Fun? You don't know the half of it, dear Steel. Really, I believe that Emily took over the about six chapters ago and I've been relegated to recording events. I feel sorry for the GD, she is really something else in this one. Losing your trust in me, dear Chameleon? Really, now. Actually, I am the last person that you'd expect to be writing something like this. No need to go changing your addy, I'm a nice person. (and of course, no one believes me when I say that.) Okey dokey then, onward ho, its time for a bit more fun.

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A house divided makes for interesting dinner conversation.

-Jeanne Wagner

*****

Old sixties tunes are piped over the speakers as she browses through the store. Picking up throw pillows and other living room items as she poked through the shelves. Really, she didn't need any more pillows in the living room. Perhaps in the bedroom? She could use redecorating as an excuse. Oh, and those curtains. True, Pottery Barn wasn't Hannibal's idea of upscale, but she adored many of the items the retailer offered. She grinned as she headed over to the curtains, tugging on a linen curtain to look at it in the light. Small crystals were strewn about it, catching the light and the eye. She waved over her companion for the day, nodding at the fabric in her hands.

"What do you think, Barney? For the guest room. I think it needs some color." she contemplated the curtain for a moment. "Or maybe in the office. Or the front room. Pretty color, isn't it?"

Barney thoroughly overshadowed his ward as he came over to join her. He nodded at her question, not offering anything more than a non-committal grunt.

"Hmmmm." she waved a salesclerk over and smiled graciously. Barney remained stoic as she chatted with the other woman, placing an order for the curtains. By the time they left the store a half hour later Emily had what seemed to him half the store being delivered to the house later that week. Shopping was not his idea of a fun day, but it was a welcome change from conversing with a two year old. Emily paused in front of Restoration Hardware looking at the display in the window.

"I really don't need a babysitter, Barney."

Barney looked uncomfortably from the display to her. "I'm sure you don't need a babysitter, doctor, but I also assure you that I am not one."

She waved her hand indicating the terminology was not important. "Babysitter, Barney. I don't care what he said you were, but that's what you are." A quick glance at her left wrist, which bore the Seiko watch and a soft sigh. "I need to stop at the pet store before we hit the market, okay?"

She received a nod in reply and she strode towards the mall exit. Too late already fro heading up to Healdsburg which had originally been on her agenda. Ah well, she would have to wait to head up there, preferably without her doting companion. So he didn't trust her, that had been expected. But to have her escorted whenever she left the house? Really now, she felt that it was a little overboard. It wasn't like she had killed the girl.

*****

There was ice in Emily's gaze as she sat by her husband at the dinner table. Conversation had dropped to a minimum within the past couple of days, the only sound being the cutlery on the dishes. Tonight there had been a slight confrontation over the bills Emily had rung up at Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. Barney concluded that the purchase of kitchen appliances and utensils and other accessories was something that Dr. Lecter normally attended to. Emily was overstepping bounds since she was unhappy with him, in order to make him unhappy. Not a wise move, in Barney's opinion. The rest of the dinner conversation ad been over the twenty gallon aquarium and the guppies and goldfish that Emily had purchased. Oh, and the red-tailed shark, one mustn't forget the shark. The shark was for the better, since she had originally wanted to bring home a piranha. That would have been interesting though. Barney wondered what the good doctor would think of a piranha.

Emily's sudden departure from the dinner table startled everyone. There had been no warning, as far as Barney could tell, and she had suddenly and quietly placed her fork and knife across her plate and pushed her chair from the table. She said something to Dr. Lecter in a language he didn't understand and took Mischa from her chair, and then she was gone. Both men looked at each other and Dr. Lecter noted the confusion in Barney's eyes. He sighed and folded his napkin, placing it on the table.

"Barney, if you wouldn't mind helping me clear."

"Sure, Dr. Lecter."

*****

Emily sat in the bed, clutching the down comforter to her chest as she balanced the open book on her lap. It wasn't that she was cold, but she didn't like the vulnerable feeling that was creeping through her. She looked at the photograph that was staring back at her, once more feeling the wave of knowing what she had done wash over her. The woman stared back at her with hard eyes. The eyes of a killer, Emily told herself over and over again. The little girl in the photo, the one that had so much fear in her eyes. So long ago. The yellow dress, the one with the frills. The one with the smudge if dirt on the back from sitting on the dock that day. It was coming back once again, and Emily felt tears as she began to realize where it had begun. The sting of her mother's hand striking her face. Her father's gentle touch as he held the ice against to, trying to reduce the swelling. So long ago.

She could hear voices in the living room, easily identified as belonging to Barney and Hannibal. Hannibal. The next piece in the puzzle. Her mother had fostered the anger in her soul, had created the monster that Emily had acknowledged only after her father's death. The taste of her cousin's blood on her hand. The sheer pleasure in having hurt someone else. Oh, it was wonderful. But she had known the danger, had tucked the pleasure away and locked the monster in the dungeon. Safe in the darkness until he had come.

The offer of his flesh and blood. The offer to take his life, to prove a point about her darkness. To let the monster once again see light. She had looked into his eyes that night, had stared down deep into the depths of his soul, into a reflecting pool of night. And had found herself, replicated within him. And he had seen the same within her, knowing even before she had even made her first kill, that she had the will and ability to do so, without remorse. But now… Now that she had let the darkness overrule her almost completely, he was looking at her in a different light. Was she really all that different than he when he had done the same?

No. The answer was that simple. The events of his life had shaped him into what he had become. Had fashioned a cannibal out of the noted psychiatrist. He knew loss, and was that much the wiser for it. Her life had shaped her in its own ways and measures. The daughter of a woman who was deemed insane and unfit to face trial for the murder of her husband. A woman who had beat her only daughter, and had made sure that the child was brought up in a world of fear. The inability to save her father that night, even after she had hidden away daddy's knives, thinking that she could save him. And here, she had thought she had let all of this go, or so she had told Clarice. Clarice had gone on the battle for good. Her job was to save the lambs. And what had it gained her? A white coffin that now lay in the uncaring earth, next to her father.

Emily had not been able to save the lambs either. So she was now turning to the other side. If you cannot save them, why not join in the slaughter? The pleasure that had been so carefully hidden had returned, and she reveled in it. The joy when she saw fear in Rich's eyes. The music of the pleading voice of the caterer in the alleyway. Lisa's face when she saw her intestines being hauled out from her body. And little Anouk, writhing and trying to break free as she was secured to the desk. All of the pain brought pleasure to her. And why? Because he had reminded her of it. Reminded her of what she was deep inside. She can still hear the voices in the living room, and she does not pay any attention when the book falls from her lap. Rising from the bed, padding down the hall, to the stairs, where she grips the banister. She can hear them clearly now. It is pointless though, since they are discussing the matter of the piranha she had wanted to buy. Almost as if they knew she'd be attempting to eavesdrop on their conversation. One thing, as she topped the stairs, that rang as clear as a bell in her ears.

"She scares me, Doc. She really did those things?" Barney's voice.

"Yes, and I'm sure that they won't be her last."

Emily smiled as she turned and retreated to the bedroom once more. Oh no, she wasn't done yet. She couldn't bear to disappoint her husband.

*****