Disclaimer: It all belongs to Thomas Harris, except the plot… That part is mine.
Chapter Seven
Back at home Clarice chucked a ready meal for one in the oven and sat at the dining table with the drawing, smiling softly as she looked down at it. She couldn't believe the detail in it, she could tell that even line was drawn with exquisite care. She sighed and placed her head in her hands, what was she doing? She knew she had some sort of forbidden attraction to Dr Lecter, she had since the day she'd met him, when he had appeared so sane in a place full of madness. She knew it was a culmination of things, he was an older man and since her father's death that was what she sought, someone to take care of her and take the lead. She also knew it was because he had a certain charm about him; she was almost sure if she'd met him under different circumstances she'd have given him her number and hoped to see him again. But in the outside world Hannibal Lecter probably wouldn't have noticed her; after all he'd been surrounded by a harem of women almost constantly. This made her think about the file sat in her living room and with a determined stride she went to retrieve it.
She skipped the first page, still not sure she wanted to read about his personal life and instead moved onto his crimes as the Chesapeake Ripper. Many of the images she'd seen before, victims with organs removed and then bodies laid out like art were nothing new to her. She was aware of how Dr Lecter saw his victims, they were nothing to him, they meant less to him than slaughtering a pig. Page after page there were images, she had been telling the truth when she had said she wasn't squeamish but part of her couldn't help but mourn for his victims. They had been important to someone, once.
Then there were his most recent slayings, the nurse at the hospital and the guards at Memphis. She read through the description of the scene to see what had actually happened after she'd left. She snorted upon discovering he'd asked for a second dinner, lamb extra rare. The son-of-a... She knew he had enjoyed tormenting her then, but what about now? So they'd cuffed him and he'd picked the lock. It all came down to carelessness really, they should have checked his hands once they'd cuffed him, she knew she would have.
She grimaced as she read how the face had been torn off one of the guards, she'd known this information already but seeing the images to accompany the reading made it much more difficult to separate it. She'd never seen Dr Lecter behave in even a remotely violent way, it was difficult to connect him to the things she was reading and seeing in this file. Then he had cut the face off of another guard and attempted to take his place. Unfortunately for him one of the officers had medical training and had tried to stop the bleeding from the wounds on the face, which also meant the face moved and fell off. What a shock that must have been for the officer, suddenly realising you're mopping the brow of Hannibal Lecter. After he'd attacked that officer he had be shot and restrained, she wondered how many scars he had now.
The file held many things but none of it shocked her, it was simply who he was. He was incredibly intelligent and there was no label to give him. He wasn't a psychopath or a sociopath, as she'd told a guard in the elevator on her way to visit the Doctor in Memphis, there wasn't a word for what he is.
Her timer dinged loudly so she closed the file and sat down for her tasteless meal, wondering what it really would be like to be cooked for.
"You know, even Ms Stapleton didn't visit me twice in two days. Are you becoming fond of me Agent Starling?" His voice was both mocking and warm; she knew he was pleased to see her but still couldn't resist the odd dig.
"You told me to come back once I'd read the file, I finished it last night." She rolled her shoulders in a shrug and shuffled the chair closer to his glass enclosure.
"And so you wish to discuss it." He nodded and moved forward to stand before her, as close as the glass would allow. "I was so very close Clarice, for a moment I was outside of bars and cages just as you are." He seemed almost distant as he said this, she noted he was associating freedom with her rather than running. Though of course he only said what he needed to manipulate, perhaps she was allowing herself to be manipulated.
"Yes you were, I saw the pages on Memphis. Why attack the guard who revealed you? You must have known you were already caught." She had been wondering about this, she constantly tried to make excuses for his crimes. Anything to separate the man she knew from the madness she'd read about.
"Impulse." He rolled his powerful shoulders in a shrug, it was a very bizarre gesture on him.
"You don't do anything on impulse Dr Lecter." Or at least she highly doubted he did, he was the master of perfectionism after all.
"Hm, would it be hard for you to believe that I let my emotions cloud my judgement? I was frustrated that something as simple as a gentleman checking my 'wounds' had allowed me to be caught and re-caged. I reacted in anger." She was starting to notice how rarely he blinked in her company. It was like he didn't want to miss a single second, so refused to give into such a human display of weakness.
"Have you ever killed in anger before?" She leant forward, interested to finally have an insight into him.
"Yes, I killed four soviet soldiers upon my return to my homeland. That was also my first foray into… specialised dietary preferences." His lip quirked upward as he watched her process what he had said, clearly he enjoyed stunning her with his honesty as he'd been doing it more often since his re-incarceration.
"Why?" She asked, trying not to give away her emotions, she felt like she was tentatively approaching a sleeping lion and too much noise would startle him into attacking.
"They murdered and ate my little sister." He watched her carefully now, he could see the dots connecting in her mind.
"And so you returned the favour…" She concluded as he nodded in acquiescence. "So why don't you have an accent anymore?" She changed the subject quickly. She wasn't sure if this was because she didn't want to push him too far too fast, or because she simply couldn't listen to anymore.
"I've spent most of my adult life away from Lithuania. Like you, I also tried supressing my accent, it makes one very easily recognisable." He spoke the last half of the sentence in what she presumed was the accent of his mother tongue. She tried her very hardest not to melt then and there; she was finding it difficult to still the flock of butterflies that had just taken wing in her gut.
"I see." She looked at the floor, wondering what his sister would have looked like.
"Now, I have allowed you to drill me with your questions Clarice. I do believe it's my turn." He smirked wickedly and she felt her stomach drop as she nodded at him. "Why aren't you in a relationship?"
He was being very forthright, she thought. "What makes you think I'm not?"
He tutted at her and shook his head, smirking devilishly. "You spend most evenings in an insane asylum having chats with me, Clarice. Whilst I enjoy the company I doubt a partner would allow such a thing to continue at all, let alone with such regularity." He wouldn't tell her he'd be able to smell it if another man had so much as touched her.
"Because I don't need a boyfriend, Dr Lecter." She nodded as if to reinforce her point to herself.
"Aren't you lonely, Clarice?"
She shook her head. "No, I have my work, I have Delia and I have…" She paused, as if realising what she was about to say.
"Do continue, Agent Starling." His eyes were intense, as if he was trying his very hardest to pull the answers out of her psyche.
"And I have you to come and talk to when I want to be irritated like hell."
"Hm, and has Jack made his move on you yet Clarice?" He watched her reaction to that question carefully and then spoke before she could. "No, not quite. But he has made you feel uncomfortable."
It was both a statement and a question, so she answered it for him. "He tried comforting me after the Jame Gumb incident. It felt more like he was asking for comfort than giving it, I was drained enough already."
Dr Lecter nodded. "He is weak, he cannot possibly understand what it is you need in a partner, let alone replicate it."
She always felt uncomfortable when he mentioned her boss but still kept a straight face, she wasn't interested in taking about Jack. "What were your parents like?"
His eyebrows rose momentarily in slight surprise, Clarice was trying to get to know Hannibal Lecter the person, rather than Hannibal the Cannibal. "My mother was beautiful, loving and gentle. My father was strict, yet fair and taught me many of the things I cherish now."
Clarice tilted her head as she looked at him, trying to find any trace of sadness or bitterness on his face. He spoke of them in a matter-of-fact way and yet she could tell he had been fond of them. She wished one day she could speak of her father in such away, without the emotional upheaval.
"Are we 'getting to know one another' Clarice?" He mocked, his lip curving upward in the deadly smirk she knew to mean he was close to verbally stripping her down. She had to be careful about how she replied, she knew he probably hadn't spoken to anyone in such depth since he'd been imprisoned. It was inevitable for the other side of him to make an appearance sooner or later. She snorted mentally, she was referring to him like he was two different people, perhaps she'd start calling him Jekyll and Hyde.
"You stated you wished to know me in private life, have you changed your mind?" She let her face betray nothing as she met his stare head on, determined not to give anything away.
He blinked once. "No Clarice, I have not changed my mind. You've grown since you were that little starling trapped in my cage." Ah, so he had been testing her. Thankfully she seemed to have passed.
"Mm, being in a pitch black basement stalked by a man who would've liked to skin me does that to a person." She wasn't being sarcastic either.
"Oh come now Clarice, you weren't his size." He winked at her and his eyes sparked with humour. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"You've got quite a morbid sense of humour, Dr Lecter." She glanced over to his desk curiously; she'd noticed there were more drawings than there were at her last visit. "What have you been drawing Doctor?"
He glanced behind him before meeting her eyes again, a devilish smirk now on his face. "Oh this and that, I'm not entirely sure you have to stomach for it."
Her gut dropped and she swallowed the ball that seemed to be rising in her throat, she knew he used to precisely draw his crimes, victims and all. She wondered if it was her impaled upon a metal pole over on that fine paper.
"Ah."
"You seem to dislike being confronted with the evidence of my 'crimes' as you call them, Clarice. Why is that?" The chill was creeping back into his voice now.
"Because I'm an FBI Agent." She answered immediately, seeing the slippery slope stretched before her and she knew she was about to tumble down it head first.
"And because the FBI has the perfect grasp of right and wrong, you believe that because you hold that badge you are justified in killing. But because I do not, I deserve to be caged for the rest of my life?" She could feel the air around her chilling, she felt just as she did the first time she had ever come face to face with Hannibal Lecter, scared. "Do you really think they will hold the same loyalty to you Clarice? They resent you because you're not like them, just as I am not."
She shook her head. "I'm nothing like you." That was the wrong thing to say, she knew it as soon as the words left her mouth. He moved very quickly, so quickly that if she had blinked she'd have missed it. Suddenly he was pressed against the glass with his teeth bared, his eyes full of something that made her want to run, she realised this must have been the last thing his victims saw and jumped up from her seat, purse clutched in her clammy hands.
"You will soon realise Agent Starling, just how alike we really are." Clarice stepped backward; even though he was contained in a glass caged she still felt the need to back away from him. The backs of her legs hit the metal of the chair and it was like the chill was enough to snap her out of it. She suddenly turned on her heel and fled down the corridor, towards Barney and his station.
"Is everything alright Cla-" She interrupted him as she ripped off her visitors pass.
"I'm sorry Barney, but I won't be back to visit again. Please take that name off the list."
And then she fled, for the first time she had run away from Dr Lecter. After all the things he had said to her, about her father, her childhood, even her sense in fashion.
It occurred to her as she got into her car how much he must have struck a chord for her to have fled at the notion of a comparison between them. She didn't care, all she knew was that she wouldn't be visiting the hospital again, she swore it to herself, on her daddy's grave.
A/N: Thank you very much for all the reviews to say there are people reading this story. Please do review so I know how my work is being received, a lot of time and effort goes into each chapter.
