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Title: This Is the Truth
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Will Graham/Lee Fallon
Fandom: Hannibal/The Big C
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 40, Alternate Universe
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Will Graham or Lee Fallon, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

It had gone too far. There was nothing more to be done.

But he had known that from the beginning, hadn't he? There was no cure for cancer. He should have known that it would eventually come to this.

Lee closed his eyes, resting his head against the headrest as he sat behind the steering wheel of his car. He hadn't wanted to leave the parking lot yet; he wasn't ready to go home. The enormity of what he'd been told just a short while ago was still sinking in to his mind.

How was he going to tell Will? What could he say. "Excuse me, darling, but we have to accept a cruel fate. The trial isn't working and there's nothing more the doctors can do."

He couldn't put it that bluntly. It would destroy Will.

But what else was there to say? He had to tell his husband the truth. He couldn't let Will believe that there was hope, when he'd been explicitly told that there wasn't.

Lee felt as though he was existing in some sort of alternate universe, a place where everything he'd wanted to be true was turned upside down. Somehow, nothing seemed right. Nothing seemed real. This afternoon had been a bad dream that he would wake up from.

That was it. This was a nightmare he was having, a terrible nightmare that couldn't possibly be true. His mind was making the worst of the situation.

But even as he grasped at that slim straw, he knew that he was fooling himself. This wasn't a nightmare. This was his life. Or, rather, what was left of it.

Lee felt a catch in his throat, and he swallowed hard to hold back the sob that he knew was threatening to come out. The times for tears was long past. He wasn't going to cry. It wouldn't help, and there was no sense in it. He'd already done all of his crying.

What he had to do now was be strong, and find some way to tell Will. He had to break this to his husband as gently as possible.

If only this was an alternate universe, and not the truth.

This was the truth. This was his life. And if he didn't have much of it left, then he had to live what time he did have to the fullest.

Lee took a deep breath, raising his head and blinking back the tears that had been threatening to rise to the surface. He was going to live every day as if it might be the last, enjoy every moment, and leave this world on his own terms. He would go out with dignity.

But first, he had to figure out how to tell his husband the news. And that, he knew, was going to be the hardest thing he'd ever done -- and just the first step on the road ahead.

He didn't know how he was going to take that step.

***