Author's note: This story begins several years after the events of "Silence of the Lambs."

I need to thank duffie83 for the comment that sparked the idea for this story, though how I got from there to here is a twisted road. It's not a pleasant place, after all – so if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault. Although if you tilt your head sideways and squint a bit, you might find just a bit of fluff in the angst.

Whether you love it or hate it or end up entirely indifferent to it, I'm always keen to know what readers think – so if you have the time and the inclination, leave a review or send me a PM and speak your mind. I do my best to respond to every comment promptly.

Besides, you never know - something you say might spark an idea for a new story.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the use of these particular words in this particular order. Everything else goes home to its proper copyright owner at last call.

The first time, she nearly missed her flight home while kneeling in an airport bathroom, vomiting up her breakfast and promising herself she would never allow it to happen again.

Six months later, she went back to him.

The first time, he found her by accident, or perhaps her own unconscious design, as she haunted the streets of Florence.

However she had come to be in his path, the enticement was an intoxication in his blood he could not ignore, despite - or perhaps because of - the danger she presented.

Three years. That's how long it had taken her to secure a permanent spot in Behavioral Science. Three years from her rescue of Catherine Martin. From her killing of Jame Gumb.

She had rounded out her skills in the interim, spending brief rotations in other departments, honing her instincts and profiling her co-workers. Lazy. Distracted. Driven by goals other than justice. But she watched, and she learned, and she knew now how to motivate them. The fine art of diplomacy. Tempering, Jack called it, during one of their long chats in his office late into the night. And when she was finely tempered steel, she got the call that was a request for more than temporary re-assignment to the BSU. She had reached her goal.

Case after case, she proved her worth. Trusted her intuitive leaps, the ones that came more frequently now, as her mind raced ahead of the evidence to find the connections that would land kidnappers and rapists and killers in her web. The criminals were faceless; it was the victims' faces she remembered, the images she held holy and wholly in her mind as she lay in her bed.

But in her nightmares, the failures added to the growing chorus of screams. The ones she hadn't found in time. The ones who'd been rescued but would be forever haunted by what they had endured. No penance was enough to balance the scales for them.

And Jack and the rest, when they noticed her intensity at all, the fire in her eyes that never ceased, told her only not to make things personal. That she would burn out too quickly without a way to escape. As if she weren't responsible for every injury, every death, that happened from the moment her fingers touched the casefile until the moment the perpetrator was in custody or dead.

Five years after her advancement to Behavioral Science, two months after the worst kind of clusterfuck - the kind where everyone assured her it hadn't been her fault, that she couldn't have known - when her status as Jack Crawford's best and brightest creation remained unchallenged despite the guilt and failure she could feel in every bone, Clarice Starling took a vacation.

"A week away," Jack said. "It's not optional, Clarice. Find a way to forgive yourself for your imagined sins."

So she had gone. Italy. Florence. Staring up at the red-tiled dome of the Duomo.

And she found what she needed, even if it wasn't what she had expected.

His first sight of her had been such a surprise that he stalked her for days to be certain it wasn't some elaborate trap. But if trap it was, it was one with bait but no backup. And the bait was... distracted. Troubled. Looking for trouble, perhaps?

She wandered through the city with no destination he could discern. But every evening by sunset, she returned to the Piazza del Duomo and watched its marble and tile beauty fade into darkness. She had not, so far as he knew, set foot inside. But her face, when he glimpsed it, showed a longing, a yearning, that momentarily stilled him. And he knew then that his missive had been correct all those years ago; he had his answer.

The lambs still screamed. Louder, he expected. And she could no longer force them to be silent.

He considered his approach thoroughly. She responded to authority figures. And she respected him, in some fashion. Obsessed over him, perhaps, if their talk of his sketches from his cell in Baltimore had been the spur that had driven her here.

She took no notice as he began crossing the plaza. Her face was turned to the dome; she appeared as careless of the rest of her environment as any tourist, easy prey for pickpockets. But she would have a sixth sense if he radiated intensity or anxiety as he neared, he expected; her awareness of threats, both an instinct and a skill honed by her work, would keep her from becoming a victim of petty thieves. So he affected a casual mien.

He came within ten feet. Five. And still she did not turn. Passing behind her back, he whirled in a singular, preplanned motion calculated to bring him directly to her side, his arm thrust firmly between her arm and body and twining to capture her arm in a fierce hold. To bystanders, they would now appear to be no more than an affectionate couple lovingly leaning in close. He hissed in her ear.

"Hello, Clarice. How thoughtful of you to offer yourself as my dinner companion for the evening."

Her first thought, as Hannibal Lecter grasped her arm in a painful grip and spoke - that voice - in her ear, was both a surprise and a confirmation of a truth she had not allowed herself to know.

This is why I'm here. I deserve this.

She made no move to struggle. There was no need, nothing she wanted to escape. He was judge, and jury, and executioner. Would he do it here? Amid the crowd of tourists? It would have to be quick, then. And that wouldn't be enough, would it? The lambs had suffered. So many faces. So many wounds. They each deserved a pound of her flesh.

"Dr. Lecter. I hope I'm correct in assuming that you still prefer to linger over your meals. Fast food is so unfulfilling."

The first sound of her voice sent his mind back to the eager young trainee who had been so very determined to best him. There was nothing of that eagerness about her now.

"Shall we play, Clarice?"

"When are we not, Doctor?"

A fair point; how delightful that she understood.

"Very well. Why are you here?"

Their little chats had been eight years ago, yet the rhythm felt as familiar to him as the caress of a properly tailored suit. Eight years she had spent under the firm hand of Jack Crawford, in the gilded cage of the FBI. Was she not as eager for escape as he had been after eight years of confinement?

"I didn't know, actually, not until I felt your hand on my arm." A hand he had not removed from an arm that had not attempted to pull away. Curious, that she had not made even a token attempt. "But I was hoping to see you, obviously."

She paused before continuing.

"My turn, Doctor. How long have you been following me?"

"Three days in person, Clarice. You've been quite distracted, hmm? But I've followed your career for years. You've made it easy, working on such high-profile cases. Jack Crawford's shining star. And yet you've neglected my case thus far. Perhaps Jackie-boy doesn't trust you with it. Tell me, Clarice, do you believe he still imagines fucking you?"

"Maybe your case just isn't that important, Doctor. And I don't know what Jack imagines. Statistically, it's a likely conclusion. It still doesn't interest me. If you've been following me for days, why haven't you killed me yet?"

"Is that a complaint, Clarice?"

Silence.

"Ah. Forgive me. You are owed an answer first. I have not killed you yet because the world remains more interesting with you in it. Now answer my question, Clarice."

"I don't know the answer."

"Very well. I'll ask another. What do you want, Clarice?"

"I want… to save them all."

"An impossibility."

"I know."

"Then ask for something I can give."

"I want… to sleep at night."

"And what do you need to accomplish that, Clarice?"

Her eyes closed.

"Justice. For the ones I failed."

"Punishment for yourself, you mean."

"Don't fucking tell me to forgive myself and let it go."

Raw anger. An argument she had had before. With Jack, he expected. The Stoic. Who believed it was no fault of his when the lambs screamed. Clarice could not find comfort there; she judged herself mercilessly. She believed so deeply that the fault was hers, she willed it into being. Guilt became her reality.

And the deaths of the wolves might suffice as recompense only in part. Wergild was not enough; the blood debt could only be paid by her own suffering. Well. He had some experience with that, had he not? Mischa's wolves were no more than bones now, but her baby voice still cried out to him on the darkest nights.

"Language, Clarice. I was not about to suggest forgiveness. No one may tell you what you deserve; only you know that. You feel you deserve punishment. And that, my dear, may indeed be something I can give."

She hadn't expected that he would actually take her to dinner.

"Consider it the first part of your punishment if you must, Clarice." He seated her himself, waving off the host's assistance. No doubt he had read the surprise in her face when they reached their destination. "Sitting here, making polite conversation with the monster across the table – it itches at you, doesn't it?"

"It's different." She watched as he seated himself. He wouldn't kill her here, she expected; he likely simply enjoyed tormenting her by making her wait. That was fine. The lambs she had lost had been tormented, too, in ways much more painful than this. "It feels unnatural. Like a dream."

"Do you dream of me often, Clarice?" His tone was simultaneously mocking and suggestive.

Their waiter arrived before she could answer, and Dr. Lecter ordered in fluent Italian without opening the menu or inquiring after her preference. The waiter departed.

"I don't get to choose my own last meal, Dr. Lecter?"

He surveyed her in silence for a moment.

"Not to worry, Clarice, I'm certain you'll enjoy the meal. I'm told I have excellent taste."

She laughed softly, a bit nervously. She wished he would get on with it.

"You neglected to answer my question, Clarice. Your dreams?"

"Death," she said. Her fingers ran across the silverware. She would have taken a sip of water, had the waiter brought them any. It wasn't automatic here, not like it was in D.C. "I dream of death."

"Yours?"

"What happened to the game, Doctor? You're the one asking all the questions."

"I beg your pardon, Clarice. I don't believe you're in a position to bargain, as you want something from me that I'm under no obligation to give – but as it would be impolite of me to demand answers while offering none of my own, we may, certainly, continue our game if you wish."

He smiled at her, his small, white teeth gleaming.

"Go, Clarice."

He hadn't expected he would so enjoy an evening with Clarice Starling – nor had he expected that she would accompany him, docile and unquestioning, to an unfamiliar destination.

Oblivion. That was what she wanted, he thought. Not merely punishment, not only expiation for her sins – the absence of thought. Of agency. She sought an existence free of the heavy weight of responsibility. One who would lift that burden from her. And she seemed to believe death was the surest means of obtaining it.

Well.

He would see what other options she might be persuaded to accept first, hmm?

Their first kiss made her shiver. Made her feel.

He kissed her tenderly, like a lover, as though what they were doing wasn't wrong, as though no loathing tainted his desire.

And maybe it didn't.

But she didn't want that, couldn't accept that, wouldn't allow that.

She bit his lip and drew blood. He held her face between cupped palms as he pulled back to look at her, blood smeared on his lower lip. He could snap her neck now, she knew, and she almost, shamefully, wished he would.

"That's how it must be, Clarice?"

She flinched from the softness, the gentle care in his voice - the way he said her name, like no one else ever had or would - and felt anger simmering in her veins. His understanding, her weakness - no.

She made her face a stone, her eyes impenetrable diamonds staring back at him, and would not speak.

He nodded, once, when the change came over him, too - all care and concern erased from his features, his eyes spitting fire, and she wondered that she had ever thought she'd seen affection and tenderness there.

His hands dropped, heavy, on her shoulders, and he spun her with no finesse at all; she nearly tripped over her own feet trying to stay balanced. His superior mass and her surprise allowed him to muscle her forward.

Their first coupling had been harsh, not by his choice but hers. He would have given her tenderness - whatever seed of love remained in his little-used heart was hers - but she would not accept it. He could have sent her from him then, untouched, but for the pain and need etched in every line of her body. Later, he thought. Later, she would accept tenderness. But he found he could not face her, lest his mask of indifference slip, and he turned her roughly away.

If all she could offer him was her pain, if all she would take from him was his anger, he would savor that connection. He would drink in her tears and spite, the self-loathing she trusted to no one but him, and punish her as she felt she deserved for straying from the pure and noble path.

It was not the relationship he would have chosen for them, but it was what she needed. She would not allow herself to come to him if he refused to punish her for it, he knew, and so he cut her and poured salt in the wounds and licked them clean. It was violent, and emotional, and he quietly lived for the moments when she slept, exhausted, in his arms. When she did not dream.

For three days, she hardly slept at all. She lost all sense of time, of anything beyond the feel of his hands and mouth, harsh and grasping, on her skin. Of the sound of his voice hissing in her ears. She did not know where she was, nor did she care.

As long as she wasn't thinking, as long as she wasn't dreaming… what did anything else matter? As long as the pain he gave her washed away the memory of her guilt. He would take her until he tired of her, and at the end of it, he would take her life. That was the bargain, wasn't it?

And if once, in the midst of the violence and pain, she allowed him to make love to her with gentleness, in silence, as tears streamed pure and unchecked from her wide eyes – if, in that moment, she whispered his name – surely that was no more than a nightmare. It was not something she would choose.

It was simply one more torment, one more sin to bear, as she waited for her death.

But after three days, he ordered her to bathe and dress. He spread salve on the bites and scratches in her skin. Why bother, if he meant to kill her now?

"Barcelona, Clarice. Six months. I'll find you."

"I won't be there."

"You will."

"No."

No, she wouldn't - she couldn't give herself permission to indulge without guilt. To fall, as she surely must see it. She valued honor, and duty, and perfection. She enslaved herself to the plight of the lambs.

"Are you so certain, Clarice? Who knows what amusements I'll find to entertain myself in your absence?"

"You wouldn't."

"No? Perhaps you don't know me so well as you imagine, Clarice. You believe... what, that four brief conversations nearly a decade ago and three days in my bed have given you particular insight into my motivations? My... pathology? Is that your contention, Special Agent Starling?"

Pain flickered in her eyes. Yes, he knew where to strike. And she would be there, in Barcelona, waiting for him.

"Run along now, Clarice. It's time to go back to being a good girl, hmm? The virtuous, decorated agent. Try not to lose so many lambs this time."

She left without speaking.

She'd told him she wouldn't - but six months later, she put in her vacation request for sunny Barcelona.

He made her wait until the third day. She'd grown antsy, waiting, waiting for him to feast on her pain, to cut it out of her and make her whole again.

She confessed her sins to him, all the ways in which she had failed the lambs since last she had seen him. She did not ask for his sins. She didn't want to know. Couldn't know.

She lost count, over the years, of all of the cities she had visited but not seen.

He did not forget - could not forget - a single meeting. Each instance commanded its own piece in a gallery devoted to the every nuance of Clarice Starling.

He lashed her with his wit and swallowed her tears. And when words were not enough, he indulged more sadistic desires, careful not to leave marks on her flesh where her colleagues might see when she left him. If the punishment was not harsh enough to suit her, he knew, she would find other outlets – tormenters who would not recognize the gift they held in their hands, who could not bring her to a state of mindless peace and lead her out again.

"How many, Clarice?"

"Three."

Her voice came softly. She knelt, nude, her head bowed, and he filled his mind with the exquisite lines of her body. She was, as yet, unmarked.

He unfurled the Harpy, not silently as was his habit but emphasizing the click as the blade swung out and locked into place. A tremor passed through her, rolling down her shoulder blades and curling the toes just visible below the curve of her buttocks.

"Tell me about them, Clarice. Why did you fail these three? Were they not innocent enough for you to save?"

She emitted a choked sob. The scent of her tears grew stronger; guilt thickened her voice.

"They were perfect little lambs, all of them. I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't fast enough. I should have seen it sooner."

"Dead?"

"Two."

"And the third?"

"Mute. Since the trauma. Eleven weeks now. His parents…." She gasped for air, ribs heaving. "His parents thanked me."

"Mmm. They don't understand, do they, Clarice? How slow you are. How stupid. How it was your fault they will never again hear their son tell them he loves them."

"My fault," she murmured. "My fault."

"Three," he said, as though agreeing with her. He knelt behind her; she trembled again, a shaking that did not stop, at the nearness of him, he expected. At the anticipation. "You must bleed for them, Clarice."

"My fault." Her voice was almost inaudible now.

His free hand gripped her neck, ruthlessly pushing her forward, making her back a level surface for his work. He traced her spine with the spine of the blade.

They had no safeword between them. This was not play, not for her, and it was her belief in the penance, in the bloodletting, that brought her relief. She could not be allowed to believe in her own safety here, for all that she was entirely safe in his hands. The only one in the world for whom it was so.

He made her wait, until her breathing conveyed nothing but panic, the guilt and anxiety manifesting in near-hyperventilation, and then he pressed the Harpy's point to her skin and pushed. He dragged the blade slowly, shallowly, until her breathing paused altogether, the sudden silence a rush of its own.

A quick slice, his typical practice, was not what she needed. The blade was sharp; she would hardly feel it at all if he did not make her feel it. It was the sting, the burn, she craved. He watched the blood well up in a perfectly inscribed arc to the left of her spine. It matched the curves of her silhouette, the graceful inward sweep of her waistline flowing out to the swell of her hips.

And then she shook herself. Her ribs expanded as she took a single deep breath.

"Two more, Clarice."

He would not lick the blood from her back, taste her offering, until he had finished the cuts. Until she had released her guilt and lay quietly in a state of dazed relaxation. He could not offer her tenderness until then.

Irony of ironies, that a serial killer was her only safe outlet. His own unique brand of honor would make certain he never spoke of what he did to her. For her.

And if miscalculation, curiosity, or rage one day took things too far, he would either dispose of her body himself or leave a blatant calling card. Either way, people - the FBI - would assume the oh-so-virtuous Clarice Starling had fallen afoul of the patient and cunning monster Hannibal Lecter.

They would never know she had embraced him.

In her more truthful moments, she admitted to herself that she was using him. And then she loathed herself for that, too.

Hannibal Lecter had not planned to re-enter psychiatry. It was tedious, listening to the bourgeois problems of people with too much time and money and not enough personality to interest even themselves.

But now he had one patient, for two weeks a year, and each time she arrived more damaged than the last. Her loathing and guilt fascinated him, as did her seemingly correct belief that he could, and would, help her bear it.

Her need gave him purpose. And though she obviously felt it a weakness, one she desperately wished to excise, he thought perhaps her repeated visits to him were a sign of her strength.

She took what she needed from him, even as she despised herself for it. She did not ask what he wanted or needed. She took. Because she could. Because he would not turn her away. Because she had the courage to return to the safe haven of his arms again and again though she battled the sharpness of her own demand for purity and perfection each and every time. Her need for punishment was so great that it drove her to seek comfort from him, the bliss and the scourging both... and if ever she allowed herself that knowledge, surely it only added fuel to her self-hatred.

It was possible, he thought, that the twisted nature of her pathology outshone even his own. Fascinating creature.

-END-