* * *
Drawing in a deep breath, Starling puffed out her cheeks and sat back. In the air, she sensed the stirrings of a headache, one of the same she was becoming more familiar with. She released a bottled sigh seconds later, raising the letter once more to eye level to reread it. As was the case with the letter he sent in the afterward of the Evelda Drumgo affair, the second time through wasn't nearly as affective as the first. Indeed, she heard his voice, but it wasn't as haunting. As punctuating. As definitive.
But the words were still there. Unchanged.
So he wanted to help her. Hah! Ten years destroying her, and now he wanted to help. Help with what, dare she ask? Though it was something she knew she would never wish, the best thing he could do to be of any assistance was present her with cuffed wrists.
Yes, but what then?
There were certain things she needed to consider before arriving at any form of conclusion. Firstly, the need to make an immediate choice was withdrawn, as he was no longer in the area. Though Starling should be dismayed, she found herself oddly relieved. Simply with that confirmed knowledge, it removed the burden of guilt she would inevitably face in approaching days. For the minute, she had no pressure to jump up and seize her guns, phone the Bureau and alert them that the man they had spent ten years in search of was in the area, even if she hadn't intended to anyway.
Of course, she had no real reason to believe Dr. Lecter. The implication of trust was lain out before her, and without lending time for pause in consideration; Starling discarded the notion that he might have lied to save himself the hassle. If anything, he would have outlined his nearness in bold lettering to test her resolve. To see where she stood.
Despite that, Starling had known well in advance, well before opening the letter, that she would not deliver it to the Bureau. That revelation was made, acknowledged, and made again. If he were watching, he would know this by the torn envelope that would make its way to her dresser drawer rather than some laboratory.
Back to the letter.
In it, he ridiculed the obvious, noting the way people were reviving old theories about their very different relationship. Starling sighed, revisited by memories and accusations following the rescue of Catherine Baker Martin, mostly off the tongue of Paul Krendler. The pain again struck in its glorious familiarity at the suggestion that she wasn't talented enough to place the pieces together. However ridiculous the indictments were, people wanted to believe them. Wanted to believe that she, a woman – and a young one at that – could not have possibly drawn that much out of a madman with nothing material in return. No one was concerned with the very blatant fact that she had little time to entice the doctor during her visit in Memphis, and furthermore, that she was under observation in the duration of the interview.
People suspected her because she came because she wanted to.
("People will say we're in love.")
And now here she was, ten years digging herself out of that trench, and people were pointing the same fingers, even without Krendler's prompting. Why, they wonder, did she resort to such a harmless and domestic weapon when a perfectly useful gun sat waiting at her disposal? No need to review her conscious state at the time, no need to question the handiness of anyone – including federal agents – while under the influence of powerful morphine. All they saw was a woman notoriously involved with Dr. Hannibal Lecter who refused to draw her most valuable weapon against him, instead resorting to a snow shaker, later a harmless kitchen knife, and finally a candlestick.
In the aftermath, Starling defended her name courageously, though she was horribly afraid her self-control would crumple. To the reporters that she continuously avoided, to the microphones she shoved from her mouth, to interviews and letters of inquiry she decided to answer, daily she felt the impulse to turn around and scream at them: "I DIDN'T TAKE MY GUN BECAUSE I KNEW I'D HAVE TO USE IT! BECAUSE I KNEW I COULDN'T KILL HIM!"
Gun, no. She wouldn't, she *couldn't* kill him. But she could seize cuffs to take him in, hand him to his tormenters, and watch as they killed him for her.
No. Starling saw the stupidity in that now, and her lack of insight made her doubt her resolve. It was obvious to her that she couldn't do that either. She wouldn't do it – she wouldn't turn in the letter. To have him captured at her hand was no better than blowing his head off.
And next? Lowering her eyes to the letter once more, she valuated the next paragraph. 'Your morals betrayed you.'
He wasn't a lamb to save. He was the enemy. He stood against everything she affirmed her undying allegiance with, and yet, he was her victim. The reason to provoke a one-person raid on a rich loony tune, risk her career and life to save her infamous nemesis. Good versus evil. Jesus versus Satan. Herself versus the man she could not kill. The man that – incidentally – could not kill her.
Did it burn her? Slightly, but more for her reasons than theirs. What they said, suggested, or directly accused didn't affect her anymore. The truth, she was discovering, was more difficult to fight than something left to be discovered. Self-evaluation. Why was she here? Why her? Why anything?
To the letter again. Would the FBI doctor her career?
Starling bit her lip, considering, before gentle ripples claimed her body as she dissolved into humorless chuckles.
Yeeeeaaahhhh…that was good.
Casting her eyes downward once more, she continued to analyze. Yes, he was there with her every day, had been for a decade. Following her, poking fun at others with her, making subtle suggestions as she studied a recent homicide, giving her blessed clues when no other voice rang with logic. To say Catherine Martin was the only life he helped save was terribly misleading. There wasn't one case she didn't turn to him to for guidance, always surprised how his assistance, even in her cavity, always seemed to be that missing link. The final piece of the puzzle.
Snickering, she heard herself speaking with Barney. Thirty seconds a day indeed.
And now she approached the end, where he offered his assistance. His assistance in what? Did she need him for anything? Was there something he knew that she didn't? A new serial killer on the verge of abducting some lamb to save?
Rather unlikely. She knew better than that.
A stolen kiss. Even now, her lips burned. And that was what he wanted. A forever reminder, a keepsake. Something to make her ignite every time she thought of it, to reflect on those final seconds in personal scrutiny, to wonder why she reacted – or didn't react – the way she did. Such coldness, such hatred, such confusion, such…sadness.
He was leaving her, and she knew it. Leaving her to possibly never return.
Starling growled her aggravation and jumped up. Drawing in harsh breaths, she considered the letter, feeling the warmth of the fire pulsing, taunting, begging. Despite everything, despite her raw desire to follow inner ambitions and do as he asked, there was that little reminder of her duty. Her annoyingly persistent duty.
Burn it…burn it…burn it…
For a long time, she watched the parchment without seeing, the ink swirling into a mass jubilation. Fabulously written incoherent lettering. Her eyes dared it to jump from her hand and land carelessly in the fire. To make her decision for her, for she knew, despite her actions, that she would regret whatever path she chose to follow.
Burn it…burn it…burn it…
But she didn't.
There was no surprise in her revolution. In those brief seconds, considering, deciding her fate, Starling saw the walkway to her home and the pledge of forged security it offered. Her career, her wonderfully falsified career. That which she slaved, sweated, and bled over. That which destroyed her. Trailing up the walkway, aligned with shadows, of specters, of things she outlined but couldn't see.
The darkness where lambs continued to scream, but not for her assistance. Now, she knew, they screamed for him. He, who caused her such turmoil, who destroyed and created her in one blow, who bestowed the fame she never wanted with headlines that disgraced her name, even if it wasn't his intent. He whom she needed with or without merit, with or without reason. For, in the end, what was Clarice Starling without Hannibal Lecter? One half of the cosmic puzzle. One half of a headline. One half of the breaking story, even if her most recent ignominy failed to involve him.
Again, she flashed to Evelda Drumgo, recalling the media coverage she watched in the afterward of John Brigham's funeral.
("Agent Starling received some measure of celebrity ten years ago when she interviewed lethal madman Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter.")
What possible relevance did that have in the fish market shooting? None. But he was always there. Her other half. The missing piece. Apart of her. Because, like it or not, no one knew Clarice Starling existed if Hannibal Lecter wasn't involved, and vice versa. How much interest had the public had in him prior to the events at Chesapeake? How much fuss had risen out of the charges made against her in Memphis?
She was the beauty to his beast, or the beast to his beauty. Romanticized to the wazoo, despite the mediocre attempts made to keep her relationship with Dr. Lecter from turning sexual in the media. 'Bride of Frankenstein' indeed. The vampire's mistress. How remarkably un-amusing.
What now? What was left of her?
And she knew. She knew she had to contact him. David and Goliath. The David to his Goliath. The only one that possessed the secret to his weakness, that could sling that deadly stone to destroy him, whether or not it was her intent to do so. Starling smiled inwardly at the thought, her hand wavering a bit as she released a breath. The fireplace seemed to crackle as she moved away, sensing its loss of sacrifice.
The names had a higher meaning, too. Nothing was ever one-sided in their perversely dependable relationship. She was similarly the Goliath to his David. No one else could devalue her and make it sting, tear her up efficiently and make her believe it.
Contact him. What else was there? Starling sighed, not knowing how or why. Her motives were unclear to her, what she hoped to accomplish by responding to his offer was ambiguous. To talk? To resolve these petty issues, for what they were worth? To decide what to do with her career? To…
To give him her half of that kiss and make *his* lips burn.
No. Sharply, she shook her head. Despite her revelations, Starling wasn't quite prepared to make any sort of admittance that required the release of repressed feelings. Feelings that she firstly denied to repress. It was too soon for that yet.
But she did yearn for his guidance, his advice, his insight on her current situation. Beyond the vague points highlighted on a letter. She wanted to converse. Nothing had ever seemed so important to her. Afterward, she would have to decide.
Decisions, decisions…
Submitting her answer to the requested sources took little more than a visit to select Internet sites. David to Goliath. From there, all she could do was wait. Wait, and hope.
* * *