Separation from the scene, a break from the theatrics of the reenactment, the monstrousity of the crime. Will knew that was what he needed, to run far away from it all for the sake of his own decimated wellbeing. Yet try as he did to close the book to seek and explore the wonders of the world, he was unable to suppress the desire of returning for too long. It had wrecked him, yet what sane person would be able to take on such a task and uncover the secrets like he could? He would become homesick, disconcerted and unable to decide for himself if he truly left, and so would Jack and the crew. They needed him.
A part of him was horrified at the sight of a corpse, gutted and shelled into a hollow being that stared up at him with clouded, unseeing eyes. The other, more sinister side of him that lingered within some dark crevice of his mind admired the pedantry of this 'work of art', fashioned into the artist's own unique and distinctive piece that they had designed with utmost precision to the very last detail of the measurements and placement of the incision and the amount of spilled blood.
He knew that such thoughts were unhealthy and worried his colleagues with the occasional mishaps of the serial killer's words uttered in his own voice in a moment of a lapsed mind-set, so he suppressed them from the ears of society. At times he was conscious of this, it was what kept him awake at night, yet mostly it was an absent-minded occurrence, aiding him to preserve the fraying tethers of sanity that he clutched onto through the torment of assessing countless crime scenes.
This time it was a woman. A young, aspiring personal trainer found in her shower cubicle whose kidneys and liver had been carefully removed with a few clean incisions. The only peculiarity was that her breasts had been skinned. Another unexplainable violation, rousing wariness within the crew that bred caution from Jack that perhaps two others would follow after her, yet Will knew this was not the Chesapeake's handiwork. It was another imitation - a very convincing one of that, yet Will felt an unfamiliar connection from the killer not associated with the notorious criminal. This was sanctioned out of greed and jealously, perhaps for the physicality of the woman's body. The Ripper had not such feeling in his murders at all, however, little relief was granted in this certainty.
Lifting the cuff of his jacket, Will glanced down at the face of his wristwatch and determined that he had arrived to Hannibal's office earlier than was expected of him. To be left in silence in one's thoughts was something he often tried to avoid, however, he would be patient and so rather than making his arrival known with a few raps of his knuckles upon the office door, Will lingered at the pot plant on the adjacent wall and waited for his appointed time. He leaned against the wall heavily, his head tilted back with closed lids as he concentrated on thinking about something else than of the trainer's mutilated body that flashed within his mind. It drifted to Abigail, and for a moment he pictured her pretty face, deceptively innocent, but tainted by her secrets of her partnership with her father and those other girls.
His jaw clenched as the face of Hobbs entered his mind and he opened his eyes with a hard swallow to stand tall once more. It was becoming worse - the passing weeks had left him more sensitive to the exterior triggers associated with the man. There was little he could do to escape the image of the man's face that both flashed within his mind and distorted his reality. He feared that there was little he could do about it, yet he refused to resign himself to such thoughts.
If there was something that could be done about Hobbs, about the nightmares, it was Hannibal. He trusted him, more than he trusted his own perception. He adhered to his judgement, despite his despise of psychiatrists that, speaking from experience, had poked and probed through the most intimate secrets of his mind. But what they shared was different. It was communication and it was an assessment, and he was ok with that.
He just hoped that Hannibal would be finishing with his client soon.
