New fanfic…again. I'm feeling productive, figure I'd better take advantage of it. This is another Blade: Trinity fanfic, this time taking place after the movie. I wanted to see what was running through Hannibal's head afterwards; figured it might be interesting. So here it is (I know the title sucks; I've never been really good at that part):

Acceptance

After they got back to the Honeycomb Hideout, as Hannibal had dubbed it a year ago, the two remaining Nightstalkers were beat. Both had been on an emotional rollercoaster over the past few days, and neither particularly wanted to talk about it. First meeting Blade, and feeling confident about the situation, and then having it all taken from them; they weren't sure what to do. Of course, King had no idea of the depth of their loss, as Abby hadn't had the heart to tell him yet, but they both were in a bad place. "What the fuck happened here?" Asked Hannibal, upon entering the room Sommerfield had used as a lab. "And where is everyone?"

Abby bit her tongue. It really wouldn't be a good idea to say anything sarcastic, as that would only worsen the mood, and there was no need to upset Zoe. "Drake got in while Blade and I were out, which you must have figured out by know, and he wrecked everything. I wasn't going to tell you this until later, but they're dead. He killed them all." She began to cry, in frustration or in mourning for her friends she didn't know.

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King didn't know what to say. It was his fault, and he knew it. Well, he knew it wasn't entirely his fault, but he couldn't help but feel responsible. After all, he fell asleep after Abby and Blade left to confront Drake, and he should have been alert for danger. He had known the situation was critical, but he fell asleep anyway. Typical; when things got intense he always fucked it up, or according to Abby he did. But this time was different. This time he had fucked up big time, and the price was huge; he had failed everyone who relied on him to do his job. Somehow he had known something bad was going to happen; after all, when a dead guy comes into your room something is definitely wrong. But he hadn't even handled that well; he had just said, "Dude, you're dead," like nothing was really wrong with that. I mean, come on; the bad guy can present himself as anyone, even the dead, and a dead guy shows up. Chances are…

He didn't even know how to help Abby out; he had never been good at that consoling stuff, so he knew he would only make it worse. He made up some excuse about needing air that sounded fake even to him, and left the building. He walked down the street, needing a place to clear his head of the thoughts swirling in his head. How could he have been so stupid? On top of that, he had all the guilt left over from his decision in Danica's funroom. He was sure he had made the right decision, but it hurt him to know what Danica had pushed him to do. He would never forgive himself for that. Luckily Zoe had no idea what had happened, so at least she would still trust him, even if he didn't trust himself. He didn't want to ruin her innocence with his damn pride. He needed a beer. Or maybe something stronger; there were too many painful thoughts that he really didn't want to deal with right now. Luckily, he knew where the nearest bar was…

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A few hours later Hannibal stumbled through the door. Abby heard him from her room, but didn't want to deal with him right now; it would only end in yelling, and he was drunk, if she knew how he operated, and likely wouldn't remember it the next morning.

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"Why does he keep ignoring me?" Abby looked down at Zoe, sitting on the floor of the room that used to be the lab. "What do you mean, sweetie?" Abby had noticed a change in Hannibal's behavior over the past few days, but hadn't noticed a change in attitude towards Zoe, since Abby generally tried to avoid him lately. He had been in a bad mood for the past few days, sulking in his room and leaving a room whenever she entered it. She had tried to talk to him, but every time she did they ended up in an argument, since he insisted on blaming the deaths of the rest of the Nightstalkers on himself. She kept telling him it wasn't, that it had been something unforeseeable, but he refused to listen to reason, shutting down and becoming incommunicative after a few minutes.

"At breakfast this morning he wouldn't look at me. I kept trying to talk to him, but he kept staring into his cereal. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, babe. He's just having a tough time, everyone being gone and all. He'll get better, I promise." Would he? Abby wasn't sure. This one had hit him hard; first having to deal with the person he hated and feared beyond anything else to save the Nightstalkers, and then finding out that almost everyone he knew and trusted was dead; she didn't blame him for feeling the way he did. She just hoped that he worked through this, for all their sakes.

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Hannibal sat in his room thinking. A stupid thing to do as of late, as it always left him more disgusted with himself than before he started, but he couldn't help it. He felt bad about Zoe; she didn't deserve the way he was treating her, but he couldn't look her in the eyes, not after what he had done. He knew that he had done the right thing; the Nightstalkers had saved his ass, and he owed it to them to save theirs every once in a while. Plus, they were his friends, and he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he betrayed them. But it was Zoe; the kid who had wanted to hang out with him when he was still under the fang, the kid he watched cartoons with and looked out for like a brother. No matter how much he tried to deny it, he had been tempted to tell Danica everything she wanted to know, as long as it meant he wouldn't be forced to feed on Zoe. He would have tried to kill himself first, of course; he knew how much he could push back the thirst. But in the end it would have been futile; Danica wouldn't have let him go through with it, and the thirst always won out in the end. That's why he couldn't bear to look Zoe in the eyes; he knew he would have fed on her in the end, and it nearly killed him to admit it, even to himself.

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Abby knocked on his door. This was ridiculous; it had been almost a week, and they had barely talked, unless it had to do with hunting. Those discussions usually dealt with the game plan, which King never followed, opting instead to apparently see how many vamps he could ash in as short an amount of time as possible, with no regard for his own safety. It had to stop; she wasn't sure how much more of his self-destructive behavior she could take. He spent most days out at bars getting thoroughly drunk, spent nights out hunting with her, and she doubted he was sleeping. "Hannibal? You in there?" She heard a grunt come from inside. "I know you're there; come on, open the door. We need to talk."

She heard footsteps come to the door, and it opened slightly. He stood there, looking like death warmed over. He looked to be wearing the same cargos and wifebeater he had worn all week, and looked like he hadn't showered or shaved or done much of anything in the way of personal hygiene in as long. He held a bottle of whiskey that looked to be three quarters of the way empty, and his breath smelled as if it wasn't the only bottle he had been through. He looked at her blearily through red-rimmed eyes, although if it was from the drinking or lack of sleep she couldn't tell. She wanted to scream at him; didn't he realize they needed him? That whatever he was going through, they wanted to help, that they were there for him, but he was making it really hard for them to do that? Instead, she did the only thing that had ever made him open up to her; "Come on, this isn't like you. What's the matter? I know, you have this stupid macho thing that won't let you talk about this kinda thing, but I need to know what's wrong if we're going to work through this."

He sighed, then nodded in defeat, opened the door further and walked back into his room, indicating Abby to follow him. After clearing the bed of various bottles of alcohol in varying stages of emptiness, they both sat down. King still wouldn't look at her, opting to remain silent until she started asking questions. At least he had put the bottle down and looked as if he was willing to cooperate. "Okay, so I know you feel responsible for what happened, but why are you taking it so hard? It could have happened to anyone."

"I think I've accepted that, actually. I'm over it." He sounded a hell of a lot more sober than he looked. Abby was surprised. "But if you've accepted it, then why are you still hiding from us? We don't blame you, and you don't blame you; what's the issue?"

"The issue is fucking Danica! It's always fucking Danica!" His voice rose, and he started rummaging around, looking for a relatively full bottle. Abby grabbed him, pulling him back to the bed. "No more booze. I'm sorry, but if we're going to get through whatever the hell it is you have a problem with, you have to stay sober or it's not going to help." She couldn't keep the scorn out of her voice. She knew it wasn't helping, but she couldn't stop herself from getting frustrated at his inability to get through problems without alcohol. She knew it was an issue when she met him, but she had hoped that after a year it would go away. It hadn't, and it pissed her off.

"Fine," he mumbled. "Do you know what Danica was trying to do before you guys showed up?" She had an idea, but only what he had told her, which wasn't much other than that she had wanted him to give her the Nightstalkers and was using Zoe as incentive. He hadn't said how, but knowing Danica it probably wasn't pleasant. "She wanted to know about Daystar, and I refused to tell her. She knocked me around a little bit, got Jarko to knock me around a little bit, then pulled out the big guns when I still refused." He fell silent for a minute, gathering himself for the next part, took a deep breath, and plunged on, seeming to focus more on the words he was saying than the meaning behind them. "She signaled to someone behind her, and the door opened, and Zoe was brought in. Danica leaned in close and started talking about how she was going to turn me again if I didn't tell her about Daystar. She didn't know about Daystar itself, she just figured we had something that we were going to use against them…it really got her panties in a bunch to know we had something she didn't know about." He smiled wryly.

Abby contemplated this new development. She hadn't known that Danica had threatened him with the thing he feared most. She couldn't imagine how he must have felt. As if Danica hadn't fucked his life up enough already. "So why was Zoe there?" She had a sinking suspicion she knew where this was going, but she needed to hear it from him.

"Can we finish this another time? I know you're sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for the exciting conclusion of this week's episode of 'Fucked Up Stories From the Life of Hannibal King,' but I can't do it. Not now."

"Come on, Hannibal. You need to get it off your chest. I know you; if you don't, it'll eat away at you even more than it already has, and you'll be no use to anyone, Zoe included. She needs you, King; she's out of her mind trying to figure out what she did to get you so pissed off at her."

He sighed. "I'm not pissed at her, Abby. I'm pissed at myself for letting it get as far as it did."

"But she doesn't know that. She's just a kid; she doesn't understand that whatever the hell happened to make you act this way isn't her fault."

"Alright. If it'll make you leave me alone about it I'll tell you what happened." His voice became pained; whatever was coming, it hurt him immensely to tell her. " Zoe was brought in, and Danica told me that if I didn't tell her what we were up to she'd bite me again and let me sit in that fucking room basically until I wouldn't be able to control the thirst anymore. Then, she said she'd send in Zoe. You can probably figure out the rest." Finishing the hardest part of his story, he lay back and closed his eyes. "Now will you let me get back to my drinking?"

She didn't blame him for wanting to drink himself into unconsciousness. After that story she wanted a shot or two. And she could understand why he avoided Zoe; he couldn't stand to be in the same room with her knowing what he would have been forced to do had Blade and she not gotten there when they did. But he couldn't hide forever; he would have to face Zoe sometime.

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Hannibal sat in the dark; something he had been doing a lot of lately. He still had many of the abilities he had gained after being bitten; nightvision, for one. That came in handy, especially times like now; no one would bother him, because they would assume he was asleep. He also was much stronger than an average guy his size and build, which was helpful when he was out hunting with Abby, although she could still manage to kick his ass in hand-to-hand combat, which never failed to annoy him. So maybe the five years with Danica wasn't so bad; although they royally sucked while he was going through them, now he could do things he wouldn't have been able to otherwise. So what if his teeth were a little sharper than they should have been, or if he still had the damn glyph; they were reminders of how he had gotten here. He had a family, a twisted little family, but a family nonetheless, and if he had to put aside his shame over recent events to protect them, he would do it.

Zoe walked into the room, tiptoeing to try to avoid detection. "Hey Zo," he said, trying not to spook her. She jumped a foot anyway. "It's okay, it's just me." She peered into the darkness, trying to pinpoint exactly where he was. "To your left, babe." She turned to her right. "Your other left, goose."

"Oh." She then turned in the correct direction and began to walk forwards with her arms out in front of her until Hannibal grabbed her when she got close. "You're not mad at me anymore?" She asked, confused at the sudden attention.

"No, Zo, I could never be mad at you, never ever." He hugged her close, glad that Abby had made him tell her what had been bugging him. "I just needed to think through some things. But it's ok now."

She snuggled closer. "I'm glad. I missed you."

"I missed you too. Want to watch cartoons?" Zoe nodded her head vigorously. "Then let's watch." With that, he turned on the TV, and they settled down to watch.

A few hours later, Abby walked by the room. The TV was still on, with Loony Tunes playing, but King was fast asleep, with Zoe sitting in his lap, not far behind. She smiled. Everything was back to normal, or as close as it was going to get.