Chapter Text
The knock at the door draws Bedelia from her reading. Spending a majority of her time in solitude, and expecting no company, her right eyebrow arches and she places her tablet on the end table before rising from the elegant, plush armchair.
Bedelia had truly, and finally, settled in to retirement, her time spent practicing pilates, pruning in her sun parlor, and reading updates on the latest psychiatry methods. Occassionally, she reviewed empirical research and less frequently, she submitted responses or letters to the editor. Her name guaranteed her letter's publication, even if she hadn't had something decent to contribute. She's never made a habit out of contributing drivel, however, although she sometimes reads it from other has-been psychiatrists working to recapture long-lost relevance. Meaningless criticisms, diatribes, and questions that could have easily been worked out via a Google search but instead are submitted as letters to the editor. She knows that anything she writes would get in, but perhaps that's part of the problem. She hasn't had a reason to submit any responses in over a year.
She isn't even sure if he read her last one.
She walks to the door with her silken kimono-style blue robe wrapped tightly around her body. It's years old, and although the bottom is beginning to fray from use, she can't replace it (or dwell upon why she can't stand to replace it). Checking the peephole, she is confused and curious by the person on her doorstep.
"Can I help you, Agent Starling?" Bedelia asks as she opens the door, the small awning barely shielding the young agent from the the torrential downpour outside.
She does not invite her inside.
The agent looks conflicted, and her eyes shift before settling on Bedelia's crystal-blue ones.
"I'm not supposed to be here," she says hesitantly, her voice a honeyed twang.
"Then why are you?" She can't keep the subtle haughtiness from her voice. She loathes the part of her personality that makes her particularly inclined to jealousy, but finds it difficult to not take it personally when Hannibal stopped all communication upon meeting Agent Clarice Starling. She knows that she cannot truly blame the young, overzealous Agent. But she wants to.
Although she had brushed off the lack of a Christmas card last year, always completed with a recipe that reignited a past memory, she could not forget the sting when she realized her birthday card was not coming. Or more accurately, was never sent. After all, why would he need to reminisce through covert letters to editors and greeting cards, to relive their times in his memory palace, when a new conquest sat right before him? Logically, she knew it made sense that he would be attracted to a young and intelligent woman. Someone he could speak to and see in the flesh. Someone who he didn't need to go to his memory palace to visit. But, it wasn't the logic that truly made her struggle. She has always prided herself on her logic and rationality, and yet...
When they parted, it was hard to admit how she yearned for him. But she did yearn. She stayed away, ignoring Dr. Chilton's offer to visit her once upon a time jailer, but the psychosomatic ache continued to grow, settling in her chest, her heart physically heavy. Once again, an attempt to avoid a crueler fate had lead her into a half life. Her sacrifices continued to exhibit diminishing returns, each half-truth to maintain her cover leading her into deeper dispair. What fraction of a fraction of her life did she have left now? Living in isolation, her voice sore from disuse whenever she rarely spoke. She was never particularly chatty, but she couldn't help feel saddened that her only regular contact with other living people came in the form of her monthly stylist appointments and grocery deliveries.
And so, when she received the first letter, it had been sheer bliss. His scent clung to the paper (she's ashamed to admit that she checked), and when she touched herself that night, it was easy to imagine that it was his fingers; that it was him pumping into her, keeping a steady rhythm. It was the first time she climaxed in months - one part attributable to her antidepressants, the other due to loneliness that she was once indifferent to, but now cannot regulate.
She had known that it was only a matter of time until he moved on to another interest, and yet, she practically gulped down a glass of one of her finest reds when she realized how disappointed she felt at the realization that the time had come... and arrived so quickly. She hadn't fooled herself into thinking Hannibal Lecter loved her. But she wanted him to. And dammit, she had hoped...
The young agent pulls her from her reverie in short, clipped words.
"Hannibal is ill; his appendix."
Her lips form a hard line in an attempt to remain impassive. She has kept the charade of her kidnapping for nearly five years and Hanninal has agreed to every detail she's woven. It would not do her well to now show concern for her abductor.
Clarice takes her silence as an indication to continue.
"I was there when it happened. He was calling out for you."
"And you thought this may be an opportunity to run another errand for Jack Crawford," she states plainly.
"No," she disagrees adamantly with a shake of her head. "I-"
Bedelia catches Clarice's eyes as the young woman tries to tactfully get her words out, and her own expression softens. She knew from the beginning that she had been foolish in her jealousy, believing that Clarice was anything other than a pawn to Jack Crawford's ulterior motives. Clarice had not come to her doorstep this time to try to trick her into revealing a detail that would allow Crawford to reopen the investigation into her kidnapping.
The young woman was so earnest, so determined to do what was right and good, possessing a naivety that came with youth. Jack Crawford had used her, she knows, but Clarice Starling had a moral compass. She was no Will Graham, desperately determined to collect a pound of flesh in whatever way possible. She shifts her weight off her prosthetic.
She's so caught up with her thoughts about the young woman that she barely catches Clarice's next words.
"He was asking for Delia, which I assume referred to you, Doctor Du Maurier."
"Hannibal has called for me before, Agent Starling, and it did not warrant a house visit."
"I know, Doctor, but then he started reciting a recipe..." Clarice pauses before she herself begins to list the ingredients: beetroot, vinegar, shredded cabbage, potatoes.
Bedelia's eyes widen and she begins to tremble. Feeling as though she may collapse, she presses her palm into the door frame. Clarice responds to her distress immediately, reaching out to offer support to the woman with nerves of steel who was practically shaking in terror before her.
"You...you're sure?" she stutters, her own eyes meeting Clarice's honest ones. The young woman nods, and her eyes search Bedelia's for answers.
"It's borscht," she says nervously, "I have to leave."
"I-I don't understand, Dr. Du Maurier", Clarice responds, her confusion evident as she begins to follow Bedelia, who was ever-so-slightly limping towards her staircase.
"Hannibal sends me the recipes of what he intends to do with my body," she pauses before the first step, looking over her shoulder at Clarice. When the young woman blinks at her in return, Bedelia confirms that she was already aware of this fact, either by Hannibal's own admission or Crawford's.
"Borscht is my final act. It's what he plans to do with my blood."
"Are you saying that Hannibal is planning to escape?" Clarice asks, shocked by the suggestion that Hannibal may escape maximum security, but not that he would drain Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier's of her blood to use in a recipe.
"I do not plan to wait around to find out, Agent Starling. You can see yourself out."
Just as Clarice is about to respond, her phone suddenly rings. She looks down at the caller ID and sees an unfamilair number. By the time she looks back at the staircase, Bedelia has disappeared.
Not wanting to disobey the Doctor's wishes, she exits Bedelia Du Maurier's home and begins to walk to her car. Her phone trills once again, but this time it's a familiar number: Jack Crawford.
"Starling, Hannibal's gone. At least an hour based on the watch schedules. He planned this, the bastard."
Clarice is about to tell Jack to send agents to protect Dr. Du Maurier when she feels the hair suddenly rise on her arms and a tingle spread throughout her body. It's a familiar sensation, being watched. It makes her skin crawl.
"Starling, where are you?" Jack's voice suddenly sounds distant and far away as she realizes just *who* is watching her. His gaze feels much more intense when she isn't shielded by thick glass.
"Hello, Clarice."
She turns quickly on her heel to meet the familiar voice but is immediately met with complete darkness.
"Starling!!" Jack's voice screams from the phone. "Starling!!"
But the phone is now face down in the gravel. And Clarice Starling is not capable of answering his calls.