Hannibal Lecter swept through the Aeroporto di Firenze-Peretola. He was dressed in a well-cut navy suit with a white, open collar shirt. The bustle and incessant noise of the crowd was drowned out by the singular purpose in his mind: Clarice. During the torturous flight, he'd retreated into his memory palace. His body demanded obsessive motion now.
Florence welcomed him like a gift, and Hannibal graciously accepted its alluring invitation. Every summer spent immersed in its beauty was unique; the familiar skyline only encouraged him to pursue deeper insights. The city was nestled in a valley surrounded by low hills on one side and mountains in the distance on the other side, just as it always was. With summer almost upon it, a large variety of trees and flowers bloomed throughout the streets. The monuments, churches, museums, statues, and bridges shifted colours with the changing sky, from blue to yellow, to orange, to pink, and then to a light purple in the evening. Being in Florence again brought to mind the old proverb, chi si volta, e chi si gira, sempre a casa va finire: no matter where you go or turn, you will always end up at home.
Dizzying anticipation gripped Hannibal when he entered his apartment. Clarice's apartment, he amended. Their apartment, his hopeful heart supplied. It was silent and dim. Fresh flowers were in the vase, he noted, and a red coat suspended from the rack by the door. He was tempted to call out for Clarice. She had summoned him, after all. But what if she'd experienced a change of heart before his arrival? What if she'd…left? A cold shudder fueled him to swiftly examine the apartment.
Hannibal was not a man accustomed to doubt. Few things surprised him because he tried to leave nothing to chance. And yet, Clarice was not in the living room. Or the kitchen. The loggia was empty, disappointingly empty; he had imagined her standing there many times, bathed by the ethereal light, her hair loosened by the breeze, her lithe figure framed by Florence's ancient stone, and her head turning to him with deep affection shining in her eyes.
Panic threatened to overtake him when he entered the bedroom and Clarice was not there either. For one moment, his vision swam. Primitive anger possessed him. His shudders turned into uncontrollable shakes of shock, forcing him to sink onto the bed. He drew in a sharp breath. Regret pierced him, hollow and intrusive.
Then Hannibal caught the slightest scent of her, there, on the pillow. He stretched out to bury his nose in it. Perfume. Light, floral, yet intoxicating. And the viscous scent of…gun oil? His sleek head rose and he noticed the pistol on the bedside table. He shot to his feet instantly, every muscle tense, alert, prepared. Retracing his steps while his mind churned out possibilities, each one more horrifying than the last. Something was wrong. She hadn't greeted him at the door. Something was wrong! There was someone else. Here. She'd needed a gun to feel safe. A gun! Where was she? What happened? Something had happened. If she'd been harmed, if anything at all had happened to her, anything, he would make the streets of Florence run red-
The floral scent dipped sharply into cleanliness, mixed detergent and soap, when Hannibal entered the laundry room. There, wearing a white silk shift and curled against the humming washing machine, was Clarice Starling. His heart tripped. Shots of warmth brought an amused, tender smile. Easing aside the pile of clothing, Hannibal scooped Clarice into his arms. She nuzzled against his shoulder. He carried her back to the bedroom and tucked the covers around her. The only points of light throughout the night were his watchful eyes shining in the dark. He rose silently with the dawn and went out, locking the door firmly.
Florence was especially inspiring in the morning because of how it glowed-tile roofs smoky pink, slanting tin roofs a dull silver. Hannibal returned in time to enjoy coffee and prepare a breakfast of crepes. He was humming along to Strauss in his head when he heard Clarice running down the hall. She answered his beaming smile with her own and kissed him on the cheek without preamble.
"A very good morning to you too, Clarice."
She laughed. "When did you arrive?"
"Late last night."
"I wanted to stay awake, honest."
"Mmm. But you were understandably worn out." He indicated the paper figures lined up on the counter. "I see you've folded several delightful Origami chicken."
"They're supposed to be cranes."
After breakfast, they strolled through Florence arm in arm. Hannibal expected to be her guide, demonstrating not only his capability for resourcefulness but also his capacity for sentimentality. Florence was where he had become a man. His heart was full and everywhere, from the banks of the Arno river to the very top of the Duomo and every secret alley in between.
But it was Clarice that took him by the hand and guided him, as though he'd never set foot in the city. She chatted excitedly about her clothing purchases, her enchantment with the history of almost every building, weaving between facades and traffic to show him a view of the sprawling gardens blossoming behind a villa. Hannibal sensed her joy. And yet, her hand frequently came to rest on the pistol she kept holstered beneath her jacket. When he inquired about it, her mood darkened.
"Y'know I've been getting the feeling that someone's following me." She scowled. "I keep a pistol near 'cos I swear there is."
"I wasn't aware you had secret admirers, Clarice."
"I'm serious. I might have seen his face. He had a goatee, I reckon."
"So not as handsome as me."
"Nope. Definitely not."
Evening caught up with them. Clarice's mood improved considerably when he suggested they create a meal together, and afterwards, attend an opera at the Teatro della Pergola. It was spontaneous and romantic to her, surely, but carefully considered and planned by him. Even the meal, plain spaghetti and tomato sauce, was already prepared for. Hannibal had obtained the basil, bay leaves, and oregano that morning. Clarice diced the tomatoes and garlic while he chopped sausage and mixed everything together in the saucepan. When he finally poured the thick sauce onto the spaghetti, the heady aroma made Clarice hum in appreciation. They were silent during the meal and while washing the dishes, exchanging nothing but light touches.
Excitement buzzed the air as people draped in finery filled the tiers of box seats. The Teatro della Pergola was located in the heart of Florence. Its humble, pastel colour façade was covered with vines and revealed nothing of the stunning architecture within. Marble pillars and arches, golden chandeliers, and exquisitely detailed murals beguiled all who entered.
Hannibal kept his hand on Clarice's both for her reassurance and to satisfy his need for a more primitive, territorial display of affection. He matched her breathtaking evening dress with a refined suit of wide spaced white chalk stripe on light blue, interesting for its visible contrast pick stitching and flapped chest pocket.
They stood out amongst the opulent crowd of similarity dressed ladies and gentlemen, all chatting amicably about the performance. One couple in particular seemed to distract Clarice into constantly glancing over her shoulder. She pointed out a man with his silver-streaked goatee, stern and uncomfortable beside the woman clutching his arm.
"He's the one who's been following me," Clarice hissed.
Hannibal walked over and offered contrite introductions. The man winced in response and presented himself as Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi. The woman was his wife, Allegra. Hannibal's mouth twitched into a smile as Clarice looked tempted to kick him, hard.
"I'm wondering, Inspector, are you a genuine Pazzi of the Pazzi?"
"Ah, yes."
"Your ancestor Francesco was hanged from the windows of the Palazzo de Vecchi five hundred years ago for conspiracy to murder, was he not?"
"I believe so."
"By all accounts, he was led astray by thirty pieces of silver from the Papal banker. Fascinating." Hannibal turned to Clarice. He admired her ability to paste a cordial smile on her face in any circumstance. "'The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,' is it not, my dear?"
"I hope that means we're going to get something to eat."
"Yes, let's." Allegra said.
She moved away with Clarice. Hannibal smirked and addressed Pazzi.
"What is the purpose of manners, Inspector?"
"Courtesy." His brow furrowed.
Hannibal nodded. "Wouldn't you agree that following a young, unaccompanied woman to and from her apartment without her consent is rather rude?"
"Yes." Pazzi stammered.
"Then I do hope you keep your manners in mind, Inspector." Hannibal gestured to the musicians around them. "Every life is a piece of music. Like music we are finite events, unique arrangements. Sometimes harmonious. Sometimes dissonant." He squeezed Pazzi's shoulder. "Sometimes not worth hearing again."
When two lives entwined, their music had the power to transform. It was a distillation of the soul. A collection of private melodies and refrains, an abstract expression of hopes, dreams, and desires. And it could only be heard by those two lives. Other ears did not have the patience to listen. Hannibal was learning to listen to Clarice just as any musician listened to the nuances of their instrument; changes in tuning and frequency of play were vital to producing the desired music. Clarice was currently in discord. The simmering rage he'd sensed at the opera rose to prominence as soon as they entered the apartment.
"I can't believe you talked to Pazzi."
"Why not?" Hannibal countered. "I have no reason to be discourteous."
Clarice glowered at him. "I've missed you and the first thing you do when you get here is deliver me right to a creep."
"Clarice." Hannibal placed a hand on her shoulder. "I wouldn't let any harm come to you."
"I can handle myself just fine."
"I have no doubt of that. Violence is always at your disposal."
She shrugged off his warm touch. The singe of rejection was unexpected. Hannibal listened to her heaving breaths, observed the high colour in her cheeks, and read that the moment dictated for his control and precision to balance out her anger. It was wasted when it could be better redirected towards passion.
"Calm yourself, Clarice. Now."
"Don't you dare tell me to calm down!"
Hannibal pressed closer. He looked into Clarice's wild, coruscating eyes. Then he pushed her against the wall, pinned her hip with one hand, and with the other, grabbed her by the hair at the nape of her neck. He tilted her head back, leaning in to make his intent perfectly clear.
"There are means of influence other than violence."
The words murmured against her mouth made Clarice shiver. She considered the man before her, felt her heartbeat quicken, and raised her chin. Hannibal kissed her. Gently at first, lips slightly parted. He pulled back a millimeter or two, allowing her hands and hips to adjust.
He captured Clarice's lower lip between his teeth and savoured her soft gasp. He brought his hands to her face, held it, ran his fingers through her hair. She responded rapaciously, grinding her hips forward and gripping his shoulders in between shallow breaths. Hannibal let his ardour rise, keeping his thumbs on her temples, and his fingers wrapped behind her head. Gently, he traced the lines of her jaw, delirious for her fevered sweetness.
Then one hand snaked around Clarice's waist, the other slowly stroked her hip and thigh. Her hands travelled up and she began to caress her breasts over her evening dress and to lightly pinch her nipples. Hannibal's hands sank into her. With a low growl, he slipped them under the hem and dragged his wicked touch along the hot inside of her thighs. His fingers probed her, and she moaned. His lips found her neck. She tilted her head to bare more of her skin and widened her stance. This was the motion that urged him to be closer still, so he took his place before her and looked at her long beautiful throat. Inhaled deeply. Kissed her again. But it was colder now. The difference was harsh and startling. She turned the kiss to safety, and Hannibal resented its indecisive taste as he pulled away.
"Thank you for the lovely evening, Doctor."
Clarice fled from her own breathless declaration, shutting the bathroom door and emerging only when she heard his footsteps fade. Confusion ripped through her. Way to go, Starling. You got him all wound up for nothing. Clarice clutched the sink, splashed water on her face, concentrated on the floor's cool tiles, anything to distract her from the throbbing, demanding pulse between her thighs and the roar of her blood. The doubts she thought she'd murdered along with Jack Crawford had returned to question Hannibal and to lash out at him.
She obeyed her rush of shame and went to find him again. He wasn't in the apartment. With dread pooling in her gut, Clarice curled into bed. Sometime later, in the space between waking life and dreams, she heard him come into the bedroom. He laid down and shifted the covers more snuggly around her body. Then he began to hum. Clarice closed her eyes. She woke with the lingering flavour of his lips. He wasn't in the bed. Regret uncoiled in her stomach; restraint had betrayed her. She was glad and sorry, sorry and glad.
She went downstairs and saw him in the kitchen, his back to her, wearing a grey wool coat. Oh God he was leaving, she'd pushed him away and he was leaving. She spoke his name with a crack in her voice.
"Hannibal."
He turned. "Clarice, good morning. Did you sleep well?"
"Yes. I did. You?"
"Although sleep was not original my intention, I did." He gathered eight oranges and hefted a knife. "Why did you stop last night, Clarice?"
"I'm sorry."
"I want your reason, not your apology."
"I was...uncomfortable."
"Then I am sorry."
"Don't be," said Clarice firmly. "Fear was my reason. I hope I haven't hurt you. If I have, I didn't mean to."
He peeled the oranges and squeezed them into two glasses, wringing out every last drop of juice. Clarice accepted her drink humbly.
"This isn't about me. This is about you." Hannibal said simply. "You should feel confidence-always. Unflinching comfort, safety, and trust. If you say no, Clarice, it means no." His voice was clear. "I'll never try to change your mind. I'll never try to say the way you feel is wrong. I will only ever ask you to know why you feel something. Know why you won't do something. Know why you're absolutely dead set against something, so that you're refusing for the right reasons, your reasons. And I can see you're learning to trust your reasons. I hope you always find the courage to act on them."
"That would be easier if I wasn't so goddamn worried about what other people think."
Hannibal raised an eyebrow. "Then you may lack perspective. I don't want you to fear what they think. Never have concerns about what others might do or say. Break loose from the shackles of your past and the confines of what you think is proper, my dear." His arms encircled her. "Here, with me, you should never feel judged. Never feel embarrassed. Never feel like there is a wrong or right answer. Always feel free to speak your mind. You can't offend me or scare me off." He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "You wanted me, and I came. I am here for you, Clarice."
"Thank you. I...I just wonder sometimes if it's too good to be true, y'know?"
"I know. Though I encourage you to keep an open mind. See things for what they are, not what they appear to be. Which means, Clarice, that you must also learn how to temper your fear, calm your mind, and relax before you make emotional decisions. Only after you do this can you really push your boundaries."
"Even when I'm afraid?"
"Especially then. Commit to never responding out of fear."
They downed the rest of the orange juice and agreed to go out for breakfast. Clarice insisted on bringing the Beretta.
"Still not feeling safe, Clarice?"
"It's not my own safety I'm worried about."
Florence seemed to be on edge that morning. People went to work and opened their windows and hung their laundry and shouted across the street; Clarice realized she'd quietly settled into the rhythm of the city only when she stepped out of time. Hannibal was unreadable, although he remained a steady presence at her side. They crossed one of Florence's most important landmarks, the Ponte Vecchio. When the wind died down, the Arno was so still that reflections of the buildings were visible on it. After a big rain, the water flowed swiftly and cascaded. Eventually, it trickled to the edge of a fish market.
Hannibal had expressed interest for a fresh catch. He conversed with a vendor, raising his voice over the din of prices and swears. Boats nudged against the wooden docks beyond the stalls, splitting the glassy surface of the Arno. Fishermen dragged half-empty nets past Clarice as she surveyed her surroundings. Everything reeked. It wasn't really unpleasant, and she didn't really mind the chaos, but damn it, something was off. The back of her mind prickled; maybe it was the noise, after all.
She glanced at Hannibal. He'd moved to another vendor, a few stalls farther away. The noise increased. Why was it so noisy? Clarice scanned the crowd again; lots of people this morning. All with a taste for fish, apparently. Slipping between two stalls, Clarice smoothly unholstered the Beretta. She kept it low, aware of every movement, her thumb brushing against the trigger guard. If she was still wired from last night, if this was just paranoia, then no one would notice and panic. But all these people, a bunch of men actually, congregating and pacing up and down, their eyes shifting to the perimeter of the market, constantly flicking with malice, like they were all part of a pack, planning an ambush-
Clarice made the connection just as her raw instinct kicked in. She shouted a warning, barely catching sight of Hannibal ducking behind a stall as a car careened into view. The screech of tires was followed by a barrage of bullets. Screams ripped the air. Glass burst and wooden splinters pelted skin. The car reversed and came again, spouting wave after wave of gunfire. Bodies fell. The smell of smoke and blood hung heavy.
Clarice wanted to go down on her hands and knees and crawl to Hannibal, make sure he was safe, she couldn't see him, couldn't even feel him past the shock and fear clogging like ice in her veins and she dragged in a breath, crouched, set her shoulder against the stall, peered around a corner and saw guys with pistols firing at anything, at anyone, fishermen twitching in pools of water and olive oil and their own blood, screaming, and the screaming, oh God the screaming, it made Clarice clench her teeth, she saw someone take aim and she squeezed, sent a bullet right through his throat, he crumpled to the ground, and she moved.
Weaving between fish and guts and semi-rotting vegetables, squinting against the pretty morning sunlight, ducking and popping out behind stalls, Clarice fired, missed, fired, fired, missed, swore under her laboured breath, and wished acutely for Kevlar instead of the jacket she was wearing. She didn't know if this was some undercover police operation gone wrong, some raid or even clan warfare, and she didn't care when the sound of someone shouting in Italian came right above her and she looked up and with the sun flaring behind his head, she squeezed, shooting a hole through his forehead that leaked brain onto the already wet ground.
Before his knees hit the ground, Clarice was already in motion, desperate to get to Hannibal. She dodged a bullet, returned clumsy fire that only clipped the shoulder, and paused in the shadow of a stack of crates. The car was making another pass; it'd done a good job of mowing down most of the people in the market, but whoever was spitting out bullets from the back clearly wasn't short on ammo. Clarice aimed at the driver, making the best call she could past the tinted windows, and missed. The car seemed to take offence, flustering into a u-turn that aligned right with Clarice's aim as it bore down on her. Her shot went through the windshield and into the driver.
The car slammed to a halt against a building after taking out several market stalls along the way. Clarice advanced on its smoking hull, pistol raised, her sweaty hands maintaining a grip so tight her knuckles cracked. She couldn't miss at this distance. The sound of a baby's cries made Clarice halt. Her heart flooded with such pity that she fought to keep her vision clear.
The car door opened slowly. A shower of glass fell as a woman stepped out. She was tall and her elegant clothes were bloodied. In one hand she clutched the baby, and in the other, if Clarice knew her guns, she clutched a MAC 10. She raised the machine pistol.
"No! Stop!" Clarice yelled. She scrambled for Italian, repeated the words as steadily as she could.
The baby kept crying. The woman regarded Clarice seemingly in amusement while her aim never wavered. There was a hard, cold glint in her eyes. Then Clarice realized the woman wasn't aiming at her, she was aiming at someone over her shoulder and that someone was the only one that mattered to Clarice, and without another thought, she squeezed the trigger and shot the woman carrying her child in the head.
Clarice could feel the heat of the pistol against her cheek as she fired. The Beretta was numb in her hands. She put it away and rushed to the screaming baby. Hannibal shadowed her as she grabbed a spluttering hose and showered the blood covered baby. She soothed while Hannibal took his coat off and carefully swaddled it. He stood at Clarice's shoulder and rubbed her back continuously, watched her hold the baby close to her chest and he murmured:
"You are a warrior, Clarice. The enemy is dead, the baby safe. You are a warrior."
They returned to the apartment in a daze and stayed inside, locked in a kind of surreal stupor, drifting through the rooms as if they couldn't quite believe they still breathed. They held each other fiercely. Clarice didn't want to let go. Hannibal seemed satisfied to worship her with awestruck kisses. The Beretta rested on the living room table, cleaned and ominous.
Grains of burnt powder from Clarice's pistol marked her cheekbone with a black spot. Hannibal traced it delicately. "Do you know what the French call a beauty spot, a mouche like that, high on the cheek? Do you know what it stands for?"
Clarice shook her head.
"They call that one 'courage,'" Hannibal said. "You can wear that one. I'd keep it if I were you."
When the evening newspaper landed at their front door, Hannibal took a disproportionate amount of glee in recounting its contents to Clarice.
"Apparently the woman you killed was Evelda Drumagio, the leader of a drug clan that recently split from the Sicilian mafia."
"Oh, fuck."
"And all the newspapers are raving about a Death Angel. How very flattering. Inspector Pazzi himself is heading the international investigation." Hannibal continued. "What if I made him scream for you, Clarice?"
"I don't want you to do that," she whispered, "I want to do that."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Pazzi won't stop until he's found me."
Hannibal slowly took out his Harpy and pressed it into her hands. "Find him first."