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It’s not hard to find Villanelle once Eve has narrowed down her search radius to Barcelona.
The thing is, Villanelle is actually rather predictable when you know her habits as well as Eve does. Villanelle has style, she has money, and she has a certain standard of living that can’t be enjoyed in just any old shabby apartment. Eve saw Villanelle’s old digs in France - the gold-gilded bath fixtures, the silk bed sheets, the tall windows with a view across Parisian rooftops - she knows the luxuries that Villanelle wouldn’t be willing to live without.
And so Eve runs a search of Barcelona’s most desirable properties that have exchanged hands in the months since Villanelle shot Eve and left her for dead in Rome, spends a long evening fine-tuning that list based on what she knows of Villanelle’s tastes, and then buys a cheap last-minute ticket to Spain to follow her hunch.
Eve knows it’s the right place as soon as she picks the lock on the patio doors and lets herself inside. The apartment is spacious and though it’s not as cluttered with trinkets as the Parisian apartment had been, it is still decorated with furniture that has an injection of Villanelle’s expensive style.
It’s the smell that confirms it. That same damn scent from the bus. And it’s fresh too, which means that…
That Villanelle is here.
Right here.
Of course she’s here. This is her home. Eve is the intruder.
Eve places her bag down on the table as quietly as she can manage and starts to explore. She doesn’t find anything in the kitchen and when she moves into the bedroom, the large bed in the centre has been obviously slept-in, but is empty.
That only leaves one room.
As Eve stalks closer to the door that leads from the bedroom into the adjoining bathroom, she notices Villanelle’s foot on the floor, then her ankle, followed by her calf...
Realising that Villanelle is lying on the bathroom floor, Eve has a brief moment of panic in which she thinks she might have just stumbled across Villanelle’s dead body and she hurries the last few paces without worrying about how much noise she is making.
Villanelle is not dead.
Eve breathes a sigh of relief when Villanelle’s full body comes into view, most definitely still alive. Villanelle is, for some unknown reason, sprawled on her back on the bathroom floor, one leg bent and propped up against the side of the bathtub, while the other is stretched out across the tiles.
Villanelle doesn’t move when Eve enters the bathroom, in fact she doesn’t seem to have noticed Eve watching from the doorway at all because her eyes are closed and she wears a pair of bulky headphones over both ears. Villanelle bobs her head in time with a beat that Eve can’t hear and the fingers of her right hand drum against the tiles. She is completely lost in her own world and Eve could quite easily stand and watch her for hours.
But that would be creepy and is also not the reason why Eve is here.
“Villanelle?”
Villanelle does not respond, she just keeps bobbing her head in time with the music and this song must be good, if the way that Villanelle is really getting into it is any indication.
“Villanelle?” Eve tries a little louder this time.
Still nothing.
Eve crosses over to Villanelle and crouches down beside her, then reaches out to touch Villanelle’s arm.
Within a split second, Eve is flat on her back on the tiles, the breath knocked from her lungs as Villanelle pins her down and straddles her waist. Eve feels something cold and metallic press against her throat and realises that Villanelle has managed to produce a knife from somewhere.
“Eve?”
A flash of recognition passes across Villanelle’s face, as if she didn’t realise that the intruder she was knocking to the floor was Eve.
This new angle, with Villanelle’s face hovering just inches above Eve’s, is remarkably reminiscent of their last encounter. But it allows Eve to see Villanelle’s face in much more detail than the view she had from the doorway.
To put it bluntly, Villanelle looks like shit.
Her eyes are bloodshot and her pupils devoid of any warmth, her hair is matted and has been pushed up into an untidy bun, and … Jesus Christ, has she been crying?
She looks completely broken, a shell of the woman she once was. Eve has never seen her like this before, never seen her as anything other than the overconfident asshole who has been ruining Eve’s life ever since they met, except perhaps for a brief moment in those Roman ruins. But even then, it was only a glimpse at Villanelle’s vulnerable side, before a bullet tore into Eve’s back.
This is definitely the most human that Eve has ever seen Villanelle.
“You shouldn’t creep up on people like that,” Villanelle croaks, her voice husky and raw. “I could have killed you.”
She pulls her headphones off and lets them hang around her neck, allowing Eve to hear the faint sounds of … wait, is that Elton John?
Wow. Villanelle is just full of surprises today.
“I called your name twice,” explains Eve.
“Yeah, well next time maybe be louder.”
Villanelle removes the knife from Eve's throat and lets it clatter to the floor as she climbs off Eve’s lap and smooths down her clothes. Eve follows suit, getting to her own feet, and in doing so, her eyes are drawn to a wound on Villanelle’s arm. It looks new, freshly sutured and with a crusty scab starting to form.
“What did you…? What happened?”
Villanelle follows Eve’s gaze and her fingers dart up to touch the cut, wincing in pain as she does.
“It’s nothing. I just … I accidentally got stabbed, okay?”
“Oh my god, are you okay?” asks Eve, full of concern.
“I’m fine,” Villanelle dismisses Eve and turns her back, leaning with both arms on the sink as she looks at her own reflection in the mirror. “It’s not the first time I’ve been unexpectedly stabbed.”
Eve almost feels compelled to apologise for what happened the last time she showed up unannounced at Villanelle’s home. Eve often takes herself back to that moment and wonders what would have happened if she had done things differently that day, whether Kenny would still be alive, whether Niko would have ended up with a pitchfork through his neck, whether she and Villanelle would still be hellbent on ruining each other’s lives time after time. Sometimes Eve wishes that she could take it all back and start again from that moment.
Eve almost wants to apologise, but she doesn’t. What she does instead is come to stand just behind Villanelle, looking over Villanelle’s shoulder at their shared reflection in the mirror above the sink.
“What happened?” repeats Eve.
“I told you, I got sta-”
“No,” Eve interrupts, placing a tender hand on Villanelle’s uninjured bicep and gently spinning her around until she is facing Eve, her back against the sink. Reaching up to wipe at the tear stains on Villanelle’s blotchy cheeks, Eve asks again, “What happened?”
Villanelle hangs her head to avoid looking Eve directly in the eye and sniffles as she answers, “Everything is shit. Konstantin is shit and Dasha - you don’t know her, but she is shit, and my mother is really shit which is why she’s dead now, and…”
Villanelle trails off into a choked sob and then, without any warning at all, wraps both arms around Eve and buries her face in Eve’s hair as her body trembles with the exertion of trying not to cry.
It’s a lot for Eve to process. This is a completely new side of Villanelle, who has never been open and vulnerable with Eve before. Any previous attempts at honesty has been laced with either caution or humour to deflect away from the truth of Villanelle’s feelings. But this, Eve knows, is the real Villanelle.
Eve doesn’t know how to make Villanelle feel better, which is why all that she says in response is, “I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” counters Villanelle, her voice muffled by Eve’s hair. “It’s all shit.”
“I know, because everything is shit for me too,” explains Eve. “I’m unemployed and homeless, my former boss is still trying to manipulate me for her own gain, and to top it all off, somebody tried to murder my husband.”
Villanelle’s head jerks upwards at this, her eyebrows furrowed in a deep frown as she asks, “Really?”
“Don’t worry,” says Eve, brushing a few of Villanelle’s loose hairs out of her face. “I know it wasn’t you.”
“I would never hurt your husband, Eve,” insists Villanelle, her voice suddenly full of passion. “Not unless you asked me to, and then I would rip him into a thousand tiny pieces. But I wouldn’t hurt him otherwise because that would hurt you.”
Eve has to fight off a smile, internally flipping off the memory of Bear and Jamie telling her that Villanelle was responsible for Niko’s current situation.
“I know.”
“So,” says Villanelle, sniffing and wiping at her own eyes. “Everything is shit for both of us. What happens next?”
“Whatever you want to happen next?”
Villanelle hesitates for a couple of seconds, then unwinds her arms from around Eve and takes a step back. Without any warning, she reaches for the waistband of her pants and pops open the button, letting the silky material slide down her legs to reveal a lot of skin that Eve isn’t expecting.
“Whoa!” Eve cries out, completely shocked and unable to avert her eyes, no matter how much her brain screams at them to look away. “I don’t … I’m not entirely averse to this, but isn’t there usually a certain amount of foreplay involved first?”
Villanelle turns around, revealing a perfect ass covered in just a pair of lace underwear (of course Villanelle wears skimpy lace knickers, even in the middle of an intense emotional crisis) and smirks over her shoulder at Eve as she leans over the bathtub and turns on the water.
“That is quite the conclusion you jumped to, Eve. I want a bath, not whatever it is you were thinking about.”
“Shit,” mutters Eve, forcing herself to stare up at the ceiling so that Villanelle’s long legs are out of eyeshot. “I didn’t mean…”
“Relax, Eve,” says Villanelle, picking up a bottle of bubble bath from the shelf next to the tub and pouring a small amount under the running water. “I’m only teasing. We can try out your ideas another time.” And then, as if she hasn’t just heavily insinuated that she plans to have sex with Eve in the future, she adds in a lighter, almost childlike tone, “Will you wash my hair?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Eve can just about see the rest of Villanelle’s clothes being removed. It takes all of the willpower that Eve can muster to not turn and stare, partly out of respect and partly because Eve is already about to combust and full frontal nudity may well be the thing that tips her right over the edge.
So instead, Eve respectfully stares really hard at one particular tile on the wall and waits until she hears Villanelle turn the tap off and sink into the bathwater, before she agrees.
“Of course,” says Eve, finally allowing herself to look. “If that’s what you want.”
Villanelle pinches her nose and sinks beneath the water to wetten her hair. Her body is submerged for a few seconds, before she emerges with a gasp and reaches for the bottle of shampoo, which she passes across to Eve.
Eve shrugs off her cardigan and kneels down beside the bathtub, pouring a dollop of shampoo into her open palm. As she rubs her hands together briefly to form a lather, Eve realises that the bubbles in the bath are doing very little to hide what’s underneath the water. She feels shame at first for even daring to look, and tries to stare at the wall again as she brings her hands to Villanelle’s head and starts to massage the suds into her scalp. Villanelle lets out a responsive sigh of pleasure and tilts her head backwards into Eve’s touch.
Though her eyes are closed, Villanelle seems to know exactly what’s on Eve’s mind.
“I wouldn’t have undressed if I didn’t mind you looking,” says Villanelle, her voice softer and more relaxed than Eve has heard it today. “You don’t need to stare if you don’t want to, but I’m not ashamed of my body.”
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” admits Eve. “I know you’re going through a tough enough time already.”
“Relax, Eve. I am very comfortable now. Your fingers are very talented.”
There’s not a hint of suggestion to the compliment that she tags onto the end, but Eve finds her cheeks burning nonetheless. She buries her fingers deeper in Villanelle’s hair, making sure to rub the shampoo thoroughly into the roots.
Also eager to change the subject, Eve recalls something that Villanelle said earlier.
“You mentioned your mother,” says Eve. “Is that something you want to talk about?”
“There’s not much to say about my mother,” Villanelle replies. “She is an asshole and I have always known that she is one, but for one delusional minute I forgot that she is an asshole and somehow expected more from her.” Villanelle pauses, then adds, “It turns out that she is still an asshole, even when she is dead.”
Eve has a feeling that there is a lot more to this story than Villanelle is letting on, but she can also sense that it’s a sore topic for Villanelle and doesn’t want to overstep personal boundaries. The implication that Villanelle’s mother is dead at Villanelle’s own hand hangs heavy in the air around them, but Eve finds herself not judging Villanelle for anything that she may or may not have done since they last saw each other on the bus. Eve is starting to realise that this is so much more than just her and Villanelle, that there are far greater forces beyond either of their control at work.
Is it the mother that is responsible for the void that Eve sees inside Villanelle today? Can a mother really be so cruel as to strip her own daughter of the light that makes her who she is?
“You know,” starts Eve, wanting to offer Villanelle some kind of comfort or reassurance that she so desperately seems to need, “I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself that I hate you.”
“And do you?” asks Villanelle, turning in the bath to look at Eve and sending a slosh of water against the side of the tub with the movement.
Eve hesitates for a moment, and then shakes her head.
“I think I hate myself for not hating you,” admits Eve. “But I don’t hate you. Actually, I think I…” Eve trails off, trying to organise her thoughts so that she can figure out what she really wants to say. “The things I said in Paris are still true.”
Eve still thinks about Villanelle all the time. She hasn’t stopped thinking about Villanelle in months.
Villanelle acknowledges this with a nod of her head, then replies by saying, “The things I said in Rome are true too.”
Eve has had a lot of time to think about Villanelle’s declaration of love in the ruins, a lot of time to regret her own response. She knows that she would have reacted a lot differently if she hadn’t still been recovering from the shock of … well, the Raymond incident , but does that excuse her complete dismissal of Villanelle’s feelings. Eve still doesn’t know whether Villanelle is actually in love with her, whether Villanelle is even capable of loving somebody in the way that Eve is familiar with, but Eve knows now that Villanelle does truly believe that it’s love, which counts for more than Eve realised at the time.
“You can rinse now,” says Eve, letting Villanelle’s words linger between them without needing to reply.
Villanelle slides beneath the water again, her bent knees emerging at the other end of the tub as she rinses the suds out of her hair. She’s under for much longer this time, using the hand on her uninjured arm to rub the shampoo out of her hair. She emerges a few seconds later sudless, her hair slicked back and darker than Eve is used to seeing it.
“Do you want conditioner?”
Villanelle shakes her head and lifts herself out of the bath without warning in all her unashamedly naked glory. Eve’s eyes go wide with surprise, but it is the scar on Villanelle’s abdomen, healed over and much more faded than the fresh wound on her arm, that catches Eve’s attention. Just like Eve’s own scar on her back, Villanelle has been carrying that around with her wherever she goes, a little piece of Eve that she can’t get rid of, no matter how much she may want to.
“I’m sorry,” says Eve, lifting her gaze up the rest of Villanelle’s naked body to make eye contact with her.
Villanelle holds her stare for a few seconds, before shrugging and reaching for a towel from the rail next to the tub.
“Don’t apologise,” Villanelle says, stepping out of the bath onto the tiled floor and wrapping herself in the towel. “It was a very sexy way to mark your territory. Hurt like shit though.”
Eve snorts and replies, “Yeah, well you shot me.”
Villanelle rolls her eyes as she continues to dry herself with the towel.
“Oh please. Getting stabbed is so much more painful. Imagine a knife going into your gut and then being pulled out again. It’s twice the damage. I would much rather be shot than stabbed.”
“I’ll make a note of that for next time,” jokes Eve.
With the towel wrapped around her body and loosely held in place under her arms, Villanelle wanders into the neighbouring bedroom. Eve follows her through and watches as she rummages around in a dresser until she pulls out a silk pyjama set. Villanelle lets the towel drop to the floor and puts on the pyjamas, before she picks up the towel once more and uses it to squeeze some of the excess water out of her hair.
“What did you mean earlier when you said somebody tried to kill your husband?” she asks, a curious frown on her face.
“Somebody stabbed him in the neck with a pitchfork,” explains Eve. “Miraculously he’s still alive but he wants nothing to do with me and … to be honest, I’m not particularly upset about that.”
“He survived a pitchfork to the neck?” asks Villanelle, an expression of mixed intrigue and awe across his face.
“I think it was your friend Dasha.”
“Dasha? She is not a friend.” Villanelle shakes her head, then lets out a sharp burst of laughter. “Ha! Dasha can’t even get somebody to stay dead when she kills them anymore. Talk about losing it.”
“She wanted me to think it was you,” Eve tells Villanelle.
“She did?” frowns Villanelle. “But I would never kill Niko. Dasha really does not know me at all.”
“I know.”
Villanelle eyes soften and she says, “But you do. You knew it wasn’t me.”
“A pitchfork through the neck?” scoffs Eve. “ So not your style.”
Villanelle smiles at this, understated and almost shy but so incredibly pretty.
“Will you hold me, Eve?” she asks, in a small voice.
“Hold you?”
Villanelle discards the towel and walks over to the bed, climbing onto the mattress and peeling back the covers in an obvious invitation to Eve to follow.
“Will you hold me?” repeats Villanelle.
It takes Eve only a split second to think and reach an answer.
She turns her back on Villanelle - as if it will even make a difference - and lets her fingers go to the button on the front of her pants, which she pops open before sliding the material down her legs. Her underwear is not as stylish or as expensive as Villanelle’s were, just a practical pair of dark green cotton boyshorts, and Eve pulls down the hem of her t-shirt to cover as much of her modesty as possible before turning back to the bed. Villanelle’s eyes, surprisingly, are not on Eve and her freshly exposed legs, but respectfully staring up at the ceiling, as if she can sense that Eve needs a moment to herself to get accustomed to the fact that she has taken off half her clothes with the intention of getting into bed together.
“No funny business,” says Villanelle, as Eve cautiously climbs in next to her and pulls the covers of them both. “I promise. I just want to be held.”
Villanelle rolls onto her side with her back to Eve and curls up almost into the foetal position. Eve moves in close behind her and tentatively drapes an arm across Villanelle’s waist. Villanelle’s own arm holds onto Eve like it is a lifebelt stopping her from drowning, leaving Eve no choice but to curl up closer into Villanelle’s back until they are slotted against each other in a warm cocoon beneath the covers.
“Thank you, Eve,” Villanelle murmurs, her voice slightly muffled by the pillow.
Eve tightens her arm momentarily in a squeeze of reassurance, then presses a hesitant kiss to the back of Villanelle’s neck where her wet hair meets skin.
“Whatever you need.”