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[ Abigail tries to do the smart thing and figure out the situation on her own. She does her best: reads the weird pamphlet three times, glances through the first few videos she finds on the smart-phone-like device, wanders around the grounds trying to look for a way out. Obviously, she does not find one. None of it makes any sense. She sits in the gardens for a few hours waiting to wake up, but if there is one thing her nightmares never are, it's tedious. So with boredom comes fear; if this isn't a dream, it means her life had changed radically yet again without warning. It means that just as she was beginning to have hope for some kind of stability, she was thrown into another mess. ]

[ The video shows her visibly upset, though clearly trying to master it. Her voice is small, and shaky with suppressed emotion, but she gets out what she means to say: ]

I'm not gonna bother asking a bunch of questions when it's obvious there's no one here who can help me.

[ Not to mention the fact that she wouldn't trust any answers she got, anyway. Any stranger might be complicit, as far as she's concerned. Abigail has difficulty trusting on the best of days. ]

I just want to know if... if anyone who sees this recognizes me. Is there anyone from my- [ It sounds so silly saying it, but she does ] -from my world here?

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[ With no time to steel himself or indication of what Will is about to see, the start of the video feed is a direct punch to the gut.

All the wounds that were finally beginning to darken and flake are abruptly ripped wide open, fresh as the day he and Hannibal walked back into the kitchen Abigail wasn't supposed to die in but did. There has been no sight of her since save among the aspirin and bile in Will's sink, the gouts of arterial spray slowly drying on the floor in Minnesota.

Abigail is barely holding her emotions together; it doesn't help that Will isn't faring that much better. ]

Abigail. [ What does he say? ] I'm - here. Where are you? I can come get you if you're lost or hurt or -

[ Abigail's feelings towards Will are complicated, but right now, none of that matters. He's a familiar face and she didn't realize until she heard his voice just how scared she was. Her relief is immediate and unmistakable: ]

Will? [ She lets out a sharp breath, gets shakily to her feet. ] I don't know- I'm by this giant maze, do you know where that is? [ Without really thinking about it, Abigail assumes that Will showed up at the same moment she did, that he's just as confused and disoriented as she is. ]

I know where, I'll be there in five minutes. [ The video feed sways dangerously in Will's hands, traded from one to the other as he's haphazardly shouldering on a jacket, keeping his eyes on Abigail, and agitatedly striding toward the room's exit all at once. ] Stay right there, Abigail - don't go inside the maze.

[ Shutting off the device, Will all but sprints toward the hedge maze's monolithic rise, Abigail's small, willowy form swaying in both its shadow and another. The phantom weight of a gun makes his hand flex around air, shades of blue and pitch flowing from his memory like ink, except the bony shoulders, the black tines, and the flashing eyes behind her are entirely real.

Will's feet pound slowly to a trot, then a stop before her. For a few moments the air is cut with Will's labored breathing as he eyes Hannibal's relaxed posture warily, then drifts toward Abigail, terrified that at any moment her edges would go soft and she'd fade. The hands he slips around her shoulders could grip nothing. They don't. Will stops short of collapsing on her, gathering Abigail to him as though she were the one having trouble staying upright.

His voice is thick. It isn't something that can be helped. ]

It's - it's good to see you again.

[ They had been having a moment, one between two bonded individuals, one teacher and one student in the tumultuous sea of humanity, and when he hears someone coming his lip twitches in a frown. Likely Will, he notes before he turns and actually sees him, but he couldn't be sure until sight confirmed what he already knew: Will would always come for Abigail, and Abigail would always come to him.

It's somewhat nostalgic that in this moment they can be together again, rebuilding the broken netting of the family they wove.

His hand on her shoulder tightens upon seeing Will, a silent signal of wary warning meant only for her. He plays concern like it fits comfortable over his own contentment, but he lets her be hugged with his hand only slipping down to rest gently but ever-present against her shoulder blade, and says nothing. ]

[ Abigail is glad for the warning; her senses are not as acute as Hannibal's, and she hadn't expected Will to descend on them so quickly. When she looks up and sees Will running toward them, she's glad for Hannibal's steadying presence beside her. It's not that she's frightened of Will, precisely. He just has a habit of alarming her.

And there is something alarming about the way he stops dead, staring at her as if he can't believe his eyes. What, she wonders with a slight twist in her gut, is he seeing in her that makes him look like that? Then he's pulling her into a hug--strangely, tentatively, his breath loud in her ear--and she lets him, but doesn't hug back. ]

Yeah. Good to see you.

[ It's the truth: she is glad to see him, though there's far more reserve in the way she says it. The words are partly meant as encouragement for him to let go of her. It strikes Abigail that there's something odd about the way Will says see you again, but then again, so often there's something odd about the way Will speaks. She's almost given up trying to decipher and predict him. ]

Hannibal says you've both been here for a while?

[ Will could convince himself that the hug was to comfort her as much as for him. Over her shoulder, Hannibal's palm rests calmly as another physical anchor, a symbol of the links forged among the three of them. Her voice is muffled into his embrace, gone unreturned, and Will's eyes flick up to Hannibal with an unresolved question/accusation sitting in them. He pulls back, shoulders stiff and blood beating bird's wings in his head.

She trusts Hannibal. It's gutting to see her return to him, clear that this Abigail has both ears, her life, and no foresight into her near future. Maybe things have always been this way and Will refused to see it, her leaning back into Hannibal's touch, away from Will. The air of conspiracy is almost a physical presence. ]

A month, more or less. [ Will gazes finds Hannibal's for a moment before skittering back to Abigail, his next comment heavy with intent. ] Sounds like we're not missed back home, if you're asking that.

[ Their eyes meet, and Hannibal returns Will's accusation with a quelling sympathy, as if he is not to blame. He stands his ground with concern and love, or at least the barest deformity of love that he can feel. His hand remains firm against Abigail's back but his eyes don't blink, don't leave Will, don't stop taking in the minute changes in his expression. ]

I don't believe that's the case. Rather, I would say that Abigail comes from a time before ours, where we have not been gone for a month. Assuming, of course, that time works the same way here as it does there.

[ Something he doubts, frankly. ]

Edited 2014-05-07 20:41 (UTC)

[ Abigail feels boxed in, standing between Hannibal and Will while they stare at each other like that. There is a strange current of tension running between them that is not quite the same current she is used to. She wonders fleetingly if something has happened, in the month that they've been here - if there is something they're keeping from her. She puts the thought aside. ]

Hannibal took me to see you in the hospital two days ago. [ She gives a very tiny shrug; Abigail hasn't really spoken to Will at length, since she found out that he knew about Nick Boyle. Hasn't been alone with him. There are things that she wants to say, questions she wants to ask him... but now doesn't seem like a good time ] You look better.

[ Will's pattern, eyes flicking back and forth between what should be protected and what needs to be protected from, is abruptly broken and sticks on Abigail. ]

I don't remember that.

[ He remembers some things from that stay, though at best they charcoal sketches taken and smeared with a careless open palm. Lucid moments were rare and the rest was marked by needle pricks and either the grim set of Jack's jaw or Alana's softer concern, never both at the same time. He doesn't remember Hannibal's stark, upright silhouette, nor Abigail's inconstant fearfulness of Will.

Realizing he should say something else, something reassuring (instead of what he wants to say, an unforgiving "Where you planning on telling me?"). Will starts slightly. ]

I am better now. [ He wets his lips, leaning closer to lightly set his fingertips on her shoulder, there to shake off if she trembles but a little harder. ] I know things are confusing and scary right now, but you'll be safe. You'll be taken care of.

[ It doesn't seem prudent to say who will be taking care of her. ]

You were still sick. [ Hannibal clarifies and confirms, eyes never leaving Will for a moment, never blinking as if he were a creature without eyelids, something reptilian coiling around them possessively. ] I would have brought it up, had things not developed the way they had.

[ There is a prompt there, one that he knows Abigail will take. If not now, she'll ask eventually what it was that he meant, and he would hesitate as if it were the hardest thing in the world for him to explain. His eyes dart down to Will's hand on her shoulder and his lips part just slightly as if he had something to say before closing, but there had been nothing to say, only pretense of concern for Abigail's well being around an unstable father figure.

Then he nods, and he does speak, lips twitching upwards to return to a state of security. ]

Will is right, you'll be safe here with us, safer perhaps than you were at home. We are going to make sure of that.

[ Abigail sidesteps, away from Will's touch and Hannibal's alike. As glad as she is that they are here (yes, both of them), she doesn't want to encourage them hovering like that. She's not a child, and she's not their child. Crossing her arms, Abigail glances between them, catches the tail end of that look Hannibal gives Will's hand on her shoulder. Hannibal plants the seed of curiosity in Abigail's mind deftly; she wonders what he means by things 'developing the way they had'. She gives him a quick, piercing look, but doesn't ask him what he means... yet. Sometime when it's just the two of them again, she'll bring it up. ]

I can look after myself, too.

[ She means it to come out firmly, but even to her ears it is petulant and uncertain. Abigail knows that they've had more time to grow used to the situation, but she still doesn't understand how they're both so calm about being here. The ways that this place works, its rules and logic, make no sense to her. She doesn't trust it. ]

At least no one here knows who I am.

[ No investigations to worry about, no reporters, no infamy. She looks at Will, quickly; he must also be happy about that, she imagines. After all those things Freddie wrote about him on her website. ]

[ Prepared for a brush off, Will keeps his flinch internal. Sees the curiosity in Abigail's look and Hannibal's solemnity and senses the tides battering against him, strings lacing his limbs because he could fight Hannibal, deny him, manipulate him. Raising a hand to defend himself for Abigail's sake, he finds his wrists bound and mouth gagged. What Hannibal intended all along to make him complicit.

Not from an enemy you don't know to expect. He can't commit to it save in his convictions, not until he gets a chance to talk to Abigail on her own. Safety from the media is the one small grace they have here, no Freddie Lounds to hound her for morsels to be put on Lounds' table, no Jack to cow her into -

Except she did. He wasn't wrong. it didn't give Jack the right to terrorize her, but he wasn't wrong. ]

That's right. We can keep it that way, too, if Doctor Lecter agrees that it's in your best interest.

Right, Hannibal?

[ A lure with blood on her hands. Tell Will, do you intend to out her, too? ]

[ Abigail is her own person; Hannibal understands that. He understands that as much as he understands that Will is also his own person. They can continue to be their own people, islands in the sea, but even as their own people there is always the sea and sky, forever. They are their own people, and they are his.

He smiles, meets Will's eyes without intimidation. He checks. ]

Of course we will.

[ And now for you Abigail, though his hand lingers, ready to reach out for her again, forever steady in the face of quakes. ]

And no one doubts that you can take care of yourself. We both know you well enough for that. Three sets of eyes are just better than one.

[ Abigail had been so relieved that both Will and Hannibal were here with her, but now as the reality of the situation starts to settle in, she wonders if, in the long run, it might have been better without them. It's good of them, to be generous and agree to keep her identity a secret, but Abigail would rather be in a position not to need the generosity of others. Not to have to trust them, to worry that if she displeases them they'll start spreading stories.

Whether he meant it to or not, Will's if about keeping her secret felt to her like a rebuke of her declaration of self-sufficiency. Being able to look after herself doesn't matter as much if Will and Hannibal both have the power of who she is to hold over her.

It's not that Will or Hannibal has proved himself fickle or spiteful before, but Abigail can't help thinking of their relationship as a negotiation. She keeps them happy, gives them what they want, and they protect her and care about her. Abigail was her father's daughter far longer than she's been their ward, and it's still impossible for her not to strategize for the worst, when dealing with paternal figures. She'd tested Hannibal's boundaries once already, with Nicholas Boyle, and his reaction had told her much. ]

Okay.

[ She says it with her best fake smile, diverts attention as soon as possible. What she needs is some demonstration that she is resuming her role as their surrogate daughter, some small and accomplishable task to demonstrate her dependence. Will, she thinks, will like that. Hannibal will probably see through it, but there's no helping that. ]

Either of you know where you can get food around here? I showed up in the morning and I'm kind of starving...

Edited 2014-06-06 03:38 (UTC)

[ Maybe it's simpler that it sound like a rejection of her autonomy. If he had the free reign to allow Abigail hers, he might have and kept a moderate closeness, been there for her when she needed it. The tragic fate of Abigail Hobbs is to be used as a tool time and again to keep her life intact. Will has to weaponize her identity to hold to Hannibal's throat, not hers. If there was a way to make her understand that that Hannibal could not poison -

The staring contest with Hannibal should be the last of this conversation. Abigail's sudden agreement raises as many red flags as it puts down, and while he knows it's a play for peace now that he knows how Abigail operates, he can't seem to find it in him to refuse. He has to trust that his points were silently made with Hannibal and let his voice not fall into dissent and disharmony.

Will's expression softens toward her; he'd forgotten about physical comfort, frankly. Giving a distracted nod, he gestures back at the Mansion to accommodate her playacting in the lion's presence. ]

The dining room is always serving. We could walk you down, listen to what's been going on in your life - if. If you want.

[ Abigail assumes right, and he sees right through it in an instant. A bone thrown to a wolf, in need of something to chew on. They all lie, they all smile through their teeth that are bigger and sharper than they pretend. He can see through her smile but it's not the smile that matters, but the action of smiling.

She does just as he expects of her, and if he expected any less he would pat himself on the back for his choice in ward.

He smiles, far more practiced at detaching his face from his soul or lack thereof. ]

I can cook something for the three of us. You can help if you like, Abigail. And Will, if you're so inclined to join in.

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video; /quiet sobbing

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video ->perma-action; after hannibal's thread (jerk)

xoxo

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