A/N - Alternating italic and regular font indicates changing POV.

Babylon

I whisper something, so quietly that she has to lean in to catch it.

"Hey"

He says that, he always says that - a greeting on some mutual ground. He doesn't say Good Evening, because even though that's so him, it is really not me. It's late now and the light coming through our windows is dim; even for a balmy midsummers eve. I frown, suspicious. Seems kind of an odd time for a greeting.

Pleasure ripple. She is staring back at me, appearing the tiniest bit perplexed. Did I smile at her little frown? She caught me staring, perhaps. That should not bother her by now though. My eyes travel over her often, have done for years. Moving over her, wanting her, all of her. If eyes left trails, she would be engraved with my desire; spun in cobweb lines; trapped, like the fly awaiting the spider's bite. I whisper it again, a bit softer, a bit slower. I do not think she hears me.

He is so close, I don't know which one of us makes the noise. Frown deepening across my forehead, I lean in closer. Our bodies touch at points along their length. The rise of my breast, the crest of one of his hips; I can feel the sheer edge of his shin, lying under my calf. We're naked, completely bared, without even sheets to hide behind. Just a year ago, I would have balked at the thought of being so exposed - on front of any man, let alone him. Now it makes me quiver with a different emotion. So I guess I have to admit that he has taught me something, a little bit about myself... okay a lot about myself. I am not scared now, being so close I can feel the heat off his skin. My mind is not lingering over how he can see my ever imperfection at this angle, because the situation is mutual. Both of us have chosen to be here, sacrificed a great deal to be here. I breathe him in. His scent is indiscernable from mine; mingled, exchanged on contact.

He captures me with a soft kiss. I don't close my eyes.

Her hands move almost independantly of her mind, creeping up to feel her way along me. One against the front of my torso, just above the naval. Her fingers there are unsteady, palm not flattened against me and there is a slight trembling in the tips. I am still not sure what it means, that she still trembles to touch me. It is not unsurity, something I learned quickly after the first few times. She does it every time I kiss her - unless she is angry about something, then her fingertips curl in the way, into herself. Little things I have learned. I collect them (she does not know). I collect them and store them away in a scrapbook in my mind. Tiny imperfections - delicate flaws in her character and self, as see by mainstream society - they are my treasure. I horde, I covet. I know I do. I know it is weakness to invest so much in one person. Loss is a lesson I have learned over and over in this weary life of mine. So many times...

I kiss back.

She kisses back.

...So what is one more heartbreak?

He groans slightly, leaning in to me and taking my body effortlessly in his hands. It should be terrifying, being cradled by someone infinately stronger than myself. I am completely helpless. With one hand at the back of my head, one on my lower back, he could snap me like a twig. I know who he is, I know what he can do. But I feel safe. He pulls me closer across the few inches that remain between us. It is a first for both of us, such an openly admitted embrace, and the movement seems to surprise him as much as me. It is mesmeric to see him openly giving for a change. For so long I was the one giving. Every bit of him was painstakingly taken.

The scene is far too romantic for us. We don't do this, we're not those people. I have to laugh, just a little.

One eye open.

"Sorry." but it is funny, the pair of us. Imagine what Ardelia would think - imagine what my boss would think if he could see me now. I chuckle again.

"What is it" oh, destroyer of intimate silence?

I think she expects me to release her, but I do not. I merely loosen my grip on her lower back enough that gravity rolls us apart, then I reel her in again. Her stomach flat to mine, I can feel the tiny twitches of her muscles, the deep segmented layer that make her abdomen a smooth rise from pubic bone to sternum. I can feel her heart rapidly tapping in the dip beneath said sternum. So fast, little Starling, so fast. Mine throbs slower against her where our bodies touch; the crook of a leg, the side of one foot. If we concentrated hard enough, we could match them. I wonder if two souls become so close, they cease to be sepparate.

"Just thinkin'." We are equal in height, the way he holds me, so I lean sideways to push my head into the crook of his neck. It's hot there, stifling even, and both our skins are damped with sweat from our exhertions not long before.

"What are you thinking?"

To his credit, he didn't abbreviate the word to the way I had said it.

"I don't know." He hums. Obviously, my answer had not satisfied. I pull my head from its resting place to look him in the eye. Meeting his gaze is always like falling. The depths of his eyes seem to reach back into oblivion - back into years before I was born. He knows so much it is frightening. But I am happy to be falling into him. I swallow back words that creep unbidden to my lips.

He probably already knows what I want to say.

Not in a thousand years, a million years, had I imagined this scenario to ever come true.

In respect to other men, I am a man of greatly heightened intelligence. My mind works in leaps that a normal human mind will not. I read people, I read the nuances in their faces, their eyes. It is not telepathy. Contrary to popular belief, I have no supernatural power. I do not believe I ever - knowingly - sold my soul to the devil. I was born with a gift. I can learn patterns. If you watch people long enough, you will realise that they follow pre-ordained, comfortable patterns. They follow these patterns in their actions, conversations, daily lives. Human beings follow routine. They stick to what they know. Rules and boundaries are integral to society, without them it could not function. Reading the patterns is a matter of controvesy. Some say it is a medical science. I believe it is an art.

Down in the dark, in a cell, with only the spiders for company, I agreed to see her on a whim. I broke a pattern. She surprised me, I will admit that now. She came to me with no expectations, and I had none of her. Our relationship was based on mutual convenience. Yet there was always something more. We worked well together. People bond with those they can appreciate most fully - and there is no such thing as a altruistic relationship. I had much to give and she had much to learn. A delicate balance of pheromones and hormones is all that sepparates the feelings of love and hate - chemistry if you will.

Ours balances perfectly. And our biology isn't too bad either.

"Talk to me."

A common request. He likes to talk. He likes the sound of his own voice too, but he is never overly arrogant, so I often let it slide. I don't always like to talk. He understands that there are some things that are best kept inside, like I understand that there are parts of him I am never to know. There are times for talking and there are times for holding back. But lying on my bed, tangled in bedsheets traced with us; this is our time. When one of us asks, the other obliges. He has always been flexible with my requests. I see no reason not to indulge more of his mind games.

"I was thinking about Ardelia." I answer; a lie by ommission.

Another hum.

"And what she would think of me."

Yet another hum.

"And us."

"And what conclusion did you come to?"

"I think,"

Her face contracted slightly, throwing up two narrow lines across the top of her forehead. So beautiful, this lover of mine.

"I think it is best that she doesn't know."

He laughs out loud at that one - not something he does often. I can't help but laugh a bit too. The situation is presposterous. One intimate embrace and an almost-confession and we are completely out of our depth. I would say we should stick to the day jobs, but we kind of failed at that too.

We laugh for a bit, until he releases me and we roll out to our sepparate sides of the mattress. I sigh.

Her love is such a gift that I feel humbled at its offering. She chose to stay with me, to run with me. My victory, my win. The spoils of this war of hearts lies next to me, glowing in the half-light. Clarice Starling; all mine. Mine. I whisper it to myself and it makes me shudder just a bit. She gives me herself, all that she is. Her imperfections surrendered to my fingertips. There is nothing I would like more than to spend an eternity caressing them.

"It hurts you, that you had to leave her."

She seems surprised that I remembered the reason for our laughter, the subject of Ardelia Mapp and the FBI, but pleased that I read into it. Her dark blue eyes are sad when she replies.

"I hurt about a lot of things, doctor."

"Then I wish I could heal you." I say, playing into her calling me 'doctor'. She often regresses from my given name in moments like these. I suppose it is what our relationship was built upon. It is a genuine sentiment, however. There is no barbed tease in my words, and I take care to show it.

I want to lean over and show how much his words mean, but the motion would cheapen the thought somehow. I hold it in my heart and eyes, instead, where I know he can see.

"To hurt is human."

"That's your philosophy then?" I sigh. "If you don't hurt, you don't feel alive."

He does not reply for a bit, then rolls fully over on one side to look at me more clearly.

"My philosophy or yours, Clarice?"

"Both of us, probably."

She paused, before fixing me with a frank stare across the bedsheets.

"That is why I understand you and you understand me."

"No. There you are wrong." She looked up at me questioningly. "I never really understood a thing about you, ex-Agent Starling. You were, and remain, a complete mystery to me."

For all the patterns she runs - all the well-worn human behaviours she exibits - there are an infinate number more of instances, such as this one, when I stare into her eyes and realise that she is completely beyond me.

I can interperet the signals in her face, in her eyes, the way she moves. I know the language, so to speak, I know the patterns. But it is like some greater power threw them, scattered them in the wind, when Clarice was made. She follows patterns only to dance away. From the path of our conversation, she should have diverged away from the subject, steered to safer ground. And yet, here we were. I can psychoanalyze her. I can play mind games with her until she twists up into an unresponsive ball, or purges her deepest, darkest secrets to me. I can play her. But I will never fully understand her.

Perhaps understanding it is a bit of a lie. I don't have a clue what goes on in his mind. I don't know how to read the expressions that flit over his face at my words. He could be admitting undying love, considering flight or deciding what part of me to eat first, and I wouldn't have the first clue. All I know is that I would rather be running forever with him than trapped like I was before. We are both alone. And the world is far better enjoyed with two.

I hold a moments silence. She does not.

"Do you need to?"

It is like standing in the ruins of Babel and wondering what went wrong. The half-light flickers as the curtain shivers in the wind of the half-open window and Clarice Starling gives a soft smile. My human pride is checked once again. My words are like the scattered bricks of the tower, and she is the hand that smote it. I would think it rude, but for the honesty with which the message was sent. To whatever higher power that sent her to me, to reaffirm my humanity, I suppose I should give thanks.

I do not need to understand her - though I doubt I will ever stop trying to. It is an imperfection of my own. She understands that.

"I want to say something,"

The cathartic release of the words she has been holding back is long overdue. The word Love is so overused, yet simultaneously over-romantisised in matters of the heart that I can see she fears its passing over her lips. It is a sad day indeed, when lovers can not express their feelings in words.

I can't say it. I really can't. I don't know why. If I say it, I can't go back, can I? What if he...

"Relax, Clarice, when you're ready." It is just a word for an emotion, as harmless to you as any word.

Psychiatry as pillow-talk, great. I let loose a slightly shaky sigh, hoping against probably odds that he can't see that I'm trembling.

"I-" cant do this.

"You are doing fine."

"I don't want to be walking around this anymore. I just... I just thought it would be good to say it."

"Only if you want to, Clarice." The sight of her, the turmoil on her face, was burning with pleasure inside him. He wanted to take her, pin her to their shared bed, ravish her senseless. Repressing the stray masculine urge, he fought to remain stoically impassive.

"But you know as well as I do, don't you? I just - just wanted to say it."

"Say what?"

I let loose a breath and a nervous laugh.

"Why is this so goddamn hard, huh?" He does not laugh in reply.

"Because I'm watching you, expecting a response. You are under pressure. Don't feel embarrassed. What you are doing is not an easy step, or a step to be taken lightly. You are a strong, intelligent woman - you know what you want. Just trust yourself. You know what you want."

Her eyes flicker between the two of mine. I think, if I look carefully enough, I can see the reflection of my eyes in hers. It is a strange sort of paradox. She leans forwards to kiss me, deflection from the real problem. So I place my fingers across her lips, sepparating us there. Her hand, which had been reaching for my neck, came to rest on my wrist.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise. Sorry is not what I want - and not what you want."

"Do I have to say it?"

"No." she crawls forwards, sliding around my hand which sepparated us and curls up against my chest like a kitten.

His hands fall to stroking my back and my hair. The touches are feather-light. He gently arranges me in a position comfortable to the both of us, and I sigh a bit. He does not know that I have never said those words to anyone but my parents. I have had them said to me, sure, ten times maybe. But on my lips those three words still feel foreign and uncomfortable. From 'I love you's gone and past, I know what insincerity sounds like. So why can't I pin down its opposite? I just want it to be right.

He kisses my forehead.

"Anytime you want, or need, to say it, Clarice. I will be there."

I feel a bit like crying, but am pretty sure that it's just emotional override.

"I care about you very much, you know."

Still feel a bit like crying, but also a bit better. And a lot calmer. His voice is soothing, calm and soft, his words careful. He releases me for a moment, but only to pull the sheets up over the pair of us from where they lay tangled at our feet. As he lays them over me, I take his hand in both of mine and bring his palm to my lips.

"And however you say it, it will be right. I'm afraid that is the unspoken beauty of these things." Once again, I wished I knew exactly what was going on behind those eyes.

I laugh. He gives a half-smile, eyes still watching me with dizzying penetration. As he said it would, it just kind of slips out. Or at least, the first words do. The others have to be chased, as my brain figures out what my mouth is up to.

"I really kind of love you, you know."

Pleasure ripple. She has no idea how pleased it makes me to hear those words. All of light and truth could not compare those words. I have seen beauty. I have seen so much beauty in the world. I have walked streets of ancient cities, seen colourful gods, deities dressed in gold and encrusted with jewels. I have seen people dancing in the moonlight, in the sunset, to the sunrise, around fires. I have seen more secrets of the world than she can yet imagine, heard love said a thousand times in many tongues, but I had no idea how pleased it would make me to hear her say those words.

I pull her to me flat again and kiss her forehead because to kiss her lips would imply that I wanted more from her. She had done so well already.

"Thank you."

He whispers it in my ear. All the emotion is honestly a bit too much and I feel a bit like crying again, but I don't. Relief slowly filters through the tension and shatters through my worries as he kisses me again, on the top of the head this time. Suddenly exhausted, I collapse into him, more than willing for him to take over and for sleep to come. He arranges the sheet around us, then falls to stroking my back.

I think I'll be happy here.

For a long while.

"Thank you." I whisper it again, quietly. She barely stirrs against my chest. The soft tap-tap of her heart is slowing to sleep.

Maybe I do not know as much as I thought about the woman curled up beside me. My hand sliding down her spine, then up again, knows its path like the lines of my own skin, yet there is so much more beneath her exterior that I have yet to learn. Maybe like the beauty of the Earth, it will take years to truly discover. Years, I will be only too happy to wait. She twitches slightly in my arms, her arm shifting to a more comfortable position, her palm flattening across my chest. I think, maybe, I will be happy here. For a long time.

I lie in the quiet of the half-light room. The wind from behind the curtains drifts slowly across our bodies, making me suddenly glad of her warmth. Though it is not cold, the bed is better with two. I push my body deeper against the contours of hers and slowly release her from my arm's grip. She shifts in sleep to remain close to me and we take up a symbiotic position, her against my stomach, one arm of mine draped across her back, holding her loosely but not containing her. I might not know everything about her - but everything I knew, and all that was left undiscovered, she had given to me. Beautifully.

"I really kind of love you too."

"Ta."

I jump slightly and looked down in surprise, having been quite unaware that she was even conscious. She did not elaborate, apart from a soft scratching motion of her fingertips against my stomach. Then she pressed her face against the side of me and smiled her way off to sleep. The word impertinence echoing dimly in my mind, I lay back.

We sleep until the morning. As she wakes with the light, uncurling from sleep, I am already awake by her side. "Hey". I whisper our greeting quietly, so that she has to lean in to catch it. I never tell her, but I do it for the closeness.