Author's Note- I hope everyone is enjoying thus far! Sorry if my updates are sporadic. Unfortunately life likes to get in the way.
They accidentally become official when Alana lets the word "boyfriend" slip while on the phone with her brother Noam.
She doesn't even pause to register the alien nature of the word on her tongue, as she keeps pushing her grocery cart (notably devoid of meat) down the aisle in search of food for the dogs that have slowly become theirs. She even smiles, feeling a warmth spread through her, as she answers Noam's questions. "Yes, I said boyfriend." "Yes it's Will Graham." "Yes I'm okay!" She practically exclaims the last one, exasperated that her own brother would doubt her instincts and believe the bilge that Freddie Lounds liked to publish. "I must have told you a million times what happened, in the hospital."
"You didn't, actually." Noam says on the other end. "You kept asking for Blue Horse, and telling me to make the room stop changing colors."
"I did NOT." Her cheeks turn red at the mention of her favorite stuffed animal from childhood.
"You did SO." She pauses to lift a heavy bag of dry dog food into the cart. "Okay, you asked for Blue Horse once. Can't a guy mock his baby sister every once in a while?"
"You're a jerk brother, Noam Bloom."
"But I'm your jerk brother. But seriously. I trust you. I just have to make sure, after...well, after the incident with the window and all."
He's right, and she can't stay mad at him for long. After all, he was the one who slept in the waiting room practically every night from the moment he found out she was in the hospital. Who held her hand while she cried out in agony when the painkillers weren't enough, who handled everything back at home, who kept Freddie Lounds at bay. He'd even snuck in her favorite: black-and-white cookies, when she was well enough to eat again. So it is on good terms that she hangs up the phone, takes a deep breath, and artfully avoids looking at the slabs of Saran-Wrapped meat as she passes through the meat aisle.
It goes without saying that nowadays they are both mostly vegetarians. Alana all but screamed when she was presented with a hospital tray bearing meatloaf (that was another thing she had Noam to thank for, arranging that she only get vegetarian meals). Will had merely vomited profusely when he attempted to eat the same meal, a few floors away from Alana. It finally caught up to him there, in the hospital bed, that he'd been eating people.
Fish is their one exception. Will refuses to stop fishing on account of Hannibal the Cannibal, who took so many precious things from Will's life already. "He can't have this, too." He tells his new psychiatrist, who encourages it. It's a good thing to have, she tells Will. Something that cannot be tainted by memories. And so he keeps on fishing. Even brings Alana along, after a fashion. He is initially afraid that she will see it for what it is, two people going on a killing spree, with the intent of desecrating and eating the shiny-scaled creatures that wiggle violently on the ends of their hooks. But she doesn't really think of it as anything but Will Graham sharing a passion of his with his girlfriend.
She always ducks out when it comes time to scale and gut their catch. He doesn't mind. He always accepts her feeble excuses of needing to put aloe on her sunburnt face, even when she remembers to slather it in sunscreen before. Alana isn't protected by years' of mental images of his father's hands teaching him how and imparting on him his wisdom and stories. Alana will see Will being gutted with a knife, see herself being slapped into concrete as he slaps the fish on his work table, while Will can retreat to a corner of his mind filled with sunshine and his father.
"I should probably stop making excuses for self-care." Alana breaks the silence in the car, when they're driving back from a particularly good afternoon of fishing. "It's not fair to play pretend with you."
"No, it's not." He agrees. "Besides, I think I'd know if that adorable nose of yours was sunburnt." He teases, eliciting a smile from the passenger seat. God, he still feels like a child dropped smack dab in the middle of Disney World when she flashes that smile... "I think you know this, but you don't...you don't ever need to make excuses for self-care with me. Or feel like you have to pretend."
"I have this need to protect you from that side of me. Not just you, but it's stronger with you."
"From your vulnerable side?"
"From my damaged side."
"You're not-" he begins, but quiets when she raises her hand.
"There may always be a side of me that's been damaged by him, Will. Of you too. Look at all that's changed for us this past year. It goes beyond physical scars and odd twinges of pain. You and I both know how too well how trauma affects the human mind. There's no way around that fact." He swallows hard. It's the truth, and he knows it. He's known it from the moment he realized who Hannibal was. What Hannibal was. Still, he can't help but try to use lines from the unwritten, unspoken rules of being a good boyfriend, in his almost childish hopes to restore Alana to her full, pre-Hannibal self.
"It's unfair of me to try to shield you from what you already know, as if you're a child being kept in the dark." Ouch.
"Do you see me as a child?" His retort comes out sharp; years of people walking around eggshells around him, treating him as if he were fragile made him sensitive to such remarks.
"Probably a bad analogy."
"Definitely a bad analogy." He makes the turn onto the county road that begins the last leg of their trip home. "But...I won't hold a poor choice of words against you. Or your stubborn need to shield me from what we've both been through." She reaches across the center console to squeeze his thigh, he rewards her with a smile.
As they pull into his driveway, Alana breaks the silence again, taking a deep breath before she speaks. "While you take care of the fish, I am going to go inside and take care of myself. Because the sight and the reality of it is too much for me to handle, it reminds me of..." Her breath catches, Will finds himself pulling her into his arms as he spots the first sign of tears and the potential of a panic attack. "It reminds me of that." Her words are muffled against his t-shirt.
"And that is more than okay." He whispers into her hair.
"That was surprisingly simple." She says, when she feels strong enough to pull away. Will gives her an encouraging smile, watching her go inside the house before going to prepare his catch for dinner.