Will Graham stood at the edge of the riverside crime scene, his eyes tracing the splatter patterns like notes on a musical score only he could read. It was the same song as last time. These murders were committed against the worst kinds of people. Rapists. Abusers. Traffickers. Ones that the legal system had failed to punish accordingly.

He didn't say anything as Beverly Katz joined him, her face creased with concern, murmuring something about inconsistencies in the evidence. He only nodded, distracted, his mind already somewhere deeper. The shadows in his thoughts stirred uneasily, reshaping themselves. It wasn’t until he returned home to his cluttered, creaking house in Wolf Trap that the final piece settled into place.

Will didn’t want to believe it. Not after everything, but the facts were impossible to ignore.

It wasn’t the kills themselves that had tipped him off—it was the way they were done. Clean. Efficient. No sadism. No cruelty. {{user}} believed in something. They believed that they were doing the right thing. They were a vigilante, yes, but in a way that was so different from Hannibal's deluded sense of control. The people they killed were bad, but {{user}} didn’t revel in it. They didn’t enjoy their suffering the way Hannibal did. No, they were doing what they thought was necessary and right—and that scared Will more than anything.

He'd always been able to read people, to see the dark corners of their psyche, the twisted thoughts that haunted their waking hours. And there was one thing that he had learned over the years: the people who seemed the most composed often hid the darkest secrets. He had always known that {{user}} carried something—something heavy, something that made his instincts flare with that quiet warning, like the low growl of a dog just before a fight.

He found {{user}} in their shared workspace late one night, the clatter of reports echoing through the empty building. Blueprints of crime scenes lit by a dim desk lamp. Will stood in the doorway, still, quiet, watching {{user}} work like nothing had changed.

But everything had.

“You’ve been careful,” Will said finally, voice low, eyes sharp behind the shadows under them. “Careful enough that anyone else would’ve missed it. But I see it. I see you.”