The Universe's Mixer

When the courier delivered the no-doubt expensive watch, Clarice had no doubt where it had come from.

She sat in the kitchen of her still plain apartment, staring at it as it shone on the table in a patch of sunlight. It was beautifully understated, not in the least bit gaudy, and would go well with her coloration. It was also from him. She stared at it for a good half hour before finally putting it on, as it would be rude to ignore a gift and she knew how he felt about the rude.

Of course, the first thing she did once she was fully dressed was find the City police department and march herself inside. "I'd like to speak to whoever's in charge of hiring," she said at the reception desk. "My name is Clarice Starling. I'm new in the City and I'm a former FBI trainee. I'd like to do some good here and I can provide a resumé for all the good it'll do me."

That done, she sat down to wait, watching everyone. The watch, half-hidden under the sleeve of her jacket, gleamed.

Sleeping had done much for Eric. He'd slept longer than he'd intended to, but his body needed to recover - so did his mind. The trauma of the event had not been painful until the joining of the two minds, wherein Eric had gained every single memory from the other self from the time of their diverging lives.

He did not feel his other self inside, but Baba had stated that he was wrong on that matter. As much as Eric did not want it to be the case, it was not his way to doubt what his wife said and knew just because he didn't like it.

These thoughts returned to him as he lifted himself out of the peaceful fog of slumber. His nose told him they were still in the room that the horrors had happened in, burned and ruined by Baba's anger and frustration. He reached out with his senses, with their link, and with his hand to make sure that she was still beside him. Their link was stronger again, more like where it had been when he'd woken up from his strange slumber. It was not lost, then. He was glad.

"My wife," he said softly. "I suppose now is as good a time as any for you to explain why you don't think this other version of me is gone completely."

He knew she'd know about the memories, he'd already told her. He wasn't discounting those as alien, but he felt nothing more. Except for those memories, Eric felt entirely like himself.

Hannibal had not been in Fangtasia in a long time. With the people he'd connected to most in this City gone - the loss of both River and Lestat were keenly felt by the young doctor - Hannibal wished to find out if other people he'd enjoyed were about. He'd been told by his older self that Clarice Starling was in the City, and yet he did not wish to seek her out, lest he ruin the game the other Hannibal was playing. It was a fragile thing, he knew. He also knew that the woman knew about him. The elder had admitted as much.

He found himself a little disheartened when he approached Fangtasia and discovered it to be rebranded under the name Purgatory. The outside was roughly the same, however, and it seemed to him that a similar clientele was still hanging around by the door, though there were also an awful lot of plaid shirts in the mix.

Keeping his eyes open for Pam or Eric, Hannibal showed his ID to the doorman and slipped inside.

Half of the bar was still as he recalled, leather and chrome, black and red, fit for the gothiest of goth kids. The other half, however... well it was a strange mix with all the wood and rustic accents. The ones that were wearing the plaid went over to that side, and there seemed to be an uneasy truce between the two factions.

Now the name made a little more sense.

Neither group could be particularly happy about what had happened. Hannibal assumed it was another joke by the City itself. Something it thought it was doing to help. Something that had turned out very badly.

He found an empty booth big enough for four people and sat with his back to the wall. His eyes scanned carefully, but he saw no sign of the Viking King or his lovely progeny.

"Pam, are you here?" Hannibal said the words low, as if he were in normal conversation with somebody across the booth from him. He knew he did not need to shout. If she did not hear him, she was not in this building.

There were many things within this city that Hannibal found himself enjoying quite a bit. The tour of the Opera House had given him hope for his future here. He wasn't sure what he would have done if the place didn't have any kind of culture to it. Hannibal was a man who needed beauty in his life.

He had sent a watch to Clarice Starling, finding her rather easily. He was sure she wouldn't be very appreciative of the fact that he'd been able to discover her whereabouts, but he knew - somehow - that she would still wear the watch. He hoped that she would at least be able to enjoy it, even if it was obligation that moved her to place it upon her wrist. He had taken great care to ensure that it would match her coloring and be able to be worn with anything she might pick out for work. It would not do to gift her an item that could only be used once in a while. A watch was supposed to be functional, though he knew it could also be beautiful.

Lady Murasaki's flat was perfect for him, and the memories of her lingered as if she'd just walked through the space earlier in the week. There were painful parts to that, of course, but for the most part, Hannibal enjoyed being there.

He had to find Will Graham. Enough time had gone by for the man to think that he'd truly seen a phantom. That he was safe in this strange place, and alone. Hannibal imagined that he was not doing very well with everything that the City promised, its moving streets and shifting buildings, not to mention the strange people. He would find Will and offer a gentle, guiding hand. An easy friendship with a face that he already knew.

Hannibal stood in the park, watching the sun set, thinking of all these things and more.