9 months later

Bedelia DuMaurier had fled to Europe after Will Graham told her about the FBI's plan to stop Dolarhyde. Of course she heard the news about Hannibal and Will's apparent demise. But it's not like Hannibal would let something like mortality stop him from carrying out his vendettas, she thought. She didn't go back to Italy she felt that was out of the question after last time and besides, murder charges or not, Hannibal would find a way to get her there.

She instead made her way to Germany, there in the town of Dusseldorf she created a new life, she had enough money from her days as a psychiatrist, her books, and television appearances to live comfortably, but she did what Hannibal taught her and created a new identity. She became Marie Ross and every day for the first 6 months she would go to several locations in full view of the public, a café here, a bookstore there, a restaurant or two where she would order one item and sit in the same seat every day. She felt safe with so many people surrounding her, safe knowing that if Hannibal came for her that he would not get away with it without being seen. Or at least if she went missing someone would notice that a regular customer was not attending their usual ritual of buying coffee or a small dessert. Bedelia finally felt her confidence return and after 6 months of waiting she finally started to relax.

The next three months she actually let herself breathe, she explored the town more, interacted with the people more, she still attended her daily rituals out of habit, only now she did it without an aching paranoia. Russell, the bartender at her local tavern, watched as she came in and sat at the same spot at the bar as she had for almost a year.

"The usual Miss Ross?" he asked. His English was getting better. He spoke very fractured English when they first met, but these last few months she had been helping him learn to fix his sentence structure.

She nodded, "Please." She looked at the menu in front of her which she hadn't really ever looked at since she first started coming in. Russell noticed her studying the menu, "Thinking of trying something new?"

She smiled slightly, brushing some of her hair away from her face, "I'm considering my options, I feel as though I should be open to exploring new things."

"You seem a lot less in thought then when we first met, ja?"

"I have had," she paused considering her words. "A lot on my mind you could say, like that tortured thought in the back of your mind that never stops bothering you."

"Meaning the thought has gone away?" he asked.

"More like the thought has forgotten to bother me. It's quite freeing."

He poured two glasses of her favorite chardonnay that she ordered and raised one. "A toast to your freedom then?" She raised her glass with him. "To tortured thoughts staying where they belong, in the past."

As she sipped she couldn't help but notice a man in the back who appeared to be staring at her, he was wearing a large burka coat and goggles with a big hood draped over his head. He had a book open in front of him but he didn't appear to be reading it. She couldn't see his eyes because of the goggles but she just couldn't shake the feeling he watching her instead of the words in his book. She shivered slightly and stood up. "Is there something wrong, Miss Ross?" Russell asked concerned about her apparent mood change.

She gave him a false smile, "I'm afraid I'm suddenly feeling a little under the weather," she gathered her things and started towards the door. "We'll have to explore options another time."

As she left she checked through her peripheral vision to see if the man's gaze was following her, he wasn't in his seat anymore. He was walking up to Russell. As Bedelia walked home she kept feeling unsure and as if eyes were watching her again, a feeling she hadn't had in months. It was a sick feeling.

After she finally got home, she locked every door and window with every lock available and brought out her .45 magnum she kept under the bed. That night, Bedelia did not sleep a wink, listening to every single sound in and outside of her house and constantly looking through every room in her house every hour.

The next day she could not hide her exhaustion as she made her routine visits. She started getting more and more nervous as she began getting closer and closer to her visit to the tavern. She went in and to her dread Russell was not behind the bar, instead a young girl was there, she scoured the entire room for the man in the burka from the night before, but he too was nowhere to be seen. Bedelia walked up to the young woman and asked where Russell was in the native language. The girl said that Russell just didn't show up today and glared at her like she was disgusting. The girl must have thought Bedelia was a cougar preying on young attractive men, or so she told herself.

She exited the bar and started walking home, feeling eyes everywhere she continually surveyed her surroundings, checking for anything out of the ordinary. Without warning she bumped into someone and they both fell over, she immediately jumped up and began moving at a faster pace. Her heart was racing with panic. Then as people continued to pass by she almost felt like she was beginning to hear whispers coming from all around her. She began to move frantically away from the crowds of people looking everywhere to see where it was coming from. Everyone was staring, everyone judging her, calling her a freak, a monster, a murderer. All the whispers turned into accusations, and everyone continued gawking as she ran around the streets hysterically telling everyone to back away from her. Then she saw him, the man in the burka coat. She began running away, but no matter where she ran the mysterious man was not far behind.

She made her way to an alleyway where she stopped to collect her thoughts. She couldn't calm down and her heart kept racing even though she was no longer running, Am I dying? She thought, but she couldn't silence the whispers no matter how hard she screamed and finally fell over from exhaustion and could not make herself get up, she kept staring at the sky as everything grew hazy and blurry and finally the whispers stopped as she fell unconscious.

She woke up in an apartment much smaller than her own but she was seated at a dining room table that had been lavishly decorated for a feast and in the center of the table was an item that lied horizontally on the table and wrapped in decorative meat wrapping paper. She was dressed differently now as well, placed in a black cocktail dress with a numbing pain she couldn't identify in her lower half as she slowly regained her senses.

"Hello Bedelia," His voice came almost as a whisper to her ear. She closed her eyes and sighed defeatedly. "Hello Hannibal."

He came around the table with her favorite chardonnay, "Are you surprised to see me?" he asked as he poured her a glass.

"Not entirely. But your return is not without it's shock value." She shook her head hoping to get rid of the remainder of whatever drug he gave her. "How did you find me?"

"It wasn't difficult." He handed her a glass. "When you made yourself a public target. Going from place to place every day, always watching, thinking you were safe in the crowd." He walked over and sat at his own place setting at the other end of the table. "I'm not the best choice of person to play hide and seek with."

"Because your nose can smell my fear?" she mocked.

"Because I know you," His gaze was stern and predatory, then shifted back to his softer fake façade he used for his lavish dinner parties, "So, did you get my holiday cards?"

"I started scrapbooking them last year."

"I read your last book and watched some of your appearances from over the past two years. I must say Bedelia, you should have given Frederick tips on his book," he chuckled. "I believe you perfectly captured the right amount of nonsense that would make sense to put all the blame of our time together on me."

She gave him a smug grin, "Well, I learned from the best about framing others and looking completely innocent in comparison." Her tone was condescending despite the drowsiness. "You make up enough false evidence and you can make anyone become a monster. Although monster was not that far of a stretch for 'Hannibal the Cannibal.'"

Hannibal tensed for a moment as though he had to quell his outrage, but he immediately fired back with, "It appears you have dusted off my old person suit and made yourself at home in it."

Bedelia began feeling less hazy and more in control and looked around, "Where is your 'partner'?"

"Will is running late, he's tying up all the loose ends with the young bartender," Bedelia cringed, Hannibal smiled. "It appears a young barmaid was so over infatuated with him and overly jealous of the friendship between him and a regular customer, an attractive older woman, that she disemboweled him in a fit of rage. Then wracked with grief, committed suicide."

"Now who's making up nonsense?" she asked. "Does it feel good, having this kind of control over people after being contained for so long?"

"I don't believe you are in any position to analyze my behaviors Doctor DuMaurier," he replied curtly. "Since your psychiatric license has been long since revoked."

"So has yours. I believe they burned yours after hearing what you did to some of your patients and colleagues…in and out of the kitchen." She began feeling her strength return. "Whatever you gave me has worn off, and I'm not restrained by any means." She said questioning his actions.

"You are more than welcome to try escaping," He replied with another sip of his drink. "But I don't imagine you'd get very far."

Bedelia looked at him bewildered and as the rest of the drugs wore off the pain from her lower half became more present. She looked down to see what was wrong to discover one of her legs was gone. My leg! Where's my leg?! She asked herself with a horrified expression on her face. But sudden realization came to her and she slowly looked back to the table at the meal in front of her and realized what her old colleague had prepared for dinner.

His gaze remained on her with a satisfied expression on his face as he placed his drink back on the table, "So, shall we eat?"

END PART THREE