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When Hannibal hadn’t told Will about the encephalitis, thus preventing immediate treatment, he’d been more than aware of the possible outcomes. What he hadn’t been prepared for was that Will might change him and that one day, he might come to regret his decisions.
It had started with bradykinesia: Will’s movements slowed down. When they made love, they weren’t in sync anymore. Hannibal fooled himself for a while, playing it off as getting older, not commenting on it but doubling his own efforts.
Will, observant and empathetic as ever, noticed, of course. They didn’t talk about it.
Next came the tremor. At first, the involuntary contraction and relaxation of muscles occurred only when Will was tired. As the frequency increased, Will’s patience waned. In the beginning, he would laugh it off. Later, he would curse whenever he spilled his orange juice at the breakfast table. He became impatient with himself, angry when it took him longer to finish even simple chores.
Knowing that he caused this, that Will’s anger would be better directed at Hannibal than himself, seeing Will holding firmly onto his forgiveness nevertheless – that hurt more than Hannibal thought it to be possible.
They quit hunting after Will fell when he tried to slit their victim’s throat, hurting himself in the process. Will tried to convince his husband to do solo tours. Hannibal was having none of that, so they stopped altogether. Killing alone long had lost its taste since that night they’d slain a dragon.
Will accidentally hurting himself was also the point when Hannibal finally put a name to it. Post-encephalitic Parkinson syndrome. He stopped slipping the medication into Will’s food, and Will stopped pretending he hadn’t noticed. Now, there was a colorful array of pills next to Will’s coffee every morning.
Hypothetically, Hannibal could afford hundreds of thousands of dollars for the necessary Riechert–Mundinger apparatus. There was a slim chance that a stereotactic operation might improve Will’s condition. And though he was loath to let anyone but himself touch Will’s brain, he knew there wouldn’t be another option. L-dopa could only do so much. Will however, his lovely stubborn Will, straight-out refused this option.
“There won’t be anyone cutting into my brain, darlin’” he’d said. (“Anyone but you” – that had remained unsaid). “They’ll catch us, and I know you are too much of a fool to leave me alone and flee the police. The meds work just fine.”
They did, indeed, and for a while, Hannibal allowed himself to be happy.
Until Will came downstairs into their kitchen one morning after his shower, sat down at the breakfast table and started talking to Abigail as if she’d never died on that rainy night in Baltimore.
They had to cut back on the meds in order to stop the L-dopa induced psychoses. Will’s symptoms returned with full force.
Even worse was that they knew it wouldn’t stay that way. Will already experienced trouble with his short-term memory. Both knew what the future would hold. Hannibal was creative with finding excuses for talking about it, but Will was just as stubborn.
“Don’t be blind, Hannibal, be brave” he said. “Dysphagia could be next. And the one time you shoved a tube down my throat was enough, thank you very much. I won’t let you do it again when I can’t swallow on my own anymore.” I love you his eyes said I’m not angry at you, you know that, right?
“Will, don’t be afraid. We will manage this together. I’m a trained doctor and we will go through this.”
Hannibal knew that Will believed him, that he could picture him sitting by his husband’s bedside, wiping saliva from his chin, changing his diapers whenever the incontinence would make it possible.
“Hannibal, this isn’t sustainable. We’re going to get caught. You can’t have extensive home-care while being on the run.”
Hannibal knew that this was a lie, as much as Will knew it. They’d been in Cuba for several years since the dragon, not once forced to relocate. It’s shallow excuses for the true reason. It wasn’t that Will was afraid of depending on Hannibal, either, or that he found it shameful or less worthy a life to be bed-ridden and slowly wasting away.
No, it was because Hannibal was frightened. Il Mostro di Firenze, the Copycat, the Chesapeake Ripper, couldn’t imagine living without Will. And wouldn’t it be a life without Will if the man himself wouldn’t know who he was, anymore?
That’s why Will made him promise to finish what he’d started in Florence.
And so came the day, when Will looked at his husband and was confused about who this man was. It took only a second until recognition blinked up in his mind, but it was enough for Hannibal to know that the time had come to make good on his promise.
They cried, and they kissed and Hannibal once more cut open Will Graham’s brain. This time, though, he did get a taste of his beloved’s mind and Will Graham died smiling by the hand of the man he loved.
Jack Crawford himself found them, alerted by a timed automatic sent message. His nemesis sat at the table, not unlike in Italy, and yet nothing like it. Craddled in his arms, almost like he’d rocked him into sleep, the former FBI profiler. Will’s pale face wet from tears and from the blood dripping out of the bullet hole in Hannibal’s temple.