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The table was devoid of life, save for Will.
He glanced around and immediately noticed the light of day streaming through the open windows, their balcony visible from the dining room. There was no classical music playing in the background this time, the usual sound of the city muted by slow, daily routines. From Will's position, he could make out a familiar figure with long dark hair casually looking out into the Florentine morning view.
Will stood up from his seat and approached the balcony.
"Abigail?" Will called as the figure turned around.
"Hey," Abigail greeted casually, a bright smile on her face. Will took the empty space beside her and leaned his back on the steel railings. "Feels like forever since I last saw you."
"I haven't been visiting as often as I should've." Will sounded guilty admitting it to Abigail and himself. His eyes were downcast when he added, "I'm sorry."
Abigail chuckled at his apology, nudging him with her elbow playfully and causing him to look back into her blue eyes. "You know that's a good thing, right?" She reassured him with a grin. "Just means that you're keeping busy with things out there to be trapped in here like before."
"Like before," Will echoed before looking at the dining room that persistently haunted the seasons of his shared life with another. He noticed how the furniture seemed deeper in color, almost gleaming under natural light. "Things look different from how I remember them," he pointed out in passing.
Abigail hummed in thought, staring back into the horizon once more. "Maybe everything just looks different in daylight," she remarked. "Or maybe you're just in a different place now." Mentally or physically, she didn't say, but Will knew she meant one more than the other.
Silence stretched in between them, comfortable and seemingly familiar at the same time. A gentle breeze passed them, and it smelled like fresh grass and flowers – an unusual scent to find in the heart of the city.
"Did you ever manage to get that motorbike we talked about last time?" Will asked, staring at the side of Abigail's face.
Abigail turned to him with a tilt of her head – somehow like Hannibal in that regard – a playful smirk on her lips. "And make more friends outside the international program?" She added teasingly before staring out into the city landscape again with a sigh. She was contemplating, but the air was charged with bitter truth this time. "It's too late for me to do all the things you wish I could have done in the life we should've lived." ‘If you didn't betray Hannibal,’ goes unsaid. However, there was no sense of anger or sadness to those words – not anymore. "But not for you." Abigail's faced Will completely this time, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. He could see that the life lived in those doll-like orbs was only a mirage. "You can still have that future, Will. You have him."
As if sensing the protest building in Will's parted lips, Abigail interjected with a raised hand, "I know we can't change the past." The fact lingered in the air, the distant sound of pencil scratching on paper a mysterious lullaby Will couldn't quite trace the origins to. "Maybe I've always been dead the entire time you knew me." A crooked, morbid smile made its way onto her lips. The admittance was like a child's fist banging on his chest. "I think I was always meant to die in the kitchen from my father's hand."
Will never could've saved her. He hadn't been able to the first time – even if he thought he did – and certainly not the second. Was it cruel all along to have let her live out of his own selfish desire?
Will took a shaky breath as he felt his eyes mist, looking at Abigail and knowing how this was going to end – how it should end this time. "Hannibal would say it was the hand of destiny." He almost wanted to applaud himself for managing to say it in a straight voice, even if every part of him felt like falling off the tightrope.
"Of course he would say that," Abigail said with a giggle, her smile wider this time as tears fell unbidden down her rosy cheeks. "He's always loved his cryptic metaphors."
Will heard the distant but familiar bark of dogs outside the doors of their apartment, causing him to glance at that place. It dared to beckon him someplace else, like an alarm clock ringing in a dimly lit room. Will sniffled as he burned a hole staring into the door.
"Go," Abigail's voice coaxed with a smile as she nodded her head to the exit. "Your family is calling you."
Will turned to her, feeling the tears threaten to fall. "What about you?" He asked. "Will you still be here when I come back?" Will's voice sounded small and hopeful at the same time – it was the part of him that always wanted Abigail to fit in his family with Hannibal. Yet, somehow, he knew he needed to finally put that part of him to rest.
The smile on Abigail's face didn't reach her eyes as she said the words he didn't want to hear yet needed to know. "You know it's better for you if I wasn't." Her voice broke at her last few words and Will could feel his own tears down his face. So, he decided to do the one thing he wished he'd done all those years ago, back when it was all a possibility instead of a mere dream.
Will pulled Abigail into his arms and wrapped her in a tight and warm embrace. She buried her face into his neck and sobbed, her frame heaving with the years she should've lived but never got to – and never again would. Will thought he could reign in his feelings better, yet he found his voice was hoarse as he whispered into her hair. "I'll always miss you, Abigail."
With a sniffle, Abigail pulled back and gave him one last smile. It was a smile as bright as the light of day, and Will knew that every sunrise he'd see from that point forward would always remind him of Abigail. "Goodbye, Will." It was the last thing she said as she watched Will head for the exit to their apartment.
Will didn't look back as he twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open.
❀ ❀ ❀
A single tear slides down Will's cheek as his eyes flutter open. He feels a warm thumb wiping it away and caressing the side of his face with concern.
"Mylimasis," Hannibal says, voice gentle and grounding. Their eyes meet and acknowledgement flickers in amber orbs for a moment before being tucked away carefully behind closed doors. Will knows that Hannibal has an inkling about what he's dreamt of yet feels the need to ask anyway. "Where did you go just now?"
The silence between them is a flat line disturbed only by the pulse of spring found in the rustling of leaves and the occasional barking of dogs.
"I dreamt of Abigail," Will admits into the quiet, his voice breaking over her name. "She was saying goodbye."
Hannibal's eyes are soft and quite sunken, lips twitching into unbridled melancholia at the memory of her. To anyone else, Hannibal's feelings are imperceptible – but Will knows better. A man like Hannibal rarely regrets anything in life, but Will feels it like a confirmation – and that alone is enough for him. Will has forgiven him for Abigail after all, and dreaming of her doesn't carry hurt the way it used to.
Will doesn't ask if Abigail roams the halls of Hannibal's palace, if he sees the same apartment and came home there frequently during his time in a cage. Will already knows the answer.
Despite this, Hannibal obfuscates in response, because nothing he could say would change what happened. "You've been contemplating a lot these days," he remarks instead, addressing Will's general state of wellbeing. Hannibal turns away to continue sketching the scenery before them. He doesn't address his curiosity about what Abigail's farewell could mean in Will's mind.
Will hums in return, his eyes tracing the veins on Hannibal's hand. He knows if he caresses them he will feel the warmth of life thrumming underneath. Hannibal is here with him, alive, and they belong to each other in a way they've only longed for in the past. "The past helps me appreciate what we have now," he confesses as Hannibal's pencil begins to add definition into the placid lake, the scratching noise of charcoal on vellum paper like faint whispers in the background.
Will's eyes drift away from the sketchpad and to the view in front of them. The sight of the lake resurfaces a frozen memory from long ago, and Will feels a phantom chill when the spring breeze blows. Will tugs his oversized cardigan – that he insists he did not steal from Hannibal – tightly around his form. He presses closer to Hannibal for warmth and their eyes meet once more.
Will doesn't know who succumbs to the urge first, but their lips press together in a gentle kiss. Will huffs when they part, a wide smile breaking out on his face. Hannibal's hands lay flat on his sketch, his attention completely on Will now. Will catches the glint of Hannibal's golden ring over paper, causing him to look at his own finger wrapped in a silver one.
Will stretches out his left hand in front of him, admiring the way his ring fits perfectly on his finger. The design is a simple yet specifically intricate pattern, a well-kept promise between them.
"We're married," Will whispers, as if admitting the words any louder would cruelly rip him away from this life he has now. He's spent many winters apart from Hannibal, and each Florentine summer he dreamt of in contrast was perpetually stuck on dinners at eight. "We're married," Will says, much louder this time. There is conviction and awe in his tone, something bubbling inside him like champagne ready to burst.
'3:05PM. I'm in Windermere, England. My name is Will Graham. I'm married to Hannibal Lecter and we have three dogs named Chloe, Lala, and Attie.'
Will says the words in his head, a mantra recalled fondly now. Thinking of them helps him remember and reconcile that this is his present, one where tranquility doesn't come with icy winds and barren lands. The solid warmth of Hannibal's body beside him is not a dream conjured up by the loneliness rooted in his heart a lifetime ago.
Here by the lake, the grass underneath the blanket his husband has laid out is warm from the sunlight and their weight. The flowers sway along with the gentle breeze while the willow trees softly dance to the enthusiastic song of the birds. The dogs chase each other into the bushes, punctuating the hymn of nature with a howl from time to time. In the middle of it all is an undisturbed lake sparkling like a jewel under the afternoon sun.
"Yes, mano meile," Hannibal's confirmation cuts into Will's thoughts. "We are." Will didn't need to look at his husband to see the smile on his face. It is a smile that belongs to Will alone because Hannibal has never had anybody in his life like him – and Will feels the same way. Will was married once, but it didn't feel like this – it didn't feel like what being sixteen should've felt like while holding hands with your first love.
There's no need to pretend with Hannibal, after all. The truth is laid bare between them, an unspoken, open secret exchanged in violence and domesticity. It is the way Will brings Hannibal the hearts of pigs that mock or sneer at them for publicly showing affection towards each other. It is the way Hannibal wakes naked and memorizes each strand of hair that frames Will's sleeping face under daylight. It is the way Will lets Hannibal dress him up for the opera even though he hates the sheep his husband surrounds himself with. It is the way Hannibal ruthlessly elevates the pigs who dare to say that someone like Will is below him.
When Will turns to look at Hannibal, he is, as always, struck by the range of warmth in those bright amber eyes. Hannibal's feelings flood Will with heat as if they're persistently thawing away winters worth of words wielded like knives and unpulled punches wrapped in rusted barbed wires. Hannibal is besotted, lovestruck, love's fool – and he is Will's very own.
Will pulls their foreheads together as he closes his eyes. He feels Hannibal's breath on his lips before his kiss. "I'm yours, Will," he admits with conviction, like it's an indisputable fact that he would kill over if anybody dared to question its validity – and Hannibal would.
"'Til death do us part," Will mumbles before grabbing Hannibal's cheeks with both hands and pressing their lips together again. Will pulls back and opens his eyes, breathless as he laughs once more. "I don't think you'd let even death take me from you."
Hannibal's eyes sparkle with mirth, his grin pleased at the accusation. "No darling, I would not." With his drawing completely forgotten on his lap, Hannibal grabs both of Will's hands in between his and brings them to his lips, kissing the tip of each finger like a devotee. Each kiss is an admission, vanquishing all dreams of summer nights ending in a looping memory. Will can feel the interior of the rooms in his memory palace shift as the seasons finally change into familiar landscapes and sceneries from his travels with Hannibal and their girls.
Speaking of their girls, Chloe – their Doberman with an impaired eye – lies down on the spot of grass beside Will and looks up at him with bright, begging eyes. She faintly whimpers at him and nudges his thigh with her snout, indicating to Will that she's hungry. Historically, Will could never deny his dogs anything, especially not when they give him such a pitiful look.
Perhaps sensing Will's attention on Chloe, Lala and Attie come barreling towards him, a cacophony of howls and whimpers drowning out Chloe's plea. It seems they're just as hungry as their sister.
Will succumbs to his urge to caress and pat the dogs, happiness once foreign coming to him so easily now. Another unbidden laugh comes tumbling out of his lips as he coos and praises the girls, ultimately calming them down as they look up at him, wide-eyed and precious.
When Will turns to his husband who is right beside him, he lets out a bark of laughter at seeing Hannibal's face. It's the exact same face Hannibal makes whenever he is forced to bear witness to Will acting as if the dogs are month-old babies who are simply too adorable to resist.
"You make that face as if you don't cook for them every single day, Hannibal," Will deadpans, humor alight in his ocean blue eyes.
"Yes, however I have never spoken to the girls in such a manner," Hannibal answers in bafflement. "Nor will I ever," He adds, playfully miffed at the idea that Will is accusing him of conducting himself in the same manner as how Will just acted.
Will's impassive facade breaks and he sends himself into a short fit of laughter as he stands up. Hannibal is helpless to the sounds his husband is making and feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips, his eyes following Will's form heading back to their cabin. The dogs rise from their places and follow Will at the notion of being fed, little tails wagging behind them.
Will stops to glance back at Hannibal sitting like an aristocrat on the spread picnic blanket. "I'm feeding the dogs," Will calls out. "You coming?"
Hannibal closes his sketchpad and stands up, leaving his things behind to take his place beside Will. His hand makes its familiar path to the small of Will's back, and his husband leans in further into him, familiar and at peace with their life and what they are to each other now. Hannibal smiles, and Will's warmth and presence beside him feels like coming home.
"Always."