Yearn | Hannigram

white roses

Alana is dressed in black for the second time this year, fingers shaking and lips bitten raw. She sits alone in the back pew. Underneath the glass skylight that is covered in icy rain.

There are white rose wreaths decorating the space around the closed, empty coffin. Colorful stained glass windows decorate the walls, and candles are lit on the small shelves running the length of the walls. Next to the dark oak casket, there is a picture of Will with his dogs. He is smiling bright and wide, swallowed in the warm orange light of a sunset coming through the windows of his home. She wonders who took that picture. Maybe Abigail. Maybe Jack or even Hannibal. Winston is by his side, so it had to be fairly recent. There is barely anyone in the world who was close enough to the man to be in his home at all. The thought makes her eyes well up. All the torture he endured, the ridicule, all for nothing. They still haven't caught the son of a bitch who killed him. They can't even give him a proper burial because they can't find his body. They likely never will.

Jimmy, Beverly, and Zeller are sat next to each other in unfamiliar silence and solemnity. Alana thought of going to sit with them, but there was an air of anger surrounding them when she'd tried to give them a quick smile. Maybe they blamed her. She'd been the reason everyone trusted Hannibal to begin with. She'd vouched for his talents in psychiatry and his intellect. Jack would've never reached out to him if she hadn't brought it up.

Beverly's jaw was clenched like it had been muzzled, and even from here Alana could see how pissed she was. She was tapping her black heels against the soft floor like it was the only thing keeping her from flipping the pew in front of her.

Bella was here too, helped to her seat by one of the funeral home attendants. Avoiding everyone's pitiful gaze as her thin legs shook and buckled beneath her. She is in a dark dress that engulfs her body. She too, sits alone. Her hair is falling out onto the red carpet beneath her. Her dark eyes are glazed over with mourning and drugs.

Only weeks ago she had been here, burying her husband. Alana had sat next to her that day. Held her thin, bony hand and promised to do everything she could to get Lecter behind bars. Bella had laughed, dry and brittle. "It won't bring him back. And I'm sure I won't live long enough to see justice come," She'd iterated. That comment left Alana speechless, suddenly so aware of her inability to comfort, to do anything useful or helpful at all. She didn't even work for the department anymore. She was just an almost friend of Will, a former coworker of Bella's dead husband. A nothing.

Now, it seems Bella is right. She can hardly walk on her own and whatever little shred of fight she'd had left before died alongside Jack. She is heaving and gasping just to breath. She wants no pity, no help, and Alana can't blame her for feeling that way. The faint hum of the widow's oxygen tank and her jagged breaths are the only noise in the hauntingly empty room.

That is, until the priest speaks. They all bow their heads and let the ceremony begin. Religion feels trite these days. She knows Will was not a religious man in the slightest. But he'd left no will, nothing for them to go off of as far as what to do with his b- with him. So they went with the standard practice for all agents and officers. It felt jarringly impersonal.

No one spoke. It seemed they all had some guilt for what happened to poor Will. Like it would be an offense to stand up there and say they cared for him. The ceremony barely took an hour.

-

Freddie was waiting outside in the parking lot, curls bouncing on her shoulders as she ran up to Katz, Zeller, and Price. A small microphone in her hand. "Can you tell me how it feels to bury Will knowing he begged all of you to listen and instead you demanded he see a psychiatrist- Lecter of all people?"

Price shot her a fierce look and warned her to back off.

"I don't mean to offend, but isn't this funeral a sham if there's no body to bury? Just wasting wood at that point-"

Crack.

Beverly's fist hit Freddie's nose with force and rage. Her eyes flooding with tears. "Fuck. You." She spat at the red head, who was knocked over on the cold pavement, blood gushing from her nostrils.