A/N- Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing this plot bunny. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm enjoying writing a Clarice centered fic. Special thanks to my office tech, who doesn't know he volunteered himself to land in one of my fics (turnabout is fair play, though. He put me in a Trek scenario he's writing.). Well, off we go dear readers.
.-.-.-.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
-from 'Burnt Norton' from 'Four Quarters', T.S. Elliot

Obscurité interne

Almost a week had passed since the party. Clarice had retreated into her own locked silence, and her subdued manner had cast a fog over the home. Even the dogs had been quiet, staying closer than usual than Starling, the only thing interrupting her muteness was when she tripped over one of them and set to cursing. They keened at the door when she left, and waited for her to arrive home, large sentinels on the living room floor. She'd taken to working longer days, coming home late, but coming home always to a dinner Noble had made. Her actions had effects on him as well. He was also working later, and rising earlier. They'd been through it before, in those first six months after the encounter with Jame Gumb. The difference then was that they hadn't been living together.

It was Thursday when Clarice didn't come home. Noble panicked, until he caught sight of the note on the fridge, scrawled in her boarding-school taught hand.

Noble,
Up at the cottage, took the dogs. Will be home later.

Love,
Clarice

In the small note, Pilcher knew she was going to be all right. She'd gone up to the house he and his sister shared on the Chesapeake. His sister jokingly referred to the creaky old house as 'the cottage', something no one would call anything of its sheer size and age. Clarice had laughed the first time she'd hard, and immediately adopted it. Noble opened the fridge door, stared for a long time, then decided to go out. He rang Roden up, and they met for a beer.

In the comfortable atmosphere of the bar, over beer and chicken wings, Pilcher related the events of Saturday's party to his former colleague. They had gone separate ways after working together for so long, Pilcher going to Baltimore, Roden staying with the Smithsonian. They never cut ties, but there was no love lost between Starling and Roden. Pilcher stared into his longneck as Roden came to a conclusion about Clarice's behaviour.

'She's having an affair.' Pilcher looked up at him, almost taken aback. Roden's eyes gleamed. 'Leave her.'

Pilch sighed. 'Roden, she's not having an affair. She wasn't afraid when I... no, she was afraid when I found her, but it wasn't fear of being caught.' He swigged the last of the Bud, rolling the bottle in his hands afterwards. She had looked like she had seen a ghost, to Pilcher's eyes. A very unfriendly ghost. 'She looked frightened.' he finished, setting the bottle down. He reached for his wallet, dropping a couple bills on the table to cover his share of the tab. 'Thanks for the beers, Roden, I'll see you later.'

Roden protested, apologized, trying to make up for his mistake. He'd hurt Pilch, he realized later. Pilcher, for his part, walked out the door, down the block, to his beloved Celica. The little compact started faithfully, and he drove home, a little buzzed and a little more concerned than he had been when he had left home.

He didn't see the silver sedan following four car lengths behind him.
.-.-.-.

Clarice had driven up the coast, four dogs in the Taurus, heads hung out windows, tongues lolling and ears flapping. The lakehouse stood grey and somber in the early evening, trying to look dignified, like an old woman past her prime. She parked in the gravel drive, and let the dogs loose from the car. They took off like shots, all in separate directions, then forming back into a pack. Grabbing her coat, warmed by dogs laying on it, she followed behind them, sometimes calling to them to keep them in view. She walked down on the sand, watching the waves lap, creating patterns and erasing them. She walked for a long time, then sat, staring at the distance.

She'd sat too long, and her body protested when she rose, knocking sand from her bottom, whistling for the dogs. She led them back up to the house, going inside for a few minutes to get some towels to protect her seats from the wet, sandy dogs. The drive back to Baltimore was peaceful. Clarice listened to the road, and thought of home.
.-.-.-.

Pilcher was almost asleep when he felt his wife's presence in bed, warm against his back, arms around him. He woke himself enough to roll over to face her. She looked better, but still drawn and tired. He smile, and she smiled back.

'Hi.' he said, stifling a yawn. She laughed.

'Next time I won't come home if that's the welcome I inspire.' He smiled, and apologized. 'How's Roden?' she asked.

'The same. He told me to leave you, that you were cheating on me.' A dangerous truth, but one that needed to be said. Clarice grimaced, he saw anger in her eyes, then she buried it. Some things weren't important enough to mull over. She had things herself that she needed to tell Pilcher.

She stayed quiet too long. "What?' Noble asked gently, a knot in his stomach tightening, brief suspicions that Roden was right. He put a hand on Clarice's shoulder, felt it rise and fall as she took a deep breath.

'I went to see Steve today.' His eyes held a question until he registered the name. The psychiatrist she had seen in during her mandatory counseling, Dr. Steven Elliot. He'd met the guy once, and was pretty impressed with how he'd helped Clarice. On the other hand, if Clarice had gone back to see him, and with her dislike of headpshrinkers, then something must've troubled her more deeply than he had thought. 'Why?' he asked, brushing hair from Clarice's cheek. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, glitteringly wet.

'I... I've been... The man in the hallway the other night.' She was trying. She wanted to tell Noble, she'd kept secrets from him for too long, but she couldn't will her to speak the words that were needed. She fumbled, trying for something, anything. It was getting her nowhere. 'The man, the other night, he reminded me of someone else. I think.' Pilch was quiet, only asking 'Who?', allowing her to continue at her own pace.

'Hannibal Lecter.' She watched Pilch stiffen in the silence that followed the name.

'But it wasn't him?'

Truth? To lie here? Best to be in between. "I'm not sure. I don't think so. I don't know.'

Pilcher drew her closer, and Clarice placed a hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat there. She closed her eyes.

'Let's go to the cottage tomorrow, Pilch.' He nodded agreeing with her, before he realized what she'd said.

'Tomorrow's Friday, Clarice. We have work.'

Her smile was sad and tired when she looked at him, she was sad and tired. 'I've gotten a week off, under orders from the Doc. I'm stressing myself sick, he said. Or rather, would be if this continued.'

Pilch worked it through in his head. On such short notice it would be hard, but he eventually assured Clarice that they would leave tomorrow afternoon and stay through the weekend at least. She was curled tight against him, and he waited for sleep to come, listening to her deepening breaths, and then it came. For the first time in weeks, Clarice slept in silence.
.-.-.-.

A silver luxury sedan cruised slowly down the suburban streets, glass and chrome glinting under streetlamps, headlights illuminating street signs and front yard landscaping. It slowed, right blinker on, and turned into cul-de-sac. It idled a moment too long, brake lights flared, in front of a house at the center of the cul-de-sac. Away, then, stopping at the corner, blinker on again. Sedately driving out of the neighbourhood, no one concerned by the visit, no one the wiser to their visitor. Tomorrow night, things might change.
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