Chapter Text
Chapter One - Keeping The Promise
INGONISH, NOVA SCOTIA
When Alana was still a Bloom rather than a Verger, she thought herself the motherly type. Not exactly the typical housewife with dinner ready and the house dust-free but motherly enough to rock the babes on her knees, sing them lullabies and read bed time stories. Maybe she could take a sabbatical for a year, caring for the little ones (there were always two in her mind, somehow) and guiding their developing psychology towards the good side on the scales of morality in those vital formative months. Back then, she could see it all as an option, and not a terrible one at that.
By the time Alana officially became a Verger, marrying Margot Verger, her morality scales were broken beyond repair and having a child seemed more a practical necessity and a distant desire than any sort of biological need. Margot wanted a baby, and Alana wanted Margot. Besides, with all the wealth that came with having a Verger heir as their son, they could afford a plethora of kind and sweet nannies for the things Alana thought impossible to give to her own son.
Yet, when Victor Rufus Verger was born, Alana felt more for the tiny bundle than she thought was still in her. It wasn’t exactly love, she reasoned, because it wasn’t what she felt for Margot or what she remembered feeling for Will Graham at some point. No, unconditional love was her wife’s forte with her nuzzling and kissing the blood-covered babe the second she saw him. What Alana felt for her son was a feeling eerily similar to sharp glass piercing her skin as she was falling out of Hannibal Lecter’s window those many years ago - helplessness and fear combined in a dangerous cocktail mixed by life itself. The blue eyed baby seemed to be the last remaining piece of the good doctor Alana Bloom, with Margot’s mischievous smile and pointy nose and none of Alana’s twisted darkness, a parting gift from her former cannibalistic teacher.
Seeing Margot’s cheeks wet with tears and hearing Victor’s scream of life, Alana knew she would do anything to protect him, if not for his sake then for Margot’s. And, she mused, to protect the last remaining piece of goodness that left her body in a form of a child.
Five years later, seeing her only son bundled up in a towel and happily giggling on the knees of supposedly deceased mass murderer, Alana was ready to kill with the ferocity of a starved animal.
“Hello, Alana,” Hannibal spoke calmly, poking Victor in his neck softly which rewarded him with a high pitched squee. All the colour faded from Alana’s tanned face and she took in the image, trying to remember how to play Hannibal’s game through the bloodlust and panic that rang through her mind. Her son might as well be playing with a loaded gun and she knew she was the one who could trigger it by the wrong move.
“Hello, Hannibal,” she answered in an equally calm voice, her hands coming together in front of her, shoulders square. To be rude would be a rookie mistake and a fatal one at that. “Would you be so kind and let my son go? His supper will be cold and you of all people understand how important timely dining is in a life of a young man.”
Hannibal seemed to seriously ponder this thought for a second and then he leaned in to press his mouth on Victor’s thin arm, dangerous lips brushing the soft skin.
Alana’s breath hitched in her throat and she almost launched forward: to hell with all the rules and mind games when Hannibal was ready to bite off her son’s arm. The man stopped her with a growl and an actual loaded gun that was aimed at her, hidden from Victor’s view.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hannibal warned, finger on the trigger and teeth on Victor’s skin. The young boy was not giggling anymore, he just watched Hannibal with curiosity as he licked a patch of skin, sending the boy into a laughing fit.
“Me, now me!” Victor exclaimed, licking his own arm and grimacing. “Yuck, I taste salty!”
“Do you know why, Victor?” Hannibal asked, never breaking the eye contact with Alana.
“Yeah,” the boy answered. He didn’t care to elaborate on the answer, instead reaching for his foot to lick a patch there as well. Alana watched this behaviour with interest, trying to determine whether Hannibal gave her son some sort of a drug or whether he was just being silly. Margot would have known, she assumed, as her wife spend more time playing with Victor than she usually did.
“Where is she?” she asked, voice starting to tremble with the realisation that it was Margot who took Victor to the beach that morning. “What did you do to her?”
Hannibal took Victor’s ankle to his hand and tugged, making the boy almost fall down from the chair if he didn’t grab Hannibal’s neck in time to hang from it. He seemed natural with the boy, playful even. Alana shrugged at the thought. It felt like watching Animal Planet where you just know the gazelle is going to get ripped to pieces by the lurking predator.
“See, a suckling pig is often rubbed with salt a day before cooking. It brings out the flavours quite nicely.”
Not missing the not-so-hidden threat, she pleaded. “Hannibal, please. Have me but leave him out of this. This is not his world, it’s ours.”
“Interesting that you should bring that possessive pronoun into the conversation. I assume there are more of us here to reminisce about this world than you and I, then?”
“What are you talking about?” she tried to take a step forward but Hannibal pointed the gun swiftly towards Victor and tutted. She froze again. “And what did you do with Margot?”
The man’s stoic face seemed to reflect an emotion close to confusion for a second.
“Mama, I taste salty from the sea!” Victor chipped in happily, rolling in the towel that was between him and Hannibal. As he wanted to jump off Hannibal’s lap to presumably go and show his mom, Hannibal’s grip tightened on his small waist. Victor huffed in annoyance. “Go away,” he demanded but Hannibal didn’t let go, holding the squirming boy firmly in his grip. That would not end up well.
“Darling, it’s okay," Alana tried, thinking fast on her feet. "It’s a game of catch...and you’re only safe on the chair, it's your home where I cannot catch you. Otherwise I catch you and I—-“ Alana trailed off, not exactly sure how these sort of games were played. She just knew she had to calm Victor down before Hannibal resorts to violence to calm the boy himself.
“You will catch me and you will eat me!” Victor exclaimed, mood changing from anger to excitement in mere seconds in a fashion only children knew.
Alana did not find that funny at all, however when her eyes met with Hannibal she could swear she saw amusement in her own image reflecting back at her.
“Yes,” Hannibal nodded as the boy literally climbed back on him, little feet finding the spot unoccupied by Hannibal on the chair to stand on it. He was so blissfully unaware of danger.
“I promised you I would take all of this away, as easily as I had given it to you, Alana. I keep my promises, what sort of gentleman would I be if I broke a promise to a lady?”
Rolling her eyes would be probably rude, Alana reasoned. Semantics always worked better with Hannibal, anyway.
“What sort of gentleman kidnaps a child from one’s wife?”
“Now, Alana, surely it is not kidnapping but rather a rescue when one brings a lost child home.”
It was Alana’s turn to blink in confusion. “Margot took Victor to the beach this morning. The nanny had a morning off, he wasn’t alone.”
There was something strange about Hannibal, Alana realised when her old Baltimore chief administrator persona finally fully overtook her fierce protective instincts. His voice was higher than usual, his stubble not as well kept as she remembered. He looked exhausted and unnerved, which in itself was unnerving. If there was one reassuring thing about Hannibal it was that he wasn’t insane as he pleaded at court. Seeing him shaken like this sent chills all over her body. God save them all if Hannibal Lecter gone insane.
“Give me Will Graham and I will give you your son,” Hannibal said, “for now at least.”
Were it not for the fact Hannibal was holding Victor, Alana would probably collapse into a manic fit of laughter. How could she for even one second doubt that anything Hannibal did was not about Will Graham? How stupid could she be, thinking that perhaps the man paid her a visit to see her, to kill her, to keep an unwanted promise he has given her?
Of course it had to be about Will. It always was with Hannibal, wasn’t it?
“Did you lose him?” she asked, the darkness in her shadowing her mother figure for a moment. As the question left her lips, she realized she just put her son’s life on thin ice. Quickly, she added: “He isn’t here, Hannibal. I haven’t seen Will ever since he eloped with you to catch the Dragon. I swear it.”
“You don’t want to be lying to me right now, Alana,” Hannibal growled. Victor kept shouting at her to catch him.
“I am not. You have my word.”
They stared at each other for a long moment and the air seemed to stand still in the room.
“Your son was alone at the beach,” Hannibal said at least, shoving Victor off the chair softly, making the boy land on his feet. Victor hid behind Hannibal, teasing his mother to come and catch him. Apparently they had to work on the whole stranger-danger thing.
“Victor, go to the dining room. The dinner is ready, we can play after,” Alana said in her stern voice, trying to keep it together for a moment longer. She knew Hannibal liked to give false impressions of winning and she did not want to lose her son to a bullet in the back (even if they might have matching scars then, something in her purred with delight).
“But mama, you need to catch me first!” Victor pouted, making a round around the chair. “You have to catch me!”
This was exactly why Alana did not want to have children. They were oblivious in the face of danger, and no matter how much she tried, Victor did not seem to be any more special or gifted than other silly boys his age. Margot always said he was so smart, however Alana hardly saw it through her thick lens of doubt she wore about this whole child thing.
The key to winning this game, however, was to not let it show in front of Hannibal. God knows he would have a field day with that information.
“Darling, do you want to go to the dining room and watch the tv after dinner or should we just go straight to bed?” Alana’s voice was calm, psychologically tricking her son into making a choice.
“Dining room!” he exclaimed immediately, the threat of going to sleep early and without tv hanging heavily in his young mind. As he took steps towards his mother, Alana’s eyes never left the gun following his movement in Hannibal’s hand. Come on, just a few more steps.
Victor stopped on his way out of the room to lean against his mother, who immediately ruffled his damp hair. At the touch, Alana’s cool sizzled with hot steam of relief. He would be safe, and Margot would be proud.
At the mention of her wife, something in Alana stirred. Another wave of panic overtook her senses, a different one to losing Victor to Hannibal’s bite. This was less raw, more blood rushing panic that made Alana lose her ground. Instead of ushering Victor out of Hannibal’s reach as swiftly as possible, still not entirely sure why he was giving him a free exit, she stopped the boy on the doorstep.
Perhaps turning away from Hannibal was not the cleverest idea but it was always Margot who was clever.
“Where is mommy, Victor?”
The boy smiled. It was a toothy smile and Alana hated the aesthetics of it. “We’re playing hide and seek with Charlie!”
Alana hated that she shot a look to Hannibal before asking: “Who is Charlie?”
Victor shrugged. “Maybe he takes care of garden, I dunno. Mummy and I was swimming when Charlie came and she told me to stay in the water and count to a hundred but I don’t know to hundred so I counted to sixty five because I am best with sixty five and then I was looking for mummy because I want to win but it is not fair because they have a car and they hid with a car so I think now you have to go with me in a car so I can find mummy!”
She heard Hannibal rising from the chair and coming up from behind her. He was like a shadow looming over her and her son, and she found herself wondering who she was more afraid of: her former patient or her own child. It was a strange thought. Stranger still that the boy was oblivious to Hannibal’s dangerous presence. Didn't children sense these things? He was either incredibly stupid or brave. For his sake, Alana hope it was the first one.
“How did Charlie look like, Victor? Tell mama.”
The child leaned against the doorframe, hair falling to his face. “I dunno,” he said and Alana felt her hand shoot up, changing the direction towards his cheek to her own hip mid-way. She never ever hurt Victor, not even in a disciplinary way even though Margot was not against the thought. Somehow, violence came easy to Alana but hard to inflict upon the blue-eyed boy.
“Victor, I need you to tell me right now. Mama really needs to know,” her rushed plea was cut off by the feel of Hannibal’s gun against her back (falling, falling, falling) and his voice near her ear.
“As entertaining as this game of hide and seek is, it is not the one I am playing. Tell me, Alana, where are you hiding Will Graham?”
The gun clicked, ready to shoot. Alana assumed that at this close range, with the bullet piercing her skin, the angle would be just right to create an exit wound and shoot Victor as well. Maybe not fatally harm him but enough to leave him to bleed out. It was as close to being shoved out of a window as Alana could imagine for Victor.
Before Hannibal had a chance to probably brutally murder a mother and a son duo, Victor’s eyes lit up with giddiness.
“Oh, I know, I know!”
Both Alana and Hannibal cocked their heads to the side at the same exact moment, making them look like a strange, two headed hydra for the small boy. He laughed with an over-the-top laugh, probably mimicking something from a cartoon show. “Wee Gramm is with mummy, Charlie said he is playing too.”
Hannibal’s heart went racing as Alana could feel due to their proximity. His arm muscle flexed, his grip on the gun stronger than before. She took a deep breath. Everything was screaming at her to fight or flight but she held steady in Hannibal’s strange embrace.
“Can we go with car to find them after dinner and tv?” Victor asked. Hannibal moved the gun from Alana’s back and she exhaled, not knowing she was holding a breath throughout this whole time.
“Of course, Victor. We can all play,” Hannibal said and smiled down at the boy. Alana’s stomach made a flip.
“Cool!” Victor exclaimed, running away in the direction of the dining room.
The moment the child was gone, Alana twisted around to deliver a blow to Hannibal’s head. He caught her wrist in time, kicking her in the stomach and she fell backwards, dragging him down by his hair, trying to launch forward and bite his neck, ear, face, anything. Her long nails dragged down his neck, drawing blood and he hissed, his knee pressing into her hip with a brutal force.
Of course he knew where to press to render her completely useless.
They stilled, Hannibal on top of Alana, pinning her down. Blood tickled down his neck and he barred his teeth in a smile.
“Oh, dear, this brings back memories,” he grinned. Alana’s first reaction would be to spit in his way but that was all Doctor Bloom and none of Professor Verger. She forced her muscles to relax instead, her gaze on Hannibal’s face.
“Perhaps that is exactly what Will and Margot are thinking at this moment?”
She knew Hannibal was easily swayed off his game (whatever that was) with the mention of Will. And while Alana had frankly no idea what was going on, she also knew that the idea of Margot and Will running away together was so ridiculous only a jealous and uncertain lover would lash out at the thought.
The pain she felt radiating from her hips as Hannibal pressed harder proved her right.
“Don’t—-“ she had to focus on her words, her vision white with pain. “Don’t be an idiot, Hannibal. Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”
His black eyes shone with a brown tint, as if his human suit was zipping itself up at the comment.
“It is not jealousy, rather than professional concern over the well-being of our dear friend Will. It would have to be the return of his encephalitis to make him act so out of place as to returning to their sexual encounter and stealing her away from the picture perfect family she had created.”
He spoke with detachment. Alana was not fooled so easily. She felt a sting of pity for Hannibal upon hearing the ridiculous theory, being so sure in her relationship with Margot that anything less stable than that seemed to elicit compassionate emotions within her. However, this was Hannibal and their shared history prevented her from showing that side of herself to him. Besides, it was moments like this she could literally hear the remains of her marrow in her blood, overtaking the blood cells of Alana Bloom.
“Sounds like there is trouble in your paradise with Will, Doctor Lecter, for you to have to come up with a psychological diagnosis as a sole reason why Will would ever leave you. I myself could come up with at least three different explanations than that.”
That was the moment Hannibal would snap her neck, she thought. Hannibal seemed to have similar thoughts as his hand moved to pin her wrists in one move and relocate the other to her neck.
“Always so very brave, Alana,” he mused.
There was silence and then Alana’s throat vibrated against his grip. “My misplaced bravery and your misplaced jealousy make us a rather idiotic pair, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I wouldn’t,” he pressed into her throat, vision blurring. There was a fight within him and she saw it as well as felt it. He might have been blinded with jealousy but the petty emotion wasn’t enough to overtake his shining intelligence.
“You stop trying to be brave and I will let go,” he suggested. Through her tears, Alana nodded. She rather valued self-preservation and if that would be the way, then she could play along.
Hannibal let go of her throat, gasping sounds filling the air. The living room was dark by the time they got to finish their violent dance and Hannibal stood up. Sharp pain in her hip was not unwelcome, making her panic over the situation less overwhelming. She struggled to get up. Hannibal dragged her up to her feet, stepping back to allow her to support herself on the table nearby. She took out her phone and he didn’t make a move to stop her. A strange agreement bound them together.
“It has been a week since I last heard from Will. I would wager it is going to be even longer to hear from your wife,” he commented as the call went straight to Margot’s voicemail.
“Someone took Will from you and Margot from me,” Alana decided, slowly replaying the situation. “It is illogical your first instinct would be to assume he came back to me, or even that I would have any interest in helping him get away from you. That Alana Bloom is long gone. I would assume both you and Will are smart enough to realise that.”
“I must admit, it did cross my mind. However, there were other rather unpleasant factors that pointed to you as our finances have somehow been relocated to an account I have no power over and the only family with enough resources to accomplish that would be the Vergers.”
If Hannibal could ever look embarrassed it would be then. Alana couldn’t help herself but to smile. Yes, she enjoyed stripping Hannibal of his belongings back in he Baltimore mental institution but she never thought the act got under Hannibal’s skin so deep as to assume she would do it again.
“Will has gone missing and your secret stash has gone with him,” she shot him a look. Hannibal sneer at the implication.
“William had full access to our finances, yes, however the reasons he was with me were not based on wealth. Not everyone needs to birth a child to get to the bank accounts, dear.”
It was both completely wrong and right. Hannibal had that effect on people. Alana rolled her eyes at the endearment, not afraid to be rude without the presence of her son in the room.
“Whoever lured Will and Margot to them - and now I am going on a whim here and say even kidnapped - would know that without your finances you would turn to me. They want us to cooperate.”
Hannibal nodded. “They knew I would be coming here and waited with Margot disappearance until the moment I got here. Perhaps they thought we would kill each other assuming the other harmed them.”
“You threatened my son, Hannibal. That did not exactly make me feel against the idea.”
“My sincere apologies for that, Alana. It was not very polite of me.”
There was nothing sincere about that sentence.
“I will arrange for all my contacts to search for Margot…and Will,” she decided. Wealth was a wonderful thing, having people on stand by just for this sort of thing. Being aware of Hannibal’s possible survival made them strengthen their bonds with the darker side of personal protection, having their own people among the most vile criminals in the world. Hannibal standing across from her in a shadowed room made her doubt the success of those precautions greatly but it was the only course of action she could suggest.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, indeed,” Hannibal grinned but it was an empty sort of face, darkened by unwanted fear. He could probably come up with more pretentious idioms, were he in his top form.
Alana’s mind reeled with possibilities. Maybe there was no connection between Margot’s sudden disappearance and Will’s very likely departure from his twisted relationship with Hannibal. She could have played along Hannibal’s game and then have him killed. Or kill him herself, that also seemed like a pleasant idea. Perhaps this was all an elaborate plan how to use her feelings for Margot against her, Hannibal luring her somewhere under false pretensions just to find out she was tricked into a blood bath where she would be forced to take Margot’s life herself, with Will's and Hannibal’s laughter as the accompanying music score.
Hannibal was stoic in the room, hands behind his back. He waited.
“We are not friends, Hannibal,” Alana decided. She took a few slow steps towards the doctor, breathing hard without the support of her cane and with the dulling pain in her hip. He eyed her suspiciously, the gun still in his hand behind his back. He didn’t move as she breathed her threat:
“If I find out that Margot’s gone to be a pawn in one of your fucked up games, I will personally choke the air out of your lungs and I will make Will Graham, wherever in the world he is, watch you die before ripping his chest apart with my bare hands and you will not have the pleasure of watching any of that. Do we have an agreement?”
Her red lipstick was smudged from the fight and he made a move to clean it with his thumb. Alana hissed and bared her teeth, a warning in her piercing blue eyes. He reconsidered and nodded.
“Very well. I can promise you this is not one of my games.” That promise did little to reassure her of anything. “However, this is most certainly a game of someone’s making.”
Alana found herself agreeing with that as she reached behind Hannibal’s back and took the gun to her hand, pointing it at Hannibal for a change. The fact that he let her stirred something inside her and her darkness sprung to life with that idea. She was walking a fine, fine line. It thrilled her.
“With the devil on my side, I find it hard to believe we could ever lose.”