Chapter Text
Epilogue
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“I think we ought to live happily ever after," and she thought he meant it. Sophie knew that living happily ever after with Howl would be a good deal more hair-raising than any storybook made it sound, though she was determined to try. "It should be hair-raising," added Howl.
"And you'll exploit me," Sophie said.
"And then you'll cut up all my suits to teach me,” said Howl. ― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle
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Abigail finds Will in the kitchen around 3am, sitting at the breakfast table and eating ice cream right out of the tub. These little meetings have become a ritual in the weeks that she’s been back from university, so much so that Abigail knows to go to the freezer and find her own instead of offering a greeting. There she finds several half eaten pints - all homemade, nothing so pedestrian as store bought in the Lecter-Graham household - and one unopened one at the bottom that, at a glance, appears to be some kind of dark cherry.
“Not a fan of this one?” She asks, bringing the tub up to show Will, still half in the freezer, tilting her head to see his answer. It comes in the form of Will shrugging, shifting the bulk of his incredibly pregnant body, before gesturing at her with his spoon, “He made it out of that lamaze instructor that hit on me. No ‘people food’ for me while pregnant.”
“Ah,” Abigail says, and then, with a shrug of her own, because it’d be a little bit late for her to start quibbling over the mortality of this particular act, “Mind if I...?”
“Go for it,” Will says amicably, shoving another spoonful of his own - mint chocolate chip, if she had to guess - into his own mouth, and so Abigail cracks open the tub and dips her spoon in, tastes a bite and lets it melt on her tongue.
Dark cherry, as she’d thought; a little tart and the colour of deep, red blood.
Subtle Hannibal, Abigail thinks with a little snicker, of the promiscuous lamaze instructor and Will’s answering smirk tells her it didn’t escape him either. However then Will shifts, grips his spoon a bit tighter and breathes noticeably, and Abigail realizes quite quickly what’s gotten him up this particular morning.
“Want me to wake him?” Abigail asks, already making to get up from the table and go up stairs to do just that. But she halts at the shake of Will's head, and his negative hand gesture, seating herself gently back down at the table.
“Contractions are still too far apart, let him sleep,” Will says, one eye lazily on the kitchen clock, before he finishes, teasingly rueful, rubbing a massaging hand over the bulk of his stomach, “I suppose I should have expected Hannibal Lecter’s children would be morning people.”
“Probably,” Abigail teases back, and they both do not mention that there are certainly far worse traits the twins could inherit from their sire.
And yet, for all that that thought is truth, Abigail isn’t worried about the twins not turning out..alright. Because Abigail thinks of planning Will’s baby shower with Beverly Katz, and helping pick out the paint chips for the twins room. Of making peanut butter and mayo sandwich on store bought white bread to feed Will’s cravings and watching the vein in Hannibal’s neck positively throb as he’d watched them. Thinks of suggesting names for them and helping Will shoot down some of the ridiculous names Hannibal had suggested.
Abigail won’t lie, hearing Will tell Hannibal, “I don’t care how much that myth resonates with you as a symbol of our love, Achilles Lecter is going to get bullied at school and then we’re going to have to have a fight about why you can’t murder six year olds,” might actually have been one of the best moments of her life.
Needless to say, Patroclus Lecter was also vetoed.
But Will had winked at her as he’d done it, a conspirators wink that had made her smile. And Abigail thinks of all of the efforts they’ve made to carve out her own place in their little family, a place she’d never thought she’d have again when she’d woken up in that hospital bed with a scar and the ghostly weight of her father’s hands on her neck.
Hannibal stumbles down, sleep and his worry about his mate making him uncharacteristically uncoordinated, just as the clock strikes 4am. And once he has rubbed some of the sleep out of his eyes, he blinks at Abigail and Will, looks at them like all he’s ever wanted is in the room at this moment.
Abigail thinks the family you chose, and that chose you, are just as important as the family you’re born into.
How could those two babies not turn out just fine, with the family they’ve got?
“Contractions are two minutes apart,” Will picks that moment to announce, looking over at Hannibal with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “You should probably go start the car.”
She does acknowledge that they’re probably going to be little troublemakers though.
Hannibal responds by staring at Will, dropping his mouth open and working it soundlessly, before turning sharply down the hall and out the door, seemingly entirely unaware of the fact that’s he’s still in his slippers and dressing gown.
Abigail supposes that’s why Will had her put the hospital bags in the car a week ago.
“This has the potential to be fun,” Will says, winking at her, holding Hannibal’s stupidly expensive leather loafers in one hand as she supports his other arm and helps him out to the car.
Abigail thinks he might just be right.
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This is absolutely not fun.
Because, although Will had known that first parts of labor - which had personally consisted of almost a full 24 hours of pain, some really uncomfortable walking around the hospital and then an epidural that had helped, but hadn’t exactly made it enjoyable - were supposed to take a lot of time. He had sort of assumed though, once you got past all of that, the actual ‘pushing stage’ of things progressed a lot faster.
“Push,” Hannibal entreats, echoing the nurse and Dr. Watson, at the two hour mark of doing nothing but fucking pushing.
Will assumed wrong.
“Tell me to push one more time,” Will says to his mate, utterly pleasant except for his slightly manic eyes, “And I will walk through your ridiculous closet with a weedwhacker.”
From her position between his splayed legs, Will is pretty sure he hears Dr. Watson snicker.
“Honestly darling, there is no call for violence,” Hannibal teases, even as he mops Will’s sweaty brow with a cold compress and Will can’t decide if he’d rather stab or kiss that stupidly attractive face of his.
And then another contraction hits, and Will settles for trying his best to break Hannibal’s fucking hand, bears down, and pushes.
And then finally, finally, with one great push nature takes its course, and the first screaming wail that their daughter lets out almost makes the fact that he has to push one more of these out worth it.
Almost.
The screaming wail of his son, moments later, just as healthy and perfect as his sister, does. Will has done many good things in his life - saved people, jailed killers, rescued stray animals.
Looking down at the two little perfect faces of his children in his mate’s arms, Will knows he will never do anything greater.
Will finally has his family.
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This morning, Hannibal lies in his bed, as is his habit. He is alone, as he is rarely these days, but the mess of sheets beside him and the sound of footsteps on the stairs inform him this is only a temporary inconvenience.
So Hannibal stays in bed, and waits.
The scene that greets him is oh so similar to a dream he had once.
“Look Papa,” two little proud, loving little voices says from beside the bed, all wild ash blond curls and Will’s blue eyes. And there is Ella, his daughter, tiny, white fabric roses adorning her pristine white nightdress and Alex, his son, soft cotton pyjamas in the maroon of his father’s eyes, a sight most loved. “We made you breakfast,” they finish, all soft happiness, their scent fresh and innocent, the purity of youth tinged with scent of his mate, Hannibal’s favourite.
And as such, there is Will, his husband, his mate, standing by the door, watching with a twinkle in his eye that says, guess who you’re having for breakfast this morning as a hand rubs gently over the heavily pregnant swell of their child that slumbers within him.
In the vast palace of his mind there is a door, well kept and much visited, where a nameplate, impeccably shined, proclaims proudly, Family. And behind that door, a hundred different iterations of this scene rest, all just as precious - no, more precious - as that first dream.
And Hannibal Lecter smiles, for this time, like all those others, those oh so precious others?
He is awake.
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FIN
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