Chapter 12
Late spring had set in Los Angeles coating everything in green hues and warm seas. Alana stood in a, not even close to being empty, beach feeling the sun shine down on her smiling softly. Waves were crushing at her feet and Applesauce was running up and down kicking sand everywhere playing with a few random children.
A presence nearby made her turn her head away from the infinite blue and look over her shades. The soft smile widened and she pushed the sunglasses to sit atop her head pulling her hair away from her eyes
"Hello sailor, come here often?"
Hannibal, in full three piece suit and with his shoes on looked utterly out of place He knew it too. With a grimace he walked to her and knelt next to her on the soft blanker.
"Hello beautiful"
No sooner had his butt sat on the blanket, Hannibal reached to hug Alana and pull her in his lap.
"I missed you"
He whispered softly in her ear causing her to grin. It had been too long since he had last held her after she had showed up in his house in the middle of the night in late December.
"I missed you too. So much… Is everything finished and over with back east?"
Hannibal pulled back to look her in the eyes and nodded
"Everything is over. Clean slates, no deaths, all investigations in the murders gone cold"
Alana smiled pleased. Then she nodded
"Everything is ready here too. The practice has grown considerably so far, Sharon has put me in contact with a few judges and I get a lot of custody cases"
Wrapping her fingers around his pale blue tie she pulled him to her and kissed him hard.
"You can start your own workload buster"
Hannibal's laughter was loud and contagious and attracted Applesauce's attention away from the children she had been playing with and ran to them, knocking them both backwards and asking to be petted.
Hannibal's breath was knocked out of his chest but he certainly did not mind and wrapped both arms around Alana's waist tighter and she laid her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat strong and steady.
They had come to an agreement all those months ago. She wouldn't ask and he wouldn't say who provided the meat in their dinner table. She would help him cover the origins as long as those origins would not trace back to them.
"I love you"
She whispered in his shirt and when he replied in kind, she bit her bottom lip and looked in his eyes.
"I have a story to tell you"
"What story?"
Alana took a breath
"Ten years ago I used to live with my parents in upper New York, near the border with Canada on Niagara Falls. Just after finishing med school, a few months after my sister died I got a retail job. And then..."
The end.
