DISCLAIMER: Silence of the Lambs belongs to Thomas Harris.

~ They Betray ~

He snuck into her house in the middle of the night. It wasn't technically breaking-and-entering, as it involved no breaking of anything. Not that he expected to have to argue about whether it was breaking-and-entering or not. It wasn't as though he was planning to allow himself to be arrested.

He was here because he was worried about her. He'd seen the news reports. They covered up the scandal, calling it a "misunderstanding". That lame half-assed explanation might have fooled some people, but it didn't even take a particularly sharp mind to read between the lines and see the corruption that existed within the Bureau.

He made his way silently to her bedroom. From the sound of it, she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He crept to her side and sat on the edge of the bed - careful, so careful, not to wake her in the process.

It was dark. Not so dark that he couldn't make out the basic shapes of objects, but dark enough that he couldn't see her clearly. He hadn't come all this way to leave without truly seeing her. There was a lamp on the nightstand, which he found and turned on with a sharp click. He froze as the sound echoed in the otherwise silent room, but the rhythm of her breathing never changed. It had not been loud enough to awaken her.

She was curled up on her side, clutching a stuffed animal to her chest.

Why does she even own one, at her age? A childish habit…

He smirked as he realized that the plush toy was in the form of a lamb.

His amusement was short-lived. Any hint of a smile died when he noticed that her face was streaked with tears.

He reached out to wipe them away. As his thumb brushed her cheek, her eyelids fluttered open. He moved his hand away. She stared at him for a long moment, as though she couldn't figure out if what she was seeing was real or not.

"Dr. Lecter?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from sleep and unvoiced sobs.

"I heard," he said.

And before he could speak further, she crawled into his lap and hugged him hard. He was startled into silence by her actions. He had not expected her to be so forward with him.

She buried her face against his shoulder and wept. The sobs she had forced herself to suppress when she was alone now broke from her throat. Tears streamed from her eyes unchecked, soaking his shirt.

He held her, rubbing her back and stroking her hair, and humming a soothing tune that sounded suspiciously like "Not While Around" from the play Sweeney Todd.

Once her sobs died down, he said simply, "Tell me."

She told him everything. He knew the basics already, from the edited version as told by the news and the things he'd extrapolated on his own. He had not known the severity of what was going on, or the fine details of it, both of which he learned now.

When the telling was done, he offered: "I will take care of it for you."

He was surprised when she did not immediately and vehemently object to what she must know his solution would be.

She merely murmured an almost inaudible "okay" before falling asleep in his arms.

All too swiftly, morning came.

He meant to leave while she still slept, but dislodging her slumbering form from his person without waking her proved impossible. She awakened almost as soon as he began attempting to extricate himself from her clutches.

She stared at him in much the way she had the night before upon wakening to find him there, but this time she recovered much more quickly.

"You're really here?" she asked, sounding fairly shell-shocked. "Last night wasn't a dream, then?"

She glanced over her shoulder at her abandoned lamb and flushed with embarrassment.

He cupped her cheek in his palm and gently turned her head so that he was looking her in the eye as he asked softly, "Do you dream of me often, Clarice?"

She remained stubbornly silent for all of thirty seconds, her eyes caught in his fathomless gaze, before answering breathlessly, helplessly, "Yes."

After her confession, unable to resist any longer, he closed the small distance between them and brushed his lips against hers.

I'm your only true friend now.

~end~

A/N: For those who didn't catch it, the title and last line of the fic are a Metallica reference (Sad But True).

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