Lecter Castle was an imposing structure – one which could look both beautiful in the sunlight and terrifying in the darkness.
After the Lecter family fled the castle during the war it had become an orphanage, and had had a great many other uses prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, following which it had sat abandoned for a number of years.
Until now.
Upon his return to his homeland, Hannibal Lecter had, at great lengths, managed to obtain the deeds to his family's property, as drawn up by his late father shortly before the war began. It amused him to discover that production of an heir would entitle him to lay claim on the castle, long since forgotten by the people of Aukštaitija.
Employment of several housekeepers and a host of other maintenance staff saw the castle restored to its former glory long before he and his family arrive.
When they do, Clarice knows that they are home.
In the days that follow, she takes in her new surroundings, oblivious to the future each of them holds.
By day, she walks the grounds as they will do so many times more, hand in hand and growing closer with each passing minute. By night, she sleeps beside him in the bed on which, little over a year later, she will give birth to their second child, a son.
She wanders the corridors through which their children will run, carefree and at liberty to enjoy their youth, where even their eldest will find a lack of adult concerns to weigh her down.
She sits in the drawing room, where she will spend so many hours listening to him teach their daughter to play the piano. She even stands on the terrace where, years later, that same daughter will be married. And although the suitor turns out not to be the man that Hannibal had once imagined, she helps Everleigh into her coat and holds the door open for her all the same.
But all of that is yet to come.
For now, Clarice Starling settles into her new life – the one which he had promised her, all that time ago at the farmhouse.
And the FBI?
The FBI is already a distant memory.
END