"But… where do I stay?"
Barney spoke with caution, as if he was delivering heartbreaking news to someone. "There are a few spare rooms but most of them on the schizophrenia ward. You could stay there but it's likely to get a little noisy."
"There's always the morgue, I'm sure it would be more than quiet enough in there." Dr Lecter joked darkly. Clarice didn't acknowledge it and Barney only looked at him for a moment.
"I could put a cot up there in the office."
She thought for a minute, clenching her jaw and fidgeting with her teeth using her tongue, a habit of concentration. She stopped thinking and spoke fast. "Barney, this may sound ridiculous but… Couldn't I just stay down here?"
"In the empty cell?"
"No, no. I mean right here." she said, pointing to the ground, Dr Lecter's eyes widening. "Couldn't you bring a cot down here?"
"Sure, if you'd be comfortable."
Clarice closed her eyes and sighed. "Chilton would never allow it, would he?"
"No he wouldn't but he's not in today." Barney spoke proudly, "I'm in charge today, Agent Starling. If you're quiet the others shouldn't be a problem and we watch them all night anyway, there's always at least two orderlies in the office. They won't see you either. That's sound okay?"
"Yeah, thanks Barney." she said with a smile as he left, the panic in her heart not as wild now but still there.
"Well, it seems that we'll have plenty of time to discuss the case now. Are you scared, Clarice?" Dr Lecter asked.
"No, are you?" she asked in a challenging tone.
"No, I'm rather looking forward to it, actually."
"I'm glad that you're so optimistic about the situation."
His head moved a fraction. "Aren't you?"
She raised her eyebrows. "Whatever gave me away?"
He took a quick breath and blinked, then talking in a completely different tone of voice, deeper. "Are you scared of the dark, Clarice?"
"No."
"Did you have a nigh-light as a child? Was it star shaped?"
She shook her head. "I never had one."
"Of course. Being ever-wary of the costs it must have been a collection of candles instead, am I correct?"
"When times were really hard we used candles, yes."
"So all of the time then. What sort?"
She breathed and sighed. "I can't remember."
"Sure you can, think."
"Why?"
"The lives of the poor intrigue me, Clarice."
She squinted at the ache hanging in her head. She wasn't surprised at Dr Lecter's attitude towards her childhood as he had poked at it before, but she was caught off-guard by it. She felt, for a moment, like it was their very first meeting all over again.
"Just regular white wax candles."
"Where did you set them up, Clarice? On a candle stand? I'm guessing it wasn't silver." he said, the 's' heightened in the silence and sounding like a hiss.
"We propped them up using books and whatever else we could find, it wasn't ideal or completely safe but we got by."
"You got by? Were you happy with that life?"
She nodded and gave him a one-second smile. "Extremely."
"Until the tragedy." He said, in his eyes hung something which felt like hunger and looked like evil.
She straightened her head. "Yes."
She was thankful for the interruption when Barney returned with a cot, one of the new ones that the asylum had recently acquired, with a fresh mattress and new sheets too. He layered the thin mattress with a few sheets and then gave Clarice a thicker blanket for Clarice to sleep under before leaving, giving Dr Lecter an all-knowing look on the way.
"Lights go out at nine, which gives us half an hour, Clarice."
"I haven't really got anything else to ask you." she said, pushing her bed up a little more so that she wouldn't be visible from the next cell, even though it was empty.
"In that case, I'll ask you some questions, if you permit me."
She sat on the bed, facing him. "That depends what about, Doctor."
"I would like to know about your dream."
"No, Dr Lecter. I don't want to talk about it."
"It wasn't the lambs, was it? That makes me question the nature of this dream of yours, Clarice, and why you won't tell me about it."
Clarice shook her head and looked to the floor, letting him know that she wouldn't answer his questions, even though she really wanted to.
"Was I there, Clarice?" he asked in the same prying tone that he used in Memphis a year ago, asking about the lambs. "Was I with you last night?"
"Actually, Dr Lecter, I do have a question for you."
He moved his hand in a small, swishing moment as if he was releasing a dove into the air. "Ask away."
"What did you mean in your note? When you said that you would do much more to calm me during my sleep?" she asked, acting on courage and looking into his eyes the whole time. The forbidden excitement was starting to buzz.
"Clarice, I think that you know exactly what I meant."
"Well you think wrong." she said. "You're going to have to spell it out for me."
"I won't answer your question until you answer mine."
"Fine," she said, sitting up straighter. "You were in my dream last night."
"Doing what?"
"I answer yours, you answer mine." she said with some attitude. "What did you mean?"
"You know the answer to that question and I won't humor you by voicing it."
Clarice managed to hold out from answering any of the Doctor's questions about the dream until it was time for her to go to bed, time to sleep down in the dungeon with a few of the criminally insane just down the hall. The most dangerous would sleep opposite her, masked by only a thick sheet of glass and the blindness of sleep.
"Clarice, lights go out in exactly two minutes, I suggest that you get ready for bed."
She stretched out her neck and looked to her side, unable to see the other inmates and glad as that meant that they couldn't see her. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and tucked them underneath the bed, the stone floor was cold against her feet even though she had dark tights on. Dr Lecter looked at her shapely feet only for a few seconds before the image was imprinted in his memory. He watched her every move with careful eyes.
Clarice took her bag and opened it, sending a strong whiff of lavender towards Dr Lecter, and letting him bask in her scent for a second, before pulling out the long sheet of purple silk, the dim light making it look almost black like a river of shimmering blood. Dr Lecter smiled and Clarice forgot that he was there for a minute. She realized where she was and looked up at him, smiling uneasily.
Clarice stood, wrapped the blanket around her and then slipped into her bed, more comfortable than she expected, she new frame didn't even creak. She propped herself up on her arm, her elbow sinking into the pillow, and looked at Dr Lecter who stared back.
"How long?" she asked.
"Fifteen seconds." he said.
"Can we still talk when the lights are down?"
"Yes but we must respect the other inmates and keep it down."
She shook her head with a tamed smile. "I can't believe I'm sleeping here."
"Nor can I, Clarice." he said, before the lights went out with a light bang.
Clarice suddenly started to feel the fear that she had missed earlier, it was all well and good thinking about sleeping there, but when she was actually doing it, it was terrifying. It hit her like a hammer against a nail. The darkness engulfed her and she wanted to call out for Dr Lecter to hold her, but she couldn't do that. She questioned whether to go and call Barney but where would that get her? She would go up to the schizo ward, at least down in the dungeon she had Dr Lecter near her. Clarice held the blankets tight around her and didn't notice Dr Lecter laying down, he wasn't underneath his cover, he was on his side and watching Clarice. She could only make out the silhouette of his body but his eyes were much more adjusted to the dark and he could see her every move. He sensed her fear and watched her closely.
"Dr Lecter?" she whispered quietly, the noise would have gone unnoticed to anyone else.
He raised his voice to seem closer to her. "There's no need for fear, Clarice, I am here."
"Doctor…"
"You're perfectly safe, Clarice."
She tried to whisper to herself, not wanting to seem weak in front of him, but her shaking did not allow for whispers. "I need to get out. Oh God..."
At that moment there was a hellish scream from the floor above which tore through the ceiling and made Clarice jump and sit up, looking around though the lights were still off. It set off the two inmates in the cells at the opposite end, who started to scream like the one that they had just heard and bang against the metal bars, they reached out and spit, and though they were nowhere near Clarice, she was terrified of what they could do to her.
She slid out of her cot without thinking, leaving her blankets and letting the cold air sneak through her clothes, and crawled the little distance to the glass, where she sat slumped in a ball, her cheek up against the cold glass.
Dr Lecter rose from his cot and walked calmly to the glass where he knelt down next to Clarice and whispered loudly, his voice travelling through the holes above them and to her.
"Clarice." he said over the screams coming from above and down the corridor. "Look at me."
She looked into his maroon glints which danced at her and spread in sparks, flying to the centre of his eyes like a moth does to a burning light, tears shining as they welled in her eyes, sparking something familiar in Dr Lecter: the unbearable desire to protect her. But all that he could do was whisper to her, he could not reach out to her like he needed to.
"Listen to me carefully, Clarice. You are safe. They can't touch you." he said. "I wouldn't let them."
As he spoke her breathing slowed, the shakes of her body started to calm and the pressure keeping her stuck against the glass lessened. She focused solely on his voice instead of the darkness and screaming around them. She breathed to lessen the rivers of tears which hung to her sea-blue eyes and studied the red sparks which still danced for her, like a tribe chanting around a fire.
The lights clicked on and Barney and another orderly came through the gate. Barney jogged towards the end cell and the other threatened the two inmates at the end, immediately becoming silent. The only sound was Clarice's calming breaths and Barney's heavy footsteps.
"Clarice," Barney said and then stopped when he observed her sitting next to the glass.
"We're quite alright down here, thank you, Barney." Dr Lecter said with a subtle nod, Barney understanding and nodding back.
He nodded and walked a few steps backward. "Lights go out in five minutes."
Dr Lecter rose and walked over to his cot, returning with his blanket and placing it in the food carrier. She rolled onto her knees and took his blanket out, looking up at him with a red face.
His voice was so soft, something that Clarice had never heard from him. "Wrap it around you."
She wrapped the thick white blanket around her shoulders and sat with her legs crossed on the stone floor. "Do you want one of mine?" she asked, trying not to sniff.
"No thank you, Clarice."
"No, no, you'll be cold otherwise." she said, taking her silk blanket and placing it in the food carrier. Dr Lecter lifted it and ran his hands over it and beneath the folds, inhaling Clarice's lavender sleep aid scent and indulging silently.
"Get into bed now, Clarice." he said.
He stood next to the glass whilst she lay down and covered herself with the second white blanket. If the glass wasn't there he would have tucked her in. He returned to his cot and lay down opposite her, covering himself in her rich silk. The lights turned off with the same echoed bang and Dr Lecter watched Clarice fall into a deep sleep, she held Dr Lecter's blanket to her face and smelt him, it smelt lightly of soap which was almost shadowed by the smell of the plastic bag in which the blanket arrived when Dr Lecter received it a couple of days before, but it was him.
When her eyes weren't closed they were staring opposite and into the darkness, where Dr Lecter lay. She could not see him but the knowledge of his presence was enough to hold her in a state of warm comfort and soothe her. If his silent presence was physical, he would have been holding her as she slept, whispering to rid her of the tiny fear which still hung in the back of her throat.
He lay awake and watched her sleep for hours. Half way through the night he rose and drew a few sketches of her, one of the advantages of having such adjusted sight. Watching her sleep made him question whether it was real, whether or not he was really being granted the privilege of watching his little Starling rest before him. How peaceful she was, laying with her mouth a little open and her eyes softly closed, her limbs limp on the bed and her head lolled to one side. He listened to her slow and regular breathing, wanting so desperately to go and lie beside her, but it was enough that he had her silk blanket, which he held against his face as she did with his.
The screaming of the inmates was the only screaming that Clarice heard that night, as having Dr Lecter's blanket wrapped around her was almost like lying in his arms, and she was protected from the horrors that she had been exposed to on the recent days. Gone were the decaying bodies of Madison Grant and Brianna Dylan and with that disappearance came peace. Nor was Clarice tormented by the screaming that she had heard in her sleep for so many years.
On the deepest level of the Baltimore asylum for the criminally insane, Clarice Starling slept calmly and quietly, only feet away from Dr Hannibal Lecter, in the silence of the lambs.
