Dark Paradise

I

Everytime I close my eyes

I thank Astrid, my beta.

I opened my eyes in the dark. A peek at the clock told me it was three in the morning. I sighed and focused my gaze on the ceiling. Sleep wasn't going to come back. Next to me, Molly slept like a log. Her calm and regular breathing resounded in the quiet room. The night noises from the outside were muffled by the closed window. I threw off the sheet and the blanket, both covered in sweat despite the bitter cold of the winter, and quietly walked out of the room, without bothering to put on a shirt. I walked down the corridor without switching on the lights, my bare feet avoiding the creaking floorboards, and entered the kitchen where soft yips welcomed me. A wet nose rubbed itself against my hand, a bushy tail whipped my naked calf.

"Shh." I whistled gently, to calm dogs.

I bent over the kitchen sink, opened the cold water tap and put my cupped hands under the ice-cold jet before splashing my sweaty face. Then, I raised my head, my hands pressed on the stainless steel edge, my eyes intent on the black night outside the window. Absentmindedly, I blindly seized a glass and filled it, before quenching my thirst. I had been a long time since I'd last dreamed of Florence. But, despite all the protections which I had established, seeing Hannibal again wasn't without consequence. I hadn't changed. I was just… hibernating. Guarded by the sweetness, the understanding and the patience of Molly. Slowly, but surely, she had got me back on my feet. Except that there was nothing to repair. I wasn't broken or fragile, just haunted by the soul of the only person who had really understood me, the one who had shown me another path, another way of seeing the world and helped me reconcile with my internal darkness. Until the break. Until I was too afraid by the voracious passion, by the madness which tied us together, by this need to devour each other to become one. Then, he had given up the most important thing for him, for me. His freedom. So that I would always know where to find him. And for three years, he had waited, while I tried hard to live as if he had never existed. But, my respite ended here.

Molly was still recovering from her wounds. Nevertheless, we had been able to go back home. Home. The house where I suddenly no longer felt welcome. Something had broken between us. She hardly spoke to me after the release from the hospital. I knew that she regretted having convinced me to visit Hannibal. She hadn't thought that I would return so different. But, the damage was done now and we would both have to deal with it. There was also Walter, who had been capable of sitting down in front of a baseball match, after he coldly advised me to kill a man and reminded me of this past which I tried to forget since I had met his mother. The boy remained stubbornly silent, sometimes for hours, glued to Molly more than ever. I had the impression that our trio had shrunk to a duet, and I have no longer a place with them. I didn't know how we were going to get over it. Not to mention that the Dragon was still out there. But, it was not an option to go away again, for now. Fuck Jack. He would have to find another lure for his fishing line.

I watched the sun rise, without really feeling the cold which spread goose bumps over my skin, lost between my thoughts which turned obsessively around reminiscences of my nightmare. Then, while Molly and Walter still slept, I silently got dressed and decided to go for a walk with the dogs.

…

When I returned, frozen but a little more clearheaded, the lights had been switched on. The dogs grouped together in front of the door, and while I climbed porch stairs at a run to warm myself, I was surprised that I didn't see Molly opening the door for them to climb in and warm themselves. I made my way, gave some caresses in passing and entered, fighting to keep my balance as the dogs pushed me aside to rush in to the warmth of the house. While they scattered, I stumbled over a suitcase put on the ground near the coat rack, before raising my eyes to the lounge. Molly waited for me with Walter, sitting silently on the sofa. I was afraid of understanding her intentions.

"What are you doing?" I asked with a toneless voice.

"We're leaving." She coldly announced. "I called my sister and she will accommodate us for the time being until I can find something else."

"What? Why?"

"Honey, go to your room, please." She said to her son.

He didn't protest, got up and walked past me without a look.

"Will you explain?" I questioned her, when we ended up alone.

She searched for adequate words for a few seconds, and I tried hard to stay calm while standing.

"Do you know that you speak in your sleep?"

"Excuse me?"

"When we met, you spoke every night. But, I knew that you had lived through difficult things and I didn't take offence at it. Then, your nightmares became scarce, until they disappeared. I thought that we could leave all this behind us and build something together. And it worked. For three years. Three years when I accepted that I would never know everything about you, that there would be always a part of you which would escape me, hidden from me. But, you had the right to have your secret garden and this mysterious side wasn't void of charm. Then, Jack Crawford came. And, God knows as I regret it, I urged you to resume your old job, because I thought above all else of these poor families. I thought that it would have been able to be us. Until it really happens."

"I'm sorry about that. I didn't realize… If I'd known…"

"What is done cannot be undone, Will." She interrupted me. "I wasn't angry with you, but with him." And I knew that she didn't speak about the Dragon. "You brought us home and insisted to stay away from the investigation, to never leave us again. But…"

"My nightmares returned." I understood.

She nodded her head, close to tears.

"Most of the time, I don't even understand what you say. But, when you whisper his name in the middle of the night, with this pleading voice… As if you were haunted…"

"What have you done?" I whispered, by guessing that she didn't leave me because of some dreams in which I had no control.

"I wanted to see him. Speak to him. Understand."

A panic wave shook me from head to foot and I was going to interrupt her when she spoke again.

"Don't worry. I didn't have the right to meet him. Doctor Bloom stopped me." A sigh of relief escaped me. "Then, she told me."

"Told what?" I asked. I had a bad feeling.

"Everything." A tear ran down her cheek. "All that you have never told me. All these things you've hidden from me or distorted to make yourself appear as a victim… She told me that you were like him."

"It's not… completely true." I sighed, dropping down heavily on an old armchair, before resting my face in my hands.

"What do you mean?"

"I… It's hard to explain."

"Well, try me. Because Walter spoke to me about this article that he read about you. Now… He thinks that you should kill this freak. He's twelve years old, Will, goddammit!"

"I'm not responsible of what he's doing on the Internet! I don't control my nightmares or what your son does while I'm miles away from here, Molly! It's not me who wrote this article! I would like to understand why you suddenly decided to leave!" I screamed, by raising me.

"Because I feel I don't know you anymore! In fact, I doubt I have ever know you! And I can't live with you anymore while asking myself constantly if he manipulated you or if, on the contrary, you were completely aware of what you did when you killed this man, when you warned him that FBI were coming to arrest him, when you spent your days in his deserted house, plunged into your memories. You crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a fishing boat to find him, for God's sake!" She became enraged, standing up to face me.

Rage shone in her eyes, her hands trembled and her breath was erratic.

"It's not… It's complicated." I faltered. "He developed an unhealthy obsession for me. He persuaded me that I was like him, he's rooted himself so deeply in my mind that when he ran away without me, I… missed him." I tried to explain. "I found him to kill him, Molly. Because I had the impression that as long as he would live somewhere, I would never be at peace. But nothing went the way it was supposed to. I needed months to find his track. I learned things about him. Things which changed everything. I understood how he had become what he is. I forgave him…"

"How could you… After everything he did to you…"

"I realized that I had broken his heart. He did this because he was hurt…"

"Do you even listen to yourself?!" She interrupted me again. "Normal people don't do that when they're hurt! Normal people don't kill for fun!"

"He doesn't kill for fun, Molly. You don't understand him."

She looked at me, shocked.

"Apparently, I don't understand you either. So please, tell me. Why does he do it?"

"For a lot of reasons. He's curious about the human nature, doesn't support the rudeness. Sometimes, his survival instinct compels him to it, when a person unmasks him or knows too much about him. He's not sadistic. He doesn't torture. Fear damages the meat and it's not its purpose."

"Shut up." She stopped me, clearly disgusted. "You speak about him as if his way of being was acceptable."

"Because it is, to me." I murmured, by thinking about my sessions with Doctor Du Maurier. She too had understood certain things, about him and about me. "He's a man of integrity. He always tells the truth, in his way. He's honest, by completely accepting his nature. It's certainly controversial, condemnable, difficult to understand, but it's acceptable. Because he's completely sane and perfectly logical."

"He sent a serial killer to eliminate us, Will! Where is the logic in there? Why would he do that?"

"To claim his rights on me!" I cried, unintentionally.

This conversation became uncomfortable.

"So… She was right." She whispered, after a few seconds, with a toneless voice.

"Who?" I asked, even if I knew the answer.

"Doctor Bloom. I didn't want to believe her, but she was right when she told me that he's in love with you."

I sighed, by closing my eyes. Because I guessed easily the next question. Nevertheless, her words hurt me.

"Are you in love with him too?"

"Don't be ridiculous! I love you!" I answered, by seizing her shoulders.

But she brutally twisted herself free.

"Are you also going to forgive him what he did to us?"

"If that was the case, I wouldn't be there. I would have stayed in Baltimore."

"But you don't deny his feelings for you."

"He doesn't love me… Not in the same way you mean it. He simply wants to be the most important person in my life. He surrendered himself to stay near me and I ignored him for three years. Then, he found an opportunity to get my attention. When he discovered that I had married, he took it badly, because that meant that his power over me had ended, that I had forgotten him. He did that to isolate me, so that I would need him again. When he saw that he had failed, he told me that he was behind it, to see what would happen. That's what he does, Molly. He causes events and waits to see the result."

She stared at me, open-mouthed, for a long second. Then, she raised her hands in sign of abandonment.

"I need time to think." She claimed.

But I could see the determination in her eyes and I knew that she wouldn't come back. She had said it to spare me and so that I would let her go. Resigned, I nodded silently, and she called Walter, put the suitcases in her car and disappeared at the end of the road.