Promises to Keep

Chapter 15: Severed

Severing his relationship with Hannibal was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Will sat on the couch in his living room, head back against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling. He felt numb, empty, bereft, completely at sea.

He hadn't realized that giving up their relationship would make him feel so .... so lost. He hadn't known just how much Hannibal had meant to him until his lover hadn't been a part of his life any more.

Had he done the right thing? Or was he always going to regret this, always going to feel the emptiness that loomed in front of him now, like a yawning chasm just waiting for him to fall in? Was he going to feel this numb for the rest of his life?

Will sighed softly, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. No, he couldn't always feel like this. Not when he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had made the right decision.

If he hadn't turned Hannibal in, he would have killed again. He might have tried not to, but he a serial killer. He wasn't going to change.

It didn't matter how much he wanted to. It wasn't possible.

Or was it? Will asked himself. Was he wrong? Would Hannibal's love for him have overcome all those years of killing, made him turn his back on it?

Should he have trusted Hannibal? Should he have tried to make himself believe that the other man could have changed, and put his life into his lover's hands? Or had he done what was best, not only for himself, but for the rest of the world?

He wanted to think that he'd done the right thing. In his more rational moments, he was sure that he had, and he didn't feel more than a twinge of regret.

It was only on nights like this, when he was missing Hannibal and the closeness they had shared, when he ached to be in his lover's bed, in his arms, that he felt he'd made a mistake, and that he'd thrown away the most important thing in his life.

It wasn't just the sex, or even the emotion. It was the fact that Hannibal had known him. Hannibal had understood him in a way that no one else had.

He'd never find that again, not with anyone.

Will felt that he'd lost something very precious, let it slip through his fingers without fully appreciating it. Only now, when it was gone, did he realize just how much he had lost.

He would never find anyone else who understood him as Hannibal did, who wanted to get inside his head and know just what made him tick. Other people didn't care enough to try; they might find him interesting, but they didn't focus on him in the way that Hannibal did.

Had Hannibal loved him? Or was he only obsessed? That was hard to know, but Will liked to think that he had been loved, if only briefly.

If Hannibal had truly loved him, maybe he would have been able to stop killing, and they'd have been able to make a life together. But he would never know now.

Was Hannibal capable of love? Or had all of those whispered words in the dark, after they'd made love and he was lying in Hannibal's arms, sated and happy, been nothing more than mere words, without any deeply felt emotions behind them at all?

That was another thing that he would never know, Will thought with a pang of regret. And it wasn't as though he could ask Hannibal for the truth now.

He would never know if Hannibal had ever really loved him.

it was probably better that he didn't know, Will reflected. Because if the answer was in the negative, then it would be a burning pain in his soul for the rest of his life.

This way, he could let himself think that Hannibal had loved him -- and that way, he could take the guilt of betrayal onto himself. He wouldn't have to live with the hurt of knowing that the love he'd counted on, that had meant so much to him, hadn't really existed.

Severing the relationship quickly and cleanly had been the best thing he could have done for himself. That way, the pain was intense for a moment, and then ti would fade away.

But would it? he asked himself, heaving a deep sigh. Would he ever be the same again, now that he'd found out what it was like to love, and had lost that love? Other people survived that kind of a loss, but then again, other people usually didn't wait so long to find love.

He'd waited all of his life to find not only someone who loved him in the physical sense, but someone who understood him. He didn't think he would ever find that again.

No one else could ever be what Hannibal had been to him.

There was no use trying to pretend that he could have another love in his life; Will knew that it wasn't going to happen. Hannibal had been the one and only.

He hated the fact that he'd fallen in love with someone who didn't deserve that love, someone who might not ever have truly loved him back. But that was what had happened.

He couldn't change the past, no matter how much he might have wanted to. He couldn't have made things work out any differently; in the end, Hannibal would have done whatever he wanted to, and Will would have been helpless to affect the outcome.

It was best that he had severed their relationship. It was best for him, best for his heart. And in doing so, he had probably managed to save his own life.

But that wasn't going to stop him from wishing that things could have been different, and missing what he and Hannibal had shared.

And it wouldn't stop him from feeling guilty for the rest of his life.