Not even an hour ago, Starling had told herself that she didn't care what ghost might follow Krendler, for none could possibly measure up to him. Now, in recalling the final installment of the original story itself, she was unsure of her conviction. The last spirit supposed to be the worst. So, there, standing in submissiveness this cold December evening, her mind filled the void of waiting by making idle speculation of whom she might expect. After all, who could be worse than Krendler?

In the course of her life, Starling had seen much death, witnessed abundant pain, and endured, personally, deep suffering. The last entity, she concluded, could come in any shape. Her father, perhaps, but she didn't think so. That face was apart of her past, not her future. If he had planned on coming, it would have been in Krendler's time slot. Unfortunately, the 'conductor,' as Crawford called him, had been sold with Cuban cigars and Willie Nelson CDs. Maybe, in his place, the last spirit would be Mason Verger, but she doubted it. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn't a threat to her in life. To Dr. Lecter, yes, but never to her.

The gap of not knowing was decisively uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the third and final ghost had more of an eye for punctuality, thus Starling had little time to dread. Not three seconds after her watch hit the designated time did a black cloud of smoke begin to collect visibly down the street. She turned to face it, determined not to shrink in the face of peril, should it carry the unpleasantness she feared. Drawing in a breath, she watched as it formed a shape, a tangible shape, not blinking, eyes set in firm determination.

It occurred to her, briefly, that she didn't want to see what the future held, but she knew she had no choice.

The smoke started to dwindle and fade, and a figure stood there in its place. She couldn't make out its face, but it was obviously male. The manner in which he carried himself was familiar, terribly familiar, and after a moment's thought, she had it. And what a blessed remedy it was! However, her excitement dwindled rapidly, and again, dread set in. While warm relief tickled her nerves, she sensed something dark, dangerous, and mysterious about him. And Starling, for the first time this evening, felt the nearly irresistible temptation to turn and run hard in the other direction. That singular notion in itself was terribly disconcerting, for this being, this man before her, was one she would have thought to welcome with open arms and a smile on her face.

The shell of a creature he was now...

Starling swallowed hard as he began the approach. When only a foot or so separated them, she emitted a breath and heard herself meekly ask, "John?"

The figure seemed to consider her, hesitating a brief second before nodding his acknowledgement. Up close, now, Starling could clearly see the shadow of the man she knew in life, hidden behind many layers of darkness, enveloped into something nearly unrecognizable.

Releasing a quivering breath, Starling looked him up and down slowly, aching for an exterior affirmation that this was indeed John Brigham. He was adorned completely in long black robes that extended to the ground in almost a duplication of the film characterization of Professor Snape. His eyes were yellow, like a cat's, though behind them, when she looked hard enough, she saw enough of him and his earthly kindness to feel an inkling of relief. An inkling, and nothing more.

It was enough.

"John, what happened to you?" Her voice carried more conviction now, and her feet, for the moment, weren't going anywhere.

"I'm here," he said obviously, no hint of answer or preamble on his tone, voice raw with disuse. "I'm here to show you your future." He paused with emphasis. "One possible future." A breath, as though it was difficult to speak and function, even when bodily mechanisms were no longer essential. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but it's important that you...that you know."

Frustrated at his failure to answer her inquiry and more than a little unsettled as his forewarning, she started to reach for him but thought the better of it. "Brigham," she said sternly. "Why do you appear to me as so? You were a good man in life. Why this? Why are you like this?" She paused suddenly as the plausible, unthinkable answer arrived. It was a terrible thought, though she continued, almost afraid of her reply. "Did you do something to condemn yourself?" She didn't want anything to disillusion herself of the man she knew to be so thoroughly good, but likewise knew it was better to have the truth than live in a shamble of it.

Looking terribly pained, Brigham resisted a minute, then nodded. "Yes. The same you are doing, Starling." He took a nonexistent breath, noting her shocked expression immediately.

"What do you mean?" she snapped, once her breath had found her again.

"Why do you think Jack Crawford, in death, is so happy?"

That argument took her completely off guard, and rather than wait as she fumbled for an answer, he impatiently hissed, "Because he is fulfilled! Because, in death, he has his Bella! His affairs are in order! He has...everything!"

Startled and perplexed, Starling could only stare at him in wonder. After a minute, when she found herself, all she could do was croak, "And I don't?"

Brigham opened his mouth to reply, but likewise snapped it shut the next instant, shaking his head. "I've told you too much as it is," he muttered. "I'm supposed to *show*, not tell."

Starling bit her lower lip in uncertainty. The future, with this dark and bleak tour guide, had the air of unpleasantness in it. She recalled the story as it was in the text, the horrible, disturbing images Scrooge was forced to witness. At the minute, it didn't seem important that the night's answers might unlock the door to her salvation. Starling had seen enough doom in this world to last her ten lifetimes...plus two. "Ummm...John...I'm not sure I want to see. Can't you just tell me? Can't I just take your word for it?"

"I wish I could," he replied regretfully. "But you need to see." There was a significant pause as he considered, speaking again after a minute of forethought. "I'm here as a warning to you, Starling. To show you what you could become. To you, I always represented the 'good' of the FBI. The last of it."

"But-"

"It'll make sense, I promise." Slowly, he reached for a bit of his dark cloak, extending it to her. "Come, there is much to see."

Hesitating once more, knowing it was the last time she could, Starling closed her eyes and said softly, "Ghost of the Future, I fear you more than any specter I have yet seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live as a more liberated individual than who I was, I am prepared to bear your company..." She paused, drew in a deep breath, nodded, and continued, "And do it with a thankful heart."

"Very big of you, Starling," Brigham said, curling his darkened lips over yellow teeth. "I know you can do this. It's for your own good. Now, take my cloak."

Swallowing the lump in her throat - no easy task - Starling nodded, her eyes falling to the extended fabric. With the last bit of vacillation, she reached out, hovered above it before finally exhaling and seizing a handful.

Instinctively, she slammed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip, waning any impending pain away. They were instantly whisked forward, not as forward as she would have liked, but far enough for her to contrive the idea of how much older she might be. The implication in itself chilled her to her very core.

When the motion stopped, Starling took a minute to settle herself, breathing harshly as though she had just finished a jogging course. Brigham tugged her arm by moving forward, and she tumbled after him, her eyes falling open in surprise.

"This is Quantico," she whispered.

"It is."

"Why are we here?" She had the terrible intuition that she didn't want to know.

"Come."

Inside the halls, walking through passages that she knew terribly well, Starling drew in a breath and held it. All around her, people were speaking excitedly, huddled in corners, at the vending machines, talking...talking...

"Did you hear?" one whispered. "She hasn't spoken in days."

"I wouldn't doubt it," replied the conversationalist. "She always has had a thing for him, I think. Even if she didn't want to admit it."

"Well, she brought it on herself."

"When did they do it?"

"Yesterday, I think. She was invited. Dunno if she went or not. She's kept to herself."

"So the bastard's dead?"

"Yeah, that's for sure."

The two snickered privately and continued with this conversation until they were far out of earshot. Trembling, Starling turned to Brigham for words of comfort, but he looked grave, and had none to offer.

"John," she said slowly. "I see. The case of this...person...might well be my own. My life tends that way now." Tears began to fill in her eyes, but she sniffed hard and dared not shed them. "But I don't want it to. What is this?!"

"You must see for yourself," he retorted monotonously, though his lip quivered as he battled visibly for the release to tell her. Slowly, he pointed down the corridor, a familiar pathway.

Ignoring him, Starling shook her head furiously, tears striking her again, though she held them at bay. "Please! Let me see some tenderness connected with this death, John, or that conversation will haunt me forever."

Brigham, not replying, simply maintained his point, eyes staring dead ahead. Without needing further direction and knowing she could coax no words from him, Starling traced the steps that she knew would lead to her very own office.

When she said she wanted to see tenderness in relation to the death, she meant for it to be anyone's but her own. Such only confirmed her fear, and tears, expectedly, could no longer be helped. They poured mercilessly down her cheeks as she beheld her own image, a woman visibly in mourning, discarding the pile of work on her desk, staring forlornly out the window. As she had stood at that exact position many times, Starling knew that the shadow of herself stood there not for the scenery.

The woman she watched was crying, not audibly, but they shared a similar grief.

"Sad, isn't it?"

Starling jumped but didn't turn to Brigham. She didn't need to.

"John..." she whispered after a moment of silent reverence, "why am I sad?"

"You have lost someone dear to you," he answered simply, his tone indifferent. "You have realized the price of your reinstatement."

At that, she turned to him, her eyes sharp. "What do you mean?"

Like his voice, Brigham's eyes were unresponsive, not reacting to her pain, though visibly rehearsed. She still thought he wanted to tell her something, even if he had contained himself.

"Starling, look at yourself," he said, pointing to the image of her in the window. "What do you see?"

Slowly, exerting a deep breath, she turned again to view the person she didn't want to see, the sadness she didn't want to exist, the impending future that undoubtedly loomed nearby. After studying her, her red-rimmed eyes darting every which direction until she knew she couldn't avoid it any longer. "I don't know," she whispered, flushed and tense.

"You see yourself," Brigham said simply. "Starling, that is you, and you have everything you have ever wanted in your professional career."

She blinked, her heart skipping a beat. "What?"

"That respect you always wanted? The fame? The advancement? The coveted place women aren't supposed to acquire? It's all there, Starling. You have it now. All yours." His tone changed notes, coaxing her to turn and face him once more. "Everything you want, Starling. And yet..."

"WHAT?!" The anticipation was killing her, nearly to the point of tackling him, with all the good it would do.

Brigham stood aside, pointing in the other direction, away from the office. "Come, and you will see."

Happy for the invitation, Starling quickly covered the threshold. No sooner had she crossed the line did the scene before her melt into nonexistence and reemerge outdoors. The skyline was dark, overcast, but not night. Bitter winds nipped at her flesh, even as she was allegedly protected from such, given this was a shadow and nothing more.

Starling knew where she was instantly.

"John..." she whispered. "Why?"

"Because you asked," he answered simply. "Because you need to see." Slowly, he raised his hand and pointed once more. "There. There is the object of your hunt, the query of your plight. There is what you need to see, what you don't want to see. There you must go."

The steps she took were long and made her legs numb. Slow, delayed, over-pronounced and demanding friction. Her heart rattled in her chest, her throat chilling, her skin growing numb all over. Snow covered the ground, and the face of the stone as she knelt beside it. Trembling, she turned back to Brigham, who stood directly behind her, imploring him to tell her not to look.

No such sympathy was acquired from his face.

"John..." her voice was meek, on the verge of begging. "Please. A person can change, you know. A life can be made right. My course does foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, it must lead here. But if my course can be departed from, the ends will change. Say that is so with what you show me!"

"Just look, Starling."

Her vision blurred with tears as her hand, shaking with reluctance, outstretched to bid the commands of her mind, however much she yearned to pull back. And as she brushed the snow away, she collapsed atop the tomb, sobbing openly.

'Hannibal Lecter'

"NO!" she screamed as her sobs diminished enough to allow such a cry. "NO! Tell me it isn't so!"

"It is," Brigham whispered. "Don't you see, Starling? Your heart remains loyal to your tormentors. You know where he is now, don't you? Jack Crawford took you there. To Buenos Aires. You saw...and you went there, didn't you? You finished the job. Only you could do it. You and you alone. His downfall, his weakness, it's all there. And now..." his voice grew low and menacing. "You have everything you could possibly want in your career. With Lecter dead, because of your direction-"

"NO!" Starling screamed. "These are shadows! This isn't life! One action outweighs another!"

"Do you honestly believe you can return, knowing where he is, and keep your mouth shut?"

She whipped her head up to stare at him angrily, but saw clearly that this was true, and her tears came again. Harder this time, uninhibited from prior restraints.

"Tell me what I must do!" Starling choked, bringing the back of her hand to her face, wiping in one furious motion. "Tell me!"

Finally, the control, which she had ebbed all night, broke in one glorious momentum. Eyes ablaze, Brigham drew her to her feet and snarled, "You still don't see, do you?"

"No!"

"Don't you know where you're lucky? Don't you know why I have been cursed to this desolate afterlife? Don't you understand why Jack Crawford wasn't?"

Breathing hard, she looked every which direction in search of an answer, but nothing was there to provide it.

Irritated with her hesitance, Brigham growled his frustration before roaring, "You know who it is that you want! You've always known, despite your goddamned stubbornness! I knew, too, you see. I knew, but I let you slip away. I left that part of me unfinished. I died with regrets, Starling! You can't let yourself do the same!"

Breathing slowly returning to some form of regularity, Starling felt her tears crusting on her face. Realization dawned on her, and her eyes widened with the proximity of release. "You mean..."

"YES!" Brigham hissed victoriously. "YES! Don't you see? Crawford can be happy; for he has everything he ever wanted. I, on the other hand, I am doomed to wander this earth for I never tried. I asked but I never tried. It's my fate to warn others to live for no regrets. Starling, you bear the largest regret, and you wear it as your chain, and it weighs you down from ever advancing! You cannot let that consume you, or you will suffer my fate!" He paused again, harshly, before continuing as an afterthought, "Promise me, Starling! Promise me you'll learn from this! Promise me you'll find your happiness. Promise me you'll live the life that I didn't get to live!"

"But..." Starling's breath snagged. "WHY?! Why must it be *him* that I love? Why do you people push me to him when I know it's wrong? Why can't I live IN PEACE? Why do you *want* me to submit to what I know is immoral? Why-"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE UNHAPPY!" he shouted, voice large enough to coax any mountain to tremble in fear. "BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CONTROL IT! BECAUSE YOU ARE HUMAN, CLARICE STARLING, AND YOU CAN'T HAVE POWER OVER WHO YOU LOVE!"

Pitifully, Starling turned away, tears again released. She wept openly, now, unafraid to show them to anyone. Screw it. Screw it all. "But...the FBI-"

"Is full of corruption. It holds you as its virtue, Starling, and only you. I'm dead, Crawford's dead. You're left to your conspirators. People like Noonan and Pearsall and Sneed. Face it, Starling, the FBI's a bitch."

"But virtue, like you said-"

"It's a bitch, too."

"And incorruptibility?"

"A bitch."

"And courage?"

"A bitch?"

"Life?"

"A bitch."

She swallowed and looked upward. "And God?"

"God?" Brigham snickered, looking up as well, as though in need of vindication. "He's the biggest bitch of them all." He paused, a look of distaste on his face. "He does this for His divine amusement, Starling. He tortures you because it's fun. Don't you imagine He's getting a royal kick out of this? Out of your pain? I'd think so."

"Then let me wake!" she screamed, her voice going hoarse from the constant tear at her vocals. "Leave me my pain and my reasoning and my resonance and everything else and let me wake!"

And she collapsed, burying her face in her hands, sobbing without knowing how or why, just that she wished this wretched night to be over so that she might breathe and consider, wake in peace.

The winds around her stopped whistling their sad melody. Leaves, likewise, stopped crackling, snow stopped crunching, and the air ceased to chill her skin. Leveling her breathing once more, Starling raised her tear-stained face to her very own bedroom. She saw she was lying in a tangle with her blankets on the floor, and that dawn, Christmas day, was peering through the windows.

As her cries diminished with a loud echo, she released a deep breath, but knew not the flavor it carried. "I'm home," she gasped. "I'm home."

Fighting to her feet, Starling helped herself onto the mattress. The unwanted feel of drying tears on her face left her only with the knowledge that what she saw was true, and there was no reason to argue it.

Dr. Lecter was in Buenos Aries, and she knew this. She also knew that she could have people down there as quick as that afternoon, and one of the most infamous manhunts of the decade would finally lay at rest.

However, she knew other things, too.

And, without strenuous forethought or tedious mental torture, she also knew what she had to do.

Unhappiness was a disease that remains only with those who choose not to fix it. Should she leave it unattended? Should she risk wandering in the days of her afterlife as the image she took of John Brigham?

Jack Crawford in a hula skirt because he doesn't care. Because he has everything he wants.

She would cure her unhappiness, and face that challenge that had stalked her for ten years. Serious revelations often are the product of horrific experiences, and she knew in all the pains she felt the night before, that hers was no different, even if it was...

Her revelation would lead to her salvation. She would see to that. After all, she was alive now, and today was another day. Tomorrow held the future, the past behind her, and she would see to righting the wrong she committed herself, to curing her unhappiness. To facing this life that was, as Brigham so eloquently put it, a bitch.

She would learn so much with these revelations, avert her life to what it should be, and live.


FIN