When she woke for the first time, it was to scratchy sheets and the quiet noises that permeate any hospital room: the murmur of conversations and muted footsteps in the hall, the rattle of equipment rolling past, the varied clicks and beeps as machines beside the bed carried out their duties.
Opening her eyes merely confirmed what she already knew. She lay alone on a narrow bed in a dimly lit hospital room, her head and chest slightly elevated, one finger trapped in a plastic embrace with a cord trailing to something alongside the bed. The glowing numbers were unreadable, their blurriness only adding to the pounding in her head, and she turned away.
The door stood open, spilling a bit of light from the hall. A shadow moved past. Some small effort brought it almost into focus on the next pass: a state trooper, by the uniform. No, two; the pant leg of another was visible beyond the door frame. It was the second who spoke first.
"Quit your pacing, wouldja?"
Clarice cheered silently; the clacking of boot heels as the officer paced was rather irritating.
"You ain't bothered by this shit babysitting job? If that psycho comes back to finish her off, you think we're gonna be able to do fuck-all about it? You wanna end up with your brains hanging out?"
"Keep your voice down, idiot. You didn't even see the guy's brains anyway."
"Yeah, neither did you, but I bet you ain't eager to hand the cannibal a knife and offer him your head, either."
She drifted back to sleep, contented by a single thought: Hannibal Lecter was not in custody. He had escaped again.
The next time Clarice woke, her vision was clear, her headache had gone, and Clint Pearsall stood at her bedside.
"Starling, good, you're awake." After a glance at her face, his eyes skimmed over the sheet outlining her form.
It was hardly lascivious, but the thin hospital gown and sheet left her feeling more exposed than she had in Lecter's idea of appropriate dinner dress. She splayed her fingers out flat on the bed, resisting the urge to clutch the sheets to her and demand her clothing. It wouldn't be here with her in any case; it was probably already lying in evidence bags at Quantico. Who would be heading up the team this time? Not her, clearly. Not after this.
"You good, Starling? Not too, uh, tired?" Pearsall shifted his weight and studied the medical paraphernalia stationed around the room. It struck her that he, too, was uncomfortable in this situation; perhaps his discomfort could be used to her advantage. Better to press the attack now than end up playing defense in the days and weeks to come.
"Fine, sir. You have Lecter in custody? Is he talking?"
Pearsall stepped back and coughed.
"Uh, no, no, we don't have Lecter. But don't panic, Starling. We've got guards on your door –"
"What do you mean you don't have Lecter? I may not remember much of that night, but I sure as hell remember dialing 911. You mean to tell me that we were less than 10 minutes from grabbing him and we still couldn't manage it?" She struggled to sit up properly, hissing as the forgotten pain in her shoulder made itself known when her muscles pulled at the incision. "Jesus, you think guards on a door will make a difference? Apparently he can waltz in and out of anyplace whenever he damn well pleases."
She could hear the doctor's voice in her head, warning her not to overplay her hand. Too much aggression would be just as damaging as not enough.
"Sorry. Sorry, I'm a little…." She waggled her right hand, the plastic meter clipped to her index finger a dragging weight.
Pearsall cleared his throat and raised a hand in reply.
"Understandable, Starling. You've had a rough few days. But I still need to know what happened in there. The sooner the better. He has a twelve-hour head start on us now."
"I'd be surprised if he wasn't out of the country by now, sir."
Pearsall pulled a chair alongside the bed and dropped into it.
"Walk me through it anyway, Starling."
Short sentences. No details. Keeping things simple would avoid all sorts of awkward questions, she hoped.
"I woke in a bedroom on the second floor, wearing a black dress and shoes that weren't mine – I assume those are in evidence?" At his nod, she continued. "I was disoriented. The phone on the landing had been disconnected. I managed to twist the wires and call out. The dispatcher said ten minutes. I heard voices downstairs; I couldn't make them out. I found Dr. Lecter and Mr. Krendler in the dining room."
"Paul was alive at that point?"
"Yes. He seemed drugged, though the drugs in my own system might have skewed my impression."
Pearsall nodded again. "Toxicology will tell us for sure. Go on."
"That's it, sir. I'm not sure of anything after that." She had expected the lie to burn in her throat; instead, she had to fight to suppress a smirk. Would they have you back, do you think? The FBI? Those people you despise almost as much as they despise you?
She silently warned herself to pay attention. It wouldn't do to have Pearsall questioning her sincerity or her sanity, cannibal in her head or no.
"There's gotta be something, Starling. Christ, if the techs have it right, he split open Paul's skull and cooked his brain right there at the table."
To react or not to react? He was watching her closely; it was too late to pretend surprise. She settled for quiet blankness, eventually rasping out, "Could you pour me some water, please?"
He did so with quick efficiency, standing and reaching for the pitcher on the rolling table at the foot of the bed. Flipping the cup over, he filled it halfway and handed it to her.
"You remembered something just now."
Clarice took a careful sip of the water, then a second, before answering.
"Mr. Krendler, he … I think he…." She didn't have to fake the disgust twisting her face. "He was eating a piece of his brain."
The shock on Pearsall's face was delicious. Clarice watched him over the rim of the cup as she took a third sip. She held her peace while he collected himself. No need to offer any more answers than he asked for.
Pearsall sat back down rather abruptly. "Lecter was feeding him his own brain?" His revulsion was plain.
"It was just a flash, sir." Clarice stifled a shrug, judging it too casual a response to show her superior. Your superior, Clarice? Truly? We shall have to work to eliminate such misguided thought patterns.
Her eye twitched. "I couldn't say what was really going on. My memories are less than coherent."
Pearsall pursed his lips, but he didn't press. He leaned back slightly, raising his left ankle to his right knee, and Clarice waited for the change of subject that was sure to follow.
"Why do you think he targeted Paul? Why set up shop at his summer house?"
The question had to come up sometime. Clarice paused to give the appearance of thought.
"Any answer I could give would only be conjecture, sir."
"You've studied the way Lecter thinks, Starling. You're entitled to some conjecture."
"I suppose he felt it was fitting, given Mr. Krendler's involvement with Mason Verger."
A blatant lie, though revenge was a motive the FBI might understand. A safer one, too, from where Clarice was sitting. What if I did it for you? … What if I made them scream apologies?
"Involvement that has yet to be proven, Starling. Paul Krendler was with Justice for a lotta years. You really think he'd throw it away to get in bed with Mason Verger?"
"I think Paul Krendler cared more about money than justice, sir." Could he hear the derision in her tone? Best hope not. Damage control, Clarice. "But he didn't deserve what happened to him. He should have gotten his day in court."
That was true, wasn't it? Could she simultaneously believe the doctor deserved deliverance from Mason Verger's torture scenario but Paul Krendler did not merit rescue from the doctor's own plans? Wasn't that a betrayal of her principles?
The doctor's voice floated up from her memory. The brain itself feels no pain, if that concerns you. Had he chosen his method for that very reason? Did he think that by so doing he could avoid giving offense or engaging her sympathies? Paul Krendler was no lamb, and he hadn't gone to his death screaming. If the doctor were here, now, would she have the courage to ask him?
"Starling?"
Clarice's head jerked at the sound of her name.
"Sir?"
"I asked if Lecter let slip anything about his immediate plans." He straightened his pant cuff with unnecessary attention, avoiding her eyes. "You sure you're feeling all right?"
There was an out there, if she cared to take it. But appearing too eager would be suspicious.
"I can't think of anything, no. He has an enormous ego, of course, but he's not the sort to lay out his plan to his victims so the good guys have time to catch him." Well. That was a bit on the nose, wasn't it? Time to move on quickly. "And there is the problem of my being unconscious for a large chunk of the evening, sir. I wasn't hearing anything then."
"No, of course not, of course not, Starling. Er, you should know, we – he – that is…." Pearsall stood up as though the chair were spring-loaded and returned it to its place by the wall. With his back to her, in his just-the-facts-ma'am voice, he started again. "The doctors said there wasn't evidence of anything aside from the stitches in your shoulder and the morphine in your system. That Lecter hadn't … done anything else. In case you were wondering. Because of … how you were found."
Oh, good lord. Was he suggesting… ? Yes, yes he was.
"How I was found?" Prurient interest was the default setting for both the media and her colleagues when it came to her interactions with the doctor, but there was no need to make it easy on him. "I don't follow you, sir. No one's been in to tell me anything yet."
"Ah. Well." Fiddling with the chair and the window blinds could only serve as an excuse for so long; Pearsall eventually had to turn and face her, pale as a man before the firing squad.
"The first officers on the scene found Paul's body in a wheelchair in the kitchen. You were in the dining room, in that, uh…." His hands sketched a vague form in the air. "Dress. We have people running that and the shoes down today; hopefully the salespeople remember Lecter and we can get some footage of him. The officers said you were curled on your side next to a chair; the prevailing theory is that you had been seated at the table and fell over at some point in the evening. Your hands were bound in front of you with your cuffs. Paramedics were worried about depressed respiration, so they hustled you here.
"Whatever Lecter had planned, he wasn't able to finish things before the officers got there. You were lucky, Starling. Damn lucky. And we're going to talk about breaches of protocol and the proper behavior for an agent on suspension … but not today. Get some rest."
Pearsall nodded at her and walked out before she could reply.