Labyrinth of the Burning Heart

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By Jstarz927 and Aine Deande

A/N: Very important: Future chapters will be rated "R". Please change your settings to make sure you don't miss updates.

Thanks to all who have read and reviewed so far.

Chapter 5

Colliding Fates

Clarice Starling had lost all track of time. She knew that she had been bound in the chair for a little over six hours after she awakened. She had the sunlight and her watch to keep track of time. More than half of that time had been spent staring desperately at the new ceiling decoration, her stomach twisting like wrung laundry. And then Cahlin had come for her.

One snide remark was made about whether or not she had enjoyed her company before the rag was tied over her eyes again and a blade held under her throat as she was untied and led, stumbling through twisting, turning hallways. Hallways that varied greatly in the amount of light allowed to permeate the silent corridors. She felt that an immensely slow strobe light was flashing before her eyes as she passed through doors from light to darkness.

In spite of her blindness, Clarice could feel the vastness of the hallways as cool air molecules bathed every inch of their skin as they turned one corner after another, sometimes backtracking before abruptly turning in another direction. She could sense great looming shapes on each side of the halls as well. They felt like statues or some sort of enormous furniture.

I must be in a palace, or one big-ass mansion.

Perhaps Cahlin felt Clarice's hesitance as she took in her surroundings because the blade dug a little deeper into her flesh, urging her to walk faster. They walked for a moment more before Cahlin abruptly turned Clarice to the right and led her through a doorway.

The door closed behind them and suddenly the world was plunged into darkness. This was not the dark of the asylum or the blackness of night. Clarice was once again groping blindly around in Jame Gumb's cellar as she walked through darkness that could be felt and smelt and tasted. It was living, this darkness; it grabbed for her with long, thin fingers.

And Clarice could not help but notice the utter, undying silence. The strains of "Goodbye Horses" replayed as echoes in her mind, as did the screams and the slamming of iron-barred gates. She felt, rather than heard Cahlin's breathing on the back of her neck as she led her further into the darkness.

How Cahlin knew her way, Clarice could only guess. The minute they walked through the darkness was the longest of her life and she wondered what the use of the blindfold was anymore. They stopped and Clarice could hear the clinking of metal as her right hand was cuffed to a wooden post. The blindfold was removed from her eyes and Cahlin walked away.

"I suggest you get some rest," she stated simply as her footsteps died away, her voice reverberating off the ceiling of the apparently vast room. And once again Clarice was enveloped in the sound of silence.

The utter panic that had been building in her chest burst out and her breathing quickened while her legs collapsed under her. The wooden post was short and she could only sink so far to the ground, which happened to be covered with lush carpet. Her heart, always sounding unnaturally loud in her ears, hammered away in her chest like an entire marching band. Her fingers dug into the carpet fibers.

It was some time before Clarice discovered the bed immediately behind her. Her hand had been cuffed to the headboard the entire time. The sheets were silky under her touch and the curtains and tied up on either side. Without another thought, she crawled under the sheets and sank immediately into the more comforting darkness of sleep.

Clarice Starling had lost all track of time. At first she tried to find out by turning on the light on her watch. But the tinny glow of the dial had seared her eyes like an explosion and she threw her hands over her eyes as dancing spots continued swarming her vision for long afterwards. After that, Clarice had simply lain in the bed, staring into the nonexistent ceiling and letting time flow past her as it wished.

Cahlin came to her again minutes later and Clarice's eyes nearly died. She carried a small lamp in her hands, shaded and perhaps no brighter than a blacklight but to Clarice it was as bright as a star. She covered her face, hoping Cahlin would leave, but Cahlin hung the light on one end of the headboard and set something down in front of her before sitting back and waiting.

After the five minutes it took for Clarice's eyes to adjust, her vision had returned enough to make out the dinner tray that had been set before her. Sandwiches, some cut fruit, and a drink. No silverware. She looked up to see Cahlin watching her steadily, her expression unreadable. Clarice finally began eating after figuring that if Cahlin wanted to poison her, she would have done so at the bar. The food was good and Cahlin sat as patiently and unemotional as a stone while she ate.

As her hunger was satiated, Clarice began to feel more like herself and her eyes moved furtively around the room, taking in her surroundings. The dim lamp illuminated the golden and white sheets of the bed and the similarly colored clothes of Cahlin. The golden bracelets that Cahlin still wore glittered in the soft light. An ironic image of an angel came to mind. Clarice could see far enough up the opposite wall to make out some faded paintings before the rest of the upper room faded into blackness.

The room was vast and opulent, but the air held the essence of loneliness, as if it had never been truly lived in at all. There were also darker impressions that tainted the air, and although Clarice could not place them now, she would recognize them later as death.

Cahlin smiled slightly, not kindly. "Not too uncomfortable, I trust?"

Clarice wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The food had given her confidence and she felt more like herself than ever. "If you're going to kill me, do it now. Don't play around with me. Every movie villain that did that ended up dead."

"My, my, you do get to the point immediately. Is that what you think I am then, the monster? You might change your mind in the course of time. I will make you realize things that you have locked in your soul so tightly that even Hannibal… Lecter could not bare to yourself."

The pause between first name and last name had been slight, and would have remained unnoticeable to anyone less attuned to his name. So, this Cahlin was on first-name basis with Lecter.

Cahlin continued, oblivious. "You'll find out who the true monster is before all this is over. Who knows, I may even let you live… and now let me get to the point with you right now. Don't try to escape, you will die of hunger before you find your way out. And don't give me trouble, or you will strongly regret it. Behave just as a helpless victim should and the next few weeks might be less painful… not that I'm promising anything."

And with that, Cahlin uncuffed Clarice's hand and, keeping the blade no further than an inch from her neck, led her toward a side door of the room, pushed her into an opulent bathroom and slammed the door.

So passed the next few days. The only way Clarice could know that days had passed was Cahlin. Cahlin brought her a meal tray twice a day, sitting calmly as she ate before letting her use the bathroom. Sometimes, short but courteous conversations were held although Lecter was never mentioned again.

"Have you killed anyone since LaVorste?"

"No. And Helen was a mistake." Cahlin said it quickly as she'd rather not think about her. Clarice knew then that she had been wrong about the killer not knowing the victims.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Yes."

"So why bother feeding me."

"Death from starvation takes weeks. I don't have that sort of time."

Which left Clarice wishing she had never said anything.

Sometimes after Clarice had been cuffed again to the bed after using the bathroom, she would feel a needle enter her skin. She assumed that they were sedatives, as she fell asleep almost immediately after being injected. What she did not remember were the violent, shifting dreams that plagued her sleep afterwards. When she awoke they would slip from her mind as quickly as water leaking through her fingers.

Clarice had long learned not to panic in tough situations, to lay low and wait for help.

But nobody knows where I am…and that's my own fault.

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Silence. Silence, advancing slowly in a darkened room. A dark figure, standing in the doorway. Slowly, now. He flips on the light, lost in thought. Rubbing his temple gently, as his good hand closes the door behind him.

It was a quiet room that Dr. Lecter entered. Lit by the headlamp he had taken the trouble of flipping on. Warm because of the temperature control the chambermaid had no doubt turned on. Appealing, for the candlesticks on the table had been lit, fresh flowers had been brought in by the cleaning maid, and the few personal touches Dr. Lecter had provided…But it was silent…silent as a graveyard. Perhaps. Dr. Lecter wouldn't know. He hadn't been to a cemetery for over ten years.

Dr Lecter took off his trench coat with his usual grace- – gently now, he told himself, as he pulled down the sleeve on his injured arm, swung to face the desk to his right and checked the messages left for him. Actually, messages left for Doctor Washington, as his answering machine addressed him, as did everybody else.

He listened as Nicole Bondelier rambled about scheduling a new appointment, asking him to call her back on what he assumed was her private number. He scribbled down a note or two on the notepad, and registered with approval a new bottle of Château d'Yquem that was positioned at the table, ice still cold and frozen. And all the while he was going through the steps of this routine, his mind was a blank draw.

Nothing moved inside his memory palace. The curtains were drawn and all doors were ritually closed, barred against any thought that could interfere with the peace he had imposed upon his silent corridors. All that was left now was a faint, fragile screaming in the back of his head, and sometimes a shadow of purple was cast over the place like an eclipse of the sun.

There was nothing else moving in his mind. Dr Lecter preferred it that way.

He raised his injured hand to eye level, noting the spot on his hand where the Echinacea had been incompletely applied. There were still some traces of paste surrounding the infection and he rubbed them in now, rubbing out the essence of Nicole Bondelier at the same time.

Dr Lecter drew up a chair next to the table and sat down, laying his hand in front of him. This appendage. This conglomeration of bone, muscle, and blood that he had willingly destroyed for her sake. So she would not be hurt, would be saved. The names of Clarice and Mischa had become even more inseparable in the month following the Chesapeake incident. Clarice and Mischa with those soft blue eyes ripping apart his soul…

Those blue eyes staring as he slammed their hands down together onto the neighboring table.

"Above or below the wrist…Clarice? This is really going to hurt…"

The slam of the cleaver into unyielding wood, a scream of horror, and then a silence more deafening than any sound perceptible to the human ear. Dr Lecter lifting his shining eyes to the distant, unconscious face of Clarice. No words were allowed to disrupt the exchange of his mutual pain and sorrow.

Dr Lecter spread his left hand into a star flat upon the table. He brought the heavy cleaver handle down upon his hand again and again, feeling and hearing his carpals and metacarpals splinter and break. If his medical knowledge had served him well, he would have broken every single bone cleanly and neatly, thus allowing for the best chance at full recovery.

He pulled his shattered hand carefully through the metal cuff and looked one final time upon Clarice. She would never realize, would never accept the truth. The feelings in the pit of his stomach, those that had allowed him to steal a single kiss from her, did not abate as he realized this. He raised his good hand and brushed a sweaty strand of auburn hair from her face and his lips touched her forehead lightly. He would continue to respect her, perhaps even love her, but would she feel the same way? The resounding sirens crept closer to the house. There was no more time to reflect on such matters anymore.

He turned away from her and a drop of his sweat fell upon her cheek as he walked away. Or it could have been a tear.

A shadow of a glimmer in Dr Lecter's eye as we return to the present. He looked back to his hand, echoes of the sirens playing over in his head. Clarice. There was time to reflect now, plenty of time, but it seemed as though he did not want this after all. His own heart's desire being as much a mystery to him as they were to the woman whose lips he had so tenderly kissed.

She had held her incorruptibility before her as the armor shielding her in her quest for sanctity…whereas with him, his memories proved almost as helpful in that department. Denial was no longer just an option, it was self-protection. Fear of losing soon won out to fear of asking. And those bloody godawful memories…

Today had not gone well. Today had not gone well at all. Dr Lecter silently berated himself for having acted so bluntly imbecilic, and in the company of someone else, and a woman... and a physician, no less! And he had allowed himself to become distracted at the mere sight of… of… He needn't recall what had transpired to know. Purple. Purple eggplant, purple, the color his Mischa had adored above all others. He had been distracted… that simply wouldn't do.

Whenever Dr Hannibal Lecter feels as though the walls of his memory palace might be buckling in on him, shadows of memories moving too close, the sound of a swinging axe advancing too intently. . . he performs a test. A test with himself, and the world, to see if all is still well in it. To see if the world had changed while he closed his eyes and lost himself in his past.

Getting up swiftly from his chair, Dr Lecter moved to the sideboard, where he took one single white teacup from the counter. It was a plain teacup, nothing special about it. Property of the infirmary. That would do well. He needn't trash his own antique 30-piece china tea set.

Dr. Lecter placed the teacup on the table. Pure white porcelain seemed to laugh mockingly at him from where it rested so peacefully. For now.

In his mind's eye, Dr Lecter has already begun pushing the teacup over the edge. He watches as the cup falls off the table, to the floor, shatters, and he feels himself preparing to wait until it will fix itself back together.

This won't ever happen, he knows. No chance to reverse time has been presented to him yet, no increasing order pointing the way of time to move. He has not yet bent the direction of time to his will. Entropy has not yet mended itself, and for now, the great astrophysicist Stephen Hawking's hypothesis stands as it is.

Dr. Lecter stared at the porcelain, thoughts of Clarice and Mischa invading his mind beyond his aptitude to stop it. The swinging of the axe collided with the sight of Starling's tear, falling from her eye as it began its lonely journey down. If gravity could be dismissed, then, perhaps, that same tear could have moved up again, into Clarice's beautiful blue eye. If only time would reverse itself.

Uncharacteristically hesitant, Dr. Lecter made no movement whatsoever to do as he planned. The teacup remained where it was, resting on the tabletop while mocking him with its wholeness, with its white perfection. White like Mischa's milk teeth, mocking him from the bottom of the pit…

NO! Suddenly, Dr Lecter found himself clutching the sides of the table with his incredible strength, clutching its wooden vastness with his good hand so tightly one might think he could break the wood by doing so. The other hand he pressed into the tabletop as though to imprint the impression of it in the unrelenting wood forever.

His head shook ferociously with conceded effort. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it... His heart hammered away at a rate of one-hundred-eighty-five, the timbre resembling in his ears, the stampede of a thousand deer.

What torture must a man endure before he is freed from his demons? Piercing the air with a high-pitched, shrill scream, Dr Lecter pulled himself back to composure. Damp spots stayed there where his hand had clutched the table.

Determined in the sudden change of mood to divert attention from this little scene, Dr Lecter grabbed the remote control laying on the stand next to the answering machine and switched on the television. Normally he wouldn't degrade himself to such poor, not to mention tedious modes of entertainment, but finding he had no choice but to silence the cries, he indulged himself in another boring late-in-the-afternoon story on beloved news channel CNN.

Yadda yadda yadda…President choked on a peanut. I could care less. Yadda yadda yadda…oh, the Winter Olympics. Very interesting, hmmm. Salt Lake City isn't too far from here… there'd only be about a million other faceless fools there, cramping into their seats for dear life to be able to see a thing of the event. And the masses call this entertainment?

Dr Lecter had never been too fond of the public's general opinion on how to be entertained, and usually marveled in the stupidity of today's men by ridiculing the covered stories into the ground where they belonged.

He watched for awhile, boring news of today moving past him like a pleasant wind, his mind vaguely noting the parchedness in his mouth and how he needed to have a drink, when then noticed the teacup again. It hadn't moved since he had placed it there… then again, what had he expected?

A flicker of a thought lit the outer corners of the hallway where he stood, pleasantly enjoying the scenery he was admiring through the open window. Tea. Well, there was a teacup right by his side after all, and he was thirsty…

Thirsty. Teacup. Thirsty. Teacup. Tea would be sensible. He should do the sensible thing: make tea. Always a better option than simply letting the poor teacup crash onto the floor, that much was certain. And he would probably be unable to enjoy the exquisite taste of the Chateau d'Yquem, feeling the way he did… yes, tea would be fine. Plain, dull drink that could ease his wearied mind and saturate his parched throat.

Dr Lecter stood up, moved to the kitchen, which took up an extra three square meters of the apartment he had been occupying for the last month or so. He had made himself as comfortable as possible, given the knowledge he would probably have to spend weeks in therapy. It took him no less than one-hundredth of a second to determine where the Earl Grey tea bags lay.

Back to his chair at the table, several moments passed. Using his good hand, Dr Lecter stirred the tea absent-mindedly with a copper teaspoon. His thoughts were set on one conclusion, one realization… he had to somehow get his injured hand around the teacup.

That would be his test for today. He hadn't done enough exercise in therapy today, thanks to his most irksome turn with the young, oblivious female doctor, and Dr Lecter was a man fond of routine and practice. It is only with practice after all that we perfect our ways, and Dr Lecter very strongly believed in this view.

He took off the brace again and laid his hand flat on the table. Would it be strong enough? He fiercely hoped, no, knew it so. Dr Lecter would never do something so foolish and reckless as ruin all that had been accomplished over the last weeks just because he was determined to have some tea. That wouldn't do. But his hand was fine. Jaw-line set in what some might recognize as a stubborn child's scowl, he tried to wrap his hand around the cup.

Oouch. A slight crack could be heard in his index finger if one listened close enough, and Lecter's eyes closed for a mere nanosecond before he recollected himself. Apparently one of the little bones in his index finger, perhaps a carpal, hadn't healed as sufficiently as needed for the intense exercise after all. Careful, now…

Struggling with himself as well as the teacup, Dr Lecter slowly worked all his fingers around the cup. Muscle by muscle, his hand took the teacup into a shaky, but determined embrace. He tested if his grip was fierce enough. Then, with effort that seemed beyond any normal man's capacity, he lifted the teacup from where it had rested on the table. Half-healed tendons and damaged neurons screamed in protest, but his grip did not decrease in strength.

A look of triumph lit his features. He had succeeded. He had managed to do as he wished and his hand had cooperated nicely. Dr Lecter turned his hand and lifted the cup to his mouth so that he could sip his hard-won drink. Mmmm. Excellent.

"Clarice Starling missing..."

Freeze.

The teacup fell out of his hand and shattered into pieces on the floor, broken white shards lying quiescent and still. It did not gather itself back together and jump back into his hand. Time had not stopped despite proof of the contrary when he heard the TV news reporter speak her name, and moved on as it ever did.

Dr Lecter did not even grant the shards a second glance as he rushed over to the TV, turning up the volume rapidly with his good hand, as to not miss a word of the news. By now any doubt that might have led him to believe he had heard the name wrongly was dismissed, as a picture of little Starling was displayed in the top right corner of the screen, while the reporter read on about her sudden disappearance from the Bureau.

His eyes focused on her face, sparks in the center of his orbs dancing as he held the image whole. Little Starling in her navy suit, holding up the badge she had finally earned. A broad grin plastered across her face. Holding up to the camera with such pride the symbol of the institution that would destroy her.

"Special Agent M. Starling was rumored to have been investigating a series of crimes that are believed to be the work of known and possibly returned felon Dr. Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter."

Hearing the newsreader mention his name, Dr Lecter's keen ears and eyes concentrated on the news bulletin again. He raised his eyebrows in slight amusement as he watched the image of the reporter replaced by a full screen blowup of his mug shot. He stared into his own eyes that seemed to sneer from the screen.

"A ten-year veteran of the Bureau, Agent Starling was last seen by Memphis police on Saturday, August 4. The spokesperson for the Bureau refused to comment as to why no apparent investigation has been launched into her disappearance almost a week ago."

Dr Lecter let out a slight hiss through the teeth while the reporter continued rambling. "An informant with the 'Washington Post' has stated that foul play is suspected in the disappearance of Agent Starling, as it is well-known that a showdown between Lecter and Agent Starling occurred just last month on Chesapeake Bay…

"Lecter is a still a fugitive from the law whose whereabouts are unknown. Although no ransom note has been received by the authorities, Agent Starling's best friend, Ardelia Mapp is still intensely concerned." The news program then showed a clip of Ardelia Mapp, stepping out of her house, reporters swarming the place like termites.

The camera zoomed in on her shocked and then increasingly worried face. Dr Lecter could decipher rather than hear her mouth forming the words 'No comment, no comment, no comment' to every question asked, and the corners of his mouth turned up into an amused, albeit humorless smile. Clarice chose her friends rarely, and well.

"If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Clarice Starling or Hannibal Lecter…"

Dr. Lecter needed to hear no more. He switched off the television and simply continued to kneel before the TV set, his maroon orbs staring out into vast space, seeing nothing.

Brave Clarice, he thought. His nostrils flared, as though expecting to pick up her undeniable scent of almond soap and crisp determination in the air.

What have you gotten yourself into now?