Ophelia sat in Hannibal's office, her legs dangling over the edge of the balcony and a book in her hands. Having finished the book on Plato, she moved on to lighter fare: a book of nordic folk tales and legends. It was rather dark reading for a sunny Tuesday, but she supposed it fit in well with the overall atmosphere of the office.
"But Doctor Lecter," the small, plump man on the chaise lounge complained, "I'm still losing time. I'm still flashing from place to place in my head like I fell asleep and woke up somewhere."
"I once had a friend who suffered from your problem," Hannibal said, smoothing the front of his brown suit, "All he did to solve it was keep track of himself."
"How did he do that?"
Hannibal handed the man the leather book that sat closed on the table beside him, "A journal. Keep a log of every-" He was cut off by a crack and a plop outside the window. The three of them jumped, and Ophelia dropped her book face up on the chapter detailing the Nordic creature Dvalinn, the stag that "ate the World Tree". She leapt to her feet and hurried down the stairs, past her book, and to the window, which was now splattered with blood.
Ophelia pressed her face against the glass, "It was a bird. Oh, no." Her heart sank at the sight of the crumpled ball of bloody feathers in the grass outside the window.
Hannibal joined her, leaving the squat man behind, "A sparrow. Died instantly, I would imagine. Most likely disoriented by the sunlight."
"I'll take care of it," Ophelia's voice was small. She felt a mighty sadness for the bird. As Hannibal returned to his patient, Ophelia stepped out into the cool late summer air. It was cooler than it had been in the past weeks; Ophelia relished the opportunity to wear her favorite sweaters. Over the years, she had acquired a collection of oversized sweaters for days like these, when the air had a bite to it, and the wind seemed bent to have its way. It was especially cold now, what with the death of the poor sparrow.
Ophelia pulled her hands from the long sleeves of her grey sweater and knelt down by the tiny brown bird. She tenderly turned it over so that she could examine it. The poor thing's body was riddled with cuts. One particularly large gash covered its throat; it was still dribbling blood onto the grass. Ophelia looked up at the window where it had made contact, then up at the sky, judging where it must have flown from. She looked across the street, and squinted at the trees, attempting to discern whether or not its nest was nearby.
"No matter," she sighed, taking it into her hands and standing, "You're done for now anyway, little bird. Sorry it had to end this way for you."
Ophelia carried it back into the office and, ignoring the disgusted protests of the spindly woman who had just entered, carried it through the room and to the closet in the back, where she retrieved an empty shoebox and a marker.
"What are you doing?" Hannibal asked, watching her as his patient collected herself.
"Gotta bury it," Ophelia looked up at Hannibal as if the answer had been obvious.
"Ugh," the woman tittered, "How can you touch that thing?"
Ophelia frowned, "It's dead. It's not going to peck at you or anything."
"But the germs. It's disgusting. You're a gross little girl, aren't you?" The woman fluffed the furry collar of her oversized coat, turning up her beak-like nose at Ophelia's mock funeral procession.
"Well you're rude old woman," Ophelia took a step toward the shrew, her voice snapping, "I hate rude people." Out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn she saw Hannibal smirk.
The woman rolled her eyes and shooed Ophelia away. Not wanting to ruin the appointment any further for Hannibal, she hurried outside, box, bird, and marker in hand.
Ophelia plopped down outside the window and set out the preparations for the bird funeral. With her hands, she began to tear at the ground, digging a hole large enough for the box. Once her hands and her jeans were thoroughly covered in thick brown dirt, Ophelia began to decorate the shoebox, covering it with little flowers, hearts, and swirls.
After she sat the bird in the box and replaced the top, she sighed, "I guess I should name you... Clarice. You were a cute little bird, Clarice. Your feathers were the brownest of them all, I'm sure," Ophelia looked at her hands, "I've never talked at a bird funeral before, but I was the last one to speak to you, I think. I guess it's appropriate."
"Excuse me," a languid voice startled Ophelia, "What are you doing?"
Ophelia looked up at the redheaded woman who had suddenly appeared and now stood over her, "Um, I'm burying this bird. It flew into the window."
"Why?" the woman flipped a curl out of her face, "It's just a bird." She was a smartly dressed woman, with a sharply inquisitive face and a load full of books and notepads in her arms and protruding from her oversized purse.
Ophelia shrugged, "Got nothing better to do, I guess."
"You were in Hannibal Lecter's office?" she peered over Ophelia's head and through the window at Hannibal, who had not looked away from his patient.
"Yeah," Ophelia stood, leaving the box uncovered in the makeshift grave, "Who are you, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Freddie Lounds," she held out her hand, but retracted it immediately, remembering the state of Ophelia's hands, "I'm a colleague of Doctor Lecter's."
"Oh," Ophelia shook the dirt from her palms and kicked a bit of dirt into the grave, "He never mentioned you. But I have heard your name somewhere before."
"I'm a journalist," Freddie scrutinized Ophelia's face, "Maybe you've read one of my articles." She cocked her head to the side, continuing to read every inch of Ophelia's expressions.
Ophelia shrugged, "Maybe." She sat back down by the grave, smoothing the dirt over the box.
"You're Ophelia Ford, right?" Freddie knelt by Ophelia, her eyes burning, "You're that girl from Arizona."
"How do you know who I am?" Ophelia was taken aback. She had been under the impression that only Hannibal, Alana, and the others at the FBI knew who she was or where she was from. Or what she had done.
"I work very closely with someone in on your investigation. They're concerned about you."
"Who? Alana Bloom?"
Freddie shook her head, "She always seemed a little too... straight laced for me. Afraid to get her hands too dirty, ya' know?"
"I guess," Ophelia shrugged, absentmindedly wiping her hands on her pants, "But if you're a journalist, does that mean-"
"I'm not going to write about you, if that's what you're thinking," Freddie sighed, "Normally I would, but this is a favor to a friend. What I am going to do is help you."
"Help me how?"
"How's life in the Lecter household?" she changed the subject without missing a beat.
"Fine," Ophelia shrugged.
"Food's good?" Freddie cocked her head to the side, her eyes squinting so that they were pressed into hard lines.
She nodded.
"Any weird people hanging around?"
"Nope. Why do you ask?"
"No reason," Freddie sighed, "Doctor Lecter has some interesting friends, though. I would try to stay away from their crowd if I were you."
"Is Hannibal in some kind of trouble, Ms. Lounds?" Ophelia stood, and Freddie rose with her. It sounded as if Freddie was attempting to put Hannibal under a microscope, and she did not like it.
"No, no, no. Of course not," she dug through her purse for a moment, retrieving a small slip of paper, "This is my card. Whenever you feel like getting out of the house, hanging out, whatever, give me a call. If anything weird happens, you give me a call then, too. 'Kay?"
"Sure," Ophelia nodded slowly, slipping the card into her pocket.
Freddie turned to leave, but stopped, nodding toward the front window of the shop across the street, "Do you know that guy? He's been watching you bury that bird for a while now." Freddie shrugged. And with that, she was off, strutting down the sidewalk, her heels clicking on the concrete.
Ophelia squinted at the window across the street. Through the tinted glass, she could just barely make out a figure. It was tall, blonde, and scowling. Ophelia froze. He was here. He had been watching her this whole time. She scrambled back inside.
"Ophelia?" Hannibal stood as she barreled through the door, "Are you alright?" The office was empty; he had just finished the last appointment of the day and was filing some papers at his desk.
"He's out there!" Ophelia wheezed, clutching the front of her sweater with her dirty hands, "He's been watching me since I went out. Freddie Lounds stopped to talk to me- she said you know her- and she noticed him, too. He's still out there right now!"
"Calm," Hannibal stood, holding his hands out to her, "Speaking of your father, I have just received quite a bit of information from Jack Crawford that you will want to see. We need to get you home."
Ophelia nodded. Hannibal rushed to her side, keys in hand. He escorted her out of the building and directly to his car, ever aware of what surrounded them. Once the car started, Hannibal locked the doors.
"Read these," Hannibal thrust a manilla envelope full of papers into Ophelia's lap as he began to drive, "Reports from Jack Crawford's team."
Ophelia flipped through the thick stack of papers. Some were emails, some were diagrams, and some were hastily scanned pictures of dark, dank rooms.
Doctor Lecter, one of the emails read, We have concluded that Ophelia's father, Thomas Ford, has been using the resources given to him by the Phoenix Research Center to explore the Neo-Nazi practice of "mind control". Enclosed you will find images of his laboratory as well as a room that acts as an experimental theatre, which contains a projector, a chair with restraints, and a cabinet full of LED glasses. Presumably, these are the glasses to which Ophelia referred last Wednesday. We also found a trash bin full of discarded syringes which still contained small amounts of the drug cocktail.
Ophelia scrutinized the picture of the "theatre", as Jack had called it. The restraints on the chair were dotted with blood. Her blood.
Another message read, Alana has watched the film a few times. I will rely on her to relay its contents to you, but I can tell you that, combined with the mixture Ophelia was given, it isn't hard to see how she did what she did. This seems to be a close model of Auschwitz's facility, and more specifically, German doctor Eduard Wirths. Perhaps it would do you and Ophelia some good to read up on his techniques. You described a dream to me that Ophelia had on her first night at your home; it is almost exactly the same as Thomas's film. Frame for frame, it seems like it's been implanted in her mind. Maybe that was the intent.
"See?" Hannibal said as the car stopped in front of his house, "You aren't crazy, Ophelia. Just under an influence. I suspected that may have been the case."
Ophelia nodded, "I remember this place. Thomas... Dad used to have me spend entire school holidays here."
"If this doesn't prove your innocence, I don't know what will," Hannibal unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed from the car, leaving Ophelia to scramble after him, the envelope clutched to her chest and the picture of the film room still grasped tightly in her hands.
"But I barely remember any of it," Ophelia shut the front door behind her as Hannibal hung his coat on the rack, "It comes back in spots, but if you asked me to tell you everything all the way through, I couldn't."
"That's quite alright," Hannibal continued through the sitting room and into the kitchen where he immediately began to pull raw meats from the freezer, "We got all we needed when you went under on Wednesday."
Ophelia nodded, satisfied, "Good. But my Dad is still out there."
"You are safe here," Hannibal set his knife down and looked up at Ophelia, sincerity on his face, "You are safe with me."
"Yeah," Ophelia scratched the top of her head and sighed, "Do you need help?"
Hannibal shook his head, "I have dinner handled, I believe. You should read Jack Crawford's messages, though."
Ophelia lumbered upstairs, heading immediately for the bathroom. She ran a hot bath and filled it with rose scented bubbles, laying out all of the documents on the tile floor. She let the bubbles cover her entirely as she read every word on every page. As she read and reread the accounts, little pieces of memory fell into place. People who had not perviously existed in her memory suddenly existed again. She remembered her roommate, Teresa, and the loud girl down the hall who brought a new boy to her room nearly every night. She remembered her favorite dish at her favorite restaurant. Hours and hours of dance classes slowly trickled back as Ophelia read Agent Crawford's accounts of the university. He had covered every expanse of her life, and for once she was thankful for his obsessive thoroughness.
Hannibal knocked at the bathroom door and cleared his throat, "Dinner."
"Coming, coming," Ophelia hopped out of the tub, bubbles still covering her bare skin, "Let me just grab a towel."
She opened the door to Hannibal, his eyes squinting and his lips pursed, as if he had expected her to open the door in the nude. He relaxed when he saw that she was fully wrapped in a towel.
"Get a good night's sleep," he commanded, "Alana will be here to pick you up in the morning. It will be a late night, to be sure."
Ophelia grinned, taking the plate of steaming food from Hannibal's hands, "Can't wait. See you in the morning then?"
Hannibal nodded curtly, his eyes darting from the towel, to her face, and back again. Then, he turned and strode off, his feet clunking loudly as he made a point to get away quickly. Ophelia had to look down at herself to be sure she was covered. She licked her lips as the scent of the meal in her hands filled her nose, and retreated into the bathroom, resolving to eat her meal amongst the bubbles and think of only happy things.
She thought of the "girls' day" that Alana had arranged for the next day, leading up to the night at the opera. In reality, Hannibal had arranged it. Perhaps it was to get Ophelia off of his hands for a day. She couldn't blame him, though; it was clear Hannibal was unsure of how to deal with a college kid. A girl, no less. Alana had seemed surprisingly compliant with the plan; perhaps she needed a friend just as badly as Ophelia did. Sure, Hannibal was... interesting, but he was quite an enigma. On the surface, he was calm, cool, and collected. But it was as if there was something deeper underneath the surface. Bubbling, and ready to boil.
"Just like these bubbles," Ophelia smiled to herself, blowing on the pinkish froth and watching it fly.
Maybe he was sad. For all Ophelia knew, he had always been alone. Perhaps she was the first person to ever give him the time of day, or at least anything more than the basic psychiatrist to patient relationship. He seemed so very alone.
Ophelia had an idea. She shuffled into her bedroom and to the alarm clock beside her bed. After setting it to five, fighting the urge to change it back to a reasonable time, she wriggled under the covers. Staring up at the ceiling, she wracked her brain for any and every recipe she had ever read. The only thing she was confident with was pancakes. Surely she could pull off bacon and eggs as well. Especially with the bounty of ingredients that Hannibal had at his disposal.
"Does Hannibal even like pancakes?" she hissed to herself. It would have to do, she supposed. It was no filet mignon, but it would fly.