Pure
He had asked her once why she participated in communion. Liz was as atheist as an, well, an atheist, but every time the little chapel of the BPRD held communion there she was, sitting in the pew in front of him.
She loved to dissolve the little communion wafers in her mouth, he didn't understand this. He would of course admit that they tasted good, although he preferred chili, steak, and bacon, anything with meat really. But taste was not enough of an explanation for the look on Liz's face when the wafer sat resting on her tongue.
When he'd asked about the wafer's she had sighed and said it made her feel purer.
This really confused him; Liz was the purest person he had ever met. In the golden light of dusk she looked the part of an angel, in the crisp morning glow a fairy tale snow white. Soft white skin a modest background for deep soul searching eyes.
He was accustomed to being considered the big brute and yes he did find flatulence highly amusing, but a hurt look in those eyes and he was ready to play the part of white night. Nobody, and he meant nobody, made his princess cry, and he would stop at nothing to see her smile.
He tried to understand why she didn't feel pure. He had even resorted to asking Abe ("perhaps Red, it might have something to do with being directly responsible for the death of her parents at age eleven") but even that had failed to turn up any useful results.
The one thing he did know for certain was that the communion wafers were not the only things she did to feel pure. Long showers, that Clay bitterly complained emptied the hot water tank, and staring up at the falling snow produced the same facial expression of longing. Well, the failing snow did; he had, of course, never seen Liz's face when she showered and any imaginings of such occurrences were passionately denied.
So he gave himself to the never-ending task of trying to understand Elizabeth Sherman. He tried to understand when she quit the bureau and he tried to understand every time she came back. Trying desperately to ignore the painful stabs of his heart he sought to understand her need for privacy, time alone, space from him. As silent movie nights became less and less frequent he resigned himself to an insurmountable task.
Getting over Liz.
Completely impossible, in fact, not even something he wanted to do. She was his addiction; every chance to sneak out and visit was taken with enthusiasm. Even when it got him into trouble with his father.
Every time he snuck out or slunk away from the agents on an 'outing' he was granted the mental image of Manning having an even bigger 'cow' than the last time his locator belt 'accidentally' got turned off. Manning would have to have an entire zoo's worth of baby animals before Hellboy would consider stopping his visits/stalking trips to see Liz.
He could remember the first time he had seen her eat vanilla ice cream. One spoonful and her eyes had clouded over. By the third mouthful tears were flooding down her cheeks. Liz never had an explanation for why vanilla ice cream made her cry. She merely said that it 'just felt right'.
That was all the explanation she ever needed.