Chapter Two
She could see his maroon eyes in the moonlight. He looked her up and down before saying "Clarice... come on... you need to sit down..."
"What would you know about what I need, Doctor? You thrived on torturing me, of bring back all the memories I had tried for so long to forget."
"That's not what I ever tried to do, nor did I do. I never tortured you, I helped you, it's just something you are yet to realize."
"This is really not the time to bring your ignorance to me, Doctor."
He sighed. "Clarice, sit down. Look at yourself," he said, placing his hand on her elbow.
"Let go," she said, as she yanked it away.
He looked down to her thigh, where he saw the blood from the cuts. "Look at what you are doing to yourself..." He grabbed her by both shoulders and forced her to sit down on the floor. "Listen to me..."
"I don't want to listen!" she sobbed, "All I have ever done is listen and all I have ever done has been wrong!" She broke into hysterical tears then and collapsed into his shoulder. He embraced her and patted her hair while she cried.
"You... don't... understand! They were... my everything... I... have nothing else... and... now... they're gone!"
"You have me now," he spoke in a gentle voice. If it had been a different time, she would have been focusing on how weird the whole situation was. He was acting nothing like himself. He was gentle and caring, completely not what one would think of as a murderous cannibal. But now, she didn't care; she only cried in his arms.
~*~
After she had settled down, he helped her up the stairs so that she could take a shower and change into some clean clothes. After she was done, he took her back downstairs and made her dinner, mashed potatoes and milk, the only things he could find. When she was done, he took her, half asleep, up to her bed. He waited until she fell asleep to climb into the chair in the corner of the room, where he too fell asleep while watching over her.
When the morning came, he found her staring out the window. There were birds on the ledge, but nothing anymore fascinating than that. She must have sensed that he had awakened because she whispered "Why do you care so much about me?"
"Because the world is more interesting with you in it," he spoke.
She smiled a little. "That's what you said before; but what makes you mean it?" she asked as she looked to him.
"What do you mean?"
"Why is the world more interesting with me in it? Why am I so different?"
It was the kind of question that no one had really ever asked him before. "Because you are the only one who can make color of the black and white surrounding you."
She didn't understand what he meant, but she didn't dare ask. She nodded and went back to staring out the window.
"You need to get up now," he said, "It's been over a month. You need to get back to work, you need to get back to life..."
"What's the point? There isn't one..."
"Oh, but there is, Clarice. And deep down, you know that."
A tear rolled down her cheek as she turned back to his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't.
He rose out of his chair. "I shall go prepare you breakfast," he said, as he left the room.
~*~
She made her own way downstairs. The bleaching white light came pouring in through the long windows along the sides of the surrounding walls. She shielded her eyes and finished climbing the stairs. She knew this house well, far itoo/i well, in fact, but today it all felt odd, as if she had never been in it's presence before; An ununderstandable irony to her.
The floor was cold against her bare feet; the wrap of her long cotton robe followed on the ground. Her face and lips were still chapped, but noticeably improving, and the blood had been washed from her hands and hair. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and moved towards the kitchen.
He was waiting there for her. There were eggs being fried in a pan; bacon in the pan next to it. There was already buttered toast, cereal, and juice in both apple and orange sitting on the table. She leaned against the counter, resting her head on the cupboard above it, as she waited for him to turn around.
As she knew he would, he did. He turned and looked to her, a smile beginning to cover his face. "Buon giorno, Clarice," he spoke.
She smiled. "I have no idea what that means, but buon giorno to you as well, Doctor."
He smiled at her simplicity as he slid the eggs onto a china plate and sat them down on the counter. He took her shoulder. "Come, sit down. You are no where near entirely healed yet, and you still need your rest." She obeyed him by slipping into the chair on at the counter. He brought the belongings from the table over to her.
"Eat, and then I'm afraid that we must get down to work," he said, as he slipped into the chair across from her.
She swallowed a taste of orange juice. "Work?"
"You can't go on like this, we need to start on the road of helping you to put this behind you and go on."
She looked down at her plate. "I'm not so sure if I can."
He took her hand from across the table. "It will be fine. I will teach you how."
She looked up to him and smiled, but it faded away quickly; there was a loud pounding on the door.
"Shit!" she said, in a loud whisper. "We need to hide you!"
"It's alright," he said as he got up from the chair, "Go answer the door, I'll find a place by myself."
"Are you crazy? Do you realize what could happen if someone caught you here?!" she whispered in a panic.
"Clarice, I think that I realize that more than you. Now go answer it before they become suspicious; trust me on this."
She looked around in a hurry and spotted the basement door. It could be seen from the front door if she opened it the wrong way, but it was a chance she would have to take.
"Hurry, the basement! Don't go all the way down, it's dark and you're liable to knock something over and we can't have him hearing a sound. Stay by the stairs." She ran over to it as the knocking on the front door began again. She swung it open just the right length for him to climb behind it.
"Clarice, may I remind you that I escaped from a prison? I really don't need your help with hiding from one man."
"Oh shut up and stay there!" she said as she slammed the door in his face and ran to the front. She closed her robe around her nightgown and swung the door open.
She smiled. "Pilcher. Noble Pilcher," she said with a laugh. "How are you?"
He grinned as he came in the door. "Oh, I'm doing fine, what I am worried about is you, Starling."
She shut the door and sighed as she leaned against it. "Yeah..." she dragged off.
"How are you coping?" he asked as he took his coat off and folded it over his arm.
"Much better than yesterday. Don't know what got me going, must be those annoying female hormones," she said with a nervous laugh. She walked over to him and took his coat. "Come in, sit down," she said as she led him into the kitchen.
"I'd love to stay a while, but I'm on my way to work and I only have about ten minutes," he said as he took a seat.
"Are you still working at the museum?" she asked as she did the same.
"Yes, I am. Nothing as interesting as what you brought us, though," he said with a grin. "Nothing as beautiful has come in yet, either."
She blushed. "Thank you..." she said as she looked away.
"We haven't done much lately, but I'm going up to the cottage again soon. We had fun the last three times we went, I'm sure we could make this fourth one perfect, too?"
She smiled. "I'll consider it, I don't know, though. Everything is so different than it was before."
He looked downcast. "I hope you're handling all well. I know how close you were to both of them."
She smiled again. "Hey, um, I have some Miller's downstairs that I never drink... would you like one?"
He looked down to his watch. "Hey, sure, why not? Let me get it, though. You should be resting."
"NO!" she screamed, "I mean, you're my guest, let me get it for you..."
He looked at her oddly. "No, that's quite alright... I'm not your guest, I'm here to make you feel better..."
"Well, I'm going to get it anyway."
"No, I insist."
She looked to the door and made a run for it.
Pilcher laughed at her. "Just as competitive as always, huh, Starling?" he said as he began to run after her.
She swung the door open, ran in and shut it, holding it closed. With her free hand she turned on the light. Dr. Lecter was still on the stairs. "Go!" she mouthed to him as she brushed her hand at him. "Go! Down! Go! Go!"
She laughed to play along with Pilcher. "Hey, come on, not man enough to beat me?" She let go and he pushed the door open. She turned and continued running down the stairs.
Into the pantry where the Miller was. One quick check to make sure the Doctor wasn't there and she was set. She laughed as he followed her in and then ran over to grab a cold one out of the fridge.
He laughed as he took a sip. "Well, I'm very happy to see that you're feeling better, Starling. I hope everything keeps improving, but I really must get my ass over to work now."
She giggled. "Have fun with them bugs now, Boy," she said, teasing him.
He gave her a hug and kissed her as she led him back upstairs and out the door. Once she had watched his car drive away, she collapsed against the wall and took a heavy sigh. A few seconds later she burst into hysterical laughter.
Dr. Lecter came up the stairs slowly and peered into the room where she was. He took her by the shoulders, "Clarice, come on... sit down, you're suffering from a minor case of a breakdown..."
She laughed even harder at this as she collapsed into his chest and put her arms around him. "A breakdown? No, no, not at all. I haven't had that much fun in years!" she said through a giggle.
He shook his head at her and couldn't help but give a small smile.
~*¤*~
"Why doesn't your life seem worth it anymore?"
"Everything. Just everything. It's all so wrong..."
"Why?"
Starling sat on the couch in her living room while Lecter sat in the chair across from her.
She took a strand of her hair and placed it behind her ear. "I never had anyone growing up, I never knew what it was like to have a friend or to really truly love someone. When I met Jack and Ardelia, that all turned around, and now it's so hard to live without them..." she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"If they were here, do you think that they'd want you to be sad for them?"
She laughed. "No. Ardelia would say 'What the fuck, girl?! It's me, it's my life; it doesn't control yours. Be happy!' and then she probably would have started singing that 'Don't worry, be happy' song," she smiled at the thought again. "Jack would probably tell me to move on and not to worry about him; what's done is done."
"And what they both say is right," he said with a nod of his head. "Just because Ardelia is gone doesn't mean that you can't go on being happy. And what's done is done, you can't go back and change it so you might as well move on."
She looked to him. "But there doesn't seem to be a reason to move on without them. I mean, my career is going nowhere, and with no one to care whether you live or die, what does it really matter?"
"I care whether you live or die. Ardelia's family cares if you live or die. Many people at work place care whether you live or die. As far as your career, it's just beginning. You can't give up on it so soon, that's what your problem is."
She looked away to the window while she crossed her arms and folded herself over.
"Everything you do here means something, Clarice," he said as moved his head in the direction of the window, trying to get her eyes to follow him back.
It worked, she looked to him. "I know that it probably is, but it's so hard to believe..."
"Then that's what we need to work on next time. However, these things take time and I think that you've had enough for one day."
She nodded as she got up and headed off to the kitchen. She glanced back for a second before moving on. "Thank you," she said softly.
He smiled in return.
~*¤*~
Dr. Lecter spent most of the day pondering, what exactly no one knew. Starling cleaned the house, something she had much work to catch up on being that she hadn't cleaned all month.
"Doctor," she finally said at around seven, "what would you like for dinner?"
He broke his view from the window and turned to her. "Something Italian; but don't worry, I'll prepare it, I know their dishes very well."
"Either way," she said with a shrug.
He got up from his seat and began to head toward the stairs. "Speaking of Italy, there's something I have been wanting to give to you."
She looked to him, he was now at the base of the stairs, waiting for her. "What is it?" she asked with half a smile.
"Come, I'll show you."
She followed him up the stairs and into the room which she had given him to sleep in. She watched as he opened his bag, the only one he had brought with him, and pulled out a book.
"Dante. Dante Alighieri. I think that you might enjoy his works," Lecter said as he handed Starling the book.
She smiled. "Thank you."
He smiled back at her. "Well... I should go start dinner. You begin reading."
"OK," she replied simply, and sat down in the corner to begin.
~*¤*~
She could see his maroon eyes in the moonlight. He looked her up and down before saying "Clarice... come on... you need to sit down..."
"What would you know about what I need, Doctor? You thrived on torturing me, of bring back all the memories I had tried for so long to forget."
"That's not what I ever tried to do, nor did I do. I never tortured you, I helped you, it's just something you are yet to realize."
"This is really not the time to bring your ignorance to me, Doctor."
He sighed. "Clarice, sit down. Look at yourself," he said, placing his hand on her elbow.
"Let go," she said, as she yanked it away.
He looked down to her thigh, where he saw the blood from the cuts. "Look at what you are doing to yourself..." He grabbed her by both shoulders and forced her to sit down on the floor. "Listen to me..."
"I don't want to listen!" she sobbed, "All I have ever done is listen and all I have ever done has been wrong!" She broke into hysterical tears then and collapsed into his shoulder. He embraced her and patted her hair while she cried.
"You... don't... understand! They were... my everything... I... have nothing else... and... now... they're gone!"
"You have me now," he spoke in a gentle voice. If it had been a different time, she would have been focusing on how weird the whole situation was. He was acting nothing like himself. He was gentle and caring, completely not what one would think of as a murderous cannibal. But now, she didn't care; she only cried in his arms.
~*~
After she had settled down, he helped her up the stairs so that she could take a shower and change into some clean clothes. After she was done, he took her back downstairs and made her dinner, mashed potatoes and milk, the only things he could find. When she was done, he took her, half asleep, up to her bed. He waited until she fell asleep to climb into the chair in the corner of the room, where he too fell asleep while watching over her.
When the morning came, he found her staring out the window. There were birds on the ledge, but nothing anymore fascinating than that. She must have sensed that he had awakened because she whispered "Why do you care so much about me?"
"Because the world is more interesting with you in it," he spoke.
She smiled a little. "That's what you said before; but what makes you mean it?" she asked as she looked to him.
"What do you mean?"
"Why is the world more interesting with me in it? Why am I so different?"
It was the kind of question that no one had really ever asked him before. "Because you are the only one who can make color of the black and white surrounding you."
She didn't understand what he meant, but she didn't dare ask. She nodded and went back to staring out the window.
"You need to get up now," he said, "It's been over a month. You need to get back to work, you need to get back to life..."
"What's the point? There isn't one..."
"Oh, but there is, Clarice. And deep down, you know that."
A tear rolled down her cheek as she turned back to his eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't.
He rose out of his chair. "I shall go prepare you breakfast," he said, as he left the room.
~*~
She made her own way downstairs. The bleaching white light came pouring in through the long windows along the sides of the surrounding walls. She shielded her eyes and finished climbing the stairs. She knew this house well, far itoo/i well, in fact, but today it all felt odd, as if she had never been in it's presence before; An ununderstandable irony to her.
The floor was cold against her bare feet; the wrap of her long cotton robe followed on the ground. Her face and lips were still chapped, but noticeably improving, and the blood had been washed from her hands and hair. She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and moved towards the kitchen.
He was waiting there for her. There were eggs being fried in a pan; bacon in the pan next to it. There was already buttered toast, cereal, and juice in both apple and orange sitting on the table. She leaned against the counter, resting her head on the cupboard above it, as she waited for him to turn around.
As she knew he would, he did. He turned and looked to her, a smile beginning to cover his face. "Buon giorno, Clarice," he spoke.
She smiled. "I have no idea what that means, but buon giorno to you as well, Doctor."
He smiled at her simplicity as he slid the eggs onto a china plate and sat them down on the counter. He took her shoulder. "Come, sit down. You are no where near entirely healed yet, and you still need your rest." She obeyed him by slipping into the chair on at the counter. He brought the belongings from the table over to her.
"Eat, and then I'm afraid that we must get down to work," he said, as he slipped into the chair across from her.
She swallowed a taste of orange juice. "Work?"
"You can't go on like this, we need to start on the road of helping you to put this behind you and go on."
She looked down at her plate. "I'm not so sure if I can."
He took her hand from across the table. "It will be fine. I will teach you how."
She looked up to him and smiled, but it faded away quickly; there was a loud pounding on the door.
"Shit!" she said, in a loud whisper. "We need to hide you!"
"It's alright," he said as he got up from the chair, "Go answer the door, I'll find a place by myself."
"Are you crazy? Do you realize what could happen if someone caught you here?!" she whispered in a panic.
"Clarice, I think that I realize that more than you. Now go answer it before they become suspicious; trust me on this."
She looked around in a hurry and spotted the basement door. It could be seen from the front door if she opened it the wrong way, but it was a chance she would have to take.
"Hurry, the basement! Don't go all the way down, it's dark and you're liable to knock something over and we can't have him hearing a sound. Stay by the stairs." She ran over to it as the knocking on the front door began again. She swung it open just the right length for him to climb behind it.
"Clarice, may I remind you that I escaped from a prison? I really don't need your help with hiding from one man."
"Oh shut up and stay there!" she said as she slammed the door in his face and ran to the front. She closed her robe around her nightgown and swung the door open.
She smiled. "Pilcher. Noble Pilcher," she said with a laugh. "How are you?"
He grinned as he came in the door. "Oh, I'm doing fine, what I am worried about is you, Starling."
She shut the door and sighed as she leaned against it. "Yeah..." she dragged off.
"How are you coping?" he asked as he took his coat off and folded it over his arm.
"Much better than yesterday. Don't know what got me going, must be those annoying female hormones," she said with a nervous laugh. She walked over to him and took his coat. "Come in, sit down," she said as she led him into the kitchen.
"I'd love to stay a while, but I'm on my way to work and I only have about ten minutes," he said as he took a seat.
"Are you still working at the museum?" she asked as she did the same.
"Yes, I am. Nothing as interesting as what you brought us, though," he said with a grin. "Nothing as beautiful has come in yet, either."
She blushed. "Thank you..." she said as she looked away.
"We haven't done much lately, but I'm going up to the cottage again soon. We had fun the last three times we went, I'm sure we could make this fourth one perfect, too?"
She smiled. "I'll consider it, I don't know, though. Everything is so different than it was before."
He looked downcast. "I hope you're handling all well. I know how close you were to both of them."
She smiled again. "Hey, um, I have some Miller's downstairs that I never drink... would you like one?"
He looked down to his watch. "Hey, sure, why not? Let me get it, though. You should be resting."
"NO!" she screamed, "I mean, you're my guest, let me get it for you..."
He looked at her oddly. "No, that's quite alright... I'm not your guest, I'm here to make you feel better..."
"Well, I'm going to get it anyway."
"No, I insist."
She looked to the door and made a run for it.
Pilcher laughed at her. "Just as competitive as always, huh, Starling?" he said as he began to run after her.
She swung the door open, ran in and shut it, holding it closed. With her free hand she turned on the light. Dr. Lecter was still on the stairs. "Go!" she mouthed to him as she brushed her hand at him. "Go! Down! Go! Go!"
She laughed to play along with Pilcher. "Hey, come on, not man enough to beat me?" She let go and he pushed the door open. She turned and continued running down the stairs.
Into the pantry where the Miller was. One quick check to make sure the Doctor wasn't there and she was set. She laughed as he followed her in and then ran over to grab a cold one out of the fridge.
He laughed as he took a sip. "Well, I'm very happy to see that you're feeling better, Starling. I hope everything keeps improving, but I really must get my ass over to work now."
She giggled. "Have fun with them bugs now, Boy," she said, teasing him.
He gave her a hug and kissed her as she led him back upstairs and out the door. Once she had watched his car drive away, she collapsed against the wall and took a heavy sigh. A few seconds later she burst into hysterical laughter.
Dr. Lecter came up the stairs slowly and peered into the room where she was. He took her by the shoulders, "Clarice, come on... sit down, you're suffering from a minor case of a breakdown..."
She laughed even harder at this as she collapsed into his chest and put her arms around him. "A breakdown? No, no, not at all. I haven't had that much fun in years!" she said through a giggle.
He shook his head at her and couldn't help but give a small smile.
~*¤*~
"Why doesn't your life seem worth it anymore?"
"Everything. Just everything. It's all so wrong..."
"Why?"
Starling sat on the couch in her living room while Lecter sat in the chair across from her.
She took a strand of her hair and placed it behind her ear. "I never had anyone growing up, I never knew what it was like to have a friend or to really truly love someone. When I met Jack and Ardelia, that all turned around, and now it's so hard to live without them..." she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"If they were here, do you think that they'd want you to be sad for them?"
She laughed. "No. Ardelia would say 'What the fuck, girl?! It's me, it's my life; it doesn't control yours. Be happy!' and then she probably would have started singing that 'Don't worry, be happy' song," she smiled at the thought again. "Jack would probably tell me to move on and not to worry about him; what's done is done."
"And what they both say is right," he said with a nod of his head. "Just because Ardelia is gone doesn't mean that you can't go on being happy. And what's done is done, you can't go back and change it so you might as well move on."
She looked to him. "But there doesn't seem to be a reason to move on without them. I mean, my career is going nowhere, and with no one to care whether you live or die, what does it really matter?"
"I care whether you live or die. Ardelia's family cares if you live or die. Many people at work place care whether you live or die. As far as your career, it's just beginning. You can't give up on it so soon, that's what your problem is."
She looked away to the window while she crossed her arms and folded herself over.
"Everything you do here means something, Clarice," he said as moved his head in the direction of the window, trying to get her eyes to follow him back.
It worked, she looked to him. "I know that it probably is, but it's so hard to believe..."
"Then that's what we need to work on next time. However, these things take time and I think that you've had enough for one day."
She nodded as she got up and headed off to the kitchen. She glanced back for a second before moving on. "Thank you," she said softly.
He smiled in return.
~*¤*~
Dr. Lecter spent most of the day pondering, what exactly no one knew. Starling cleaned the house, something she had much work to catch up on being that she hadn't cleaned all month.
"Doctor," she finally said at around seven, "what would you like for dinner?"
He broke his view from the window and turned to her. "Something Italian; but don't worry, I'll prepare it, I know their dishes very well."
"Either way," she said with a shrug.
He got up from his seat and began to head toward the stairs. "Speaking of Italy, there's something I have been wanting to give to you."
She looked to him, he was now at the base of the stairs, waiting for her. "What is it?" she asked with half a smile.
"Come, I'll show you."
She followed him up the stairs and into the room which she had given him to sleep in. She watched as he opened his bag, the only one he had brought with him, and pulled out a book.
"Dante. Dante Alighieri. I think that you might enjoy his works," Lecter said as he handed Starling the book.
She smiled. "Thank you."
He smiled back at her. "Well... I should go start dinner. You begin reading."
"OK," she replied simply, and sat down in the corner to begin.
~*¤*~