Fortune's Fool (Hannibal Fanfiction)

I: The New Case

Not for the first time, Will Graham stood in Jack Crawford's office and reevaluated his life choices.

By and large, it wasn't the classroom part of his career that Will questioned. To say he enjoyed it would be a strong word, but he didn't dislike working at the Academy, either. His students learned pretty quickly that he didn't like eye contact and would give curt, abrasive answers if they tried to stop him after class, so he didn't have to socialize with them, which was a huge plus. Quantico was about an hour's drive from Wolf Trap, but the job gave him enough money to support himself and his seven dogs, and he didn't mind the drive. In fact, he looked forward to it. It was solitary. Quiet. As for the classes themselves...well, he made his living thinking about murder. As unusual as it may have seemed, he had no complaints there.

No, it wasn't the teaching part that had him questioning things. It was the fieldwork.

It felt like millennia ago, but it had only been a few months since Jack Crawford had walked into Will's classroom and asked to borrow his imagination. Will had wanted to say no, but when faced with a serial killer of eight young women across eight different Minnesota campuses...he'd known that he wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he could have caught him and instead let him go free. Jack had known it, too, the bastard. So Will had reluctantly said yes, and it had ended in him putting ten bullets in the killer's chest — and orphaning the killer's daughter, Abigail Hobbs, whom her father had been about to kill.

Will scrubbed a hand across his beard. Things had just gone downhill from there. Since then, he had suffered from disturbing nightmares and hallucinations, and with each serial killer he was tasked to profile, it got worse. Some days he felt as if the only thing keeping him from going insane was the steady presence of his unofficial psychiatrist and friend, Doctor Lecter.

Ironically, Hannibal Lecter had rubbed him the wrong way during their first meeting, rudely poking into his subconscious and psychoanalyzing him. It had rankled, especially since Will knew that Jack had set him up to it. But since then, Hannibal had become a ballast in Will's life. The doctor was eccentric, but he never seemed to pass judgment on Will's psyche or mental stability like other people did. Hannibal had become his friend, and together they were Abigail's legal guardians. Will found Hannibal refreshing.

And god knows that he could have used his company right about now, with Jack pacing behind his desk like a caged lion.

"What is it, Jack?" Will asked, since it didn't seem as though Jack were going to speak first. "I've got another class today at noon."

Jack waved it away as if it were a pesky fly. "Never mind that, Doctor Bloom can cover for you." He stopped pacing and looked Will dead in the eye — or at least he tried to, because Will was dutifully avoiding it. "I've got another case for you."

And there it was: exactly why Will had dreaded being called into Jack's office in the first place.

"The case couldn't wait until after noon?" he said, trying not to let his irritation show.

Jack shot him a look. "You know as well as I do that every minute counts in catching these killers."

Will sighed and glanced over at Jack's board. He had already placed pins and photos on the map for this killer's known bodies. From his stance near the doorway, it looked as if there were three within relatively close proximity to each other.

"I don't know how much use I'm going to be for you, Jack," Will said instead, ill-tempered. "I nearly died during the last case. So did Hannibal," he added, glancing in Jack's direction and raising an eyebrow.

Jack let out a heavy sigh, walked around his desk, and perched on the edge of it. He was a big man, broad-shouldered but surprisingly graceful, and well-respected in the field. He was also always glowering to some degree when he was on the job. Will was one of the only ones unafraid to be tetchy with him on a regular basis.

"That's why you're not going alone," said Jack placatingly, hands folded in front of him. "I'm sending you with Doctor Lecter."

Will grimaced and paced away from the door, running a hand through his unruly hair. He didn't want to admit it, but having Hannibal's company made him slightly less reluctant to agree. Jack probably knew that, too. Bastard.

"How many bodies?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer, if Jack's crime board was any indication.

"Three so far, all within New Orleans proper and the surrounding area. None of them fresh. The NOPD uploads their cases to the FBI database to catch connected homicides, and we were notified this morning of DNA matches for three of them. The leftover evidence is on its way to Price, Katz, and Zeller, but in the meantime, I want you and Doctor Lecter to get a head start on the legwork."

Will frowned and stopped pacing. "You're sending us to Louisiana? When?"

"Today."

Will raised his eyebrows and scowled. "A little short notice, don't you think, Jack?"

Jack spread his hands, again placating, and Will tried to suppress a spike of anger at the gesture. "The sooner we can get people down there, the better."

"And yourself?"

The edge of Jack's mouth quirked up at Will's impudence. "I will head down to join you and Doctor Lecter in a few days." He stood up and moved back behind his desk. "I've still got paperwork to finish from the last case. Mister Budge left quite the mess."

Will wanted to strangle Jack for the snarky comment. Of course Tobias Budge had left a mess — he'd killed two police officers and one of Hannibal's patients and nearly killed Will and Hannibal both. It had been a good stroke of luck that Hannibal had had the strength, reflexes, and quick-thinking to overpower Tobias before he could kill him. But it had left Hannibal's office a mess, with two dead bodies (Tobias, and Franklyn Froideveaux, Hannibal's patient), and Hannibal had had to shut down his psychiatric practice for over a week to recover. It took days for him to stop limping. As for Will, he'd received deep cuts on his hands from the cello strings Tobias had tried to strangle him with, and for several days he could barely hear out of one ear from when he'd shot at Tobias in an attempt to free himself from his grip. Still, they had stopped a serial killer from harming anybody else. That was the most important thing.

Will sighed deeply and glanced again at Jack's board. As much as he wanted to tell Jack to stuff it, he knew he wasn't getting out of this, not with another killer still on the loose. And frankly, he would feel guilty if he said no. "Where are the case files?"

Jack gave a satisfied smile and reached for a stack of files on his desk. "I thought you'd never ask."