Persistence of Memory

Susan Raynor rolled out of the bed she currently shared with Billy Butcher, saying, "I'm going to get a bottled water."

"Never can understand why you pay money for something that comes out of the spigot that you also pay for, but suit yourself." He lay in the bed with one hand behind his head, smoking one of his Woodbines. The ashtray on the nightstand next to the bed was on his side, for his exclusive use. His eyes were closed, so she took a moment to admire his body, the sheet pulled up to his waist, his upper body bared to her sight. When he opened his eyes again, she turned and walked out of her bedroom. She was naked herself, her body strong and fit and beautiful, not from vanity but because her body was her first and best weapon on which her life could easily depend. Even though she was a desk-rider in the CIA now, she could never afford to lose the knowledge that she was still a target of violence, that she could be killed at any time if her guard dropped for an instant. But now, in her apartment alone with Butcher, she let that caution go.

Even with him, Susan was forced to play a role. Nobody knew him better than she did, and she understood in her bones that if he realized how she really felt about him, if he knew that he wasn't the casual fuck that she pretended he was, he would do his best to suborn her into his little group of vigilantes, and that wouldn't do, not with what she knew about Becca, the cause of his vendetta. So they performed their little playlets in public, despising each other with a fine-edged loathing, and fucked their brains out in the privacy of her apartment, no feelings allowed.

Her bare feet moved over the hardwood floor of the living room into the tiled kitchen, the city light illuminating the room from the single window until it gave way to the light from the refrigerator when she pulled open the door and removed a bottle of Perrier.

"Oi, Suze, get me a cuppa while you're in there, yeah?"

She rolled her eyes and called back, "Indoor voice, please," but still found the K-cup of hazelnut coffee that he liked and inserted it into her Keurig. Today they'd had to be especially vicious to each other in front of the other agents when he'd dropped by her office. They had a little game they played on those occasions; whenever they hit a certain level of invective with each other, they would come back to her apartment and her bed, and she would swallow up his cock and he would wrap her legs around his head and try to see who could make the other one orgasm first. Tonight she had lost, as she usually did, moaning around the flesh in her mouth as his tongue swiped and flicked and fluttered until she couldn't hold out any more and let herself go, her thighs tightening on his head as the pleasure blasted through her and she rode it out. Sometimes she won, though, but she always suspected he let her win, loosening his self-control enough to allow her to get to him, slow his attentions to her clit so as not to distract her from what she was doing, not fighting the sensations she gave him and giving in to the climax with a totality that always surprised her. He was so calculating that seeing him like that was like seeing him more than naked. Not that he wasn't quite attractive without clothes, of course.

Susan wondered why he'd been the one to spark deeper feelings in her, spark love, and came to no satisfactory answer. Might as well ask why Becca Saunders had been the one to make him catch feelings. Granted, she was beautiful, probably sweet in her dealings with him most of the time, and not a complete moron; just enough reality for Butcher to pin every positive attribute possible on her in order to make her his perfect goddess and sacrifice his life on her altar. Of course, Grace Mallory had had more than a little to do with that.

Ah, Grace. She very much doubted the older woman could pass a psych eval at this point; with the murders of her grandchildren at Lamplighter's hands, she'd fallen into a void of rage and despair that only the chance at personal vengeance could pull her out of, the same void Butcher had fallen into when Becca left him. He'd been an easy mark for Grace, a valuable weapon in her vendetta against Vought, and he still didn't understand how she'd played him. Susan did, but only because she'd managed to hack Grace's computer and got her hands on the original video footage from the Tower.

Butcher had never had unfettered access to the real footage, had simply believed what he saw without the slightest question. The loss of Becca had made him credulous, all too eager to believe the narrative Grace fed him. Would it have made any difference if he'd known the truth about Becca and Homelander? It would destroy the foundations of his life, the knowledge of what he'd sacrificed for the idealized memory of her. An exasperated sigh left her as she stared at the Keurig. He'd find out the truth of it sooner or later, but it wouldn't be from her. It couldn't be. He'd deny it with her as the source, think her jealous, be furious at the attempt to smear Becca, and he would leave her. She couldn't stand the idea of losing him.

At first Susan had assumed the footage genuine: Homelander ushering Becca into his apartment, her leaving hours later, her clothes in disarray, an expression of deep shock on her face, walking carefully away from the door as if she were in pain. Later, though, questions began to assert themselves. Why did Grace only show video from the corridor, when both she and Susan knew that the apartments of the Seven were wired for sight and sound, the better for Stan Edgar to control them? Wouldn't watching Becca's rape by Homelander make a much more potent weapon? It was this question that made her take the footage to a trusted IT person to find out if it had been altered. The answer she got surprised her.

David, the IT person she'd contacted, called her the next day. "Not only has the footage been substantially altered, I found the person who did it."

That shocked her. "And how the hell did you manage this?"

"We're the ones who altered it. The department, I mean. Cheryl—she's the technician who made the changes—was given the footage by Grace Mallory with explicit instructions for what to change, primarily facial expression, clothing, and the walking. I'm having her strip out the filters and will get you the base footage ASAP."

"Good job. Thanks." A few hours later David e-mailed her with both the original footage and the doctored footage as attachments, listing the changes made in the body of the e-mail. It might be useful if she decided to tell Butcher what Grace had done. When she replayed the video, the opening sequence was unchanged—Homelander still ushered Becca into his apartment—but the rest of it…Instead of the traumatized, suffering woman from Grace's take, Becca left his apartment with a dreamy, blissful look on her face, her clothes perfectly arranged, and walked confidently, proudly, away from his door, smiling.

So Becca had gotten deep-dicked by Homelander of her own free will. Why? Had she and Butcher had troubles that he hadn't admitted to? Had they been having troubles that he didn't know about? Was it guilt that was driving him, guilt that Grace had recognized and taken advantage of? It would be a powerful motivating factor, and he'd jump at the chance to blame someone else for losing Becca. He'd do anything to avenge her because if he could do that he might be able to put his own guilt to rest, and so he would never let go of the perfect, fictional Becca of his memories.

Where did that leave Susan? She loved him, but her profession had forced her to be clear-headed enough to understand that he would never love her, not with Becca standing between them. And maybe that had been Becca's plan all along, to vanish and make herself even more central to Butcher's existence so that he could never move on, find anyone else, and she would reign supreme forever in his heart. Bitch. If she could do that, Susan wondered if she'd ever loved him or if she'd just enjoyed having him as a toy. A toy that she refused to give up despite not wanting it anymore, she thought. Would he even believe the truth if it came from someone other than her? She'd have to do some thinking about this. With a sigh, she came back to the present and twisted the cap off the sweating bottle of water and took a sip.

Arms slid around her waist and she jolted, only to relax when Butcher said, "Sorry, Suze. Didn't mean to give you a start. Just wondering where you got to."

She recovered enough to say, "Just making the coffee you bellowed for."

He chuckled. "Service with a smile."

That rankled her because it cut too close to what she'd been thinking about being his casual fuck, him being unable to love her because he was too busy chasing his personal mirage, but she showed no signs of irritation. The Keurig poured the coffee into his cup, and she freed herself to step over and get the cup. "Here you go."

"Thanks, love." It was his generic endearment and it annoyed her because she knew he'd used that with every woman he'd ever fucked. Spycraft 101: if you want to keep an asset loyal, fuck them. Use that oxytocin bonding to your advantage, just like he was doing with her. To be fair to herself, she wasn't just a casual fuck to him. She was an asset that he intended to manage to the best of his ability. She would never be his love, never be someone he would avenge the way he wanted to do for Becca, but she wouldn't give him up. Susan loved him too much for that. "Back to bed now, yeah?" he asked.

She smiled. "That sounds wonderful." For as long as it lasted.