They Can Smell Your Intentions

THEY CAN SMELL YOUR INTENTIONS
chapter seventeen--epilogue

**six months later**

Nigel was alone in bed, listening to the sounds of running water in the kitchen as Adam began the usual routine of preparing coffee, a mantra of sounds that drifted down the hallway and into the bedroom, lulling him into a sense of security. He could hear the clang of the cutlery drawer as it was opened and closed, the suctioned pop of the refrigerator door as it was rummaged, the sizzle of butter as it hit a hot saucepan. He smiled into the warmth that still lingered on the pillow beside his face, and pulled its softness close to him, and wondered how it was going to be possible to leave the delights still lurking within their bed. It wasn't like he had a lot to look forward to, he had a full day of paperwork to catch up on. While the trip to the United Main had been fruitless, the explanation of what had happened to the trafficked Omegas was now creating political rifts between the Eastern Union and the United Main, and EU politicians were arguing their involvement in the future of the Mainland. Becoming open supporters of the Mainland cause had become a serious debate. United Main politicians were accusing the Eastern Union of supporting guerilla warfare, sending mercenaries to assist in a fight that should have no interest to them. The current Coastline governor, Ralph Hargrove, an Alpha with a Beta wife and two Omega children of his own, propped his family up as a false example of how Coastline families are not the oppressive, sex starved maniacs the rest of the world deemed their population to be. But statistics were not on his side, and his family was clearly the anomaly--Not to mention that his Omega children were not attending a regular school, and were both already being paraded at various high society functions as bondable possibilities to allied members of the elite. There were rumours he was arranging a bonding ceremony for his sixteen year old daughter with a fellow politician almost four times her age. Securing the man's political favour was set to keep Governor Ralph Hargrove as the East Coastline leader for quite some time.

The slimy backdoor workings of the Coastline's elite had nothing to do with Nigel, however, for his job had been to track down and decipher which of the missing Omegas in their system had become mercenaries for the Mainland cause, and it was a difficult task since so many of them had been expert at keeping their plans a secret from friends and family members. He'd poured through endless chat rooms and had his white collar crime department tracing back emails for the past six months, all with the extra responsibilities that are given a Comisar, which put him on the same level as Gorecky. Getting the different departments to talk to one another had been a challenge, and while Nigel was considered an effective leader, there were a few officers who balked at his new rank. Grotzky, his usual troublemaker, was one, and he'd had to give him disciplinary action when the bastard had fucking deleted an email when it was clear it was one of his own cousins who had joined the ranks of what they were now calling the 'Omega Warrior Network', or OWN for short.

There were certain perks to the job, getting out of field work for a while was a big one, and he had to admit he liked not having that added stress on his daily routine. Best to leave the bastard punters to the lower officers to kick off to Siberian gulags, and he'd supervise if there was a case of particular interest. As he lay in bed and contemplated the bumps in his ceiling, he had to admit that things had worked out pretty good for him, in the end. He was happily mated, nice cushy job, even if it did come with some stupid ass headaches, free admission into the Bucharest observatory whenever he wanted to stare at the stars with his darling little spaceman, even overnight. If Nigel was to put a label on it, he'd have to admit that the life he'd been leading for the past six months was mired in the ideal. His raise and Adam's unexpectedly astronomical salary were nice bonuses as well, and it wouldn't be long before they'd be hunting out condos to put in some roots and ordering nice furniture. Going head on into the suburban fuktard nuclear family shit. Not too bad for a miserable bastard who chain smoked and cursed like it was his living.

"Breakfast is ready!"

There it was, that soothing song that healed every ache that dared to haunt the bones of Nigel's tired carcass, that little singsong note of happiness creeping into his being and sealing every hole his soul had left. He grinned at the ceiling and tossed off the covers, and wearing nothing but a pair of worn boxer shorts with burgundy hearts printed on them, Nigel lazily padded down the hall towards their small kitchen.

It was a remarkably sunny morning, the cheer lighting up thick dust that permeated the air around the kitchen table. There was a mug of coffee already waiting at his setting along with the usual scrambled eggs on the cherry blossom plates, the pleasant routine an idyll that made Nigel's heart sing. Adam was digging into his eggs and dipping them in his usual little pile of ketchup on his plate, a brilliant glass of orange juice at his elbow, along with a large textbook on astronomical calculations. Before joining him at the table Nigel dug up yesterday's newspaper out of the recycle bin near the back window, folding it until the article he wanted to read was in a neat, rectangular frame.

Adam didn't look up from his book. "I don't know why you read out of date articles, it's much easier and more practical in terms of immediacy to read the news online. I have already bookmarked several reputable journals for you to follow on your laptop, so if you wish to remain informed they are your best recourse."

Nigel sighed and continued to read the in depth article on the current crisis in the United Main. "It's more a matter of relaxation, darling, and besides, it's what I'm used to. Paper, coffee, scrambled eggs, and you. You were up extra early this morning, that calculus of yours must be bouncing all around in your head."

Adam still didn't look up from his book and finished the last of his eggs before tackling the glass of orange juice. He took a long, grateful gulp before underlining an important note in his book, his pencil carefully, lightly singling the paragraph out. "I've been having some trouble sleeping, my back hurts. It's theoretical physics, not calculus. I hate having to do this to a textbook, I have never before marked up books, but this particular paragraph on the collapsible nature of parallel universes is one of especial interest and I want to make sure the ideas he suggests are clear to me. It was given to me on the recommendation of a colleague and I have to read it since I'm worried not doing so may make him feel as though I am dismissing his interests. The author of the text is highly abstract in his delivery, his diction is very difficult for me to comprehend."

"You have a mind bigger than the universe, darling, if you can't understand what he is saying, it is because he is wrong."

"He won the Nobel prize for determining the quantum aspects of light, Nigel, I hardly think that's true."

Nigel's attention was stolen for a moment by the article in his hand, his lips curling over the edge of his mug as he read it. It felt right tasting the bitterness of coffee as he perused the ongoing conflict that was assailing the Mainland, and it wasn't the first time he'd read that the Coastline was enforcing stricter tariffs on Mainland farms, taking more and more of their produce in the last few months, to the point that the Mainland opposition leader, Jesse Jamison, said, quote, "You are starving us out!"

A portion of the article stood out for Nigel, for it seemed to suggest a certain influence that sent a cold influx along his spine, a little nagging assurance that all he had feared was coming true:

"UNITED MAIN--Louisiana area. 'Serious fighting broke out today between GSF officers and Mainland residents living in the town of Kenner along the border of Lake Ponchurrain in Louisiana. GSF officers at the scene claim that foreign Omega mercenaries incited a riot at the latest Governor Ralph Hargrove press conference in Baton Rouge, sparking renewed concerns that the Eastern Unions have been participating in what Hargrove calls a 'soft' invasion. "These foreign influences upon the interests of United Main citizens are not acceptable, and the Eastern Union has a long history of being in direct opposition to the wishes of the United Main, directly disrespecting our laws and causing direct conflict amongst our people. The Coastline does not appreciate the supposed humanitarian efforts being made to 'rescue' Omegas on our soil and we will do all that is necessary to protect our most vulnerable citizens."

When asked about the current practise of incarcerating unbonded Omega Coastline citizens in GSF facilities as a preventative against such conflicts, and the resulting outcry from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations worldwide, Governor Hargrove was firm. "Omegas are easily influenced and we must protect the interests of the majority. They are as much citizens of the United Main as anyone else, but there is no question the malleability of their perceptions. What they see as imprisonment, we know is protection."

There have been numerous reports of abuses of Omegas in GSF facilities for many years, with some experts in human rights abuses stating that they are designed for oppression. "Citizens of any region should not be afraid of being incarcerated against their will due to their gender. This is an unacceptable act of blatant paranoid misogyny on the part of the Coastline," Salina Sharma, head liaison director of Amnesty International says on the matter. "To put it bluntly, Governor Hargrove's policies on enforced imprisonment of unbonded Omegas is against international law."

There is still a heavy GSF presence in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area.

Depressing. Nigel was in no mood for it, and he tossed the heavily folded newsprint back into the recycle bin where he'd found it. He finished up his breakfast and picked up his dishes, heading for the sink where Adam was already rinsing off his plate and carefully washing the glass now empty of orange juice. He smelled absolutely delicious, and Nigel couldn't help himself as he slid his own plate into the sudsy water and then, his hands free to do as they pleased as Adam washed up, his slid them up and along Adam's waist, lifting his soft, plaid flannel shirt to smooth his palms along the taut, round belly he had been itching to touch all morning. He kissed the back of Adam's neck, liking the way the Omega sighed into it and melted against him.

"Do you have any appointments today?" Nigel asked. Mm, so sweet, his skin was brimming with hormones, always with that delicate scent that drove Nigel wild. He buried his chin in the softness of Adam's dark hair and closed his eyes, his hands still splayed wide across Adam's bared stomach. Adam placed his own sudsy hands over Nigel's own and bent his neck, allowing a proprietary kiss onto his sugary flesh.

"Just one, I have to get another ultrasound and you know how much I hate those. Dr. Svaytoslav wants me to go in three times a week now to monitor developmental progress, and I keep telling her I feel fine, but she insists this has to be done. I hate the feel of that gel on my skin, it's so cold and gooey and gross, and then there's always a different nurse and that stupid ultrasound wand feels like it's pressing too hard. At least I'm male, so I don't have to have a full bladder and hold my pee like female Omegas do, but it's still very irritating. Why am I getting so many of them? She would tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn't she?"

Nigel kissed the outline of Adam's ear and buried his face in the softness of his hair, breathing him in deep and getting dizzy from the onslaught of pleasure such an act gave him. "You are fine, baby is fine," Nigel kissed into his scalp. "You know as well as I do that she is just being careful, my darling. Omegas always have trouble with this sort of thing, and males especially. I am frankly relieved she's taking such good precautions," He didn't mention the fear that gripped him at night, giving him nightmares he didn't want to court in his waking memory. He would never tell Adam of the secret phone calls he had given Dr. Svyatoslav while he was at the precinct and Adam was at the observatory, begging for reassurance that both he and the growing child within him were both in good health. Inspector Dula had a terrible time during his last couple of months and Adam was quickly approaching that fateful date in his own gestation, and there was no fucking way that Nigel was taking any chances. He'd ordered the ultrasounds himself. Just to be damned fucking sure.

"It just seems excessive," Adam pouted.

Nigel let his hands wander a little further up and Adam didn't protest as he curiously explored the pert flesh that was beginning to take shape. He wasn't a creeper loser copping a sexualized feel like Will Graham, it was more like a journey discovering the fascinating changes happening to Adam's body, which had become a softer terrain than he was used to. His hair was thicker, silkier in texture than before. His skin, flushed with hormones, tasted gorgeously sweet, like he did when he was in heat, spun sugar on Nigel's tongue. Sex had to be enjoyed carefully, no knotting for one, and as was common in male Omegas, arousal was limited to the female portion of his body, a fact that Adam found irritating, and he complained of his orgasms being highly anti-climatic as a result. Nigel didn't mind, there was plenty to enjoy when it came to his little spaceman angel and it wasn't like Adam wasn't adventurous when he dove beneath the sheets of their bed and made sure Nigel knew that certain explorations went both ways.

His body was getting bulkier now, and he often caught Adam pressing his hand against his back, easing the tension he found there. Nigel made a point to keep him warm and cuddled close to him, especially these freezing winter nights when the wind whipped across the corner of their apartment and froze the windows shut. Adam said for Christmas they should plan on having non-traditional fare, as turkey, gravy, potatoes, etc., all of that made him feel sick and there was no way he was going to expose their unborn child to the horrors that were cranberries. Nigel had no idea where this hatred of a traditional United Main holiday meal came from, but he assured him there would be no such things gracing their table, a true Romany Christmas at Darko's home complete with a trip to the farm a week earlier to butcher a pig and ample amounts of sarmale afterwards was set to be their destiny and for some reason this did not suit Adam either.

"The dissipation of a supernova remnant occurs as long afterwards as 10,000 years. The Crab Nebula is still the brightest, though it is not the oldest,that one is called IC 433 and is believed to be 60,000 years old. Its traces are faint but still readable. It must have had quite a burst of energy for it to still remain detectable, a substantial feat even by supernova standards. Nigel, I wonder about the future, about our child and how we will fit together in its life. I am worried I won't be an adequate parent, I don't have the nurturing ability within me that both you and Dr. Lecter seem to possess in abundance." Adam flashed wide, blue eyes at Nigel, glassy with tears as he swallowed back his emotion, his movements uncertain as he backed away from the sink and fully into Nigel's arms. "I'm very frightened, Nigel. So many things can go wrong, both before and after, and I wasn't expecting any of this just yet, I haven't had time to adjust and..."

"You will be perfect, my angel."

"I won't! I'll be annoyed when it cries, I won't be able to hold it right, I won't be able to change its diaper, I won't know how to show it love, I...I'm scared, Nigel. Why am I having so many ultrasounds? What if something goes wrong when I'm having it? Male Omegas have very fragile systems and though they have had children throughout history, and quite frequently, they tend to be much weaker in constitution than female Omegas and..."

Nigel hushed him with a firm kiss on his lips and Adam turned his head away, his panic subsiding as Nigel gentled the back of his neck in long, pressured motions of his palm. "You will both be fine, my darling angel. How can you say you aren't sure you will love this child? So worried for the little imp already! For fuck's sake, darling, if you didn't care, you wouldn't be in such a state, what kinds of things you think!"

It was already an old argument, one that Nigel had been able to deflect right from the beginning, though it did create a certain unease within himself, too. He had no idea what kind of father he was going to be, he had practice with Micah and with Dr. Lecter's little tadpole, Judith, but as for himself, he hoped he could cope with the long stretch of worries and panics that were to come. He doubted anyone was truly prepared for a child, and when it came down to it, you just let nature take over. We all fucking survived somehow, though maybe thriving would be a better goal.

"Dr. Lecter said he will be here next Monday," Adam said, and that worried frown returned and Nigel couldn't kiss it away this time. "He talks to me on Skype all the time, he has promised. He says there is something of importance he has to do here."

Nigel felt a familiar chill wind through him at this, and he pulled away from Adam slightly, a deep sigh escaping his chest. "That bitch never gets the hint. He's not welcome here."

"He insists on being here for Christmas. He is bringing Will and Judith with him." Adam broke free of Nigel's embrace, his hands slipping down onto the start of his hips as he turned to face Nigel. "You told me he is very dangerous, that I shouldn't talk to him, that he thinks I am his child who died. I have tried to make him understand the errors of his calculations, that the physics theories he is relying upon for this strange hypothesis are not based on fact but on his delusion. He will not hear me, Nigel. You don't seem worried that he'll show up on our doorstep. Why?"

Nigel shrugged. "He is an Omega as is baby Judith, and it's not like he can mask their Omegan scents with Alpha hormones, you can't pump a baby full of that poison and I know he won't do that to Judith. How is he going to get on a plane, my darling spaceman angel? The GSF barely let me through just for having knotted you, and I was an Alpha alone. They are in the midst of a civil war at this point and I can guarantee it is very difficult for him to move around anywhere other than towards the Mainland. He cannot come here, it is yet another fantasy."

"He sounds so certain," Adam said, and that adorable little worry mark between his eyes pressed a tight line across his pale skin. Nigel couldn't stop himself from smiling at it and kissing it.

"I am certain we are safe," Nigel said, and gave his darling angel a pat on his ass before enclosing him in a renewed embrace. Ah, how precious he was, this little spaceman who melted at every touch and worried and fretted over such inconsequential things! He was going to be a beautiful and attentive mother, perhaps even overly so, for he knew the second that baby was plunked into Adam's arms he would fall in love as Nigel already had from the ultrasound images alone. Everything had been arranged already for their infant treasure's arrival, the living room cleared of all ashtrays and electronics and Marvel comics porn, the darkness replaced with pastel hues and soft baby furnishings and a delightful, white crib that cost Nigel half his damned paycheque. Anything for his little family growing between them.

"Dr. Lecter feels that our apartment is far too small and not adequate for the needs of our growing family."

"Dr. Lecter can mind his own fucking business."

"He has a point, Nigel, this is only a one bedroom space, though I am very reluctant to leave it, I am used to it here." Adam wrung his hands nervously and Nigel clasped his own around them, bringing his shaky little fists to his lips to kiss them and their protracted worry away.

"What if he comes here, Nigel? He keeps saying we are family."

"You should not be talking to him, my darling, he only worries you, and it's not like you are one of his warrior crazies heading off to behead the fucking cocksucking Alpha elite, you have said it yourself, he is just talking to you because of delusion."

"But we are family, Nigel, Will Graham is my cousin and that makes Judith my second cousin, and as his bonded partner, Dr. Lecter is also my cousin by marriage. I can't not talk to him, that would be very rude, and besides, no matter his elaborate methodologies and the crimes he has committed which are in actuality more in alignment with acts of war, he does seem to express a very real sort of care for both of us. And it is a vast difference between speaking to a person face to face and putting an ocean's worth of a barrier. If you aren't worried he will come here as he so blithely promises, why are you telling me to stop talking to him? I should think that would incite him to become angry, and I do not wish to do that."

"No," Nigel darkly agreed. "I don't suppose you should."

There was a knock at their front door and Nigel audibly cursed, an exclamation that made Adam pout and point at a small jar on the kitchen counter, its contents nearly spilling with silver coins. "Swear jar."

"Fuck's sake, darling,"

"Now you have to double the penalty, you can't swear like that when the baby is born, Nigel, you know I am merely trying to get you used to it. You have been very good with the cigarettes, however, and I applaud your efforts in that regard, though you do understand that even the balcony will be off limits once the baby is born, the door leads right into the nursery and you will be bringing your used smoke with you when you come back in. Besides, it's winter, that door shouldn't be constantly opened and closed with a baby near it, you will make it uncomfortable."

"I'm not going to give the baby pneumonia," Nigel said, shaking his head. He grabbed a housecoat he had left on the back of his chair at the breakfast nook and slid it on as he headed for the door, the knocking more insistent now. "I'm coming, Darko, hold onto your fucking dick, for fuck's sake! I know, darling, I know, swear jar, lots of silver coins to drop in it this morning."

"You don't get pneumonia from a draft, that is a myth," Adam said, his speech clipped. "Pneumonia is caused by a virus."

He tied the belt of the housecoat loosely around his waist and had to wonder what it was that had Darko haunting his door at this early an hour. The Oltcit Club had finally met its maker, stranding him on a cold section of highway on the way home from the precinct and he was lucky Adam hadn't been with him. While he waited for his newly purchased Volkswagen to roll off of the assembly line, Darko was giving him lifts to the precinct.

But it was not Darko who was at his door when he opened it, and Nigel stared down at the small, demure young woman, who couldn't have been a day over twenty-two, staring back up at him with brilliant blue eyes, long brown hair cascading over her shoulders and freckles lining the bridge of her nose and along her ruddy cheeks. She gave him a cherub's smile and for some reason he couldn't quite decipher he flinched at it, as though this little sampling of innocence was a tool she used to cut people with.

"Can I help you?"

"Is this the home of Adam Raki?"

"Yes. Are you from the observatory?"

"No." She waited as though expecting an answer to this and frowned slightly, her innocence beaming across her confusion. "I believe he is related to Will Graham? Who is bonded to the Omega Dr. Hannibal Lecter?" She peered past Nigel and into his apartment, as though wishing to gain purchase within it. "Is Dr. Lecter here?"

A frozen, unwelcome hand clutched around Nigel's heart and he could feel the shine of a light burning into the back of his skull, the cold so cloying it crept away from memory and along his skin. Nigel shivered as he narrowed his gaze at her. "Why would you think that?"

She took off her long scarf and began folding it in her grip, the toes of her heeled black leather boots already finding their way into his apartment, and since she certainly looked harmless enough Nigel dared to step back and allow her some purchase into his home. But he didn't allow her all the way in, and there was no invitation given. A superstitious thought of *strigoi* assailed him as he looked on her, noting strange familiarities within her mannerisms.

Time to be fucking blunt. "Who are you?"

She flashed him another pleasant smile, but not before taking in every inch of his apartment that she could with her big, darting blue eyes. "I'm Abigail Hobbs. Are you sure he isn't here?"

"Unless he's fucking figured out how to become invisible, no, he is not and he will never be. What do you want with him?"

Abigail gave him a smile that he felt was wholly disingenuous. Adam poked his head out from the kitchen and gave them both a curious look, and the young woman named Abigail gave him a friendly wave, which Adam didn't return. "I can wait. His taxi must be held up in traffic. I can sit in the living room. He texted me earlier and told me he was on his way, the plane landed about half an hour ago, so I'm probably too early."

Adam let out a small, choked cry in the background and all Nigel could hear screaming in his head was No! No! No!

Nigel felt sick.

Sick fucking, shit fuck sick.

"What did you say?" Nigel gave Adam's stricken face a helpless look, and Adam stood stock still in the hallway of their kitchen, unable to move. "That can't possibly be true. Who are you and why are you here? And there's nowhere for you to sit, that is the nursery, the only thing for you is the kitchen and there's only two chairs. What do you mean to say he is coming here?"

She happily shrugged. "He just said that if I wanted to meet him I had to come to this address in Romania at this date. You must be Adam." She waved to Adam again and he kept his nervous hands busy with a dishtowel he kept twisting in them. "Dr. Lecter has told me so much about you."

"He has said nothing to me about you," Adam said and he was clearly annoyed. "I talk to him fairly regularly and this is the first I've heard of you." He flashed his worry onto Nigel. "I warned you this was going to happen, he did promise to come. I don't know where he and Will and baby Judith are going to sleep, and now there's a fourth guest? This is a disaster, Nigel, he is going to be incensed at how we live here!"

But Nigel had more serious concerns. "What is going on?" Nigel stood in front of her, barring her further entry into their apartment, his arms crossed over his chest. "If Dr. Lecter is on his way, just who the fuck are you to him?"

"Swear jar," Adam muttered and he ducked his head when Nigel gave him an exasperated look.

"He says Adam is his child," Abigail said, and she pushed past Nigel and into their hallway, fully in their home now. He didn't like her fake innocence or her overly cheerful smile or the way her eyes took in everything and calculated over it as though she was cataloguing every item within his crappy space. "But that's not true."

"Well aren't you the fucking Sherlock."

"I'm his daughter."

Nigel rolled his eyes at this and felt a small measure of relief. Aha, another one of *those*. There had been a few of them since his return, strange young Omegas full of fight and seeking him out for contact or on instructions from Dr. Lecter to check up on his precious relations and ensure they weren't wanting for a thing. Nigel never let them in, and he chided himself for allowing this one into his home this far. "Shouldn't you be heading to the United Main, then? That's where all of his little OWNs are going, you aren't exactly unique."

"Oh. You misunderstood me."

She kept smiling and and for reasons he couldn't quite understand Nigel imagined her as a rattlesnake hiding beneath a shaded rock, only shaking its tail long enough before it lashed out and struck before its prey could get away.

"He doesn't know."

She shrugged into Nigel's confusion and pulled out a large manila envelope and handed it to him. "DNA results. I've been searching for my birth parents for a long time and now that I'm twenty-two the records were transferred into my custody. He's definitely the maternal donor. Shall I wait in the kitchen? I could really use a cup of coffee, preferably drip, I've been in Bucharest a week and all they seem to serve up in the cafes around here is espresso. I can't stand those tiny cups."

Nigel's grip on the manila envelope shook, and he stared after the young woman who called herself Abigail. This wasn't happening, Dr. Lecter couldn't be coming to his home. There was a showdown of massive proportions about to explode within the tiny confines of his apartment.

"This is impossible, that baby died," Nigel said.

Abigail flicked a long lock of her dark hair over her shoulder as she walked into the kitchen, her steps as careful and graceful as a deer's, the hidden forest within her in perfect tune with the genes that had created her. Nigel held his breath, and he didn't have to open up the envelope to know that, somehow, Abigail Hobbs was not lying.

"My adoptive father, Garrett Jacob Hobbs, died last year. He had cancer of the bowel and he went septic. It was an ugly way to go. He worked at John Hopkins Hospital in their janitorial department. He used to pride himself on how he'd clean the place from the ground up, and was the only one who ever tidied up the abandoned section of the hospital basement.

The truth was, he used to go down there to smoke weed. And twenty-two years ago he found something in the trash can of a washroom that had long gone into disuse.

Twenty-two years ago, he found me."

Nigel frowned at this. "How is that even possible?"

"He said I was a preemie. Only a few pounds, and it was likely whoever had miscarried thought that I had died. I only started crying when he dared to pick me up. His wife, my adoptive mother, she was an RN. She knew what to do when he brought me home. And since I was thrown away they figured they had every right to keep me." Abigail paced towards the kitchen, her head turned over her shoulder, dark hair cascading in a gentle rush against her slender back. "I'm here to ask why I was tossed aside like garbage. I have a right to know, don't you think?"

Nigel's voice was firm. "That was not Dr. Lecter's doing, I can assure you of that. He did not commit that crime. You were stolen from him, by some very evil men who are now dead. There is no vengeance to enact here, little girl. What you are going to do is rip apart a wound that won't heal and make it even bigger."

She cocked her head to one side, staring at him in a playful challenge. "Are you going to stop me?"

Adam opened and closed his mouth, and Nigel bid him not to say a word.

This was no simple girl, just as Dr. Lecter was no simple Omega with an Alpha complex.  Every facet of her screamed in alliance with the steady thrumming of her furious ancestral blood within her and Nigel could tell, there was no mistaking it, she could just as easily slit a throat as caress it.

Mama's little baby keeps a fucking switchblade in her purse.

"No."

How carefully we all make plans thinking they are based on hurts that go beyond our reach, that somehow our vengeance is forever justified. But the universe has its own way of healing things, and as his darling Adam already knew from his own study of the heavens, it was unwise to tempt the motion of its pattern. Lunar landings could become fiery graves. A ship could veer off course and head into deep space, lives lost to the infinite. The soil of Mars is too alkaline for sustaining life. The vast reaches of the universe do not want you to tamper with the past, those images are already long gone and all we are left with now are the ghosts of a God's fingerprints.

So, the fucking bitch was coming here, was he? Playing the mother-in-law to his darling Adam's needs and meddling in all of their future plans. But the universe was on Adam's side, he held the reigns in Heaven, and all of Lecter's Earthbound dreams were set to explode along a neutron star as the unravelling of what he'd thought was an image of the past was shown to be imperfect.

Nigel couldn't help himself.

He fucking *laughed*.

Dr. Lecter, despite all of what he believed, was about to get the shock of his life. 

~END~