Hannibal watched (y/n) as she stood at the fridge. Her swollen stomach added to her beauty. Hannibal admired her body but he noticed she was standing at the refrigerator for too long. She must have noticed he restocked the meat.

"Hannibal, where do you get all these fancy meats?" She held a wrapped lung.

Without skipping a beat he answered, "A good friend of mine is a butcher. Thanks to him I'm able to cook rare cuts of meat and organs." Lying came so naturally to him. Yet he yearned to tell (y/n) the truth.

"Oh, ok."

Hannibal took the organ she held and put it back in the refrigerator.

"I made you breakfast already, it's on the stove." He pointed to the pot sitting on the stove top. She smiled and thanked him.

"How far along are you now?" Hannibal rubbed (y/n)'s stomach.

"17 weeks today" She leaned against his chest. He kissed her neck while she giggled.

He gave her one last kiss and said, "I have to go to work."

"Already?" (Y/n) whined.

"I wish I could stay." He kissed her head then her stomach. "I'll be home at six." He then left for work.

Hannibal disliked working as a psychologist. He only went into his field because he wanted to learn more about himself and people like him. He knew he has something dark festering inside him. When he first started psychology he thought he could fix himself. Make his need to judge and kill those he disliked go away. But he learned that he never could. So instead he used his patients as lab rats. He would coax his patients to do bad things. He wanted to know are we born with this darkness or is it something that grows from a seed?

Ever since Will, Hannibal realized that one must be born with darkness inside them to do evil. Hannibal was just born this way. The horrible things in his past activated that darkness inside him.

(y/n) wasn't born like Hannibal but she understood him when he couldn't even understand himself. She knew Hannibal had something dark in him yet she still stayed with him. But he's scared that if he completely exposed himself too her she will reject him. That's why he lies to her even though he hates doing it.

He gripped the arm rests of his chair. He hated being away from her even if it was a couple of hours away, especially now that she's pregnant. Hannibal never thought he would have a baby of his own. Then again he also thought he would never love anyone.

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a handkerchief. When he unfolded the fabric a clump of hair showed itself. That hair belonged to (y/n)'s hairbrush. He brought the hair up to his nose. He inhale her scent. He unbuckled his belt while his fingers tangled with (y/n)'s hair. A knock on his office door interrupted him.

He quickly adjusted himself and placed the handkerchief and hair into the desk. "Come in."

Hannibal's shoes crunched against the gravel parkingklot as he headed to his car. It was four in the afternoon. He told his wife he would be home at six. that gives him two hours to run an errand.

He drove five towns over. Hannibal couldn't risk the Chesapeake case reopening. Yet he refused to give up his eating habits. So he took precautions and scaled back his killing. Even if it took more effort he will do it for (y/n). She needs proper nutrition to have a healthy pregnancy.

He was planning on making "Pansette de Gerzat" tonight. The dish consists of minced lamb stomach along with onions, salt and pepper, and pork intestines to make the dish more tender. He did collect new organs last night but the stomach was in horrible condition. He couldn't feed spoiled meat to (y/n) and his child.

Hannibal parked his car and headed down the street. He passed a cluster of panhandlers. They disgusted him. They were begging and covered in filth. He would kill them all but their organs are usually tainted.

He kept walking.

He walked in the back entrance to the town hospital. Hannibal assisted in a couple of surgeries there. He knew his way around the hospital and his way to the morgue. Since it was a small hospital the morticians only work in the mornings and early afternoons.

The mortuary was a cold steel coated room. It reeked of death. A smell Hannibal was all too familiar with.

Each cold locker was marked with a name and chart. Hannibal read each chart till he saw one that appealed to him. '25 year old male. COD- brain tumor. Organ donor.' Perfect.

Hannibal opened the locker and slid the man out. He was already sewn up. The chart said the body would be ready for burial tomorrow. Even more perfect. He won't be opened up again. No one would noticed if a couple of his organs were missing.

Hannibal took a scalpel and cut through the stitching. The body was pale with purple and blue splotches. The corpse was stiff. Rigor mortis already set in. The more popular organs like the heart and lungs were gone but the stomach and intestines were perfectly intact. He scooped out the guts and placed them in a cooler. He restitched the body with the common baseball stitch and slid the corpse back into the cold locker.

He started to walk away but one of the charts caught his eye. '3 years old female'. He stood in front of the cold locker containing the child's corpse. He reached for the steel handle but then paused. The harsh lights silently flickered. He slid the drawer open.

She looked just like Mischa.

~

Hannibal, his sister, and a few other children were huddled in the straw for warmth. Suddenly the barn door bursted open. Two army deserters came in and felt Hannibal's thigh, chest, and upper arm for fat. Instead of him they choose Mischa. They led her away "To play". No one who was led away to play ever returned. He tried to pull her away till the deserters slammed the barn door on him, cracking a bone in his arm.

Hannibal prayed to see Mischa again. The prayer consumed his six year old mind. But it did not drown out the sound of the axe.

His prayer was answered. He did see a few of Mischa's milk teeth in the reeking stool pit his captors used.

~~~

Thanks for reading! New chapter next week. Things definitely pick up and get very dark.