Motionless Hannibal stood alone, taking in the night with all his senses, while his mind seemed to be wandering around. He almost blended in with the darkness.

Even though Hannibal's back was turned to him, Will could tell that his eyes where closed as he was facing the starry night sky.
He often saw Hannibal spending the evenings outside like this and was sure he would find him in his memory palace. But he had avoided visiting him in Norman Chapel or his office for a while now. While their conversations seemed easier now, a few days ago, they both had felt each others resentment. It was subtle, but it was there. Both there physical wounds and their psychological ones still had been hurting.

"The wound is looking better," Hannibal had said as he removed the bandage around Will's chest, bending over him. "Seems to be no infection here. The stitches are a mess, but taking into consideration that Dr. Ramirez did it with the barrel of a gun in his neck that doesn't surprise me."
He said it in a distant voice, as if he was inspecting the work of a medical student on a body.

"You know that I didn't abduct him to treat me," Will replied.

Indeed Dr. Ramirez wouldn't have been his first choice if he had have one, but Hannibal had seemed more dead than alive after Will had pulled him out of the water. Before they had reached the shore he hadn't been sure if Hannibal had survived at all.

"Then I can consider myself lucky that I'm neither dead nor lost any of my organs. Two things I can't say about him," He noticed dryly. After a pause he added, "Well, At least his meat was good for something."

Hannibal disinfected the wound, to which Will reacted with sucking in the air sharply through his teeth. his fractured rips made him immediately regret that.

"Breath calmly, Will," Hannibal reminded him as he reached for the new bandage one the night stand. Biting his teeth together Will followed the advise and Hannibal continued to inspect his injuries. His eyes rested on the stabbing wound on his face, which didn't look nearly as bad anymore as it did before Hannibal had set the stitches. "I'm glad you had the patience to wait until I could treat this one." Even though his words were caring, they sounded reserved. "does it still hurt?"

Will nodded "yeah.."

It appeared as if Hannibal wanted to say something, but then he bend over him again to bandage Will's chest. In his head Will could hear him whisper 'good' into his ear.
With a sigh Will sunk back into his pillows after Hannibal was finished. Since Hannibal could only use his right arm, due to a fracture on the other, Will always had to help him when in came to activities that required two hands, such as bandaging.

"It will take time for both of us to heal, to get the possibly to live a life I offered you right away," Hannibal said as he leaned away from the bed. In his eyes Will could see a sense of disappointment, but no hate or anger towards him.

Will would have guessed Hannibal was proud that he finally had pushed him so far that he gave in to him and yet he understood his resentment about happened after it. But it wasn't about the fact that he almost killed both of them. Pushing them off the cliff was in a way a decision against them, a disregard of trust.

The coldness in Hannibal's voice when he spoke to Will didn't last forever. After a few days his eyes didn't avoid Will's anymore and the atmosphere when they where together in one room wasn't as strained as before. Yet he made sure that a certain distance always remained between the two of them, which Will interpreted as something necessary for Hannibal going through the process of forgiving him. He understood that Hannibal had to take a look at him from far away to be sure to make a wise decision.

In a sense Will appreciated the distance, he himself had to arrange all kinds of thoughts and values that were swirling around in his head.

Nonetheless they carefully made the first steps to get comfortable with each other again. Sometimes they would sit beside each other in silence reading, listening to classical music or watching the news. Conversations started at the dinner table, on which Hannibal had prepared Dr. Ramirez' meat and now and then he invited Will into the kitchen to help him with the food.

For a few more moments Will watched the figure through the glass of the terrace door, his own reflection standing beside it, then he opened it slowly and stepped outside.
Walking still wasn't an entirely painless act, but the crutches made it a lot easier. After a week most bruises weren't visible anymore, but his fractured leg had yet to come to heal just like two of his ribs and the wounds that Dolarhyde's knife had inflicted. However, Will enjoyed the mobility he was slowly regaining, after days in the bed and the wheelchair.
Slowly he made his way to the railing of the terrace, stopping right behind Hannibal. Without doubt Hannibal had already noticed him, yet he remained motionless until Will put his hand on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I'm glad I could get you to give up that horrible aftershave," he broke the silence.

"I know."

"Are you feeling better today, Will?" Hannibal asked as he turned around to him, his eyes wandering over Will's body.

"Not so much," he admitted." but I just had the urge to step outside for a while. I need some fresh air," he replied, slowly taking his hand off Hannibal's shoulder, making a step forward to lean himself and the crutches against the wooden railing.

"How is your arm?"

"It's an annoyance, but I will be able to use it again soon. "

Will nodded. Once Hannibal's injuries had almost killed him, now the only visible injury was his broken arm in a cast, that he carried in front of him in a noose, which Will guessed, Hannibal was eager to get rid of.

For few minutes they didn't say anything. The only sounds they could hear were the noises of the forest and each others breathing. Standing on the terrace and looking at the landscape was almost like looking at a whole new world in front of them.

"It's beautiful out here, isn't it? Almost like an artist composed this scene…" Hannibal's eyes wandered over the dark pine trees under the starry night sky and then finally to Will.

"Almost as if he composed it for us…." Will agreed.

"In a way we both painted this picture, Will," Hannibal pondered. " We kept adding layers and layers of paint, but it didn't become what it is now until you chose another tone."

"The picture was too beautiful to look at, too destructive for everybody else." A certain bitterness lay in his voice.

Hannibal's eyes were piercing him. "And yet you didn't want to live without it."

"Seems like my true nature has followed me all along and was just waiting to be set free… I don't think it is that simple."

He would love to tell Hannibal that it was simple to him, that after all the mind games everything in his head was in perfect order. But he was still trying to fit different pieces, trying to get a definite picture.

"Things become incredibly simple if we give into to what is our true nature. The struggle begins when we try to disconnect from it," Hannibal sighed. „See, The picture is even more destructive now. Looking at the destroyed work set all of your loved ones back into a state of blindness once again, maybe in a state of grief."

Will wasn't sure anymore if he could call them his loved ones and he also wasn't sure if relieve didn't outweigh the grief. However, blinding them for sure hadn't been his initial intention, and he held a certain aversion towards the idea that he could be perceived as the tragic hero.

"Their grief was the better alternative," Will said, running his fingers over his jaw. "I couldn't crawl back to Molly, with nothing but you on my mind."

"It was quite a delight to see you flourish under all that blood, Will." Hannibal watched him with interest. "What I ask myself is," he continued. "did Jack have to act out of recklessness or did he already know his lamb would show its teeth to me."

„Did you?" Will countered.

Hannibal leaned forward, his arms on the railing carrying his weight. Even though he tried to hide it, Will could see that Hannibal's injuries didn't allow him to stand or walk without pain yet.

„It was trust I fell victim to, but this isn't something unknown in the relationship, is it?" Regret and a hint of fear of the following words showed on Wills face. „You blinded me more than once."

Gaining Hannibal Lecters trust and fooling him must have been quite an achievement, but Will was everything else than proud of it.

„Jack thought I would kill you. He counted on it. Maybe he fell victim to trusting me as well."

Hannibal scrutinized him carefully. „And did you overlook your own potential when you convinced him that he was right about you? Did you think that telling him everything was under control could make it true?."

Like always Hannibal elicited him the sometimes uncomfortable truth about himself.

„I hadn't made my choice yet. I had abandoned the part that was so drawn to you to the darkest corner in my mind."

"But it was always there. Even after three years you couldn't quite shake it off."

He had the feeling he never would want to get rid of it ever again. And yet all of it was still so hard to come to terms with. Just like the healing of his wounds, the process of digesting what had happened seemed easier for Hannibal than for him.

"In the end it was what made me hesitate and at same time what drove me to do it." A sigh escaped his mouth. "Finally embracing you after ripping the dragon apart made me feel closer to myself then ever before...I was closer to you...", he uttered. "I was tempted to rest my head on your shoulder forever." Shyly he turned his head to Hannibal, finding him looking back into his eyes.

He remembered that moment vividly. Every part of his body had been in pain, but the adrenalin and the beauty of the kill had made him forget about it. In his ears Hannibal's heart beat had echoed, and the warmth of his body had made him feel home. Only slowly the realization of what all of this meant had come to his mind and a part of him just did the only thing that seemed rational in that moment. It was just one moment, just an impulse.

"I can't deny that I was hoping you would overcome this pattern and accept who you are after all. After resisting getting rid of all moral responsibility when it was so tempting, what speaks against fully abandoning it now?" His tone was rather suggesting than scrutinizing, and yet it demanded an honest answer.

"Every step I took away from you, just got me closer to you." Will shook his head. "there is no point in going back."

Hannibal pushed himself away from the railing to stand on both of his feet again, breathing in sharply, as he had to carry his own weight again. Slowly Will turned to him, continuing,

"You once told me that you care about my life and not the ones that I save..…" He thought about it for a moment. "I don't save lives anymore. I'm clear about what life I care about now." He looked Hannibal directly in the eyes as the words left his lips. It was a promise and a decision.
Deep down he could feel that the part of him that decided to betray Hannibal instead of blurring with him was still alive. But it too was accepting now, while the other part of his mind was madly in love with Hannibal Lecter and the idea of hunting with him.

He sucked in the air as Hannibal was reaching for his neck, pulling Will's body closer to his own. Careful to not inflict more pain, Wills fingers dug into Hannibal's shoulder as he let go of the railing. Their eyes were glancing into each other. Being that close to Hannibal had something intimate and comforting, but at the same time touch between the two of them had almost always been followed by pain.

"Your fall as a tragic hero turned out to our advantage. For the public the picture is complete, since the Dragon managed to capture it more or less well," Hannibal said.

For once the Dragons obsession with filming the death of his victims, had been helpful to them.

"They all believe the ocean devoured us. There might be nothing in our way anymore."

Without any rush the hand that was holding his neck pushed through his messy locks, making its way to his face. He enjoyed the warmth that Hannibal's touch caused on his skin. Exploring the structure of the bones his fingers stopped for a moment to then follow the lines of the scar that hasn't been on there for too long.
Wills lips curled to a smile.

"I guess we will have to devour them then," Hannibal said playfully.

The words echoed in Will's head.