would be running into Dr. Lecter and Will. There was nothing to suggest that they had even been in Minnesota recently, let alone were still there, but better that she chance encountering them by herself than to put Ardelia into Dr. Lecter’s path.

As it was, Clarice considered this a fact finding mission. She would talk to the people involved in the original investigation, see the towns for herself, and show Will’s picture at gas stations and hotels. Hunting required time, and if Will had hunted the Minnesota killer, he had to have been in the area for at least a few days, even if it had been months ago.

If she found something, she would call Crawford. If she found something immediate, she would call for backup.

Whenever the time came, Clarice had no illusions about arresting Dr. Lecter and Will herself. She fully agreed with Crawford about utilizing a SWAT team. And even though her efforts had been focused on Will, Dr. Lecter’s arrest had always been part of the goal. It was simply that she had a theory on Will’s possible movements, whereas on Dr. Lecter’s she had none.

But on whatever future day arrests were made, it had to be both of them, or there would be hell to pay. If there was one thing that would bring Dr. Lecter to her door, it would be taking Will Graham away from him.

-----

At the end of the week, Clarice set off from work on Thursday evening, ready for the long trip ahead of her. She had decided to waste her time rather than her money; even though the drive was over eighteen hours, a round trip plane ticket this late would have been more than a thousand dollars.

Clarice left at five o’clock. She planned to drive until midnight and find a roadside hotel, and then begin again bright and early.

She had lied to Ardelia, the only person to whom she actually had to account for her whereabouts. Clarice felt horribly guilty over the lie, though she had no guilt over protecting Ardelia from something that she herself was already involved in. She had told Ardelia that she was taking a weekend to get away and decompress. It was something Clarice actually did several times a year, so Ardelia hadn’t thought it at all strange, nor would she think it strange not to hear from Clarice until Sunday.

The drive was long and boring, and the hotel she stayed at was the standard fare. But she made good time on Friday, arriving at the town the first body had been found in around six-thirty in the evening. She was exhausted, but made the most out of the last daylight to find the sites where remains had been left.

There was nothing remarkable about any of them. A trail in a public park, a delivery entrance at the back of a downtown store, a residential street—all were easily accessible and had allowed the killer to do his business unseen in the dark of early morning. He had left limbs, a torso, and a head scattered around the town like grisly unwrapped packages.

Clarice hadn’t expected to find anything at the sites, but she had wanted to get a sense of them. After that, she visited motels and gas stations, showing a picture of Will, as well as a separate picture of Dr. Lecter, and asking if anyone remembered seeing them recently. No one had.

She went to her own motel shortly after, checking into her room and almost immediately going to bed. She had two appointments tomorrow, one with a detective here and the other with the police chief from the second town a body had been found in. She was lucky either of them had made time to talk to her, given that tomorrow was a Saturday. Her plans were to speak to them in the morning and then visit other relevant sites, before visiting as many surrounding hotels and gas stations as possible.

Even though she wasn’t actually investigating the case itself (but rather, something that might be related to it, as she had been upfront in explaining), she was interested in the perspectives of the people who had worked it firsthand. Clarice didn’t expect to solve the case of the dismembered girls, but she was looking for someone who potentially had. She still felt her best bet was the chance that someone had seen Will in the area, but she had come all this way to get a firsthand view of things, so she intended to do that as well.

-----

The talk with the detective didn’t inform Clarice of anything that she hadn’t already known, but she graciously thanked him for his time.

Next she met Chief Jenkins, a genial man nearing retirement. The murders were clearly the worst thing that had ever happened in all the years he had worked.

“When we got the 911 call that an arm had been found by a dog walker, we knew what we were in for,” he said. “We sent out every cruiser right then, hoping to catch him in the act. That was about just after six in the morning, but he was long gone. Ferris and Brady found two more pieces of that poor girl while patrolling, and the other three were discovered by citizens pretty quick.”

Clarice nodded. Everyone that had discovered a piece of one of the girls had been thoroughly interviewed and none of them had been suspected of being involved. Though before she had made the trip, Clarice had taken the time to ascertain that they were all still living. It had occurred to her that if anyone even peripherally involved in the case had been killed, it had the potential to be a very solid lead on Will.

“The town was on eggshells after that,” he continued. “Makes people afraid to step out of their front doors. And I’m sure you know the kinds of calls you get after something like that. Everyone’s Aunt Mabel has a theory on who done it.”

“I’ve read all the reports. From what I understand, there were never any serious suspects, not considered by you or by the FBI.”

“That’s right. Now, they investigated the murder of Mary Andrews—the first girl—pretty differently, but after Erica Jones was killed and your people declared it a serial murder, it was a whole other ballgame. We did investigations on everyone that knew Erica, but they all checked out. There was no connection between any of the girls. As far as we could tell, he was just killing them to be killing them, God help them. Folks are getting antsy again, though, expecting another body any day now.”

Clarice nodded again. “What do you personally make of the theory that it was a drifter, just someone passing through the area?”

Jenkins spread his hands. “It’s a nice thing to think, makes people sleep a little easier. We do get a lot of people passing through the area, and as far as the timing goes, the girls were killed during some our nicer months, before the real cold sets in, and that’s when there’s more seasonal traffic. Have you talked to Charlie Benton?”

“No,” Clarice said, though the name rang a bell. “He was a park ranger?”

Jenkins nodded. “Still is. He was never on the force, but we all know each other around here. He and a couple of the rangers kept an eye out for anything suspicious around the parks when the worst of it was going on. You might talk to him or one of the other boys if they’re around.”

-----

Clarice found Benton’s address and phone number listed in one of the case files. She called the number, but it obviously wasn’t current, as it had been disconnected. She decided to drive to the address on the off chance that he was home and she could speak to him. If he wasn’t, she intended to leave a note with her contact information.

She doubted that Dr. Lecter or Will had frequented a national park, but if they had been searching for a killer who did, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Benton’s address was out of her way, but it would take her an hour, tops. Then she could resume hunting for evidence of Will ever being here until it was time for her to start her drive back. It was just past eleven, and Clarice grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch in town before heading out.

Her GPS led her north out of town, and soon she was on a forested county road with intermittent driveways. The houses that she could see were small, and few and far between. It was several miles more before she reached her destination. The driveway was long and at the end of it sat a small wooden cabin that had clearly been built in decades past as a hunting cabin or a weekend home.

But there was a truck parked in front of it, and Clarice was gratified that she hadn’t driven out here for nothing. After parking next to the truck, she got out and made her way up the steps to the front door.

She was reaching to knock when a pained, primal scream erupted from within the cabin.

Her instincts kicked into overdrive, her hand automatically going for her gun. Clarice didn’t second guess herself about anything else a scream like that could have meant. She was tracking serial killers, and someone was being murdered.

The phrases ‘exigent circumstance’ and ‘imminent danger’ flashed through her mind like lightning, and she quickly assessed the door. It was old, weathered wood, and the lock was not a deadbolt.

Putting all her weight into it, Clarice delivered a well-aimed kick just below the doorknob, and then another. On her second try, the door swung inward, and she stepped in with her gun raised. “FBI! Freeze!”

There were two men in the room—one swung around at her dramatic entrance, the other was hanging from a hook in the ceiling. His arms were suspended from ropes, his toes barely touching the floor. He was bruised and bloody, and he was turned so that she had a clear view of his left side, where new blood was flowing from a deep wound.

The man who stood behind him was holding a red-stained knife, blood still dripping from it. He was average in every way—average height, average weight, somewhere in his forties. Clarice cataloged all that she saw in less than a second, pointing her gun at the man on his feet.

“Drop it!” she yelled. “Now!”

He moved, his clear intention to stab the other man again, and Clarice shot him in the shoulder. The knife went flying, and he went down with the impact of the bullet, rolling onto his stomach.

“Stay down!” Clarice commanded.

The man made an attempt at movement, reaching, and the prisoner rasped, “He’s got a gun.”

Clarice fired again, and the man went still, dead.

She rapidly took stock of the rest of her surroundings. The cabin had one front room with a fireplace, a galley kitchen on one side, and two doorways. Clarice swiftly checked both of them for further threats, finding nothing but an empty bedroom and a bathroom.

She then returned to the tied up man, holstering her gun and grabbing the first knife in the kitchen that she saw to cut him down. All of his weight seemed to hang from the ropes, his muscles taut and exhausted, his head bowed.

“Sir? My name is Clarice Starling. I’m with the FBI. You’re safe now.” Clarice sliced one rope and then the other, and the man swayed uncertainly for a moment before he fell to his hands and knees, breathing heavily. She knelt next to him, pulling out her phone. “I’m going to get you help. Just hold on.”

Before she could dial, he snatched the phone from her and tossed it behind him, his other hand removing her gun from her holster in one smooth, speedy movement as he stood. Clarice jumped to her feet and found herself staring down the barrel of her own gun.

It took her a moment to even recognize the man behind it.

Will Graham.

Even facing him head on, she almost did a double take, and couldn’t blame herself for not identifying him in the heat of the moment or its aftermath. His hair was halfway in his face, damp with perspiration and blood, and his features were muddied with dried blood from wounds that had freely flowed. He was shirtless, his torso a patchwork of cuts and color; his pants were slashed and stained crimson.

She had come here looking for Will Graham, but she had never truly expected to find him, least of all like this. Her head was spinning, desperately trying to process the situation. Surely the man she had just shot was Benton, but she had missed something horribly. She’d been right, she’d been wrong—but she didn’t have time at the moment to figure out how the two collided. She needed to deal with the circumstances she was in now.

Will was watching her with a steady gaze. He was in bad shape, but he wasn’t nearly as wobbly as he had apparently pretended to be when she’d first cut him down. The hand that was now holding her gun was anything but shaky.

“Handcuff yourself to the sink, Clarice,” Will said, his voice rough. He gestured with a nod of his head to the door behind her.

Clarice remained unmoving, unwilling to immediately do anything that would put her at an additional disadvantage. The moment was tense, but every second that passed gave her further confidence. If he’d intended to kill her, he would have fired the second he’d gotten his hands on her gun.

She looked at Will, her gaze just as firm as his. “You’re not going to kill me.”

“No,” Will agreed, his admission sounding anything but encouraging. “But I will shoot you.” He adjusted his arm so that the gun was pointed at her shoulder instead of her head. “And then I’ll restrain you myself.”

The tone of the moment had shifted, and not in her favor. Clarice hesitated, even though she knew her options were limited. Will was in no condition otherwise to prevent her from doing anything, but she had no doubt that his aim was excellent.

“I’m not going back to prison,” Will said. He cocked the gun, his eyes dark. “If I have to choose between me and you, I’m not going to choose you.”

Part of Clarice already knew what she was going to do, even though she hated it. She saw no good alternative besides fighting him and getting shot, and she didn’t particularly feel like getting shot.

Clarice exhaled in defeat. “Fine,” she said, nodding. “All right.”

In other circumstances, she might have taken her chances, done anything before she let herself be rendered immobile and vulnerable. But she had some experience with Will Graham; he simply wanted her out of the way.

Will gestured with the gun, a sharp, quick movement. “Take off your holster,” he said. “And your jacket.”

Clarice did so, removing her belt and dropping it to the ground, before taking off her jacket. Then she took her handcuffs and backed into the tiny bathroom.

Will kept the gun trained on her the whole time. “Both hands,” he said.

She crouched and secured one cuff to her hand, and then reached around the pipe under the old porcelain sink before cuffing her other wrist. Will stepped into the bathroom and pulled the cord for the light, then moved to her and gave the cuffs a firm tug. Satisfied, he tucked the gun into the back of his pants.

“I’m going to check your pockets,” Will said.

Clarice nodded.

He dropped to one knee, checking her pockets with the ease of someone who was used to doing it. She tried not to wonder whether he was falling back into police procedure, or whether it was something he regularly checked before tying people up. She also tried not to think about the blood he was probably getting on her clothes.

“Where are your keys?” he asked. “In your jacket?”

“Yes, in the pocket.”

But after processing his question, Clarice had a moment of sheer panic. “You can’t just leave me here,” she gasped, looking up at him. “Please. No one knows where I am—no one will even be looking for me.” No one would find her if he took her phone, and if she couldn’t figure out a way get loose by herself— “Please don’t leave me like this.”

Will stared at her a long moment, his brow furrowing as he considered her. She had no idea what he was thinking, though it was clear that he hadn’t expected her reaction. Will’s stare went vacant, and Clarice wondered if he was reading her like he would read a crime scene. Finally, he said, “It would be… inadvisable for me to drive anywhere right now. If it’s unnecessary, things are simpler. I’m also going to need your shoes,” he added.

Clarice dropped her eyes to the floor as she sat all the way down; she was unbearably relieved that he wasn’t simply leaving, and slightly ashamed of that relief. Will removed her shoes without comment and felt under the hem of her pants to check for anything strapped to her ankle.

Then he stood, moving to rummage in the mirrored cabinet above the sink, looking for anything that was potentially within her reach. After that, he stepped back and regarded her from the doorframe.

He really did look horrible. She wouldn’t be surprised if every bit of his energy was being used merely to stay upright. And yet he had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to make sure she stayed restrained, when it would have been much easier for him to have shot her.

“You need a hospital,” Clarice said.

“I have a doctor,” he said, his voice flat but amused.

Clarice could hardly pass up an opening like that. “Where is Dr. Lecter?” She had assumed they were still together, but after finding Will like this, she suddenly wasn’t certain.

“Looking for what he lost, I imagine.”

Clarice realized he was referring to himself. But something in his tone indicated that he hadn’t been lost by choice. “Then I imagine you want to be found,” she ventured.

Will smirked. “I imagine so.”

After another moment of silence, Clarice asked, “What happened to you?”

“I had an admirer.”

It took Clarice a moment to realize that he was talking about Benton. She raised an eyebrow. “Your admirer wanted to kill you?”

One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

With that, he turned and left her there. She saw him moving about the room outside, picking up her discarded things and going through them. Clarice heard the faint jangle of keys. He had both her gun and her car keys, then. When Will next crossed her line of vision, he closed the door as he passed.

Will’s footsteps around the cabin grew unsteady, and once she heard him stumble. She honestly hoped, for her own sake, that he didn’t pass out and give himself a concussion. The sound of movements continued for a few more minutes, and only when she heard the low sound of his voice did she realize that he must have been looking for Benton’s phone, because he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to use hers. She had the pointless thought Benton must have gotten another phone after his previous number had been disconnected.

The conversation was short and abrupt, and while Will talked softly enough that she couldn’t make any of it out, there was no question of who he had called.

A moment later, his footsteps neared the bathroom door again, before continuing for a few more paces and stopping. She heard the audible creak of old springs as he collapsed on the bed.

Raising her voice, she asked, “Is he coming?”

In the silence afterward, Clarice thought that he had passed out, or simply wasn’t going to answer for whatever reason.

But Will finally spoke.

“Yes.”