Chapter Text
Du schlugst die Augen auf - ich seh mein Dunkel leben.
Ich seh ihm auf den Grund:
auch da ists mein und lebt.
Setzt solches über? Und erwacht dabei?
Wes Licht folgt auf dem Fuß mir,
daß sich ein Ferge fand?
You opened your eyes - I saw my darkness live.
I see through it down to the bed;
there too it is mine and lives.
Is that a ferry? Which, crossing, awakens?
Whose light can it be at my heels
for a boatman to appear?
-- Paul Celan, "Von Dunkel zu Dunkel" (From Darkness to Darkness)
The steak on Will's platter is of a rich brown with a crisp outside, rosy tender inside—and vaguely in the shape of an ear. Peas line its edge above a cushion of mashed potatoes that is accented by two drops of red sauce. Will lifts his fork, points it at the peas, points it at the puree, takes up his knife to aims both at the steak, then lowers them back onto the plastic table.
His gaze flits over to Hannibal, who is sitting across the aisle, cutting into his steak like a surgeon into the soft belly fat of his patient. Hannibal's face displays neither disdain nor pleasure as he puts the meat into his mouth. Before Will can turn back to his own meal, Hannibal looks up. After a glimpse at Will's plate, he asks,
"You don't like it?"
Will hesitates. "I honestly don't know. Haven't tried it."
"You should. It's one of the better meals I have eaten on a plane."
Will doesn't know how to answer, because he is certain no food will come into the vicinity of his mouth in the near future, so he just smiles. Hannibal seems to accept that reply and engages again with the steak.
"Maybe you should have tried the vegetarian option. It's really good, too. It somehow tastes Asian—I think there's soy sauce in the cabbage," Abigail says to Will's right; the spacious seats in first class run in rows of two and Abigail's and Will's are a pair. From the corner of his eye he can see that she is holding up something on her fork; something he cannot identify since it hovers in the margin of his vision.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! Do you want to try?" The question rises to a single syllable of laughter.
"Thanks, but I don't really feel like eating."
She snorts. "Alright. More for me!"
Again at the brink of his vision, Abigail shifts in her seat. Her orange scarf merges with the strip of sky in the window behind her. The conversation ceases and Will stares at his hands clamped around the edge of his table. Next to them, Abigail's fingers reach for her glass, then take back the fork to impale (now he can see it clearly) a green blob of cabbage. It doesn't look very appetizing, but then, nothing does. The cabbage is shoveled upwards, where Will stops tracking it. There's a small speck of sauce on her left middle finger as her hand comes back down. She hasn't noticed it. Her hand is so small around the fork, white against it. White against brown. Hands against a coat as Abigail shoves Alana out the window. The fabric spreads like bat-wings in the air. Her back collides with the pavement like a body collides with stone: with blood and broken bones. He saw (imagined) how it all happened with one glimpse of her on the ground.
Will blinks. Abigail's plate is empty. His is untouched.
Shaking his head, he murmurs, "Do you want my peas?"
Abigail doesn't answer. He waits, then tries again. "Do you want my peas? I'm not going to eat them." As there is again no reaction, he dares a look at her (hand, arm, shoulder, tips of hair). She is leaning against the window. Frowning, he briefly touches her elbow.
"Huh?" She turns. He looks at the lining of her blouse.
"I asked you if you wanted my peas. Were you asleep?"
"No."
"Okay."
"It's loud in here and I—you have to speak up."
Will doesn't reply. He feels her eyes latch onto his face.
"You know," she says, quieter. "I was aware you have problems with looking at eyes, but ears, too?"
"Sorry."
"It's not that bad, really. And I wear my hair in front of it. You shouldn't be able to see much."
"I don't—it's not very visible," Will says, eyes tentatively skimming the region where her shoulder ends and hair starts.
"You're not even looking."
So he forces himself. Quick, like touching the top of a hot stove. But he sees clearly the shadow of skin in a small gap in her hair: red, dark. It is not more than a centimeter for less than a second, still the image grows like an ulcer: from redness to ridges in the skin to the horrible deformity of the gaping, exposed ear canal.
He says, "It's okay, you can't see anything."
"Good." She smiles. Her eyes are blue and young and, to him, born only yesterday. Her rebirth makes the missing of an ear seem negligible—at least if he's not forced to look.
"And yes," she says, "I want your peas. Please."
Will nods, swapping their plates and Abigail digs in immediately. As his eyes trace the food, take in the form of the meat, the curve of it, the ear; the nausea he has barely kept down rises in his throat. He gets up wordlessly and wanders off to the bathroom. Fortunately, there is no one inside, so he enters. This bathroom isn't that different from economy: sterile, loud, uncomfortable, only with more room to incapacitate those qualities. But when you're throwing up, it doesn't matter where you are. Hunched over the toilet, he spits out bile and juice—there's nothing else in his stomach.
The blood should matter more, he thinks. Jack's and Alana's. He thinks he might add his own to their's if only he manages to turn himself inside out by vomiting up his intestines. This could have gone differently, if he weren't such a scaredy-cat, unable to plan ahead and afraid to make decisions. He's here now because Hannibal presented Abigail to him last minute and believes that Will is as loyal as his dogs (Oh, the dogs, "Don't worry, Will, I have already contacted wonderful new owners," that now miss the vastness of the Virginia fields), because he thinks Freddie Lounds is a dead display of power and destruction. Had he known Abigail was still alive, he'd have kept Jack and Alana out of this—she wouldn't have to have another potential death beneath her nails. He'd have chosen a side. He likes to believe it would have been a different one.
Will grabs some of the gray, thin toilet paper to wipe his mouth. He flushes the toilet and watches the water disappear with an ear-numbing hiss. Without the Encephalitis, he doesn't see it as a pool of blood, but his brain remembers these images and layers them over reality like the half-dark shadow of leaves.
The last thing he does before willing himself to go back to his seat is pull out his new passport. It's not like there's much he has to memorize from it, but he likes to look at his picture next to his new name—Alexander Young—as not to flinch when someone calls him by it. He doesn't know if Hannibal chose the name, or Abigail's (Eve Miller) or his own (Thomas Miller), but he has made Abigail his daughter. For convenience's sake. Still there is an air of careful mistrust to it, as if there were no ties for Will to break if he left. He knows he can't.
Will puts the passport back into his pocket and leaves the bathroom. There's already someone waiting in front of it. He ducks his head and slips past them, squeezes through the aisle and sits back down on his seat. Neither of the other two acknowledge him. Abigail is listening to something on her phone, wearing big headphones. Relieved that they hide her wound completely, he steals a few glances at her from the corner of his eye. She doesn't notice him, or pretends not to. He is content with that for the moment; he'll get the chance to talk to her later.
He tilts his head back against the seat and stands in a river. He's alone there. Feeling the cool spring air on his skin, he takes out his fishing gear. It's good that the fish don't bite that often here—he still has six hours left to fill.