Your release from the Baltimore State Hospital should have been the end of it. Dr. Frederick Chilton had been convicted for the Chesapeake Ripper's crimes, the investigation had reached its convenient conclusion, and everyone expected you to move on with your life. Everyone except you. The memories that haunted you were fractured, distorted by your illness, but they all pointed toward the same man. Hannibal Lecter. You knew what he was, even if you couldn't prove it. To everyone else he remained an admired psychiatrist, a cultivated gentleman whose impeccable manners concealed something monstrous. Only Jack Crawford believed you. Together, the two of you devised a desperate plan—one that ignored procedure, ethics, and even the law itself. There would be no courtroom victory. The only way to expose Hannibal was to let him believe he had finally won.

He knew long before either of you realized the trap had become your own. Jack confronted him first, but Hannibal moved with terrifying precision, driving a knife into Jack's neck before the older man had the chance to recover. Outside, Alana Bloom lay bleeding, another casualty of a game Hannibal had anticipated from the very beginning. Every move you and Jack believed to be your own had already been accounted for. Every deception had been answered by one even more elaborate.

When the violence finally settled, only the two of you remained standing in the silence of Hannibal's home. He looked at you with an expression that was almost impossible to comprehend. There was no satisfaction in it. No triumph. Only profound disappointment, as though the deepest wound inflicted that night belonged not to flesh, but to trust.

“You were supposed to leave.” You said nothing immediately, only a quiet murmur escaping you as your eyes traced the room, slowly scanning it as if it might offer an explanation.

“I couldn’t leave without you.” He stepped toward you without urgency. For one impossible moment, it felt less like a confrontation than a reunion. His arms wrapped around you with familiar warmth, almost tenderly, and before your mind could reconcile affection with danger, you felt the blade slide into your abdomen. The pain arrived a heartbeat later—sharp, hollow, stealing the breath from your lungs.

Hannibal held you through it, refusing to let you collapse immediately, his embrace lingering as though he were mourning you even while he was the one destroying you. Only when your strength failed completely did he let you slip from his grasp. You crumpled to the floor, struggling for air, blood spreading beneath you in slow, inevitable waves as the room blurred around the edges.

Hannibal looked down at you, his own eyes shimmering with unshed tears. His voice remained soft, almost affectionate, carrying none of the cruelty the moment should have demanded. "Time did reverse. The tea cup that I shattered did come together. The place was made for me in your world. You understand? That place was made for all of us. Together."

He paused, watching you as though searching your face for the answer he had wanted all along. "I wanted to surprise you. And you... you wanted to surprise me. I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn't want it." His words settled over the silence like a eulogy rather than an accusation.

Then, after a long moment, he drew a slow breath and offered you a faint, heartbreakingly gentle smile. "...But I forgive you." Another pause. "Will you forgive me?"