Hey ho! I love Doctor Who, Hannibal and Cabaret. Basically, this was inevitable. But you do not need to know Cabaret! Really, just Hannibal and Doctor Who.

"Is this it...?", asked Clara uncertainly.

"I suppose so," answered the Doctor, once again looking at the reading on the TARDIS' screen. "Why?"

"I think you might want to take a look," Clara said. "This is earth."

"Let me guess. Great Britain."

"Nope."

The Doctor finally joined Clara by the TARDIS door.

"Ah. Looks like Germany then."

And yes, indeed. There were some flags in the country's colour.

"1930s, I'd say," said the Doctor. Clara flinched.

"So it's close to..."

"I'm afraid so, Clara."

"Oh."

The Doctor looked at Clara disapprovingly.

"Brave heart, Clara! We still need to find him."

In fact they were on a mission: There was a mass murderer who liked to kill his victims with his bare hands and then cruelly disfigure the corpses. Its vortex manipulator was a bit faulty so that the TARDIS could trace wherever he went but so far, they had not had any luck actually finding him. He was a human, so much was clear and he kept choosing locations where at least some other humans were present.

Despite all the timey-wimey technology the Doctor had at his disposal (in addition to these enormous brains of his), all they had been doing for the previous few days was travel from planet to planet and space platform and starship and look at the trail of corpses and disturbed people. It was maddening.

So, they had decided that there only was one way of getting ahead of that person: knowing the next victim before he did. The Doctor was certain that there had to be a pattern but he could not figure out, which. All official records of the victims showed no similarities. Not even in species or time.

Their grand scheme to achieve this was to hire two specialists: Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter. Clara had told the Doctor that he had now completely lost it once she had been doing a bit of research on the people to find out that the oddly familiar name "Lecter" was this familiar because he was, in fact, the Chesapeake Ripper!

The Doctor had told Clara that it would be a totally safe undertaking and that Hannibal would get no chance to cause any trouble.

"Uh, Doctor?,asked Clara.

"Yes?", replied Hannibal smoothly. He had been reading in the library and had made his way to the console room upon landing. Clara flinched and it was obvious that Hannibal was enjoying himself.

"N-no. The other one." It came out almost like a question.

"What is it, Clara?", said the Doctor slightly irritably. It wasn't actually directed at poor Clara but rather at the psychopath who had too much fun intimidating his companion.

"Have we actually considered what we would do now?", she asked.

"Well, I since we have already shown them the last two victims, why don't we investigate a bit?"

"Mister Graham?", Clara then shouted for the still slightly shaken man. Contrary to Hannibal, he actually was fazed by traveling through space and time in a bigger-on-the-inside police box. Also, it was obvious that he would have preferred if Dr. Lecter had remained behind that thick pane in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

"Yes, coming," he shouted. He tore himself away from all that fascinating engineering he saw on the TARDIS and ran up the stairs to help figure out where to start.

Once they had all gathered outside the TARDIS, the Doctor said:

"Well, he seems to be lazy because the murders always happen close to where he lands. So we won't have to look very far."

They had all dressed in period clothes so their appearance wouldn't scream "Time traveler" as loudly as it usually did. The TARDIS, for once, was also parked in a dark alley rather than in the middle of everything as the Doctor seemed to prefer.

"He kills the counterproductive," said Will Graham quietly. "He'll kill those who swim against the tide."

Clara had been very curious what the experts made of those murders but she wasn't prepared for Will's cryptic phrases.

"How do you mean? Where do we look?"

"He considers himself the… protector of history," Will explained. As always, Hannibal did not pass up the chance to throw in a clever, deep thought to guide Will's chaotic progress towards their goal.

"Not unlike the Doctor and miss Oswald."

Clara flinched at the serial killer saying her name.

"No. He isn't a constant, he… flows."

"Like history itself," stated Hannibal.

The Doctor was growing impatient with the conversation that seemed to be happening in a dimension that only Will and Hannibal could enter. He was about to remark something but Clara silenced him efficiently by elbowing his ribs once he opened his mouth. She did see now why they couldn't just bring in Will Graham. Without his therapist, his explanations were absolute gibberish. She wondered how Jack Crawford put up with that before Hannibal.

Will's eyes lit up.

"Yes! He doesn't have firm morals. He just… sees the lines and structures in the course of events and he..."

"Turns them into a painting," says Hannibal, his indifferent tone almost getting an appreciative note.

"Yes, he eliminates all the disturbances to make everything more clear, he strives for… purpose."

"He is hurting time itself!", exclaimed the Doctor. He certainly did not really object to any madness but he would not have these two men talking about that person like he was an artist.

"Why does he… do what he does, then?", asked Clara, earning herself a puzzled expression from Will and an amused raised eyebrow from Hannibal.

To the Doctor though, that vague question certainly did make sense. Before Hannibal could even ironically comment on his companion's imprecision, he exclaimed:

"Yes, exactly! Why does he always leave a mess behind? The brutal killings, the horrid things he does to the corpses, he even seemed to have eaten parts of them!"

Three pointed glances went in Hannibal's direction. Who was offended to be compared to such a barbaric person.

"Yes he eats their meat raw," he said as indignantly as a Hannibal would get. None of the others missed the fact that he had referred to their flesh as "meat".

This was going to be a difficult investigation.