It has been three long, dragging months since the events that occurred on the Chesapeake Bay, yet the life of Clarice Starling has remained much unchanged. Or, at least concerning her so-called career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
At the moment, we find Agent Starling working in a dusky, obscure basement, bent over the endless piles of paperwork that her superiors have reduced her to as punishment for Paul Krendler's recent lobotomy and the second disgraceful escape of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, M.D.
The heavyweights at the Bureau held a hearing shortly after the events at the Chesapeake to determine the fate of Agent Starling and her career with the FBI. The obvious dispute was whether Clarice deserved a second chance with the Bureau and whether she should be allowed to stay. The less obvious question was whether there was any way for the FBI to get around it. The majority of the male-dominated panel had clearly wanted to do away with Starling for good, thus cleansing the Bureau of its "loose cannon" and media celebrity. The National Tattler had jumped at the chance to slander the Bureau's disgrace in its headlines, while highlighting Clarice's relationship with Lecter. The newspaper had taken advantage of Clarice's plight time and again, claiming in its ridiculous articles that she had, in fact, allowed Hannibal Lecter to escape the grasp of the authorities once again, due to their so-called "Beauty and the Beast" affair.
After much debate, the panel decided that the better way to punish Clarice for their public degradation was to exile her to the darkened basement office, as if trying to hide the source of the Bureau's scandal from public view. It was as if Clarice had a fatal disease that the FBI was trying to contain or quarantine; no one wanted to be associated with the female agent who, albeit had a successful start to her career, had slowly lost her momentum and began to plummet to the earth (much like a roller pigeon tends to do.) The Bureau was ashamed of Clarice Starling, and it didn't care whether she knew it or not. As far as they were concerned, Starling's career with the FBI had met its demise the second the headlines hit the newsstands.
Now, Clarice is left alone in her hidden office, far away from the world of the living and prosperous careers on the floors above her. The death of her own career was inevitable, yet the bitter loss weighs on her heavily.
Her life has become fairly routine. She spends her days at the office, slaving over unimportant and frivolous paperwork. She goes running as much as possible, most likely more than she should. For Clarice Starling, the world feels the most stable under her feet when she is racing down the wooded park trails, hidden from the stigma of her ill-fated career and the uncertainty of her future. She is undeniably lonely, but would never admit it to anyone. In all senses, Clarice Starling is lost and dead to the world.
However, there remains one man who can see her for all that she is, and all of her potential to have a second chance. And simply put, he refuses to ever give up on her.