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Dr. Hannibal Lecter kills Will Graham not with violence, not with a knife, not as the Chesapeake Ripper, but with assumptions and carelessness and arrogance.
Later, they will say Hannibal is a monster, for lack of a more appropriate term (a knowing killer, fully capable of the healthy range of emotions, fully grounded in reality, but still a sadist who took the lives of so many for his own pleasure), that he cannot regret or feel guilt.
That is false. Hannibal can feel regret and guilt. He just does not regret murdering those killed.
He does, however, regret entirely the death of Will Graham, the man he never meant to kill, the man he wanted in ways he hadn't felt since his sister's death, the man who was supposed to be the one he allowed to put the Chesapeake Ripper to justice, the man who—if for only an empathy disorder—could understand Hannibal like no one else before.
Instead, Will Graham is the man who ruins Hannibal Lecter, with four simple words destroying every single one of his meticulous plans, unfolding decades of careful plotting like it was nothing.
He should have known. He should have read the medical files instead of merely glancing at them. He should have looked over Dr. Sutcliffe's charts more thoroughly. He should have seen the symptoms, noticed that all the pills Will constantly popped weren't just aspirin, how compulsively thoroughly Will cleaned his house, how careful Will was to never injure himself and to keep himself away from anyone when they said they had so much as a runny nose. It should have been so painfully obvious, if he'd only thought to look for it.
"I'm HIV positive, Hannibal."
He repeats Will's words over and over again in his head, thinking of how obvious it should have been, all the signs right there, but how arrogantly Hannibal had assumed he was infallibly right, dismissing all the symptoms that he hadn't thought were important even if he couldn't explain them with simple encephalitis.
HIV explained the faint smell of hospital-grade disinfectant and hand sanitizer that clung to Will.
HIV explained the collection of prescription pill bottles under Will's bathroom sink.
HIV explained Will's own panic over his memory loss and black outs and automatic assumption that it had to be something wrong with him physically.
HIV explained Will's history of being socially outcast and utter lack of any kind of history with sexual or romantic relationship.
HIV explained everything, and sitting across from Will in the whitewashed hospital room as he admitted that he had been sick since the day he was born, Hannibal cannot do anything but watch as all the planning he has built his life's work on crumble apart.
By the time Hannibal slips the antiviral into the cup of Will's medications at the hospital, he knows it's too late; he miscalculated the timing completely.
He didn't put the fire out soon enough.
The pills aren't much, but it's the only apology that Hannibal will ever give.
"It's full-blown AIDS now."
"I'm sorry, Will."
"I'm thirty-three. Pretty damned old for someone like me." Will laughs, but it sounds forced. "Lived longer than they thought I would when I was a kid."
"I'm sorry, Will," Hannibal repeats, incapable of formulating another response under the harshness of the hospital room's florescent lights. Will spends most of his time sleeping or too lost in waking fever dreams to have a real conversation. This is a rare moment of perfect lucidity, but Hannibal finds himself unable to do anything but apologise.
"Dr. Lecter, may I speak to Will privately for a moment?" It's Will's doctor, a harried looking younger man, standing in the doorway.
"No, let Dr. Lecter stay," Will insists.
"It's about your treatment options, Mr. Graham."
"I will just be in the hallway, Will—"
"No. I want you here.”
There is such desolation and desperate need in Will's eyes that Hannibal just relaxes into the chair at his bedside. "If you insist."
"Mr. Graham, at this point, our focus has become palliative care, to foster the most comfortable healing environment for you. You are no longer requiring intensive care for your fever, the swelling has reduced to a less dangerous level, and we have accomplished everything that we could hope to accomplish in your treatment. And so, we have come to a fork in the road with your treatment. I think our focus now needs to become how we can make you as comfortable as possible. I'm so sorry..."
Hannibal sterilises Will's house himself before Will is released from the hospital, scrubbing it from top to bottom with hot water and bleach and sanitizer until his hands are raw and he feels dizzy from the chemical fumes, even wearing a surgeon's mask. He takes Will's dogs home and feeds them more sausage, telling them not to make a mess of his elegant house like they can understand him. Later he will drop them off at the ASPCA and personally make sure they all go to good homes.
Alana stops by Will's house while Hannibal is washing Will's bed linens in water hot enough to scald his hands. They share a bottle of whiskey together, and the cheap alcohol stings as it goes down. She measures out Will's medications in his pill organiser while Hannibal washes and scrubs until he can't feel his fingertips anymore.
They don't exchange a word.
Hannibal thanks her internally for the silence.
Will comes home on a cold Wednesday night. The bags under his eyes are darker than ever before, skin drawn gaunt against his bones.
He looks sick.
Hannibal makes him thin vegetable broth and hot lemon tea. There's no surprise ingredients, for once, other than a few crushed-up pills dissolved in it so Will doesn't have to swallow quite so many at once. It’s a small mercy.
Hannibal has already accidentally given his only friend a death sentence. There would be no more fun in manipulating him now.
Will wants to hire a hospice nurse to help him when he inevitably worsens.
Hannibal refuses and moves in to Will's spare bedroom, sells his office and practice to another up-and-comer in the psychiatric community. He is a doctor; he will care for him. He refuses Will's offers to pay him. This has nothing to do with money, of which Hannibal has plenty, working full-time or not.
Will offers to give him full power of attorney.
Hannibal call his lawyer and has one ready for Will to sign by the next morning.
It's all just another part of the only apology Hannibal ever gives.
Jack Crawford finally comes to visit two months after Will is released. Will never officially quit his job, but Jack had quietly just granted him an extended leave of absence that he'd never applied for. Keeping him on payroll and making sure Will still had good health insurance had seemed the least he could do.
Hannibal makes him take off his shoes, take a quick hot shower, and change into a pair of sanitised hospital whites before he is allowed to enter Will's room.
There is guilt in Jack's eyes when he emerges from the bathroom, refusing to look Hannibal in the eyes as they walk upstairs together. "I wouldn't have pushed him so hard if I'd known. He didn't tell any of us. You have to know that, Dr. Lecter. I got—I got caught up in my own life, with Bella, with catching the Chesapeake Ripper. I didn't know. You understand that, right?"
Hannibal does not reply. "He has not been fully sensible for the past few days. He had another mild seizure this morning, after I tried to inform him I had found another sarcoma on his shoulder. Do not be surprised if he doesn't recognise you."
Will doesn't notice when they enter, doesn't look up from where he's sitting up in bed, staring at a large print crossword puzzle and scribbling things seemingly at random on the page in black crayon.
"Christ. I'm so sorry, Graham..."
Will's conscious and fully present—a rarity at this point—when Alana comes over for Christmas supper, brings him a hand-sewn plaid patchwork quilt that everyone down at Quantico had commissioned Zeller's mother to make for him.
They eat a simple beef soup and thick slices of fresh baguette, and Will joins them both in the dining room. Hannibal and Alana share a bottle of spiced hard apple cider warmed in the copper tea kettle. Will is allowed one sip from Hannibal's glass and asks question after question about his once-colleagues of Alana (Hannibal rarely leaves the house these days), before he gets visibly tired, and Hannibal walks him back up to bed.
Hannibal is about to turn the light off and tread quietly back down to where Alana is pouring them both two fingers of whiskey when Will mumbles for him to come back.
"Yes, my good Will?"
"Will you miss me, Hannibal?" It's soft, whispered, pleading.
Hannibal swallows hard. "Until the end of my days, William."
"'Annibal?" Will's voice is a little slurred now, muffled in the softness of his pillow.
"Yes?"
"I don't wanna be alone. Don't wanna take any more pills. Don't wanna be sick anymore. Just wanna sleep forever."
When Hannibal speaks next, his voice is steady, his tone confident, but he feels like he hasn't since he last saw the amber of his little sister's eyes, dragged off to play, never to return. "I see."
"G—good. Did—did we ever catch the Ripper? Don’t remember."
"Yes. Yes, Will. You caught the Ripper."
They will call Dr. Hannibal Lecter a monster later on. Broken. Inhuman. Sick. Twisted.
But as he walks downstairs, takes a shot with Alana and shows her to the door, Hannibal wonders if they would have done anything differently if they’d seen all that pain in Will’s eyes.
He presses one hand to Will's face while Will sleeps, pinches his nose and clamps his mouth closed until Will's body stops fighting for breath.
Will does not struggle, does not even wake.
It's calm, quiet, peaceful. The kind of death Will deserved to have. An end to the miserable humiliation his life had become, imprisoned in his own house.
He shrouds Will in clean white linen and the patchwork quilt from Alana, arranges him in the solid army-green fishing jon boat and fills the boat with flowers selected from an old book of flower meanings (asphodel, cypress, star-of-Bethlehem, rue, dried white roses, rainflower, yellow roses...) and a pair of stag antlers.
He pushes the boat off the dock and watches Will drift off into the early-morning mist hanging on the mirror-like surface of the lake.
He uses Will's cell phone to call Jack. "Hello, Agent Crawford."
"Dr. Lecter?"
"Please tell everyone that Will Graham has caught the Chesapeake Ripper."
"What the hell—"
"I am the Ripper, Agent Crawford. And I would like Will Graham to be remembered as the one who caught me."
Hannibal tosses the phone into the water and wonders for a moment if any of the profilers who will pour over his textbook-perfect crimes will ever be able to reconcile this scene with the violent, mocking murders of the Chesapeake Ripper.
There is no violence or mocking here, no humiliation, no stolen organs or shameful exposure.
This is soft and gentle and caring and laced with regret and tenderness; this is the only crime that Dr. Hannibal Lecter never meant to commit, the only murder he regrets, the only victim he feels guilt for killing.
This is an apology.
It is the only Hannibal Lecter ever gives.