Chapter Text
The small cry barely draws his attention. Years ago, months ago even, he would have paid it no mind.
Yet.
Hannibal allows his finely-tuned senses to focus. He follows the faint sobs with a slight tilt of his head, as if he were catching a rapidly fading scent. Abruptly, he turns, makes a left into the alley behind him.
There’s more trash than anything but he moves with ease in the shadows, eyes sweeping over large dumpsters, piles of filthy magazines and tattered rags. Under a layer of cardboard, a small form shudders. He can hear the ragged breaths it draws.
His lip curls. A dog perhaps, or some other unfortunate creature.
Still, his plans are unformed when he gingerly peels the wet cardboard back. He is really not quite sure why he even does it. Curiosity is a luxury for him, after all.
A girl, perhaps a young woman, lays below him on the ground. She is dirty, hair curled and matted over her face. Her clothes are in a terrible state of disarray, leaving her mostly nude. Hannibal can deduce what has happened to her. Defensive cuts are slashed across her forearms. From one of the slices, a thick inch of skin barely hangs. The worst of her wounds is cupped beneath small red hands. She has been stabbed in the abdomen, several times by the thick, syrupy smell of it. His nostrils flare. He believes her intestines have been perforated.
Breath still rattles from her broken body and he imagines life blood filling her lungs like a rising red tide. Soon she’ll be drowning in it. He glances up, sees the night sky and breathes it in. Wonders again, as he does most nights, about the sky over Will Graham’s head. It’s not his intention of course, but he finds once he thinks of Will, the train of his thoughts is impenetrable. Hannibal didn’t sleep well the night before. How did Will sleep? What dreams twitched his fingers and his mouth?
He stares down at the girl again, considering. He muses over finishing the job her attacker started. It would be so easy to take the small knife in his pocket and carve into her. He could improve upon the attacker’s work even, create something better.
Despite its simplicity and elegance, the idea doesn’t interest him. No symphony plays, and the buds of roses he imagines in his mind do not blossom. Frowning, he realizes despite thousands of miles and mutual betrayals between him and Will, he is still very much... not himself.
As if sensing an angel or grim reaper, the girl’s eyes flutter, slitting open. He sees the deep blue irises for just a moment.
He feels himself tremor. Like seeing a beautiful Matisse painting, the vivid, cerulean color of the girl’s eyes is a revelation.
Hannibal’s path opens up to him, uncoiling like a waking snake or even a thread from the Greek Moirai. In his mind’s eye, he can nearly see the women unspooling the single crimson strand of his life again, filling it with new purpose. This girl’s life will illuminate his way. And they all will be better for it.
“Fuck you,” she rasps. “Let me die.”
He smiles lovingly at her dirty face.
“I will not,” he says, already thinking of his future. Now becoming theirs.“You will live,” he commands, hands busily removing his wool coat and coordinated scarf.
Her forehead creases before she falls unconscious.
Quickly, Hannibal uses his coat to tourniquet the girl’s abdomen. He will have to act fast if she will survive her wounds. As he works to get her stable for transportation, he begins to plan the rest of his visit in Marseille. He can find a two bedroom apartment to rent easily enough. It will suffice for him and the girl while she heals.
There is just the matter of Bedelia to contend with.