Sweet Ophelia (Hannibal Fanfiction)

Molly

Molly Foster Graham had believed naively up to the moment that her husband jumped off a cliff with a notorious serial killer — and even for some time after that — that Will Graham genuinely cared about her. Maybe he had, once upon a time, but it was no longer easy to believe so. Not after he left her and her son Wally in the hospital for the man who had made their life living hell.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter. She didn't want to ever hear that name again, but it was inevitable, with their faces plastered all over the news. LIVE UPDATES: Notorious serial killer Hannibal the Cannibal escapes from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane with former FBI special agent Will Graham, the headlines screamed, right next to photos of Dr. Lecter and her husband. It was hard enough when Molly thought that Will had sacrificed himself to rid the world of a serial killer by tackling him off the side of the cliff; it was much more difficult when rumors started spreading that he had willingly gone over the cliff with Dr. Lecter after they murdered a man together. She had turned the hospital TV off after the idea first surfaced, her stomach churning nauseatingly.

It's not true, she told herself over and over again. It's not true. Will was a good man.

Will was a good man.

She didn't want to think about how she was already thinking about him in the past tense.

But the damage was done. Even as mainstream news cautioned that this speculation was not in line with the FBI's official story, the doubt had wormed its way into Molly's mind. Will had always been closed off when it came to his past. She knew that he had a history with Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The sloping scar across Will's belly and another scar over his right eyebrow were a testament to the times he'd clashed with the serial killer before he helped put him behind bars three years ago. She also knew that he'd had problems with tabloid journalists spreading falsehoods about him.

Except now she didn't know what to believe.

At first, Molly held off on searching for information about Will's past. She'd resisted the curiosity for the two years that they'd been together, so what was a while longer? She was comforted by her family and friends and treated like the widow of a hero who sacrificed his life to take down serial killers. But with it came the relentless pestering from journalists and news outlets who clambered to get interviews with her. In particular, the tabloid journalist that Will had warned her about, Freddie Lounds, was persistent even after she consistently closed the door in her face. Eventually, the curiosity became too much to ignore.

Most of the information online was stuff Molly already knew: that Will started out working as a homicide detective and then became a teacher at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. That the Head of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit, Jack Crawford, recruited him to help catch serial killers because of his ability to empathize with them. That he was put under the unofficial care of psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, and that he suffered from increasingly severe breakdowns and was briefly hospitalized. That he was integral to capturing Dr. Lecter and putting him behind bars, but not before the doctor gave him several scars.

What she hadn't known is that he'd left homicide because he couldn't pull the trigger and suffered from mental breakdowns. That his breakdowns were partially because of undiagnosed encephalitis, or that he was hospitalized at the BSHCI because Dr. Lecter had framed him for his crimes. That Dr. Lecter had actually turned himself in instead of Will capturing him. That there were rumors that he and Dr. Lecter had a much more complicated relationship than merely psychiatrist and patient or law enforcement and serial killer.

Eventually, Molly found herself at Tattlecrime.com, run by none other than Freddie Lounds. It sickened her to see that the tabloid journalist was already advertising the upcoming release of her exposé book on Will, but she couldn't tear her eyes away.

She hadn't known that his empathy disorder only seemed to extend to serial killers and no one else.

She hadn't known that the reason why he was recommended to Dr. Lecter in the first place was because he'd pulled the trigger on a serial killer ten times and landed every single bullet.

She hadn't known that while he was in the BSHCI, he tried to have Dr. Lecter murdered by sending an orderly after him (and almost succeeded).

She hadn't known that he had chased Dr. Lecter all the way to Italy without the direction of the FBI, or that he had lured Dr. Lecter into a trap once before by murdering and pretending to murder several people, or that Dr. Lecter had carved up a man into an anatomical heart for him.

The sweet Will Graham that she knew, the one who loved dogs and fishing and was a good husband and stepfather to her son, was not this Will Graham. This Will Graham was a murderer. This Will Graham was an unstable recluse who was drawn inexplicably to his psychiatrist even after figuring out that he was the Chesapeake Ripper.

This Will Graham was the one that left Molly and her son to jump off a cliff with a serial killer.

Molly dry-heaved over the toilet and cried until there were no tears left to shed.