Everything hurt.

My eyelids were as heavy as bricks.

I fought to open them.

I rubbed the crust out of my eyes. I was laying in Hannibal and I's bed.

Hannibal.

The memories rushed back along with the gnawing pain in my stomach. I lifted the covers to see a neat line of stitches below my bellybutton. The skin around the thread was yellow with tints of purple.

I paused. My face dropped. I scanned the room for Hannibal. He wasn't here. Relief flooded into my being but was soaked up fast.

Hannibal was feeding me human organs. I wanted to throw up but my stomach was empty. Was I really that blind? My own husband was a murderer and I had no clue. I sobbed but each cry was accompanied by a sharp pain from my lower stomach.

I slammed my hand over my mouth to dampen the sound. There was commotion from the room below me. I heard a babble and a cry. It sounded like it came from a baby.

My hand slid across my now flat stomach. Fear filled every bone in my body. Was that my child downstairs? Guilt followed. I tried to kill my baby.

"Shh, here you go" It was Hannibal's voice then the baby suckling on a bottle. Why was he was taking care of the baby. He's supposed to be a cold blooded psychopath.

I tried to crawl out of the bed to listen closer. But the pain was too much. My arm gave out and I fell to the ground producing a loud thump. The noises from downstairs stopped. My eyes went wide when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I looked for places to hide but the warm blood seeping into my shirt caught my eyes. One of the stitches popped opened. I scrambled to hide under the bed as the foot steps got closer.

A hand grabbed my leg and I screamed. I kicked and thrashed but the burning pain slowed me down. Hannibal pulled me from under the bed. My eyes met his. I don't know what I was expecting but maybe for him to look like the murderer he was. But he didn't. He looked just like the man that said he loved me.

Hannibal pulled my shirt up. The broken stitches laid on both sides of the open gnash. I could see my organs. My breathe froze in my throat. I tried to suck in new breaths of air but I still was suffocating. I watched as Hannibal's hands pulled my wound close. I saw my blood all over his hands and shirt. He weaved a needle back and forth through my skin. I felt the thread pulling itself through each puncture. The stanza in-between his eyes deepen. He bit off the remaining thread and then carried me back to the bed. I wanted to talk. I wanted to scream but everything inside me froze up. I felt nothing for a while but then I felt everything. I sobbed and screamed. snot flew out of my nose and spit and drool mixed with blood on the sheets. My throat felt peeled raw.

"Why! Why?!" I scream and pounded his chest. I was too weak to inflict any damage yet I stilled slammed my hands against and screamed.

Hannibal grabbed my hands and pulled me into his chest while wrapping his arms around me. I wanted to push him away. I wanted to scream at him for lying to me. I wanted to slap him across the face and take my child and never see him again. But I didn't. I let him hold me as I cried.

I watched the snow shake from the branches when a large gust came. It joined the other snow on the ground. The sky stood as a bleak grey. The past two days I stayed in bed. I was too weak to walk. Hannibal had to carry me too and from the bathroom. He brought me food but I didn't dare touch it. He tried to talk to me but my responses ranged from yes, no, and silence. I didn't know how to treat him after knowing what I know. A part of me hated and feared him but another still loved him. I hated myself for that.

"Here she is." Hannibal walked into the room. He held the baby close to his chest and supported her head with his hand. He passed my daughter to me. It was the first time I've seen her. She looked perfect and healthy. Not a scratch on her. I brought her to my chest and cradled her.

"What's her named?" I said softly while still looking at her.

"I didn't give her one." I tried to search her face for a name but none came to me. She just stared up at me with bright eyes. I could see resemblances of Hannibal in her face.

"She looks like you." I said plainly. I haven't decided if that was a good thing or not.

"She has your eyes and lips." He whispered and caressed my cheek. I pulled away from his touch. Sadness burned into his face. He turned and walked away.

One afternoon after Hannibal put the baby to sleep I asked him a question that's been poking me.

"Were you the Chesapeake Ripper?"

He looked away and said "Yes."

Sorrow swallowed my already fragile being. He blatantly lied to me. He terrorized me. All I could say was "Why?"

"The first men I killed was my sister's killers. After her death I realized there was no God, no justice. I killed because I could, that's all." He watched his hands. "But for you I changed. I stopped killing and I took from those who were already dead."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The man I thought I knew so well is a completely different person. I began to question if everything was an act. Does he actually love me?

"Was everything a game for you? Play house, be the role of a loving husband then be a murderer at night?"

"The man I was around you is me but the man you didn't know is me as well. Everything I said to you was real. I didn't think I could love anyone or anything until I met you."

Those words soften the blow. I stared out the window. Maybe things would've been better if I just didn't know.

"I know I'm sick. I tried to get better but this is who I am. Death is all I know." He sat next to me on the bed.

I didn't know what to say.

"When I was a boy I lived in Vilnius, Lithuania. In the summer of 1941 Nazis stormed my home. My mother and father were slaughtered. My sister and I escaped but to only be captured by army deserters."

I watched him. I knew Hannibal's parents were killed but I didn't know the extent.

"Mischa and I were held with others. When our captures ran out of food they used us as cattle. They forced me to eat Mischa."

My stomach dropped. The crater that was once filled with anger now turned to pity. Silence swallowed the room.

"Mischa."

"What?"

"Let's name our daughter Mischa." I looked away from him.

Hannibal smiled and nodded.

I turned away from him and faced the wall.

"Please leave now." I wasn't ready to forgive him. I named my daughter Mischa in honor of Hannibal's sister, not him. I don't know if things can ever go back to normal.

About an hour later he brought me dinner. It was the sixth meal he brought me that I refused to eat. With the absence of food and the trauma of giving birth, my body looked like death. I could trace the outline of my bones through my skin. At night I could see the hollowness of my cheeks in the window reflection.

"You must eat."

I turned away from him. Hannibal placed the plate down.

"Eat."

I didn't respond.

"Your body is dying. You need to eat."

I looked him in the eyes and crossed my arms. Angered brewed inside me.

He had enough of my refusals. He grabbed my chin and shoved a forkful of meat inside my mouth. I spit the food out. I was in shocked he never got that physical with me before.

"You fucking bastard." I slapped him across the face. He didn't flinch. He had a dead pan stare. I could see the rage behind his eyes. My face dropped I braced myself for a blow and squeezed my eyes shuts. When nothing happened I opened my eyes to see him leaving the room.

He didn't visit me for two days. I had to drag myself to the bathroom and drink from the bathroom faucet. I would occasionally hear Hannibal taking care of Mischa. Other then that the silence was deafening.

Hannibal's footsteps woke me up from a nap. I snapped upright. Bracing myself for the worst.

"I will be going to Lithuania for a few days. I need time to think." He stood at the doorway then stared then left. He couldn't leave me here alone I could barely walk. And who would take care of Mischa?

"Hannibal!" I yelled. I heard the front door close and then his car start.

He left me. He really left me.

~~~

New chapter next week.