Clarice hesitated outside the bedroom door. Even before entering, she could smell his cologne, could sense him on the other side.
Chewing on her lower lip, she knocked gently and waited for his response before slipping inside.
Hannibal was sitting on the balcony overlooking the city. Sunset was drawing in, leaving the sky an array of oranges and pinks, littered with hot air balloons in the distance.
He smiled when she joined him outside.
"Good evening."
"Hey. How long have you been back?" she asked.
"Several hours," he told her, gesturing for her to sit beside him. "How was your day?"
"Fine," she said. "Good, actually. You coulda joined us."
"I thought about it. However I concluded that it was, most likely, time for you best spent alone with Everleigh," Hannibal told her, taking a bottle from the wine cooler in the centre of the table and pouring out a glass for her. "What do you think?"
She smiled faintly, taking a sip. "Yeah, I guess. You know, I don't… remember a time when we talked as much as we did today."
He smiled too.
"A sign, perhaps, of happier times to come for the both of you," he said, picking up her hand and bringing it to his lips, grazing her knuckles with a gentle kiss.
"How was the uh…?" she began, glancing at the closed case file on the table beside him.
"Ah. Less pleasant, as you can imagine," he said.
"Any leads?" Clarice asked.
Hannibal chuckled. "Spoken like a true Special Agent."
"Ex Special Agent, remember?"
"Of course. And no, no leads for this one as of yet," he told her.
She frowned. "This one?"
Such a clever girl, never misses a beat.
He nodded, draining his wine glass. "It's not the same killer."
"Oh, that's not your guy? How do you know?" she asked.
"Today is the eighteenth calendar day of the month. Traditionally, the work of our Pabaisa has shown up on the third day of each month. No earlier, no later," Hannibal explained.
"Well… maybe he got a taste for it?" she suggested. "Maybe once a month wasn't enough."
But he shook his head. "The victim did not match the profile of those before her. With the others, there was always a message. They were cautionary tales, if you like. The man found at the pre-school was a known paedophile, recently released from custody. The body in the monastery that of a disgraced nun, tempted away from the church by a married man."
"And this one?"
"A random gypsy girl with no notable history or reputation, left in a library," he told her. "Although the style of the killing and the presentation of the scene was in keeping with the others, the execution was clumsy. This was his first, and he has little or no knowledge of the human anatomy."
Clarice stared at him for a moment before she spoke again.
"…You got all that from spendin' an hour at that crime scene?"
The Doctor inclined his head.
"So… what? A copycat?" she guessed.
"Perhaps."
"What did Petrauskas say?"
"About what?" he asked, pouring himself another glass.
"About this bein' a different guy," she frowned. "You did tell him?"
Hannibal arched a brow.
Clarice looked horrified. "You didn't, did you? Why the hell not?!"
"My job, Clarice, is simply to help build a profile of this killer which may lead to his eventual arrest. It would be unwise, therefore, for me to speak too freely at this stage, until I know more. After all, I may be mistaken," he said.
"Please, when are you ever 'mistaken'?" she scoffed.
"It has been known," he told her, gently. "Trust that I know what I am doing, my love."
Clarice studied him for a moment, before conceding.
"Alright," she said softly, standing up and leaning over the railings of the balcony to take in the view of the city.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he noted.
"Yeah. Looks like you knew what you were doin' when you called dibs on this room too, huh?" she joked, her tone lighter.
She felt him behind her, hands at her waist as he brought her to face him, pressed up against the railings.
"You are welcome to join me whenever you are ready," he told her, catching her lips with his own before resting his forehead against hers. "Despite our current situation, it would be incredibly rude of me to expect you to be comfortable in sharing my bed from day one. These things take time, don't you think?"
Clarice nodded, pressing herself closer to him and returning her lips to his.
He kissed her again, longer this time, breaking apart only to give her a questioning look when he felt her hands at his chest, searching for his shirt buttons.
"Until then, do I at least get conjugal visits?" she murmured. "Me being Mrs Lecter and all…"
He smiled into another kiss.
"I think that can be arranged."
With that, he took her hand and lead her back inside the room, closing the curtains on Vilnius for the evening.