cthonical:

“Dr Du Maurier,” Jack Crawford says, and she knows the minute pause between his words and her tight smile of acknowledgement is imperceptible.

Even after so many years the name still feels foreign sometimes.

*

One thing stays exactly the same, and that’s the way blood on her bare hands makes her feel. It’s not always possible, of course, but sinking her teeth into the warm meat later is almost as good.

*

She’d intended to avoid Dr Lecter. Too dangerous, too complicated to get entangled with, no matter how intensely curious she felt. Establishing herself in Baltimore just because it was familiar was already brushing up against the razor’s edge.

“Dr Lecter!”

She turns towards the voice before she can stop herself, an ingrained habit she knows she needs to break and break fast if she’s going to survive. Not that it matters right now, as she narrows her eyes at the man shaking hands with another colleague just across the conference floor.

At first she thinks perhaps she heard wrong. Then the man glances around, catches her eyes, and she knows. Wonders if he does, too, even though that would be impossible.

“Oh, that’s Hannibal Lecter,” Nadine says beside her, noticing the direction of her attention. “I don’t think you’ve met?”

“No,” Bedelia says.

“Remind me to introduce you later. He puts on the most amazing dinner parties.”

“I’m sure he does.” Bedelia takes a careful sip of her champagne, already rearranging her mental map.

*

Hannibal isn’t looking at her as he tugs the patient’s head back and holds while he gurgles and thrashes, red seeping quickly into the whites of his eyes.

She wonders if her eyes go the exact same shade of cold vicious, if there are any differences under their skin at all.

*

Bedelia pours more wine after Jack Crawford leaves, and she sighs. There’s nothing she can really do, of course, but she’ll offer her counsel as clearly as she can.

She shrugs her shoulder at the phantom ache settling under the old bullet wounds.

Will Graham has already caught the Chesapeake Ripper once, despite everything it cost her. If Bedelia has her way, this Will Graham will never get the chance.