milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

(OOC: Following this bit of Canonpuncture and breakage ...)

Clarice is hunched up in a chair by the fire, still wearing her sundress. She has not changed clothes. She has not slept. She reads her copy of "Silence of the Lambs" with a kind of desperate attention, but every so often she has to set it down.

[Summary: Clarice is broken, broken, broken. Meg and Angua give her practical advice, she confesses some things to Barry, she ~~therapizes~~ talks to Ron about Harry and being fictional, the Opera Ghost serenades her creepily, and Aziraphael is at a loss for advice.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Because he told me something that he couldn't possibly have known," she says. "And I was scared, sure-- it was impossible that he could know it. But I didn't stop going and I didn't tell anyone." She smiles humorlessly. "How smart was that?"

Angua frowns.

"Sounds like..." and she stops as realisation hits. "Oh. Is that in the book?"

"What he told me?" Clarice asks. She frowns. "Yes. I ... I flipped through the whole thing until I found it. Page 363."

"I meant," Angua pauses.

"The reason you kept going back. That sounds distinctly familiar behaviour to me."

"It was my job," Clarice says. "I do my job, if that's what you mean."

"So you're not smart because it's your job?"

"That wasn't the same thing," Clarice says, irritated. She calms down quickly, however. "At the time, I was just so worried that they didn't trust me-- Security, I mean-- that when I shoud have come to them with information, I didn't. I wanted to show that I could handle it myself. And that just made me less trustworthy."

Angua nods.

"OK, Yes, that was stupid. But it's also understandable. You want so hard to show you're capable fo cracking a case on your own, that you don't ask for help where you'd need it."

"The problem's that you just can't do that with him," Clarice says. "I was warned before I even met him not to let him in my head-- and then I did."

She sighs. "Thanks for listening. This isn't going to get easy anytime soon."

"No problem," Angua smiles a little. It's a relief to talk about something that isn't Carcer. "Good luck with it all."

Clarice nods. Slowly, she pushes herself up from the chair where she's been all night and stands.

"Yeah. I'll do my best."

Clutching her book to her, she goes upstairs.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only