Oh, my goodness! I'm thrilled with the amount of follows and faves I've gotten already. Thank you!
Disclaimer: I don't own Hannibal, but all original characters are mine. This was inspired by a poem and there is a playlist, but I will share later.
This takes place before and during the series. Edited for a rather embarrassing typo. Millais, not Singer Sargent, painted Lizzie Siddall as Ophelia. I was skimming through to edit when I noticed the error and fixed it. This is what happens when your insomnia catches up with you.
And may I just say that if you're ever stalked or sexually assaulted, it isn't your fault and you're not alone, and there are people who want to help you. If you need assistance or resources, please go to RAINN's website; they are a truly wonderful organization.
Pretty Little Things
Chapter Two
He came to see her the next day, in the morning, bringing with him two pieces of brioche and a venti mocha from the closest Starbucks, laying them neatly on the table in front of her. She noticed that he only partook of his own coffee, and when she offered him some brioche, he declined.
"Your mother said you liked the brioche," he said. "I bought it for you."
The emphasis on you, the way he leaned over and pushed the brioche toward her, the way he lifted his eyes to her face in earnest-all of it seemed so effortless on his part. If anything, it was a peace offering, perhaps because of yesterday and what he had triggered.
"Thank you," Victoria said. He watched her as she picked at it, as she nearly guzzled the coffee. "It's so much better than the crap they have here," she explained. "The food is like dorm food, and the coffee..."
"Yes, the coffee is terrible," he agreed, and she had to laugh at that. "Maybe next time—if you'll let me—I'll bring the brioche that I make myself."
"You know how to make brioche?" Victoria said incredulously. "Good brioche?"
"You would have to taste it and see for yourself," he told her, smiling slightly, the skin around the corners of his eyes crinkling. And then he grew more serious. "That is, if you would like to continue with me after today."
She swallowed the bit of brioche in her mouth, and it felt dry as it went down her throat. "Then you know...what...where..."
"I know nothing other than what you youself, your mother, your attorney, and the doctors attending you have told me," he told her pointedly.
She bit her lips, and she she stared down at her bitten nails, not wanting to meet his gaze. "He...he touched me."
She heard the seat squeak as Lecter leaned forward. "What do you mean? Who touched you?"
"McCarren." She closed her eyes, not wanting to remember it. "When he had me pinned down squeezing my neck, when he was whispering to me, he touched me."
"And do the police know this?"
"Of course they do, but the charge might not stick, they said. The home invasion and violation of a restraining order are enough, and even the assault...the physical one..."
She looked up at him again, and while his face remained impassive, the corners of his mouth tightened. "You've been through a terrible ordeal, then. I hope the police understand why you shot him."
"My father had friends here. Friends with money and influence. They—the police—know that, and..." She trailed off, blinking back tears. "To be honest, I wish he were here now. Just so that he could tell me everything was going to be all right."
"You don't believe that?"
She hesitated. "I do, but the worry always creeps up..."
"You've had to look over your shoulder and worry for a very long time," he interrupted. "It is normal to worry, but don't let that worry overtake you. At least not today."
"So everything is going to be all right?" she said.
He took a sip of his coffee, smiling wanly. "Only if you allow it to be."
October, 2012.
"It's a summer camp for disadvantaged children," Louis told her as she looked over the promotional material that had been brought to her. "It's run by a very wealthy Virginia family. Old money, really old money. They thought we'd be interested."
Victoria flipped through the glossy pages of the pamphlet, reading carefully over the blurbs that highlighted the positive things that the camp did for underprivileged children. It wasn't unlike the Cedar Mountain Settlement School that her college sorority had chosen as its national philanthropy, but it just came packaged like it was a resort for poor kids.
"So what is it supposed to do—give these kids a taste of what they'll never have?" she said, picking up her mug of jasmine green tea.
"It's charity, Victoria. They're just trying to not look like assholes."
Victoria snorted out a laugh. "Good way to put it. I'm thinking ten thousand. At first."
Louis nodded. "I can get the check cut by next week, and I'll get back with them tonight, then."
Victoria smiled. "Good. And when we tour the camp to see what our money has done, we'll see whether or not they're assholes."
She stopped at her apartment on the one side of town to pack up the rest of her things. And then she drove to see him on the other side of the city. It wasn't easy, with him and his practice and with her running the trust foundation that her father had had set up in his will, but they made do. Weekends were their principal time together, when he would come to her or when she would go to him, though often it was easier for her to go to him because she could work remotely from his home. It had been that way for some time, but after she'd turned thirty-one this past March, she'd gotten to thinking of a baby, and so had he, but they hadn't gotten things worked out. Not yet.
Her mother hadn't approved of the relationship, but had relented eventually. But then of course there were things that her mother didn't know about and didn't need to know about. Just like there were things that he did that she didn't want to know about.
There were things he had helped her cope with, things of darkness and obsession that had made her feel dirty though nothing had been her fault. He had helped her to replace that memory with another one night, knowing what she'd needed, asking...no, commanding...
Tell me what you want me to do, Victoria.
I want you to...
Victoria knew he'd fallen for her then, or that she'd gotten to him then, because he'd bought the last remaining print of the Hamlet promotional poster from the Shakespeare festival at her college in 1999, the one in which she had been photographed as Ophelia after John Everett Millais's painting. She remembered how pleased he had been at his new acquisition, how he had come to her, putting his hand on the small of her back and asking her if he ought to place it someplace else.
Things were different. With him, at least.
He'd given her safety—after- and then a way out, a cover for them both, a sort of pantomime just to show the world that now, everything was all right.
But then there had been that birthday present...
Keep my secrets, and I'll keep yours...
The last pregnancy test she had taken was negative.
He didn't blame her, per se.
They knew when she was ovulating and fertile, but of course, things had happened. With work, or this, or that.
She only hoped that next time, the test would be positive.
This house.
She always felt safe whenever she walked into this house.
It was the very embodiment of him, and he'd found a place for her here, among his furniture and paintings and books and all of it. There, in the hallway that led from the great room to the dining room, hung the photograph, framed, and there she was, at nineteen, with the whole world in front of her and a shadow watching her every move.
"Do you know how many compliments I still receive on that?" she heard him ask. "I had a guest over for dinner last night, and he asked if I knew who the Ophelia was." She felt him behind her, and he gently placed his hands on either of her shoulders, burying his nose into her hair. She found herself leaning back into him, into the broadness of his chest.
"What did you tell him?" she replied.
"I told him that the Ophelia has a very special place here, all her own."
"What did he say?" She turned to face him now, and he smiled down at her.
"He said that he should have put two and two together." He smoothed back her hair, then rested his hand on her cheek. "And that I have excellent taste."
That could be taken in a number of ways, and she managed a laugh even though the multiple meanings crossed her mind. He seemed pleased with her response, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I am glad that you are home," he said cordially, as cordially as he would speak to anyone else.
Once, after she'd found out what he really was about, she asked him if he would ever kill her.
They had been home on a Friday night, after dinner was over. She had been reading an anthology of American short stories on her Kindle and had just finished The Yellow Wallpaper. The title of the next short story sent chills up her spine when she came to it: The Most Dangerous Game. He had heard her sharp intake of breath, and he had slowly glanced up with his drawing, his face inquisitive.
"What is it, Victoria?"
She rose from the chair she had been sitting in and walked over to him, showing him the title of the short story. He glanced at it as if it were of little consequence, absently reaching for the scalpel with which he sharpened his pencil.
"Would you..." she began, and before she could finish the question, he shook his head.
"No, I wouldn't," he answered with perfect aplomb.
"You wouldn't?"
"No. It would be a foolish thing to do, and I take no pride in being a foolish man." He turned his attention back to the drawing, and she stood there, her jaw slack, not believing that the conversation had just occurred. He seemed to grow agitated, and he put the pencil down, sighing. He pushed his chair back and rose from the table, going to the wine cabinet and pouring them each a glass of pinot noir. He set the glasses on the coffee table before he took a place on the sofa, patting the cushion beside him. She went to him, sitting down.
It was a convoluted explanation, but what she got from it was this: He prized all of the things in his collections, and he prized her, too.
In short, she was his pretty thing. And it would be a shame to dispose of her when he prized her so.
She showed him the promotional material she had gotten from the youth camp. He perused it as she got ready for bed.
"Has anyone you know ever worked with the Vergers?" she asked him as she sat down on his bed. "Is their program worth it? I know they did a lot with displaced kids after Hurricane Katrina, but..."
"They are major donors to Johns Hopkins," he answered. "The older children and the mother are very active in the philathropies they run."
"So it's worth it?"
"If you deem it worthy of your money, then it is worthy," he said decisively. "It is your trust. All of the final decisions are yours to make." He folded up the pamphlet and brochure neatly, handing them to her so that she could set them on the bedside table. "All of them."
Sometimes in her dreams he offered her a pomegranate, and the sticky juice that dripped from it was as red and thick as blood. She would eat the seeds, one by one, counting, until he would take it away after she had eaten six of them.
He would then lead her by the hand to the corner of the room that lie in shadows, and he would turn on the light to reveal McCarren, tied down to a gurney and gagged. And he would hand her the scalpel, direct her how to hold it, but her hand trembled so much that he placed his own over hers to steady the incision. McCarren howled into the gag, but the noise subsided when she reached in and closed her hand over his still-beating heart while Hannibal stepped around her to make the necessary cuts to extract it.
She watched as Hannibal took the liver for himself. I know how much you despise liver.
They would then be seated at the dining room table, and they would each be partaking of the meat they had just acquired. And for dessert, Hannibal would give her the rest of the pomegranate, watching with shining eyes as she finished the last of the seeds. When she was done, he would pull her to him and kiss her with a violence to which she was unaccustomed.
Tonight she awakened with a gasp, her heart pounding.
She wished it was just a nightmare.
But it wasn't.