Author's note: For those of you who were wondering, rats are not dirty animals – they groom themselves up to six times a day, like cats. I had pet rats in college. They're nice animals to keep as pets.
Over the next few days, Clarice Starling began to learn what fear really was.
She would spend her days in the dayroom, hoping for some sort of protection in huddling with the herd. It never worked. McQuerry would find her and drag her into the electroshock room for her daily torture. It didn't make sense. He didn't seem to want anything. He didn't want her to say anything or behave better or fetch his slippers. Instead, he simply seemed intent on continuing the electroshock.
Clarice had been in frightening situations before. She'd been in gunfights. She'd arrested people who would slit your throat as soon as look at you. And of course, she'd confronted Hannibal Lecter in his basement cell all those years ago. But this was more frightening. She had someone who simply seemed intent on destroying her mind. He didn't want anything from her. He didn't seem to have anything against her, either. But every day, it was Starling to therapy. Inescapable and inevitable.
She had tried resistance. It didn't work. There were plenty of orderlies around, and McQuerry called on them when he needed to. Bizarrely, she found herself believing that it wasn't him. He actually seemed to be somewhat sorry about it, misplaced and vague regret like the sort one feels when one has stepped on a companion's foot two months ago. He hadn't busted her back down to maximum security. And he could have done that in a heartbeat. No, this wasn't McQuerry getting his jollies.
She tried to figure it out. But it was hard, knowing that she was on a time limit. As the clock ticked down to two o'clock, her heart would begin to pound. She would try sidling away from the herd, seeing if she could make it back to her room. What was worse was that she knew resistance would be futile. But still. Who would do this? Crawford? It was possible, she supposed. Why would Crawford want to do this to her, though? Wouldn't he want her testifying against Dr. Lecter? Or was that it, to torture her into doing Crawford's bidding? Still, it didn't make sense, and she could not think. Not with the hour hand slowly ticking away at her fate. The room of pain and fear awaited her.
So she sat there in the dayroom, her eyes wide with low-grade terror. She cowered in the midst of the drugged women watching soap operas. Please, can they pass me up this time? Please? Not today. I can't take it today. Can I be bad and go back down to maximum security? At least they didn't do this to me there. But she knew that going down to max would not help. She'd have Raul, but that would be it – the electroshock would continue.
The intercom buzzed. "Starling," a mechanical voice from the speaker overhead buzzed. Clarice cringed. It was one-thirty! That wasn't…wasn't fair! She had half an hour left before…before…,
"Starling, get your ass down here," the voice came again.
Clarice hunched down on the bench she was sitting on and tried to look invisible. Part of her hated the cowardice she was exhibiting. But she was frightened. It was one thing to be brave when your bravery made a difference. But this…this was as senseless as it was inevitable. She couldn't help but be afraid. They were going to waste her as assuredly as they had wasted John Brigham.
The gate buzzed open. An orderly came in. Not Raul; just another one of the soulless troopers who provided this place with its muscle. Clarice didn't know his name. He strode over to her purposefully and glared at her.
"Starling, dammit," he said, "you deaf?"
"It ain't time," Clarice whimpered, and felt a burst of anger at herself. "I still got half an hour."
"It's not time for therapy," he said, exasperated. "You got a visitor."
Clarice's eyes lit up. Was it Charlene? Please let it be Charlene. They wouldn't hurt her while Charlene was here. If it was fucking Crawford she'd tear his eyeballs out. But Charlene would keep her safe.
My ass she will, Clarice, she told herself sourly. She's on their side.
But wait. Maybe that was it. Maybe Charlene could help her anyway.
So she went through the door into the visiting room. Medium security had some advantages. The visiting room had a window. They would be alone. An orderly would be posted to watch, just in case Clarice decided to throttle her niece, but the door would be closed. They would have privacy.
Charlene was sitting there already. The room was decently furnished, with a table and padded chairs. Her pleasant smile turned to a slight expression of surprise as Clarice entered. That didn't surprise Clarice. She was getting shocked every day. She was supposed to look like hell.
"Hi, Aunt Clarice," Charlene said softly.
"Hi, Charlene," Clarice echoed.
"So how do you like medium security?" Charlene asked. "Must be nicer than down in the basement."
Clarice looked back and forth. Any listening devices? She'd have to take the chance.
"Charlene," she said urgently. "Listen. I need your help. Something really weird is going on here. They're torturing me."
Charlene sighed resignedly. She nodded slowly. Clarice's eyes narrowed.
"They're torturing you?" Charlene asked. Her tone was patient, as one might take to a child who insists there is a monster under his bed.
"Yes," Clarice affirmed. "They've been doing electroshock on me. Every day."
Charlene nodded slowly. "Aunt Clarice, ECT isn't torture," she said slowly. "It's bona fide therapy when medication don't work. But it's humane. They put you to sleep for it. You just wake up with a headache. Now, Mr. Crawford told me about this, and I think you need to--,"
Clarice leaned forward. "Mr. Crawford told you what?"
Charlene swallowed. "Aunt Clarice, c'mon, I don't know if we should go there."
Oh yes we should, kiddo, Clarice thought. "I won't get mad, honey," she said calmly. "I promise."
Charlene swallowed. She looked at her aunt dubiously, as if she was a mad dog who might leap to attack at any moment.
"Mr. Crawford told me that they'd moved you to medium security," she recited slowly. "An' that..that you were having triggers. Triggers that…well…that Dr. Lecter put there."
Clarice sighed. Anger welled up in her and she forced it away. It was Crawford. She knew it. She would hold back for Charlene's sake. She needed the younger woman's help.
"Triggers?" she asked.
Charlene nodded. Her discomfiture was clear on her face. She didn't want to fight.
"Yes," she said faintly. "Once they started givin' you better conditions and easing up on you, Dr. Lecter had put these triggers in your mind, you see. So you'd have delusions and nightmares about being tortured. To get in the way of making you better."
Clarice closed her eyes and felt tears well up. Had Crawford sealed up her niece that tight? Was she willing to hear Clarice out? Perhaps it was hopeless. Perhaps Charlene would continue listening to whatever Crawford filled her head with right up until it was over.
"They're not delusions and nightmares, Charlene," Clarice said softly. "They're real. It's really happening."
Charlene exhaled slowly, clearly thinking her aunt was a fruitcake and not wanting to say it.
"Aunt Clarice," she said deliberately, "I know it must seem real. But you gotta think about this and see it for what it is. It ain't real. It's just something Dr. Lecter put in your mind."
"It's real," Clarice said. Charlene opened her mouth to protest. Clarice plunged on.
"Charlene, look at me," she said. "Do I look better to you? This is real, Charlene. They are really torturing me. They're not gonna stop until I'm some kind of…burnt out vegetable." Tears welled in her eyes and her voice thickened. "Listen…I'm really glad you came, because I missed you, but also because since you came they're not gonna zap me yet. And I know I'm gonna cry when you leave, because it's only when you're here that they won't hurt me."
She saw answering tears in her niece's eyes. It was hard for her to make her niece cry, but she had little choice. Charlene had to see.
"Aunt Clarice," Charlene said, a bit choked up herself, "You gotta realize. This ain't real. It's just in your mind. Mr. Crawford said--,"
"Just cause Mr. Crawford said something doesn't mean it's true," Clarice said. "Was it Mr. Crawford who came and saved you from McCracken? No, that was me." The wounded look in Charlene's eyes was like a knife in Clarice's chest, but she pressed on. She put her hand over her niece's to pad the blow. "I was there for you. I saved you. Now I need you, Charlene." She leaned in.
"I know you've got to be good at what you do," she said. "You had to have been. No schlump could've caught Dr. Lecter. Hell, I never caught him, and I think I was pretty good. You know something isn't right about this. Look at it like a case. You can see what's going on. I know you can. Don't just mindlessly listen to Crawford. He's not telling you everything. Just what'll make you be a good, cooperative little girl for him."
Charlene looked away. Her mouth worked.
"But…but…why would they do this?" she asked. "They put you on medium security. If they were gonna torture you into doing what they wanted, then why not leave you down in maximum security? Wouldn't have been no problem and no one would've seen a blessed thing."
That was the one thing Clarice had not been able to figure out. As she observed her disbelieving niece, suddenly it all became clear. All the pieces fell into place with a neat click.
"Because of you," she whispered.
Charlene blinked at her and shook her head in disbelief. "Me? What do I have to do with it?"
"Everything," Clarice said. "If they kept me down in max, you might have believed it. But they don't want you to. They want you to think I'm a nut case just spouting off." She chuckled and looked away. "'How could we be torturing her when she just made it into medium security? It's just a trigger. Something Dr. Lecter put in her head.'" she mimicked. A vague memory of an arrest in Newark occurred to her. The gentleman she'd arrested had explained that he needed to own machine guns in order to keep the aliens from abducting him again. He'd sported an aluminum-foil beanie, Clarice remembered.
Please don't think I'm a nut, Charlene, she pleaded mentally.
"Who's they?" Charlene asked, not unreasonably.
"McQuerry and…and Crawford," Clarice said. "McQuerry's only a tool. Doin what somebody bigger told him to do. You know the type."
Charlene sighed. She spread her hands. "Why? Why would they do this to you? What's their goal in all this? Don't make no sense."
"Did something change with Dr. Lecter?" Clarice asked.
Charlene crossed her arms and shook her head resolutely. "Aunt Clarice, I cain't tell you that. No way. Crawford would have my ass--,"
"So Crawford told you that you can't tell me something that's gonna be in the paper in a couple of days? C'mon, Charlene. You know better."
Clarice trembled. Yes, here it was. The moment of truth in which problems suddenly resolve themselves. She was surprised she hadn't seen it before.
"That's it, Charlene, isn't it? Dr. Lecter is coming back pretty soon. They thought they might be able to make me testify against him or something, work against him at his trial. But now that ain't happening and they don't have time. So they're gonna roll me in the courtroom in a wheelchair, drooling on myself and wetting my pants, and they're gonna say 'Look. Look what he did to her. Now she's this wreck.' Except it wasn't him who did this to me. That's about it, isn't it?"
Charlene stared at her aunt, incredulous. "Aunt Clarice, now why the heck would they want to do that? We've got enough evidence on Dr. Lecter to put him away ten times over. Even if we didn't have squats he goes back to the asylum." She began ticking off on her fingers. "But we can get him for Mason Verger – he confessed to that one on the phone, for Crissakes. We can get him for Donnie Barber. You did that one, remember? And Pembry and Boyle – those are capital murder charges down in Tennessee. And Lloyd Wyman. With all that, why would there be this conspiracy to drive you nuts?"
It would sound weak, Clarice knew, the weakness of a woman in despair. A crazy woman inventing enemies to explain why she was in the loony bin. But it was the truth. And God help her if Charlene didn't believe.
"Because," Clarice whispered. "I crossed Jack Crawford. I left the FBI to be with Dr. Lecter. He'll never forgive me for that."
Charlene Starling stared into her aunt's face. She thought Clarice looked pretty rough. She was pale and trembling. She seemed to be all eyes, wide terror-eyes. On her temple was a funny looking red mark. Charlene's eyes narrowed and she found herself wondering when ECT was used and when it wasn't.
Was she crazy? Mr. Crawford had told her that morning that Aunt Clarice had been suffering from triggers. Dr. Lecter had deliberately planted these mental time bombs to go off if Clarice had ever been in therapy to mess up her healing. Once Clarice had gotten more privileges, off went the triggers and she was delusional. Nightmares, Crawford had explained to her. They'd be very vivid and very real. Dr. Lecter knew exceptionally well how to mess up someone's mind.
Would Crawford really try and reduce her aunt to a vegetable just to convict a man who already had tons of evidence against him? Charlene shuddered to think about it. No. It couldn't be. But then again, it was an article of faith in Behavioral Science that the last agent who'd committed a Full Fuck-Up in Crawford's command had been exiled to investigate thefts along the DEW line in Alaska.
"I'll look into it," she promised her aunt, and stood up.
Aunt Clarice grabbed her arm and looked at her. Charlene was struck by the despair and terror in her eyes. Was this the same woman who had risked her own life for Charlene's all those years ago? It hardly seemed so, but there it was.
"No, wait," Clarice said breathlessly. "Please, Charlene. Visiting hours are until five. Stay with me. Please?"
Should she feed her aunt's delusions of persecution or not? It couldn't hurt. She had little to do these days. Mostly she was puttering around in the office pretending to clean up the Lecter file. She could afford to indulge her aunt. Maybe it would make her realize. Crawford wouldn't let her spend the afternoon visiting if he was out to fry Aunt Clarice's brain, would he?
So she smiled and sat down again. She patted her aunt's arm.
"OK, Aunt Clarice," she said. "I'll stay. Sure."
Clarice smiled gratefully at her. Charlene felt vaguely uneasy. Something had seemed to break in her aunt.
"I need your help, Charlene," Clarice whispered.
Charlene sighed. Crawford would give her holy hell for it, but she would do what she could.
"I'll talk to an attorney," she said. "I know a guy who's done some psychiatric work. I'll call him, see about getting you a hearing--,"
Clarice shook her head. "There isn't time," she said in what was almost a whimper. "At least I don't think there is. It'll take a month or so to get a hearing. By that time I'll be fried." She smiled with desperate gallows humor.
"Nobody's frying anybody," Charlene said. "Well, then what do you want me to do?"
"Get me out of here," Clarice responded.
Charlene stopped and stared at her aunt deliberately.
"Aunt Clarice," she said calmly, "I'm in the FBI. I can't just bust you out of here. Besides, you're here voluntarily. Sign out."
Clarice chuckled. "It's not like that, Charlene."
"Yes it is! Sign out. G'wan. Out you go."
"They won't let me out," Clarice repeated. "They'll keep me in here and dope me up and fry my brain. Charlene, look." She put her hands on her niece's. "You gotta help me," she said. "I know it's a lot, but if you don't help me, there ain't gonna be anything left to help."
Charlene took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"I'll do what I can, Aunt Clarice," she said judiciously.
For the next few hours they chatted of small things. Clarice described what she did like about medium security – her room had a window. There was a thick screen of cyclone fencing bolted over the window, but still it was a window and Clarice could open it if she scootched her fingers through the fencing. She had outside privileges and liked those. Therapy, however, was a euphemism for torture. No matter what, Clarice stuck to this religiously. It made her niece wonder. Charlene noticed the way her aunt cringed whenever the orderly shot her an annoyed look. Was this merely delusion? Mr. Crawford said it was, but she had to wonder. And why was there a mark on Aunt Clarice's temple?
When five o'clock came, the orderly made Charlene leave. Clarice was grateful for the time she'd had away from the chamber of horrors, and so she choked back her tears to hug her niece good-bye. She went obediently back to the dayroom, and it was there she broke down and cried, awaiting the hideous call: Starling to therapy.
Charlene Stenson Starling walked back to her car, lost in a funk of thought. On one hand, her boss and Clarice's psychiatrist, both telling her that this was a woman suffering previous damage deliberately put there by a sociopathic madman. On the other, her aunt, who had almost lost her life in saving Charlene's, convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was her fate to be tortured into insensibility.
Who was telling the truth? Charlene was not sure. But there was a feeling she had that she recognized, a dawning recognition. It was the way she'd felt the day when she discovered a Buenos Aires wine dealer had sold a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem to an Argentine gentleman eight weeks ago.
Charlene did not know who was telling the truth. But she knew how she could find out.