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He fades in and out of consciousness for a period of indeterminable time, hearing mumbled-sounding words that were at once too loud and too quiet for him to understand, pinpricks of light and blurred colour, flashes of barely-felt touches. He cannot move, and he cannot speak. He exists, for a long moment, in two times at once, as if someone paused two videos at once and layered the still frames on top of each other: walking barefoot on a dark road between Baltimore and Wolf Trap, and lying on a bed where hands touch him and he feels separate from his flesh, as if he was only a ghost in his own body.
The conscious periods start to become more lucid for him. He remembers things, though it makes his head ache and throb, decades of living recalled without context, disjointed, no order to the memories.
He remembers that his name is Will Graham. He remembers that he lives in Wolf Trap, which is in Virginia. He remembers Louisiana, though he doesn’t know why it is significant to him. He remembers dogs, boats, and a man whose name evades him for several fade-in-and-outs of his consciousness until he at last recalls it as being Hannibal. He remembers holding a gun in his hands and that he went to college at George Washington University. He remembers a classroom, somewhere, full of students, and the sight of a corpse sprawled out at a crime scene. He remembers the names of objects, how to get an engine running, the days of the week, speaking broken Creole and Spanglish to his father, the best way to get bloodstains out of clothing.
He remembers that when he finally realises his eyes are open, and there is a woman walking into the room, that he is in a bed, and it is a hospital, and the woman is a nurse. He isn’t sure of much else, even as people seem to be rushing towards him, and he finds that he can’t move or speak. It takes a few seconds for him to become aware of the fact that there was a tube down his throat and dozens of other tubes and wires elsewhere in his skin.
Someone in a white coat with calm, cold hands is running a palm over his forehead, and telling him that he can’t speak because there was a tube in his trachea to help him breathe. A doctor, he remembers. The doctor tells him that his name is Will Graham, and he is in Marathon, Florida, and he’d been stabbed across the face and ended up going comatose for the past six months.
There are holes in his memory, things he can’t recall. Things he only wishes he knew. How he got to Florida, for one, since his last memory is of Virginia. Why the nurse is reassuring him that his husband has been notified and is on his way, since he doesn’t remember getting married. How he got into an altercation violent enough to end up with a knife through his cheek and bleeding out, since he had no memory of working any case at the time.
How many years’ worth of memories he’s missing, and if he’ll ever get them back.
The man—his husband, the nurse politely reminds Will—is Hannibal, which is strange. Strange, because all Will remembers of Hannibal is elaborate cooking and an elegant house and office in Baltimore, dinner parties and opera music and wool suits and old medical books, psychoanalysis and a heavy accent and something about how he hates the smell of Old Spice. The strange sort of attraction that comes from years of fondness that Will can’t recall experiencing.
Not the man Will would have imagined himself marrying, knowing himself.
Though, to be honest, there isn’t much he really knows about himself anymore.
Hannibal smiles and kisses the back of his hand, brushes his fingertips down the new scar along Will’s cheek. Tells Will he loves him, and he’s missed him, that he’ll take care of Will, jagged facial scars and possible amnesia and all. Says something in a foreign language Will doesn’t remember being taught, then gets this deep melancholy in his expression when Will blinks up at him in confusion. Sits down in the chair beside Will’s bed quietly until Will slips back into unconsciousness, holds his hand gently until the night shift nurse informs Hannibal that visiting time ended two hours ago.
The doctor assures both Hannibal and Will that since Will’s regained so many of his memories already, odds are that he’ll be able to recall those gaping blank spaces of his life.
And, quietly, when they are alone in Will’s room in the brain trauma unit long past the end of visiting hours, Hannibal tells him that it doesn’t matter, because he can tell Will everything he needs to know, and what cannot be taught, they can do all over again.
Will asks, in a whisper, if this means they’ll get married again.
Hannibal laughs, but there is sadness in his eyes.
Hannibal is gentle, as if he is worried he’ll break Will, as if he is afraid that Will might shatter under his touch as Will shattered under Francis Dolarhyde’s, when he helps Will into their condo for the first time in Will’s memory.
The view from the opened window in their bedroom looks right out onto the beach, giving them a postcard-perfect view as the sun slips below the waves.
Hannibal settles a hand on Will’s shoulder and presses a kiss to the scar on his cheek. “You liked the beach. I thought I might persuade you to leave the Bureau if we left Maryland.” His hands drop lower, circle Will’s waist. “I was worried about what your work would do to you.”
He doesn’t have to say it out loud for Will to understand. I was worried that you’d end up just like you are now.
Will huffs a laugh, tries to lighten the sudden tension in the mood. “Trying to use your psychiatric mind-hoodoo on me, Doctor?”
“I am doing nothing of the sort, my good Will.” He smiles, and Will can feel it against the nape of his neck as Hannibal kisses his hairline.
Will sighs. Waits a moment, enjoys the sunset and the salt in the air, the warmth of Hannibal’s arms around him and his chest against his back.
“Marry me, Hannibal.”
Hannibal freezes. Stiffens his posture momentarily. “We are already married, Will,” he says, voice soft. Reaches up to tangle his fingers with Will’s, toying with the skin-warm silver of his wedding band.
“Doesn’t count. I don’t remember it. A man should remember his own wedding, right?”
At that, Hannibal relaxes again, chuckles. “I do not believe that is how it works, Will.”
“Look, I’m trying to propose to you, you asshat. You’re supposed to say yes.”
“And they say romance is dead.”
“If you want me to get down on one knee, you’re going to have to wait a few months. I just mastered standing up and walking around.”
“No, this is....” Hannibal brushes his lips against Will’s jaw. Stills for a few seconds. “This is good for now.”
“So, will you marry me?”
“Of course.” Another moment of quiet.
“Oh, don’t get sad now. It’s a second chance, right? I don’t remember all those embarrassing and terrible things you probably did all those years. And I just proposed to you, we should celebrate. I’m sure you’ve got champagne around here somewhere.”
Hannibal laughs. Takes another step back and tugs Will back towards the kitchen. “You are not allowed to drink, Will.”
Will groans, follows Hannibal. “Spoilsport. You’re lucky I love you.”
He doesn’t miss the flicker of happiness in Hannibal’s expression at that.
There are arms around Will when he wakes, the warmth of Hannibal holding him.
Will thinks, looking what he can see of the sun rise over the summer ocean, beyond the rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest, that he can live without a few of his memories, just as long as he gets to have this, have Hannibal. This second chance for a happy life he never knew had.
And he is willing to learn to cope without a few moments of lost time, if that was the price.
But time is like the ocean
You can only hold a little in your hands
So swim before we’re broken
Before our bones become
Black coral on the sand
-"The Summer", Josh Pyke