There is no denying the wrongness of the acts before him. Will did not truly feel empathy for the man’s actions. He only had the capacity for it, a tool carefully crafted and maintained with the right amount of exposure, and finally, his own proclivities for violence. Just because Will might understand him did not mean he agreed with him, something so staunchly wrong about it all. He might see his mourning daughter in his victims, but Will still saw people taken far before their time twisted in some delusion of another. This was often lost to his side-eyeing colleagues. They never understood the nuance there. Will never made it easy either.
“Something,” Will agrees.
He couldn’t be certain what. He was not a clairvoyant, despite some who might argue otherwise. The evidence was usually there, and when it wasn’t, it eventually surfaced. Will made baseless jumps, but they were always supported one way or another. Through circumstance or byproduct. Truthfully, no one cared how, as long as there was a definite who. “Maybe a birthday, maybe a death anniversary. Whatever it is, it is deeply distressing to him. Enough to make him lash out a bit emotionally– propelling him down this path of frenzied hunting. None of these girls can make up for what he has lost.”
Will leans back against the uncomfortable and worn plastic booth seat, shoulder sagging. He removes his glasses and rubs the tender spot on his nose from that pressure. His blue eyes peer up at Clark as he talks. He shrugs slightly. He hasn’t unpuzzled much else. He had spent many evenings staring at the photos of limp bodies with their pillow of brown hair haloed around them, burning nightmares behind his eyelids. He stares, awaiting that moment when it will become apparent, and Will will ultimately make another jump, something synapsing in his mind that pushes him to his unfounded conclusions. The sooner he figured it out, the fewer people died. He carried that on his drooping shoulders.
Perhaps Clark was just standing in for that catalyst. Will remains still for a moment, glasses in hand, hanging precariously as his gaze drifts beyond Clark, beyond the tacky bright wallpaper and a tacky Coca Cola painting hanging a few inches crooked. Holy shit. It all suddenly was clicking into place. These deaths were attempts at sparing these women the same exhausting fate as if the human condition were a plague. Not so much about finding or replacing his daughter, no– he knew they weren’t them, they cried and pleaded, hair never the right shade of brown. He was trying to correct it, spare them, and offer them a kindness not bestowed on him or his. Two things could be true at once, he mourned his lost daughter, and he spared his surrogates the same fate.
Will needed to call Jack. He would be asleep by now, but he would answer, voice scratchy from sleep and irritation. But he would always answer. No matter if it worked for his wife or paused his own life.
“The world watched as his daughter unfairly suffered. They were indifferent to it, but he cannot be.” He murmurs mostly to himself than to Clark before his eyes find the other’s again, more focused on the present. “No, it’s very insightful.” He clears his throat, “I hadn’t considered terminal illness. It suddenly makes sense,” Like different pieces of an equation missing certain variables suddenly finding a lump sum in the end of it, “I hadn’t considered it because this was violent, but in comparison, this would be what mercy looked like to someone who has lost everything. And perhaps,” He says quietly, “The FBI could try to retain your services. You’re a natural, Mr. Thompson.” Now, he is just teasing. Recovering from his own excitement, but the same sickly glow hung on his waxy skin and was aflame in his bright eyes.
