Chapter Text
When the last hope couldn't be known
When the last chance was being alone
When the lights burn out
And you pull me out of the dark
And you pull me out of the dark.
-Radford, Out of the Dark
We must survive the bitterest of waters before we reach the sweet. We must—
The fall from the cliff did not go entirely as planned. It was meant to be a gentle thing; an act of love in its own right, but Will couldn’t fool himself, even as they plummeted downwards. He and Hannibal could not have come so far without another trial to endure; their new life could not begin in comfort.
That was never who they were.
From fire through waters they must pass to reach paradise, or some other nonsense like that. Will never thought it would hurt quite as much as it did, though.
The ocean felt like liquid bricks when they crashed into its black depths and was far colder than he expected, icy needles threatening to atrophy his limbs mere moments after impact. His cheek ached, the salt of the ocean like daggers in the wound Dolarhyde had carved.
He had never felt more alive.
None of it mattered now. Will understood that the impact would have been much more severe for Hannibal since he had taken a bullet. Since they did not have a chance to staunch the blood flow before Will’s rash decision to cast them off the cliff and into the waters below, they could very well become the doctor’s tomb. It took him precious minutes to find Hannibal. When he finally caught sight of him, Will was both dismayed and elated to discover that Hannibal was unconscious but still breathing. The profiler (ex profiler now, he supposed) draped him over his shoulder, breaths shallow and sharp as he attempted to swim them both to safety. He had to make it. For the sake of all that they were, all that they’d been through, he had to.
Although Will hadn’t consciously cared whether they lived or died when he pitched them back, once they hit the water he knew that Hannibal was the one person he would never be able to live without; the man who could make him do anything, show him how to be anything. He wanted to laugh in those exhilarating seconds in the wind. He wanted to weep. Realization, as it so often did, came with a bitter price.
Hannibal was now in his arms. That was all that mattered. Will kicked hard towards the faint lights in the distance, marking what surely had to be the shoreline. He could hear Hannibal’s ragged breaths as he struggled to propel their bulk through the water. He blinked the salt out of his eyes as often as possible and filled his chest painfully with air, hoping to buoy them along in the water, but they slowly began to lose ground as the tides shifted, pulling them away from the safety of land.
Euphoria quickly turned to panic. He couldn’t do this alone. He needed the man in his arms. Needed—
Will gripped Hannibal’s uninjured shoulder and shook as hard as he dared without causing further injury. He had to wake up, or they would be doomed.
“Hannibal? Hannibal! Wake up! Can you hear me?” He gasped water into his lungs with his words, pulling the doctor along with all his strength. God, please don’t let him be dead. Not after all of this. Please. “Hannibal!”
The injured man feebly stirred, a moan escaping his lips as he tried to take in his surroundings.
“Will…”
He pulled Hannibal closer, cold lips to the doctor’s ear so he could hear him.
“I’ve almost got us to the shore where we can rest, but you have to help me. We are so close, but I’m losing strength." He shook the doctor, hoping to bring him to himself. "Don't let us end like this. I need you.”
Will knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop the outpour of words that came from his mouth, even to preserve his breath to swim. He paddled his arm awkwardly, kicked his legs against the current that had been threatening to pull them away since they hit the water. The lights that shone down on them, his only hope since the fall, seemed to get further away as his strength waned, blurring in his desperation to reach them. Tears began to fall without him realizing; salty sorrow mixing with the vastness of the ocean. Please. Just a little further. Please—
He felt the cold water ebb and flow around him; a living being with a titan’s strength to keep him from his destination. Afraid to push Hannibal too hard, Will continued to fight, screaming into the water with his effort. His grip on Hannibal didn't waver in its strength. They could never be separated again, even as he succumbed to the inexorable pull of the tide. This is useless. I don’t know how I ever thought we could survive yet another tumble into the dark. Exhausted, Will pulled air into his lungs, big deep breaths, taking the last bit of life he could, while he still could. I am not strong enough.
His grip slipped; he lost sight of the lights. He felt his body grow cold and one final thought flashed through his terrified mind. At least the cold of the water would be preferable to drowning.
Will Graham’s eyes slipped closed as he began to sink beneath the waves, following their siren’s song into the crushing depths that promised oblivion. Salvation, as always, was just out of his reach.
He was not conscious when Hannibal woke, nor when he was finally dragged from the water to safety. He didn’t feel the tears on his face, nor Hannibal's lips upon his own, cold and weak, pushing breath into his lungs. Begging him to live. Within his mind, he traversed.
Before the Fall
Will's back and side were beginning to ache, but he liked feeling anything that wasn’t the numb wall that kept him from everything around him. Working on the engine to his boat was supposed to help as well, but it did not bring Will the peace he had hoped for when he came out that morning. Breath warm in the biting air, he willed it to make him feel alive as it once did. Ever since returning from the hospital, he felt as if he was in stasis, a cocoon of deliberate non-feeling kept any outside influence from reaching him. Needing (Hannibal) the right catalyst to once again awaken him. For now, Will went through the motions. It was easier, safer than turning inward and examining the events that transpired over the last few months. Those were best left alone for the time being.
Now that he could once again move with little discomfort, he longed to work with his hands. His lures did not have quite the appeal they used to, not with the memories of flesh and bone weaved into them by hands not belonging to him, a trap laid to all but nail him to the cross at the bureau by a man he trusted to be his salvation. It didn’t matter that he never touched the creations that held pieces of the copycat’s victims. The knowledge would be there like stepping in gum; some residual darkness would always cling to him. For now, engines were the safest choice to assist him in stilling the spinning of his mind. Even though the work was far from cerebral, the focus and concentration he put into each component allowed him space, even from himself. Idle hands were, after all, the devil’s playthings and he had had enough of the devil for as many lifetimes as he was allowed.
As he worked, Will dimly heard an approaching car making its way up his drive but did not turn towards the sound. He didn’t need to; he already knew who was behind the wheel. He had hoped Jack would leave him alone after he visited him in the hospital but knowing the man like Will did, he knew Jack would have to have some kind of closure. Even now that the elusive Doctor Lecter had escaped, leaving them both scarred in ways that could never truly show, Jack would not let him be alone with his thoughts. Or his regrets. That didn’t mean Will had to make it easy for him. Unwilling to give up the pretense of work, he sighed and did not turn to face his guest. He waited for Jack to speak.
“I had hoped you would come look for me. But I understand why you didn’t.” Will tensed at his words, but willed his body to relax once more. Here in his workshop, in his home, Jack Crawford was no more powerful than a fly. Will reminded himself of this and drew in a breath before he spoke.
“What can I do for you, Jack?” He sounded much steadier than he felt, and was glad for it.
They discussed briefly and without detail the incidents that transpired and Jack’s want to ensure that Will was not going to contradict the official statement, one carefully woven to paint them both as heroes; modern day gladiators that managed to escape the horns of the beast waiting to impale them. Will waited patiently for Jack to get to the question he really wanted to ask. He knew it would not take him long.
“Do you remember when you decided to call Hannibal?” Even the doctor’s name caused a deep ache within him, a string pulled taut in the empath’s psyche. A name to forever haunt him in his waking hours, let alone what crept upon him as he slumbered. The animal inside him will always devour, and will never be satisfied, for it is forever hungry. He hesitated for just a moment before responding.
“I wasn’t decided when I called him… I just called him.” He shrugged. “I deliberated while the phone rang.” Another pause as his hands worked over the bolt he was tightening. “I decided when I heard his voice.” Will felt the air thicken with unspoken emotional turmoil but didn’t turn to face him. He braced for the anger he felt must be surely coming, and was surprised when Jack’s voice came out as quiet and controlled as before.
“ You told him we knew.” Will let the accusation wash over him, breathing deeply enough to feel the sting of the stitches that held him together after Hannibal’s pound of flesh was taken. The pain was grounding, reminding him of what was real. My name is Will Graham. I am in Wolf Trap, Virginia. The exercise felt silly and a little rusty, but it helped him focus. The smell of salt and snow, Jack’s aftershave and sweat mingled in the air around him. The painful sting of his stitches assisted in pulling him back from that awful night. Abigail. I failed you.
“I told him to leave. I wanted him to run.”
Quietly, as if resigned to knowing the answer before it was given, a single word fell from Jack’s lips. “Why?”
There it was. The question, the nagging, burning question that Will only perused with caution in the darkest hours of the night, when the ghosts of his mistakes and missteps were there to bear witness. After all of the pain, anguish, elation and enlightenment, all of the lessons he learned, the carefully constructed lies pulled apart to show the ugly truths behind them, this was the question that burned him the most. He couldn’t face it in those nights by himself, even with his dogs surrounding him in an effort to bring him back to himself.
Why.
“Because…” he took a breath, stuttered the words that threatened to choke him as he spoke them aloud for the first time. “Because… he was my friend.” This was the easy part of the realization, the knowing that, even with all of the horrors that trailed behind them like a bloody carpet, Will always considered Hannibal to be a true friend. The words were deafening, stretched between him and Jack, the quiet that followed his statement filled with all the unspoken things. The hurt, the betrayal, the irrevocable damage to their lives lay bare, the silence thick as cream and cooling blood. He felt Jack turn to leave, and could not let him go without allowing the rest of the words spill from his lips, the whole truth given to the man who deserved it the least.
“And because I wanted to run away with him.”
The weight of his words shed from his soul, and Will suddenly felt lighter and cleaner, more himself than he had in months. He finally turned to face Jack, reading his face like a well worn book as he did so. The sorrow etched into Jack’s features was exquisite in its harshness, a tapestry of inner conflict such as Will had never seen. Finally, the man who had chosen duty above all else, including those in his care and under his command, the man who had driven him straight into the clutches of Hannibal Lecter, could see the fruit his inattention had wrought. Jack looked into Will’s eyes and caught a glimpse of the darkness that lived in the recesses of his mind, a thing with teeth and claws that wanted to rend flesh and break bone. Jack stood before the man he once thought of as a friend and looked instead into the face of the monster lurking beneath the surface. Without another word, he turned to leave. He realized as he made the trek that he no longer trusted Will Graham to have the advantage of being unguarded at his back.
Will watched him walk away until the car wound its way down his drive. He had felt the shift in Jack's assessment of him, and was glad for it. He set the wrench down, collapsing to the ground with the terrible knowledge that there would always be a part of him that wished he had simply slipped away with Hannibal, left the FBI to recover from the carnage wrought upon by the Chesapeake Ripper. Had he known the teacup he thought to be shattered in Abigail would come together so magnificently, he would have taken her and Hannibal in his arms and run off into their next adventure. Time and hindsight are cruel mistresses, and as Will sat on the floor of the workshop, leaning into the solid structure of his work bench for much needed support, he examined for the first time those consequences at length. He allowed himself a brief moment of crushing and terrible grief, and wept for the daughter that was never his to have. From the corner of his eye, within the part of his memory palace, he could just see Abigail approaching, could feel her delicate hand as it rested upon his shoulder. He breathed in her honeysuckle and blood soaked scent and lost himself in the sound of a voice that was not really there, wanting the words she spoke to be true. If only they were true.
“Don’t weep for me, Will. You were the father I wish I had. You and Hannibal helped make me whole again in the time I had with you. No act of violence or feeling of regret can take that away.” Her phantom arms wove their way around his neck, touch as cold and delicate as the snow that had begun to fall. “Come in out of the cold, rest your tired eyes. Don’t worry about me, Will. Don’t worry about me.” Standing and following the sound of her voice, Will made his way back to the house, ignoring his pack as he climbed the steps and fell into bed. As darkness took him, one last thought crept through his scarred psyche, an undeniable truth he still refused to gift to Jack Crawford, a truth he had yet to admit, even to himself. Here in the brief moments before he slept, the truth wove its way into his heart, healing and hurting as it moved.
Why, Jack? You ask why? Because I loved him. I loved them both. I will always come for Hannibal, will always protect him. I love him. Love him. Love. Him. Love…