Author's note: here's an idea I'd had for an original fic. It wasn't going anywhere as an original, but revamping it made it fit nicely into the Lecter universe...so...let's see what happened to Clarice after the end of 'Hannibal'. Follows movie canon.

Clarice sat down at her desk and sighed. She hated this little office; it was practically a closet. The walls were concrete, painted an icky yellow color. The yellow blankness was broken up by only one small window, which would not open, and gave her a pleasant view of the parking lot outside. It reminded her of nothing so much as a prison cell.

And that was apt, because since she had been discovered outside Paul Krendler's lake house, the FBI had indeed sentenced her. Nothing so much as a trial, or even a chance to present her side. She'd been taken off active duty, spent a few months in limbo, and then been reassigned to the Academy, where she helped teach forensic pathology to both FBI trainees and policemen from other agencies. Which, in short, meant she dragged buckets of blood and cadavers up to a classroom, where she got to see whom among the student body would be horrified by the sight. She also got to take cadavers out back, shoot them, and stage simulated murders for the trainees to investigate.

She hated it.

On an intellectual level, she understood that training the new generations of FBI agents was important, and there were always the oddballs like herself who didn't get green around the gills when presented with a pair of severed arms. On an emotional level – someone other than her ought to do it. She wanted to be a hunter, not a teacher. The events of Dr. Lecter's little quarrel with Mason Verger had left her feeling unfairly stained, and she wanted the chance to recover her good name. She couldn't do that as the FBI Academy's Igor. Watching the trainees practice at what she really wanted to be doing galled her. Knowing that they would get the chance to actually use it was worse.

The worst part was that there seemed to be no way out of it. She'd filed requests and sent emails, and only succeeded in adding a little to the massive store of paperwork that life in the FBI revolved around. It seemed that this was her sentence, and there would no word from the governor.

The doctor himself had vanished like smoke. No taunting letters, no bottles of wine in her car – nothing. The FBI and other agencies all actively sought him, and they knew he was wounded. She knew that far better than any of them. The sight of Dr. Lecter chopping off his thumb – and most of the meat attached to it – in order to escape the handcuffs kept replaying in her mind – usually in the middle of the night, after waking up in a sweaty haze.

Like any prison, Clarice's basement office was rather quiet and routine. A new load of cadavers would be coming in. It would be Clarice's grisly task to drag them out to the mock city the Academy used for training and decide what scene of horror she could inflict on her students this time. There was a house no one lived in, a street corner that no cars drove down, and an office building empty of workers in which she could set her scene. She would arrange the bodies as if they had lived or worked there. A gangland slaying here; a sidewalk murder there; a domestic violence that turned deadly after that. Basically, she decided where to put the bodies and and then blew off their faces with a shotgun or busted a cap in their unmoving hearts. All in the name of higher education.

Now, the clock was turning towards noon, and she had the weighty decision to make – eat at the base at Quantico, or perhaps go out for lunch to the free world? The food here was cheap, but institutional and tasteless. On the other hand, she'd gone out a lot lately, and it was beginning to hurt her bank account.

The phone on her desk uttered it electronic squawk, and she stared at it for a moment. There were weeks her phone stayed silent for days. Miss Popularity she was not. But an FBI agent she was, so she scooped up the receiver.

"Starling," she rasped.

"Agent Starling, this is Joan, at the front desk. There's a woman here to see you."

Clarice paused for a moment. Who was it? 'Delia would have just called her cell phone. She had few other friends in the FBI, and fewer female friends. All the same, there was only one way to find out.

"Be there in a minute. Thanks, Joan," she said, and proceeded to the front of the building. 'Front desk' was a bit of a misnomer; there was a large, glassed-in pen in front which Starling tended to think of as the secretarial cages. Visitors waited in chairs near the pen.

Sitting in one of them was a blonde woman. At first glance, Starling made her for mid-to-late twenties, maybe early thirties. An expert hand with makeup, which could throw off guesses at age. She wore gold knot earrings and a simple gold chain around her neck. Her suit was well-cut without being ostentatious. Her eyes were large and bright and suggested intelligence, but her face was sallow and tired under its cosmetic disguises.

She rose from the chair when she saw Clarice and extended a hand. Starling glanced at it for a moment: soft hands, nails well cared for in a conservative shade of polish.

"Hello, Agent Starling," the woman said pleasantly. Her voice sounded educated but tough. Her accent was a little more posh than Starling's own, but most people's were. Virginia, Starling guessed. "My name is Sarah Hansen. I'm an assistant Commonwealth's Attorney from Hopewell County. I'd like to speak with you."

Starling smiled graciously and took the hand. Hansen's grip was a proper ladies' handshake: just shy of being jellyfish.

"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hansen. What can I do for you?"

She continued observing the woman as she spoke, trying to get a feel for this woman and what she wanted. Commonwealth's Attorney meant she was a Virginia prosecutor; prosecutors from other states usually called themselves district attorneys. Earrings, power-femme suit, wussy-girl handshake, okay. Starling made a quick calculation: small-town aristocracy. In slavery days she would have been a plantation owner's débutante daughter.

"It's a bit of a complex situation," Hansen said pleasantly. "Shall we discuss it over lunch, perhaps? My treat, of course."

"Thank you," Clarice said. "All right. Do you have a place in mind?"

"Not really," Hansen admitted. "I'm not familiar with the area."

"What sort of lunch did you have in mind?" Clarice asked.

Sarah Hansen shrugged. "Someplace reasonably nice," she said. "TGI Friday's, someplace like that. Preferably somewhere where we could talk. Nothing too fancy."

Clarice thought, "There's Bistro Bethem, Houlihan's, or Vinny's Grill and Pizzeria," she offered.

"Houlihan's sounds fine," Hansen said easily. "I'm not much for gourmet food, but I'm not really feeling like pizza."

Clarice nodded amiably. She found herself liking this woman. Since she knew the area, she volunteered to drive. The restaurant was about what they wanted – nice, but not chokingly fancy. They would be able to talk in privacy. Hansen studied the menu for a few moments and ordered a salad; Clarice plumped for a chicken sandwich.

After the drinks had been served, Sarah Hansen cleared her throat and smiled. "So," she said. "I suppose you want to know what all this is about."

Clarice took a sip of her iced tea. "Well, yes, I do," she said.

"Fair enough." Hansen took a breath. "Agent Starling, I need you to find my sister."

"Your sister? Is she missing?" Clarice parried.

"Sort of. Not exactly. Have you ever heard...of my sister's case? Her name is Claire. Claire Hansen. It was all we could hear about down where I'm from, but I don't know if the news got that far up here."

Clarice pondered for a moment. Claire Hansen, Claire Hansen...no. It didn't ring a bell.

"I'm not familiar with it, no," she said neutrally.

Sarah's mouth twitched. "Two years ago, my stepmother was murdered," she began. "Claire and her boyfriend did it. Both of them were...well...odd ducks. Claire was always into black clothes, wearing pentacles, weird gothic music...that sort of thing. Some people thought she was a devil worshiper. She said she wasn't, that she worshiped the Earth or something silly like that." Her mouth quirked again.

"I see," Clarice said calmly.

"They were both arrested, both jailed, both convicted. No bail. My father wouldn't pay it, anyway. Not after what had happened. Course, Claire said she hadn't done it, that her boyfriend did it. Whatever." Sarah Hansen rolled her eyes and almost pulled off the sarcastic dismissal. The tight line of her lips and gritted teeth told a different story.

"Anyway," she said, after a noticeable pause, "of course they appealed, both of them. His appeal got turned down. Hers...didn't."

"New trial?" Clarice guessed. That might be it; the kid might have decided to light out rather than wait for her new trial. It was all too common. But what would that have to do with her?

Sarah Hansen shook her head. "Overturned. Speedy trial violations, so they said. Our county court said the delays were okay, the court of appeals disagreed. As of two weeks ago, the Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the county's appeal, and she was released about a week ago."

Clarice nodded again and shifted her legs. "And you want me to find her?"

Sarah nodded.

"I read about you. You found Hannibal Lecter. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard for you to find an eighteen-year-old with no money and no...," she paused. "Support. She couldn't have gotten far. Now I know nothing's for free, and I don't expect you to work for free. We'd pay you two thousand dollars a month, cash. It's our money – my family's – not the county. Expenses, too. If you got her within a month, we'll sweeten that pot with another ten thousand cash. Obviously you'd continue working at the FBI. I'd imagine that's how you'd access the law enforcement computer networks."

"The FBI doesn't exactly smile on part-time employment," Clarice pointed out.

Sarah was unmoved. "This can all be done privately. Nobody needs to know, except you and us."

Clarice didn't say anything, but her lack of confidence must have shown. That made sense; a good prosecutor would know how to read people.

"That's not all we can do, either. If you help us, we'll help you. I'm a prosecutor, my brother is a state trooper, and my father is a judge. We know a few people in Hopewell County who retired from the FBI. We'll do whatever we can do get you back in the field," added the other woman.

Clarice stopped at that and pondered. Obviously, Sarah Hansen wanted her sister back very badly. But it was pretty obvious that she planned no loving reunion; the twists of her face and obvious anger made that clear. Was this some sort of blood feud? She didn't like the sound of that, and she liked the idea of being caught in it less. She could see the Tattler headline now: FBI'S KILLING MACHINE NOW RICH FAMILY'S ATTACK DOG. That made her think of Deputy Mogli, and how easily he had sold out his morals for Verger bucks. Not her. Not now, not ever.

"That's an interesting offer," Clarice began neutrally. "But I guess I have to ask. From what you've told me, I don't see that there's federal jurisdiction. Sounds like straight state to me. And I'm a little curious why you seem to want to go after her personally. If you want to find her, you could just drop a material witness warrant on her."

Sarah Hansen shook her head. "I don't have time for that," she said thinly. "I need her now."

Clarice took a sip of iced tea to give herself a moment to think. "I guess that's another thing," she said contemplatively. "You don't even seem to like her very much. No offense, but you don't hide it very well. I can tell by your face."

Sarah nodded slowly. "I don't," she admitted. "Not after what she did, after what it did to my father...," she sighed, and steeled herself visibly. Then she reached up to her head for a moment. She removed a few bobby pins from the side of her head just above her ear, then the other. Then she tugged at her hair, and it slid free.

Sarah Hansen held the hair – the wig – in one hand. Her head below was almost bare; her own hair was stringy and sparse and extremely thin. Her scalp was clearly visible under the few threadlike, almost translucent strands of hair that she had. Now the tiredness and sallow look made much more sense. Now that she looked, she could see bags under the other woman's eyes, and her face seemed jaundiced under her makeup. Clarice's eyes widened, but she clamped her jaws shut lest she say anything stupid. Satisfied that she had made her impression, Sarah put the wig back on and set it to rights.

"I had no idea," Clarice said.

Sarah smiled tightly. "For what I paid for that wig, I would hope so. I have leukemia, Agent Starling. I've had it for four years. Back before...well, all this started, Claire got tested for me, to see if she could be a bone marrow donor. And she could. She's the only one in my family who is a match. They they managed to get it into remission. I was cancer-free for a long time – through the murder and the trial and all that. But it came back a few months ago, and it's bad. Very bad. I'm gutting my way through chemo, but it's come back with a vengeance. My clock is ticking. The doctors tell me the best time for a transplant would be in the next few months." Her voice shook and thickened, but she carried on, which Starling could respect. "From what I can tell, I've got somewhere between six and nine months total...maybe a year. Not much beyond that. So I don't have a lot of time to waste."

"I need my sister. I need her now. I need her to do this donation for me. You're right, I don't particularly like her, but we'll deal with that when it comes. Right now, I don't even know where she is. What I need you for is to find her. You're a good sleuth, you're smart, you're available, unless you'd rather haul buckets of blood and bodies around at the Academy. I'll pay you well, and I'll do everything I can for you. I just don't have a lot of cards to play. The fact is, Starling...I don't have a lot of time, and I need your help."

The other woman's eyes seemed haunted. Clarice felt a jolt of mixed horror and sympathy, imagining staring down the black tunnel that the other woman was facing. Six months, or a year left to live? How could anyone turn their back? She made her decision in a split second – the only one she could make. The old urge to put things right was strong as ever. She leaned forward and touched the other woman's arm.

"Okay, Ms. Hansen. I'll find your sister."