I've recently published another fanfic about Clarice Starling's childhood, which is linked into this chapter-it's called Fledgling, and it expands on Clarice's childhood in the Lutheran orphanage (or at least, I try to).

I hope you like this chapter; I wasn't quite pleased with it but hopefully the story will pick up in later ones.

And again, please please please review! There haven't been any yet, and I really want to know whether people are actually reading this.

"I suppose that is true. No other agent of the renowned FBI would dare to take me on, then. Not brave enough?" He wondered at what she would reply. He hoped for a certain response.

It didn't come.

"It wasn't that so much Doctor, as that Jack Crawford called me the minute you were returned and asked me to come down. The others didn't have much choice in the matter." She refrained from adding that even if they had, most of them would have been running away from, rather than towards the asylum.

"Why?"

She paused. He had picked up on the unsaid. She should have known he would, although this, she would have thought, was fairly obvious.

"Why, Doctor? Why? Because you escaped from your cell and murdered two guards, and then a paramedic who was trying to save your life, and then you made it as far as the Caribbean before coming back. Because given two more hours, you would have never been caught. They're scared of you Doctor, they all are. None of them would come near! But why did you return, why did you come back? Why risk it?"

She watched as, having finished her tirade, he stood stock still. He tilted his head to the left slightly, processing, and she was reminded of a coiled snake, ready to strike. Waiting. Calculating.

She shivered.

"Cold, Agent Starling? I shall have to ask Barney to provide heaters next time; we can't have such a brave agent in discomfort." He spoke at almost a hiss, and she barely stopped herself from taking a step backwards at the venom in his voice. Steeling herself, she listened to his rant. "So you want to know why. What so convinces you that there is even a reason, hmmm? Isn't it easier to think of me as the psychopath with no sense, the Doctor who doesn't know his own diagnosis, as the rest of your beloved FBI seem to do? I could go anywhere, do anything. There is no reason against me going wherever I so choose. The real why in this conversation Clarice, is why you even think that I need a reason. Your colleagues evidently don't."

"But so close to the facility!" She persisted. "Wh-" She reconsidered. That was one word she should perhaps avoid. "-how could you not consider that you might be recaptured?".

"Maybe I missed the scenery." He turned away. "Fly home again now, Agent Starling."

Clarice Starling could barely rein in her anger as she drove back to her semi. He was so arrogant, infuriating, maddening, that she could hardly stand to think about him. She had thought-after Memphis-that there might be something between them. Something that meant he would respect her. She didn't know what she'd thought it was-friendship maybe-but definitely something that meant he wouldn't keep treating her like...like...like a little girl! They had gone back to the beginning again, after all that! The thought of their first meeting, and what he had said to her made her mentally pause, and think about her childhood. It wasn't a period of her life she liked to reflect on much, lonely as it had felt after the death of her father. She had had few friends at the orphanage, and one of them-a man whose first name (she could not remember his second) had been Eric-had died recently. Murdered. She had spotted his obituary, and had recognised the signs of reticence regarding his death that usually typified a murder case being kept under wraps so as not to scare the public. It hadn't helped her mood. She had sat next to Eric in math. Always known that he felt something for her she couldn't return. And now he was dead. And Hannibal-Doctor Lecter-was treating her like an idiot!

She slammed on the brakes, realising she was going at a ridiculous speed; pulled into her drive, stopped. Breathed in. And began sobbing at the steering wheel, emotions crashing like waves around her.

In his cell, Hannibal Lecter reflected on the conversation he had just had. Perhaps he had been unduly harsh. She had looked somewhat crushed by the end of it all. He felt the slightest twinge of guilt in his heart, and froze at it. Guilt was not an emotion Hannibal Lecter had felt for many years, and it was not one he chose to cultivate. It was an emotion that lead to weakness, one that had no place in a decent society or a decent gentleman. But it was one that Clarice Starling stirred in him. Turning towards the wall where his drawings hung-Barney had had pity-he locked eyes with his charcoal Clarice. A sigh escaped him.