Main Hannibal Fan Fiction page | new stories page | Will/Hannibal slash page | other pairings page | gen stories page

Title: All For the Better
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 07, Change
Author's Note: Sequel to "Silence All Around."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

There had been so many changes in his life.

Will took another deep breath, closing his eyes and letting himself sink into the silence around him .This was a silence that he felt comfortable with.

It wasn't like the silence he'd dealt with when he was locked up; that had been the silence of despair, the quiet of a man who was losing hope even as he tried to cling to the idea that somehow, someone was going to believe him at some point.

That was the hope that had kept him going. The absolute conviction that somewhere, Hannibal was going to slip up and expose himself for the monster that he was.

And he'd done so. Finally.

He had been too sure of himself; he'd laid too many clues, unable to resist teasing the FBI. Surprisingly, he had been the one to provide the evidence that led to Will's exoneration, proving once and for all that Will was no psychopath, and certainly no killer.

But it had been too late to save Will's friendships. He would never trust any of those people again. they'd believed him to be the evil monster, not Hannibal.

Thinking he was insane was no excuse for their loss of faith in him.

If his so-called friends didn't believe fully in his innocence, if they were so blinded by false "evidence" that they believed he was a murder, then they weren't his friends.

He didn't need them in his life, and he didn't want to be around them. So he had ruthlessly cut a lot of people out of his life for good.

In a way, he missed them. But not really.

They had never been such a huge part of his daily life that it was easy to slip back into the life he had led before his incarceration. He was back to teaching, doing what he loved.

But he wasn't working much in the field any more. Oh, they were still consulting him, but he wasn't making any appearances at crime scenes -- at least not when people were there. Jack didn't want anyone to know that his bloodhound was still on the job.

He wasn't back into the FBI's good graces enough for that.

But he was being slipped into crime scenes after everyone had gone, after the evidence had been collected, before the bodies had been taken away.

It was a change -- but not one that bothered him overly much. He had never wanted the notoriety. He wasn't Jack. He didn't want to look good to the public. He simply wanted to save lives. And that was something he was fortunately still allowed to do.

Yes, there had been a lot of changes. But so far, all of them were for the better. He wasn't going to regret them, or look back and wish things could have been different.

After all, there were still many more changes yet to come.

***