indigo_angels

By the time Face came out of the office again, Hannibal was sure he had lost both of his feet to frost bite, but somehow, seeing his lieutenant again after all the long months more than made up for it. He watched in his rear view mirror as Face headed out to a black four by four parked by the gates and jumped in, before driving round the back of Hannibal’s car and out onto the road. He forced himself to wait a few minutes, before following.

There was just enough traffic on the street to make Hannibal’s non-descript hire car blend into the background, but not too much that he lost sight of Face’s car in and amongst all the other four by fours.

They headed back towards Columbia Falls, but before they reached the main town, Face pulled into the parking lot of a motel. Hannibal drew up on the side of the road across the way and watched the black four by four carefully. The passenger door opened and Face emerged once more, the hood of his down jacket pulled up tight against the snow flying in the wind and he almost ran up the stairs to unlock the door, second along from the end and slip inside.

Hannibal killed his headlamps and sat, heart thudding in his chest as his eyes raked over the motel. It looked welcoming enough, bright and cheery, the lights in the windows warm in the cold night, but there was a kind of shabbiness to it that just made him ache. He noticed the two stars blinking in the darkness and the peeling paint on the fence and thought of Face here, all alone, for all this time and it was like a splinter in his heart.

He swallowed his emotions down and pulled out his mobile, it was answered on the second ring.

“Good evening, and thank you for calling Madame Marcella’s Massage Parlour, I’m afraid that-”

There was the sound of some muffled thumping.

“Hannibal, that you? Murdock! Keep your damn hands on the wheel! I got the phone! Hannibal?”

Hannibal couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his cheeks. “Yeah, BA, I’m here. You guys alright?”

“Yeah, we’re jus’ coming up to Seeley Lake. Sat Nav says it’ll be another couple of hours before we get to you.”

“Great.” Hannibal was impressed. The boys had set off almost as soon as they had dropped Hannibal home last night, but even so, arriving in two hours means the entire trip will have taken about twenty three hours. To make that sort of time, they can’t have stopped at all...

“What about you boss? Any luck?”

Hannibal took a deep breath, “I’ve got him.”

There was a split second’s silence, then yells and whoops split the air and Hannibal had to hold the phone away from his ear as he grinned at their reactions.

“Hell, yeah, boss! That’s fuckin’ it! He okay?”

Hannibal’s smiled dimmed a little, “I don’t know, I’ve not spoken to him yet, but he looks it. You know...” He tailed off as his eyes flicked to the run down motel and that splinter in his heart twinged again.

Murdock could still be heard singing ‘Rule Britannia’ in a ridiculous English accent, but BA picked up on the vibe instantly and Hannibal could hear the concern in his voice, “Hey, man, you gotta go talk to him, make it right, yeah?”

“I know.”

“So, why you waitin’?”

“Thought I’d wait for you guys to get here.”

Murdock had switched to ‘God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You’, and Hannibal could tell that BA was trying to muffle his own voice. “Don’t know how much of a good idea that would be, boss. I mean he sounds happy now, but... well, it’s been a bit up an’ down...”

Pinching the bridge of his nose Hannibal sighed; the fallout from this whole fiasco was going to last for months, years even. “Okay, big guy, I’ve got it. I’ll text you his address, be here as soon as you can, but I’ll go in. Speak to him now.”

“Good luck, Hannibal...”

He disconnected, but could still hear Murdock’s voice in his head as he texted the details through, then he turned back to the Motel, took a deep breath and steeled himself to get out, just as the door to Face’s motel room swung open once more and Face stepped out into the night.

Hannibal froze, his plans thrown into turmoil, and watched as Face jogged down the steps, bundled up against the now driving snow and Hannibal winced as he remembered how much the kid had hated the snow, how he used to whine and whinge whenever they needed to work in cold climates, how he basked in the heat once they got back to LA. How desperate must he be to hide out in one of the coldest states in the US? And there was that splinter again.

Fingers hovering over the ignition, Hannibal slumped down in his seat, as, for a horrible second, it seemed that Face was heading straight for him, but then he veered off to the left and ducked into the grill that Hannibal had parked right outside. From his seat in the car, Hannibal had a perfect view as Face slid into a booth on his own and picked up a menu, glancing up at the football on the TV as he did so.

As Hannibal watched, an attractive young waitress appeared and exchanged a few pleasantries with Face. He was sitting with his back to the window, and for a panicked moment, Hannibal wondered if this woman wasn’t the reason that Face was holed up in frozen Montana, hiding out from his team. Without being able to see his lieutenant’s face, it was impossible to tell if this girl was just another pretty face... or another Sosa.

But it seemed as if his concerns were unfounded as she soon disappeared back behind the counter, and Face pulled a book out of his coat pocket and sat and read. Hannibal couldn't believe what he was seeing. As long as he had known Face, the kid had never even picked up a book to read. He didn't have the attention span to sit still and read, he even moaned if Hannibal's mission briefing notes went over two sides of A4 and he would fidget and squirm the whole time he was reading. But now here he was sitting perfectly still in an otherwise empty booth, turning pages diligently as he read. It was so far from the Face that he knew, it actually made Hannibal feel a little uncomfortable.

Hannibal stayed in his car watching for the full ninety minutes that Face was in the grill and by the time he had paid his bill and was jogging through the slush on the road back to his motel room, Hannibal thought his heart was going to break.

He’d always liked to think that he knew Face better than any other person on earth did. Certainly better than Father David, whom Face kept so much from in those latter years, definitely better than Sosa ever had, as she had proved so cuttingly, and probably better than BA and Murdock, although they had to be not far behind him.

He knew, for instance, that although Face was incredibly socially confident, and competent, and picked up ‘buddies’ like other people picked up groceries, he struggled to have friends. In fact, when Hannibal first met him, he had no friends at all, and from what he’d managed to work out, never had. Why? Well, the reasons for that were not so forthcoming, but over the years Hannibal had pieced them together.

First of all, trust. Trust was something that had been thrown back in the kid’s face more times than he could count, and so he had stopped giving it out. People had to earn it, and with Face, that took a long, long, time.

Secondly, all those social skills that Face used to a premium were an act, none of them were natural, he had to plan and scheme and consider everything he did, every word he said, and that was hard work, left him with nothing left over for real life. He couldn’t just relax and be himself with people, couldn’t take the risk that he wouldn’t just give too much away with a thoughtless word.

And that brought Hannibal round to number three. Face was an intensely private person, couldn’t stand the thought that someone else might know what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Hell, sometimes Hannibal got the feeling that Face even hated himself knowing what he was thinking or feeling, locked his emotions away tightly so he could slide a mask into place instead and hide behind that.

Given those three fairly overwhelming personality traits it was understandable that Face just couldn’t form solid, secure friendships. Until, of course he’d met Hannibal, and later, Murdock and BA, when things just clicked. Maybe it was because, in very different ways, all four of them were social oddities, or maybe it was the danger and the common reliance they shared. Whatever it was, something just fell into place and Face found that he had friends, real friends who didn’t want something from him, or need him for a specific reason, just guys who liked him for who he was, respected him, valued him, trusted him. And that made all the difference, it meant that he could trust them, let them in a bit, let himself relax, and, for the first time in his life just be himself.

But now he’d moved on, left those friends behind him so the question that had been needling at Hannibal over these last sixteen months was: so could he do that again? Make that journey into trust and love and friendship again? And now he had his answer – a most definite ‘no’. From Face’s point of view, the first time had been a miracle, and look how that had turned out for him, those friends he’d cherished so much had turned on him, hurt him physically and emotionally. Hannibal knew he’d never let himself make that mistake again.

Which was why Hannibal now found him living in a scruffy motel room far away from the warmth he loved, eating in a diner with only a book and the NFL for company and going back to an empty room and an empty bed for a night alone with no one to help him through his nightmares.

It was heartbreaking. And it was also all Hannibal’s fault.

The walk across the road to the motel seemed to take hours but be over in an instant at the same time. Hannibal found himself standing outside the door he had seen Face disappear into twice this evening already and stopped, trying to find the courage to knock. He glanced over at the drawn curtain, light spilling out through a sliver of a gap in the middle and ducked down, trying to peer in.

The room was small, with a kitchenette to the left and a double bed pushed up against the right hand wall. A flat screen mounted on the wall next to the kitchenette was showing the last quarter of the same football game that had been on in the grill, and Hannibal noted a pile of clothes on the floor at the floor of the bed. Face was nowhere to be seen and Hannibal was confused for a moment before he noticed the thin trail of steam creeping out of the gap at the top of the door to the en-suite and realised that this was his chance.

The door was locked, but since he always carried around a set of lock picks in his pocket, it only took him twenty seconds to get in. He opened the door silently and stepped inside, closing it behind him and tugging the curtains closed properly before lowering himself into the only chair in the room, almost under the flat screen facing the door to the en-suite. He had no intention of moving around as the last thing he wanted to do was to alert Face to the fact that he had company. He, better than anyone else, knew just how dangerous Face could be when it was required.

He sat in the chair, trying to tune the football out of his mind as he listened to the shower running. And then it stopped.

Hannibal swallowed hard, his palms were actually sweating, and the door to the bathroom finally swung open.

Face took one step into the room then stopped suddenly. Hannibal saw him tense, ready to attack, and then saw the clearly perceptible double take as his brain caught up with his eyes, and then his whole face darkened.

“Kid...”

“Hannibal.”

He noticed Face’s fingers tightening the towel around his hips as he seemed to lean back onto the door frame for support.

“Didn’t expect you now. Not after so long.”

Hannibal narrowed his eyes, “What? You think we’d just forget about you?”

Face let out a bitter chuckle, “Oh, no, I doubt you could do that, given the circumstances, just thought maybe you’d...” he shrugged, “moved on.”

Moved on... Ironic.

“No,” Hannibal knew he sounded as tired as he felt, “it’s just taken me this long to find you. Been searching since the day you went.”

If he was expecting Face look happy at that news, he was disappointed. If anything, even more colour seemed to drain from the kid’s face, and he rubbed his hands up and down his arms looking like a frightened child.

Hannibal sighed. “For God’s sake put some clothes on kid, you look bloody freezing.”

For a second it looked like Face was going to object, but then he just reached out to the pile on the floor and shook out his combats, leaving the trunks and the thermal leggings behind, and dragged them over his legs before losing the towel and pulling on a long sleeved thermal vest, a micro fleece crew neck and finally a navy hoody. Hannibal smiled sadly to himself; the kid hated the cold.

Face turned and the two men looked at each other for a long minute, then the door burst open behind Hannibal and a streak of speed in a lumberjack shirt and a baseball cap flew past him and barrelled into Face, knocking him into the wall with a thump.

“Where the fuck have you been Face?”

BA skidded into the doorway behind Murdock and threw an apologetic glance at his colonel as Murdock grabbed two handfuls of Face’s hoody and, in a move horrifically reminiscent of sixteen months ago, slammed him against the wall once more.

“How could you just take off like that? Without telling anyone where you were, what you were doing?”

Face’s eyes were wide as he stared into Murdock’s face.

“Didn’t you stop to think that I’d worry about you? That maybe I’d think you were dead? Or kidnapped? Or captured? Or fucking whatever?” There was a catch to Murdock’s voice that tugged at Hannibal’s already overly stretched nerves. “Bet you didn’t think of me at all yeah? What the hell does Murdock matter when you only have yourself to care about!”

Hannibal and BA stepped forward as one. This kind of talk would do Face no good at all right now and it was obvious that Murdock was at the very end of his rope. BA slipped his arm round the lighter man’s shoulders while Hannibal tried to prise his fingers from Face’s hoody. “C’mon man,” BA’s voice was that soft drawl that only the men in this room ever got to hear and Murdock sagged into his arms, sobbing now as Face stood stock still against the wall, his eyes right on the edge of panic.

“Take him outside, BA,” Hannibal hissed, one hand on Face’s chest as if he feared the kid would bolt right out of the still open door.

BA nodded and turned to Face as he manoeuvred a still sobbing Murdock across the room, “He doesn’t mean it you know Face,” Murdock clung to him like a life raft, “he’s just missed you so damn much... we all have...” and then they were gone.

Hannibal closed the door behind them and leaned on it for a moment, letting his breathing steady, then he turned back to Face who was still jammed up against the wall, his skin an alarming shade of grey and his eyes like saucers. He slumped back into the chair and rubbed his hands over his face. This wasn’t working out like he’d planned...

Face walked silently over to the kitchenette and pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s out of a cupboard. Hannibal looked up as he heard the squeak of the cork coming out and watched as Face tipped the bottle up to his lips and took three long gulps. He brought the bottle down again and wiped the neck offering it to Hannibal who shook his head, before setting it down on the counter.

He steadied his hands on the side of the sink and took a deep breath. “I know why you’ve come...”

Hannibal raised an eyebrow at that. Of course he did, he would have thought the reason for his visit was obvious.

“...and you’re wrong.”

Or maybe not.

“You think I don’t think about Tasha Coleman at all, don’t think about what I did, don’t know what I did. But I do...” Hannibal shuddered at the bleak tone to Face’s voice, “I think about it all the time, doesn’t matter if I’m awake or asleep, it’s always there,” it was Face’s turn to shudder. “I really could have saved you a long journey, boss, I don’t think there’s anything you can say that would make me feel any worse than I already do.”

Hannibal closed his eyes and sighed. So bloody typical of Face to think that he was just here to make him pay, to rub salt into his already raw wounds. Didn’t he know Hannibal better than that by now? He shook his head, “Look, Face, there’s something here you need to read,” he rose to his feet and pulled a folded sheet of A4 from his back pocket, holding it out to Face. “There’s stuff in here you need to know.”

Face walked around from the kitchenette, and looked at the paper like it might explode.

“Here,” Hannibal took a step towards him, “you need to read it. Go on.”

Face cautiously took the paper, but didn’t unfold it. It sat in his fingers as he stared suspiciously at it, “What is it?”

“A copy of a letter found on Tasha Coleman’s body the day she died.” Face’s eyes shot up to his in alarm. “BA’s Scenes of Crime contact copied it for us before it was given to Coleman.”

Face stared at the paper in horror.

“Read it...” Hannibal coaxed as gently as he could.

Eventually Face sighed and unfolded the paper, Hannibal could see the tremors in his fingers as he did so. Then he started to read. Hannibal had read that damned letter so many times over the last sixteen months he knew it word for word. He could tell the exact second that Face had got to the third sentence as his legs seemed to give out and he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, face whiter than ever.

From his memory, Hannibal read along with him.

‘Dear Hannibal,” the letter was neatly word processed.

‘If you are reading this letter than that means that I am already dead. I am sorry that I never got the chance to tell you any of this when I was alive, but I’m sure, once you finish this letter, you will understand and I hope you won’t hate me for it. I would ask you not to mourn for me, not only is my death something I want, I have actually worked hard to plan it all myself.

‘I need to explain a bit more. The ‘stalker’ my father has asked you to trace is a man called Prakash Sahar. He’s actually my boyfriend and I love him very much. We have been together for eighteen months.

‘My father found out about us around sixth months ago and banned me from seeing him ever again. I love daddy a lot, but he is very narrow minded. When he looked at Prakash, all he saw was a Muslim and all he could think of was 9-11. Prakash isn’t a fundamentalist, or an extremist and he’s certainly not a terrorist, but daddy just won’t see it that way.

‘Anyway, I told daddy that Prakash and I had split up but continued to see him in secret. Then, when daddy found out he went crazy. The police weren’t interested, so he hired you. Told me that if Prakash ever came sniffing around me again, then you would kill him.

‘I can’t give him up and I can’t live without him. He feels the same way, so we have decided to leave this world together. Plans are being made and dates are being set and hopefully by the end of September it will all be over.

‘I have come to like and respect you and your team, and know you would never murder Prakash in cold blood as my father has told me, but this is still our chosen path. I am sorry for deceiving you and wish you well in the future.

‘Yours... Tasha x’

And then at the bottom of the page was a hastily added handwritten note.

‘Hannibal – it’s Face. I’d really hoped it wouldn’t be him as out of all of you he has been the sweetest and most lovely to me. But the time is set and it has to be him. I’ve just slipped a tablet into his coke. I don’t know what it is called but my pharmacist friend assures me it will only knock him out for a few hours and maybe leave him feeling a bit sick. I hope to God he’s right. Please, please don’t be too hard on him, it’s not his fault. I would have done the same to whichever one of you was on duty this morning. Tell him I’m sorry... Tash x’

Hannibal knew when Face finished the letter as it slipped out of his fingers and his head dropped down into his hands.

“Oh my God,” his voice shook almost as much as his shoulders, “Oh my God, I didn’t...” and he tailed off into a sob.

Hannibal watched him, at a loss as to what to do. He’d never been that good in dealing with emotion, and Face had never been one to show it much, so this was new, and awkward and Hannibal was left feeling helpless. He thought of Murdock and, for all his craziness, how he always knew what to do in situations like this. Hannibal tried to imagine what the pilot would do if he were here now, and knew he wouldn’t leave Face to deal with this alone.

He looked down at his lieutenant’s bent head and knew that Face was struggling to pull himself back together. Closing the gap between them, he bent down, placing a hand on Face’s shoulder, “Hey kid, it’s alright you know...”

He was almost thrown off his feet as Face just about exploded in front of him, “Alright? Hannibal, how the fuck can it be alright?!”

Hannibal took a step back and eyed him warily.

“I have spent the last year and a half thinking-” and he stopped, and Hannibal knew exactly why. He knew that Face just couldn’t say it, couldn’t divulge that much of himself, even to Hannibal, and there was that pain again right in Hannibal’s chest. He knew that one of them had to step up and acknowledge some of the emotions that were flying around. He looked into Face’s wild and desperate eyes and knew it was not going to be him, so...

He took that step forward again. “I know, Face...”

“What?! What do you know, Hannibal? You don’t know jack shit about me!”

Hannibal couldn’t help the bite that crept in to his words, “Oh, that’s right is it? That’s what you think? Well, if it’s true Face, it’s only because you never damn well tell me anything! You keep it all buttoned up so tight inside and think no one sees it!” He could see the wariness edging into Face’s eyes. “But you are wrong, so, so wrong, because I do know all about you, I’ve spent the last eighteen years of my life watching and learning and committing things to memory while you just carry on in your own little insular way, keeping me out, keeping Murdock out, when all anyone ever wants is to make you happy!”

Face looked damn near panicked now, and Hannibal could see his eyes flick to the door so he moved in another step, close enough that Face dropped back onto the bed as he tried to edge away, “Where do you want me to start then? Shall we start with Tasha Coleman? You’ve spent eighteen months feeling guilty as hell that your slip up killed her, you ran out on us ‘cause you convinced yourself we didn’t want you anymore, that you were a failure,” Face opened his mouth to say something but Hannibal ploughed on, “Oh, and I know that you’ll say I told you to leave, I threw you out, but you know I didn’t. You know I never would, you know I just meant for you to duck out for a few hours ‘til things had calmed down, but you didn’t, you fucking ran from me Face, ‘cause you were scared of admitting what you were really feeling!”

The bed creaked as Face leant back on his hands, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and his boss, “I don’t know what you mean...”

Part Five