You Are Now Entering Gate #12

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING GATE #12
chapter seven

Papers, papers and more papers. Will had writer's cramp by the time his day at the morgue was finished, scribbling away all of Jack's oral notations on each chart and carefully labelling and numbering each one. He had no idea coroners were responsible for this amount of hospital work, where every slightly non-natural and questionable death became a tedious chore of ball point penned notes, checked boxes and signatures. A bumper crop as Jack jokingly called it. Jack was the people person, so he spent a good deal of his time on the phone, talking to surviving family members and letting them know how to fill out insurance forms. It was all painfully dull and free of adrenaline. He yawned as he snuck a look through the open office door and watched as Jack weighed a three hundred pound man's oversized heart, the third one that day. By two o'clock Will was ready to take a nap.

He had to admit there were certain psychological advantages to this kind of slower paced life, one that slightly resembled the one he'd made for himself before Jack Crawford had wandered onto his property at Wolf Trap, seeking his help. There was a strange, Fate induced atonement happening here, and if his counterpart was someone who fell to pieces at every stress placed on life, this Will Graham was well equipped to deal with all of them.

All but one. Ezra Graham, alive and well, was a serious problem.

The rotten *sameness* of him was what upset Will most. Everyone else in his fresh and shiny little universe was morphed and changed by this new shuffle of life and death and patchwork sexuality. But not his father, oh no, he had to stubbornly cling to his usual boorish charms and loutish booming that put every single one of Will's teeth individually on edge. That morning Will had sleepily gone into the living room, awoken by Hannibal's Lithuanian curses and his father's unmistakable drawl and was instantly disappointed to see that Hannibal hadn't slit the old bastard's throat. Of all the people for a monster like Hannibal to leave alive. It smacked of insult.

Jack opened the office door, the scent of rubbing alcohol and death seeping in through the opened frosted glass door. "Your ball and chain is trying to get a hold of you. Apparently, you are out of parsley."

Jack waved his cell phone in Will's face, the text message sitting in a little blue bubble on the screen. "Jack, please inform Will that I need the following ingredients: Parsley, leeks, Guinness beer and baking soda. Tell him to go to the proper gourmet market I prefer on Charles St., the produce is superior to any disgusting 7-11 Eleven he will choose on the way home. And please tell him to turn on his phone. So sorry, to trouble you--Hannibal Lecter."

Nervous, Will tore his cell phone out of his lab coat pocket and discovered the battery had completely died. "I..." Was this normal for them? Was Hannibal's reckless need to fill the day with useless grocery lists a burden Jack Crawford, coroner, didn't need to bear?

But Jack laughed and it was obvious to Will that this was, in fact, a common occurrence. "He's stressed to the max about your dad, isn't he? Fuck, that guy can make a sloth feel jittery."

Will openly groaned and sank his face into his hands. "He's staying for dinner tonight, and Mischa is coming over. He's been bugging me about my career choice, my past mistakes, the way we eat breakfast, he's smacking Hannibal's ass and calling him 'Babydoll' and he keeps tuning that damned guitar. If he sings tonight, I'm going to lose it, I'm going to wrap those tinny strings around his neck. All of us at the table, Jack. One big, happy, festering family, what can I say?"

Jack found Will's misery hilarious, his giggles echoing throughout the tiny office. He slapped Will on the back with a thick pile of beige folders which he then plopped onto his desk. More ink to spill on paper.

"I'd be pissed I didn't get an invite but with Ezra at that table, I'm glad I'm not in your miserable company. Hope Marcus doesn't get all riled up like he did the last time. Ain't right the way he talks to that kid, accusing his mom of being some kind of baby trapper. Ezra's favourite topic. It's way out of line."

Will frowned at this and began shuffling through the files, Jack giving him a friendly pat on the back before leaving him alone with his thoughts. He fished through the desk drawers and found a power cord for the cell phone and plugged it in, the little green bar gasping for life.

No, he hadn't been honest with Hannibal about his father, and who would? The fact he was just as burdened in this universe with his father's criminal bullshit was every measure of depressing. He was still pulling his blues man act for the ladies, too, and Will winced at the very thought of his father strumming on that guitar, singing a song of his own creation about whores and split arteries. If the FBI really wanted to catch a contract killer all they had to do was listen closely to his father's lyrics.

His cell phone awoke and he could see that several missed messages from Hannibal littered the tiny screen. The phone had a picture of their dog Samson as the wallpaper background, his grey, grizzled face smiling with slobbering content into the camera. At least the dog didn't judge him.

Will swept the phone open and the frantic texts from Hannibal made him sigh in resigned misery. "Will, are you aware that your father and our son have had a serious disconnect practically since our eldest child's birth? Your father fervently believes I trapped you into marriage by getting pregnant! He said this right in front of Marcus, the absolute gall of him! I am ready to put my chef knife in his back and fillet his spine, he practically called me a whore!"

"I'm going to kill your father. He is an abhorrent, disgusting, horrid man!"

"I've spent the bulk of my early evening wondering how best to roast your father's heart. Sadly, as he's been wholly unapologetic towards our very upset son, I suspect he doesn't have one to cook."

"Tiger has just scratched a large, bloody gash in your father's arm. Serves him right for picking her up and teasing her. I have never envied an animal more."

Will let out a groaning sigh and answered the texts with quick work of his thumbs. "He thinks all females and those with female parts are whores. Honest to God, it's nothing personal. Hopefully, the store you remember is still there. C U soon, leaving in an hour."

He tossed the phone back onto the surface of the desk and dove into the paperwork of the dead. Form letters and checked boxes, that was what we come down to. There was a strange comfort in this. When the time came, not even his enigmatic Hannibal's corpse could avoid this kind of boring charting.

~*~
The drive home with Jack was cheery and uneventful and a very tired but stress free Will Graham who had spent a happy day with the dead toddled into his home and was immediately struck by how quiet it was. He stood in the front foyer with the door still open, snow billowing in behind him as he listened with suspicion at this pervasive sense of calm. He could hear guitar strings plinking upstairs in the living room, and girlish giggling from Mona and Abigail. He closed the front door behind him carefully, sliding his coat off of his shoulders and hanging it up, all the while constantly staring up the stairs and around the corner to the left of the chapel, convinced there was about to be a gunfight to rival the climactic scene in Scarface.

He cautiously slid off his shoes, placing them in the closet before walking in his socks to the tiny kitchen, where he found Hannibal and Marcus dutifully preparing dinner and chatting amicably. There was no hint of any violent discourse despite knowing that Ezra Graham was very much in the house. Hannibal paused as he was cutting a potato in half, and gave Will a tight smile. "You went to my preferred grocer's as I requested?"

"Cost me an arm and a leg," Will complained, holding up the cotton bag with the store's logo on it: 'Hobbs Butchery & Organic Eats'. "You'd think he'd give us a discount since his kid eats here so often."

"I should have rethought this dinner," Hannibal said, taking the ingredients and giving them a critical eye. "I have Mason Verger's viewing tomorrow night, and Franklin's mother-in-law is getting buried in the morning. They delivered her pink plastic coffin an hour ago, oh it is truly dreadful, a thrift store Barbie wouldn't be caught dead in it. I can't wait to put it in the ground, such a monstrosity only proves that Tobias is every inch the sadist I know he is set to become. Marcus, be a darling and set the table in the chapel's guest dining hall."

Marcus gave his mother a strange look at this. "We never eat there."

"Then this shall be a new tradition. There's far too many of us for this tiny little room and half of our dining chairs are at risk of falling apart, the spindles are cracked and the legs wobble. A thrift store would reject it. Why are we keeping it when the whole thing is nothing better than kindling for the crematorium? Use the good silver, I saw it earlier in a plastic shoe box near the sideboard by the main chapel doors."

Was it just his perception or was Hannibal taking on aspects of a rampant Martha Stewart Motherhood, complete with a stint in prison? Will pulled up a stool to watch Hannibal continue prepping dinner, flour dredged pieces of lamb browned in a sizzling saucepan with butter. "It smells delicious."

Hannibal craned his head around the corner of the refrigerator making sure Marcus was gone before turning back to Will with a dour, anxious expression. "I have a serious problem."

Will grinned and leaned over, deftly kissing his pouting mouth. "Yes. You smell and taste as sweet as ever. It's getting a tad overpowering, to be honest. I think you might be in heat again."

"That may explain some of the amorous attention I've been receiving lately, though not all of it. Will, I met Alana Bloom and Margot Verger today."

"Yes, the whole Mason counting sheep thing..."

Hannibal tutted at Will's flippancy. "It was very uncomfortable. Alana Bloom is an Alpha and when you said the females are aggressive, you were a little off the mark. She practically violated me when she had me trapped in the basement."

"She has that habit," Will reminded him.

Hannibal took out his cell phone and placed it on the cutting board between them. He kept checking over Will's shoulder to make sure no one was coming into the kitchen. He tapped the screen and brought an eyeful to light. "She keeps sending me dick pics."

"Well, I suppose I should be offended, but really...Jesus, that's Alana Bloom? I'm feeling kind of inadequate."

Hannibal snatched up his cell phone and turned it off. "She's sent me five of them, and it's not funny! Stop laughing, there is nothing amusing about her massive cock!"

"We-hell, somethin's got you all hot and bothered, Babydoll. Ah, see the boy of the house is home. Why we eatin' in the chapel dining room when this one's just fine? I don't want to be munchin' my meal with the worms. Coffins right beside me making me feel guilty over upping my cholesterol every time I stick a fork in some cake. That's an eat a damned salad room if I ever saw one. Not a very good idea at all, Babydoll." Ezra Graham sauntered up to the kitchen island, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. "Came down for a beer. You two are mighty handy with each other, lately, hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Hannibal, glaring at Ezra Graham with barely contained murderous intent, opened the refrigerator door and walked away. Ezra raised a brow at him and snatched up a beer. He opened up the cold bottle of Blue with a twist of the cap and tossed the metal bottle cap onto the counter in front of him. Will watched it roll and clatter before resting logo side up. "The freak got out today, it's all over the damned news. Making Mona real scared. That Abigail's a weird one, ain't she? She don't care at all, in fact she seems to think it's kind of funny. Her dad's a right mess over it. She told me flat out she figures he'll kill him, and she shrugged over it like it was nothing. Weird, weird kid."

"I wouldn't be so judgemental," Hannibal tersely said, concentrating on washing the leeks in cold water at the sink. Bits of dirt poured out of the centre. "We all deal with trauma in different ways. As I recall, you tend to create some of it yourself, your attitude towards Marcus is deplorable."

Ezra seemed slightly cowed by this and Will gave Hannibal a questioning look, one that was answered with an 'I-Know-What-I'm-Doing' response.

"The kid was way out of line," Ezra said, and took a gulp of his beer. "Nobody calls me an ignorant son of a bitch at a dinner table and gets away with it..."

"You attempted to bring up a subject that is not only untrue but extremely hurtful, and he had every right to chastise you for it. It's clear you didn't learn your lesson the first time and now, again, you have to hammer in your very unwelcome, ignorant point. Insisting I trapped Will into marriage is hardly a way to pave a healthy relationship with your grandson. The facts are, you don't like Marcus because his birth severed the hold you had on your own son. You feel like I have stolen him from you." Hannibal turned on him, chef knife poised. "I think it was a theft worth implementing. Regardless of what has happened in the past, Will and I are very happy now. You're just going to have to accept that."

Ezra raised a brow at Hannibal, who was surprised the man didn't back down against his firm reasoning. "I hear Jimmy Price was lurking around here earlier. Neighbour saw his car in the driveway."

Will watched as Hannibal chopped at the leeks with more force than was necessary, the thin slices sliding off of the edge of the cutting board. "He stopped by to let me know that Frederick Chilton has been officially released. A courtesy call."

Ezra cruelly laughed at this. "Is that what they call it these days? Guess that has a more polite ring than 'booty'."

With that mic drop, Ezra walked out of the kitchen and headed back upstairs, leaving Will and Hannibal alone together once again. Hannibal sighed unhappily and Will slid onto a stool at the kitchen island, his elbows perched on the surface as he balanced his chin beneath clasped fingers.

"You had an affair with Jimmy Price."

"Apparently I'm still having one," Hannibal said with a disgusted grimace. "He was hoping to have a little rendezvous of sorts when he visited this afternoon. Don't worry, I sent him away."

"Considering the incredible universe altering events that have happened to keep us together, I believe I should expect some exclusivity." Will smiled at Hannibal's discomfort. "He lied to me about that yesterday, but I figured he was." He frowned, thinking on that conversation. "We still have Abel Gideon to worry about. He's the mastermind in this whole Chilton fiasco, and I have to wonder what he's planning. That kind of madness doesn't just walk away, he had years to torture Chilton and now that he's got him released he must have some other scheme up his sleeve. I'm not liking it."

Hannibal hummed in agreement. He added the leeks to the ingredients sizzling in a rondeau as well as a large splash of white wine to deglaze it. He added the chopped vegetables and stirred the contents adding a small amount of homemade stock before covering it with a large lid and lowering the temperature. "We should probably just kill Gideon. Or rather, could you do it? Maybe tomorrow morning? A good whack in the back of the head with a hammer, they'll assume it was Chilton, of course."

Hannibal said this with such tired boredom, Will was taken aback. "But killing people is your passion."

"It was." Hannibal sighed in tired resignation. "Odd as it sounds, my heart's just not in it. I never realized the responsibilities of family life could be so taxing on one's emotional resources. I wanted to kill your father several times today and had ample opportunity, but the effort was just too daunting. Besides, Mona adores him for some reason, and I couldn't bear to listen to her screaming, I have a terrible headache as it is. Honestly, Will, by the end of the day I'm just too tired to do much more than drink wine and collapse with a good book."

Will gave Hannibal a good once over, noticing his pallor and the way he kept pressing his fingers against his brow, a very slight sheen of sweat meeting their tips. "This condition of yours is really getting to you," Will observed. "When is your next appointment with Bedelia?"

"Next Friday. Other than sparking interest from you, I honestly don't see the point of Omega heats. They make me feel like I have the flu, how is this conducive to lovemaking?"

"It's not. It's geared towards advertising your fertility. You're the doctor, you know that enjoying the act of making babies is not always the rule of nature."

"You enjoy it," Hannibal said, a tad bitter.

"I do, but I admit, you're getting a little sickly sweet for me. Your body chemistry is a little off, it's like a constant trigger. I thought getting blue balls before was uncomfortable..." Will broke that train of conversation abruptly, he was already feeling a renewed sense of arousal that he didn't particularly want to have at present. "Business is currently booming, I take it?"

"I have a very early, busy morning ahead of me, Will, I have to truss up Tobias Budge's mother into some semblance of attractiveness. She makes an exceptionally ugly corpse, and I daresay I understand this current Franklin Froidevereaux's dislike of her, even her unanimated husk projects extroverted misery. There's a permanent scowl on her brow, one so deeply etched it will take quite a bit of sculpting to ease it off. I'm afraid if Gideon is to be eliminated, it will be your chore."

Will shook his head. "I don't have time to go chasing after Gideon, I'm helping Marcus arrange his trip to Lithuania. We're planning out his route to the Lecter castle and his starting point itinerary. He's leaving in a few months and he needs this all ironed out, he's got the money in the bank for his plane ticket. After that I'm driving Abigail home and Hobbs wants to have a BBQ tomorrow afternoon. You're invited as well, of course."

"I have *funerals*, Will. I have to stuff and preserve meat, not char it. And really, you are continuing with this ridiculous plan that our son has embedded in his foolish head? You can't possibly allow him to traipse around Europe calling himself Moses, the boy needs a serious injection of ambition."

"It's his decision, Hannibal."

"I suppose you are going to give me some tired excuse, some ridiculous argument geared towards him 'finding himself'. He's an intelligent boy, one whom I believe possesses much of his father's empathy. You're going to just cast him off and turn that loose onto the world, leave him flailing in his imagination."

Will rolled his eyes at this. "Marcus is not at the mercy of his mind like I was. He has grown up in a stable, fairly happy home with a father and mother who understand his gifts. He is clear headed and insightful, not prone to crazy."

"He wants to go to Lithuania to stay in that moth ridden pile of rubble that's ready to topple over into the ocean at the first sign of a harsh breeze. I do not agree with your analysis, Will."

The argument was cut short by a loud knock at the front door accompanied by a frantic pressing of the doorbell. Will left the kitchen to investigate at the same time Mona stomped down the stairs with lead feet, Abigail following softly behind her. She got there ahead of him, and their eager daughter whipped the front door open and there, standing in the frame and shivering with cold, was Mischa. She was brandishing a bottle of wine and Will noted she was already unsteady on her spindly, three inch high heels.

"AUNTIE MISCHA!!" The bleached blonde woman was snared into Mona's bear hug. "ARE YOU WASTED ALREADY? DAD'S GOING TO BE PISSED!"

Mischa staggered in, leather mini-skirt and mesh top doing little to hide her upper and lower assets. The large Rotweiller, Samson, slowly slobbered his way towards her and she bent over to give the ancient dog a small pat on the head. Her heels slid on the marble flooring a couple of times as she tried to walk across it, the dog in a similar state. "Jesus, you seriously need to put a rug down here in the winter. Someone's going to slip and break their neck on that damned floor." She brushed herself off and forced a large grin at Will. "Beverly's just parking the car. Hope he doesn't mind I brought her along. Is it true you're dad is here? Ezra is *here*?"

A sickening realization wound its way through Will's gut at this, one that was amplified by Beverly's cursing entrance, snow shaken from her carefully curled hair and smudged mascara quickly corrected with a swipe of her thumb. 'Oh my God,' Will thought with a growing sense of absolute horror and he cursed his empathy, he cursed it with everything he had in him for putting the unbearable knowledge in his head.

'They slept with that bastard. Both of them did.'

"Yeah, he's here," Will said, and tried not clench his teeth as Beverly and Mischa collapsed over each other in a fit of conspiratorial giggling.

~*~

"I don't know why we didn't just eat at the dining table in the kitchen like we always do, you can hardly see anything in here, half the lights aren't working." Mona poked her fork at a white lump that she squinted over before she finally realized it was a potato. "Abigail said her dad's been dating some creepy Alpha guy who's got ripped muscles and has like this dragon tattoo thing on his back."

Abigail nodded at this as she picked apart a piece of soda bread, crumbs hitting her colourful plate of stew. "I mean, my parents were both Omegas and that's already kind of strange to some people, but now that dad's seeing this guy all his friends are going on about how he's wandering the sex spectrum and they think it's weird."

"We're all a bunch of weirdos, sweetheart," Ezra Graham cut in, and for once Will didn't feel the need to argue with him. The feeling was short lived. "Gotta wonder, though, how it was two negatives like an Omega made a positive like you?"

"Dad used a genetics bank. They spliced his DNA with an Alpha donor."

"Seems awfully complicated when all either of your parents had to do was use a turkey baster."

"Dad says Mom never liked Alphas or Betas." She gave Ezra Graham a smiling, demure look that was falsely innocent. "Or turkey."

Will grabbed his glass of wine and downed a good gulp of it, watching Mischa and Beverly intently, noting they were both vying for Ezra's attention, displaying ample cleavage whenever possible. He noticed Hannibal's increasingly tight grip on his knife and fork at this, his silence over the animated conversation at the dinner table speaking more than words could.

"Seems we're missing one more at the table of our happy little family," Ezra said, obliquely to Abigail but more to the group at large. "Jimmy Price was too busy hunting down Chilton, is that it, Babydoll? He was here this afternoon, you'd think he'd have gotten an invite."

Hannibal furiously tensed at this and shot Ezra a nasty glare, one that put his continued existence in this universe into serious question. But it was Mischa who went on the attack at this, her head shooting up in sudden seriousness, Ezra's roving eyes forgotten.

"What do you mean? Jimmy Price was here?"

"He was simply letting me know that Frederick Chilton had been released," Hannibal said.

"Yeah, real convenient excuse. I thought you said he was never coming back here."

Will was surprised by Mischa's sudden anger at her brother, only to quickly realize that yes, she knew all about the affair with Jimmy Price and thought Will was still in the dark. He gave Hannibal a raised brow and Hannibal gave him a micro expression of confusion in answer. Mischa dug into her meal with a sudden forceful anger, her fork piercing the meat as though she wanted to stick the prongs in Hannibal's arm instead. "I don't get how you can let that guy in here, it's absolutely stupid him hanging around like that, when he has no damned reason--Right, big brother? No fucking reason at all to be here. None!"

Mona and her brother Marcus exchanged glances of their own at this sudden outburst. Abigail watched the entire thing with a sense of benign boredom. "Aunt Mischa, FBI Agent Price was the one who saved mom's life, he kind of has a reason to drop in once in a while, especially with that crazy jerk on the loose now." Mona picked at her stew and her brother remained stoically silent and in agreement across from her. So much wasn't being said, they were all suffocated from the weight of innuendo and ignorance that perversely hovered in the air above them like a thick mist. "It really bugs that me that you guys keep talking about stupid shit and you don't dare bring up *that*."

"Mona, please, don't curse at the table," Hannibal softly admonished her.

"If you want to talk about it, we can discuss it later," Will offered. "As for Mr. Price, I don't think there's anything strange about his concerns, though maybe it would be better if he called first."

"Sure thing, that way he can make sure you aren't at home," Ezra Graham weighed in.

Will glared at his father, who was amused by his son's anger and actually chuckled over it. "Dad, I don't appreciate this. Hannibal and I have a very strong relationship, no matter what you think, I am not taking off and hiding my head in the sand just because some deranged lunatic has been freed from his cage. Chilton had a very specific modus operandi, it is highly unlikely he is going to attack us now."

"Well, seeing as how the whole thing left Babydoll barren, can't see what he'd be looking for, it's true. Pass the salt there, will you Mona? Little light on the seasoning, here, could have used more pepper, too."

It was a low blow, one that was meant to hit that alternate version of Hannibal hard. Will cocked his head and let out a sigh of impatience that cut through the darkness of the room like a well honed knife. "We have two beautiful children, and that is more than enough."

But the tension at the other end of the table remained palpable and Will was shocked to note that Hannibal had stopped eating, his knife and fork gently placed down on his plate, his body drenched in ugly shadows. The former killer's mouth was a twisted line as he gruffly said, "Please, excuse me," and, to Will's further shock, Hannibal held his hand to his mouth to hide his displeasure, his eyes a glossy black from barely held in tears. He got up and marched from the table with resolute steps that echoed through the chapel and out its doors, a choked sob escaping as he stomped through the empty front foyer.

"You're a fucking prick," Marcus shot at his grandfather, and threw down his napkin, his chair scraping as he left his dinner untouched and stormed out of the chapel's dining area, his fist loudly hitting the lid of a coffin on his way. The hollow ring of it set the disastrous tone of their dinner into clarity.

"You gonna let that boy talk to me like that?" Ezra shot at Will, who could only give his father a long suffering roll of his eyes.

"For fuck's sake, Dad," he said, and he likewise left the table, the gloom too much for him to bear.

~*~

He found Hannibal in the kitchen, plating up chocolate trifle between his sniffling, the concentration shaky but not lacking in his usual hyperfocus on detail. Little sprigs of fresh mint and fanned strawberries completed the beauty of the plate. He looked up at Will with slightly red rimmed eyes and ducked his head as though embarrassed. "The prolonged heat I keep experiencing is making me overly emotional," he said, trying to keep the tears he'd shed into a realm of cold scientific analysis. Will wasn't fooled one bit.

He slid up behind Hannibal and wrapped his arms around the taller man's waist, hands splayed across his tensed stomach. "You wonder what it was like, don't you? Every minute of the day. It crosses your mind, lighting along that fever, a nag of memory that you desperately want to possess but have been denied. If we have in fact died in that tumble over that cliff then this is a cruel purgatory for you, Hannibal. You were given the gift of creating life, but you've arrived here too late to enjoy the uniqueness of that experience."

Hannibal placed a warmed hand over Will's, his breathing deep as he forced emotions that threatened to bubble over down into that usual dungeon within himself. "It's a foolish notion to obsess over," he admitted. "But I'm fully aware that given the choice I would have preferred a large family. I think you would have liked that, too."

Will pressed his face into the back of Hannibal's neck, breathing in the overly sickly sweet scent of his heat, a kiss planted there despite the equally syrupy taste of his skin. "Yes," he agreed.

"And now we are forced to contend with the fact we have arrived at that time when they will be leaving, and this massive structure will become more our tomb than our home. Can you imagine them as small children, Will? Have you placed the magic of your empathy upon the corridors of this house and heard the laughter that must have bounced across its walls?"

He had. Late at night while Hannibal gently snored beside him, Will had explored the hallway and the living room in the confines of grey half light, the ghosts of past joys lingering in the air around him. He found a closet on the ground floor that held all of their Christmas decorations, and he'd envisioned all of those delighted mornings, ones neither he nor Hannibal had ever had the chance to enjoy in that other, ugly life. He had wondered if that other Hannibal was as skilled in the kitchen as this one, and reasoned he must have been since no one found his current meal's elaborate attention strange. He'd thought about dressed turkeys and Christmas dinners that had to have been legendary, part of a family history that could be recalled with fondness.

"My memory palace is filled with the impressions of the world, Will. Sights and sounds and tastes, tactile remembrances that can recall the feel of silk upon stone flesh, the gentle lilt of an aria performed in the open air in Rome. I would trade them all for the sound of the screaming first cry of either of our children."

Will nuzzled the back of his neck and kissed him lightly behind his ear, sending a shiver through Hannibal at the pleasure of his touch. "We'll make new memories. The past has been destroyed, Hannibal. This place is about our future."

Hannibal hastily wiped any residual evidence of his upset from his cheeks and balanced several dessert plates along his arm and in his hands. "If you could clear away the dinner plates, I will deliver dessert."

"Of course."

With practised elegance Hannibal made his way back towards the chapel, Will following him, only to pause, armfuls of chocolate trifle helplessly clutched close to his breast as he witnessed both Beverly and Mischa putting on their coats. "Mischa, please, it was a momentary upset, there is no need to escape the table!"

"I'm sure you went through a ton of trouble, you always do," Mischa said, holding her hand up. "Beverly and I have both decided this night is a wash. Everyone is just too upset, and this whole Chilton thing is dragging the night down. I've already got enough bullshit happening overseeing the plans for the new balcony section at the Opera House, my nerves are at their end." She gave Hannibal a huff of frustration and stomped from one heel to the other. "I sound like a selfish bitch, and I am. I'm worried sick, Hannibal. You want me to sit there and pretend like everything is okay and it's not. Fucking Price was here? For fuck's sake."

She turned and Beverly sheepishly followed her. "The food was awesome," she shrugged, and with that they both disappeared behind the large oak door, its finality shutting closed behind them with a gentle click.

Angered and more than a little rattled, Hannibal retreated back to the kitchen, Will helplessly following him. "I am not having an affair with that man!" Hannibal insisted, "And even if I was, what business is it of hers to judge me! I saw the looks Ezra was giving both of them, as if she is so innocent!"

Will wasn't sure how far to tread in this fight between siblings, so he steered clear of it, taking the plated desserts and placing them covered in plastic wrap onto the shelves of the refrigerator. "Ezra didn't go home with them, so I'm guessing that whole adventure is off."

"Small mercies," Hannibal snapped.

"Marcus is pretty upset, and so was Mona, I should probably go upstairs and talk to them."

Hannibal snatched a wine glass from a cupboard above Will's head and filled it to the brim with the red liquid from a fresh bottle he'd tore out of the door of the fridge. He took gulps instead of sips. "Let them sort it out amongst themselves. They are nearly adults, after all."

Will was about to argue this, to say that Hannibal was wrong and their children needed their guidance and reassurance now more than ever, especially with Ezra's poisonous influence in the mix. But the front door opened with a decided slam, making both men jerk in response. Giving Hannibal a frowning look and earning question in return, Will slid away from the kitchen island, Hannibal cautiously following him.

There are certain unexpected things that can happen in one's life, not the least of which is falling from a great height, expecting death, only to be plunged into an entirely new universe. Another strange injection is that of past enemies suddenly vibrant and alive and seemingly about to stay that way. Funny how life can throw a thing like that at you only to shatter all your expectations.

Will was thinking this as he saw the trembling form of Frederick Chilton in their front foyer, soaked to the bone from snow and ice and dripping onto the marble flooring. There was a terrible racket piercing down the large stairs leading up to the second floor, Mona's iPod stereo blasting Rob Zombie and shutting all of her parents' problems out. They could barely hear Chilton over the din.

"I didn't do it!" he shouted, and Will could only give him a tired nod in agreement. "You have to believe me!"

"No one believes you are guilty, Fred," Hannibal replied, shaking his head.

But Chilton was determined to make his plea. He was terrified and remorseful for sins he'd never committed, and he wrung his cold, red, wet hands together, explaining Gideon's involvement, his apparent hypnotism, his will not being his own under Dr. Gideon's instruction and now...Now he was set free and had no idea how to cope and all he wanted to do was what he'd set out for in the beginning, to protest his innocence, to beg of forgiveness for an act he'd never done, to be heard...

"Fred, honestly, I know all this," Will said. Behind him, Hannibal pressed his fingertips to his forehead in weary exhaustion, his headache still plaguing him.

Fred lunged forward, and, as one would expect on a wet, slippery polished surface, his feet careened out from under him and since he'd got a near running start he was airborne for exactly .987 seconds. When he hit the ground it was the back of his head that broke his fall. It smacked loud enough against the stone surface to make the scant pictures on the walls clatter.

Will and Hannibal stood silent in front of Frederick Chilton's immobile body. A thick pool of blood seeped out from beneath his head in a halo that was broken up by the puddles of water he was lying in. Hannibal held his hand at his open mouth and Will could only stare in mute silence at the unexpected scene.

"I had no plans at all to kill him," Hannibal said, as though choked by wonder at this development.

"An accident. Dammit. What do we do now?"

"Obviously, you get rid of the body."

They both looked up to see Ezra Graham standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at them. He chomped a thick cigar and gave Hannibal a backwards nod. "Don't just stand there looking pretty, get a mop, Babydoll. And you." He turned on his son. "Don't you even look at that front door. No escape for you this time. Go get an old sheet and we'll wrap him up and get him downstairs before the kids get curious. Come on, don't stand there looking stupid, the two of you...Get your asses in gear and clean this mess up!"

~*~

"I suppose we could just incinerate him."

"There's a certain symmetry to that idea, my dear Will, but I'm not sure it's the right method. I wouldn't want to raise questions as to why I turned on the crematorium late at night."

Ezra Graham paced and growled at their indecision, and Will had to wonder how it was that even Hannibal could feel like an amateur in the professional killer's presence. Ezra was all business, killing wasn't an art project like it was for his son's spouse. "Just wrap the sheet up tighter and grab his feet and we'll pop him down the morgue. It's not like there isn't plenty of damned storage down there. Babydoll, you're missing spots, and you need to change the water. Add a bit of bleach so it don't turn the marble pink. Fuck's sake boy, grab the ankles, I'm not staggering around screwing up my back!"

The late Frederick Chilton was brought into the chapel and then taken to the small elevator, the three of them crammed into the tiny space as Will's thumb brushed the floor marked 'B'. Getting him into the morgue was an easy task, the chilly room already prepped with two bodies on slabs, one of them the late Mason Verger and the other Tobias Budge's angry mother. With heaving muscles, Will and his father managed to balance the body in their grip as Will opened one of the small body drawers. The slab was pulled out and Frederick's cumbersome body was slapped on top of it and rolled back in, the door closed and hiding him from view. At least, for now.

Will's bloodstained hands gave him flashbacks of that other life, and he gave his father a hooded stare before heading for the nearby sink to carefully wash it all off. His father, of course, didn't have a drop on him. Ezra Graham, as has been said before, was not a hobbyist but a professional.

The small, sterile workroom was thick with his father's cigar smoke, which seemed to pour out of his mouth like fog. "You know, son, you're a lot better at this than you used to be. Used to get all nervous and hot and bothered, thought you were going to get cooties or some shit off the dead, I don't know. But you're doing all right, I have to say. Killing a man and having a good place to store him until it's time to get rid of him...You did all right marrying Babydoll."

"We didn't kill him," Will said, scrubbing his arms with soap that bubbled pink. He used scalding hot water, his arms reddened as he got the last of the blood off. "He slipped on the floor and hit his head."

"Yeah. Right." Ezra chuckled. "Should have passed on the family business to you after all, kid. It's not like you don't have a penchant for the dead."

"I'm not like you," Will said to him, sneering. "I'm not a heartless monster. I don't...There's no artistry to what you do, it's just emptiness, it's all about money and nothing else. You don't care about anything, least of all who you kill and why."

Will made a motion to leave and Ezra Graham put a strong hand on his shoulder. He regarded Will with narrowed eyes, his cigar chomped thoughtfully. "Damned right I only looked at that kind of life for money. What are you talking about, son? What other fool reason would there be to kill your fellow man?"

Will shook his father's hand off and, with twitching disconcertion, he made his way back to the main foyer using the stairs leading up to the chapel. They were both at the altar when the echo of loud voices hit them, the front foyer a sudden amphitheatre of unexpected drama.

Will ran to the chapel doors and opened them to see the source of the argument standing in front of Hannibal with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a wavering free arm seeking his paramour's waist. "I'm sure I saw Gideon drop Chilton off, that piece of shit is here, and I'm gonna fuck him up, I'm gonna kick his ass. It's gonna be me that takes out the trash. You know why? Because that sorry ass son of a bitch you married hasn't got a clue what he's got."

Jimmy Price took another swig of whiskey, emptying the bottle and letting it fall to the ground where it spun and rolled across the marble floor. Hannibal still had a mop in his hand and he was using it as a barrier against Jimmy's amorous advances. "I'm not interested," Hannibal curtly said. "I'm sorry, Jimmy, but you need to go home and sleep it off. This is not the place for you."

Jimmy's face was rubber, melting into all sorts of grimacing misery as he reached again for a very reluctant Hannibal. "I kept you warm when he left you in the cold...Just one kiss. One more. You can give me that, can't you?"

Sometimes Fate can be a real jackass. Will figured it was having a hell of a belly laugh at their expense, especially with the way FBI Agent Jimmy Price attempted to drape himself over Hannibal and took a misstep in a puddle when he looked over his former lover's shoulder and saw his husband standing there in the chapel entrance.

Down Jimmy went. Hard.

The whole house shook with the crack.

The trio was quiet a long moment, and Will could already feel his muscles ache and the annoyance of his father at his back over how this was now a big fucking mess, killing FBI agents was damned sloppy business. But thankfully, Jimmy Price moaned, and everyone breathed a sudden sigh of relief.

Hannibal placed the mop in the yellow wheeled bucket at his feet. The tiny wheels squeaked as he pushed it against the wall and then ever so slowly, ever so carefully, he made his way across the freshly washed floor to the prone form of Jimmy groaning atop a wet bed of bleach and suds.

"I think I broke my hip," Jimmy managed to say.

Hannibal crouched down and gave the man a thorough inspection before turning back towards Will and Ezra Graham. "Yes, Jimmy, I do believe you did."

Will's head shook as he stared at the scene, bleach stains already ruining Hannibal's good trousers. "We need to get one of those winter mats," he said, nodding at Jimmy's pained misery. "The ones with the rubber backing. Maybe even a runner, you know, to the door, maybe."

Ezra Graham stood behind his son, glaring a hole into the back of his head like this entire fiasco was all his fault.

"I take it back, you're a goddamned idiot," Ezra said, and with that took off upstairs, cigar smoke trailing after him in long, angry grey lines.