The benefits of a morning spent snowshoeing were not immediately apparent to Clarice Starling. It was cold out, for one. And balance was tricky with those giant platforms strapped to her feet.

Sure, a snowy landing was a soft one - but it was still damn cold on her ass. And because she had stubbornly insisted upon exercising by herself, Hannibal was living it up in the kitchen... where he undoubtedly had an excellent view of her making an idiot of herself in the yard.

It was a good workout, true, and she could feel the pleased ache in her legs and core muscles. And he served up a warm, filling lunch when she'd finally unstrapped her feet from the nightmarish contraptions. And then he'd pointed out that the master bath had a lovely soaking tub.

That was better, sure - but it wasn't until she had emerged from the bath to find him waiting for her with warm massage oil and firm hands that the benefits of snowshoeing became brilliantly clear.

When she spoke, teasingly, her voice was muffled just a bit by the soft pillow beneath her cheek.

"That suggestion you made this morning to try out the snowshoes - that was totally an excuse for this, wasn't it."

"It was also an approved activity with a somewhat less stressful impact than running." His voice was fluid and calm, though she thought she detected a hint of teasing, too. "Of course, I had not anticipated that you might fall quite so often."

"Ha ha, funny guy."

His hands splayed across her lower back, and she arched into his strength.

"And I hardly require an excuse to lay hands upon you, Clarice, now do I?"

"Mmmmmm. Nope. No excuses necessary. Touch at will."


He took her at her word, allowing his hands to roam across her skin, stroking and gripping and soothing tension where he found it. She was unselfconscious in her nudity today, he noted, despite the afternoon sunlight flooding the room. He himself had stripped to his shorts, leaving them as an indication to her that he had no expectations, no demands, for this activity. Massage was often a prelude to more carnal pursuits, true, but his purposes for touching her at this time were more practical and emotional than physical.

The scarring on her back was still reddened against the surrounding skin and slightly raised, dotted with suture marks to either side. The anterior damage was greater than what he saw now, he knew; though he had not asked her about the specifics, it seemed likely that the blade had lodged in a fixed point behind her, leaving the wound in her back much smaller than the one in her abdomen.

He was careful as he massaged the repaired tissue; its tensile strength was significantly diminished from the surrounding skin and would remain so, even once she had fully regained her muscle tone. His hand paused; the fullness of his palm covered the scar entirely.

Clarice made a questioning noise in her throat and turned over beneath his hand.

"Not so beautiful?" Her tone was light but unsure; her fingers ran along the larger scar beginning just below her ribcage. He brushed her fingers aside with his own, thoughtfully stroking, feeling the changes in texture and height as his sensitive fingertips traced her skin.

"I've done you a disservice if you feel you must ask, Clarice."

"I was thinking of you."

Her words were abrupt, her tone distant; he affected lightness in response.

"Just now? One would hope so, my dear."

The slightest quirk of a smile touched her lips.

"I was lying on that filthy floor, staring up at his face, with the knife flashing through the edge of my sightline… and all I could think about was your knife against my throat."

That night in Saarbrucken. He had nearly lost control – no, he had done so for a moment. Long enough to be a threat to her, if only in his mind. Long enough to realize he did not wish to see her bleed.

"You never flinched," he murmured. His fingers stroked her neck.

"I didn't think you would hurt me. And if I was wrong..."

There was a pain in her eyes, an old pain that he suspected still ached when light touched it too harshly.

"Finish your thought, Clarice."

"Then I deserved what I got, didn't I? For being so blind?"

Such nonchalance, Clarice? Your judgment against yourself is the cruelest cut. How odd it feels, this persistent desire to press my lips to your wounds to heal rather than harm.

"Mmm. On some level, you believed you deserved it anyway."

"I did, yeah. Some days, I think I might have wanted it."

A chill rolled through him. If he had waited too long, would it have come to that? His Starling was too feisty, too principled, perhaps, to actively consider suicide - but in her profession, death would have found her easily if she sought it out again and again. Had he seen her progressing along that path, his intentions would have been set aside with no more than a moment's thought; he would have taken her then, accepting that she could not, through patience and free will, be made to see the truth. He would have stripped her of the choice and imposed his will upon her until she could no longer distinguish it from her own.

He frowned, needing to hear the refutation from her lips. Were it still a concern, it would need to be handled.

"But no longer?"

"I didn't flinch on the floor in that kitchen in Nebraska, either, but not because I thought he wouldn't kill me and not because I thought I deserved it. Not because I was stupid for not making sure of him first. Not because I almost lost the lamb. Not because I felt guilty."

He waited, patient and pleased, for her to admit aloud to the magnitude of the mental shift she had undergone. Mere months ago, such things would have haunted her, he knew. In her drive for perfection, she would have judged herself harshly - castigated herself for not securing the perpetrator, for not checking him for weapons before going after the girl - nevermind that her thought process had undoubtedly been clouded by her injuries.

Perhaps that was all it had been - an oversight caused by concussion. But perhaps, given the shift in her understanding, perhaps it had been deliberate on a subconscious level. Perhaps, by allowing for the chance that he might yet attack her, she had given herself a ready excuse to kill the odious man.

"Because I knew he deserved it. I made the judgment; I have no regrets about it. After I... after I shot Jame Gumb, you know, I had a few nights where I didn't dream at all. Because Catherine was safe. But then, for a long time, I would see it all when I closed my eyes. If only I had handled this differently. If only I had done that instead. Second-guessing myself, every step, all the ways that wouldn't have ended with me killing a man with a shot in the dark. It didn't matter that he had done horrible things. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that the judgment shouldn't have come from my gun. A trial, a conviction, a life sentence, the death penalty, even - that would have been justice. As if it made a difference, as if faceless strangers who weren't even there could decide guilt or innocence better than I could in the moment."

She paused, and he wondered if, in her description, she recognized that he himself had gotten that kind of justice and subsequently escaped it... and how she felt about it now, if she did at all.

"I haven't dreamed once about Leonard Cook. And I don't think I'll ever lose sleep over his death. He deserved what he got."

He smiled at her, repeating the salient point to reinforce it in her mind.

"No regrets, Clarice?"

"Not a one." She tugged him down beside her on the bed. "Sometimes, you just gotta have the courage to try new things."

"I am quite grateful for your courage, my dear, as without it you would not be here, but – forgive my bluntness, Clarice – you possess a much more modest stock of caution and an even scanter store of patience. You place yourself in danger if the slightest possibility exists that by so doing you might save an innocent. It is… an alarming tendency in the woman I love."


She turned to study him, hearing what he did not say as much as what he did. He would never ask her to be anything but herself, but he worried for her. It was a fear-driven need that had brought him to her side in the hospital, prompted him to take such risks – to prioritize seeing her alive and breathing above protecting his freedom. Even half a year ago, she could not have imagined such a thing, that she should be so central to his existence.

Her hand reached for his face, fingers fluttering at his temple, sliding down to caress his jaw.

"I don't know why you love me, Hannibal, but I am immensely pleased that you do."

He captured her hand in his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

"The sentiment is a shared one, Clarice. I am continually astonished to find you here at my side."

"Even after all the effort you put into getting me here?" She nudged him back, rolling her body above his and settling her weight on him, her legs dropping alongside his hips. He was agreeable, if the delightfully eager twitches in the boxers beneath her were any indication. "I know why I don't have any patience – it's because you're hoarding it all."

His hands stroked upward over her thighs.

"Mmm. And you plan to take it from me, do you?"

She shivered; she did love the feel of his fingertips, and they now lay tantalizingly close to the nerves already thumping in time with her heartbeat.

"Oh, I'm gonna take something from you." She leaned down until her breasts just barely rested against his chest, sliding forward and relishing the friction on sensitive skin. "I don't think it's patience, though."

"Perhaps an exchange, then?" His thumb left its spot cradled in the crease of her thigh and slipped across the hood shielding her pulsing nerves. Her eyes closed; she inhaled long and deep as the pad of his thumb teasingly circled. "Might I offer you a double share of pleasure in return for your allowing me the lion's share of patience?"

She huffed a laugh and lowered her face to nuzzle at his neck.

"That hardly seems like a fair exchange. I get all of the enjoyment, and you get all of the frustration."

His hips pressed upward; he was hardening beneath her now, and his heat was intoxicating.

"Good things come to those who wait, Clarice. And your pleasure is quite pleasing to me."

His thumb stroked firmly, twice, three times, in rapid succession. She bucked against him, legs clutching his hips with force, a breathy moan emerging from her lips, mere inches from his ear. He turned and captured her lips with his mouth, a kiss that made her muscles tremble.