Time passed unbearably slowly for Hannibal Lecter. Minutes turned to hours, hours dragged into days, and days seemed an eternity. A month felt even longer. The stark lack of life in Hannibal's home left him feeling drained. Without passion. His patients and colleagues noticed his slow disintegration more and more every day, noting that even his usually immaculate physical appearance had begun to suffer.

After hiring a private investigator to track down his lost Ophelia, Hannibal's life had begun to revolve around their brief and infrequent phone calls. He would stop appointments mid-sentence in order to answer a call, only to be disappointed by the lack of turnout. The investigator worked diligently, though he would not disclose the methods that he used to collect his information. What little information he had. Hannibal nearly always had to bite his tongue to keep from berating the man. He was sure that it couldn't be that difficult to find one girl.

Alana had been of little comfort to Hannibal. He had always considered her a colleague. A friend, even. But she had been distant and quiet, as if she wanted no hand in helping Hannibal find Ophelia. This only fueled his suspicions that she had a hand in it, whether Ophelia had left on her own or not.

Free time was spent sitting alone in the dining room, sipping wine. He sat at the head of the table, the old Chi Omega shirt folded neatly over the back of the chair at the other end, facing him as if Ophelia still wore it. His phone sat nearby at all times. But rarely did it ring. Hannibal carried on like this for a month, and he had no intention of changing this pattern until a significant development was made.

Hannibal received the call he had been waiting for exactly five weeks after Ophelia's disappearance. It was late, later than any reasonable person should have been awake. But there Hannibal sat, at the head of the table, sipping his wine. His hair fell in a messy mat before his eyes, and he had only bothered to pull on a pair of silk pajama bottoms after his lackluster shower. But as the phone began to ring, his eyes lit up and he began to resemble himself again, if only slightly.

"News?" he barked, when the phone whirred to life beside him.

"This time, yes," the gravelly voice of the investigator came through the line in spotty static, "in the form of hospital security tapes. Footage from the night your girl was brought in. She had a number of visitors that were not listed in the security records. You may need to take a look."

"How soon can I get the tapes?" he shot to his feet, not expecting to go anywhere, but needing desperately to move.

"They'll be in a box on your porch in the morning," the voice on the other end began to fade, "get some sleep, Doctor Lecter, and you'll get your footage." And without another word, the man hung up, leaving Hannibal in stark silence. He looked at his watch; it was already close to sunrise.

Hannibal trudged into the sitting room and plopped down on the couch, wine glass still in hand. He lay his head back against the pillows and inhaled deeply. Seeing the tapes would be the first time in over a month that he would have laid eyes on Ophelia. She was alive in the tapes. As for her fate in reality, he was not so sure.

Word of her well-being would have to be enough, just for a while. First and foremost, selfish desires aside, Hannibal truly cared for her safety. While she was in his care, he knew that he had walked a fine line between what he should and should not do with Ophelia. He had thought, at first, that she would just become another business card to add to his box. He was sure enough of it, in fact, that he had drawn her. But instead, she had gotten under his skin. She had infected him.

Hannibal hated the fact that he had allowed her to wriggle herself underneath his mask. It had always been so meticulously protected; only Will Graham had ever come close to seeing the truth. And part of him had wanted it to happen. The sick thing about killers and psychopaths, he knew, was their morbid desire to be found out. To be understood. To be embraced. Will Graham had almost reached Hannibal in that way, but failed, cracking under the pressure of the knowledge. But Ophelia had fluttered in, embracing him without a care. Perhaps it was because she did not know the truth. Perhaps if she had known the truth, she would have left sooner.

Hannibal slammed the wine glass down onto the table, a bit of the crimson liquid splashing over the edge and onto the table. He leaned forward, his pounding head falling into his hands and resting there. Inhaling deeply, he wracked his brain for any plausible reason why she would want to disappear. This had been something he had contemplated many a time, and still he could come up with no answer.

He allowed himself only an hour or so of sleep, leaning against the back of the couch again. There were no dreams to be had, for before he knew it, reality was wrenching him back into the day.

The tapes were, as the investigator had promised, outside Hannibal's door in an unmarked cardboard box. He cast a few wary glances around in the early morning light before scooping up the box and hurrying inside.

Sure enough, three visitors had been to see Ophelia on the day of her hospitalization, and only one of them was authorized. Freddie Lounds, the insufferable woman, had been to see her first, waking Ophelia from her drug-induced sleep. He watched as she muttered to Ophelia; he cursed the tape for not coming with sound.

Hannibal watched himself come in and out of the room, followed by nurses, doctors, and Alana Bloom. He had known she was there; Alana had brought Ophelia flowers, something he had kicked himself for not doing.

The next person to enter the room made Hannibal's heart drop into his stomach. There in the doorway, dressed in his signature bedraggled garb, stood Will Graham. Hannibal need not wonder at what they spoke of. It was quite obviously scrawled on Ophelia's face. She knew. She had to. Will had relinquished any and all information unto her, by the looks of it.

He cursed, slamming his hand down onto the table and just barely missing his wine glass. Will and Alana had been working together, that much was certain. If time and observation proved correct, Alana had gotten Will released just before bringing him to the hospital to taint Ophelia's mind. They were both culprits. But how was Freddie Lounds involved in all of this? Perhaps she acted as a messenger, or a watchman, tracking Ophelia's every move for Alana and Will. If this was true, they must all be aware of Hannibal's secret. One of them, at least.

If he could get Will's location out of Alana, Hannibal knew that he would find Ophelia. He leapt into action, this new development acting as caffeine and jolting him into motion. With no scheduled appointments until the next day, Hannibal took confidence in the fact that he would make great strides in finding his sparrow.

He rushed upstairs, cleaning himself up in a whirlwind of newfound vim and vigor. Before a new hour even had time to begin, Hannibal was making his way through the streets of Baltimore, heading in the direction of Alana Bloom's home. She would not be there, he knew, for she would have already left for work at this hour. This would be a prime opportunity for Hannibal to search. She must have left a clue behind somewhere.

Hannibal was greeted genially by the dogs, who were quite familiar with him being around their owners, both past and present. He entered the house using the spare key underneath a pot of begonias, calming the dogs with friendly pats to the head as he went.

The dogs followed Hannibal as he made his way through each room, digging through drawers and filing through cabinets as he went. Overall, he turned up nothing but receipts, grocery lists, and faded business cards. She seemed spotless.

But, out of the corner of his eye, Hannibal spotted a bit of shredded paper at the base of the full trash bin. It must have fallen in a hasty attempt to dispose of it, Hannibal figured. He stooped to pick it up, turning it over. There was enough of it to see what it had once been: an American Airlines ticket sleeve, printed on which were four small serial numbers. Hannibal lifted the lid of the trashcan, but was left disappointed by the lack of evidence that he found there. Alana had since attempted to cover her tracks, but what he had been able to find would suffice for now.

Hannibal returned to his office; it was where he felt he did his best thinking. With the scrap of evidence at his fingertips, he opened up his laptop and began typing away. Soon enough, he had been able to pair the serial number with a flight. It had left five weeks ago that very day.

"London, then?" Hannibal's mouth curled into a snarl, "I'm on my way."