A low rumble of thunder rolled through the heavy gray sky. The air felt like rain, it had that tension and electric smell that came before a heavy downpour. A sort of erie stillness was carried even on the slow breeze. It felt rather cool for late May, but the atmosphere held an ominous overtone that made it difficult to appreciate.

Alana Bloom was making her way up a rather long gravel driveway in the middle of nowhere Michigan. She had driven past miles of farmland before finding herself at the end of this closed off drive. It was completely isolated, the house couldn't even be seen from the road, it was concealed by a small patch of trees.

The closest town was about thirty minutes away. It was a small town on the coast of Lake Michigan, about an hour north of Grand Rapids, where Alana had been at a conference.

She wasn't from the area. She wasn't even from the state. She lived in Virginia with her wife and son. She worked with the behavioral science unit of the FBI as a consultant, as she was a practicing psychiatrist. But now she was here to make a visit and she had gone to a lot of trouble, so the closed off driveway and beware of dogs sign were not about to make her turn back after coming so far out of the way. She had ducked under the barrier without hesitation.

In all honesty, she was lucky to have found the place at all. She may have overstepped a few laws concerning privacy in order to find the address, but she assured herself that it was for a good cause.

Alana couldn't exactly say that that she had ever really been friends with the owner of this house. Sure, they had worked together from time to time, and she had always liked him, but Will Graham was never one to go around actively making friends. He did his job and then he went home. People were too much for him. Still, Alana liked to think that they had been closer than he was to most people.

Will had been the pride of the BAU, at least as far as his track record for profiling went. He had been a teacher for the academy and a consultant, working at the job for five years before he had an apparent mental break and all but dropped out of existence. He had cut away all ties to Virginia, not that he had many to begin with.

That had been nearly two years ago. Alana had not been a part of the case Will was on at the time, but she had heard enough about it after everything happened. The unit had been after a serial killer close to home in Virginia. The unknown subject had been abducting people indiscriminately and returning them by laying them out in fields pealed open like dissected frogs in the center of what amounted to small crop circles. It was a strange case and there hadn't been much physical evidence to go on.

Will hadn't appeared to have been anymore or less bothered by this case than any other before it. He was always affected in one way or another, but this hadn't started off as one of the bad ones. They had been closing in on a profile when Will had gone missing. He had vanished from his home in the middle of the night, no obvious signs of struggle. Fearing that the killer had abducted his star profiler, the head of the BAU, Jack Crawford, had thrown together a detailed search effort. They turned up nothing.

Will apparently popped back into existence in an emergency room in Richmond at three AM four days later. He was not in critical condition, or in any real need of assistance. He had stumbled in off the streets and collapsed in the waiting room. He had some injuries, but what they were was subject to speculation and rumor so Alana never knew for certain.

Someone at the hospital managed to recognize Will from the news and contacted Jack about his missing profiler. Meeting up with Will after his absence had not gone as planned. Jack had never said a word on what had actually gone down in that room,

but afterward it was made clear that Will was done. Full stop. Point blank. Done.

He refused to work any farther on the case, refused to cooperate with any questions people had for him, he quit his job as a profiler and as a teacher, he packed up and left the state. No one had heard a word from him since then. Alana had only been able to locate him by pulling in a few favors. Hopefully she wouldn't have the door slammed in her face for all her effort.

She was just worried, she couldn't help it. Will had always been on the unstable side, she was unsure of what two years isolation would do to him and there was really only one way to find out.

She was coming up on the house now. It was a pretty enough place. A little farm house, wood, two story, blue-gray with a dark gray metal roof alongside a decent sized barn. It was surrounded by trees. There were a few nice looking cherry trees, but they did not appear well maintained. There was a moderate sized yard as well, it was the only area where the grass was well kept and it was interspersed here and there with bits of fabric and plastic and other things that the dogs must have gotten into and dragged around. She could see that one of canines had been digging at the foundation of the house. She wondered how many dogs he had. Last time she had seen Will, he had had five dogs living with him in Wolf Trap and he had taken them all with him.

There didn't seem to be any lights on inside but there was a car in the driveway. As she drew closer, Alana could hear the dogs inside barking at her.

When she was ten feet from the porch, the door opened letting a herd of dogs rush out. She counted seven. There were two larger dogs, three little dogs, and two medium sized dogs. They bounded toward her, sniffing as she approached. They seemed like nice dogs, not the sort you'd need signs up for.

Will stood in the doorway, still clutching the doorknob. She couldn't read his expression, he seemed surprised to see her but she couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing. He was wearing old jeans and a plaid shirt over a white t-shirt, though he looked a bit ruffled in general. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair was a mess.

"Hi," Alana said as she stepped onto the porch.

"Hi," Will responded. His voice came out rough with disuse so he awkwardly cleared his throat and tried again. "Hi."

"You are a hard man to find," Alana smiled as she kneeled down to pet the dogs.

"You weren't supposed to find me," Will said, his face shifting to something more neutral, "That was the point."

"I was worried, Will. No one's heard from you in two years. I wasn't even sure you were even alive."

"Well, here I am."

"Here you are," she nodded, "Will you let me inside?"

Will looked over his shoulder, into his house. He shook his head. "There's a stream out back, we can walk and talk."

Alana smiled slightly and followed Will as he stepped off the porch, going around the house. "So, what have you been doing all this time?" she asked.

Will shrugged, his posture was terrible. His body language read "stay away from me" he looked folded in on himself. He kept fidgeting with his hands, something she had not known him to do. When those hands were still, she could tell they were shaking. His eyes roamed around nervously, never meeting hers, but that was nothing new.

"I work at a boat repair shop in town," he managed, "Not quite as glamorous as catching serial killers, but it pays."

"I'm sure it's better for your mental health," Alana smiled.

"Sure, but I make all my coworkers nervous. They think I'm pretty weird. Can't blame them, I am pretty weird."

"You're just different."

"Isn't that what being weird is?"

"I suppose, in more delicate terms."

Thunder rolled off in the distance and Alana saw Will give a visible jolt. "Sounds like it's going to rain."

"I guess we should go in after all." Will was quiet for a moment, staring at the ground. "I mean, if you really want."

"I do." She was worried at what she might see.

They turned back and went inside. The place was relatively clean. Plates and dishes put away, but the counters were cluttered with papers and books. Alana glanced at one paper as she walked by. It was covered in Will's scrawled writing, it looked frantic. The books seemed to mostly text books of some kind. She hoped he'd taken up a hobby, not started a spiraling obsession. They seemed to be mostly physics and astronomy based.

"Have you taken up an interest in space?" Alana asked.

Will shrugged and took a seat on his couch. His guest sat in an arm chair. She looked around, noticing the windows. She hadn't noticed any lights on when they were outside, but that seemed to be because they were all covered over in black fabric despite having unused curtains hanging at the sides. Strangely enough, the papers seemed to have tiny holes poked in them which let a small amount of light in through little streams. She imagined on a very sunny day they might look a bit like stars.

Will was fidgeting again. He was making Alana nervous, an instinct she trusted and worried greatly over. "So, why did you come all the way out here?" Will managed.

Alana hesitated, "I was worried about you. I had a conference in Grand Rapids and I thought I'd stop by to see how you are."

"I'm fine." There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, Will flinched away from it, his eyes flickering upward toward the sound.

"Will," Alana spoke calmly, "I don't know what you've been doing out here, but I really think you should someone to talk to."

"I'm fine, I've gotten through life this far without talking to anyone." A second roll of thunder and Will's breath hitched slightly, making his words stumble. He took a deep breath, pressing a hand to his mouth and turning his face away.

"Is the storm making you nervous?"

"It's not the storm." His voice was strained. "I just– you need to leave."

The rain came as a sudden downpour. The house creaked as the wind picked up. Thunder made the earth rumble. There was a pulse of light from the tiny holes in the covered windows that could be assumed was the flashing of lightning.

Will appeared to be on the verge of a panic attack. He was holding his chest with one arm and pressing one hand to his eyes in an effort to calm down.

Alana spoke softly to him, "Will, is there anything I can do?"

At her words he jumped. "Just go." He breathed as he hastily stood from the couch, stumbling, rushing down a hall and up a set of stairs.

After a moment, Alana followed him. As she walked farther from that first room, she grew more and more worried. The farther she went, the more disorganized things got. There were crumpled papers on the floor, books that appeared to have been thrown across the hall, and there was writing on the walls. Upon closer inspection, it appeared all to be nonsense. Or at least mostly nonsense interspersed with a word phrase every so often. She rubbed at the words and they came off with a bit of effort. It appeared to be dry erase marker. Not that this was of much comfort.

Alana glanced around at the top of the stairs. She had heard a door slam and there was only one door closed, the door at the end of the hall. She passed a series of rooms. There was a bathroom, a guest room, an office completely full of old papers and books, and what appeared to be Will's room. The door at the end of the hall was the only one free of any writing. She knocked once. "Will?" she asked.

"Go away."

"I'm just worried about you."

"I know, go away."

She sighed, "I'm staying here until it stops raining. I'll be down in your living room."

She walked down, picking up a few pieces of paper and looking through them. They also appeared to be gibberish. She wondered if it were some sort of coded language or if Will was simply losing his mind.

The storm raged strong for about half an hour before letting up. Alana was getting ready to go back up and try coaxing Will out again when he came down the stairs himself.

"Sorry," he said horsely as he took a shuttering breath. "I just– sorry."

Alana stepped closer, placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched but did not move away. "Listen, Will. I don't know what's going on up here," she gestured to his head, "Unless you tell me. I'm a physiatrist, not a mind reader. Talk to me."

Will's mouth remained firmly shut in a grimace.

"Please, Will, I don't like to see you like this."

He remained silent.

Alana let out a heavy sigh, "Alright, fine, I have to get going. I go back to Virginia later tonight. It was good to see you."

"Good to reassure yourself I'm still here," Will corrected.

"That too," she nodded, "But I really do think you should talk to someone."

"I don't have friends."

"I'm your friend." Sort of.

Will made a face.

"Fine. If you aren't going to talk with me, I'm going to give you a name. I know a doctor Bedelia Du Maurier in Grand Rapids."

Will made another face.

"She is very good and I think you should at least try to see her. Just schedule one appointment. That's all you have to do."

Will grimaced. "Alright."

She sighed. "Good. Will you give me your phone number so I can text her name to you?"

Will hesitated before going over to the counter and picking up his phone. Unlocking the thing, he handed it to Alana who quickly added herself as a contact and texted him the name of Doctor Du Maurier.

"It was good to see you, Will," she said when she was finished.

"It was good to see you too." She couldn't tell if he meant it or not.

Alana walked out he door and back down the driveway, leaving Will to himself. Somehow she was more worried now than when she had arrived.

XxxX

Will couldn't breathe until he was sure that Alana was gone and even then it was a shaky breath. His dogs whined at him as he stood in the middle of his living room, staring at the crumpled pieces of paper Alana had left on his coffee table.

She thought he was insane. Maybe that was justified. Of course it was justified, he was completely insane. He knew this, but having Alana there really cemented in that point. She was someone from a past life. Someone who knew the person that he had been before this.

The rain was picking up again. The sounds danced over his nerves. At a rumble of thunder he felt his chest tighten. It was embarrassing and Alana had been there to see him like this. Well, it could have been worse. But as Will made the walk up the stairs he felt a wave of shame as he looked around at the papers and the books and most of all the writing on the walls.

He needed to take care of that. He just got into these manic states at times and it just happened. At least he had taken to switching to dry erase marker, not that it was much easier to remove, especially after being stuck on the wall for months.

Will reached the end of the hall and opened the door. He was glad Alana hadn't seen the inside. It had been a small storage room full of shelves but Will had removed them all. He had a pile of canned foods and bottles of water sitting in the corner along with a can opener and a heavy duty flashlight. There wasn't enough room for a bed, so he had an air mattress and sleeping bag on the floor. There were a few books but when he was in the room he was never in a fit state for reading. Mostly, he would sit there rocking back and forth, trying to comfort himself and failing miserably.

The walls of the room were lined with tin foil. It was stupid. It felt even more stupid now. Too many movies, too much external influence. What was tin foil honestly going to protect him against? Nothing. It was all in his head anyway, so it didn't even matter. And yet when the next thunder clap sounded, Will felt his breath hitch and he folded in on himself under his sleeping bag. It wasn't the actual storm that caused the reaction, it was the loud sound of the thunder. It just triggered panic mode in his mind.

Maybe he did need help. The thought had occurred before. He had probably needed help when he was consulting for the FBI, what with all the murderers in his head, but somehow that felt more manageable than the utter mess he'd become. Now, Will was lucky he could manage to hold down his job. Some days he would have a panic attack as he walked out to his car. He still forced himself to go. Leaving the house was difficult. Dealing with people was even more difficult, sometimes impossible. But when he was away from people he was afraid of what could happen to him.

Will fell asleep that night only to wake at around three in the morning, as he did more often than he cared to admit.

Will's heart was racing. He could feel it vibrating through his chest. His breath was coming too fast. The world was a haze through his tunneled vision. He felt too hot. He wanted to peel his skin back to seek release.

His feet felt strange. The ground was soft and wet. Tall grass brushed at his legs. He was in the fields around his house. The dark sky hovered over him, clouds blocking out any light. He was exposed, too exposed. He couldn't breath. Blood rushed hot then cold through his head. He clutched at himself, making a pathetic whining sound in the back of his throat. He wanted to throw up.

There was nothing to cover him, nowhere to hide. He fell to the ground, pressing himself to the wet earth as if to burrow into it. His eyes were screwed shut so tightly he saw colors. Tears still managed to leak out. Half from frustration and half from irrational terror.

He couldn't move until the sun had risen past the horizon. This had happened before, but it wasn't so often an occurrence. The stress of seeing Alana must have done something to his head.

Will took a deep breath. Maybe he should see that doctor. Just once. He wasn't sure how much more he could take if he didn't try something.

XxxX

A/N: Hello, this is just a little thing I had to get out of my system. Sorry, I just had to.

The title comes from something my astronomy professor said about galaxy collisions and I thought it was pretty.

Thanks.