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She remembers a man with blue eyes and red lips and a lulling Scottish accent that still echoes in her dreams ((her nightmares)). She remembers how he had always danced on the edges of darkness – he had been reeled in by the promise of fun and excitement; it had been why he had come to Uganda in the first place.
And she remembers how Idi Amin had sucked him into his orbit – luring him in with loving promises of unconditional acceptance and with the gifts of a soft bed and a his own hospital.
She had Watched as that Dark Thing in Idi Amin had reached out and brushed against that young Scot – reached out and tried to weave Itself into his soul. And she had Watched, curled around her husband amidst the blackest of African nights, Watched with her Sight as he fought against that Dark Thing and oh how he tried in vain to bring Amin back from the brink.
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Now, now she looks at Will Graham, Sees him through Hannibal’s eyes and she can see all of the qualities he shares with young Nicholas. She Sees Will’s eagerness to please Hannibal and Jack Crawford, to please the ghost of a father long gone.
And then, when she dreams, she Looks in on Will – Watches as he dances in close to Hannibal, drawn in by soft words and looks filled with understanding and a no-holds-barred type of love – and she Watches as history repeats itself and Will is destroyed.
Destroyed not because Hannibal didn’t love him, but because Hannibal will always choose freedom, and for a creature who had been chained nearly all of his younger years – she isn’t surprised.
And she thinks that if Will knew any better, than he wouldn’t be surprised either.
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In the end Nicholas had failed – just like the boy Hannibal loves so dearly will fail. Because both Hannibal and Amin were twisted and terrible souls who had once started out as brilliant rays of sunshine – but life had beaten them down, had ripped and torn away until there was nothing but darkness.
She knows about Hannibal – what he does in the dark underneath full moons and the sway of bloodlust and she pretends that she knows nothing, pretends that everything is okay as he picks at his own edges – and she does what she can to help him. Because maybe, just maybe, if she can soothe him and keep him calm, he’ll kill less ((she is under no illusions that she has the power to stop him altogether)).
But she does the best that she can.
And that’s what she tells herself when she wakes up with all those ghosts screaming in her head.
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End.