A/N: Well, this is the last part of this little tale. Thank you all so much for reviewing and reading this far. It means the world to me.

As you'll notice now, Dr Lecter had been viewing the process of Clarice Starling coming to him through simple past, while this is again written in present tense. Also, he used the five senses to determine his feelings for her. And he does the same here. I hope it has the same calming, reassuring feel as I tried to bring to it, now that the star-crossed lovers have finally found their way to each other. This has been a pleasure. Thank you.

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I watch her.

I watch her now, her hair upon my pillow, her hand upon my chest, her frame against my side. Clarice . . . I have you now, and even now I cannot grasp with any of the tools given to me by birth or life what has just transpired between us. Maybe it isn't meant for us to know the truth about love. For that is certainly what I feel for her. And so, so much more.

I wasn't too sure if I'd awake, she would still lay beside me. I could hardly believe this dream I'd dreamt for seven long years could, and would finally last *beyond* the morning light.

But here she is. Here she is, my Clarice, and she is with me out of her own free will. Out of the will of her own freed heart. Here.

I see the curvature of her breast, how it rises and falls with the in- and outtake of her breath. So serene, so calm, so at ease. At peace. This woman hears no screaming lambs. These cheeks are flustered, but not from fear for some imaginary incubi. I fiercely hope I have chased them all away. If just for one night . . . and one night at a time.

Love. I did not see it at first, see its face in Clarice Starling, or see it in my own reflection. It takes other eyes, eyes that look inward, to see what is in the heart. I was blinded but now I'm free as well. Now I see. And what I see is Clarice. Only Clarice. Sleeping and sighing and mine. All mine.

I hear her.

I hear her now, as her breath is calm and even, as the satin sheets murmur softly against her skin, as I did this night. I was one former day jealous of how these sheets enveloped her: now, I do not need to think of such thing anymore.

She breathes for me now and I breathe for her and it shall be like this until one is one and life is one breath, its last. Forever is merely the measure of an extent of time, which reaches far beyond the boundaries of human conceivability.

Yet, as time stills for me this moment — for us — the possibility of happily every after seems not as utterly wishful thinking as might have once been the case.

I have faith now. She gave me back my faith, in life, in love, in everything. What more could she give me? What more could she do for me but just . . . breathe. Breathe, while her heart beats in time with mine.

I feel her.

I feel her now, so very close, and my nightly demons are far from my mind. My arms are open and wide to her. Clarice fell in them earlier this night with a sigh of contentment and the words: "Peace, Hannibal. I know tonight I will sleep." And she was right, I knew. I felt it too.

I smell her.

I smell her now, the aroma of love-made sweat damping on her skin. These are not tears. And if they are, they were born from joy and shed of happiness. I cannot hate these tears. I drink from them with tongue all wanting and eyes all-seeing as I see the fresh, silver pearls upon her skin blink in the early skylight. She is beautiful. She is mine. She is free.

Freedom.

Freedom is in the heart, I believe they say. And I am no different from other people. I breathe the same air. I see the same sun. I behold the same stars.

. . . my stars and her stars. Perhaps the world is a tender place after all. I doubt nothing now, here, drifting in timelessness. I doubt only the world to exist beyond this moment, this room, this night. I do not care. I have my own world, and her name is Clarice.

Freedom. If hate is a poison and love is its blade, then freedom is its cure. Two unruly emotions, polar opposites but only closely removed, lift the curse and in return, freedom is given. The treasure of every life.

Who would have known, all those years ago, what Clarice M. Starling would begin to mean to me, and how, like Dante, I myself found in the very sight of her, nourishment to last me dreamless nights, free from the screaming or the sound of the axe coming down. As hers, my nightly demons are also silent.

Perhaps now, they always will be.

And I taste her.

I taste her now, the sheer nectar that is her through and through and of which I will drink day in and day out, of which I cannot get enough. She fulfills me every rising and setting sun again, for she is my sun, the light cast upon my earth and mere life-form, and I love her for the way she makes me feel. I wish I could taste her radiance, wish I could cup it in my mouth, ravish it with my tongue, relish it, cherish and glorify her perfection.

Taste the honey in my delicious lion, Clarice. Clarice. Merely the name a statement of supremacy. Her mother must have known with her chambermaid eyes what a treasure she had brought into the world. I wonder if old Jackie boy Crawford saw it when he sent her to me, sent me my treasure, and hereby crafted my doom and destiny all the same.

Clarice. I watch her now. And even by just watching her, her presence fulfills me completely.

Clarice. My curse, and my shadow. I do not wish to be strong any longer without you, my dearest. I only wish to be strong together.

I am free now. Free, finally. At long, long last. Rapt in happiness.

I have come home to freedom of the soul.

And I am happy.

— FIN —