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"Suicide was Bloom's mortal enemy."

- Red Dragon, chapter seventeen

Her bag is now much heavier
I wish that I could carry her
But this is our ungodly hour

*

Beverly hears one of Will's dogs barking from inside the house even as she walks up the steps of Alana's front porch. She tries to peer inside as she rings the doorbell, but doesn't see any of the animals.

Thirty seconds crawl by with no answer, and Beverly lifts her finger again, gearing up for multiple rings, but on a hunch she grabs the doorknob instead.

The door swings open, and Beverly closes and locks it behind her as she steps into the house. "Alana?"

There's no answer, but she finds her soon enough; Alana's sitting at her kitchen table, which is completely covered with papers. About half of her hair is in a ponytail, her eyes bloodshot and slightly manic; she looks like a college student at the tail end of finals week. Most of the dogs are afoot, including Winston, who's howling pitifully in a corner.

Alana doesn't look up when Beverly walks in. She's holding her home telephone to her ear, though her cell phone's on the table in front of her, obviously on speaker, emitting some cheesy, generic music.

One of the dogs runs over and jumps on Beverly's thighs. She absently scratches him behind the ears as Alana begins to speak into the phone, "Hi, Dr. Wexler? This is Alana Bloom, from Georgetown?...Yes, that's right...it's great to talk to you again, too...listen, this might sound strange, but I was calling to see if by chance you have any contacts at Governor Jacobs office....oh...I understand...thanks, anyway." She hangs up, crosses something off a legal pad in front of her, and turns on the phone again to dial another number.

"Uh, hi?" Beverly says loudly.

"Hi." Alana doesn't even look up. "Can you listen to that cell phone? I'm on hold with the governor's office."

Beverly's stomach tightens, the reality of just how difficult this will be only now sinking in.

Winston punctuates a howl with a high pitched whine, and Beverly winces. "What's with him?"

"I don't know, he's been like that all day..." Alana's voice trails off, focus sliding away. "Hi, Mr. Rutledge, this is Dr. Alana Bloom from Georgetown U, we met at the conference in Raleigh last year. I was just calling to find out if you have any contacts at Governor Jacob's office that you could put me in touch with, so if you do, give me a call back as soon as possible. Thanks." She hangs up, once again scribbling on the legal pad.

Beverly goes to sit at the table, dragging a chair close to Alana's. Deciding the best strategy is to cut right to the chase, Beverly says bluntly, "They moved Will to the death watch cell."

"I figured," Alana replies tersely.

"I just came from seeing him," Beverly tells her pointedly.

"Great," she says in a distracted voice, thumbing ostentatiously through yet other notebook.

"He's allowed to have visitors stay up to an hour before."

Alana finally looks up, eyes blazing. "Then maybe you should go back."

"He's asking for you."

This touches a nerve, and for a moment pain flickers across Alana's expression, but she looks away again, setting her jaw, stubborn. "I can't go right now. I have phone calls to make."

Beverly eyes her for a moment and then, in a swift single motion, snatches the phone out from Alana's hand. "Alana," she begins in a firm, logical voice. "The governor...he's not gonna grant a stay of execution. You know he won't, not when they cancelled the appeals-"

"And whose fault is that?!" Alana interrupts loudly, voice suddenly shaking with fury.

Slightly startled by the outburst, Beverly hesitates a moment before saying, "He said you haven't been to see him in two weeks?" Alana doesn't answer, and Beverly sighs. "We both know you can't stay mad at him. Not now."

It's been only two years since Will's trial and sentencing, one year since Alana caught him nearly giving up. And five months ago, Will told his lawyer to cancel his coming appeal. To drop the case entirely. Most death row stints stretch out for a decade or more. But that time had started to feel like the greater of the evils, a slower, more painful death sentence.

So Will had stopped fighting. And he hadn't told Alana about it until two months ago, after they'd dragged him into the warden's office to inform him of the set date of execution.

For most of the time since then, she'd favored staunch denial, merely redoubling her legal research and trying to convince him to reopen the case, to blame improper legal council for closing it. Will consistently refused; his lawyer had told him his best case scenario in an appeal was pleading down to life in prison, and he didn't want that. Time - the long, stretching hours he spent alone in his cell - has become his enemy now, and the last thing Will wanted was more of it.

Two weeks ago, the date fast approaching, Alana had finally tried anger: yelling at Will, calling him weak and a coward and a thousand other things she didn't really mean, trying to find the fight left him. But he'd only apologized, over and over, just as he'd done for the past two months, looking so genuinely sorry for her, not himself, and that was something Alana couldn't take. So she'd stormed out, and hadn't been back since.

It's the longest stretch she's gone without seeing him in the two and a half years since Will's arrest.

"Not mad," Alana clarifies shortly. "Busy."

Beverly goes quiet for a moment, the only sound in the room the peppy music from Alana's phone. Finally, with measured, deliberate calm, Beverly reaches over and presses "End" on the cell phone.

Letting out a cry of protest, Alana whips around, furious. "What the hell?"

"Alana, you need to listen to me," Beverly tells her in a quiet, forceful tone that leaves no room for argument. "This is happening. It's happening tomorrow. Right this second, Will is in a cell that is next to the execution chamber, and tomorrow they're going to walk him over and they are going to kill him." Beverly's voice catches, and Alana shoots up from her chair, pacing pointlessly across the kitchen, like she can put distance between herself and what Beverly's saying.

The force leaves Beverly's voice as she adds quietly, "And if you don't go see him before that happens, you're never going to forgive yourself."

Alana's back is to Beverly, her voice high and tight when she grits out, "What makes you think I'm interested in forgiving myself?"

Beverly softens immediately. "You have to know it's not your fault this is happening. You did everything you could for him." She stands up and walks over to Alana, touching her forearm gently before going to stand in front of her. "But, Alana...he's terrified. And he needs you."

Alana's face tightens and then crumples; tears rush forward, and she presses the heels of her hands over her eyes, inhaling sharply. She presses her lips together, and it takes a while before she can force out quietly, "I don't want to cry when I see him."

"Fuck that," Beverly counters bluntly. "Cry all you want. As long as you go."

*

She's made the forty-five minute drive to the prison countless times over the past two years. Halfway there, it occurs to Alana that this will be her last visit, and she has to pull to the side of the road and be sick.

It feels like she's waiting for the ground to drop out from beneath her as Alana's led through security and then, rather than the usual walk down the tier of death row, she's taken to a solitary cell adjacent to the execution chamber.

She sees Peter, her favorite CO, the one who once let her into the maximum security tier past lights out when she was worried about Will, before she sees the cell. He's pacing back and forth around the general area, and as the officer who escorted Alana there walks away, Peter meets her eyes and says, "I volunteered to cover the lockdown."

She nods in thanks, unable to get the word out as she follows him the final few feet.

Will's sitting on the floor in the back of the near barren cell, knees bent, elbows resting on top of them, but he jumps to his feet as soon as he sees her. His face breaks open into such genuine relief, it's clear he really thought she might not come. Alana's chest constricts; in that moment, she's never hated herself more.

Any words she had get tangled up in her throat, and for a long moment they simply stare at each other, unable to figure out what to say in this moment.

Eventually Alana breaks the silence, speaking to Peter without taking her eyes off Will. "Let me in the cell."

The guard gives her a startled look. "Doc, you know I can't-"

She drags her gaze from Will to give Peter an authoritative look. "I've been searched twice. You're here. It's no different than meeting in an attorney/client room. And at this point, why the hell not?"

Peter looks at her helplessly. "I could get fired for this-"

"We both know the warden won't be coming by. And it'll be hours before any other officer circles down here." He shakes his head a little, and Alana negotiates softly, "One hour. Please."

He sighs, then moves forward and unlocks the cell, Will's whole body on alert as he does.

Alana steps through the door, and immediately Peter shuts it behind her. She and Will stare at each other, momentarily stunned by the lack of barrier between them.

Then Alana snaps out of her daze, and in three quick, purposeful steps she's in his arms.

Will lets out a trembling gasp as his arms go around her, dizzy with the unfamiliar sensation of human contact.

Alana holds Will tightly, breathing him in, though it's not the scent she remembers, the one that makes her think of woods and flannel and dogs and coffee. She can feel the threat of tears already, clawing up the column of her throat and pulsing behind her eyes, so she presses her face against the crook of his neck until she regains control.

They stay like that for a long time, unwilling and unable to let go. All at once, Alana traces her hand up the nape of Will's neck, weaving her fingers through his hair, and they both pull back to look at each other at the same time. There's a heartbeat of hesitation, and in the next second his lips are on hers, a dizzying collision.

It's a sweet but needy devouring, hungry and panicked, and it goes on for awhile. Alana fists the front of his prison scrubs in her free hand, squeezing tight, desperate, like she's holding onto grains of sand in an hourglass, trying to keep their all too limited time from slipping away.

A sob rounds in Alana's throat, and it's only this that makes her disengage her lips from his, pulling back just a little and tugging her lower lip between her teeth. Will's forehead drops against hers, their noses brushing as his hand comes up to touch her cheek. "Thank you for coming," he breathes out softly, the words falling against her lips.

"Of course," she answers tightly. She opens her eyes, hazy and, despite her best efforts, wet. He's so close it hurts her eyes to focus on his face. "What can I do for you?"

Will hesitates. "Will you just...sit with me for awhile? Please?" He sounds so uncertain of everything, like he doesn't even have the right to such a small request.

She puts her hands on either side of his face, kissing him once more, gently, before drawing back. "Of course."

Alana takes his hand and they walk to the tiny cot, the only fixture in the solitary cell, and Alana wonders if any prisoners are able to sleep their final night alive.

They sit side by side on the edge of the cot, still holding hands. Alana rests her head on his shoulder. His thumb moves back and forth across her knuckles, and she can hear the shallowness of his breathing. He's trembling, and after awhile his grip on her hand tightens almost painfully.

Alana lifts her head to look at him, and her heart catches at the naked fear on his face. "Will..." She slides further onto the cot, tugging him after her, and they stretch out on the small bunk, curled together. Alana drapes one hand over Will's waist and rests her head on his chest. He strokes her hair; she can feel him shaking.

"This doesn't feel real," he says quietly after a moment. Alana's throat narrows, assuming he means the coming execution, until Will adds, "Being this close to you."

Alana closes her eyes, and burrows a little closer to him. "I know."

He exhales slowly, shakily, and after pause, says in a small voice, "I'm scared."

"I know." The word breaks in half. Alana bites back her Me, too, not wanting to compare her own pain to what he must be going through. But the truth is she's never been more terrified. It feels like the world is ending, and she can hold on to him all she wants, but it won't stop him from being ripped away.

They get more than one hour; Peter gives them nearly four. They don't talk much, just lie there, entangled, trying to make up for two and half years of having glass and bars between them. But they can't begin to make up for what they still have to lose: every moment after tomorrow at ten am, every day she will live without him, all that time they never got to have.

It's midnight when Peter comes rushing to the door, fumbling with his keys and hissing, "Someone's coming, you gotta get out."

They both jump to their feet, and Alana's dizzy with panic; there wasn't enough warning, she isn't ready, but Peter grabs her arm and tugs her out, slamming and locking the cell door behind her moments before another CO comes down asking if he wants to switch.

As Peter goes to talk to the other office, Will walks to the door, eyes wide. "Alana?"

"It's okay," she tells him quietly. "I'm staying right here. I won't go anywhere until they make me." She reaches through and grabs his hand reassuringly, though her whole body feels weak and shaky, already missing the closeness of Will's.

They sit on the ground, as close to the bars as they can get. Will plays with one of her hands in both of his, fingers absently drawing patterns in her palms. For the second time, Alana asks him, "What can I do?"

Will thinks for a moment, then says, "Tell me things?"

She frowns, confused. "What kind of..."

"About you. Tell me some of your stories." He peers up at her earnestly. "We didn't have enough time. Usually you, you have years with people, and the random stories of their lives just...come up organically, you know? Me and you, though...we didn't have enough time. But I want to know as many as I can."

It takes a moment for Alana to speak around the lump in her throat. She knows the sort of stories Will means: the anecdotes we slowly pass on to people in our lives, the glimpses we give them into our existence before they were aware of it. But her mind is snagged on the phrase we didn't have enough time, because really, that's so much of what's breaking her heart.

She swallows hard and makes herself smile at him. "Okay, let me think..."

She gives him only the good stories, limiting her childhood tales to the years before her brother died and her father left and her mother fell apart. She tells him about the turtle she found in the woods behind her best friend's house, and the subsequent fight with her over who had the right to take it for show and tell. She tells him about the soccer game she won with an accidental header goal. She tells him about the stitches and tetanus shot she got from playing hide and seek with her brothers, when she'd tried to hide on the second floor of a half constructed house on their block and scraped her shoulder on a nail sticking out of the wall.

She skips from age eight to eighteen, telling him about her first college party and how her roommate went home with some boy with the only set of dorm keys they had. She tells him about embarrassingly and unexpectedly running into one of her older brothers on Spring Break in Florida her junior year.

Will soaks them all in. He asks questions, making sure Alana fills even inconsequential details so he can fully picture every moment.

At almost three am she's talked herself hoarse and is running of stories; time's slipping away, and she's finding it harder to steer her mind away from the darker parts of her past.

Will seems to sense her slowing down, and he gives her a small, strained smile. "That's pretty good. Thanks."

"Were those okay?"

"Perfect."

They go quiet for awhile. Alana lifts her hand, wrapping it around his neck for no real reason beyond her need to touch him. Will reaches through the bars, resting his free hand on her knee.

After a bit, he lifts his eyes to hers and says, apropos of nothing, "I'm sorry." His voice wavers the slightest bit. "I'm sorry for giving up. I know I'm a coward."

"Will, no." Tears spring instantly to her eyes. "I didn't mean that, okay? I was only trying to...I don't know what I was trying to do."

"I do." He gives her the most heartbreaking smile she's ever seen. "You were trying to save me. That's all you've been doing for two and half years."

"I'm sorry I couldn't," Alana chokes out. "You have no idea how sorry, Will."

"Don't be," Will responds sincerely, a note of worry in his voice.. "Please don't be, Alana. You..." He pauses, fumbling for the right words, and after a second, he lifts his hand from her knee and gently traces his thumb along the base of her jaw. "You're the one good thing I've had this whole time."

Alana stares at him without blinking until she feels the slow trickle of tears on her cheeks. "God damn it." Angry at herself for breaking so soon, she reaches up impatiently wipes her eyes. Will catches her mid motion, though, and gently pulls her hand to his side of the cell, bringing it to his lips and gently kissing the back of her knuckles. "Thank you for that."

*

"Been thinking about the last words," Will says in a hollow voice, breaking a long stretch of silence. "It just...seems so pointless. Can't think of anything to say."

Her stomach is twisting into knots, but Alana manages to sound steady as she tells him, "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

"Yeah..." He trails off. "They, um. They'll let you stay, right? Until right before?"

She purses her lips. "Up to an hour before."

He nods for a long moment, processing that, then says quietly, "Maybe my last words could just be to you then."

"Whatever you want," Alana agrees as calmly as she can manage, pretending like the word last isn't tearing her open every time he says it.

There's another long pause, then Will asks, "What will you do? After?" It's such a surprising and impossible question that for a moment she can only blink at him. Will explains haltingly, "It's just...strange. To think about everything still...existing." He looks at her, waiting.

The question knocks her sideways, and it takes her awhile to find an answer. What will she do after? He is the one dying, and yet imagining the world continuing after that happens is equally inconceivable to Alana.

It feels like she has to drag each word from her throat. "I haven't...started to think about...after...yet."

"Right. Sorry." Will's eyes go slightly unfocused. "What time is it?"

"Um..." She has to gently extract her hand from his and squint at her watch. "Four thirty-three."

He closes his eyes, muttering, "Five hours, twenty-seven minutes left."

Dread coils around her lungs and gut like a cobra, squeezing, painful and suffocating. Quietly, she acknowledges, "Yeah, that's right."

Will's shivering, and he starts to murmur, almost to himself, the words tripping over each other, "Right. Right, okay, yeah, okay that's alright, it's okay, it's fine..."

"Will..." Alana reaches for him again, but he reels back slightly, wild eyed, looking like he'll fly apart if she touches him.

"It's okay, I'm alright, I'm okay, it's okay..." Will's voice cracks and his face crumples, and just like that his body starts shuddering with harsh, childlike sobs. "Oh, God, I don't wanna go, Alana, I don't wanna go..."

"Will." His tears trigger her own, as naturally as any reflex, and Alana reaches for him. The second her fingers close around his, Will nearly falls forward, leaning against the bars as he cries. Alana winds her whole arm through, cradling his head, and resting her forehead just above his.

She can make out the words sometimes, choked beneath the sobs. "I don't wanna go, please don't make me, please, Alana, I can't do it, I can't..."

"I know..." Alana strokes his hair, ignoring her own tears dripping off her chin, murmuring soothingly, uselessly, "I know, babe, I'm so sorry...I've got you...I know..."

*

"Three hours, eleven minutes," Alana answers mechanically when Will asks her the time, already knowing the countdown is what he wants.

"And, uh...two until you have to go. Right?"

"That's right." There's a place on the inside of Alana's lower lip that's bloody and raw from being constantly worried between her teeth. She bites down hard.

"Okay, alright..."

Alana closes her eyes momentarily, resting her head against the bars, thinking. "Hey, Will?"

"Mmm?"

"Tell me things."

He lifts heavy, swollen eyes to look at her. "I don't have any stories."

"Tell me anything." He seems at a loss, and after a moment Alana prompts, "What was your best catch?"

It takes a moment, but Will's eyes slowly come alive, gleaming with a faraway nostalgia as he begins to talk about fishing. He goes through several catches and fishing trips and the serenity of those moments. Soon he's describing how he makes the fishing reels, taking her through the process, his voice getting stronger the more he talks.

Alana listens, and asks questions, even forcing a smile periodically. When he runs out of fishing talk, she asks about the dogs, how he found or rescued all of them, making him take her through each story.

She keeps him taking, and he doesn't ask about the time for awhile. At one point, she sneaks a glance at her watch, and thinks to herself, Two hours, twelve minutes.

*

At eight thirty they bring a last meal of waffles, bacon, hash browns, sausage and scrambled eggs.

"Favorite food?" Alana asks, trying and failing to smile.

"I just...they told me it'd be at breakfast time." Will stares down at the crowded plates before him. "I don't think I can eat." He looks up at her. "You want any...?"

"No." Alana's felt nauseous for the last half hour. They'll kick her out at nine. "Thanks."

Will shoves the plates out of the way. "You think anyone eats it?"

"Dunno."

Will lifts his eyes and studies Alana. "You'll have to leave soon, right?"

"Yeah." Her answers are getting shorter and shorter out of necessity. She is so close to breaking down, and she's determined not to do it in front of him.

Peter had been replaced several hours ago, so there's no chance of getting back in the cell.

Will takes Alana's hand once again, and reaches his other one to thread through her hair, eyes oddly focused, like he's memorizing the sensation.

*

They don't talk much, the last half hour. They sit, leaning against the bars, hands clasped, as close as physically possible.

Two minutes after nine, Peter and another CO join the officer already on guard duty. Peter approaches. "Doc, I'm really sorry," he says, "But it's time for you to leave."

She'd known it was coming; it's all she's thought about for hours, but still the moment knocks the wind out of her, and for a second Alana stops breathing.

Strangely, Will reacts first, getting up, leaving one hand in hers and pulling her gently to her feet. Peter steps back, giving them the small amount of privacy that's possible.

Alana looks up at Will. "C'mere..." she murmurs. He does, and she brings Will's hand up, gently brushing her lips against his fingers, then lets it go and reaches up to cradle his face. Alana can feel her throat closing, a fist of tears choking her. A rogue sob slips out, and she says thickly, in a rush, "Fuck I love you."

Will's face twists, but some light in his eyes turns on for the first time in so long. "I..." His voice catches. "I, um..." He's trembling. "I..." The tears are threatening again.

"It's okay," she tells him, her chest jerking spasmodically with the effort to keep from crying.

"If I say it, I'm gonna lose it," he chokes out between gritted teeth.

"It's okay," she repeats, her fingers brushing away a tear rolling down his cheek. "I know."

"Dr. Bloom, it's time," one of the other CO's calls.

"Shit." It's all falling apart, and now she's crying. Alana meets Will's eyes; he doesn't look away. "I know, okay? I do." He nods.

Alana gently nudges him forward, and moves as close as she can get. Through the small gap in the bars, careful not to move too much, she encases his lips softly in hers. They both taste like tears.

She makes herself pull away while she still has the will power to move. "You look at me, okay?" she tells him fiercely. "I'll sit in the front, so you just look right at me, the whole time, alright?"

"Okay."

"Dr. Bloom."

It is the hardest thing she's ever had to do, but Alana says quietly, "Bye, Will," and then turns to go.

But his hand catches hers, tugging her back. His jaw is set tightly, eyes wide and determined. "Last words, remember?" He inhales sharply. "I love you. So much, Alana."

Peter has to physically lead her away from the cell.

*

She doesn't go straight to the room where she'll witness the execution, instead walking outside the prison walls, where she immediately falls to her knees, doubled over with sobs, fists slamming against the ground.

Alana gives herself two minutes for the breakdown, but no more. When it's over, she pulls herself together, stands up, and heads to the execution chamber.

She has to make sure to get a good seat so Will can see her.

But Alana's the first one in the witness room, so she manages to sit on the front row, aligned with the head of the gurney she can see through the glass.

Beverly shows up and sits beside her. Alana turns to look at her, and Bev opens her mouth, then closes it again, unable to think of any question that isn't self evident.

Will's lawyer comes, with two paralegals to round out the required number of defense witnesses. Jack Crawford shows up and sits behind Alana and Beverly. Hannibal doesn't come; Will was explicit about that. There aren't separate witness rooms at this particular prison, so Alana also notices the prosecutor, and several members of the victims families whom she recognizes from the trial. They fill in the back rows.

For the last twenty minutes, Alana stares at her watch and counts down in her head.

Alana hasn't said a word since she left Will. Not to Jack, or even Beverly. She just sits there, still as a stone, trying to picture what's about to happen over and over. She stares at the room in front of her, the gurney and the straps, and imagines Will lying there. Imagines him dying there.

She is trying to make it feel real. But it doesn't.

And then, all at once, it does.

They bring Will in. He's walking on his own, two guards flanking him but not touching. There are chains around his ankles. He stumbles slightly when his eyes fall on the gurney, face going white as a sheet, but then he turns his head to look through the glass. His eyes land on Alana, and stay on her as he walks the rest of the way. The guards guide him onto the table.

"I can't breathe," Alana murmurs without meaning to, suddenly dizzy and unfocused. There's a rushing in her ears.

"It'll be okay." Beverly's hand closes around Alana's forearm, her voice far away.

Alana pulls clumsily out of her grip, and before she knows it, she's on her feet, words spilling out in a trembling, high pitched mess that sounds nothing like her, "No, this isn't right we have to do something, someone has to do something..."

Beverly's saying her name, but it's Jack who stands up behind her and drops a gentle, firm hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, his expression weary and somber. "There's nothing we can do anymore," he tells her gently, apology threaded through the tone.

"But-"

"Alana?" It's Will's voice somehow; coming through the speaker that allows them to hear into the room.

She turns slowly to look at him; he's strapped onto the table, EKG connected, an IV being pushed into his arm. His head is turned to the side, eyes on her, terrified and pleading. She remembers he needs her, and lowers herself into the seat, eyes firmly on his.

They pull the microphone close to Will, allowing him a last statement. He jerks his head, refusing it, keeping his eyes on Alana.

It is maybe the longest she can remember him holding eye contact without looking away.

The intravenous lines that will administer the killing dosage winds through the wall, into a room they can't see. Alana's so focused on Will that she doesn't notice when the liquid begins flowing through them, into his arms. But once it hits, he loses consciousness fast, his eyelids fluttering and then shutting. A scream rises from her chest, but it doesn't get out, just sits there, cutting her throat into ribbons.

Alana doesn't blink for the minute and a half it takes before the medical examiner declares Will Graham dead.

She doesn't make a sound. Grief bursts open inside of her, and it's too big, greater than the sum of her parts, and for several long, horrifying moments it overwhelms Alana completely.

There comes a second when, incapable of rational thought, Alana's genuinely convinced she's the one who's dying, that there's been some sort of mistake and the poison has been injected into her veins instead, because surely nothing but death could hurt this much.

*

Alana doesn't speak. She walks away from Beverly, and from Jack, when the witnesses file out.

She gets ten feet outside the prison, the sunlight obscenely bright, before she loses it. Her legs stop working, and she sags limply against the side of the building, crying big, gulping sobs that make her feel like her body's breaking.

Then suddenly a hand slams into her cheek.

The shock, more than the pain, halts her crying and makes her look up, where she finds a red eyed woman staring at her, hand raised. Alana recognizes her as Marisa Shore's mother, but she only has time to identify her before the woman slaps her again.

"You're crying for that monster?" The woman asks shrilly. There's a fear warring with the rage in her eyes: the kind of fear that comes from finding out the thing you've been counting on didn't help the way you thought it would. "He killed my baby girl, do you have any idea what he did to her?! To her body?" She swings at Alana again. "How dare you?"

"Hey!" Beverly's beside her, fire in her eyes. "FBI." She flashes her laminated ID quickly, fast enough that the woman can't see the FORENSICS label. "You might want to move along."

"Hit me again," Alana whispers. Beverly and Mrs. Shore both look at her, taken aback. "Do it, hit me."

Marisa's mother looks momentarily uncertain, and Beverly deliberately steps between her and Alana. "Move along."

The woman shakes her head at both of them, then joins the throng of witnesses shuffling toward the gates.

Beverly looks at Alana, expression helpless. Before she can think of anything to say, Jack approaches them. "Everything okay here?"

Alana glances at the two of them, both exhausted and shaken and disturbed. But there's a difference, for both of them. Over the past two years, they have done what she couldn't. They slowly distanced themselves from Will. They have prepared for the reality of this moment. They made sure it wouldn't rip them to shreds when it happened.

"Let me take you home," Beverly says.

*

"Want me to come in?"

"No." Alana can barely open her eyes. "Thanks."

Beverly looks at her skeptically. "You going to be okay by yourself?"

"Yeah." Alana gets out of the car. "Bye."

Will's dogs crowd her when she walks in, and that's all it takes for her to start crying again. Or maybe she never stopped. It's hard to pick out the transition at the moment.

She sits in the floor in the foyer, feeling sick and panicked and unstable.

Alana's skin is crawling; she could tear it off right now. With spastic urgency, she tugs off her coat, and then her button down, leaving her in only a tank top, and she wraps her left hand around her right wrist.

There are scars there. Some are over fifteen years old, none younger than a decade, so you'd have to be close to pick them out: thin, criss-crossing horizontal lines of slightly paler skin, from just below her palm to halfway down her forearm.

For almost ten years after her mother sliced open her wrists and bled out in the bathroom with her thirteen year old daughter down the hall in her bedroom, Alana had blamed herself for not getting out of bed and stopping it.

And for almost ten years, she had done this to herself.

It hadn't been about the pain, not at first (though she'd quickly discovered that pain could become its own addiction). It was the dare of it, the danger. Alana had craved the power of knowing how close she could come, that with a mere flex of the muscles in her fingers, she could cut deeper, longer. She could sever the line between her own life and death.

Suicide was Alana's mortal enemy, but it was an enemy she kept close. The cutting was a game of chicken, a staring contest, a cold war she always won.

Now, for the first time since college, she is remembering what it felt like, that pulsing need to test herself, to come close. She is craving it, already methodically cataloguing the knives and razors and scissors she has in the house.

Alana squeezes her eyes shut, digging her nails into her skin, trying to anchor herself. She stands abruptly, going to a hall closet where there is a box filled with several dozen cigarette packs. Alana quit smoking when she was twenty three, but in moments of high stress over the years, she will go into a drug store or gas station and buy a pack, carry it around for a few hours, pretend that she'll indulge the craving but eventually talk herself out of it.

Now, she rips open a pack, going to the kitchen for a lighter. She allows herself one long, shaky drag, first in thirteen years, and then presses the butt hard against her arm, just for a few seconds.

It doesn't work. There is a part of her mind still choosing between blades.

She's scaring herself. She feels crazy. Beverly's question floats into her head: you going to be okay by yourself?

Alana grabs for her cell phone, goes to the top of the contact list and dials her brother.

"Hello?"

"Aaron?" Her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.

"Al? Are you okay?"

"Um..." She has the tiny phone gripped in both hands. "They killed him, Aaron. They really did it, they killed him, Will's gone, he's dead..." The words fall apart.

"Al?" She's crying too hard to answer. "Alana, hey, I need you to breathe for me, okay?" Aaron says in alarm. "Do you need me to come over?"

"Yes..." She forces the word out, a low, keening note.

"Okay just sit tight and wait for me, alright? I'll be there in ten minutes."

"T-ten minutes?" He lives almost two hours away.

"Bev called a few weeks ago. Told me it was today." He pauses, but she can hear him shuffling around, getting ready. "You never told me, so I didn't know if you wanted me around...but I wanted to be close just in case."

"I didn't...say anything...because I didn't think they'd really do it," she manages.

"My hotel's ten minutes away, Al." She can hear a door slamming. "Will you be okay for ten minutes?"

"Stay on the phone?"

"Okay, I will. I'm right here, okay? I'm on my way."

"Okay..." Winston trots over to her, draping over her lap. Will's voice is in her head, telling her the story of finding the dog wandering the side of the road at night, the way he'd sat patiently in the back of his trunk until Winston approached.

It only makes her hurt more, but it clears her head. The grief feels focused. Alana replays the story, Will's voice and Will's words, and she slowly lifts her right hand and runs her fingers through her dog's fur.