Elizabeth stared impassively at the the double doors in front of her.
"You sure you wanna do this," Bill asked quietly.
"If I don't this then I'll regret it later on besides...he already knows I'm here," she reminded him, tapping her nose. "I'll scream if I need anything."
Elizabeth walked cautiously yet confidently through the double doors as they opened. Hannibal stood behind the glass with his arms behind his back as if waiting for her these past years. His lips curled as he spoke, "You did always know how to hold a grudge, Elizabeth."
"I like to think that I have every right," she told him, stepping closer. "You cut your hair."
"So did you," he replied back. "You've changed a lot about your life so I've heard."
She scoffed. "I really don't appreciate how you manage to keep one foot in the door of my life. I'm not sorry that I moved on...we both knew that it was inevitable, that it would happen when you were arrested."
"Is it so hard to believe that I love you?"
"Yes because I've had to learn the hard way that you're incapable of love except when it comes to our children then that is the only time that I see love," Elizabeth answered honestly. "I didn't come here to fight you, Hannibal. I know you know something about The Tooth Fairy."
"You just informed me that I am neither a psychopath nor a sociopath so it is only fair to say that I have no idea what you are talking about."
"People are dying," she snapped angrily as she started to shove the photos of the families' dead and mutilated bodies onto the glass for him to see. "Families are being cut open left and right. For god's sakes, children are dying, Hannibal, innocent children. It broke my heart seeing them like this because it reminded me of our children and what that man can do if he chooses my family for his next stop."
Hannibal studied the pictures then sighed. "I must say that your techniques of manipulation have progressed greatly, Elizabeth."
"What can I say? I had a good teacher," she snapped calmly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why won't you help me, Hannibal?"
"Why did you say you loved me and yet bed another man?!" Hannibal suddenly shouted at her, losing himself in pure rage. "And the worst betrayal I have ever received is because of you."
"I'm pregnant," she announced. "Matthew knows and he was the happiest man I had ever seen when I told him. Matthew and I are happy, this is his baby, Hannibal. This is our life now, not yours. You lost me along your path towards your ambition and greed for blood, death, and mayhem. I loved you with every being in my body, but I couldn't compete with your sickness. I can't ever forgive you for what you did to James."
"His death was not my fault."
"Bullshit," she cried in anger. "I know you had something to do with it. I don't know how, but you did-you did something because one day he just ended up dead with his throat cut and his stomach stabbed sixty-two times. That's how many people you killed…the number that we know of at least. James was a good man; he cared about me and the kids. He wasn't perfect, but he was still good. Why did you take him away from me?"
Hannibal stepped closer, telling her, "Do you know how hard it is for me to watch my children grow up…to have the woman that I still love even after all this time move on without me…to only know of skin-to-skin contact through a glass wall…I can't hold my own children and it made me envious of the men in your life. David, Roger, James, Mathew…they don't deserve you. No one does and I cannot stand that they got to touch you…be inside of you and hear your laughter, Elizabeth. That's why I killed them."
"Don't you dare touch Mathew," she growled. "Please don't take my unborn child's father away from us. Hannibal, please."
"I cannot stand by idly and watch my life pass me by. You are my life. Those are my children, not his! No one gets my family! No one!"
"This is your fault to blame. You are the reason that you are in here, no one else…just you." Elizabeth reminded him angrily. "We've all changed. I'm moving on with my life and so should you instead of living in the past. Just be glad that I'm not a woman who keeps their children away from their criminal father. For now."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this isn't healthy for them to see you like this. I don't want them to remember their father like this especially Valerie since she's so young and she still sees you as the light of her life, she loves you more than me and she hangs onto your every word. You mean a lot to her and you know this."
"No," he snapped angrily. "Don't take them away from me. Don't take my children away, Lizzie."
Lizzie, she thought. He only ever calls me that whenever he really wants something…
"Then tell me everything you know about The Tooth Fairy and then they can still see you," she challenged.
Hannibal backed away and a smirk came onto his face. "I wouldn't have expect this from you, Elizabeth. Blackmail to get the job done."
"Well, you know me, I am very good at what I do, Hannibal. I always catch the killer in the end. I'm here about Chicago and Buffalo. You've read about it, I'm sure."
"I've read the papers. I can't clip them. They won't let me have scissors, of course. You want to know how he's choosing them."
"Jack put me on the case and I accepted. He's nothing like I've ever seen before. Thought you would have some ideas."
"You came here to see me although you never wanted to before. You wanted to forget all about me. You want me until you don't need me anymore. That's a very dangerous game, Elizabeth."
"I expected more of you, doctor. That routine is an old hat that you've worn so well with Will and I."
"Whereas you are a new woman, yes? You've changed. Are you a good mother, Elizabeth?" Hannibal asked her. "Let me have the file. An hour, and we can discuss it like old times…like how we first met."
Elizabeth pushes the file through the document tray, into the cell. Hannibal comes close to collect it.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"Family values may have declined over the last century, but we still help our families when we can. You're family, Elizabeth. You will always be even if you don't want me in your life. I will always be there, I will always love you."
"Hannibal, you don't know the meaning of love…you can't love," she explained. "That is the inevitable truth about you that I had to learn the hard way."
Elizabeth turned around and started to walk out of the room, but then reminded him, "If you go anywhere near my unborn baby, Alaric, and Mathew, I will kill you. Doesn't matter if you're the father of our children, I will hunt you down and destroy you, Hannibal Lecter."
TBC…
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