DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. I borrow with respect and love.
TIMELINE: This story takes place a few years after the end of the series, but does NOT include the season 3 post-credits scene in its universe.
For a Moment in the Sun
by
Elizabeth Rowandale
Copyright (c) 2018
They are not in Florence. She has meticulously avoided her beloved Firenze for many years. She believes she may never go back, while a secret voice in the well-spring of her mind tells her she will come full circle some day. When she suspects the end of her life approaches, she will return to those cobbled streets and hallowed halls like a salmon swimming upstream to fruition and inevitable death. To the scents of fresh grapes, old wood, and expensive perfumes.
Tonight they are in France. Nice, to be precise, not far from the water. The same water that washes onto the shores of Italy, too far away to see. Richard loves the Riviera. He has been wanting to bring her here for so long. He talked about making it a whirlwind tour of Europe. Stopping in Paris, in Barcelona, in Rome. She guided him away from Italy. He understands, of course. Or believes he does. Italian voices circle through her dreams.
Tonight as the sun creeps toward the rooftops, they are seated on a bench in a brick-paved square, a smattering of tourists cascading through the late summer air. A prestigious fountain rises at the center of the plaza, its gentle mist caressing their skin. Like seaspray.
Bedelia sits, legs crossed, her cotton skirt ruffling in the wind. Richard's arm rests easily around her shoulders. She leans into him just a bit. They have been together long enough for a degree of trust and expectation of security to inform their actions - not long enough to lose the tender reverence.
She has been something approaching happy for several months now. She rarely cries. She is not so hyper-vigilent in her control of every word and hint of emotion she reveals. Bedelia cannot remember the last time in her life she felt this comfortable in her own skin.
University life has proven to suit her. Richard teaches his philosophy classes one building over from where her students reap the benefits of her years of clinical experience in psychiatry.
She doesn't hold the balance of lives in her hands each day.
Richard's fingers move to toy with her blonde waves, to caress her throat.
Bedelia closes her eyes and breathes in the sea air. In a moment her prevailing sense of peace shifts into something raw and vulnerable and long buried but never forgotten. She is back in the elegant rooms of their home in Florence, Hannibal's fingers twisting in her hair, the silk gown he bought her in Paris cooling her skin. She smells the remnants of the fire, and he is cooking her her favorite roasted vegetables, slicing and seasoning to perfection. He smiles at her, losing himself in the moment with a rare warmth and boyish radiance that makes her feel like she is the only woman in Italy he cares to see. The only woman he might ever
"Bedelia?" Richard's voice is deep and gentle, threads of concern coloring his simple utterance. "What it is, my love?"
She opens her eyes. She draws a deep breath and realizes there are tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
Richard's kind eyes narrow as he brushes a stray curl from her temple. "Tell me."
Bedelia shakes her head. "I'm just...missing an old friend."
He nods, continuing to caress her throat. "Man or woman?" he asks, no jealousy or demand in the question, merely curiosity. She respects the pursuit of knowledge for understanding's sake.
"A man," she replies. "I won't ever see him again."
The statement gives nothing more to the story, but it is honest and it is all he needs to understand. Richard knows enough to let her words be enough. He knows Bedelia Du Maurier is an intricate puzzle, that he has only scratched the surface of her secrets. His respect for her complexity is one of his most appealing traits.
"He's the reason you didn't want to go to Italy," Richard says, and Bedelia turns to him with lifted eyebrows and wide eyes. His exceptional perceptiveness continues to surprise her Another of his appealing traits.
He knows about Hannibal, of course. He has attended her lectures. He knows the story she tells the world, comforts her occasional nightmares from that time in her life. He would never associate that version of events with her present tearful melancholy. He trusts her just enough to miss the ruse, blinded by protective adoration.
"I think so," she replies, gaze flickering to his lips. She likes the wrinkles around his mouth. There is kindness and experience on his skin.
Richard squeezes her shoulder, leans in and presses his lips to her temple. "It's all right, ma cherie," he says. "You are entitled to miss those you have loved."
Love. It is a loaded word, complex and tangled with self-judgement and fear and vulnerability. But there is something in her that wants to be that woman. A woman who nurtures. A woman who is adored for more than her intellect or the curve of her breasts. She isn't certain she is worthy of that kind of emotion. She went into medicine out of a fascination with the human body, the human mind. And because she wanted...to want to help people. In the end...she had done harm.
She doesn't hate herself for who she is. But she doesn't love herself, either.
Maybe that was the beauty of Hannibal. He had been drawn to her as much for her instinctive cruelty as for her elegance. And that...could have been a genuine kind of connection. One she had never known.
Richard loves her. Without the blood.
She wants that to be enough. She wants peace to be enough. Hannibal wanted that, as well.
She closes her eyes as the golden light plays across the square. She remembers the view from the balcony in Firenze. She swears she could draw it from memory as the sun goes down.
Maybe someday she will go home. Walk the stones beside the carousel in Piazza Della Repubblica, gaze through the twilight from the Ponte Santa Trinita, breathe in the memory of a fairy tale - as her sun goes down.
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