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Title: Replay
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham
Fandom: Hannibal
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Sequel to "Too Late For Regrets."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Hannibal Lecter or Will Graham, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Will looked around him as he walked up the stairs, almost wishing that he could turn and run away. He didn't want to face what he knew was upstairs.

But he had to do this, he told himself sternly. If he didn't, then he would always feel like a coward, as though he couldn't face his past.

And if he didn't do that, then he couldn't move ahead.

He had a future. He didn't have to live in the shadows of a past that had only made him unhappy. He could move on, and leave that past where it belonged.

He didn't have to look back at the past and shudder; he could close the door on it, as he should have already done. There was no reason for him to brood over it, to turn it over again and again in his mind and wonder if things could have been done any differently.

There were so many things that he would change if he could. So many mistakes that he'd made, so many things that he'd done on the spur of the moment that he shouldn't have.

Why had he called Hannibal and warned him that the FBI was closing in?

That had been the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Because of that, he'd caused Abigail's death -- and he would never forgive himself for it.

But it was far too late for those regrets now, and he knew it. They had to be put away, and the door had to be closed on them as well. He had to live with what he'd done.

Some of the decisions that he'd made would haunt him for the rest of his life; he was well aware of that. He hadn't done everything that he should have done, and he done some things that he would always bitterly regret. But wasn't that what life was all about? You lived, and you learned.

Though if he was honest, he would admit that he was very lucky to be alive. Still, he couldn't help but wonder if he'd been purposely left alive.

Hannibal could have killed him. He knew how to do that well enough.

Yet, he hadn't done so. No, he had left Will alive -- left him alive so that his regrets could eat away at him, so that he would have a lifetime to look back on all that he'd done.

Will didn't doubt for a moment that Hannibal had left him alive as an exquisite form of torture -- because the bastard had known that he would end up like this.

Hannibal wanted him to relieve those mistakes, over and over again.

But he wouldn't do it, he vowed, his inner voice strong and firm. He was going to put those mistakes behind him, and get on with his life. He owed himself that.

He didn't owe Hannibal anything. That monster had tried to kill him, not just once, but several times. And not only that, but he had wanted to frame Will for his crimes -- which could have gotten him the death penalty. Hannibal had only rescued him from that to prove that he could do so.

If he hadn't had those visions when he was behind bars, then he might never have known exactly what Hannibal was, and just how false their supposed "friendship" had been.

Well, his eyes had been opened now, and Hannibal was where he belonged. All he had to do was manage to put the ghosts of the past to rest, and he could move on.

However, that wouldn't be as easy as it sounded.

The door to that room where he had thought that he was going to bleed his life away was right in front of him. All he had to do was reach out and open the door to confront the memories.

But something was stopping him from doing so; he didn't want to touch that doorknob. He didn't want to push the door open and be faced with all the horror again; he didn't want to remember Hannibal slashing Abigail's throat, his own tears, and then the pain of being gutted.

Will's hand instinctively went to his stomach where the scar was, where the knife had gone in deeply and twisted in his flesh, leaving a permanent mark.

He would never forget that day. He would always have a stark reminder of it.

That horror would forever replay itself out in front of his eyes if he didn't walk into this room now, if he didn't rid himself of that memory once and for all.

No, not rid himself of it. He could never do that; the memory would always be in the back of his mind, ready to jump out at him with teeth and claws bared.

Still, if he confronted that room, let the memories play out one last time, then maybe he could manage to shut them away, to close the door on them and make peace with what he hadn't been able to do. For that was the crux of all that he felt, wasn't it? His own guilt as his helplessness.

He'd stood there and watched Hannibal murder Abigail. For him, she had died a second time; he'd had to relieve the grief of losing the girl he thought of as his daughter all over again.

Hannibal had known just how to hurt him. He had known what witnessing Abigail's death would do to him, and he had meant for it to cause maximum pain.

He knew that Will would never forgive himself for not being able to save her.

He had to go into this room. He had to face what had happened there, had to make his peace with the memory. If he didn't, then it would never let him go.

Will knew that he couldn't deal with any more sleepless nights, or another night where he woke from a restless sleep with his heart in his throat, a silent scream stuck in his chest, a scream that wouldn't come out no matter how hard he tried to express what he was feeling in a cascade of sound.

If there were any more nights like that, he would drive himself insane. It was past time for all of that to stop, for him to put the past into its place and move away from it.

And the only way he could move on was to confront that past.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, placing his hand on the doorknob. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned it and stepped forward into the room that he dreaded seeing again.

Then he simply stood there, looking around him and letting all of the horrors that he'd felt and witnessed in this room wash over him in a rush of emotion.

***