Chapter Text
enjoy his every smile
you can see in the dark
through the eyes of laura mars
- Tori Amos -
Baltimore, Maryland
March 2020
The electricity was back on, and this time Clarice walked into Hannibal’s home with her badge and gun on her hip.
“I guess this is how the other half lives,” Landon said, whistling as they look around. The crew had removed the sheets from the furniture, and the rooms were somewhat returned to their former glory.
“I suppose so. Let’s split up for now. Do you mind looking around upstairs?”
Landon nodded, his footsteps quick as he dashed up the flight of stairs like he was running a race. Clarice rolled her eyes and walked towards the back, where Hannibal’s office had been. She’d need her glasses for this, and she put them on, seeing the room better as she looked around at the familiar room. The sketches of her were gone, save for the first that remained on the wall behind his chair. She sat where he once did. Her body was petite in the large, leather seat. As she relaxed, she could almost see Will across from her, his body shaking with an induced seizure.
The lights flickered, only for a moment, and Clarice sat up straight when an overhead bulb popped loudly.
“Did you never get that fixed?” she murmured.
Her eyes continued to wander around the room as she took in Hannibal's view of his old office.
“Well… damn,” she breathed. She stood and walked to the wall. “Why would you have her smiling at you every time you sat with a patient?”
Memories flooded back to her as she stared at her painting of Ardelia Mapp. Clarice had almost captured the shade of her skin, somewhere between milk chocolate and fresh nutmeg, but she was never able to capture the way it had once glowed in the light. The painting was encased in museum glass now; a glance around the room proved it was the only one framed so well.
On impulse, she touched the corner of the frame and frowned when she felt a tiny button. Weighing her options, she almost called out for Landon. But curiosity won, and she braced herself as she pressed it, becoming oddly calm when the painting swung away from the wall. A digital recorder sat next to a stack of thumb drives.
“You burned your notes, but you left the tapes. Why the fuck would you do that?”
Each drive was meticulously labelled in his fine writing, and she took quick stock of what was there. Without hesitation, she took the two that bore her name and Margot Verger’s, slipping them into her pocket before taking a deep breath.
“Landon!”
“What!” he yelled, obviously checking himself when he repeated, “What do you need, Clarice?”
“Get a bag and get in here! I hit the jackpot.”
His steps were quick, and he entered the room before Clarice had time to smooth her clothes.
“I’ll be damned. Lecter taped his sessions with Will. But why would he have kept them after burning everything else?”
“Some sort of trophy? It’s odd, isn’t it?”
Together they catalogued the drives. There shouldn’t have been any problem with transcribing the earlier tapings, but after Will was officially a patient…
“Given the fact that Lecter was brainwashing him into becoming a killer, I wouldn’t see the issue,” Landon said.
“I agree, but I’d rather run it through legal first.”
“They could be blank. Just one more game to play,” Landon said. “I think this is the last one, unless…”
Clarice had her back to him, examining the interior of the safe more closely. “Unless what?”
“How did you know to look there?”
She blanched and tried to control her breaths before she turned around.
“This painting didn’t fit in with the rest. I took a closer look.”
The answer seemed to satisfy him. “The woman was beautiful, whoever she was.”
Clarice nodded. “Maybe an old girlfriend of his?”
“Who would know, anymore?”
“Maybe I should talk to Alana Bloom. They’d been friends for years before --“
“Dr Bloom and her family have been in hiding since his escape.”
“I know someone who knows where she is,” she said.
The Verger Estate
March 2020
The rotor blades were still in motion when Clarice pulled into the gates at the Verger estate. The home was beyond palatial, a testament to what new money could persuade the hands of the vulgar to forge.
She parked her car and glanced in the rear-view mirror. She looked like the college student Alana would remember her to be, now that her stylist had stripped the years of auburn dye from her hair. The man had been thrilled to do so, even talking Clarice into a few highlights that made her pale hair look ethereal in the light. It was time, past time to come back to herself, and she felt a little more like the young woman who Hannibal and Will had once known.
A husky man knocked on her window. “Special Agent Starling?”
She nodded, showing the man her badge.
“That doesn’t look like you.”
“Well, blondes have more fun, don’t they?”
He frowned. “Come with me, please.”
The receiving room was five times the size of her apartment, and the women in the centre were as still as statues. Margot Verger stared at Clarice, her neck hidden by the high, starched collar of her suit. Alana sat next to her, dark and pale and stoic in cream.
“Clarice Starling,” Alana said. “How long has it been?”
“The better part of a decade.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.” Alana stood, greeting her with a firm handshake. “Looking at you, I wonder just how quickly time moves in your world. You’ve barely changed.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Clarice said. “A lot has happened since the last time we spoke.”
“I would offer you something to drink, but this house has not been used in some time. Our assistant will be back soon, with lunch.”
“I’m fine right now, thank you.”
“This is my wife.” Clarice shook Margot’s thin hand, receiving the nervous smile with one of her own. “Our son is still at our home. Safe from harm.”
They sat opposite each other as they had once done in her office.
“Do you think Hannibal would come after you?”
“He’s threatened it. And after taking his toilet, I would imagine that I would be close to the top of his list of the rude,” Alana said. “We don’t want to take any chances where Hannibal Lecter is concerned.”
His name was a curse on Alana’s lips, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Clarice felt pity for the woman who had been her friend.
She was Alana Bloom, and she wasn’t.
“Why are you trying to find him?” Margot asked. “It seems it would be best to leave them to rot.”
“They both sent Jack a letter last month.”
“Why would they do that?” Margot turned to Alana, who smiled and squeezed her hand reassuringly.
“It’s not about us,” Alana said, her voice soft and patient before she turned to Clarice. “Or is it?”
“It’s not about your family. It’s about me.”
“The last time Hannibal spoke your name in my presence, he had a tan and was happier than I think I’ve ever seen him. He mentioned that he simply took you on holiday to aid in your recovery from a severe illness,” Alana said, carefully watching Clarice’s expression as she spoke. “But I always thought you’d been fucking him stupid for the better part of a month. That's exactly what you did, didn’t you?”
Margot gasped. “Alana –”
“No, she’s right,” Clarice said. “It didn’t start that way, but that’s how it ended. I was sick when he came to me. Mostly because I was heartsick for someone else.”
“Does Jack know how close you were?”
“It’s none of his business.”
Alana nodded, chewing her lower lip. “Does he know how close you and Will were?”
That genuinely surprised Clarice, and her expression gave it away. “I didn’t know that you knew.”
“He always got bitter whenever I mentioned Buffalo Bill. He spent two weeks in Chicago while you lived there. It wasn’t hard to put things together, not if you knew him well enough.”
Clarice was the first to look away, for Alana’s expression was so cold that even Margot flinched.
“Jack thinks that we were friends. We were friends of a sort. And lately, I realise that he’s been one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
“You sound like Hannibal,” Alana said.
“I hear that a lot from the people who knew about our relationship.”
“There aren’t many of us left, are there?”
Clarice shook her head, ducking behind her hair as she took the drives from her bag. She gave them to Margot, who frowned. “These belong to you. Hannibal recorded his sessions with you, but no one knows about them, except for the people in this room.”
“You’ve obstructed justice?” Alana didn’t sound shocked.
Clarice shrugged her shoulders and sighed as she looked out of the window on the far side of the room. “My presence on this case, without disclosing my relationship with Hannibal, is already an obstruction. I’m not an objective party when it comes to either of them; I never could be. They are woven too deeply within me.”
“You love him,” Margot said. “Don’t you?”
Clarice nodded, adding, “I love them both.”
“I’m responsible for this,” Alana said. “I gave you to him, and he did what he does with everything in his life.”
“You don’t understand us at all,” Clarice said, getting agitated. “Even after seeing the files and knowing exactly what he is capable of, it hasn’t changed anything. I’ve come to see the beauty in what he creates, no matter how grotesque. Every crime scene, every mutilation, it’s all part of a complex love letter for Mischa.”
“He’s consumed you whole and spit out a carbon copy of himself, just like he did to Will,” Alana said. “Can’t you see what he’s done to you?”
“Alana, shut up.” This time Margot spoke, and her voice was rough with emotion. She looked at Clarice and said quietly, “I felt that way after Alana and I killed my brother. The eel in his throat, the blood -- there was a savage beauty to it that I've never forgotten.”
It was no surprise to Clarice that Hannibal had not killed Mason Verger. The photos of the scene had not spoken to her like the others had, and it pleased her to know that his sister had done it. She and Margot shared a look, and it spoke an unspoken promise: any secrets shared between them would remain.
“What are they planning?” Alana asked. "And you better tell me the truth."
“They’re going to take me home. And this time, I’m not going to run away from either of them.”
Alana’s hand grabbed Margot’s with an intensity that made Margot wince. “You will stay for lunch, won’t you?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes, I think I would,” Alana said. “I never said goodbye to you the last time I saw you. This time, I’d like to give you a proper send-off. If you’ll pardon the pun.”
“Promise me that we will never return to this place,” Alana said. They watched as her car darted through the outer gates.
“What do you think?” Margot asked. “Do they want to fuck her, kill her, or eat her?”
Alana smile was sad. “They don’t want to kill her. And that’s what scares me the most. That of everyone who has died, Hannibal wanted her to live.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got a few phone calls to make. As much as I detest the idea of speaking to Freddie Lounds, someone needs to wake Jack up. And it can never be traced back to us.”
Washington DC
March 2020
“What do you think? What do you know?”
“More,” Clarice said. “There’s no question in my mind that Hannibal caused Will’s madness.”
“That’s something we already know, Starling,” Jack said, staring at her. “I need to know where to find them. What do you think? What do you know?”
“Dr Bloom didn’t have much insight, but I have a list of shops that could have made the cologne that Will wears. I think they may be in France, or at least they have been to France recently. Between the selection of the vintage and the rarity of the ingredients, it fits.”
“Are you up to travel?”
“I could be, as long as I don’t have Landon trailing along.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t like the idea of you going alone.”
“I’m a big girl, Jack. If I find myself in something I can’t get out of, I know who to call.”
“Just see you don’t get yourself in such a situation without help.” He dismissed her as he turned his eyes back to the file on his desk.
“Jack?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob. “What will happen to them when they are found?”
“What does it matter to you?” he asked.
“I was just curious.”
He slammed the file on his desk. “Take your curiosity back to your office, Agent Starling.”
“Yes, sir.”
Clarice sat at her desk, the door to her office ajar. She was flipping through a stack of pictures of the origami birds Hannibal had made from the diagnostic tests given to him at the BSHCI, giggling as she sipped her cup of tea. Her eyes flicked up when Landon rapped his knuckles against the frame, and she waved him in.
“I’m almost done with the tapes.”
“When can you have the transcripts available to me?”
“By the end of the week.”
“Awesome,” she said, dismissing him. When he lingered at her door, she raised an eyebrow and kicked the seat next to her.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Landon said as he sat. “Will mentions you numerous times during his sessions with Lecter.”
“He did?” Clarice feigned surprise, and she motioned for him to shut the door. “What did he say?”
“He…” Landon fidgeted and looked at the ceiling. “It just seems like you had more than a friendly relationship.”
“Friends can be more than friendly,” she said.
“Stop the bullshit. You slept with him. And Lecter, too,” he said, his eyes curiously watching her. “This is a professional courtesy, Clarice. I won’t take my report to Crawford until after I’m finished. You need to walk away while you still have your badge.”
“I’ll take that into consideration, Special Agent Johnson.” Starling’s eyes were harsh as she turned her back to him, and when he slammed the door, she started packing up her office.
She’d covertly brought a box with her that morning. Even though there was nothing to take, other than the copies of The Joy of Cooking and Larousse Gastronomique that she’d already snuck into her go-bag, she didn’t want anyone to stick Landon with the job. He was a good kid, and any ill-treatment of him would be the epitome of discourtesy.