A/N- Well, here it is, the final installment of my Clarice trilogy. AS always, neither Clarice nor Dr, Lecter belong to me, I am simply borrowing them for this romp. Lindsey is mine, however. Enjoy, dear ones.
When Wishes Come True
Chapter One
The late afternoon sunlight glowed tangerine through the frosted glass panes that rose above the tub, slanting their glow across the sterile white tile of the bathroom. A dark blue silk robe lay pooled on the floor in the light. There was the sound of the last of the bath water gurgling down the drain as a single foot was planted in the deep plush of the math mat. A fluffy white towel that smelled faintly of lavender was taken from its place and wrapped around the body that followed the first foot. A Pair of good hard ankles waded through the puddle of silk as their owner went to the mirror, a hand coming up to wipe away the condensation.
Through the fog a face appeared. Delicate features, high cheekbones flushed with the heat of the late afternoon soak. Her lips are rosy and she reaches down to grab an ever present tube of lip balm which is promptly swiped across her lips. She admires her face for a moment in the looking glass, peering for any blemishes, then pushes her wet hair back from the edges of her face. Small droplets of water escape the absorbency of the towel and fall to splash against the white tile floor. She takes the paddle brush from the counter and runs it through thick auburn hair, carefully detangling and humming to herself all the while. Lost in her ritual she does not see the pair of eyes watching her reflection in the mirror, or the smile that accompanies the appreciative gaze.
She finishes her routine about thirty minutes later and emerges from the bathroom, hair tucked into a loose bun secured with a velvet scrunchie, a few tendrils falling loose to lay at the nape of her neck. The loose drawstring pants and T-shirt she now wears are a similar blue to the robe that still lies on the bathroom floor. She smiles as she comes into the hall, looking across into the study of her companion for the time being. He looks up from the papers he is pushing through on his desk and returns her smile, his eyes hidden behind a stylish pair of lenses that are smoked in the lower half. With silent communication he bids her entreaty to his study and she obliges him, feet padding lightly on the solid oak floors. She bestows a kiss upon his lips, brushing quickly as she balances herself with a hand on the back of the rich leather office chair. She stands before him a moment, smiling slightly, hand still resting on the chair, before stepping from the room and leaving him to his own thoughts once more. His eyes followed her shapely backside as it exited through the doorway and he considered. In other realms and times men such as him would have called a woman such as her a goddess.
His goddess.
But not quite.
His almost goddess had a hard background, growing up in a home in Amarillo that didn't quite reach the middle class line, but didn't drop into poverty either. Momma was a seamstress, Daddy was often gone working on the road. She had never been sure what her father's job was, and it didn't matter much now that the earth held him in its womb. She had clawed her way into college, becoming the first in her family to do so, and set forth to accomplish her goal of getting out of this dump. Many would call her a redneck, and in certain circles, even after she had been accepted to college in Austin, she would always be referred to as tornado bait trailer camp trash. Any of the insults flung at her in either a whisper behind her back or directly to her face only added to her veneer. She'd learned early in her life the effect those blue eyes could have when narrowed on the offender and her chin set hard. Later in life she would be called the Ice Queen, and would always be thought of as a cold, cold woman.
But he knew her better. She'd graduated in the top five of her class at the University of Texas, with her psychology degree. She'd wanted to prove the naysayers wrong and show them what a true Texas woman could do. She had confessed to him after a long and pleasurable night that the first day she stepped into the hallowed halls of Quantico she had almost turned around and ran out. But in the end, she set her chin, narrowed her eyes, and threw herself at everything set before her. By the time her days of a trainee were over her name was engraved on the Possible Board, she had proven herself to be one of the sharpest minds to come out of that class, and she had found herself a new woman to look up to.
How our lives seem to intertwine so easily.
There was no lack of serial killers to be hunted at that time, but Crawford the Stoic had not seen it fit to use a trainee to his advantage once again during those years. Besides, he had finally accomplished his mission to get his chosen hound into his pack. Clarice Starling had finally followed into the footsteps of the last greatest profiler before her, Will Graham, and had her desk in the buried belly of Behavioral Sciences. Although he knew she would never admit it, he had finally given her what she had always desired: advancement. And he had done it once again from within the confines of a cell. But as the tides come in, they must go out again, and he had craved his freedom once again. Which eventually had led him here. Like star-crossed lovers they stumbled into one another's lives again, but he didn't take her into his arms this time.
This time he chose someone else.
He heard a whistle as the French doors leading to the back yard were opened and then, a few moments later, the skittering of nails on the hardwood floors. He could hear her in the kitchen pantry, opening the large tin reserved there for dog biscuits. The nails skittered towards the front hall and he heard a short, sharp bark. Her footsteps followed and then the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut. He rose and went to the window, watching her as she and the black greyhound took off up the street at a quick jog. The sinking sun glowed off her hair and he smiled. He was glad to have her in his life.
.-.-.-.
She turned from the window and the last fading glows of sunset. The clouds were beginning to rush in on the city and she faintly remembered the newscaster on the radio saying something about the possibility of snow. Just what she needed. She had been trapped in this hollow shell of a house for three days so far, and she needed a change. If it snowed enough, she wouldn't get that change. She couldn't decide whether or not that was a good thing.
It was her first vacation in a dozen years, a dozen years she had given up in pursuit of supposed justice at the hallowed FBI. She finally had her desk in the buried womb of Behavioral Sciences in Quantico. During her first week there she had passed by Crawford's old office, and peered inside through the window. It had been occupied by someone new, and most traces of his presence had been removed. A few things had remained, including the corkboard that had been tacked with all the articles on Buffalo Bill. It had been eerie to see her own picture among the collage, taken as she came out the door after shooting Jame Gumb, and she was slightly surprised that she had never noticed it before. The man occupying the office now was Jack's successor, and Clarice hadn't had much contact with him, and he was happy to leave her be at her cramped office down the hall.
The memories tickled through her brain, a pack of hounds racing through the mists in pursuit of a fox they could smell but not see. She leaned her forehead against the window pane, wincing from the shock of the sudden cold on warm skin. She closed her eyes as she pictured the fox she was hunting, pictured the last time she had seen him. Spotlighted on the television by the lights of the police helicopter, red dirt in a spinning dervish around him from the rotor wash as he held the prone woman in his arms. She had watched that tableaux many, many times as she was laying in a hospital bed in Colorado. Three years past and it was still as vivid as yesterday. And current circumstances were bringing those memories to the forefront once more.
She'd kept in touch with Lindsey after she had left the FBI. Letters were exchanged around the major holidays and random pictures came over e-mail and with those letters. The first ones were of Lindsey, usually by herself; hiking, at some fund raiser and the like.
And then he had appeared.
Clarice forced herself to open her eyes and to look away from the window. Back on her desk was the photo that had started it all over again. She hadn't said a thing to her bosses or comrades at Behavioral Sciences. The picture sat on the desk, the subjects smiling at her, both charming, but she couldn't help but feel that he was taunting her with his. It was cut neatly from the Lifestyles section of the Denver Post, and included a caption beneath the black and white photograph.
Dr. Gregory Orbinson of Boulder and Lindsey Singleton, also of Boulder.
Below that was a quick paragraph detailing the event they were there to sponsor, and names of other socialites that had attended. As soon as she had received the clipping from Lindsey Clarice had shoved it deep in a drawer, quietly telling herself that she was not seeing what was there before her. The photograph drew her in and she pulled it from the drawer numerous times until the tickle became too much for her to stand. Nights spent here in the guest bedroom/ office of her side of the duplex, nights spent hunched over an assortment of photographs of Lindsey and her new beau, studying them, taking notes. Nights spent searching through online resources, making good use of her unlimited Internet access and giving her an incredible neck cramp. So many long nights, and they had all lead up to this.
Next to the stack of photographs was a ticket envelope from United Airlines, and within it held the passageway for Clarice's destiny. Still, she sat here at the desk, weighing the consequences of her planned undertaking. Ardelia was the only one who knew she was leaving for Colorado in the morning, under the guise of visiting Lindsey, which wasn't exactly a lie. Clarice knew that she would have no jurisdiction on this if she were to choose to hunt for him and try to do what she had done once before. She knew that she had no standing, and no right to intrude upon his life.
Somehow she convinced herself it was for Lindsey's sake. It was incredibly wrong for a former FBI agent to be shacked up with one of the men on the Ten Most Wanted list. It was unjustifiable, no matter what emotions they claimed to possess for one another. He was a murderer, she was a person of morals and justice. And it didn't matter at all that Clarice had almost gone with the same man some years before.
It didn't matter at all.
.-.-.-.