When the clock struck six and the last appointment of the day had vacated the office, Ophelia still felt full of vigor, while Hannibal appeared to be worn down significantly. Granted, his suit was still pristinely in order and his perfectly combed hair had not a single flyaway, but his chocolate eyes said otherwise.
"I have an errand to run," Hannibal said as they locked the front doors of the office building, "It'll be a quick stop. Are you up for waiting in the car?"
"Yeah, sure," Ophelia flopped down into the car and settled back into the seat, "Where are we going?"
"A personal visit," Hannibal pursed his lips, and Ophelia figured that was all she was going to get out of him. They drove in silence for quite a while, out past any real suburban sprawl. There were glaring lights in the distance though, but she daren't ask if that was what they were headed toward. Hannibal's hands squeezed and twisted on the steering wheel, his knuckles whitening and the veins in his wrists throbbing. Ophelia could almost hear his heart pounding against his ribs.
"You okay?" Ophelia began to bounce her feet up and down beneath the seat, the tense air thickening around them.
Hannibal nodded curtly, "Yes. Just..." he made a visible attempt to lighten up, casting a quick glance down at Ophelia, "a bit hungry. I appreciate your fondness for fast food, but I am eager to be able to get my hands on something other than a paper-wrapped burger."
She scoffed, dramatically flipping a strand of hair out of her eyes, "White Castle is a superior breed of fast food, Hannibal, and I wouldn't expect you to understand." For a moment, he sat in silence, open-mouthed, wracking his brain for a clever retort. But as they approached their destination, he resigned, chuckling and shaking his head. Ophelia mentally patted herself on the back; whatever Hannibal had been so apprehensive about had been momentarily forgotten. But after getting a good look at their location, the apprehension returned with a vengeance.
The building that they stopped in front of was a concrete giant, with tall electrical fences surrounding it and guards at each doorway. The building itself was isolated; its only neighbors were thickets of tall pine trees and underbrush. Hannibal parked the car and, without a word, left Ophelia alone. He approached a pair of the guards, and without any trouble at all, bypassed the electrical fence and entered the dark facility.
Ophelia squinted, searching in the fading evening light for any sign that would tell her where they were or what Hannibal was doing. She pressed her nose against the glass of the window, cupping her hands around her eyes. Amongst the trees, she could just barely make out a squat stone sign. But, alas, she could not make out a single word that was carved into it.
That was when she saw it. A flash of movement, a blur of sandy hair, the glint of a yin-yang pendant. A man stood amongst the bushes, watching her. With one hand, he made a motion for her to come to him, and with the other, the man instructed her to be silent. Ophelia squinted harder. She knew this man. There was something eerily familiar about him, something that Ophelia could not quite pin down.
Against better judgement, she wrenched herself free of the seatbelt and slipped from the car. Hannibal had forgotten to lock the doors. Ophelia hurried toward the man, paying special mind to avoid the gaze of the guards. But as she approached, the man disappeared into the woods.
"Hey!" Ophelia hissed, "Hey, you! Who's there?"
No response.
After a quick glance over her shoulder, Ophelia took a few tentative steps into the woods, following the rough-hewn path that the man had left. It was immediately much darker under the cover of the trees, and Ophelia had to take a moment to acclimate to the lack of visibility.
"I think I know you!" Ophelia called, a bit more loudly now, "Hello? I'm Ophelia Ford! I think I know you from somewhere!" An owl screeched somewhere above her, and her heart leapt to her throat.
And then, as soon as she lost sight of the car and the concrete building behind her, something large and solid tackled her, pinning her to the forest floor. An enormous hand clamped down over her mouth while another shone a flashlight down into her eyes. The blonde man was straddling her, his eyes wide and maniacal. The pendant she had seen from the road reflected light into her eyes as it swung down from his neck. She could feel blood trickling down her temple; she had landed directly on the roots of one of the trees that loomed over them.
Ophelia got a brief look at the man, which confused and terrified her even more. She could have sworn she knew him, though she was also sure she had never seen him before in her life. He wore a lab coat, the edges burnt and torn. His hair was the color of molten gold, but it was coated with ruddy clay-like dirt.
"Hey, sweetie," the man dropped the flashlight and reached into his pocket, "Got a little something for you here." He held a syringe in his hand. It was full of deep red liquid that undulated and bubbled every time he moved his hand.
Ophelia tried to scream, but the man's hand clamped down tighter on her face, cutting off her supply of air. She kicked her legs, for her arms were pinned beneath the man's titanic weight.
"Hold still now, and this'll go smoothly," he hissed, and with great difficulty he ripped open the front of Ophelia's dress, popping off most of the buttons and ripping the embroidered flowers.
In one deft movement, he stabbed the syringe into Ophelia's chest with a squish and a crunch. Her breath hitched in her throat and her entire body went rigid. She could feel the liquid from the syringe burning into her chest, like gasoline aflame. Her fingers and toes curled and her back arched against the man's hunched torso, and a strangled scream stuck in her throat.
Ophelia's vision began to blur, but she could still make out the man's face as he got up. He smiled down at her, confident in the knowledge that she wasn't going anywhere.
"Ok now, girly girl," he sighed, "That wasn't so bad, was it? No, it wasn't. Now I'm going to need you to not struggle next-"
"OPHELIA!" Hannibal's voice boomed through the woods, and the beams of multiple flashlights shot through the darkness. Ophelia used the last of her strength to crane her neck toward his voice and let out a strangled, wordless cry. A set of guards burst through the trees before Hannibal, running toward where the blonde man had disappeared. Hannibal knelt beside Ophelia, her body still rigid and her back still arched.
"I've got you now," Hannibal put a bare hand over her chest where the syringe had just been, "You're safe."
And as he started to scoop her off of the ground, her body gave a final shudder and she went limp.
"Hannibal, 'Will Graham' is not a valid excuse."
The voice of Alana Bloom drifted up the stairs and into Ophelia's room. She could just barely make out the words beneath the mountain of blankets and pillows that had been piled atop her body. After a deep breath and an involuntary groan, Ophelia pushed the blankets aside and set her feet gingerly on the floor.
She looked down at herself. Instead of the blue dress that she remembered putting on, a large red button-down, collared shirt hung loosely over her frame. The tag in the collar was entirely in Italian; this must have been one of Hannibal's shirts. But why was she wearing it? And why was she so sore?
Then she saw her reflection in the mirror that hung over the dresser. The left side of her forehead and the area surrounding her eye was bruised and busted. Scratches raked down her neck and chest, passing through a great purple bruise that centered around a little red dot. The dot hurt the worst, and when Ophelia pressed her finger against it, the skin around it throbbed and turned a brief bloodless white.
"I know," Hannibal's voice was quiet. Ophelia had to strain to hear it.
"He's beyond help. I know you were close to Will, but he's just gone. You know I wanted to believe he could be saved. You know that."
"I do," Hannibal sighed after a moment of silence.
"This girl isn't beyond help, though," Alana's voice dropped, "You're right about her. There's more to be learned; we know that for sure now."
Ophelia opened her bedroom door slowly, wincing when it creaked loudly. All movement from downstairs ceased. She had been heard. Stiffly, Ophelia made for the stairs. She pulled at the shirt, bunching it up around her chest and willing the welt to disappear before she reached the bottom of the staircase.
Hannibal and Alana had stood up from their respective chairs, and were watching her descend the stairs, her movements heavy and pained. Alana stayed still, but Hannibal made a move to help her.
"I'm fine," Ophelia waved him away, "I'm okay."
"You're not," Hannibal pulled his chair around so that it was closer to her, "Sit."
"Good morning, Alana," she forced a smile as she sank into the chair, "Fancy meeting you here."
"Afternoon, actually. I'm glad to see you're still in the land of the living," Alana pursed her lips, nodding, "I should be going, Hannibal. They're still searching the woods."
"Alright," Hannibal glanced at Alana, "We will be here if you have need of us." He stared at the door for a long while after it had closed behind Alana. Then, slowly, he sat down in the chair that she had just vacated and looked up at Ophelia.
"Hi," she scratched the back of her neck, his piercing gaze making her squirm.
"Why did you do it, Ophelia?" Hannibal leaned forward, the muscles in his back rippling against his tight button-down, "What possessed you do do such a thing?"
"I knew him. I swear, I knew that man. I just... don't know from where exactly."
"I am trying to help you," he clasped his hands together so tightly that his knuckles turned white, "and you are making it quite difficult. How am I supposed to watch over you if I can't even keep you alive? Or keep you in one place for more than five minutes?"
"I'm sorry," Ophelia looked down at her lap, "I really am. I'm irrational, and stupid, and... and insane. It makes sense, right? Only a total crazy person would run into the woods like that. Alone. At night. I must be a psychopath."
"You're not a psychopath, Ophelia, although you must be attracted to them. You're totally functional, and more or less sane," he sighed, pursing his lips, "Do you remember at all what happened?"
"I remember running into the woods after that man. And then I remember hitting the dirt pretty hard. After that, it's all a bit fuzzy."
"Let me lay it out for you, then," Hannibal's voice was low, and his usually impassive face had a sort of frenzy to it that only appeared on the faces of predators on the hunt, "You nearly died. That man, whoever he was, pinned you to the ground, ripped open your dress, and stuck you with a syringe full of who knows what. You had a sort of seizure in my arms, then lay unresponsive for a few hours. I had gotten you back here before the violence started," Hannibal opened the top few buttons on his shirt and pulled it aside, revealing a set of what looked like claw marks raking across his shoulder and down his chest, "After a short period of violence, you entered a vegetative state, similar to the one you were found in at the dance studio a few days ago. And here you are now."
Ophelia stared into his eyes as he silently buttoned up his shirt again, her face reddening, her jaw clenching and unclenching, and her hands grasping her hair. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, then buried her face in her shirt, willing the emerging tears to disappear.
"I suppose this is partly my fault," Hannibal sighed, leaning back and running a hand through his hair, "It was me who insisted on stopping at that awful place."
"No," Ophelia shook her head, "I feel like that man, whoever he was, would have been wherever I was. I can feel it, like he would have followed me anywhere. How do I know him? And why would he do this? I just feel... so... crazy." She put her face in her hands and took slow, deep breaths.
"What's done is done," Hannibal stood, "Let us both learn from this, shall we? I will refrain from leaving you alone in strange, desolate places when you are prone to dangerous curiosity. And you will, from this moment on, stop chasing after madmen who look vaguely familiar. Yes?" He bent down beside her and placed a tentatively affectionate hand on her back.
"Sure, yeah," Ophelia looked up at Hannibal, who had forced a smile, "I really am sorry."
"It's over. Tea?" And just like that, he had forgotten it all. It was as if he saw cases like her every single day. She watched as he went straight into preparing tea, calm and expressionless again.
Before she joined him, she glanced around the room, lit only by the grey light of a stormy day. Everything was neat and orderly, save a new addition to the glass coffee table that usually was empty. Ophelia leaned over picking up the plastic case and turning it over.
"The Shining," Ophelia smiled, running her thumb over Jack Nicholson's face.
Perhaps Hannibal had been right on the first day of their meeting. Perhaps they could be close. Perhaps there was more to her story, something that could convince the world, and herself, that she was not crazy. Just an unfortunate victim of some greater plan.
"So," Ophelia stiffly made her way into the kitchen, "What are we doing today?"
"We aren't doing anything," Hannibal said as he poured her tea, "I have an appointment to attend to today across town. You have an appointment with that movie you love so much."
"Oh, yeah, I saw that," Ophelia cupped the china full of steaming orange tea in her hands and inhaled deeply, "Thanks. You don't seem like a movie kind of guy."
Hannibal laughed through his nose, "No, I can't say I am. The theatre and opera are more my speed."
"Fancy," Ophelia raised an eyebrow as she sipped the tea, sticking her pinky finger in the air.
"Of course," Hannibal leaned against the counter and took a swig of his drink, then said, "I suppose I will have to educate you in the ways of high class entertainment."
"What, movies aren't high class?" Ophelia feigned shock, "Doctor Lecter, I am offended!"
"I suppose you will just have to convince me otherwise," Hannibal rolled his shoulders, a grin hiding behind his cup, "But for now I must be off. Can I trust you to stay put?" He set his tea down in the sink and shrugged his dapper jacket over his shoulders.
Ophelia nodded, "I wouldn't be insulted if you locked the doors. But you can trust me."
"Good," and with that, Hannibal turned to leave.
"Wait, I forgot to ask you something!" Ophelia leapt forward, just as Hannibal opened the front door, "Who's Will Graham?"
Hannibal was as still as a statue, one hand frozen on the doorknob and the other grabbing at his keys. The only movement came from his eyebrows, pulling together in a hard line. His mouth opened then closed again quickly, and before she could blink, he was out of the door and the lock was turned. Ophelia blinked a few times, shrugged, and returned to the sitting room, where a day of nothingness awaited her.