11: In Every Heart There is a Room

"You fed the stray," Mother's Milk grumbled. He had the surliness of a ninety-year-old man with the body of a Greek god, but Helena would not be fooled. Even through the phone, she recognized the thread of worry underneath his mild bitching.

Rolling her eyes, she sighed and opened a new package of double-stuffed Oreos to go along with the pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream she got at the store that morning. Perhaps she was stress eating, but it was only fair, considering the very restless night she'd had. Knowing Butcher was under her roof had destroyed six months of trying (and mostly succeeding) to put him out of her mind.

"What was I supposed to do?" she said. "He showed up at my door, looking like a sad, scruffy-ass bum who lost his booze money…and he had the most bullshit excuse! Couldn't even admit how he found out where I was."

"Mallory's always had a soft spot for him," M.M. said, sounding bemused. While that point was interesting, Helena tried not to be too annoyed that Mallory had probably betrayed her confidence, even if it was for Butcher. She supposed that's what she got for trusting a government spy. But what Helena would fucking give to know why Butcher went to such lengths to find her…if he was just going to leave without saying goodbye.

"Yeah well, Mr. Soft Spot fled the vicinity early this morning," she groused. "Little bitch didn't even have the decency to leave a note."

Or at least his new phone number…

"Decency." M.M. let out a short laugh. "Hel, trust me. Just let the man be."

Helena wandered out of her kitchen with an obscenely large bowl of dessert, phone pressed to her ear with her shoulder, and somehow made it to her couch without incident. She kicked her feet up on the coffee table before she dove in. Balancing the bowl in her lap, she grabbed her phone and put her exasperated friend on speaker.

"You didn't see him, M.M.," she finally replied, albeit around a mouthful of ice cream. "I don't know where his head's at. Thinking about what he might be getting into now, it makes my fucking skin crawl."

She heard him sigh heavily on the line, then pause to turn away to answer a muffled question his daughter asked him. Helena felt bad for taking him away from his family, even for a five-minute chat about her own personal hell.

"Listen," M.M. said, "If you're smart, you'd see this for the pure gift it is, and let that motherfucker drop the hell out of your life."

Helena frowned. Her spoon clattered a bit too loudly on the ceramic bowl in her lap.

"That's a hell of a thing to say," she said. "He just lost Becca…for the second time. You all got your happy endings, and meanwhile, he's twisting in the wind again doing God knows what."

She knew M.M. wasn't that heartless. There was a lot left unsaid in the brief silence that followed, but despite everything Billy Butcher had put them all through in the past, she had a feeling M.M. had more sympathy for the ill-tempered Brit than he could readily admit.

M.M.'s wife and daughter were forced to go into hiding because of his own choices. She was sure he knew the fear of losing them forever.

"I'm tellin' you this for your sake," he said eventually. "Where Butcher goes, shit follows. And he knows it."

He was edging towards something. She thought she knew what he was implying, but her stomach was already in knots and she was entirely too fucking tired to play these games anymore.

"What are you saying?" she said sharply.

"I'm saying he's never gunna let Homelander go," M.M. said. "He's never gunna let Becca go. So if you want to keep your sanity, and your life, then let him go."

That was probably good advice. In fact, Helena knew it was, and she made the decision that day to continue protecting herself. After all, wasn't that the reason she had left the city behind, along with what was left of her old life?

…Unfortunately, she also had a long, sad history of making ill-advised decisions.

That very night, she saw (caught) him in the bowels of her local pub. His third glass of dark liquor was in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth. To date, she had never seen him smoke, and she was just irritated enough (and bold enough) to grab the cancer stick out of his mouth and diffuse it in the ashtray on the counter. She knew he had noticed her the moment she came into the bar, and she could feel him watching her now as she slid into the seat next to him.

Her lips were set in a tight frown. Helena sighed, because not even her revered place of day-drinking was safe anymore, and this man was surely raising her blood pressure. She dumped her purse on the counter and ordered her usual beer with a shot of tequila. Lacing her fingers on the counter surface, she finally turned her gaze to Butcher. He offered her his usual smirk.

"I thought you'd be long gone by now," she said, "considering your aversion to goodbyes, and common courtesy."

He eventually answered, "Found this crusty lil' spot last night. Decided to stay one more."

But why? she wondered. Butcher didn't do anything without a reason, so why was he sticking around in upstate suburbia? Was he just…bored? Was he keeping an eye on her, or was it Vought-related somehow? And if it was the latter, why the fuck would he come to her? All the valuable information she might have had, she gave to Mallory.

Whatever the reason, she thought as she sipped her beer, there was only one thing she could think to say—even though M.M.'s advice rattled around in the back of her mind like red-hot warning bells.

"Look, I don't know why you're really here," she started, pausing to lick the brine of tequila from her lips. "But if you need a safe place to crash, you've got one. You don't have to sleep in your car or drink here all night, or whatever the fuck you do to pass the time. Got it?"

Butcher didn't quite look at her now, but his mouth quirked wryly before he finished off his whiskey.

"Not goin' soft now are ya, love?" he asked. She shook her head and busied herself with the beer in her hand.

"Whatever. Do what you want." You always do.

It was a terrible fucking idea.

Bad enough to come here the first time around, worse not to roll out of town like he planned to, worst of all to fuck his better judgment and go back home with her that night.

Butcher could blame the booze, but it was hard to complain when she cooked dinner, especially when it was some bonafide Cuban shit he could barely pronounce. Some beef stew and rice, but the name, ropa vieja she said, meant old clothes, and tasted anything but.

He stayed the night and left in the morning, working some odd jobs around town while he bided his time. The truth was, he was waiting on some information to come in. He wasn't going to Mallory again. Not until he had something concrete, something he could use.

The strange thing was, he hadn't noticed anyone trailing him since he left the city; hadn't felt the back of his neck burning or sensed the ever-present target on the back of his head. It was part of the reason why he was sticking around, out here in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. Whether it was truly safe or not (it probably wasn't—just because he couldn't feel prying eyes didn't mean jack shit), he knew he was gambling, and not just with his own life. As always.

Over the next few weeks, she allowed him to come and go as he pleased. He learned, with a very rude awakening one morning, that she played salsa music loud as shit while she cleaned up the whole house—before birds, the sun, and even God were awake.

A weekly ritual, she told him, and his only entertainment was in teasing her about fitting a certain stereotype, like some Maid in Manhattan type shit.

"And you? Where the fuck is my entire stash of Earl Gray, Billy?" she demanded, hand on her hip. "I pegged you as more of a liquor in your coffee kind of Brit, not pinky raising, crumpets and afternoon tea."

"Why can't I like tea?"

"You drank it all! And my shortbread cookies, you ass."

Granted, the mop in her hand slightly took away from her annoyed stance, but Butcher couldn't help cracking up a bit. He liked winding her up, because she was fucking funny when she was pissed off. Like a kitten fluffing up its fur to look intimidating.

Still, while sat at the breakfast bar of her kitchen his gaze was drawn to the cupboards between the oven and the pantry, where he knew she kept her booze.

"Yeah well, you locked the liquor cabinet so I got no choice, do I?" he said.

Helena looked at him more shrewdly then, and with some sympathy. He knew what she was doing, or rather what she was trying to do. Trying to stop him from drinking so much. He couldn't decide if it made him angry, or if it made him respect her that much more.

She surprised him by putting down the mop and taking his hand, getting him up from the bar.

"I've got a better way to take the edge off," she said with a smirk. His lips curved and his brow rose all too lasciviously. But the moment he opened his mouth, she slapped his cheek firmly enough to force a wince and a chuckle out of him.

"Finally inviting me up to the bedroom, are we?"

"Shut up," she snapped, "just come on."

Helena's smoke came out in shallow huffs with her laughter at Butcher nearly coughing up a lung. The difference was, it wasn't with the black tar of cigarette smoke, but with the…herby aftertaste of a more organic alternative.

They played dominoes on her bedroom floor while she learned, despite his rock and roll exterior, that he was not as experienced as Becca had been in this area.

"My family owns a little café in Miami," she admitted. "When I was little, I'd sit with my dad and my uncle on slow days while they played cards, dominoes, smoke cigars and alternated between coffee and bourbon. Every now and then, Mom would bring a new round of pastries, sandwiches, a slice of cake…"

She could feel Butcher's eyes on her again as she flipped a domino between her fingers and considered her next move in the game.

"Sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen," Butcher said.

"It's no surprise that half my family's got a Molotov cocktail of diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension."

He smirked. "Yeah well, mine's full of drunks and manic depressives, so you're in good company."

Helena's embarrassing snort turned into a giggle, because she couldn't exactly help it at the moment, and Butcher's grin was broader in response.

"When did you and Becca start with this?" he asked, passing back the blunt. Helena took another small hit and thought back. She was surprised to hear him bring her up so casually, but when she looked into his eyes, it wasn't completely without weight.

"High school junior prom," she said, still with a bubble of laughter. "We had no idea what the hell we were doing, but both our dates were ass, so…"

Memory seemed to dawn in Butcher's eyes, and his smirk deepened.

"Aw yeah, Mr. Star Trek briefs," he recalled, to Helena's mortification. She nearly dropped the smoking blunt in her lap as her mouth hung open.

"How the fuck—who told you about that?!"

"I have my ways," he magnanimously replied, waggling his brow. Helena tossed her domino at his head, then another when he blocked the first one with his hand and protested.

"Heard he was a gamer, something about his fancy fingers," Butcher hedged. His smirk took on a new edge, his body curving towards her while he braced himself with a hand on the floor, by her knee. "Bet I could beat his high score."

Helena's mouth suddenly felt as dry as her face felt undeniably warm. Even her brain momentarily short-circuited at the depths in his voice making her insides tremble a bit. She stared at his bearded face while her addled thoughts fought furiously to connect. Was he fucking serious right now?

"Ha. You are high as shit," she forced herself to laugh and play her move in the game, so she wouldn't have to stare into his eyes any longer.

But he was still watching her, closely.

Butcher didn't come back for a few days after that. He knew that she didn't understand what he was doing, that she was frustrated with him, but when he showed up at her door, soaked through from the pouring spring rain, she only chastised him for the first few minutes while she let him in and all but pushed him into the guest bathroom to shower.

Even with the rain it was brutally chilly out, and she was already making soup. As much as Butcher hated the word, she looked fucking adorable, all bundled up in a purple cable-knit sweater and fuzzy white socks. Her hair was wet, rolled up in a bun like she'd just come out of the shower. He could smell the cocoa butter and wondered if it was her soap, or her shampoo. The sweet smell of her skin, or her hair? A tantalizing thought.

"Where do you go when you leave this house?" she finally asked while she rummaged the linen closet for a fresh towel. Butcher rolled his eyes.

"Does it matter?"

"Are you getting into trouble?" she pressed, her hands moving like clockwork to rest on her lovely hips. He smirked, but even fake good humor didn't exactly reach his eyes.

"Why do I fucking bother. It's not like you give a shit about things like respect or human decency," she snapped. Shutting the closet door a little too hard, she all but shoved the towel at him. Her hand was briefly warm against his chest, even through his cold wet shirt.

"All right, Mum."

"Shut up!"

Helena silently fumed in the living room while the shower ran. But she was angrier at herself than anything—that M.M. had warned her and she dug this hole for herself anyway. When the bathroom door finally opened, she wandered over and crossed her arms impatiently. Her lips pursed, and she hoped the heat rushing at her face would cover up her blush at the sight of his naked torso with the fluffy towel around his waist. A man wrapped in hot fog and almost little else.

He caught her stare and smirked at her. "Enjoying the show, are we?"

"I need my hairdryer," she lied, knowing she was blushing more fiercely. He probably saw through her, but didn't call her out on it as much as he baited her.

"Come get it then, love. I'm all done," he replied. He had one of her small combs in his hand and started nonchalantly pulling it through his hair at the mirror.

Helena eyed him warily, but she ignored the fluttering in her stomach and entered the bathroom.

Butcher pretended to be immersed in his task while she crouched down to rummage in the cabinet below the bathroom sink. It wasn't often that she had her hair up, and her sweater hung lower on her back. He spotted the outline of an interesting tattoo, just below her neck, heading down the curve of her spine.

"'Ullo, that a spider on your back?" he teased.

Helena gasped. "What!"

Before Butcher could blink, her head banged up on the edge of the cabinet, hard, and suddenly there was blood.

"Shit!" she hissed, but he stopped her hands from flying to grab her head, and guided her with a hand on her neck, away from the small and now bloody nail protruding from the cabinet.

"A shoddy job they did on this place," he remarked.

Helena winced as she touched the area around the wound in her scalp. She teared up when her fingers came back bloody.

"Shit," she repeated, and stared up at him with pathetic doe eyes. "That really fucking hurt. Is it bad?"

"Brilliant," he muttered. "All right. Just get up here."

He led her up by the elbows and sat her down on the covered toilet seat. He determined it wasn't bleeding too badly.

"Was there a spider for real?" she asked tearfully.

Butcher covered up the sting of guilt with a short chuckle.

"Nah, but...you got a tattoo, eh?"

Anger flashing in her eyes, she sat up and slapped his bare shoulder. "You asshole!"

"Oi, oi! You want my help or not?"

She sniffed in response, her gaze reflexively roaming over his bare chest and firm-looking sternum, and the smattering of dark hair covering most of it, and she quickly skipped over the towel-covered portion before returning her gaze to the floor. "Can't you put some pants on first?"

He smirked deeply, but he decided not to push it. Yet.

"Aye, I can do that."

He soon returned dressed in jeans and for once a less glaring Hawaiian shirt, to find her dabbing at her scalp with toilet paper.

"Don't use that one-ply shit, for Christ's sake." He pulled her hand away from the wound.

"That's all that's in here!" she said defensively.

"Don't you have any fuckin' tissue paper, some gauze?"

"Maybe in the first aid kit. Check my bathroom's medicine cabinet."

"Oh, shall I, princess?"

She stared at him incredulously.

"Fine, I'll get it myself!" she said. "Fucking excuse me, I thought you were helping."

Again, he rolled his eyes. "All right, enough. Sit down if you're gunna make a fuss about it."

"No! Don't bother," she said. Perhaps she knew she was being irrationally emotional as she scrubbed fresh tears from her eyes. He stopped her from getting up with a slightly gentler hand.

"Hey. Hey. Enough of that," he snapped. "Sit down there."

Helena felt like a child when he eventually came back with the first aid kit. She stayed grumpily quiet when he parted her hair and swabbed at the back of her head. He held it there until the slow oozing stopped. For a while, the silence in the bathroom was deafening.

"Am I gunna live, doc?" she quipped.

She knew it worked in breaking the tension when she spotted Butcher's smirk in the mirror.

"It's not deep," he said. "Should be okay."

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"Come again?" he hedged. Her lips pursed, even though they still threatened at a smile.

"I said thank you." Though she did mutter some choice words in Spanish.

For once, he chose to ignore it.

"Clumsier than usual," he teased. "What're you gunna do if I do leave?"

"I was doing just fine before you showed up," she tossed back. Maybe that was a little too close to the truth, because they both felt the mood shift into something more serious, and a little awkward.

"Yeah well, far as I can see you're doing fuck all out here. What do you even do all day?" he said, more gruffly. More critical.

"At least I know for sure that I'm not hurting anyone! Can you say the same?" she said. When he didn't answer, just as she expected, she stood up and took the gauze out of his hand before she moved past him out of the bathroom. "When you take off again, do me a favor and make your fucking bed before you go. This isn't an Airbnb."

He lay awake in the guest bedroom that night, itching to leave. He wanted to, and it wasn't often that he didn't do what he wanted to, but there were things about the woman sleeping upstairs that he couldn't ignore.

She woke up in the night almost as often as he did, from what he could hear through the thin walls. Sometimes he saw her walk past the cracked open door of his room, not in the sweatpants and oversized shirts she let him see, but in the little satin nighties that gleamed under the hallway nightlight. By his count, she had at least three of them.

He liked the red one best. It reminded him of the dress she wore the night he went kamikaze over to Stillwell's house, and tried to trap Homelander.

He'd known that he wouldn't be walking out of there alive. He would've either avenged his wife, or not. But before that, he'd almost kissed Helena in a supply closet—the last idiot whim of a soon-to-be dead man. He hadn't known then that Becca was alive.

Perhaps if he'd stopped for half a second and let Helena tell him that, things would be a lot different now.

Butcher could hear her at this very moment, puttering around in the kitchen. She must've been more restless than usual. She'd probably make tea or grab a snack, then return to her room like a thief in the night with the entire pack of Oreos or a family-size bag of chips. Honestly, for how healthy she cooked, she had a bad snacking habit. Not that he should judge anyone about bad habits.

Even so, he couldn't help but think there was something they could do to make sure both of them got a good night's sleep.

He almost shook his head then, inwardly smirking. Now there was a thought to try and fall asleep on…

Until he was startled awake by a sharp crash that sounded a bit like metal breaking. His body jerked into alertness; he sat up and grabbed his gun from under his pillow before tossing on some pants, not bothering with a shirt. He stayed tense for action while creeping towards the kitchen…and eventually let out the breath he was holding.

It was just Helena, setting a couple of pans back on the kitchen counter. She looked back at him apologetically and he stowed his gun in the band of his pants.

"Sorry!" she stage whispered.

"What the hell's going on here?"

"I'm making snickerdoodles."

He stared at her for a long moment. "Fucking why?"

"It helps me…not think, okay?"

"What're you 'not thinking' about so loud that bloody cookies can't wait 'til the morning, huh?"

She sighed and put the pan down. Her hands found purchase on the counter and she stared down between them. He didn't think she realized what she was doing to him, showing him the curve of her ass in a satin nightgown that barely reached mid-thigh. The black lacy hem, the thin straps clinging to her shoulders, the hint of nipple—

"How long do you think I have left?" she asked him. Admittedly, it took him a moment to hear, and then finally process that she was speaking.

"Eh?" he said coherently. She turned to him with a hand on her waist, gathering her mane of hair at the nape of her neck and nervously letting it pass through her other hand.

"It's so damn quiet here, I kind of hate it," she said. "Because it feels like it's not real. Any minute they're going to knock on my door, or more likely, bust through the window like last time."

"Still not following, love."

"When I gave the CIA that footage of Becca, Vought found out in a matter of days. I've been kidding myself, Billy. Sooner or later, they're going to figure out the rest. That their last Senior VP was a mole for six months, that I was working with you and the guys, and Mallory. Then they're going to kill me."

He didn't know what to tell her. Regardless of whatever he felt about it, her fear was real, and he didn't see the point in lying to her. He couldn't promise her that she'd be fine, just like he didn't know if he'd turn a corner and get a bullet to the back of his brain tomorrow. Or Homelander's lasers between his eyes.

"You've got Mallory lookin' out for ya," he pointed out.

"Is that enough?" Helena asked. "You tell me."

She looked up at him with those eyes. Again, they were filling up with tears. When she inevitably broke down, he didn't think he should be the one to catch her if he fell. But if he didn't, was he okay with the alternative?

"Hey," he said, just as she looked away from him to hide her face. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, but she refused to stop hiding. He grasped her arms and playfully jostled her a little. "Eh, don't get all soft on me again. Look at me."

Helena bit her lip to try and stop her own sobs, her breath coming out in shallow gasps the more that the panic and stress took over. She shook her head stubbornly.

"He's going to find me," she said.

Butcher knew she didn't mean Stan Edgar, or even Black Noir. A dark thought, a tendril of rage rolled beneath his skin. It was a familiar feeling. Vengeful, protective, and dangerous. He tampered it down enough, holding her just a fraction tighter.

"Helena. Look at me," Butcher demanded. He was firm enough that she finally obliged him with a sniffle. "You wanna cry, or you wanna make these fuckin' cookies?"

She stared at him for exactly one beat before a giggle bubbled over. Tears still streamed down her cheeks, but she was smiling again, even laughing when she let her forehead fall against his bare chest.

"You'll really help me?" she hedged. Raising her head, she tapped her fist lightly against his chest. "Some hard-ass you are."

A laugh threatened the integrity of his smirk, but he held it down.

"Will it shut you up?" he snarked. She laughed, despite shoving hard at his shoulder.

"You ass. For that, you get to roll the dough balls in sugar."

"I ain't fondling no balls, love. That's your department."

"Excuse me?!"

"Jesus H. Christ," Grace Mallory muttered. She returned the phone to her ear and took a breath, so that when she spoke, her inept assistant would hear the thinly repressed rage in her voice. "Natalie, if you don't get me the indexed files on Soldier Boy in the next five minutes, you'll be handing my next assistant my order from Starbucks, because you'll be behind the counter frothing the shit yourself. With a little green apron and everything."

The mousy voice on the line shook, but she squeaked her understanding and Mallory hung up. She tapped her pen against one many files gathered across her office desk, a single table lamp illuminating her struggle. In sorting through the rest of Vought's archives that Helena had provided, Mallory found that someone had accessed Soldier Boy's file just a few weeks ago. The record hadn't been touched in nearly a decade...so why now? An uneasy feeling crept up Mallory's spine, but she took a steadying breath. It might very well be nothing, but she was never a woman to leave anything to chance.

She was almost single-handedly running this surveillance unit that technically didn't exist, not even on the official documents that legitimized Supe Affairs. Handing off that project to Victoria Neuman was proving to be a Godsend, as it freed Mallory up for even more important tasks, like keeping Ryan safe. He was due to be moved to the next safe house in three weeks, and she was in the midst of scouting locations.

But her current headache had nothing to do with that, and entirely with her side project: keeping tabs on Homelander. And her side-side project: keepings tabs on Billy Butcher, as well as keeping them from keeping tabs on each other.

The former task was relatively easy. So far it seemed Homelander was too preoccupied with saving face at Vought and to the world to try and find Ryan, or Butcher, and by extension, Helena Flores. And Mallory was on that too.

The girl had been helpful, giving them information that violated her NDA a million times over. Mallory was the only one Helena had trusted with that information, and that was smart of her. Vought had their eyes everywhere, especially on former employees. But to their frustration, Mallory was sure, they did not yet have eyes on Helena Flores. And because Mallory was good at her job, she knew that not even this CIA classified building could be trusted with the information she held.

How long she could keep it up, God only knew.