Title: That Day Hasn't Come
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Table: Quotables Part 2, tv_universe
Prompt: "You tell yourself you did the right thing. And if you say it often enough, one day you might actually believe it."
Author's Note: Sequel to "Still Wonder."
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.
***
"You shouldn't feel guilty, Will. You did the right thing."Jack's voice still echoed in his head; it wouldn't go away. But even the words of the man he worked for, words that Will knew were sincere, couldn't completely erase his guilt.
Yes, he'd done the right thing, in some ways. He had put a killer behind bars; he had protected society. Hannibal would never again harm an innocent person.
But at the same time, he had betrayed someone who had called him a friend. He had turned Hannibal in, let the police take him away in handcuffs. Maybe he should have gone about things in a more roundabout way, should have tried to minimize the publicity.
Not that he would have been able to do that once Hannibal's crimes were known to the media, he thought, a wry smile twisting his lips. Freddie Lounds would have made sure of that.
She had painted him as a kind of hero, putting his own life at risk to capture a dangerous serial killer. He hadn't really done that. He'd found out about Hannibal by accident.
He still didn't know if he wished he would never have found out.
Would he and Hannibal have been able to make a life together? He seriously doubted that. At some point, he would have gone from being Hannibal's obsession to being his victim.
Will didn't doubt that for a moment. He knew that Hannibal was volatile, in spite of his calm surface demeanor. All he'd have had to do was anger the man once, and he would be dead.
Hannibal was a serial killer. His mind didn't work like a normal person's did; he had no compassion for others, no sense of being connected to the rest of the human race. That would never change. It was wired into his state of being; it was part of the person he was and always had been.
There was no use wishing that he and Hannibal could have worked out, no use wishing that things had been different. They were what they were, and there was no going back.
But still, Will couldn't help feeling that if only he had done some things differently, if only he had loved Hannibal more, then maybe, just maybe, they could have worked.
Maybe Hannibal could have turned his back on what he had become, turned himself in and paid his debt to society, and then been a free man who could spend the rest of his life with Will. Even as that thought went through his mind, Will wanted to snort at it.
Of course Hannibal would never have been a free man again. How many murders had he committed? Twelve that they knew about, and probably several others that he'd hidden.
He would serve consecutive life sentences for those murders. The FBI would push for the death penalty. He could never have had a life with Hannibal, no matter how things had turned out.
Not unless the murders were kept secret, and Hannibal had stopped.
And that would never have happened. Will sighed as he thought of his last words to Jack before he'd walked out of the other man's office that day.
"You tell yourself you did the right thing. And if you say it often enough, one day you might actually believe it." Well, that day hadn't come for him. Not yet.
Would it ever come? he asked himself with a sigh. Right now, he didn't think so. He'd done the right thing, and a part of him knew that. But another part of him, one that was more selfish, wanted to rewind and start over, and do the wrong thing, even though he knew that he would eventually regret it.
He felt that he had thrown away the future he wanted, and even though it had been the right thing to do, he knew that not a day would go by when he didn't have regrets.
Will buried his face in his hands, waiting for the tears to come, as he knew they would. He would have a good cry, maybe a few drinks, and then try to sleep tonight.
And he would hope that his regrets didn't follow him into his dreams.
***
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