InsaneJournal

Who: Abigail Hobbs and Will Graham.
When: Early December.
Where: UCI Library.
What: A happenstance encounter.
Ratings/Warnings: Vague mentions of murder.
Status: Complete when posted.



To some extent, Will knew that what he was doing was probably not a good course of action. He knew some people would call it unhealthy, or dangerous, or stupid. A massive waste of time. Not something a person in his state should be worrying about. But he was always being told he needed a distraction, so he found one. By putting so much time into the thing that made him wake up in cold sweats (well, the main thing), he found a certain level of soothing calmness settled over him. The more he knew, the easier he could avoid.

After having already made the trip to San Diego to speak to one Francis Dolarhyde concerning his artistic interests, Will realized just how much his own knowledge in the area was lacking. Maybe that had been his mistake in his dreams, too. Maybe he hadn’t cared enough about the significance of the artwork until it was too late. He’d remedy that here. There were plenty of libraries in the area. Will had made a list of each of them, complete with a note of how many works they had on Blake and Romantic art, scribbled on a piece of Hannibal’s stationary with a pen that probably cost more than Will’s last grocery bill (the list was folded and tucked away in his pocket, along with the obnoxious pen). He would appreciate it like an academic rather than a hobbyist - university libraries would be where he’d start, full of resources for budding art history majors. No one even paid him a second thought.

The table he’d chosen was sadly not as out of the way as he’d hoped. It was finals season. Students were all but camped out, and Will had been fortunate enough to secure himself a table. To discourage someone from sitting there as well, he monopolized it with heavy volumes and a notebook, his coat and bag draped over the only other chair, an illusion of being in the company of another person. From where he sat, he could see the open space of the floor, the help desk, the computers. On occasion he would look up to see the comings and goings of the other patrons. It wasn’t that he was paranoid. Not really, anyway.

There wasn’t anything that Abigail Hobbs needed from UCI’s library. She hadn’t had to write any papers for her core classes (which were easy and simplistic enough as to be boring), and her intro to criminal justice class had mostly focused on a textbook instead of court cases. Yawn. But her physics class was a little bit interesting at least - learning about dying stars and black holes where all life died tickled her fancy. People were like that a lot of the time too, and Abigail liked the idea that there was a scientific reason to all of that blackness in the world.

No, she’d come to the library to study. It was quiet, and a safe place away from her dorm room and her chatty roommate. The chatty roommate meant well, but the girl talked about such trivial things - boys, makeup, musical acts that Abigail had never heard of. Sure, Abigail faked normal well, but it was exhausting. The library was a safe refuge from small talk that Abigail of which Abigail made frequent use.

Sitting down, she put her backpack next to her, unzipping it and taking out her physics text and notes. She’d made sure to take a seat with her back against the wall, a window’s comfort nearby (in case she needed to make a quick escape in an emergency). A quick scan showed her that there were only a few people in the library. Well, on this floor, anyway. She noticed a man nearby, but he was quiet and seemed to be waiting on someone.

To say Will hadn't noticed her would be laughable, but it had taken him a moment. In a way, he was so used to the presence of Abigail (both awake and asleep) that it was simply commonplace to have her there. What had made him really look was the oddity of it. As a general rule, the Abigail that appeared to him was always right there. She would have moved his stuff off the chair and sat there, and smiled, and they'd talk about whatever was on Will's mind at that given moment. Maybe that had passed. Maybe now Will was simply seeing her in mundane settings, his mind filling in empty gaps in the world with a face that grounded him.

All the same, he flashed her a smile. Nothing different than he normally would have done if she were sitting across from him. Then he caught sight of her keys on the floor, slightly under a chair. They must have slipped unknowingly from her bag. In his mind, Will saw himself walk over to pick them up, to hand them to her so she wouldn't lose them.

In reality, Will had done just that - walked across and was now holding the keys in his hand, outstretched towards her. It didn't register in his mind that this was no trick, no faint memory or an echo of a past that never existed to begin with. "You might need this," he said, by way of greeting.

The man approaching her made her hackles rise initially, as did all men approaching her, but all he did was hand her the keys that she hadn’t heard fall out of her pack. “Oh. Thank you.” She looked at him, her blue eyes inquisitive. “Are you a student?” It was odd; normally Abigail didn’t want to engage in small talk with anyone (painful, always awful, especially the questions about childhood), but he looked so comfortable with her that it made her want to know why. “Are you in my intro to criminal justice class?” He looked vaguely like the older student who sat in the back and always recorded every class. The whir of the tape recorder was vaguely comforting.

The question makes Will’s lips quirk up. He laughs, a real sort of laugh, the sort of laugh reserved for two people: Abigail and Hannibal. The question is a peculiar one. Maybe later he’ll think back on it, think back to why she’d ask him that when she knows better. In the moment it seems insignificant, because he’s missed her. He always had, even before she was gone in the dreams, too. Will had never even spent much much time with her beyond hospital visits, had never gotten to know her enough to make them personable or close. He hadn’t imprinted like Hannibal had. His entire notion of Abigail Hobbs was almost completely fabricated by his own mind, filling up the space that needed a friendly face.

“I - No,” he answered. Will would humour the question. “Just … Have a lot of time on my hands to research hobbies. But I did take criminal justice. A long time ago.”

Abigail smiled up at him. He seemed kind enough - he didn’t make a lot of direct eye contact, which she liked, and he wasn’t giving her any creepy vibes. No ogling, either. “That’s my major. I thought maybe you were the guy who sits in the back row, but I guess I was wrong.” She tucked her hair behind her ears, glad as ever that she doesn’t live in Minnesota anymore where people would ask her why she looks so damn familiar. Then she’d have to say that her father stabbed her mom and killed himself because he wanted to rape her.

She normally wouldn’t have continued the conversation, but perhaps the lack of human contact for so long made her reach out. She didn’t know. “What are you researching?”

“Not the guy in the back row.” Will stopped himself from saying she’d be good at criminal justice. It was true, but the reason weren’t the sort of things a person brought up. Instead, he let the conversation roll to a new direction.

“Art. William Blake.” His eyes went back to his own table, books opened, pen sitting on a page with some notes. “For a - An old case. That just popped back into my head not long ago.”

“You’re a police officer?” Abigail’s eyes went wide and she smiled, the tension in her shoulders releasing somewhat. Cops had always been kind to her, had always given her Christmas gifts when everyone else had forgotten her to the system. “Here? What division?”

“I was. I used to be.” Will shrugged. Water under the bridge, was the saying. He wasn’t the sort of person anymore that people felt comfortable putting a gun into his hands. He didn’t really blame them. “Homicide. Then narcotics. Now-” He couldn’t say secretary. That was degrading. “I’m someone’s assistant. The hours are a hell of a lot better.”

“And less dangerous.” Homicide to narcotics to an assistant - something had happened. “May I ask if you were injured in the line of duty?” Her fingers lightly went to the cuff of her sweater, rubbing in gentle circles. It was a self-comforting measure from her days at the institution, a way of calming herself down. Somehow the idea of this really gentle cop being hurt and fading away rankled, ached.

“That depends on your point of view.” Will didn’t consider any time spent near Hannibal Lecter as not dangerous. He was still waiting for the fence to give way under the careful tiptoe they were walking along its edge. “I almost was. The mental toll is more severe than the physical. Sometimes you can’t turn it off.”

Abigail looked up and laughed, a near-bark. “Yeah. I know about that feeling. The not turning it off. I still see them everywhere,” she murmured. Her mother’s corpse, and the yawning wounds at her neck. Her father’s glistening viscera on walls so far from his body, it was almost impressive. Finding shards of them underfoot. The police never thought she’d gone in to look at the bodies, and Abigail had never told them. It wasn’t a crime to want to say good-bye to your parents. “Are you safe now?” It was odd, talking to him. It was like a twisted version of who she could be in the future, just in a different body.

Will paused. His brow furrowed, and he thought. He weighed it all very carefully in his mind. “... Yes. I am.” It felt strange to admit it. There were so few reasons for him to feel that way, but he did. He wanted to ask her if she was safe, too, but decided against it. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“You don’t have to apologize, you helped me, remember?” Abigail smiled a little, standing up and reaching out her hand to the man. “I’m Abigail. It was nice to meet you.”

Will couldn’t help but smile. It seemed like he was smiling a lot. When he took her hand, he noted it felt different somehow. Warmer. “Will Graham. It was nice to meet you, too.” When he let go he went back to his own table, to delve back into the art of Blake. Though occasionally he would glance up to watch her, just to see if she was still there or not.