The moment they fell, Will surrendered himself and Hannibal to chance. Whatever happened to them was no longer Will's design, or Hannibal's. It was a gamble with mortality, destiny's roll of the dice.

The pair nearly broke apart from each other during the fall. Their entrance into the water was like hitting a layer of glass, which shattered upon impact, splashing fragments into the air. Saltwater entered their open wounds, stinging like fine shards. Through the pain, the two of them tried to stay together, grabbing desperate fistfuls of each other's shirts as bubbles and clouds of blood encased their bodies. They sunk surprisingly deep despite having fallen so close to the ocean's edge. The soothing darkness of the water below invited them to embrace death. It would have been easy to let themselves drown.

Hannibal was not one for accepting the easy option.

They were going to live, he decided; he would make sure of it. He finally had all that he wanted for himself and for Will, and he was not about to let the water take it away from him. Hannibal started to fight towards the surface, kicking determinedly. Will sensed that Hannibal was trying to pull them upward. He released his grip on Hannibal, who did likewise so each could make use of his arms, and joined him in swimming until both of them broke surface, taking great breaths of the air they may never have tasted again.

"I admire your effort, Will, but it will take more than that to kill me," Hannibal teased, still catching his breath. Will made a small choke of a laugh in response.

"I can't kill you, Hannibal," said Will, "Not when fate has a record of letting you live."

"Then let's not give fate a reason to change its mind," said Hannibal, looking up at the cliff they had fallen from, "We're both targets now. We can't be sure when the enemy will reach us."

Will nodded. He treaded water and looked along the cliff side. A cove was scooped out of the land nearby, its shape still distinct in the darkness. Will looked back at Hannibal, who met his gaze. Over there.

They swam, struggling with the little energy that remained in them. The instinct to survive was strong enough to temporarily allow them to fight through the pain, though not enough to completely overcome fatigue. Will found himself slowing down as he approached the shore, but he still managed to stand up, clumsily, when the water became shallow enough. He gave himself a couple seconds to find his balance before turning to check on Hannibal. He saw the water, and then nothing.

"Hannibal!"

A form bobbed in the moonlit water, only to be swallowed up again by the next wave. Panic sent Will stumbling back into the ocean. His strokes were wild; his frantic kicks rocked his body to either side. He had to get to Hannibal, even if it meant playing a deadly game with risk again.

Will had wanted to kill Hannibal before, to prove his understanding of him—after all, Hannibal would have done the same. When Dolarhyde had burst in on them at the house, Will became curious to see the Dragon change Hannibal. Yet once the transformation was in progress and Hannibal was bleeding on the floor, Will envisioned himself on the night he had rejected Hannibal's offer for family. He saw himself in a slick of blood, his and Abigail's, the cut in his middle oozing with red. And then his cut became Hannibal's cut, and he became Hannibal, and the reality of Hannibal now in Will's position replaced the memory. That was when Will realized Hannibal Lecter's life had to be his. He couldn't let Dolarhyde take him. If that selfishness meant returning Hannibal's feelings, Will supposed, they couldn't continue to be separated.

After what seemed like minutes but was only seconds, Will wrapped an arm around Hannibal's body. He swam back to land, carrying Hannibal with him. When he reached the point where he could stand again, he dragged Hannibal to shore, holding him under the arms and around the chest, setting him down on the sand. Will kneeled at his companion's side and gently turned the other man's head to face him. Hannibal's eyes were closed. Will slid his fingers down Hannibal's jaw to a point on the neck where he intended to check for a pulse, but simply rested his hand there instead when he heard ragged breathing. Hannibal coughed up the fortunately small amount of water he had inhaled and opened his eyes wearily.

"Will," he rasped, reaching out his own hand to cover Will's.

"We made it."

Hannibal let go of Will's hand to reach an arm around Will's back, and Will repositioned his arm over Hannibal's shoulder. They stood up together, steadying each other, clothing sticking to the outlines of their skin, hair sending droplets down their faces. After a few steps, Hannibal leaned heavier into Will's side and Will took it as a sign that Hannibal was not ready to walk very far. They headed for a nearby group of brown boulders that appeared to have once been part of the bluffs. Hannibal slid out of Will's touch and selected a relatively smooth boulder to lie against. Will sat next to him, and laid his head back against the same boulder. Hannibal turned to look at Will. Will did not look back at him, but up toward the sky.

"It's going to rain," he said plainly, and fell silent. He didn't move, only continuing to look at the grey clouds overhead. They both sat there for a few minutes, taking in the scent of the ocean and the moisture in the air and the feel of the sand underneath them, simply appreciating all the things that meant being alive.

"We should find a place for shelter." Hannibal finally broke the silence. He got up, and Will followed, and they walked along the shore at the pace exhaustion limited them to, for an amount of time neither of them was sure of.

They had just begun to feel the first drops of rain when they saw it a distance away. A small, empty cave, their salvation. The rain built in intensity, but neither of the men had the strength to run through it. They let it wash over them until they were able to walk through the mouth of the cave. They sat down inside, facing each other. Will began to shiver with cold, and Hannibal felt the cold start to affect him as well. Hannibal stood up and tugged his shirt over his head.

"To best avoid hypothermia, we should remove our wet clothing and use each other for body heat," he explained.

"I wasn't aware that our relationship had reached that point," said Will, trying to be as poker-faced as possible.

"What point would that be?"

"What point are you wanting it to be?"

Hannibal looked Will directly in the eyes. "You're being juvenile, Will."

Will broke their eye contact and looked down at his shirt, which water had made translucent against his skin. He proceeded to unbutton it, somehow nervous that Hannibal could be watching him, but when he looked up, Hannibal was sitting with his head bowed, wearing only his trousers, which he had rolled up to his knees. It was an uncharacteristically passive look for him.

"I hope you are not too uncomfortable," Hannibal said.

"'Uncomfortable' was my default state for a long time. But I wouldn't say that's how I'm feeling right now." Will dropped his bloodstained shirt on the sand, then worked on removing his shoes and socks.

"That's reassuring to know."

"What I'm feeling right now," Will continued, "Is relief, mostly."

"You don't regret leaving your old life behind?"

"...I don't know. You certainly wouldn't, in my position."

"I find regret to be an inconvenience. It too often gets in the way of progress, so I allow myself to feel very little of it. Such is not the case with you, Will. You may find yourself wishing for your wife and stepson, at the same time knowing you can never return to them."

"Life with Molly and Walter was good most of the time," said Will, returning to his position across from Hannibal, "And I would be lying if I said that I didn't love them. But sometimes our life together felt scripted, like I had to pretend to be someone else. I could only allow them to see the part of me they could accept. It wasn't fair to them. When I went back into the field, it was practically a countdown until the rest of me would show itself."

"If they were to look at you now, what do you think they would see differently?"

"They would see..." Will paused, deep in thought. "They would see you, Hannibal."

Hannibal smiled.

"We see our beloved in ourselves, and those who love us in return see themselves reflected back. To truly connect to another person is to be able to see them through both a window and a mirror." He reached out to caress Will's unscarred cheek.

"I see myself when I look at you, Will."

Will didn't know what to say after that. He looked over Hannibal, whose eyes were the most honest they had ever been. Although Hannibal was an expert user of deception, Will could now often see underneath the mask of his facial expressions, knowing Hannibal's true nature as the Chesapeake Ripper. This time there wasn't a mask. Hannibal looked genuine; this man who would think of himself as the equal of a devil or a god (there being no distinction in his mind between them) looked so human. And yet, he was a monster of a man who had torn down victim after victim, physically, psychologically, or in Will's case, both. The difference between Will Graham and any other victim was that Graham had evolved to become Lecter's equal. Will could now manipulate Hannibal as much as Hannibal could manipulate him. Hannibal knew this, but it provoked a fascination in him instead of paranoia. Will was a venomous temptation.

"Hannibal," said Will. He moved in to close the gap between them, his hand sliding over one shoulder, head resting on the other, gently embracing Hannibal. "We're still bleeding."

"I know."

Will broke away, slowly. He picked up his rain-soaked shirt from behind him.

"Here, let me..."

Will kneeled in front of Hannibal and leaned over him to tie the shirt around his waist, covering the injury Hannibal had sustained from Francis Dolarhyde's bullet.

"...for stopping the blood. It's the best we can do with what we have."

"You're also injured," Hannibal reminded him. "Are you hurting?"

"No, it doesn't really hurt anymore."

"Pain is the body's response to a threat. Sometimes the brain can rewire itself to temporarily ignore the danger signals in moments after serious trauma. A phenomenon known as neuroplasticity." Hannibal pressed one of his hands over the part of the shirt that now covered his injury. "I'm not in pain either, but doing what we can to treat our injuries is still imperative. Here—" He tossed his own shirt to Will with his other hand. "You gave me yours, so use mine."

"Thanks," Will said, holding Hannibal's shirt to the knife wound by his shoulder and transitioning into a position on his back.

Hannibal mirrored Will's movements so that they were lying next to each other on the sand. He cautiously reached for Will's hand, unsure of the other man's comfort level, but Will firmly and confidently grasped Hannibal's hand and entwined their fingers.

They relaxed like that for a while. When Hannibal turned his head to see how Will was doing, he saw that his companion had fallen asleep.

Will was a masterpiece, Hannibal thought. Hannibal had broken Jack's 'fragile little teacup' and watched as Will came back together as something even more appealing than before. It could be said that Will was reborn as a work of kintsukuroi, Japanese pottery repaired with gold where it had been cracked apart. Will was unique as far as art was concerned because he had repaired and reformed himself without an artist. Hannibal may have struck the match in Will's Becoming, but Will had to rise out of the ashes on his own.

Will Graham's mind was a boundless field of imagination. His extraordinary capacity for empathy allowed him to mirror the most disturbed and unconventional thinkers. Hannibal had wanted to devour that fascinating mind. If he couldn't have Will, he would have absorbed him by eating his brain. But it was Will who had consumed Hannibal. Will had ripped a space for himself in Hannibal's being, where there was now a weakness. The only other person for whom Hannibal had felt anything close to that weakness was Mischa, but Will was not her replacement; Will was not like a sibling.

Hannibal had felt attraction to other people—men, women, it didn't matter—but before Will he had he never desired to be understood so completely by another human being. Just being able to see Will, to touch Will, was an indulgence. Hannibal was trapped, inescapably, in an untamable sensation between longing and pleasure. He was entranced by not only the artistic mind, but the physical beauty of Will, and he saw this in the affection-blinded way that made Will's imperfections irrelevant.

Hannibal felt perfectly content as he watched Will sleep, observing the scars marking the man's body, (some of which Hannibal had carved himself), watching the subtle the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the quiet breaths leaving his slightly parted mouth. Will's hair was a tangled mess, the cut in his cheek painted with drying blood,and to Hannibal he couldn't have looked more beautiful. He was the perfect final image for Hannibal to see before drifting into sleep.