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"Daddy?"

Hannibal's fingers on the theremin halted hearing Bella's voice call out for him. He stood slowly, his eyes boring holes into the wooden sliding doors of his office. Literal holes. It was like watching acid eat at foam. A disease eating flesh. The dark mahogany of his study was quickly invaded by the white light emanating from the next room. The light shined on him, boring itself from an angel wing.

An angel wing attached to Bella's back.

The skin that he had stitched back on was torn away once more, leaving her muscles bare. In fact, she was completely bare, and so was Will standing behind her. In his hand, a beating heart. The smell of the blood dripping from it was all Hannibal needed to know it was Bella's. Despite the organ being in Will's hand, it kept beating, strong and steady. But, it stopped the moment Will lifted it to his mouth and bit into it.

Hannibal fought his body to move forward, but the glass display case was around the two once more. There was nothing he could do but watch Will consume Bella's heart as she screamed inaudibly on the surgical table.

His eyes sprung open to see Bella and Clarice fast asleep on the queen mattress in the train cabin. Bella's back was covered, all of her was. She was safe in between Clarice and himself, still fast asleep with the drugs running through her system.

Sighing, he sat up on the booth seat, his back stiff from the lack of support, but he ignored it. He grabbed the flashlight from his medical bag and carefully lifted Bella's shirt. He only relaxed when he saw the very early signs of healing.

Clarice squinted when she opened her eyes to find Hannibal checking over Bella's wound. "What's wrong? Did she start bleeding?"

"No, just being cautious." Hannibal breathed before turning off his flashlight and putting the bandage back. He ran a hand down his face, looking back at his new wife sitting in the dark. "And, protective. I just woke up myself. It seems Will Graham has decided to haunt my dreams and make them nightmares." He tossed his flashlight back into his bag. "What about you? How are you feeling finding out that Will was also your attacker during pregnancy?"

Clarice leaned back against the wall, bringing her legs up to her chest. "Betrayed for the most part. When you first fled back in Memphis, I spoke with him about you. He told me we shared a kinship of sorts being two of your favorite people. He knew the politics and bullshit of the FBI, and he warned me about Jack just like you did. I barely knew him, but he was the only other person I could talk to who actually understood you." She looked down at her hands. "I never would've thought he would come after me just because I was carrying your child." She bit her lip before peering up at Hannibal under her eyelashes. "I don't regret what I did to him tonight though."

Hannibal nodded. "I'm happy you don't. I was rather proud of what you did to Will tonight." He rubbed his own hands together. "I never wanted to harm Will. What I have done to him has been in the interest of preserving my freedom or seeing what would happen. My intentions were never to end his life, just prevent him from invading mine. Tonight though, the friendship I once had with him was just a mockery. Real at one point, but it could never be salvaged after what he had done."

"One could argue he was trying to repay the favor for sending a killer to his house." Clarice whispered, reminding him of a reason the FBI might come up with to help defend their credibility.

Hannibal shrugged. "That could be said, but our intentions were both very different."


"It was a bloodbath."

Delia stared at the corpse of Paul Krendler, mutilated to the point of mush barely hanging onto bone in places. An arrow stuck out of his blood soaked chest. The blood had poured out from his throat, but that wasn't the fatal wound. It was surgical, calculated. The blood that poured was only for effect. His gut had been torn apart by multiple blades that were still left in his flesh, standing stiff in his arms as if they were used as cutting boards. From his dissected gut, his organs were removed and laid out on the dining table like an oversized diagram of what the human digestive system should've looked like.

That still wasn't what killed Krendler.

They had determined Paul had swallowed his own tongue and died that way. Above the slice to his throat, a nail had been hammered in to make him stick to the chair he was on. The nail had punctured his tongue as well, pinning it against the back of his throat.

"The liver and kidneys are missing. Two people participated in the killing. Judging by the blood loss, one person slit his throat at the same time the arrow was shot. Both had to be done within seconds of his swallowing of his tongue."

Delia gulped, looking away from the body. "It was Hannibal. He got Clarice and Bella away from Will. So, we need to find Will."

"He's going to be dead."

"I know." Delia whispered before walking out of the room.


Bella groaned waking up, moving to stretch her arms, but she froze as soon as the pain kicked in. Every nerve of her back tensed and turned to fire, leaving her hands clenching onto the sheets in white-knuckled fists. Burying her face into her pillow, she muffled her whimper before feeling a delicate hand on the back of her head. "I need a month long coma."

"You need to take your pain medication." Clarice stated. "We should also take your antibiotics around ten. We can get you on a twelve hour schedule with those." She was about to grab her bag when Hannibal stepped out of the bathroom and grabbed it for her. "The doctor gave us enough medication to cover most of your healing time. Although, this was to help with your head."

Hannibal dried his hair with his towel before sitting down on the booth beside his daughter. "She's already starting to heal. Stitches will be ready to come out by the time her meds are gone." He reached up and squeezed her fist reassuringly. "You're going to be fine, Bella. Let's change your bandage. Your mother already brought breakfast back for us, and I know that you are hungry. I could hear your stomach growling around seven."

Bella rolled her eyes as she felt him rolling up her shirt. "Well, excuse me. I would assume you burn a lot of calories dealing with a crazed serial killer who is targeting you." She cringed when he pulled the tape away from her skin. "I could go for almost anything right now."

"We do have some of Paul Krendler sitting on ice." Hannibal smirked, tapping the cooler beside him. "Your mother and I were craving chicken liver pate once we get settled somewhere in Florida." He smiled seeing no blood on the bandage. He tossed the used one away before grabbing a fresh one from his bag. "We also have some kidneys to use up as well."

Bella glanced at the cooler. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

Clarice pulled Bella's shirt back down once Hannibal taped the new bandage in place. "Your father and I took care of Paul last night. We didn't think it was right that all of him went to waste." She helped Bella sit up, cushioning a pillow behind her against the cabin wall. "You don't have to have any though."

"I already got a taste of one Krendler. You two can have this one." Bella stated before seeing the breakfast tray of eggs, bacon, and fruit. Her mouth watered, and, as if on cue, her stomach made a noise that would sound like Big Foot was alive. "Please, tell me that's my plate."

Clarice chuckled and lifted the tray to set over her daughter's lap. "All yours, baby." She looked over at Hannibal with a slight smile. "Should we tell her what the plan is? I think we've all had enough surprises for the year."

Hannibal grinned with a nod before showing Bella a brochure on attractions of Florida. "This train is going to take us to Orlando. We can't stay there though. Once the FBI finds out what Will was driving, they will track down the van outside of Union Station. It will take them enough time to search the tapes, but we need to get out of Orlando as soon as we arrive."

"Where are we going?" Bella asked as she bit down on a piece of bacon.

"Cuba." He opened on the pamphlet to a vacation ad. "Cocoa Beach has a cruise ship setting sail Wednesday morning heading to Cuba. We can drive to Cocoa tonight, stay in a hotel tomorrow, and wake up to board the next day. We'll arrive to the island on Friday."

Bella frowned. "Then, what?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Depending on your pain level, we would fly to Argentina either Friday or Saturday."

"Ideally, we would leave as soon as we step foot in Cuba." Bella concluded. She shook her head. "We're not going to risk being caught over something Will Graham did. I'm fine. I'm sitting up, eating. I'll be fine."

"Bella, you froze like ice the moment you woke up." Clarice reminded her. She stroked back Bella's hair. "Yes, it would be safer law wise to fly out as soon as possible. But, we don't want to set you back in your recovery. Your health is more important."

"Your mother is right." Hannibal agreed with a single nod. "I can't stitch you up in the middle of an eleven hour flight. I've been dodging law enforcement for years, Bella. You won't be the reason I get caught now."

She popped a grape into her pop. "Exactly my point. We get on a plane Friday."


Delia stood outside the pole shed looking in at the glass cage that Will had set up. The old yard it was in had been shut down for years. Someone called it in because the light was on all night and into the late morning. He drove his boat across the bay and investigated the scene for himself before calling authorities on the discovery of a bloody corpse hanging inside. With their knowledge of Hannibal Lecter being back in town, the case was quickly handed off to the FBI.

The phone call was expected, and Delia had stayed up all night waiting for it.

The scene wasn't much different from Krendler's. The organs and digestive track were spewed out of the body with a theatrical flare. The skin wings on his back wasn't a first for the psychiatrist. She remembered the crime scene photos from the Memphis Courthouse Slayings. The missing eye and mangled ear were courtesy of Bella's encounter with him earlier, but the lack of a face was something a little different. Instead of just skinning, it was a brutal mutilation where flesh, tissue, and muscle were cut through. Only blood and a few pieces of tattered tissue clung to the bare teeth and jaw bone of the FBI's former profiler. The image was close to what she imagined Mason Verger looked like after his encounter with Hannibal Lecter.

The only thing that didn't fit was the slitting of the wrists on Will's body. The wrists were facing outward to clearly showcase the lacerations along the veins. No piece of evidence in Lecter's file came close to resembling it.

Along the far wall of the cage, a surgical table and instruments sat in dried pools of blood. Images of Will being tied to the table as his organs were pulled from his body flashed through her mind. The man was targeting an FBI agent and her daughter, but this was overkill even for Hannibal Lecter.

"One last send off from Dr. Lecter to Will Graham." Delia breathed. She glanced at another agent. "Do you think he was trying to send him to heaven with the angel wings?"

The agent jutted his chin towards the dangling body. "The wings are jagged in the back. It was a send off to hell. The only thing he didn't do was cut a Devil's tail into his back." He walked over with a small device in his hands. When Delia held out hers, he dropped the small camera into her latex glove. "The blood on the table isn't his though. I don't know what's all on there, but I know it isn't pretty."

Delia frowned before turning the camera screen towards herself and looking down at the still image of the paused video. Will Graham, eye patch and surgical tools, stood over Bella with a skin flap missing from her back. "Holy shit."


"Thank you." Clarice smiled, handing a small wad of cash to the motel clerk and taking the key.

After managing to keep a low profile on the eighteen hour train ride, they had gotten off the same way they got on. With Bella's wheelchair, a nice couple allowed them to get into a cab they had just hailed. Between her back and her leg, Bella was moving like a turtle, but she wasn't whimpering or crying out in pain anymore. The pain was settling in and easing with her meds. Hannibal quickly found a place to rent a car and drove them all to their home for the next day.

Clarice walked out of the small office and held up the number eight for Hannibal to see in the car. He nodded before pulling away from the front and driving closer to their room. Luckily, Clarice had talked her way into a ground floor room. It was late, nearing ten, and she was more than ready to lay down and get Bella out of a car. Despite her stubbornness, she knew her daughter was in pain.

She opened the motel door and jammed a chair in front of it before hurrying back to the car to grab the bags. Hannibal got out of the driver's seat and opened up the back door to help Bella out, easing her onto her feet and keeping an arm around her to help her walk inside the room. They all relaxed though the moment the motel door was closed and the outside world could no longer stare.

Hannibal turned on the TV, switching it to the news. "If they put out our pictures, we'll have to abandon this place and hide out somewhere."

"They hadn't announced your return yet when we got off our train. The attendants were more than pleasant to us." Clarice stated as she lifted her bag up to rest on the bed. "Do you think they would have found the van yet?"

"It's possible. I'm not sure where the security cameras at the hotel were." Hannibal explained before sitting down next to Bella on the bed and continuing to stare back at the TV. "We left enough clues inside of it. Once they sink their claws into it, it won't be long before they figure out we went to the train station. Their work on camera footage is either going to make us or break us by Wednesday."

Bella rested her head on Hannibal's shoulder. "And if they decide to out us to America. It would be better to get on a plane now."

Hannibal took her hand into his. "Not quite, my little bird. As soon as they find out we took the train to Orlando, they will be checking every airport in Florida for our faces. They'd expect us to flee as soon as possible. What would happen if they found out what plane we were on while we were still on it?"

"Let's not think about that." Clarice smirked as she pulled out her pajamas. She went over to Bella's bag. "Baby, do you want to change before laying down?"

"I want to shower." Bella muttered before standing up with Hannibal's support.

He helped her over to Clarice and her bag. "We need to keep your stitches dry for another day. Your best option would be to shower Wednesday morning." He walked into the bathroom and went through the towels before finding a soft washcloth. "You can use warm water to get this damp and wash yourself. You might want to have your mother help you."

Clarice stroked Bella's hair and playfully teased her. "You always loved bath time."

"At this point, I don't care. I haven't had a shower since Saturday night." Bella sighed before Clarice handed her a stack of fresh clothes and helped her towards the bathroom. "We can't plastic wrap my stitches?"

Clarice chuckled as she lowered Bella onto the toilet seat. "No. Just call for me if you want help. I know you are Ms. Independent, but you're not exactly your normal self right now." She leaned against the door frame, meeting her daughter's tired eyes. "You're going to get through this. It's painful, but you are already healing, baby."

Bella nodded and rested her head on the counter, hugging herself. "Is it bad that I want Will Graham to be alive?"

"Why would you want that?" Clarice asked, squatting down in front of Bella. Her worry level increased when she saw the tears building in Bella's eyes.

"I want to kill him myself." Bella confessed in a whisper before her body shook with a sob. The motion caused a painful whimper to leave her throat, her sob creating a searing pain down her back. She reached out for Clarice, gripping onto her arms as the events of the past forty-eight hours caught up with her.

Clarice looked over her shoulder as Bella slumped down onto the floor and into her arms. "Hannibal?"

Hannibal stood and hurried over, kneeling down beside Clarice to witness Bella's breakdown. In that moment, he had never felt more useless. He could patch up her bullet wounds, stitch up her lacerations, but the trauma that Will Graham had inflicted on her was more than just a bandage he could slap on. He had never been in this situation. With Clarice holding a clinging Bella, his lack of experience was starting to show. Thankfully, Bella wasn't looking for comforting words or promises of better days.

Her hand reached out and grabbed onto his, holding on tightly. He leaned forward, as if he had been doing it for years, and rested his forehead against hers. With both he and Clarice there shielding her from the world, her sobs eventually stopped wracking her body and exhaustion claimed her.


Thank God Jack Crawford wasn't alive to see this day.

The footage from the small camera had been turned over and downloaded into FBI evidence added to Hannibal Lecter's case file and starting Agent Clarice Starling's. The video had been playing on repeat in many offices, including Delia's. It remained frozen in the moment just before Clarice touched Will Graham's face for the first time. The last moment of her innocence of being a criminal. The still image mocked her, reminding her of how blind she had made herself.

Up until Clarice stalked towards Will, Delia had watched that segment over a dozen times, examining Bella's condition and Lecter's immediate concern to care for her. It was everything after she couldn't stomach. The mutilation to Will's face, Hannibal's own flamboyant touch to creating a theatrical discovery of the body, but what made Delia physically ill was the moment Clarice told Bella of the wedding and her new name.

Clarice and Bellona Starling-Lecter. The rumors she had adamantly denied to every agent for years were true, making her look like a fool. Now, rumors were swirling every corner of the department, and she didn't have the desire to defend the person she believed to be her best friend, not that she could deny anything anymore. The fact that she didn't know Clarice as well as she thought she did was glaringly clear, and it stung as if being slapped with each sideways glance her way.

And with every tick of her clock, the FBI was becoming the headquarters of clowns. Two dead bodies, Krendler and Graham, and no evidence had surfaced of what Will had been driving or where the family of three had disappeared too. The airports had been scoured. She had gone through security tapes along with four other agents. No sign of them boarding a plane. Four agents were housed at Clarice's townhouse, protecting each other in the event that Clarice showed up with Hannibal and ransacking the residence for any evidence of their relationship.

"Mapp!" Another agent called out her name from the doorway to her office, holding up a small paper with a code on it. "Stolen van was found with bloody clothes inside. Matches the clothes on Dr. Lecter, Starling, and Bella. Van is being brought to impound for testing, but it was found outside of Union Station."

"Get a warrant for their security footage." Delia demanded as she stood from her chair and took the note. "I want it yesterday."


Clarice exited the bathroom with a warm, damp washcloth before seeing Hannibal with a stack of clothes for himself. "The shower doesn't get hot until you really crank the knob. I wouldn't suggest adjusting the shower head either."

"I noticed the crust on it earlier." Hannibal breathed before kissing her cheek. He noted the cloth in her hand and squeezed her arm. "Remember to be mindful of her thigh. That bandage should be changed soon."

Clarice nodded before Hannibal departed to the bathroom, and she slowly made her way to Bella's side. After soothing her into her tear-induced sleep, Hannibal had carefully managed to get her into bed without waking her up from pain or discomfort. With the loose clothes Bella had changed into on the train, it was easy for Clarice to lift the material and wash Bella's skin. Remembering Hannibal's warning, she was careful with Bella's thigh, rolling the leg of her pants up slowly.

Her actions didn't really sink in though until she grabbed Hannibal's medical kit and pulled away the old bandage to replace it. The little girl she had cared for, who she loved more than anything in the world, had suffered so much trauma in the past few days. One incident was staring back at her in the form of a bullet hole. Like the stitches, it was healing, but it would be a long road of recovery to get Bella back to where she was Friday night at her performance.

Clarice placed the new bandage on Bella's thigh before lifting up Bella's shirt to reveal her back. She could see the evidence of healing, but it was still another mark on her daughter. The scars that she had herself were wounds she suffered on the job. She put herself at risk. The scars on Hannibal were wounds he suffered from his lifestyle, being constantly on the run. The scars on their daughter - they were the cause of her and Hannibal. Bella's crime in her attacker's eyes was just existing in this world. The guilt sent a wave of nausea over her, but she tended to Bella's desire to have some semblance of cleanliness before she woke up for the day.

Once she put Bella's clothes back in their proper order, she laid the quilt over her, hoping that she would sleep through the night, and stood as Hannibal emerged in new clothes. He paused in the doorway though seeing Clarice's clear distress. "What's wrong?"

"We did this to her." Clarice declared in a whisper, her voice choking mid-sentence. She blinked, trying to rid herself of her emotions, but they continued to blur her vision anyway. "Hannibal, you and I got out of this unscathed. But, look at Bella. Look at our daughter. We did that to her."

Hannibal hurried over and wrapped his arms around her, gently shushing into her ear. "You assured me, and now I'm assuring you. We did not do this to her. We tried to prevent this. Will Graham decided that our lives weren't worth it. He decided that we all needed to suffer. Our actions may have played a role in his decisions, but we didn't do anything wrong, Clarice. The only thing we are guilty of is falling in love with the one person we weren't supposed to be with." He kissed her head, her hairs tickling his nose. "The fact of the matter is, we will help her recover. The wounds will heal, all wounds will heal. We will be there every step of the way. It's going to be painful, and we are going to lash out, but we will get through it as a family. Finally, as a family."

Clarice took a deep breath, pressing herself into his chest. "That family word is really sticking with you."

"If I were to be deprived of everything in the world, you and Bella would be the only pieces of my universe I would wish for." Hannibal breathed. "And if I were to lose all self-control, the only thing I would know is the instinct to protect the two of you."

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