Disclaimer in part one. Again, sorry for the HUGE intervals in posting, but real life can be so unobliging sometimes *sigh* Rehearsals, assignments . . . can't a girl just write some fanfic? Anyway . . .

four

Mid-morning sunshine streamed through the open window. Vaguely familiar music drifted up to her. Clarice wondered if she was still dreaming. She looked around the room. It was stylishly decorated and she could see herself in the large mirrors on the cupboard doors. She frowned; did she really look that awful?

The door opened and Lecter entered, carrying a breakfast tray. Clarice couldn't help remembering the last time he'd cooked for her, and hoped it was just cereal.

"Good morning, Clarice. Hungry?"

"A little." She struggled to sit and he put down the tray to help her. She flinched when he touched her, then closed her eyes. "My ribs—"

"Of course. I'm sorry." He handed her the tray and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Thank you." Don't forget your manners, Clarice.

"Tell me what happened."

There was something in his tone that commanded obedience. Clarice looked out the window. "I was driving. It was raining pretty hard. I should have been paying more attention. I should have been able to stop in time but . . . but I didn't. They said that . . . that it was instantaneous. That she wasn't in any pain."

"What would your daddy say, huh, Clarice? Killing your best friend?"

She looked at him sharply, her mouth slightly open. The grief in her eyes was obvious.

"Clarice, it was an accident."

"It should have been me."

"Don't ever say that!" The anger in his voice surprised her. She stared after him in shock as he left the room. How dare he? He couldn't possibly have any idea what she was going through. Monsters didn't have feelings.

Still, the words he'd uttered before vanishing from her life echoed in her head. Would you ever say to me: stop, if you loved me, you'd stop . . . ?

She pushed the tray away and lay back against the pillows. What right did he have to bring her here? She hadn't asked him to help. She didn't want to be here. She just wanted to be left alone.

She didn't deserve his kindness.

*

Lecter sat at the kitchen table, looking at the teacup in front of him. For a brief moment, he was tempted to push it over the edge of the table with the faint hope that it would reassemble itself. He thought of Clarice, lying upstairs, broken and bruised, and the moment passed. He sighed and rinsed the cup out instead.

In his memory palace is a room that he hates visiting: the kitchen of Krendler's Chesapeake home. At the same time, he cannot help returning there, time and time again. In that room, Clarice is at her most beautiful, her most proud. Lecter does not regret what happened in that kitchen.

His favorite memory of her is of the barn at Mason Verger's farm. He had become one of her lambs them, in need of rescuing. If her bullet hadn't killed the man who shot her, Lecter would have happily finished the job.

He sighed again and returned to reality. He couldn't afford to sit and daydream – as pleasant as it was. There were things to be done.

*

It was raining softly and Dwayne was the only person visiting the cemetery. He stood in front of the mound of earth, his hands in his coat pockets.

"I miss you, Delia. So much." He bowed his head, the words struggling to come. "Clarice is gone. Lecter took her. Snatched her right out the hospital. And those fools at the FBI aren't even trying hard to find her!"

Dwayne wiped his wet cheeks and looked up at the gray sky, seeming to realize only now that it was raining. "This is . . . wrong. You should still be here. It's just not . . . fair. I met this kid at the hospital. Twelve years old and he's dying of leukemia. Twelve, Delia. But you know what? He said he's not scared of dying. That he was going to the place where the desert meets the ocean and—" He smiled. "And where birds fly backwards to keep the dust out their eyes."

He looked at the flowers left by people he didn't know, and looked at the countless other gravestones. Tears sprang to his eyes as he fingered the diamond ring in his pocket. "I really, really miss you. And I know if you were here, you'd be trying to find Clarice, so that's what I'm going to do. I promise."

*

"Dr. Lecter, why did you take me from the hospital?" Clarice put down the crossword puzzle as soon as he entered the room. It bothered her that in the week that she'd been here – wherever here was – the question had only just occurred to her.

"Because you needed me," Lecter said, matter-of-factly.

"That's a bit presumptuous of you, isn't it?"

The doctor shrugged. "Presumptuous or not, it's the truth."

She couldn't argue. The black cloud of depression that had consumed her in the hospital had lifted slightly since she'd been with Lecter. Still, she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.

"What exactly do you plan on doing with me?"

"I'm not going to hurt you—"

"I know. I—" She sighed. "I just don't understand why you'd risk capture to come back and take me out of the hospital. Where I was doing just fine, by the way."

"Have the lambs stopped screaming yet, Clarice?" He used the same, measured tone as when he'd spoken to her in Memphis all those years before. Even then, he'd known so much about her, more than he'd had a right to. Why couldn't she lie to him? Was it because the single time she had, she'd been eaten up by guilt? Maybe it was because he'd never lied to her.

She sighed again. "No."

"Do you ever think about our conversation at the dinner table? About what I said to you?"

"Yes." She drew the word out, studying his face. His expression betrayed nothing. Where was he going with this?

"And you've never once thought about how everything turned out?" He paused, deliberately. "You've never once imagined a different ending?"

She remembered a moment in the kitchen. Her heart had stopped beating when she'd felt his lips on hers and then, CLICK. She'd been in shock, hadn't realized she'd cuffed him until he held up their joined wrists. An earlier memory: "People will say we're in love."

Suddenly confused, and frightened – why was she frightened? – she brushed her hair behind her ears, looking away. Looking at anything, except him. The room was too hot, her wrist itched and her throat felt very, very dry.

People will say we're in love.

I came halfway around the world to watch you run.

Would you ever say to me: stop, if you loved me—

She jerked, startled, when he touched a handkerchief to her face. When had she started crying? Finally able to look him in the eye, she was surprised to see a sad smile on his face.

"Keep thinking about that different ending, Clarice," he said, then left, quietly closing the door behind him. Clarice dropped her head, her mind spinning. Her gaze fell on the abandoned crossword. She couldn't help the wry smile that sprang to her lips: five down, complete Hiroshima, Mon . . . Clumsy fingers picked up the pencil and she painstakingly filled in her answer.

Amour.

TBC