"Will… Will? Please Will. Come back to us…" The voice was familiar. Muffled. Will wondered if he was still underwater, wrapped in the Atlantic's cold embrace.

"I know you can hear me, Will. You're stronger than this." Now that the raging sea had him in her possession he could not imagine been given up so easily.

"You did it, Will. You survived the Dragon and the Ripper."

Those words pulled him back to reality. Will spluttered the remnants of the water sitting on his lungs and heaved a breath.

"Hannibal's dead?" He opened his eyes to be greeted by the sight of Jack Crawford and two medics standing above him, while a helicopter swooped over Lecter's house above them, its spotlight trailing over the terrain. Will looked over to see Jimmy Price and Brian Zeller making their way into the house, no doubt to process their bloody tableau of the Dragon - their final dance.

"Presumed dead," Jack continued. "We found you washed up on an outcrop of rocks below. Hannibal was nowhere to be seen but we have the search and rescue team scouring the area up here and along the coastline and beyond to cover all the bases."

Will nodded weakly. He couldn't speak. He felt an almost paternal touch brush across his forehead and down the side of his face not currently being tended to by the medical team.

"We need to get him to hospital stat," he heard one of them say urgently to Jack. "We've halted the bleeding but need to check for internal injuries and treat for possible wound infection." Through the pain wrecking his body, Will didn't feel the needle filled with sedative and painkillers push into his arm.

Jack nodded dumbly, not taking his eyes off Will. He leaned down to Will quickly before they lifted him into the ambulance.

"Still saving lives, Will." Jack took a heavy breath and felt the swell of pride in his chest. Will had been through hell and back, fought countless demons of immense guile and power, and conquered them all. Jack Crawford's greatest creation. There was no way he was ever letting Will Graham go.

As the drugs started to take hold, through hooded eyes, Will saw these thoughts move across Jack's face. He felt the possessiveness radiating from Jack and imagined himself back and bound in the shackles from which Hannibal had worked so hard to set him free. Such a fate after so much blood shed, sacrifices made and violence endured was unacceptable. Will did not belong to Jack or the FBI. That part of his life was over. He had made the Dragon his. Hannibal Lecter had set him free. And he had every intention of honouring the gift bestowed upon him by The Chesapeake Ripper.

The darkness of unconsciousness slipped over him as the door on the ambulance closed, relieving Will of the looming presence of Jack Crawford. And for a brief moment, Will was aware that something was missing. In death, he'd absorbed the power of the Dragon. He felt the beat of his wings in his mind. But Hannibal wasn't here. He remained in his mind palace, part of Will but his essence intact. Will smiled to himself.

Hannibal was still alive.