Oh, BTW, this is going to be book canon from Hannibal, with a few liberties. (I rewrote the ending!!!!) So….. for anyone who has not read it, it is suggested reading material. (And no body parts were lost in the making of this story.) Tralala…

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The room is warm as the midday sun is filtered in through the curtained window. The thrumming of the air conditioner set on 'HIGH' does little to assuage the heat, but the rooms occupants do not mind, really. There is a single white sheet on the bed, covering two human shaped mounds. The once crisp sheet is the only item on the once fully dressed bed that did not make it onto the floor. Heaped ungracefully between wall and bed are the blankets and the comforter. One of the figures shifts, rolls over, and spoons against her companion. She issues a contented 'hmmmm' as she feels his arm drape over her. She continues sleeping as she feels his breath on the back of her neck, passing through the loose strands of blonde hair. She feels him shift a little but doesn't stir.

Her companion moves to lay on his back, opening his eyes to glance at his lover's hair spread on the pillow. She has been with him for four months now, since they had met on the flight coming in from Los Angeles. Fate had drawn them to each other, since they kept finding themselves in all the same places. He was given to impulses, and she had proven to be a nice distraction from other memories that had been dogging him. Brief respite from her face in his dreams, her voice in his ears. She had achieved what she had always wanted that night at the lake house: advancement. Funny, he had promised her that upon their first meeting, but had no intention of giving it to her that night. He stretches beneath the sheet as he thinks, letting himself step into her room in his memory palace. Caught in that moment in the firelight, right before everything had gone wrong.

"Hannibal Lecter, did your mother feed you at her breast?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever feel that you had to relinquish the breast to Mischa? Did you ever feel you were required to give it up for her?"

A beat. "I don't recall that, Clarice. If I gave it up, I did it gladly."

Clarice Starling reached her cupped hand into the deep neckline of her gown and freed her breast, quickly peaky in the open air. "You don't have to give up this one." she said. Looking always into his eyes, with her trigger finger she took warm Chateau d'Yquem from her mouth and a thick sweet drop suspended from her nipple like a golden cabochon and trembled with her breathing.

He came swiftly from his chair to her, went on a knee before her chair, and bent to her coral and cream in the firelight his dark sleek head. The sound that came next was completely unexpected. He pulled back in surprise when he heard the snap of the handcuff on his wrist. He met her eyes and saw the quickly conflicting emotions there. There was a tear in her eye, making its way to roll down her cheek as she had whispered.

"I'm sorry Hannibal."

It had been a matter of moments before SWAT had burst through the front doors to the lake house and found them in the drawing room. Clarice unlocked her cuff as he was forced roughly to the floor in front of her, arms being painfully wrenched behind his back. He had given so much, for Mischa to have her place in his Clarice and he had been coldly denied. The image of that single tear on her cheek was seared into his memory from that night forward.

He was standing in her room now, silent and still. The image before him was her face and that tear, preserved in detail. He could see the firelight in her pupils as the swiftly racing emotions chased across her visage. There is a heavy sigh as he steps back through the door and into the hallway, closing the heavy oak door behind him. He returns to his place in the bed, looking up at the bright white of the ceiling. Leigh dozes lightly next to him, having rolled away once again. Too long in a world of yesterdays once again. He moves behind her, pulling her close and brushing blonde hair off her pale shoulder. He lays soft kisses against it, wishing to succumb to the moment and chase that night from his mind for a time.

*****

Following the directions given her over the phone, Lindsey exited the interstate and turned left onto from the exit lamp and onto Bijou Street. The golden steeple of St. Mary's cathedral towered over them, glowing in the early evening sun, which had begin to dip towards the mountains. Lindsey had never really been into the Springs, usually only seeing it pass by as she drove down I-25. Downtown is a mess of one way streets and is trying to remake itself into the bustling city center it once was. The Crown Victoria was turned right onto Tejon, headed for Colorado. The street was starting to come to life, and was home to some of the more popular and trendy nightclubs. Young couples walked the sidewalks, bunching at the cross streets as they waited for the crosswalk signals. Music pounded into the early evening, competing with the heat for presence. Clarice looked out the windows, taking it all in through the tinted glass. Lindsey was too busy concentrating on the street signs and her directions to take much notice.

They had just passed into Castle Rock when Lindsey's cell phone had begun ringing. The theme to 'Dragnet' had buzzed through the car's interior. Clarice had giggled as Lin had dug the phone from her purse on the backseat, bringing the small silver object forward. A quick glance at the called ID screen before she flipped it open forewarned her to the bad news. She grimaced as she had dropped the phone back onto the backseat, relaying the message to Clarice as she edged the Ford over the speed limit. There had been another murder in the Springs, a jogger in Memorial Park this time. It was to be the first time they had had an attack during daylight hours. The rest of the forty minute ride had been spent in silence.

Clarice had wondered if it really had been he that had committed the murders. Would he really be so brash as to attempt to return to his old ways after being free for all of ten months? He had been contained by those prison walls for three years and two months before everything had gone wrong. Clarice had been pulled from a comfortable sleep with the news, and the wrong assumption of the FBI that he was going to come after her. She had no doubt in her mind that he would never come, he was a man that stood by his promises. She was the one who had failed him, choosing to ere on the side of the law and not on her heart. She had never visited him once during his incarceration, unable to bear the pain of seeing him caged once again. And she had done that for what? Not because of the loss of Paul Krendler. That was not a loss. The sound of the crossbow sounded once again and her stomach did a flip flop. D below Middle C. She had gained her advancement, now fully in Behavioral Sciences, no longer running jump out squad or serving warrants.

No, now she was back on his case, yet she was sure he did not yet know this. No press to splash her face all over the front page, to turn her career into a love story. Beauty and the Beast. That was a laugh. She was sure the media would be alerted soon enough, especially with the lambs that were being offered up to them. The FBI's 'Bad Girls', her and Lindsey. She was sure that the younger agent knew as well as she did that their praise in the FBI was just a bunch of horse crap. Once again Clarice knew she was the lamb, and that her beloved doctor wouldn't be able to save her this time. Plus, she wasn't the captive of a twisted serial killer this time around. ON that thought, she moved in her seat, pulling the back of her shirt away from the leather and tugging it off her back. The scar was still there. She sighed and rubbed her eyes as Lindsey pulled into the parking lot at the park.

*****

They were standing on the running path that rimmed Prospect Lake now, looking down to the shore and the lapping wavelets. The sun was sinking behind the mass of Pikes Peak now, and dusk was consuming the world rapidly. A few joggers slowed as they were detoured from their normal route, looking at the assembly of police officials inside the crime scene tape, and the huddle of reporters outside it. A man's body lay half in and half out of the water, face down. Clarice had stopped her breath for a moment as she looked at the man's back. The words were uttered before she could stop them, gaining looks from the officers around her.

"Bloody Eagle, Agent Starling? What's that?"

Donnie Barber's dead form was resurrected in her mind's eye, along with his companion the deer. Their hearts had weighed exactly the same, she recalled. "Short ribs separated from the spine, then the lungs are pulled back through and flattened to resemble wings. Norse sacrificial custom, there was a neo-Viking running around in the thirties doing it."

"Ah. Glad someone knew. Well, Pete might have, but he knows everything." The detective had turned away, headed towards the body. The public relations spokesman took his place, grinning at Starling.

"Nice catch, Agent. Should be a great help to have you on this case. As long as you don't fall in love with him." The man winked and Clarice used every ounce of willpower she had to keep from decking him. God dammit! He smiled again and then turned to leer at Lindsey, who looked as if she would like to shove him into the lake. He headed back over to the huddle of reporters outside the cordoned area, slicking his hair back as he walked and preparing to inform them of the illustrious agents they had helping on the case. Let the circus begin.

*****