versusnurture | eleven ♢ spam, private + open

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eleven ♢ spam, private + open

spam } open

[The mask is secured in her room before she goes anywhere. She goes back to check on it frequently, bordering on obsessively, straightening it in its place of pride hung above her desk. She wonders what it's like to live life, day in, day out, in a few square feet, never allowed to breathe free air but through that grille. It's so much easier to imagine through Hannibal's eyes than Will's. She never imagined it would be.]

[She knew there was another man here who went by his name, but he never seemed real. Now - even though this artifact was never his - now it feels like a real, possible future.]

[What she doesn't do is lose time. She walks with even breath and utter confidence, anywhere and everywhere, feeling the simple joy of movement. She is afraid of nothing. She looks people in the eye, even if only for fleeting moments as she passes, and she doesn't even consider pulling a scarf on over the scar on her neck.]

spam } alana

[There's no way Alana doesn't have questions. Abigail doesn't feel obliged to protect many people, but Alana - she's been lied to all this time. Longer than Abigail was lied to. Hannibal was a colleague. And now . . .]

[There are probably worse ways to find out, but Abigail can't think of any. Besides death at his hands, anyway.]

[After a silent struggle with her conscience, she grabs the keys to Alana's room and hurries there, letting herself in before she can change her mind.]

spam } ben

[Eventually, she finds herself in the chapel. She has no question that Ben knows what's happened, or at least that something's happened. There was that brief moment of breathlessness, open for all to see on the network, and he'll have seen that even if he didn't watch her go with Dillon later.]

[She sits cross-legged in the pew and looks clear-eyed at the opposite wall. After quite a while - an hour, she thinks, maybe a little bit more - she sends him a message.]

Need your help with something. Not an emergency. You can walk.

[Then she turns the communicator off, lays it beside her, and waits.]

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[Ben has been withdrawn lately, though not in a necessarily dangerous way. He's not losing time either, he's just isolated and quiet. He did, as it happens, see the breathlessness; he did follow Abigail as far as the chapel, saw Dillon enter, waited ready to intervene.

But nothing had happened and, because his interest is safety and not investigation, he'd abandoned the chase at that point, confident Abigail would reach out to him should she need him. And here's the text now.

He does walk, as it happens, and it takes him a while longer to track her down because he uses his own familiarity with her rather than his warden item. The X5 balks a little at the entrance, though it takes the form of a smooth stop, a small hesitation, and then a smooth start again.

He hesitates again at the end of the pew Abigail is occupying.]

Hello, Abigail.

[When she hears his voice, she looks up, everything about her brightening just a few watts. When he hesitates, so does she, every movement and fidget echoing his.]

Is it okay? To talk in here. It feels safe.

[Just today. She doesn't know why.]

[The brightness helps, though that won't show on the surface yet. He looks around the chapel as if gauging it, gaze scanning for threats, for potential threats, for places where threats could hide or where he and Abigail could take cover if one presented itself. Then he looks back to her.]

If it is not, I will make it safe.

[He moves, then, to sit beside her and doesn't hesitate anymore. She's his. He will protect her with everything he has at his disposal and more still if he must.]

How can I assist you?

[She smiles at him. Doesn't move closer, for him, though if it was up to her she'd lean on his shoulder now, let herself rest. She rests sitting up. She can do that for him.]

[She's sure she's made some mistakes today. But better to let him know about them, at least; better let him hear from her than someone else.]

Dillon . . . gave me something today. A mask. And I don't know what I should do with it.

I know what I want to do with it. [Keep it. Mount it. Treasure it.] But he asked me if I'd be safe with it, and I said yes, and now . . . I don't want to have lied.

[Winston is the one who reacts to the keys in the door first. He stands up and immediately trots over to sniff the bottom crack of the door to investigate. It gives Alana just enough of a warning to wipe away stray tears, wipe her hands on her dress and stand up from her desk chair.]

[She knows it's Abigail - she's the only other person with keys - but Alana still has a look mixing surprise and confusion all in one go all the same. Abigail is, more or less, the last person she would expect to see.]

Abigail, hi.

[She doesn't bother with asking if everything is alright. There are quite a number of things that are not alright right now.]

Hannibal Lecter's mask?

[It's not so much a question as Ben telling her that he was watching, that he saw. He was paying attention. He suspects she already knows, but it's important that he tells her for certain. That he not be hiding the fact that he's paying attention.

He barely understands the significance of it, of the mask, of her possession of it. She's too complicated for him to try to guess, and he is fortunate that he trusts her to do exactly what she's doing now: reach out to him if she can't handle it. It's even more important that she doesn't want to have lied to someone she just met, but Ben merely holds onto that knowledge and focuses on what else she's said.]

What do you want to do with it? Why are you afraid you won't be safe with it?

Alana . . .

[It'd be a lie to say she had a speech prepared or anything like that. How do you explain this? How do even the most sane and stable of people explain something like this? How do they lay it out all in a line: this is how I was lied to, and how I lied to you in turn; this is how I was locked in place like a cog into another, how I was betrayed, this is how I died. How do you tell someone that you knew, you knew, and you didn't tell them? You let them lie for you.]

[She doesn't know. What she does know is that Alana should not have had to fight against Hannibal. Nobody fights Hannibal and wins.]

[Not yet, a little voice whispers. But someday. Someone will. She thinks of the mask.]

[She finds her voice.]

He was the man on the phone, Alana.

[He lied. Of course, he lied.]

[He lied about what happened with Nick Boyle. It hadn't really occurred to Alana as a negative thing though. He felt protective of her - or so Alana thought - why wouldn't he want to try and cover it up? He just did what he thought was best. He's human. He makes mistakes.]

[He used to be human to Alana. He used to make mistakes sometimes.]

[But now he lies and Alana doesn't know who or what to trust right now. She has Abigail Hobbs in her room ready to tell her whatever she wants to know most likely. It should be a truth that lightens the way Alana feels because it means Will is innocent. But that's not enough. This is so much worse.]

You killed Nick Boyle. But it wasn't Nick Boyle that hit me on the head, was it?

[Of course she knows. She expects it by now. It's one of the things that's kept her feeling stable in recent weeks, even though she knows it's not a permanent solution. At least for now, Ben is watching over her. Like a silent, lethal guardian angel.]

[Even if she didn't know that, though, by now she'd want to tell him. She doesn't understand what that means, but she knows it means something, that he's proven something to her. That she'd pour her heart into his hands knowing it was safe. She's honest with him without thinking about it. Without even conceptualizing an alternative. She doesn't have to lie to him.]

I don't know what I want to do with it. I just know what it means. That he lost somewhere. That somebody beat him.

I keep . . . going back to it. Looking at it. I need to know it's there, it's helping me to know, but I keep going back.

No.

[She swallows. She will not cry. She's cried enough. It's not her time right now. Alana - Alana's all alone, or thinks she is, and everything is a lie, and Abigail can't cry in front of her. Her eyes are wet but she's not going to cry, she swears, God, if she can just keep calm - she can.]

[She swallows again. Shakes her head.]

No, it wasn't Nick Boyle who - it wasn't. It was him. He did it. I needed help, and he -

[She pulls her hair over her shoulder instinctively, to cover up the scar, running her hands through it and through it until it doesn't even feel like a real texture anymore.]

He said no one would believe me. [She hadn't known what was happening. Everything was - red. Under her nails. In her hair. There was some on her cheek that she almost forgot to wash off because she thought it was a freckle. But she never threw up like they said you did in movies because she gutted him, she meant to do it, it was him or her, it was self-defense, but it wasn't.]

[It wasn't.]

[It was Hannibal.]

[She doesn't say I'm sorry.]

[Alana turns away from Abigail and leans on her desk.]

[Hannibal was the man on the phone. He attacked Alana, covered up a murder. Those two things alone weigh so much heavier on her than knowing what he did to people here. She believed him to be a respected colleague, a close friend. Someone that she could rely on and trust with anything. That's why she gave the recommendation for Will to be under his care. Because she cared about Will and though she couldn't put herself in that position to watch over him in the way he needed to be, she thought she could trust Hannibal to do just that, professional agreements aside.]

[He lied about the call. He lied about Nick Boyle. There's one last piece of truth still left buried though Alana knows what it is without having to look it in the eyes.]

[Alana's knees start to buckle and she falls heavily into her chair again. She closes her eyes, resting her forehead on clasped hands a moment. Winston trots over and sticks his head in her lap and stays there for a few seconds before anxiously moving back to Abigail. Eventually, she opens them and looks up, but she doesn't look anywhere near Abigail, keeping her back to her.]

Who killed you, Abigail?

[Of course. In the moment after she says it, it makes perfect sense, of course. She loves Hannibal, or she thinks she does, he tricked her into it just like the operatives at Manticore tricked him into feeling safe there despite logic stating that he's not. Despite logic stating that people who love you don't kill you.

Unless they do. Ben thinks briefly of Max, too, and then wraps his attention tight around the current problem.]

Have you lost time?

[There is, Abigail knows, a mask above her desk. A mark. A sign. An indication of imperfection. This keeps her going. It keeps her breath steady. It keeps her from drifting away into the gaps in time that threaten to tug her apart.]

[Hesitantly, she steps forward - not touching, but close enough to be reached out to if she's needed. Winston leans on her leg, but she doesn't lean down to scratch behind his ears. It's not her who needs comfort now.]

[Her voice is a brittle rasp, but she knows who and what and where she is, and she still isn't crying.]

Hannibal killed me.

No.

[The way she says it makes it clear that she's puzzled. That particular piece of information doesn't fit. She feels unstable, but not lost. Ordinarily it's both. But now she just feels like she's pacing, an animal circling in the confines of its cage.]

[Not, notably, as though she'll hurt anyone. Not as though she won't. Just . . . full of energy. Excitable. And more fully conscious than she's been in a long while.]

It's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. Except . . .

I talked to him. I know I shouldn't have. [Some muscle in her jaw twitches and contracts.] And I put it on.

[Alana closes her eyes and a few tears manage to escape the moment she says Hannibal.]

[Everything in her doesn't want to believe this. She wants to just write it off as another lie from Abigail, an attempt at manipulating her and distracting her from what she's really hiding. She would even settle for being angry that Abigail never said anything until now. But she can't. She knows from the sound in Abigail's voice that it's the most honest she's ever been with Alana about anything. And she knew that Hannibal had pulled all the strings. Fear, coercion, charm. Whatever it was, Abigail could hardly do anything he didn't approve of first.]

[Resting her forehead back down on her knuckles, Alana goes still and lets the words sit there in silence because she knows where this is leading her. She knows what it means and in some ways, this is so much harder to accept than Will. She cared about Will, she trusted him to a degree, she even had feelings for him. But her relationship to Will didn't have the years behind it, the blind trust. Will wasn't potentially feeding his victims to people he lead to believe he respected. Will also wasn't purportedly toying with and destroying human life as though everyone around him was hardly more than an ant.]

[Alana suddenly gets up from her desk and moves through her cabin to the kitchen. Opening up the fridge, she takes out each and every bottle of the beer Hannibal brewed for her. She wanted to just throw them on the ground and smash them. Anger at pain has that way of erasing some rational. But she won't do that in front of Abigail. It's not to set a better example or concern of what Abigail will think. Abigail is, mostly, forgotten while she's in the fridge. Alana just wants a clean break from all of this. She doesn't want to let Hannibal let her lose control any more than he's already taken from her. Starting now. She just lines them up on the counter and closes the fridge.]

[Opening the first bottle, she upends it down the drain.]

[This all seemed pretty standard to Ben, the line they both struggle with in sight but not yet crossed, and he knows from experience that isn't a comfortable place to be. He'd been prepared to reassure her that it's part of the process, learning how to sight the line and avoid it, that learning to do so is necessitated by existing with it near.

But then he realizes it's an entirely different line she's toeing and his gaze visibly sharpens.]

You may speak to whoever you like. What did wearing it make you feel?

Feel?

[She wasn't thinking of it in terms of feeling. In fact - she closes her eyes, touches her chin, where there was a slight gap between her skin and the mask. In fact, that was the point, wasn't it? Feeling nothing.]

[No. Not nothing.]

Victorious.

[Her eyes flutter open; she draws in breath. The touch of her fingers drifting to her cheek, then falling back to her lap.]

And nothing else.

[That's not what I want, that emptiness. But, but, but. She gives a wry smile.]

It felt good at the time. I felt so focused.

[Abigail sinks down onto the floor, resting her elbows on her crossed legs, her chin on her hands. It would be cowardly to look away from Alana now. She can't be a coward, not when she had a hand in this. She can't afford to let Alana get away from this situation with anything other than complete certainty in the truth of her words, either. Alana can't afford that. She'll die, and she'll die ugly, if she doesn't learn how to protect herself.]

[There's no way Abigail could know the significance of the beer in the fridge, but it seems to mean something important to Alana, so she doesn't interrupt. Not at first. She just watches, remembering the woman who read to her in her coma, who did her utmost to protect her despite her own disinterest in being protected, and comparing her to this woman here. Betrayal is an ugly thing, she thinks. She can't go near Hannibal anymore.]

[It feels, weirdly, like her parents are fighting.]

[She leans her head against a chair leg and sighs.]

[Ben breathes out. There is a comparison in his own past: the moment when his grip closes over tattooed skin, the vertebrae under his hand snap and he knows, without doubt, that he is not a mistake. That he is powerful, vindicated, protected. That She exists and She loves him. That moment that brings about the absolute, peaceful calm for days afterwards before the uncertainty begins crackling back in at the edges, each time driving the fracture closer and closer to who he is at his core.

The desperation to get back to that place, even knowing - because the madness is only madness through moments of sanity, he could not have the static without both - that it won't last. That there's something wrong.

There is no judgment in his voice, only calm reason.]

Abigail, the mask is not evidence if your victory. It belongs to someone else. It is temporary.

It can help, but it is not your solution.

[And just like that, whatever thrill she's feeling is cut in half, the floor yanked out from under her. She's lost the high. Because he's right. Even if it was victory - it's not hers. It's proof that somebody, somewhere, beat him. That's all.]

[She rubs her eyes like a tired child.]

It . . . I . . .

[Not my solution. Not my solution. She has to keep it, she realizes; she has to beat that too. The desire for simplistic solutions, for the talismanic familiarity, for keeping the devil at arm's length with a wink and a smile: those are all dangers she has to fight. She can beat them. She can.]

[She has to.]

I want it to help. I don't want to just - feel that. It was lonely.

I don't want to go backwards.

[It brings him no joy, being right; there's a kind of solid confidence to it, to being sure of his footing, but he watches her face fall and takes no pleasure in being the source of it.

It's worth it, though, to see emotions that are hers. Not borrowed, not an imitation of someone else, not fabricated; Abigail's. The mask, like the line, can't merely disappear and take its danger with it. She must learn to hold herself separate from it.]

If it is agreeable to you, I will keep the mask for you. You may see it whenever you like, but I will keep it safe.

[He will keep her safe, as much as he can. He will help her find out how to keep herself safe.]

You will have your own victory over him. The proof that others have found theirs can be a useful reminder.

[Feeling what she feels is worth it. It has to be. She has to cling to that belief, or else what good is all the work she's done, the people she's hurt and gotten no lasting joy from? Finding herself incapable of being Hannibal's perfect monster - not even wanting to, most of the time (most being the key word) - she has to become Abigail.]

[Whoever the hell that is.]

[She swallows, nods.]

Yes. Please. I don't want just anyone to have it. But I shouldn't keep it with me. [It has to be Ben. Otherwise, it might just be a joke. A fiction. She's forgotten already that it was Dillon's to start with.]

I don't understand why I didn't lose time this time.

You were focused.

[He is confident of this, now. He was most lost, most adrift, when he was fighting between the static in his head; once he'd given himself up to the comforting ritual of tracking down a Nomlie, abducting it, branding it, preparing it, and turning it loose to hunt down again, to kill, to collect tribute from, well. He was everything he'd been meant to be, then, and more. Capable. Deadly. Perfect.

What everyone else told him he should be. Ben searches her face for a moment, trying to decide something, but he already had or he wouldn't have sent the request at all. Definitively, he reaches for an inside pocket of one of his new jackets, and tells her:]

I have something for you. Did you receive the watch I requested?

[Oh. That makes sense. A lot of it, and a comforting kind. More than that, it provides her with direction. Learn to focus without obsessing over victory. Over Hannibal. Over safety. Learn to focus and breathe at the same time.]

[It sounds impossible. But Ben did it, in his own way. She can, too. He wouldn't tell her she could if she couldn't.]

[Some of the helpless weight lifts off her shoulders, and she shoots him a half-smile, brightening at the mention of the watch.]

I got it. I haven't had a chance to try out the compass part yet, because - no poles - but it's beautiful.

[Beautiful and useful. Her favorite kind of thing.]

[Abigail has more agency at a younger age than Ben ever did; her childhood built for her a different prison wrapped in a different set of rules, and she is not more intelligent than he is, but she is clever in a way he is not. She can master herself. She can learn to keep her own time, with time.

Until then he will lend her his experience, and be grateful that she exists so that all he struggled through was not in vain; she smiles at him and something behind his eyes gentles proportionately.]

It was my hope that you would find it useful. Someday you will be someplace that the time it keeps and the directions it points will be more or less stable, and you will be able to take it with you.

[He slides the card out into his palm and lowers both hands to his lap. He lost the original card somewhere along the way, left behind on the rooftop of Barracks B when they escaped. He still remembers every crease and fold, every imperfection in the ink, every line, and if he didn't know better he would say this was in fact that very card.

It can't be. But more impossibilities have happened. He rubs his thumb over it, cupped protectively in his hands, and then holds it out without looking up.]

And this.

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eleven ♢ spam, private + open

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