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[abrightboy]

 This is Bright. Leave a message.

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[empathicfault]

"Oh, they found out," he sighs, thinking of how Price or Zeller would've handled that sort of information. Or Katz. "Glad you had a little time before the family albatross was placed once more around your neck. But for me-"

He shifts in his seat a little. "What I studied mostly came from trying to figure out what was wrong with me. You can call me gifted or cursed- it's just a matter of perspective. What I've got is so unique that when the head of the- it's called the BAU where I'm from. The head needed me, no matter how otherwise unqualified I was." Will smirks. "So, it might have more to do with the state of the unit, honestly."

[abrightboy]

"Yeah, in retrospect the state of the unit wasn't... the best. Obviously the upper echelons knew who I was. Extensive background checks are required. But I kept up my end of the deal with them; I cut off all contact of any kind with him for ten years. The people I worked with and for day to day had no idea, though. And then someone found out. And she didn't like how high my solve rate was compared to hers. And she told everyone. They didn't get rid of me straight away, but they were looking for an excuse. Anybody who knows me could tell you it was only a matter of time before I gave them one."

[empathicfault]

Will blows out a long breath. Yeah, he can just imagine that sort of situation happening. Except he'd envision it back when he was working homicide in Louisiana. Hmmm.

"How big was your unit? Ours was like, five people. Including me. Six if Hannibal was there." There wasn't exactly competition at Will's work.

[abrightboy]

"I worked out of the DC office, but I specialized in the particularly horrible or weird and I worked better on my own so... sometimes other agents would be sent on a case with me and sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes I'd work with local law enforcement to make an arrest or sometimes with agents. They sent me all over the country. Basically they couldn't argue with my solve rate so they just... let me do me, basically. That suited me, because it was easier to mask my cPTSD when I wasn't with other agents constantly. Some of my cases were very high profile, though. As you can imagine, when you get someone racking up a bunch of kills and the crime scenes start making national papers... that's when other agents in the department start wanting you out of the way," Malcolm explains. "And when you're the Weird Murder Guy that nobody particularly likes, they're kind of fine with it. Extra so when it gets around that you're probably good at being the Weird Murder Guy because your dad is one of the most famous and prolific serial killers since Jack the Ripper." He shrugs, then regards Will for a moment. "Was Hannibal helping your team with his own murders?"

[empathicfault]

Sometimes when Will is listening really closely, he just stops moving. This is one of those times, and as he's listening, he envisions what that's like. No handler, but no team, either. Pushing your way through it on your own, with only whoever you're helping this week to bounce off of. Will has been lonely enough here- the job would've been torturous if it relied on Will alone to keep it up.

He's thinking about unfairness and fame-seeking and familial connections when Malcolm brings up Hannibal. Will blinks and sits up as he finally makes it back to the moment. "Not all of them were his, but- yes. I'm sure he was having a great time, watching us stumble around. Watching me start following his trail."

[abrightboy]

“God. Yeah. My dad would have loved being in that position. It would have fed every facet of his narcissism,” Malcolm remarks. He pauses. “I was with a team in LA one time. We caught the killer. We had the afternoon to kill before our flight back. They wanted to go to that serial killer museum out there and I made an excuse not to go with them. Not because I wasn’t interested in the subject matter, but because I know they have an exhibit about my father there and some part of me was afraid that - standing in front of it - I’d slip somehow and everyone would know.”

[empathicfault]

"Yeah, I can't blame you. I'd be worried about that, too. I'd get enough suspicion from my team when I'm at a crime scene, something like that would feel-"

He sighs. It would feel similar to when Katz was taking the dirt from under his nails, asking him what the crime scenes really felt like to him. And him having to admit that it seemed like he was responsible.

That's too much for this current line of conversation. He shakes his head. "Well, there was a reason you changed your name, right? Don't want people looking at you like they understand why you're the Weird Murder Guy. Too bad you couldn't go, though. It sounds like one of those closed-case bonding moments I've heard so much about."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiles faintly.

“Yeah. I think they were relieved I didn’t go.” He fidgets with his pencil a moment. “When I got back to New York, I wasn’t going to see him. I had no intention whatsoever of seeing him again. But my mentor at the NYPD had a case he wanted my help with. A copycat.”

[empathicfault]

The look that Will gives Malcolm is truly sympathetic. "Did your mentor know it would spur you to go back? Talk to him again?"

[abrightboy]

"He agreed that I shouldn't, but by the time we found drawings and notes in my father's handwriting in the killer's hideout, I wasn't asking permission anymore," Malcolm tells him.

[empathicfault]

"He should've kept you out of it entirely," Will snaps, his voice low and warning.

And that happens so suddenly, it seems to surprise even him. He sighs and shakes his head, putting a hand up in apology. "Sorry, I- that's my issues. I understand not being able to put it down, after that." He huffs out a breath and continues. "Was this copycat someone your father had been involved with? Or an 'admirer'?

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is startled by the outburst, but not put off by it.

He smiles wryly at the question.

“My father was a prominent heart surgeon in his day job, before he was arrested. Sometimes the ultrawealthy want to consult a skilled doctor without any chance of the press or their wife or their business interests getting wind of it. Dr Whitly sees patients,” Malcolm reveals. “He’d saved the killer’s life and the killer became something of… an acolyte. Dr Whitly claims that he stole the pages from his journals, but… while I can’t prove it, I do know that the Surgeon has a well documented history of manipulating others into doing dirty work for him. I think he engineered the copycat to get me back.”

[empathicfault]

This is the first time Will's had an outburst and the conversation actually moved on from it. There's a small, telling look of relief on his face as Malcolm goes into more detail. Will appreciates it, Malcolm.

And it makes the subject a lot easier to focus on. "I don't know your father, obviously, but that sounds likely. Hannibal loved turning his patients into murderers. And he loved pointing those murderers to spaces that served his interests."

He lets that sit for a second, then looks up at Malcolm and asks carefully, "How was it, talking to your father again?"

[abrightboy]

“It was…” Suffocating. Terrifying. A relief. He hates him. He wishes he could hate him. “Just like I remembered. Like I never left.” He looks at Will. “I was visiting him regularly. From when I was eleven until I broke it off when I was twenty-one. Every week, except when I was at boarding school.”

[empathicfault]

'Just like I remembered' is about what Will expected to hear, and he can fill in the silence for himself. He's well acquainted with that swirl of emotions that shouldn't coexist together.

But hearing about how much Malcolm saw The Surgeon-- "They let you visit him from 11 years old on? The son who turned him in?" Will's eyebrows are raised. "He must've pulled something to manage that."

[abrightboy]

"He lived in my head. I asked to see him. I wanted to know how that... amazing dad I had could have done such horrible things to innocent people. How could this loving, doting father leave the house to go be a monster. I didn't know then about..." He takes a breath. "There were things I started to remember after I returned to New York. Fragments of memories. Things that... he did. To me. But I was completely unaware of them then. I just wanted to figure him out. How he fooled us. What he really was. If any of it had been real. My mother didn't want me to see him. She'd promised him that he would never see any of us again, but. I had... problems. Maybe she thought if I could see something in that cell... then maybe... I don't know. But in the end she let me go."

[empathicfault]

So not Martin's doing, probably. Just likely a terrible decision. People made those all the time. "And did it help your...problems, at all?"

[abrightboy]

"I really don't know," Malcolm admits. "Shortly before I started seeing him again, the string of child psychologists my mother was parading me through ended up at the door of Dr Gabrielle Le Deux. I had been nonverbal for a couple of months. She was the first person to... get through that.... it was like my emotions were so big they shut me down. And so I started seeing her regularly and I started talking again and we were working through everything that happened with my father... I know she didn't think seeing him was a good idea either, but I think she also put it out there with my mother that giving me some control over my life would be beneficial to my healing. Maybe she meant choosing what school I wanted to go to or what sports I wanted to do, but... well. I wanted the prison visits."

[empathicfault]

Will nods through the explanation. He can see how it'd happen, just- he feels frustrated, hearing that. He's not entirely sure why, but he knows the reason isn't far.

His next question has him looking at the table instead of Malcolm's eyes. His voice is quiet and soft. "Can I ask...what it was you remembered when you came back? Was that the chloroform, or something else?" Will remembers stolen seconds, lights flashing in front of his face, and repeated words that he still can't quite clarify. The fact that they found bits of his missing time didn't make the rest of it appear. Anything could've happened.

[abrightboy]

"The chloroform, yeah. And... the night I called the police... the night I found the girl in the box... I thought they were the same night. When the police came and took him, I told them about her, but when they looked, she wasn't there and I never understood how that was possible. Everyone told me I imagined her, but I was sure I didn't. They thought I saw pictures in his office or... or he said something that put the image in my head but I knew she was real. When I came back to New York, I started having more intense nightmares about her and I started remembering very small snippets of a camping trip my father took me on with another serial killer he mentored and the girl in the box. There was probably at least a week between the night I found her and the night I called the police. I'll probably never know exactly how long for sure. But eventually I pieced together most of what happened on the camping trip. They took us up there to get rid of both of us," Malcolm explains.

[empathicfault]

"You made it through, and she didn't," he murmurs. "And whatever happened in between was your father making up for the 'camping trip' not going to plan."

Will looks thoughtful for a long moment, playing with the cuffs of his sleeves as he turns over the situation in his mind and what he wants to say about it. "There was a point when Hannibal told me that his compassion for me was 'inconvenient'. Maybe your father found feelings for you he didn't know he had? And had to compensate for them."

[abrightboy]

“He did tell me he couldn’t go through with it,” Malcolm says. “Eventually, he admitted it. But… I also thought the girl in the box had to be dead. He wouldn’t admit she even existed at all. But… he let her go. He let her go because she gave him leverage over a power broker that could help him survive if he was ever held to account for his crimes and that day came sooner than later, though he wouldn’t have known it then. Got him a cushy cell in a hospital prison, not gen pop at Rikers or the federal death penalty.”

His eyes light a bit. “I found her. I found her and we talked.” He pauses. “She remembered me. She saw me when I saw her. She called me the boy in the basement. Her name’s Sophie. We’re still in touch.”

[empathicfault]

She was alive. There were so few times when the situation gave way to living survivors that Will actually smiles to hear about it. Regardless of the reasons, it still feels like a miracle.

"That's...I'm glad," he says, sincerely. "I can't say I expected it. That's never happened to me, except-" Except Abigail. His smile fades. "Just once. And the killer rectified his 'mistake' shortly afterwards."

He shakes his head, very much trying to clear it of shattered ceramic and carotid spray. "Was Sophie able to get her life back together after all that? Sounds like she's...okay." Or at least okay-ish.

[abrightboy]

“She became a veterinarian,” Malcolm tells him with a fond smile. “One person who isn’t my father probably would have wanted to kill her, but…” a beat and his expression wavers (Ainsley with a knife; Ainsley covered in blood spatter), “He’s dead. So she’s safe.”

[empathicfault]

He notices the waver and considers. There's no downside to kindness here, and they have all the time in the world.

So he stamps down his initial instinct and smiles wanly back. "We're hitting each other's buttons. We should probably stop doing that. Or at least tread carefully. But I'm glad to hear she's safe. And that you can stay in touch."