A couple of notes: EDIT- lyrics since removed. This is a pretty sappy fic and I'm aware that runs the risk of making these two extraordinarily strong characters OOC. I've tried my absolute hardest to ensure this is not the case, however I apologise if anything in this short one shot comes across that way! It is just a little fun, after all. Well, this one isn't fun, actually. It's quite sad, so I apologise for that. I'm a sucker for angst! I posted this onto AO3 a little while ago but have recently updated it, and I'm posting the superior version here.

Oh, and many thanks to AJay7 and the guest who left lovely reviews on the other fic I posted! It is very much appreciated and, for the record, I do intend on posting much more Hannibal content in the future :) I'm currently working on a long-form fic which I will begin to post when it is written in it's entirety. Thank you again and I hope whoever finds this oneshot enjoys it~

See how we're ending our last dance together

Sometimes our couple dances at dinnertime. Sometimes they do not finish dinner. Three perfect years. Three unblemished, peaceful and utterly perfect years.

Uninterrupted happiness had grown in Dr Lecter a great enthusiasm for life, unlike anything he had felt previously, and such a sentiment was shared in Clarice.

Those years of pleasure had all been building up to the moment they found themselves in then; swaying on nimble feet, slowly and surely, atop the balcony overlooking Buenos Aires. They were impossibly close with their foreheads resting together and their hands arranged tenderly in proper dancing position. From afar, the couple looked perfectly at peace. Like happy figures in a painting, their positioning and emotions meticulously planned out and doted on by the artist. However, if you were to venture closer to the couple, you would be surprised to find them crying.

Tears streaked Clarice's face, gathering at the point of her chin, where they dropped silently onto the otherwise pristine shirt of her companion. Even Hannibal Lecter himself, firmly stoic to the end, could not quite banish the pinpricks of moisture gathering in the corners of his heady, maroon eyes.

Where exactly had they gone wrong? Which minuscule slip-up was to blame? A misused credit card somewhere? Or perhaps an overlooked gap in an alias? Or maybe it was even something as unlucky as eye contact with a stranger who recreationally checked the FBI wanted list just one too many times.

Whatever it was, it was too late to resolve and their time was up. Clarice, an ex-agent and thus an expert in such things, knew full well the deadly efficiency of a well-led SWAT team, and she knew that they were entrapped with no hope of successful escape together. They were surrounded in their home, their cocoon of perfection, and the door of their safe haven was mere moments from being knocked from its very hinges.

SWAT advanced like phantoms of karma, harbingers of retribution, reminders of the petty injustices that life served out. It had always been only a matter of time before she and Hannibal were to be separated. Clarice just wished they could have been given longer.

A hollow thumping from downstairs which vibrated through the walls of the house. Clarice flinched. The doctor's soothing hand raised from her hip, the weight of it coming to rest upon her damp cheek.

She breathed out, and with it honestly tumbled from her lips.

"I'm scared, Hannibal. Really scared."

His thumb stroked at her cheek and wiped away the physical evidence of her dread. She immersed herself completely in the calming sensation, tilting her head into his palm. The old Clarice would never have laid herself bare like that; she would never have been caught admitting to vulnerability in any such situation. Her weakness, then, was a sign of unimaginable strength, and Hannibal felt profoundly moved by her words. God, she had grown so much. He hadn't even realised it.

When he had first seen her - first watched her emerge from the darkness of that dungeon corridor like an insect from a chrysalis - she had been so fresh-faced and green. Smooth, physically unblemished and so new to the world. So hopeful. She had remained that way up until her encounter with Buffalo Bill. He had seen her after that encounter - only through press images - but even in print he could see the physical dissolution of her naivety. Her face had still been fresh, but far wiser and stronger. After that, it had been her second notable appearance in the press eight years later in which he noticed another significant change. Clarice Starling, somewhat older and certainly more refined - experienced - but still youthful enough to be weighed down by the terrible burdens of her job and the consequences of shooting Evalda Drumgo. She'd been sinking. The FBI had been the rock tied around her ankle. Perhaps that had been why Hannibal went so quickly to her.

There were lines around her face now. In the corners of her eyes, and her lips, and some above her brow. Beautiful smile lines. Perfect imperfections. Three years of continuous joy and sun had marked her face gorgeously and tangibly. He treasured her countenance now, his eyes wide as he soaked up every tiny detail, as he knew their time was ticking. Tick tock, tick tock.

Hannibal Lecter observed her for a moment more before accepting that he needed to feel her too, and he interrupted the propriety of their dance to bring his lips down to hers. They continued to sway as he tenderly kissed her lips, and then the corner of her lips, and then her cheek and her jaw and his mouth finished its butterfly journey next to her ear, which was still slightly mottled from the incident four years prior.

He had then whispered to her words that Clarice was sure he had never uttered to anybody, except maybe himself.

"I'm scared too, Clarice." The nature of their dancing escalated from gentle swaying to feverish rocking. Clarice was shaking. He calmed her with his consistently controlled tone. "But let us not waste our time with fear." His hands - the one on her face and the other on her hip - both journeyed behind her back to pull her close. Closer. "Relax. Just dance."

They had no more than five minutes of peace left.

I really believed...

He remembered vividly the first time they'd danced together.

Not in the Chesapeake house where so much had transpired, but some time after that when the initial intensity of their relationship had ebbed into something much more familiar. Before Buenos Aires, the pair had returned briefly to Hannibal's birthplace. Six blissful months had been enjoyed to the fullest extent in a beautiful safehouse - a building dripping with classic European countryside charm - and it was there that they had swayed to music in each other's arms for the first time. It had been during the latter half of December, a day before Clarice's birthday, and she had requested he play her something on the harpsichord. He did so gladly and she had found herself quickly succumbing to his perfect command of the music, dancing and rocking side-to-side as she watched his hands work. The vision of her indulging in his artistry had affected him, and he'd swiftly abandoned the instrument to take her up into his arms. His own live playing was quickly replaced by the crooning of Hannibal's record player, and the pair had become one on that Lithuanian country home balcony. Their dinner-time traditions had begun that day.

Reluctantly, cautiously…

A much louder crash, now. Voices. Thundering steps. An approaching tsunami, and Clarice and Hannibal were stood somewhere high, watching the waves sweep away all they knew and loved. Soon the water would rise and they, too, would be swept under. Clarice looked older than she ever had. Hannibal looked much younger.

He had her embraced fully as they moved, rocking. Clarice held him back, squeezing and crying. They tried to dance but they were also simultaneously attempting to soak each other up, and their movement was a distraction from that endeavour. The pair came to an eventual standstill, absorbed in shared warmth, and it was Clarice who pulled her head from the crook of his neck to crane her face to his. Hannibal conceded, and met her halfway. It was a severely bittersweet kiss, deep and desperate and long, in which Hannibal kept his maroon eyes firmly open because god forbid he gave up any second that could be spent gazing upon Clarice. There were no wandering hands or attempted escalations. Hannibal simply squeezed her tighter instead, as if trying to pull her into his very skin. He would do it if he could. He would hide her inside of him. Keep her there, safe and warm in the endlessly vast and secure palace of his mind. When the SWAT team burst in and found him there, alone, she would go with him secretly into his dreadful cell and, when things got too hard, he would visit her inside of him.

Footsteps, loud, just beyond the door of the room. Deep voices shouting commands that were not so distant now. Words that Clarice herself had shouted dozens of times before in raids just like this, permeating the still serenity of their sanctuary. Knowing how it felt to be on the other side of that door, to be the hunted and not the hunter, had her heart clenching in her chest.

She buried her face back where it was safe and warm in his shoulder, and whispered softly, "I really do love you, you know. Thank you for…" she paused to breathe in and then out, shakily savouring the smell of him, "…everything. All of it." Hannibal, in response, merely hummed low in his throat and the vibration of it soothed Clarice. "I'm sorry I haven't said it enough."

It was true that Clarice very rarely said those precious words out loud, but she had shown her love time and time again and that was enough. More than enough, even. What was to come next he truly did not know, but his life was full because he knew that he was loved. If he were alone, or with anyone else who wasn't Clarice, he probably would have ended his own life there and then. Confinement was a fate worse than death for the doctor. He swore he would never return to a cell…. but his perspective had changed, and he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Hannibal allowed the moisture that had been gathering in his eyes to spill over finally. A tear from his left eye, and then a tear from the right as well: the only tears he ever had and ever would shed in her presence. He would be forever glad that she hadn't seen them fall, with her face still buried in his neck. How pitiful it would've been if her final image of him was of a tear-streaked and dishevelled man.

He held her tighter, threatening to bruise her, and tried his very best to remain strong until the last moment as the door to the room was finally blown inwards and the tsunami rushed forth. His chest swelled with pride when Clarice didn't flinch in his embrace, and he even managed a smile as the phantoms and harbingers of his demise swarmed them, abrading steel barrels aimed at the pair, as they began to sway and dance gently again.

"Ti amo per sempre." He spoke quietly into her hair, and only she could hear him.

They continued to rock and hold on until the very last possible moment, before hands - dozens of hands - pulled, ripped, the pair apart, never to touch again.

I really believed this time was forever