Part 1: Saturday Twelve years following
the failed supe coup and
the destruction of the Boys, after a night out at the
pub with his best friend Roberta "Bobbi" in his hometown of Auchterladle,
Scotland, where he now lives with
Annie January, in the midst of the
COVID-19 lockdowns,
Wee Hughie Campbell returns home to find a package for him containing the
diary of
Billy Butcher, addressed to
Becky. Horrified on realising the identity of its author, Hughie reads a segment detailing when Butcher and the rest of the Boys (then-led by Greg Mallory) had cut the tongue out of a child supe (implied to be a leacherous version of
Billy Batson), and Butcher had first thought on the "worse" (
genocide) he had decided he would have to enact in the future.
Part 2: Sunday Visiting his parents' graves the next day, Hughie monologues about "the bad old days", before learning from the local priest that Annie believes he is having stomach issues at night (as he is actually reading Butcher's diary). That night, he reads another entry detailing how years earlier the Boys had begun investigating an attempt by the British
Vought-American offshoot MediaCorp to expand into the superhero industry with "The Skorchers", before Butcher had burned the face off of his informant Vikor before finding his hand shaking in a diner.
Part 3: Monday While out swimming with Annie, who uses her powers to walk on the water above him, Hughie discusses how the world has changed with her, before Annie asks when Hughie will finally make her "Annie Campbell", in the years since they initially got engaged. Years earlier, Butcher thinks of his deceased wife
Becky, before with the Boys watching Baxter-Pugh give an interview about the Skorchers, the Boys then discussing
war crimes Baxter-Pugh partook in, and speculating that he plans on spreading supes into campaigns beyond entertainment. Later, Butcher is confronted by Vikor and his team, the Children of Stormfront, who threaten to kill him.
Part 5: Wednesday Drinking with Bobbi and Annie in the present, Hughie thinks back on Butcher's diary, where Butcher had
Mother's Milk compare Vikor's story of his conversation with
Stormfront about Baxter-Pugh to his surveillance bug and ensure he was telling the truth, taking glee out of the supe being so "eager to please".
The Frenchman then recaps to the Female's stuffed animals about how Baxter-Pugh plans to have his fake-supes ("The Skorchers") fight fake-villains ("The Malevolents") in
Yankee Stadium that night, while Vought-American plans on sending a team of real supes to kill them and prevent this confrontation from taking place, whom the Boys (behind Mallory's back) will then intercept to let Baxter-Pugh's plan go ahead, which they proceed to do. Butcher then thinks back on when Becky asked him what he would do if she were dead, and he'd said to himself "I'd kill the fuckin' world.", before going back to bed. In the present, after reading Butcher's written rant justifying his future genocide to himself, Hughie puts the diary back where he had it written, before being confronted by a lit-up Annie as an "idiot".
Part 6: Thursday The next day, as Annie bakes a cake, Hughie asks her how much trouble he is in, and how long she knew he had been reading Butcher's diary, and she informs him that it was "early on", having been waiting for him to talk to her about it. Annie reminds Hughie of how years earlier, while he'd said he'd never talk about Butcher again, he'd then spent the following years telling her about everything he'd done with the Boys, and how he was not the "tough guy" that could have gone along with that mindset forever, as Butcher wanted him to be. Years in the past, after the Skorcher's "victory" over the Malevolents makes for a good
puff piece, the Boys question what the ultimate result will be, while Butcher privately takes note of how easy it was to deceive Mallory, and to his thoughts of Becky, on his genocide plan, that "to do it I've got to get rid of you", thinking on when he executed his brother Lenny, and how Becky would forgive him whenever he "cheated on [her] a bit from time to time", at the same time deciding his present actions would "destroy you" and that he is "scared of you being gone". Thinking on a drunken dance with Becky at night over how "Life isn't meant to be fair.", Butcher justifies his plan to himself again, before realising the situation with the Skorchers is likely a Vought-American plan to get to the Boys, by distracting them from actual Vought-American supes. In the present, Hughie apologies to Annie, before she convinces him to find out who sent him the diary.
Part 7: Friday In the past, shortly following
Becky's death, Butcher is bought a non-alcoholic drink by Guy, a former acquaintance, as an act of camaraderie, before quickly devolving into critiquing the current government. Butcher responds with a glimpse of his true mindset, "the Billy Butcher I never knew", shaking Guy, before years later, after figuring out the true purpose of the Skorchers as a distraction, Butcher executes Vikor in the middle of the woods. In the present, Hughie thinks on how it was "just no' fair" what happend with Becky and Butcher, with how he writes about her, before Annie shoots down the concept of Butcher's "genocidal master plan" being in any way justified, and how if Hughie started "talking about doing anything in her name" he would be running the risk of going down the same path Butcher did, Annie instead stating: "I'm easy, Hughie. You don't have to fight for me, or kill for me, or go on grand quests in my name. Just be with me. Finish what we talked about, and come on home so we can do the happy ever after." Years earlier, after intercepting footage of Baxter-Pugh speaking of his plans at an official Vought-American function, Mallory gives him the green light to take action against him. After seeing off Mother's Milk approaching his prostitutes, and the Frenchman buying the Female and her stuffed animals a full-sized steak to eat, Butcher proceeds to drug and execute the Skorchers at their celebration and tie Baxter-Pugh to a chair to see as a message, his fate left ambiguous as Butcher finishes off his diary with "Goodbye, Love. Billy.", leaving Becky in the past.
Epilogue: January Returning to America, Hughie investigates to see whether the diary was sent by
the Guy from Vought (now insane and running a
pineapple plantation, muttering about "bad product") or Howard "Monkey" Kessler (now running Kessler Consulting LLC.), introducing himself to the latter's secretary as Butcher so-as to mess with Monkey and have him briefly think Butcher to be back from the dead, before questioning him over who he thinks may have sent the diary. Monkey narrows the list down to two people: Mallory (whom Hughie dismisses due to knowing that Butcher killed him), or Rayner, Butcher's ex-lover, Hughie concluding it to be the latter. Monkey warns Hughie not to let the diary's contents come out, since it being known the
C.I.A. ran a team that targeted supes could be used to make them look like the victims, and reframe "The Coup in Oh-Eight [as] some patriotic first strike against the swamp". Confronting Rayner, Hughie learns she had planned on him "freak[ing] out as publicly as possible" in response to the diary, intending to use the fallout to ensure her planned Presidential campaign be successful and allow her to bring back supes, before Hughie shutters that concept by revealing Butcher had kept records of her
war crimes, the
sex tape he had posthumously leaked having been a mercy, Hughie deciding Butcher having set Hughie up as his failsafe was the sign he never truly let Becky out of his heart, and that Rayner had still "loved" Butcher in spite of everything. Hughie stares down Rayner with pity before returning to Scotland, where he and Annie finally get married. After burning Butcher's diary in his fireplace, Hughie writes one last message to Becky – "Dear Becky, you were with him all the way." – which he
places in a bottle and throws out to sea. ==Characters==