#sparingly

Billy Loomis with freckles oh imagine it and Stu liking to count the freckles on face and arms

Oh Stu would love them VERY much

MAN this question is almost too good I'm a real sucker for a moment of diverging canon and my brain loves to stroll as far down these meander paths as possible and never return. SO. At great risk of stumbling into one that gets me too invested and then it's a fic idea...

...HM I think the pure chance of the coin flip in Takiawase is calling to me. It's such a chain of dominoes! Hannibal administers naloxone and saves Bella -> Jack is in the hospital visiting her, so Beverly can't bring her evidence about the switched kidneys to Jack -> Hannibal is also at the hospital and Beverly hears about it, so she breaks into his home, finds his basement -> Hannibal returns at the opportune time to confront and murder her.

Does any of that happen if the coin lands on the other side? I imagine if he'd chosen not to intercede and save Bella, Hannibal might think to make a tableau out of her death. It would be an apt way to both wound Jack and, in his mind, honor her. Jack would worry and send out search parties despite probably understanding that she had left to go die somewhere he wouldn't see it happen. He would pray to see her again and Hannibal would be able to answer that prayer with some dish he brought Jack to console him in his grief, and then by revealing her body as a grand artwork - possibly the one that exonerates Will? but I also don't think he fully resolves to do that until Will tries to have him murdered.

That Jack would be in his office and Beverly could bring her theorizing with Will to him might alter those plans - but I think the more narratively compelling idea might be that it doesn't. No fun for Hannibal to get caught so early on in the game! Maybe Jack tells her it's an interesting theory and encourages her in his subtle way to get the hard evidence and come back, because he doesn't know if he's willing to believe it yet. She doesn't have the same opportunity to pick the lock and play while the cat's away, so maybe she lives a little longer. Maybe Beverly gets used instead of Miriam Lass to help frame Chilton later on, I dunno. That's more my incredulity with the Lazarus Situation of Miriam staying alive in cold storage for three years if there's a more readily available way to make that plot point work. If I spin out too much further I will be here ALL week ok. ok. That's something. That's a self-contained idea