“Heart Condition”: an Apéritif Missing Scene
Bedelia just manages to hide her dismay at finding Hannibal Lecter on her doorstep two full days before his scheduled appointment.
"I apologize for the intrusion," Hannibal says, putting on a good show of looking apologetic. "I was just on my way to Minnesota when I started experiencing something unusual."
She gestures for him to come in and pours two large glasses of wine.
"Travel anxiety?" she asks.
"Not at all," he says. "I think it's my heart."
"Hannibal, if you're having some kind of medical emergency---"
He cuts her off with a small flick of his hand. "No numbness or pain in my left arm, no other symptoms of a cardiac event."
He tugs his tie loose and opens the top three buttons of his crisp white shirt.
"I assume you have a stethoscope," he says. "I haven't brought mine with me."
She drinks half her glass before saying, "I'll just go get it."
A few minutes later, she's listening to a very unusual sound that can only be coming from Hannibal's heart.
"Hannibal, have you met anyone recently?" she asks, pulling the bell away from his chest.
"In a romantic sense? No," he says. "A new colleague, perhaps."
"Because your heart," Bedelia says, "is going pitter-patter."
She offers him an ear piece and presses the bell and diaphragm over his heart again.
He frowns slightly as he listens, but she knows Hannibal's expression is only ever as readable as he allows it to be.
"I don't have a history of this," he says.
"Of what? Your heart going pitter-patter?" she asks. He gives a small shrug. "Not once? Nobody's ever set your heart off like that?"
"Never," he says. "Is it serious?"
"It could be," she tells him. "Look for other symptoms, like this new 'colleague' occupying more and more of your waking thoughts... Wanting to be near this person as much as possible, giving them gifts, engaging in risky behavior just to be noticed..."
Hannibal buttons up his shirt and snugs up his tie once more, restoring his unflappable demeanor in an instant.
"I don't think there will be anything like that," Hannibal assures her with a small smile.
She gives him a smile of her own in return, which she knows he will read as agreement because she wants him to.
"Have a good trip to Minnesota," she says as she shows him to the door.
She watches him drive off and thinks to herself...
