Chapter Text
White, smudged.
Movement. Cold. Pressure. Sounds.
Eventually, a voice.
When you wake up, your only choice will be to run.
He took a breath and another. Run, but something was lodged in his throat. Darkness enveloped him again. There were warm, wet, soft things in his hands. Things that shouldn’t be exposed to air. A woman’s voice curled into his ears like snails.
He’s still alive.
Not if he did not run. Not for long. Hannibal Lecter had seen to that.
Frederick tried again to open his eyes. This time, the blotched white took shapes and soaked up colour. Metal grates at his feet. A lamp overhead.
He swallowed. The muscles constricted around an object. His lips, his teeth were obstructed. Pain pulsed behind his forehead. Ice sat in his bones. He lifted one shaking hand. He needed to know if he was still spilling out organs before he could flee.
A prick of pain surged up his arm. His hand was tied down.
Behind him, beeping started, fast and faster, like the pace of his heart.
Gideon in pieces in my basement.
Just when the noise became insistent, following an imaginary, even flatline, and Frederick began to tear despite the pain at whatever resistance held his hand, hurried footsteps approached and a shape loomed over him.
Hannibal.
“Please calm down, Dr. Chilton. Everything’s just fine.”
-
The nurse had held his wrists to the bed he had wrenched his consciousness from the void. He had seen white clothes, unknown face, name tag: Terry Western, Saint Catherine Hospital.
“I didn’t think you’d wake up so fast,” Terry informed him while fixing the cannula that Frederick had attempted to pull from his hand. With a placid smile, he leaned up to do something out of Frederick’s field of vision that stopped the consistent beeping. Frederick’s free hand released the side of the bed, fingers stiff from clenching around it.
The breathing tube made him want to gag, but his frayed nerves were more concerned that sitting in his vocal cords, the tube muted him.
I suppose it is not like anyone listened when I could talk.
But he had questions now, not the least of all being why he was in a hospital and why his head hurt every time he turned it and whether these two things were connected. With his mind fighting through the fog, he realised that not having actual restraints on his hands was the surprising part. After all, he was considered the Chesapeake Ripper. Maybe they thought he was too weak to fight (they were right). However, if Frederick had wanted to put the fear of God into a dangerous killer, like he was sure Jack Crawford was very eager to do, Terry, grey-haired, pot-bellied and moving with the nimble grace of a wounded elephant, would not have been the attendant he would have sent to the offender.
With shaking fingers, Frederick touched the tube running from his mouth.
“Oh, no, don’t pull that.” Gently, Terry slapped his hand away. “I know it’s uncomfortable, but we wouldn’t want to take your breath away, now, would we?”
He followed this with a self-satisfied laugh. Frederick was sure that Terry told this joke to every single damn patient that had something jammed down their throat around here. Unfortunately, it made him think with the suddenness of a well-placed blow of a big bag of discoloured plastic, pumping air into lungs that rose and fell under his thumbs, right there, damp under his finger pads, and breathing became all he could think of to keep himself from trying to scream.
“I’m going to get Dr. Martinez. She’ll want to know you’re up.”
-
Thankfully, the doctor’s first order of business was to remove the breathing tube. The plastic slid up his throat like a snake, leaving it burning. While he coughed hard enough to spit up a lung alongside the tube, Terry changed the angle of hospital bed with a creak and a jolt, so Frederick was sitting up, feeling like his head was full of helium.
“To speak frankly, Dr. Chilton, we didn’t think you would make it. It’s remarkable – and it only took you three days to fully wake up.”
Dr. Martinez smiled, flipping through his patient files and pushing strands of grey hair behind her ear where they joined the arm of her blue-rimmed glasses.
“What happened?” He croaked.
He remembered the interrogation room, then a crash. Nothing.
“You were shot in the head from a very short distance and in falling hit your head on the edge of the table, adding to the trauma,” Dr. Martinez said. “The bullet entered through your temple and exited through the back of your neck. It quite literally missed your brain by an inch and your spinal cord by a millimetre. You must have a guardian angel.”
“He’s sloppy,” Frederick managed, after marvelling at the details of his latest near-death experience. Tape and gauze on the left side of his face made the smile he forced lopsided. He felt like divine protection should, if at all possible, deflect life-threatening wounds altogether, not just slightly adjust the reaper’s scythe rushing by close enough to shave off his hair.
“The bullet caused a blood clot that was pressing on your brain. We considered it safer to put you in an induced coma until your situation had stabilised,” Dr. Martinez elaborated. “You were in the coma for about five weeks.”
“Who... shot?”
It had to have been someone watching the interrogation. Someone FBI – unless they had let Hannibal in. But why should he blow his cover to murder him when he had put all the pieces so perfectly in place?
Readjusting her glasses, Dr. Martinez turned to the nurse.
“Terry, would you please inform the physiotherapist about Dr. Chilton’s recovery? He’ll have to meet him as soon as possible.”
Whether Terry simply took the hint or just swallowed the request, he left the room as Dr. Martinez folded her hands over the file. The noise of the door shutting had her straighten slightly.
“I assure you that all... doubts that the FBI had about you in the beginning are cleared up. As to the details of the incident, I’ve been asked not to discuss them with you. The FBI will do that.”
The words after ‘cleared’ just barely registered. His head spun with a flood of adrenaline. If he had believed in any higher power, Frederick would have prayed. As it was, he wondered if it was Will Graham whose feet he should kiss. To believe Dr. Bloom or Jack Crawford had rediscovered their brains on their own was too optimistic.
“However, I would like to delay that meeting for a while. You will need a lot of rest to recover. Given your patient history, you really need to take it slow. In fact, it would not be difficult to make a case that you should still be recovering from the last injury you received.”
Deep lines crossed her forehead as she regarded him.
“I want to talk to them.”
It would have helped if his voice had not faltered, making the last word almost inaudible. Predictably, Dr. Martinez shook her head.
“Give yourself some time, Dr. Chilton.”
Her tone was professionally kind, but all Frederick could think of was that he would not know for days, maybe weeks, whether Hannibal Lecter was still out there. He could see green line spike faintly on the heart monitor.
-
The physiotherapist was a young man with an orange tan and body fat in the negative percentages. He stayed for two hours, helping Frederick to sit up.
“You were always moving in the days you spent waking up. That’s good. It did some of the ground work,” he said.
Frederick concentrated on the rubber balls in his hands and forbade himself to think of the shades that had had him struggling pathetically in his hospital bed.
When it was time for dinner, his arms were too tired to move. Nurse Rhonda, Terry’s evening replacement, who continuously hummed songs under her breath at exactly the pitch Frederick associated with an alarm clock going off at four am, fed him.
“We figured you’d have trouble chewing,” she said, laughing, pushing a spoon between his lips. “So we asked the paediatrics unit for some baby food!”
“Hilarious,” Frederick murmured past a mouthful of carrot mush.
Over exchangeable days, the small indignities of life in the intensive care unit piled up in a familiar manner: bedpans, washcloth baths, plastic hospital gowns, staggering steps in physiotherapy. It was unwanted, but hardly new, and neither were the nightmares, though they came in a greater variety of private horrors. He was still trapped, strapped down, tied up, but now he would also run through mazes, woods, and every place he had ever called home in his life, chased by shadows. Stone-heavy limbs and weak knees and an oppressive presence like choking smoke all hampered his attempts to escape. He had met the Wound Man more often than he cared to count; he had been him a few times, too. Once he had stumbled as he had rushed down a long corridor and had seen he was getting his feet caught in his own intestines.
When Frederick woke up panting for air, he consoled himself by taking the images apart into elements and sorting them, as far as possible, to the traumas of the last year. They were reasonable reactions of a troubled psyche and nothing to be afraid of once they had passed, he told himself. But reason did not take care of every dark figure waiting for him in the corner of his eyes.
Frederick slept fitfully, but a lot, and trained more than the physiotherapist wanted him to. He tried to ignore the new addition to his growing catalogue of health issues, migraine-like headaches that the doctors informed him would probably keep happening for the rest of his life.
One early morning, Frederick gathered his first victory as he struggled up and dragged himself into the tiny adjacent bathroom with its bile-green tiles. On the way back from the toilet, however, he was distracted by his own mirror image under white fluorescent light.
Considering the positives, Frederick noted that did not need to lose those fifteen pounds anymore. Alongside them, his body had gotten rid of most muscle. He’d never been a tall man, but he looked his unimpressive size now, a caricature, a stick figure.
With morbid curiosity, Frederick fingered the gauze patch on his cheek and tore. For a moment, he thought he would not have the coordination and strength to contend with it, but, closing the fingers of the other hand tightly around the rim off the steel sink and breathing in deep, he pulled it back.
The scar was long and ugly, starting thick, where the bullet must have entered, and drawing downwards in what looked like a messy incision scar. To compare, Frederick lifted the hospital gown. Gideon’s cut was impeccable handiwork, a straight line down, but the doctors had had to cut across it to fit the missing pieces back in, so the final result was like a main street with alleyways in all directions. He wondered, desperate, if there was something he could do to hide the new scar he did those on his stomach.
Dropping the fabric, he looked back up, studying the rest of his face. It was the colour of ashes and his eyes seemed too big, the rings under them unnaturally dark. He could have laid down in the morgue like this and no one would have thought he was out of place. Lightheaded from standing too long, he could not feel his own pulse at all when he tried to.
Frederick sank down on the rim of the bathtub, counted the seconds between exhaling and inhaling and tried to chase the black moths at the edges of his vision away. It only just fully sank in that it had been so close again. He had almost, almost died, he had been a brief tilt of his head away from the grave.
But he was not dead yet. No, he would not make it that easy for Hannibal.
-
The nurses and doctors still did not allow him shoes or socks since he was not supposed to walk without assistance, but all that resulted in was Frederick wandering the corridors barefoot and at night. Authority had never impressed him much, least of all when it came clad in a white coat. Having wasted enough time in medical school before he had had to change subjects, he had met prospective doctors of all sorts. Few of them were the healers that held the wisdom of the world that patients hoped for. Gideon was also far from the only doctor who had ended up in the cells in his own hospital. Needless to say, that did not heighten his confidence.
Since Frederick was a psychiatrist he had also prescribed himself anything that would keep him from staring at the walls for too long. Especially at night, he much preferred walking the dimly lit hallways to his own room, where well-meaning nurses shut off the light because he was too proud to ask them not to and make himself look like he was afraid of the bogeyman.
Frederick had occasionally visited the Saint Catherine Hospital before, since they had a small unit for patients that needed special restraints, some of which had followed Frederick back to the Baltimore State Hospital secured in a van. That was probably also where he had been kept until the suspicions had been cleared. He was rather thankful he had not been awake for it.
The building of the Saint Catherine Hospital he was in was rather small, the different stations divided by glass sliding doors only and laid out over four floors. There was a garden in the back, but he would have had to get past a reception desk to get there. It was prudent not to wander anywhere without access to walls to hold onto and lean against, anyhow, since he hadn’t been granted a cane yet, either.
Frederick had gotten rather proficient at avoiding the staff. Most congregated in the nurse’s stations, so he circled around them as far as possible on his treks. Given his average speed, he hardly ever managed more than a few rounds and a couple flights of stairs before he had to fold and slink back to his own room, but that could take him quite some time.
The speed of his recovery was nothing short of frustrating, since it gave his ridiculously overcautious doctors a reason to delay the visit from the FBI. Not knowing who had shot him, whether Jack really thought him completely innocent and with no information on how likely it was that Hannibal would climb through his window in the night to finish the obviously botched job that framing Frederick had been was not helping his sanity. The recovery of his mind was dependant on the recovery of his body, but that could not be easily feigned or forced, no matter how hard he pushed.
One night, Frederick sat on the windowsill in the shadows of a small, unlit alcove for visitors, which was outfitted with a few metal chairs and a table decorated with outdated magazines and broken crayons. He was looking out into the lamp-lit garden and, through the small crack, enjoyed the warm summer breeze and drowsily marvelled at the fact that not all the world smelled of antiseptic.
The double noise of footsteps and hushed conversation did not make him stir. Hidden behind a tall potted plant, he was hardly visible to someone just walking by. For want of something else to do, he turned his head a little to catch the fleeting words.
“... always the one who has to bother with Friedheim.”
A plaintive male voice.
“Well, you were sick and I’ve had rooms 43 to 47 all week, so you’ll have Friedheim and... I’m not sure who’s in room 36 now, but, you know, whoever.”
Female and mentally past this conversation already, judging by the tone.
“I’m gonna need your help to lift him later.”
“Sure. Or ask Catherine, she’s got the room right next door.”
“Is Graham still there?”
Frederick was suddenly wide awake. He held his breath to catch the answer.
“Yeah. He’s gonna go to the regular station once he can properly walk. That’s what they wrote down, anyway. I mean,” the voice lowered conspiratorially to near-incomprehensible levels, “you know how it is with Dr. Wheeler’s predictions.”
Frederick waited until the echo of the footsteps vanished completley before he awkwardly slid off the windowsill and crept along the wall. The male nurse would have room 36 and two or three more. Catherine was either up or down. Graham was not a terribly uncommon name, but it was too great a coincidence not to investigate. If anyone would know what happened to him and Hannibal, would that not be Will? It could very well be what put him in the hospital.
He should have moved this expedition to a night when his head and legs were not already heavy from forcing himself up and down the stairs for practice, but Frederick would not sleep before he didn’t know for sure whether Will was here. Working his way through the rooms with a three in front, Frederick threw a beam of sickly orange light from the hallway onto the faces of two older women, a massive man, a skeletal face of indeterminate age and gender that looked at him from giant, haunted eyes – he closed that door fast – and a back turned away, with long blond tresses spread out over the pillow.
When he opened the door to room 39, the blanket on the bed rustled with movement. A mop of unruly brown curls raised from the pillow and Will Graham squinted into the light. Frederick was so shocked to actually see someone from a life he had been cut off from for days on end, he simply stood clinging to the doorknob. Will, in turn, was staring back at him with his mouth slightly open, instinctive terror written into every line of his tired face.
Looking down at himself, Frederick wondered how horrifying a man in a little dotted hospital dress who was visibly straining to stand on his two naked feet could really be. However, it dawned on him that Will’s presence on the intensive care unit could mean that he had been here long enough to still think Frederick was in a coma or possibly dead.
“You are not going any more insane than you have always been, Will,” he said quietly, closing the door behind himself. The room was dark, but a variety of machines with lit monitors and a street light outside the window cast Will’s room in perpetual twilight. “I woke up.”
The fear on Will’s face didn’t filly dissipate, but Frederick moved towards him anyway and heavily sat down on the edge of the bed by Will’s feet, since there were no chairs in the room. He was dizzy and excited, heart beating loud in his chest.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re in my room in the middle of the night.”
“Could I be a topic of your dreams?”
Will’s lips twitched in a small smile. “No, Frederick. Bigger men than you take those spots.”
As usual, his voice was subdued but clear, making Frederick question whether Will had been asleep. Will was looking at the ceiling now. He never did seem to like eye contact.
“I fail to feel insulted to not fit into your particular gallery of demons.”
It occurred toFrederick he should be angry at Will, but he could not quite muster the energy right now. Will could probably make the argument that Frederick had pointed a gun at him, which was not the sign of a good guest, either.
“Why did you call Jack Crawford?” Honest curiosity motivated him more than anything. What would rage gain him here? A slap fight between two invalids? “I know you had no reason to help me, but you did know I was innocent.”
Will glanced into a pool of darkness in a corner of the room like he saw something there. “I thought you would be safer at the FBI. I didn’t want Hannibal to win this round, too.”
Frederick wanted to contest this claim, but he could not think of a different reason. General antipathy, perhaps, but Will had been a little too busy for such pettiness.
“For someone who was sent to prison by them, you have a tendency to dramatically overestimate the competence of your friends.” Frederick closed his eyes, trying to will an oncoming headache away. “Why would I have been in danger fleeing? Hannibal told me to run. The longer I kept the FBI busy, the better for him.”
“Blaming you was not a strategy he could keep up forever,” Will murmured, now looking at the ceiling again.
“You mean someone might have noticed a man who needs a cane to walk would have some difficulty subduing three armed FBI agents, hoisting one up to the ceiling, and carrying a corpse plus medical equipment into his house?” Frederick said cooly.
“Something like that. And when Hannibal eventually would’ve fled, who do you think would’ve been the perfect surprise to be in pieces all over his house when the FBI came to raid it?” Will glanced at him briefly. “He wouldn’t have let you run farther than you needed to to throw the FBI off his scent, then he would’ve collected you.”
The thought felt like cold hands crawling up Frederick’s spine. A last bratty flourish to the investigators certainly sounded like Hannibal’s taste.
“But I was allegedly safe and sound at the FBI headquarters and I woke up with bullet wound regardless,” he reminded Will.
“He had a contingency plan I didn’t count on,” Will admitted. “Maybe he never expected you to make it far.”
Now Frederick was a little insulted, if only because Will’s tone suggested he agreed.
“That was hardly my fault – as you should know best of all,” he said, irrationally defending his lack of skill at evading law enforcement in a scenario he had never asked or planned for. Good God. He reined himself back in.
“What happened to me?” He wished his voice was a little more stable. “And to you? To Hannibal? The doctors won’t let the FBI into my room.”
Silence stretched on.
“I’ll tell you,” Will said, “everything. But you have to do something for me.”
His gaze was inscrutable. They had played this game before, but now Frederick wondered if this was how he had looked at Matthew Brown when he sent him to kill Hannibal.
“Striking deals again, Will? You realise I am in no better situation than you. I should not even be out of my bed.”
“Yet here you are.” Will cocked his head. “I need you to find out how Alana, Jack and Abigail are. If I am here, they are probably in this hospital, too. I’m not a relative and I’m considered psychically... fragile, so the doctors won’t tell me.”
Three more wounded. Frederick was getting a hazy idea that Hannibal must have made short work of his public image once and for all.
“Abigail... ?” He asked, absent-mindedly.
“Abigail Hobbs,” Will said, like Frederick had asked him for the colour of grass.
“The Hobbs girl was killed months ago,” Frederick answered slowly. He wondered if Will was having trouble keeping the timeline straight.
The man swallowed, glanced to the side, smiled entirely without humour.
“It turns out it’s not quite as easy as that.”
Of course it would not be. Frederick took time to consider the proposition, but he knew that he really did not have a choice.
“I will think of something,” he declared, grabbing onto the metal frame of the bed to hoist himself to his feet.
He could feel Will’s gaze on the back of his neck as he made his way out of the room.