Title: With All My Heart, Day 22 of 30 Days of Hannibloom
Fandom: Hannibal
Pairing: Hannibloom
Rating: nc-17
Author's notes: So remember awhile back how I said that these chapters were stand-alones? Well, that's obviously no longer true. Disregard that. Read this as one long story. Anyways, I feel like I wrote myself into a corner with the last chapter! Hopefully I managed to write myself out of it with this one!

Alana walked into her therapist's office. She looked around the familiar room. She observed once again with interest how Dr. Josie Boyd had created a peaceful atmosphere, her walls a soothing shade of green, photographs of a forest on one wall and a Buddhist quote on another. She thought about how Hannibal had visibly scoffed when she'd told him her therapist was a Psy.D who went by her first name to patients. He'd asked her why she didn't see a psychiatrist ("someone properly trained" being the unspoken meaning) and she reminded him that few psychiatrists practiced therapy anymore. Most just prescribed medications in brief appointments, unfortunately. It was part of the reason Alana no longer practiced. Hannibal was an anomaly.

In more ways than one.

However, she liked and respected her therapist. She sat down in the lounge chair opposite her. Alana crossed her legs, but she could feel her legs trembling.

Josie pushed her glasses up on her nose and leaned towards Alana. She looked concerned. "I can see that you're upset, Alana. Do you want to tell me why?"

Alana felt like she might burst into tears. Her therapist stood up and placed a fresh box of tissues on the table next to Alana. She had to bite back the tears at that point. She turned her face away from her therapist and began to speak. She told her therapist how she had been attacked in her home by the D.C. Butcher, and how Hannibal had come to her rescue.

"You're telling me that he murdered someone, Alana. In front of you, for you, no less."

She turned back and answered, "Yes, he murdered that boy in cold blood."

"That man was going to kill you. I can tell you feel conflicted. Can you share what's troubling you?"

Alana sighed and turned her head away from her Josie yet again. She was finding it hard to look her in the eyes today. "What's troubling me is that I don't feel conflicted. Not really. I keep thinking of Simon…his name was Simon Mason. Lying on my floor, bleeding out. And Hannibal…he…"

She couldn't bring herself to tell her therapist how he had licked the blood from the knife. She swallowed, and continued speaking. "I feel nothing for the man who died on my kitchen floor. I should feel sad that a life was lost. But I'm not sad."

"He almost took your life. It's natural that you might feel…vindicated, perhaps?"

"Yes."

"And your husband saved your life. He saved your life by taking another life. How do you feel about that?"

"When he looked at me afterwards, he didn't look…human. He didn't look like the man I loved. I was frightened."

Josie leaned back and asked, "Are you still frightened?"

Alana felt one tear drip down her cheek. She quickly pulled a tissue from the box and dabbed at her eyes. "Yes."

"What frightens you, Alana?"

The words tumbled out. "I'm frightened that I'm not frightened of him, not really. I feel that I should be, but I trust him. He's…he tiptoes around me now. Like I'm an animal he doesn't want to spook. How could a man that careful of my feelings frighten me? What I'm frightened of is that he might be who they say he is. What if he is the Chesapeake Ripper? I just can't get it out of my head, the way he looked when he killed. Like he liked it."

What she can't explain is how, after her moment of fear, she'd felt exhilarated. Powerful. She could feel Hannibal's strength and excitement flowing through the room. She thought that if he was the devil, and she loved the devil, what did that make her?

"Do you think he could be the Chesapeake Ripper?" Josie questioned.

"No," Alana answered aloud. "Yes," her mind said. She couldn't bring herself to answer the question in her own head. The question her insistent mind asked was, "Would you still love him if he was the Ripper?"

Her immediate answer should be no. But she didn't have an answer. She couldn't make sense of everything going through her head and betrayer's heart.

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That night, she found Hannibal asleep in her bedroom when she returned home, an open book resting on his bare chest. She walked over to pick up the book and pull the covers over him. She gazed down at her husband. He looked innocent. When he slept, she could almost see the boy Hannibal had once been, his face free of lines and pretenses.

She placed the book on the bedside table. As she moved to pull the covers over him, Hannibal groaned in his sleep. She paused. His face contorted as if in pain. She heard him mumble, "Not Alana! Not her!"

Alana sat on the bed beside Hannibal and gently shook him awake. "Hannibal, wake up, love. Wake up."

His eyes opened. They looked tortured and so very dark. He grabbed her wrist and she gasped. Then he loosened his grip and sighed. "You're fine. You're fine," he reassured himself. "Oh, love. They were hurting you."

"No one is hurting me, Hannibal. I'm here."

She crawled into bed and pressed herself against him. She could feel him trembling against her, his heart racing. She placed her hand over his chest, over his heart. She looked into his eyes and could see the apprehension he'd had about her in the days since the incident. She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, the cheek, the neck, and finally his lips. She kissed him all over, running her hands through his hair and up and down his chest. She could feel him, his long body tense against her short one. He whispered to her, "Would you love me, dear?" He sounded raw and open.

She pulled his pajama pants down his legs, then pulled off her own panties. She slid her dress up over her head, then unhooked her bra. Finally, she straddled him. She could feel him against her backside, already hard. She got up on her knees and slid back, reaching between them. Then she guided him inside of her. When he was fully sheathed in her, he sighed. She moved up and down on his erection, riding him languidly.

When he sat up, she gasped at the change of angle. He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled her head back, then started kissing her neck. His hips started moving up against hers, as he met her languid thrusts with hard, passionate, wonderfully intense thrusts of his own. She moaned, her throat moving against his lips, "mane, meilužis."

He stopped thrusting into her. "Did you just tell me to "take you" in Lithuanian?" he asked.

"Yes. I've been learning it for you. Now, move!" she commanded him. He obeyed, flipping her over on the bed in one fluid motion. Then he alternatively thrust into her fast, then slow, then fast again, bringing her right to the edge of orgasm, then slowing down until the wave subsided. She repeated her earlier learned phrase. "Mane, mane, mane. Mane!"

Hearing her beg him in his mother tongue made him lose control. He came inside her. She could feel him pulse inside of her. The feeling was exquisite, a feeling of power. And she was beginning to love feeling powerful.

As she came after him, her mind seemed to whisper the answer to her earlier question. "Would you still love him if he was the Ripper?"

"With all my heart."

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Later, Hannibal watched Alana sleep peacefully beside him. He smoothed back her hair away from her face. His faked nightmare had worked to sway her sympathy once again to his side. He needed his wife on his side, because he loved her dearly. With all his devil's heart.