Vantage Point

A V for Vendetta Novel

By April French

 

Author's Note:

 

Spoiler alert: V dies at the end of the movie. I've accepted that. However, I'm also a hopeless romantic. So I've done what a lot of VEvey shippers are doing, and brought him back. Having him jump from the ruddy moving train is the preferred method so far, and however unlikely, it does seem more probable than having him survive the (lovely) explosion of Parliament.

 

A lot of instances are referenced in this story that are not in either the book or the movie; they come from another novel I'm currently working on called "Variations," which takes place during the course of the movie. Sorry if I've confused anyone, this story just happens to be coming along more quickly. Also, do I know anything about the workings of the British government? Nope. Therefore, the departments I name are names I've made up, as possibly being created during Norsefire. If they sound a little generic and utilitarian, so much the better. Okay, I think that's everything... Go read! ~AF

 

~~~

 

PRELUDE

 

Part One: Vivification

 

In later days, he would always claim to have no memory of how he had managed to get off the moving train. He knew only that his brain was, and always had been hard-wired to shut down during periods of extreme traumatic stress, and that being trapped on an explosive-filled train hurtling towards Judgment Day was akin to being buried alive under six feet of good English soil and fast running out of oxygen: it was panic-inducing.

 

And so he had no clear recollection of his escape, save the smell of roses as the flowers fell before him and crushed softly beneath his boots, the site of a station platform rushing up the meet his face as he jumped, and the overwhelming desire to live.

 

***

 

"Who was he?" asked Finch wearily.

 

Evey smiled, as images of V's many roles passed before her eyes. "He was Edmond Dantes. He was my father, and my mother. And my brother, and my friend. He was you. And me." She blinked back sudden tears. "He was all of us." She took a deep breath. "No one will ever forget this night, and what it means for this country. But I will never forget the man, and what he means to me."

 

Finch looked down at the young, seemingly frail woman beside him, and realized very abruptly that Evey Hammond had lost far more than a co-conspirator this night. "I should be going." He had to arrange for the bodies of Sutler and Creedy and the Fingermen to be removed... and he felt as though he should give her some private time, to mourn. "I'd like to... meet with you again, Ms. Hammond. To talk about... him. Will I find you here?"

 

"No," said Evey firmly. "Don't come looking for me, Mr. Finch. I'll find you at your office, if you like, and we'll talk. Oh," she added, grinning slightly, "please apologize for me, to that detective I maced."

 

Finch managed a smile. "I'll find my own way out."

 

Evey watched him go, then turned back to the sight.

 

The fireworks lasted for at least twenty minutes, and the smoldering wreck of the Parliament buildings burned for hours before the assembled Londoners would allow the fire department access to the square.

 

From her vantage point on the roof of Victoria Station, Evey watched the pyrotechnics light up the stars for as long as they lasted, listened until the final lingering strains of Tchaikovsky faded away. Evey closed her eyes, feeling the wind on her face and head. She reached deep inside herself, as he had taught her, searching...

 

And then, for one single, beautiful, perfect moment, the city was silent.

 

From somewhere outside of her body, Evey marveled at her self-control. V was dead. The Houses of Parliament were in a spectacular state of burning ruin. The city of London had more or less declared war on the British government. It was the end of an age, the beginning of an era. And yet, in spite of it all, the only thing Evey wanted to do was go home and sleep.

 

Or perhaps because of everything.

 

"The sweetest thing in the world is sleep," murmured V's voice out of a memory, of him reading an old Russian folktale in his deep, smooth rumble. "For when a man is tired and sad, what can be sweeter?"

 

Sleep. Home. Yes, Evey thought, I'll go home.

 

But not to her flat in Brixton, not tonight. V had willed her his legacy as well as this new world. She would honor his gift and sleep in her old room tonight in the Shadow Gallery, surrounded by the possessions of the man who had loved her, safe and warm in the shadows.

 

***

 

The Gallery was still darkened, the tiny points of light over the jukebox still spinning slowly, when Evey returned. Still feeling that eerie composure, she walked over and pressed the switch to stop the disco ball and turn the lights back up. But then, seeing clearly every treasure that V had rescued, his piano, his books, the paintings he had loved, the battered suit of armor looking lost and forlorn without its favored opponent... she suddenly felt very much older than her twenty-five years.

 

Walking into the kitchen, Evey set about making a pot of tea, just needing a task that would occupy her mind enough to keep her from thinking. It didn't work quite as well as she had hoped. Instead, as her hands filled the pot, her eyes fell on V's apron, hanging quietly from its hook. That bloody ridiculous apron, with its outrageous flowered print... she saw in her mind's eye the incongruous image of the dangerous terrorist V, solemnly discussing political theory while wearing a flowery red apron and a dishcloth slung over one shoulder.

 

And then the flood of memories began.

 

"Oh, God... I haven't had real butter since I was a little girl! Where did you get it?"

 

There was an audible smirk in his voice. "A government supply train, on its way to Chancellor Sutler."

 

"You must be mad."

 

"'I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none...'"

 

Evey ran her fingers over the spines of several much-handled volumes stashed in the kitchen alcove. "All these cookbooks, V. Were you a chef in a past life?"

 

"I hope not. I'd never want to be paid for doing something I enjoy so much."

 

"Why not?"

 

He shrugged and stirred the potatoes. "As soon as a man is paid for doing something he loves, the act becomes work, and so he will enjoy it no more..."

 

Unable to look away, V watched her eat her plain soup. "For several months after Larkhill, I couldn't tolerate strong flavors," he ventured suddenly. "My palate had grown too used to bland prison fodder. It was almost a year before I could eat anything that had any zest to it."

 

"What was it? The food that finally tasted good again?"

 

"Simple malt vinegar, on a street vendor's fish and chips." V rocked slightly on the back legs of the chair. "It makes my mouth water just thinking of it..."

 

She remembered all too clearly the time he had managed to bring home a bag of actual popping corn, how excited he'd been when he had finally managed to piece together a working hot-air popper. And the time she had made cookies, and coaxed him to eat one by turning her back while he ate. Remembered the Christmas Eve she had spent with him, when he had cooked the biggest meal she'd seen in years, and worn a mask with a cloth flap over his mouth so that they could share at least one meal together. How odd, she realized, that a man who professed to be nothing but an idea made flesh should take such delight in such a basic human pleasure.

 

The teapot whistled, sudden and shrill, breaking into Evey's melancholy thoughts.

 

***

 

For the next few days, Evey busied herself with simple day-to-day functions. She was reminded irresistibly of the days and weeks following her incarceration, when she would sit for hours in her room, doing nothing, because she had forgotten that she was free to move about the Gallery as she pleased. Now, though, it was slightly different; then, she had had someone to coax her out. Now, it was the fact that V was gone that kept her moving. Every time she looked over at his vacant spot on the couch, she remembered that she had to care for his roses, had to make supper, had to turn off the water pump for the night, had to reset the lighting and heating systems for the next day... a thousand little things that V had done to keep her warm, safe, and comfortable, that she had all taken, not for granted, exactly, but... she had just never imagined that he would not be there for his roses.

 

One day--it was the evening of the ninth, actually--while chopping vegetables for her supper, she had gone into the refrigerator to get something and noticed as though for the first time the four letters pasted on the freezer door: 'S-M-E-G.' It was only the name of the manufacturer but it had stopped Evey cold.

 

It was a word she had never actually heard V use, but she had heard it spoken aloud before. It had been a pet word of Gordon Deitrich's, a relic, he had once told her, of the days of good British television, from a comedy called Red Dwarf. 'My all-purpose four-letter non-profanity," he'd grinned when she had asked him what it meant, grinned with his whole broad face, from his baleful eyes to his nose that changed direction three times to his oddly feminine mouth. Not so odd, she reflected, knowing more about her late boss's pleasures than she had in the past. Gordon had even managed to show her a few episodes during the months that Evey had stayed with him. She liked it, for the most part, bizarre though it was. Now she wondered if V had liked that show.

 

Such a small thing, but it made Evey start to cry. The only two gentlemen left in the whole of the British Isles. One had been a Red Dwarf fan, and the other might have been. And both were gone.

 

And it was just one more pleasure that Evey would never be able to share with either of them.

 

She sat down at the table and cried, just sobbed, clean gut-wrenching grief pouring out from her with nothing to abate it but weariness, and she fell asleep at the table, hunched over, her face and arms damp. When she woke some hours later, it was with a severe crick in her neck and an intense feeling of claustrophobia.

 

Evey went to the roof. It was cold, dark, and felt damp, and although there were no clouds and no signs of fog or rain yet, it would most likely pour tonight. Normally, Evey enjoyed the rain. It had become a habit of hers to walk for hours through the rain-soaked streets of London, going nowhere, just enjoying the water, the play of the drops on pavement and puddles, the familiar slide of water down the windshield of a car. Tonight, though... the city looked as Evey felt: tired and forlorn, and just the tiniest bit forsaken, as though the city itself knew what it had lost on the Fifth of November. She tried to reach inside herself, for the calmness, the angel-feeling that V had shown her she possessed... but it did not come.

 

Suddenly, and perhaps inevitably, V's voice rolled down around her like an everlasting stream. "'Night, the beloved,'" said the man's voice in her mind, his beautiful tone turning the words into a caress. "'Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.'"[1]

 

And then, almost like a flash of lightening, the memory changed, and she not only heard V but saw him, and closing her eyes to see him more clearly, Evey now heard herself, saying aloud the words that he had said on another occasion entirely.

 

"I have been one acquainted with the night./ I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain./ I have outwalked the furthest city light./ I have looked down the saddest city lane./ I have passed by the watchman on his beat/ And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain./ I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet/ When far away an interrupted cry/ Came over houses from another street./ But not to call me back or say goodbye;/ And further still at an unearthly height,/ One luminary clock against the sky/ Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right./ I have been one acquainted with the night."[2]

 

And though Evey had not been granted the moment of serenity she had been seeking, she was, for the moment, content with her sadness.

 

She was lost in thought as she made her way down from the roof, through the hallways of the condemned building. She passed the doorway leading down to the Underground tunnels... and stopped. The door was only slightly ajar, but Evey remembered having left it tightly closed when she had passed through with Finch all those days before, after setting the train on its way to Valhalla. Clearly remembered it being closed when she passed by on her way to the roof only a few hours before.

 

And there was blood... smears of dried blood... and bloody footprints... leading away from the tunnels...

 

Leading into the Shadow Gallery.

 

Evey stared at the bloody footprints, her throat constricting so tightly she could barely breathe. She followed them, unable not to, through the wooden door, across the fine carpets, past the jukebox and piano and down a corridor into which she had never ventured but had always assumed led to the room V had slept in. Gingerly, she pushed open the door at the end of the hallway.

 

Sprawled ungracefully across a backless black leather couch was the bloody, bullet-ridden body of the man who had become the very foundation of Evey's consciousness.

 

And he was breathing.

 

"Mother of God," Evey whispered, barely feeling the floor beneath her feet before she was at V's side. She knelt beside the couch, clutching at one of the hands dangling limply over the side. "V..." She gave him a sharp shake. "V!"

 

The man jerked, a groan tearing itself from his throat. "Evey?" His head swam, and his eyes struggled to focus in the half-light. "Evey? Is that you?" Slowly, the image of her lovely face coalesced before him, and he tried to raise a hand to her cheek but failed.

 

"You're a resilient bastard, V," Evey muttered thickly, pressing his hand to her face. He was as weak as a kitten from blood loss. God knows, he should be dead... But he's alive. He's alive, he's alive, he's alive... She glanced around his apparent bedroom, but saw nothing even remotely resembling a bed. Briefly, she considered moving him to her room... But there's no way I can carry him... All rational thought fled when V, trying to sit up, failed and fell back against the couch, and let out the most pathetic moan of pain Evey had ever heard.

 

"V, you need a doctor."

 

"Never again..."

 

"But the bullets! My God, it's been four days... You're still bleeding!"

 

"Not important... You don't... understand... different..."

 

"What is?" Evey almost snapped, becoming increasingly angry as her panic mounted.

 

"Me," V whispered, his voice resolving into a high-pitched groan.

 

Evey chewed her lip, trying to think clearly. It was hard to keep calm when V was writhing in pain in front of her. "You're not invincible, V. You're just a man--you told me so yourself!"

 

"Not... invincible..." V hissed, as though through clenched teeth. "Experiments... unexpected side effects..." All of a sudden, the tautness of V's body's slackened and he collapsed, breathing heavily.

 

"V?" Evey reached for his hand again.

 

"I'm alright," he managed, sounding exhausted. With his last ounce of reserved strength, V lifted his hands to Evey's shoulders, pulling her down and laying her head on his chest. Evey flinched slightly at the feel of V's sticky, cooling blood on her skin, but she could hear his heartbeat, slow and even, and the weight of one gloved hand resting on the back of her neck.

 

"You're alive," she whispered, her anger draining as the truth finally sank in.

 

"You didn't want me to die. How could I deny you?"

 

"But... how? I saw you--I felt you..."

 

"That which does not kill me... There are any number of bullets I'll have to dig out in a few days, but Mr. Creedy was hardly the first man to try and kill me. Evey," said V softly, taking his hands from her shoulder and neck, "I'll be alright. I need to sleep."

 

"You should be in a real bed. Or at least in clean clothes."

 

"Sleep first. Hygiene and comfort later." A ghost of a smile came into V's voice. "When a man is tired and hurt, what could be sweeter than sleep?"

 

"Just so long as you wake up again."

 

"I promise. Will you... stay until I fall asleep?" There was a childlike longing in his drowsy voice. Evey nodded. Curling up on the floor, she drew her legs up to her chest and just watched V, until his breathing leveled, slowed and steadied, and she was certain he was asleep.

 

She crept quietly out of the Gallery, back up to the roof. By this time fog had drifted in from across the Thames; she could hear the faint wails of sirens, shouts, the occasional sharp retort of a gun.

 

Stretching out her arms to the sky, she once again searched for--and this time found--one perfect moment in the entire world.

 

She could smell rain.

 

***

 

Evey sat at the Shadow Gallery's kitchen table the next morning, sipping her tea and reading The Wasteland, when V walked slowly into the alcove. "You gave me quite a scare last night," she began without preamble.

 

Sitting stiffly, V chose to apply her statement to his resurrection rather than his death. "I do apologize," he said, his normally melodic voice low and rough. "That was never my intention."

 

He was in a great deal of pain, Evey realized, but she could not let the moment slide without asking the questions that had kept her up all night. She set down her book. "How can you be here, alive? Why didn't you die, V?" The question was unfortunate in his phrasing, but she hadn't been able to think of anything better. "Five days ago, I held you in my lap--you told me..." She shook her head sharply to dispel her tears. "And then you died! You stopped breathing and turned cold and I put you on that train and sent you off into history. And now you're here. How?"

 

"I'm not sure how I got off the train. I have a strong impression of shattering and a sudden impact... so I suspect I smashed the window and jumped out onto a platform. The past few days are a blur as well. I know I crawled here."

 

"That wasn't my whole question."

 

"That's as much as I can answer, Evey. As to the rest..." V sighed. "I wish I knew. I should have died at Larkhill, along with everyone else. I should have died a hundred times in the past twenty years. My body has never cooperated. And my brain has always had a tendency to shut down during times of intense stress. It just... gives out at times. But you say I turned cold? My heart stopped? How fascinating. I only wish I had the energy and nerve force to be curious right now." He laid his bare hands on the table--bare, Evey realized, because they were so swollen, he could not fit them into his gloves. His arms had swelled so much that the sleeves of his loose grey shirt were in danger of bursting their seams, as was the high neck of his black quilted vest. "I suspect the reaction is responsible for much of my overall memory loss, although I don't know if it's natural or... more artificially induced."

 

"Like your recuperative abilities."

 

"Yes."

 

"Why didn't you tell me before? On the platform? I wouldn't have... dear God, waking up on a moving bomb... that must have been like being buried alive."

 

Beneath his mask, V smiled ruefully. "I thought something along the same lines myself. But I honestly thought I was dying, Evey, finally dying. I wanted to die." He tilted his head slightly. "As to precisely why I am still alive... you didn't want me to die. So who knows? Perhaps you brought me back from the dead." V watched her reaction to that last closely, searching for any sign that she had understood even one of the hidden levels of meaning he had intended.

 

If she did, no sign was apparent. "It could have been worse, I suppose. You could have jumped off the train and disappeared into the night."

 

V had the good graces to feel a little guilty about that... he had considered it. Evey had a role to play in building the new world; V's task of knocking down the old one was done. What more for him was there in this life? And yet, in his delirium... he had crawled home. To her. He tried to make light of it. "Well, every good British icon must stage his own death at least once in his career," he pointed out. "Look at Sherlock Holmes."

 

Evey snorted at the thought of what a stolid patriotic Brit like Sherlock Holmes might say about the destruction of Parliament. "But I wouldn't be as forgiving as Dr. Watson was about Holmes' reappearance. Your arms look very bad," she said after a moment of awkwardness. "Have you taken anything?"

 

"I mixed myself a lovely antibiotic cocktail for my breakfast."

 

"I meant for the pain. I can hear it in your voice; it must be terrible."

 

V did not answer for a moment; he was indeed in agony, but it was his emotions he was having the most difficulty keeping in check. When he spoke again, it was very evenly. "It is. But I have endured worse. Besides, the only painkiller that has any effect on my levels of pain is morphine, a drug which I'm violently allergic to."

 

"Isn't there anything I can do?" asked Evey quietly.

 

"I'm afraid not," replied V, very gently. Then, not wanting her to get up and ask to see his injuries, or start making him food that he could not eat, or do anything that would cause her to stop talking or to leave his presence, he spoke up again. "I must warn you of what lies ahead for me, Evey, and some of it is quite terrible. I don't want you to feel obligated to stay with me."

 

His quiet resignation infuriated Evey. "After all the shit you've put me through, I don't feel obligated to spit on you," she retorted. "I'm here because I want to be."

 

V made a considering noise in his throat. "After what I tell you what must be done, you may not want to be here any longer, because I'm afraid I must put you through more." He lifted one pained hand and laid it against his chest, over his heart. "The bullets are still here, Evey." He watched, lungs constricting, as the realization of what he needed her to do sunk in, watched as the expression of utter horror settled on her lovely features.

 

"Oh my God. V--you can't be serious! You're..." She swallowed, bile rising in her throat. "You're actually asking me to operate on you? To cut you open?"

 

"It must be done. Not immediately," V hastened to reassure her. "Some of them are still lodged in rather important internal organs. We need to wait until they've worked themselves free."

 

"They'll do that?"

 

"Yes. Another strange side-effect of my incarceration. For some little time after my escape from Larkhill, I was constantly discovering tiny things breaking through my skin." He felt nauseated at the very memory... the needle tips that had broken off in his veins... the plastic discs embedded in his body to administer precise time-released amounts of God only knew what... "The ones in my arms have already begun to loosen themselves; hence the swelling." There was a slight apology in his tone. "It is not one of the more pleasant reactions of one's body, no matter how useful."

 

"How long will the rest take?"

 

"As long as it takes my body to realize that it is harboring foreign masses. A week, perhaps two for the one that feels like it is buried in my left ventricle." If the two people had had feelings for each other any less profound, V would have forced her to operate today, to literally rip him open to remove the point piercing his heart. "But I will need help to remove them."

 

"V," said Evey slowly. "You just told me painkillers don't have any effect on you. You're actually asking me--someone with no medical training--to perform surgery on you... without anesthesia?" She was acutely conscious of the irony of the situation: V, who had been Rossiter, her torturer, was willingly delivering himself in her hands to receive a torture an equal to any he had ever given her. Worse... because he would know who was hurting him.

 

Horrible... because she had no choice but to do as he asked.

 

"I'm sorry, Evey. I don't know what else to do."

 

Instantly, she was assailed by a wave of déjà vu, reminded of her first day in the Shadow Gallery, barely a year before, when he had apologized for saving her life, ridiculously gentleman-like, and she had screamed in his face. She recognized it now for what it was--crippling uncertainty. Something he never felt, she was certain, when he was thinking about his drive for justice.

 

Only in relation to her.

 

There was a core of strength in Eve Hammond that she had never known she possessed, until V came along and tried to break her, scouring away every last piece of her--every last inch but one--until all that remained was that thin invisible steel, making itself known in her spine and her eyes. She stared at the mottled red and white hand pressed against the black until the sick feeling had all gone from her stomach, and then looked up and concentrated on V's mask, until she could feel that she had locked eyes with him.

 

"You'll have to show me what to do," she said at last.

 

***

 

Dominic Stone felt nervous. Not an unexpected side effect of plotting treason, but if what his boss was saying to their two visitors was true, then the men--and the principles--he was worried about betraying were either very dead or on their way out.

 

"I saw the bodies myself," Finch said for the fifth time. "Sutler was shot through the head, and Creedy's neck was broken. By an expert."

 

"By him," the woman murmured, gripping her husband's hand tightly. They had come in hopes of discussing the possibilities of prosecuting their daughter's killer, and had found instead an unlikely ally in the man who had discovered the congealing remains of the former administration. "But, Inspector, he's not really dead... is he?"

 

Finch nodded. "I saw that body, too. No face though," he added thoughtfully. "Just roses." The intercom chirped suddenly. "Johnson," said Finch irritably into the speaker, "I told you I wasn't seeing anyone else today."

 

"Sorry, Inspector, but there's a woman named Anne Campion here to see you. She says you're expecting her."

 

"I'm not."

 

"She says you were on a roof with her on the Fifth."

 

Finch's expression cleared. "Oh... Yes, yes, I do know her. Send her up, Johnson, immediately." He turned off the receiver. "We have a visitor," he said to his guests, double-checking the jammer to make sure it was working. The heads of state might be dead, but even a decapitated snake's head was still deadly if you weren't careful.

 

A knock at the door announced the new arrival, and Finch practically jumped out of his chair to let her in, though frankly, Dominic didn't see what all the fuss was about.

 

The newcomer was a short woman with a shaved head, dressed in baggy street clothes but looking pretty thin under all that cloth. A slight three-cornered scar on her forehead tugged at Dominic's memory, but it was her eyes that arrested his attention: deep brown with just a hint of amber, they were calm, confident, and unafraid. Dominic had only seen that expression in one place, on the faces of condemned prisoners, who had truly made their peace with the world before being taken out to meet the firing squad.

 

"Inspector Dominic Stone," Finch said by way of introduction, a tiny smile on the corners of his lips, "this is Evey Hammond."

 

Dominic's jaw dropped. His gaze shot again to the tri-cornered scar above the woman's left eye. It pulled at his brain because he had given it to her, but this looked nothing like the frightened girl he'd blindly slugged after being maced.

 

And it was more than just the shaved head...

 

Evey couldn't help grinning at the look on his face. "Inspector," she said cordially, offering her hand. She had not wanted to leave V alone, not when he was in so bad a state, but she had made the mistake of mentioning her promise to meet again with Finch, and he had insisted that she keep her word. "I'm sorry about the pepper spray, but you were assaulting a friend of mine."

 

Dominic just stared.

 

Finch cleared his throat. "Right, well, no harm done, Miss."

 

"Evey, please."

 

"Right, well, um... Evey, this is Hugh Drummond, and his wife Alicia." The Drummonds had gotten to their feet and were eyeing Evey with the sort of suspicious reverence people get when they are offered a piece of the True Cross by a carnival barker. "Their daughter was the little girl shot by the Fingerman in Brixton."

 

"Ah..." Evey remembered the child. She had run across the girl once when she was on her way home to her flat after work, and not long after had seen her wide-eyed, staring corpse on the nightly news: short, with dark hair and thick glasses, with courage enough to spray-paint a blood red V on a party poster in broad daylight. "Ah..." That was all Evey said--no platitudes, no expressions of sympathy--but somehow, it was enough to wipe all suspicion from the couple's eyes. She offered her hand, and Hugh Drummond took it, clasping it with firm resolution. Alicia Drummond's reaction was the same, though she took Evey's hand in both her own, pressing it with surprising strength. It was enough.

 

"Now," Finch was saying, "I did not know you were all going to show up today, but it's fortunate for me that you did. Saves me the trouble of finding you." And though the jammer was functioning properly, the chief inspector still lowered his voice, as he began pacing slowly around his desk. "Dominic and I have a meeting tonight with several ex-Party members, at the old Baker Street bank. Most of them were at Parliament Square. Some were not. But they all want to rebuild this country. We've been asked to bring as many people as we think we can trust." Finch looked pointedly at the jammer on his desk. "The fifth of November may have been the beginning of something grand, but if your late friend's revolution is going to succeed, Ms. Hammond, we'd best begin quickly. Sutler and Creedy both had deputies who've stepped into power. The Finger is still fully staffed and operational, and so long as Roger Dascombe is loyal to Norsefire, the Jordan Tower will remain barricaded and the BTN will have complete control of the airwaves." Finch spread his hands. "We've wasted enough time already. Will you come?"

 

The Drummonds looked at each other, as though sharing silent communion. Evey envied them that, the eloquence of their partner's eyes. Then the couple nodded.

 

But Evey was curious. "Are you asking me to attend as V's accomplice, Mr. Finch?"

 

He just looked at her, his hand-dog, tired expression never changing, except perhaps to become more so. "I am asking you to attend as the woman who blew up the Houses of Parliament, Ms. Hammond."

 

"The choice to pull that lever is not mine to make."

 

"I'll be there, Mr. Finch. But I do have a question... Why will you be there?"

 

It was a sharply double-edged question, but Finch didn't deny her the right to it. In fact, it was one he and Dominic had been asking themselves for days: why had they been invited? The Chief Inspector of the Nose and his right-hand, invited to an underground meeting whose intention was no less than the overturning of the Norsefire regime? "My dislike of Peter Creedy was well-known," he said at last, "my disagreements with Sutler, probably less so. But I think it's because I found the bodies at Victoria Station, because I didn't turn the investigation over to the Finger to let them become martyrs on the altar of fascism. I kept it here, where it belongs... and I haven't released any information that might suggest that Codename V was responsible for any of their deaths. As far as the public knows, Creedy murdered Sutler, and then two parties of Fingermen shot each other into a pulp." Finch let that tiny smile touch his mouth again, if not his eyes. "My professional honesty is very well known."

 

A slow smile spread across Evey's face, and V would have been proud of her reply. "'A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.'"[3]

 

Her response gave Dominic the collywobbles. It sounded like a quote from somewhere, and the intonation resonated in his brain with unsettling vibrato. But whatever he was feeling, the words seemed to trigger something in Finch, for he turned to the Drummonds, thanked them for coming, promised them he would see them later in Baker Street, and politely bid them good day. When they had gone, Finch sat down at his desk, folded his hands, and looked Evey directly in the face.

 

"Inspector Stone and I also believe that we were asked to attend because were in charge of finding your friend. I think, whatever else these people want, they will want whatever information we've dug up on him. And so now I have a question for you, Evey: he is really dead?"

 

Evey didn't blink. "You saw the blood, Mr. Finch. You saw the body on the train. You watched me pull the lever. Why are you asking?"

 

"I saw a body. In a mask. It could've been one of the dead Fingermen for all I know."

 

"It wasn't."

 

"But he is alive." This time, it wasn't a question.

 

Evey nodded. "But you needn't think he'll be causing you any problems."

 

"Oh, I don't anticipate that. I did see the amount of blood he lost. But when he's better... I would like to talk to him. To understand."

 

"I don't think even I'll ever understand. But I'll tell him." Evey stood up. "I need to go. Good day, Mr. Finch, Mr. Stone. I'll see you tonight."

 

Dominic watched her retreating back, then went and closed the door, and made sure it was locked again. "Creepy wench," he muttered, going back to his desk and perching on the edge. "She looks like death warmed over."

 

"She looks like she's been on Death Row," Finch corrected, rubbing his chin. "Or in one of Creedy's funhouses. What happened to her?" he wondered, more to himself than to Dominic. "And you're just still pissed that she gave you a face-full."

 

"She's up to something," Dominic insisted. "Why would she tell us he was still alive? He's still a wanted man, and she doesn't know if she can trust us?"

 

"No," agreed the chief inspector. "She's protecting him now as much as he was protecting her before... So the only reason she would admit that he was still alive... is if he told her to."

 

***

 

How white and scarlet is that face

Who knows, in some unusual place

The coloured heroes are alight

With faces made of red and white.

--Mervyn Peake

 

V awoke to find Evey perched on a stool at the end of his couch. "Did he believe you?"

 

"I think Eric Finch has gotten to the point where "Codename V" is the only person outside of his staff who he can trust not to lie to him outright. He looks like a lost sheepdog."

 

"He lost his wife and son when Norsefire came to power," V mused. "Oh, yes," he replied to Evey's startled look, "I know much about my pursuer. His wife's name was Linda, his son's name was Paul, and they died in a car accident during a food riot a few months after Sutler was elected to the post of High Chancellor. All he has left to him is his work, poor man." V tried to sit up, but the much-abused muscles of his torso had locked up and refused to cooperate.

 

"You should really be lying down in a proper bed, you know," Evey commented, threading an arm behind his shoulders and helping him upright. A pained wheeze escaped through V's mask. "This looks like a psychiatrist's couch."

 

V managed a weak chuckle. "The only proper bed down here, Evey, is the one you're currently occupying." She blinked. "You were unconscious when I brought you here, and I had to put you somewhere. My room was the only choice."

 

"You've been sleeping on that couch for a year?"

 

"It's no matter. I can sleep on anything, really."

 

"Not anymore. You're getting your bedroom back. Tonight."

 

"Then where will you sleep?"

 

"Here, if necessary. Or on the floor next to you. On the couch in the TV room. I can sleep on anything."

 

"But you don't have to," said V, quietly ashamed. "Not anymore."

 

Evey sighed. He would never forgive himself for the torment he had put her through... and on some level, she would never forgive him for it, either. But if V had to make the choice, she knew he would have done nothing different. And Evey knew that the woman she was now, V had created... no. That was the wrong word. The woman she was now, she had always been, but she had been hidden, buried away. In prison. V had freed her. And her gratitude for her freedom was immeasurable.

 

"Have you bathed?" she asked suddenly, not wanting to think any further.

 

"Not yet, no. I'm having some trouble moving properly. My entire body seems to have locked up."

 

"A hot bath will help your muscles relax," she reminded him, as though to a stubborn child. "You should know that."

 

"I do know... but..."

 

"Oh," Evey said, and a wave of hot embarrassment flew, not to her face, but to V's.

 

He stank of sweat, dried blood and gunpowder, and the rancid sewer smell of the disused station he'd fought in, and truly longed for a good hot soak, or at the very least, a shower. But his injuries had stiffened even further since this morning, and his body felt like one great throbbing bruise. "Evey, I can barely move my fingers, let alone walk to the bathroom."

 

"Well, you still need a wash," Evey broke into his thoughts, her own apparently mirroring his. "You're filthy. Even a body like yours can only fight off infection for so long." She cast a glance at the jug of water she had set next to his couch before leaving that afternoon. "And you're going to become dehydrated if you don't start drinking." If there is one thing that all prisoners in all times and places have in common, it is an intimate acquaintance with bodily functions, and V knew that Evey realized precisely why he hadn't been drinking. "For God's sake, V, you're going to make yourself even sicker."

 

"I've been on my own for twenty years; I've done just fine, thank you kindly."

 

"Have you ever been injured this badly before?" No answer. "Just let me help you..."

 

"No!" he exploded with unsuspected energy.

 

Evey sat back on her heels, regarding him with a calmness was still new to her. "Is this because of your burns? Christ, V, I don't care--"

 

"This is not about you, Evey," V hissed, "I don't want to be seen. There is nothing beneath this mask, below these clothes--"

 

"Nothing sure bleeds a hell of a lot..."

 

"--but an idea!"

 

Evey's eyes narrowed. "An idea is only as powerful as the man behind it," she said evenly. "There is a man below that mask and those clothes. And he is in pain, and he needs help. This is more than you not belonging to the face below the Guy Fawkes mask. Tell me." No answer. "Are you worried I'll be repulsed by what I'll see?"

 

"No."

 

"Then why?"

 

"Because if you see me... your feelings for me will change."

 

Evey reached out and gripped his hand. "They can't be changed. Not after all that's happened."

 

V squeezed her hand gratefully in return. "I know. It is... the nature of your... affections for me that I fear will alter." His chest rose and fell convulsively. "Evey, I don't want you to misunderstand..."

 

"Then tell me."

 

And so, finally, blessedly, he did.

 

It was like opening a floodgate. V talked for almost two hours, about Larkhill and about the experiments conducted on him--about how he had been reborn from the fire. About what the fire itself, and the subsequent injuries, meant to him. "It was as though all that was superfluous, all that had been done to me in the name of science had been burned away, like an alchemical equation. It was fire, of my creation, my making, just as these burns are of my making. I knew, in the days before that fifth of November, that I would be injured badly by the explosion, if not killed by it."

 

"But you didn't care. Because you had something more than life."

 

"Every inch but one," V murmured. "'Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life.'[4] If I was going to die, it was going to be on my terms."

 

"You... V, you're proud of these scars," Evey said, eyes widening as comprehension blossomed. She rubbed his bare hand absently, feeling no connection to its appearance save that it was V's hand and she was holding it. "You're actually proud of them, aren't you?"

 

"Fiercely. Immensely." V took a deep breath and let it out, steadying himself for the revelation. "They are proof of my struggle, a testament to one man's will not to be dominated or destroyed, and I will not have them maligned. But," he added, "they are not me. They are a part of me, who I am, but they are not the sum total, and I will not be judged by them. I don't want you to look at me and feel pity for that of which I am so proud."

 

For a reply, Evey held the scarred but strong fingers even more tightly in her own, rubbing the hard bumps of the knuckles with the pads of her thumbs. "I have seen you before," she reminded him, deliberately tracing the lines of tissue with her fingertips, hearing the breath in his throat whispering through the mask's slightly open mouth. "The night you took me on the train raid, do you remember?"

 

"Of course," replied V softly, more than half his attention focused on her hand caressing his. "It was your birthday. You wanted to make cookies."

 

"And you gave me roses, and that antique copy of Twelfth Night." As she had on another momentous night, Evey marveled again at the incredible softness of his skin--with such severe burns, she had always expected the scars to be rigid and inflexible--but though they were uneven in places, the skin was still oddly smooth and as soft as a baby's. "You got pretty banged up on the train," she reminded him, "and you needed some help to stop up the leaks. I saw part of you then."

 

"Yes," V said, his deep voice colored with a sudden wash of amusement, "and you nearly fainted because of it."

 

"No," Evey corrected quickly. "I was almost sick when you told me how long you'd been in Larkhill. I told you how sorry I was... and you said you didn't want my pity. And later, you apologized--you said that, if you thought if would help either of us, you'd burn your masks."

 

"And you forgave me."

 

Evey nodded. "But I still didn't understand."

 

"And do you now? I am not repulsed by what I see when I look into a mirror, I don't feel sorry for myself, for the pain or for the good looks I might have lost--in all probability because I have no clear memory of what I looked like before. Although," he added with just a hint of bitterness, "according to my attending doctor, I was very ugly. But I've never looked to you for that kind of sympathy, and I never want to see it."

 

Evey raised his bare hand to her lips and pressed a lingering kiss to his knuckles. "You won't," she promised softly. V stared at her, breathless, unable to move or do anything else. It called to mind the very night she had mentioned, when she had insisted on doctoring his injuries, the same night he had so callously rejected her honest sympathy. It called to mind an entirely different night as well...

 

"Evey..."

 

"V?"

 

"I wish I could see you..."

 

V shut down on that memory very quickly. But not quickly enough, for it seemed Evey was again thinking along similar lines. She reached up and laid a hand on his mask; V fancied he could feel the heat from her hand radiating through the cool steel. "I have touched nearly every part of you," she reminded him. "And you have done the same to me. I have felt more than I thought possible, thanks to you. Why should you be afraid to show me what I already love so well?"

 

V literally felt his heart stop.

 

He had declared his love for her, when he thought he was dying... and that night before she had left him, they had even... but she had never said... But what she was asking, it was something he could not force himself to do. He could coerce his own muscles into climbing into her bed in the darkness, when she had asked, could persuade him arms to hold her and his body to join with hers... But although he had longed to see her, it had never once occurred to him that to do so, she must be permitted to see him.

 

"I can't," he whispered hoarsely, turning away from her hand.

 

"And I can't love a man in a mask, V."

 

"And yet that is precisely what you love. You fell in love with an idea, Evey, with a voice, a costume, a series of theatrical gestures--"

 

"An idea that you created. V, that's the most of you I've been allowed. If that's what I'm in love with, is that my fault?" Swiftly she sat beside him and laid her hands again on his mask. Instinctively, his hands came up to stop hers, though he knew he was too weak to hold her off for long. "No, I won't take it off," she forestalled him. "Because this isn't the mask I'm talking about. It's the other one, the invisible one you're hiding from me behind. Now you're just hiding the man behind the idea." The mask showed sorrow and disbelief, the mask that Evey had come to be able to read as well as any face.

 

His charred fingers bent painfully to grip hers. V knew that this slip of a girl would never intentionally hurt him. But then, his roses never intended to prick his fingers, to make him bleed even through the thick leather of his gloves... but they did. And their thorns were in plain sight. What kind of damage could Evey inflict, now that he had shown her the true nature of her strength? V literally no longer had any clear idea of what she was capable of.

 

"You're not a god, V," said Evey, this time responding to her words rather than his thoughts. "And I won't burn you."

 

If he had been healthy and at full strength, V would never have given in. But he was weakened from blood loss, shivering from fever and pain. And so, even knowing that to agree meant baring not only his face but his entire body to the one person in the world he most and least wanted to lay eyes on him, V surrendered.

 

"If that is what you wish," he capitulated, his voice barely more than a whisper. "But Evey... you may not like what you find."

 

Nodding, Evey bent his high leather boots. She feared his feet would be as swollen as his hands, and that the boots would have to be cut away, but they slipped off after a good tug or two, as did his old-fashioned woolen stockings. His feet were like his hands, taut twisted muscle over bones, all stuffed into a red-and-white membrane that seemed too tight. "Come on," she said, standing up. "Let's move you." Helping him to his feet, Evey wrapped one arm around his waist, and draped V's arm across her shoulders. After one step, she almost buckled under his weight; V was a slender man, but heavily muscled, and he could barely walk. Evey ended up more or less dragging him into the bathroom.

 

She propped him up--rather awkwardly--on top of the toilet, while she ran the water. A sudden thought popped into her mind as she held her hand under the faucet. "It should be as hot as you can stand," she said, glancing at his hands and feet and thinking of nerve damage.

 

V stiffened noticeably, and then just as noticeably relaxed. "As hot as you can, Evey," he sighed. She had not meant to offend him, he knew. Her care and solicitousness were quite touching, actually... but her furtive glance at him had undercut the kindness of the gesture. She was thinking of him, yes, but only in terms of his injuries.

 

Precisely as he had feared.

 

Evey bit her lip and inwardly damned herself for her unthinking question. She knew he suffered from no nerve damage, quite the opposite: the night they had spent together had proven that V's sense of touch was unusually delicate. He had quickly memorized the contours of her body, even in the dark... Evey wished there was something she could do to recreate the feeling of that night--not of passion, seduction, or even need, but of comfort. V was comfortable with the dark... but she couldn't help him bathe if she couldn't see what she was doing.

 

Abruptly, Evey shut off the water. It steamed gently in the harsh electric light. "I'll be right back," she promised, rushing out the door. Startled, V listened to her rummaging through one of his closets. When she returned, she was carrying an armful of candles and a box of matches. She proceeded to every available surface of the bathroom with the smooth ivory-colored tapers, and when they were all lit, Evey shut off the bathroom's electric lights, leaving the room luxuriating in a soft, warm, diffuse glow.

 

From his perch, V looked up at Evey, and although there was a tired tilt to his head, she could feel the smile he was giving her. "Adding to the mood?" he asked, quizzical but amused at the same time.

 

Evey grinned. "I think I'll wait til you're a little more fit before I try and seduce you again." V chuckled. Then Evey's smile faded. "The water's getting cold." She laid careful fingers on V's shoulder. He was trembling. "V?"

 

"A moment, please," he rasped. Evey laid her hand more fully against him, and waited, as V wrestled against all the instincts of a lifetime.

 

Then, V inhaled deeply. "'Love denied blights the soul we owe to God,'" he said at last, raising his head to look at her.[5] "Evey, I only wish I had the strength to do this myself," he continued quietly, referring to more than just his physical strength. "Alas, I have none." His hand inched upward, until it found hers. "You must do this. For both of us."

 

Evey nodded. Leaning forward, she pressed a tender kiss to the lips of the mask, as her free hand slowly slid over the mask's cheek, and further back. She felt his ear pass beneath her palm, felt the shiver the touch sent through her love. Evey tangled her fingers in the long black wig, actually believing she felt the inanimate face come to life and kiss her in return. And then she realized:

 

It was V.

 

His lips were actually pressing back against her, against the inside of the mask, returning pressure for pressure, returning the caress in the only way he could. The knowledge made Evey's stomach twist in a manner she couldn't let herself think about. "Come on," she said again. "Y'know...the bath water." She placed her hands on the Guy Fawkes mask, and V steeled himself for the revelation that was about to occur... only...

 

It never came.

 

V opened his eyes and found Evey was just... staring at him, and for the first time in all the months of knowing her and studying her, he could not read the expression on her face. "Evey?" He felt her hands slide down from his face to his shoulders once more, and offered no resistance when she pulled him into a feather-light embrace, bewailing internally that his injured arms could not return the gesture. "Then you do fear what you will find in me," he concluded sadly.

 

"No," she murmured into his neck. "Not in you. Never in you. Only in me."

 

So instead of the dramatic unmasking they had both anticipated, she simply helped him out of the remainder of his clothes, helped him slide into the steaming tub. V groaned in appreciation. "This feels marvelous," he had to confess, his voice a low rumble. He could already feel the muscles of his chest beginning to unclench.

 

Evey perched herself precariously on the edge of the claw-footed bathtub, and just looked at the man in the water. His body was lean and muscled, covered with the same burns as his hands and feet, but it was not the burns upon his body which filled her with pity, or the scars from old battles. Now that she had heard his story, felt his convictions, she would never look on those scars as anything less than badges of honor. It was not even the sight of his more recent injuries; she could clearly see every cut, slice, and puncture from the fight in the station, angry scarlet against the normal mottled red-and-white of his flesh. No, it was the other scars, the deep round honeycomb-like marks that made her lips tighten in anger, the remnants of the ugly purple lesions that were the hallmark of the Saint Mary's virus. So few people had survived to acquire such scars. Her brother had not been one of them. Any of almost one hundred thousand people had not been among the lucky ones.

 

And they had been inflicted on all the victims deliberately, but on this man most of all.

 

No, Evey felt no pity for the man lying before her.

 

She felt fury.

 

"V," she said evenly, "look at me." The mask turned to her, expressing nothing but revealing so much, the apprehension he must be feeling, the anxiety and embarrassment. And yet, despite everything, he still managed to convey the deep, sincere affection that he had always had for her, expressed through the elegance of his body and the poetry of his words.

 

Words, the most important thing in V's life. Not faces, not memories, not even people--but words. Just as deadly and far more impacting than any other weapon he might yield. And yet words, apparently, had now deserted him. No wonder he was trembling.

 

"You told me you didn't want my pity, or my sympathy." The lay of his muscles changed slightly, showing something Evey had never expected from him: she saw fear. Something, at least, that she could put to rest. "I don't see anything that needs pitying." She paused, carefully considering her next words. "That night, before I left," she continued, "I remember feeling you under my hands, feeling your scars, and wishing I could see them. I thought, even these scars must be more a part of this man than the Guy Fawkes mask."

 

Lying in the tub, bare and vulnerable as he was, V had no choice but to respond. "And now?" he questioned, though admittedly he was terrified of what her answer would be. "Do you feel the same?"

 

She shook her head. "No," she replied simply. "I don't."

 

V was a master of the short answer. But he had never before realized how bloody infuriating they could be. "Evey..."

 

"I was wrong. They are you. But so is the mask. So is Shakespeare, and Edmond Dantes, and your roses, and Valerie. Your jukebox. Me. That ridiculous apron you fancy. It's all you. It's all connected somehow, and it always has been, and now that I've seen you, I realize I never really needed to." She leaned forward, and in her face was both promise and prophecy. "And if you ever do decide to show me your face, it will be because you need to, not because I do."

 

"So that I might see that I am made up of ideas, but yet still a man, flawed and formidable as any?" V made his considering noise. "And so the pupil retorts the teachings of the master upon him. I must say I am..." He flexed the fingers of one hand, testing them, feeling them move freely. He lifted it, dripping, from the water, and Evey took it. "Quite, quite humbled," he finished, the warmest of smiles gracing his voice. "How on earth did you come to know me so well?"

 

She shrugged, and offered a Mona Lisa smile to accompany Guy Fawkes.

 

***

 

It seemed like an odd place for a clandestine meeting, just around the block from what had once been one of the top tourist sites in the whole of London. But at the actual address of 221 Baker Street was the hollow shell of a former bank, long disused and more importantly for the purposes of the people sneaking into it, long ignored by Earmen and other surveillance methods of the government.

 

Finch scanned the faces of the assembled. There were the Drummonds, Hugh and Patricia, and another married couple, the Sedleys, that Dominic had met at Parliament Square the night of the bombing. There was Clarence Straud, from the Department of Taxation and Finance, Eileen McCumber from the Department of the Treasury, Dave Slocum from the Ministry of Defense, a handful of people Finch recognized has having been various Big Things in the City before the Reclamation, and a number of individuals he did not know. Everyone was eying one another uncertainly, wondering who had organized the meeting and who was going to chair it. There was no sign of Evey Hammond.

 

More worrisome for Finch, there was no sign of Dominic Stone yet, either.

 

"What kind of trouble has the bloody boy gotten himself into now?" Finch muttered.

 

***

 

The kind of trouble Dominic had managed to get himself into was in fact, in a word, bloody.

 

On the half-kilometer walk from his car to the rendezvous, Dominic had been recognized by a group of very sober but still very zealous and dangerous would-be revolutionaries... with various blunt objects on their persons. And as soon as they realized that he was a police officer

 

Shit, Dominic thought as the mob closed around him. One flash of his badge had been the wrong thing to do. He thanked God then and there that he wasn't a Fingerman, else he'd probably be dead by--

Coherent thought left his head as an angry mechanic's wrench came flying into his field of vision.

 

***

 

"You shouldn't be doing this," Evey chided as she tried to keep up with V's long-legged strides.

 

"I've explained my reasoning, Evey," replied the masked man congenially, once more resplendent in hat and cloak and looking--as Evey had privately thought more than once--like a very jolly Pilgrim.

 

"I mean in your condition. Just because you can actually move now, you're still very badly wounded and--"

 

"Evey, please," V chided in his voice like crushed velvet, drawing out the syllables as only he could. "This must be done. Finch won't leave me in peace until he has confronted me face to face. In a manner of speaking."

 

"Then why did you want him to know you were still alive in the first place?"

 

"Because I owe him that much."

 

"Huh?" V didn't answer. Instead he stopped dead in his tracks, his head cocked at a peculiar angle. "V--"

 

"Shh," he ordered. "Listen, Evey. Do you hear it?"

 

Evey glanced at him, uncertain. "I don't hear any strings," she quipped nervously.

 

"Not music," V insisted, a dangerous edge coming into his voice. He grabbed the back of Evey's head in a tight--but not in the least painful--grip and turned her ears in the direction he wanted. "Listen."

 

Now very concerned, Evey listened, concentrating so hard she barely registered the movement of V's hands from her neck to her shoulders. Far off in the distance, she heard the unmistakable sounds of people shouting, cheering, and a sickeningly distinct meaty sound. "God, V, what is it?"

 

"Trouble."

 

Evey's hand whipped out, and her fingers just caught the hem of V's cloak before he could billow away into the night. "V, wait!"

 

He turned slightly. "Be brief, Evey. We are needed."

 

It froze the protest in her throat. "Just don't kill anybody," she pleaded, again running to keep up with him.

 

"My arms are in no condition for knife throwing," replied V in a tone meant to be reassuring. He was perfectly capable of killing with only his fingers, but there was no reason to mention that little fact to Evey just now.

 

They rounded a corner and found a pack of working-class rowdies intent on pounding their chosen victim into jelly, and whether it was his injuries or her indignation, she was the one who acted first. "Oy!" Evey shouted without thinking. Startled, the people looked up at the slender girl who stood at the entrance to the alley. "What the bloody hell are you sods doing?" She felt more than saw V slip into the shadows around them, but distinctly heard his amused chuckle.

 

"Holy Christ," one of the toughs muttered, lowering his wrench a fraction. "That's Evey Hammond. I seen 'er on the telly."

 

"They say she's in tight wiv the bloke what blew up Parliament."

 

"Actually," said Evey calmly and quite truthfully, "I am the bloke who blew up Parliament." This declaration was met with stunned silence. "What are you doing to that man?"

 

"'E's a copper!"

 

"We don't need 'im anymore!"

 

"Givin' 'im a taste of good British anarchy, we was!"

 

Evey looked past them, to the crumpled form on the pavement. "Did he harm you? Threaten you? Did he so much as look cross-eyed at you?" A few of the group began to look distinctly ashamed, and another man looked down at the pipe in his hand and turned green. Evey shook her head, feeling disgusted and feeling V's equal displeasure exuding from somewhere behind her. The words that fell from her lips, she suspected, came from behind her as well. "'And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/ The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray/ In deepest consequence.'"[6] She scowled. "'Good British anarchy' doesn't mean going out and pummeling whoever you feel like. That's Norsefire's business, not ours."

 

"But we don't need cops anymore!" one woman spoke up, bolder than the rest and totally unapologetic. "We are the law."

 

"This isn't law that you're dishing out with pipes and clubs. This is chaos, and tyranny. What's next? Cattle prods? Black bags?"

 

"I lost my husband in one of those black bags!" the woman snapped, her green eyes blazing.

 

"I lost my parents in them," returned Evey calmly. "And I've gotten up close and personal with the insides of those black bags. Have you?" Not knowing if the mob would attack her and frankly not much caring, Evey walked defiantly past her antagonists and knelt down before the fallen man, who to her horror, she recognized. She ripped a sleeve from her jacket, binding it about Dominic Stone's bleeding temple. "This is not what V was fighting for!" she exploded suddenly.

 

The look in her brown eyes made V's heart race, and made the roughs very clearly nervous.

 

"Whaddaya mean, 'was fightin' for,'" asked an enormous blond navvy suspiciously. "He ain't... dead... is 'e?"

 

V tensed. A wrong word--even a wrong look at this most crucial of moments--could destroy everything he... they had worked for.

 

"It isn't his fight anymore," Evey said simply. "It's ours. That's what anarchy is. The voices of all the people, in a society of voluntary order. Personal responsibility for all deeds, good or bad, not this random chaos! Enough nights and enough beatings and England will be begging for people like Sutler and Creedy to take over again. We want this country to stand with us, not be terrified of us."

 

"And just who is 'us'?" the green-eyed woman wanted to know. She gestured to her compatriots, all clearly from the lower strata of working-class Brits, respectable but by no means influential. "What are we to England?"

 

"We," came a mellifluous voice from the shadows, "are the vox populi, the voices of the people kept silent for far too long." And suddenly V was there, in that dank and dirty alley, and he looked not to have appeared from the darkness so much as the darkness seemed to have receded away from him, clinging only to the fringes of his cloak and melting his silhouette imperceptively back into the night. The genial white mask gazed harshly on the awe-stricken brawlers. "We are the true voices of London, of England, and of the world."

 

Dear God, Evey thought, they look terrified.

 

Of them, only the green-eyed woman seemed unafraid. "The time for words is over."

 

"On the contrary, my dear lady, the time for words has not even begun."

 

Dominic groaned in Evey's lap. "V, I've got to get him to hospital--"

 

"We'll take him," said the blond man suddenly. "He won't get hurt at our hands again." One fellow knelt down and took Dominic by the shoulders, while a woman carefully took his legs. Another chap offered his car.

 

"Good," V rumbled pleasantly, as if this was all in a night's work. Then he pointed to the woman who seemed to have been the leader of all. "And she shall come in his stead."

 

"What?" the woman blinked. "The hell I will. Come with you where?"

 

"To a meeting. A new world is forming, and though there are no leaders in an ideal anarchy, there must always be guiding lights. Have you a name?"

 

"Caroline," she said after a long moment of looking back and forth between Evey and V.

 

"Well then, Caroline," replied Evey with a grin. "We mustn't be late."

 

***

 

The meeting was well underway--or at least, Finch thought, there was a lot of very furious whispering going on--when the sound of footsteps sent every person of the assembled scurrying for a dark corner. Finch crouched behind a pile of rotting cardboard boxes, his gun drawn. Several pairs of feet entered the room, two light sets, and one measured and heavy tread.

 

And then Finch heard him.

 

"'Rumour, rumour, pump and derry. Prick his heart and burn his body, and send his soul to Purgatory.'"[7]

 

"Jesus Christ," he muttered shakily, scrambling out from his hiding place.

 

And there he was. Alive and whole.

 

"I knew what I saw on that train was too good to be true," was all he could think to finally say to the man who had dominated his life for more than a year.

 

V dipped his hat slightly in acknowledgment, noting that the Chief Inspector's gun was out and aimed at him but quite steady. "What you saw on that train, Mr. Finch, was an idea in the process of becoming reality."

 

Finch saw Evey, and another woman he didn't recognize, but he had room in his brain only for V. "In the past week, I read five times that you were killed in five different places."

 

"As you can see, it was true every single time."[8]

 

Evey took that opportunity to take Finch's arm--the one with the gun, forcing him to lower it. "We found Inspector Stone," she began.

 

All the blood drained from Finch's face. "Oh, God... he is dead?"

 

"No. He's in hospital." She glanced at the other woman; Finch saw that she had dark hair and blazing green eyes but noticed little else about it. "We found him... arguing... with a group of people with some very misguided ideas about what this revolution stands for."

 

The other assembled members of the little group had slowly come out of their hidden niches, and were staring at V and Evey with equal parts shock, awe, and dread. Dave Slocum, the Defense man, spoke up first.

 

"So you're the bollocksy bastard who destroyed Parliament," he began bluntly.

 

V could sense that this was becoming a common misconception. He tilted his head back slightly and managed to stare down his nose at the tall man. "No, I'm the bastard who destroyed the Old Bailey." He gestured to Evey, who came to stand defiantly beside him. "She blew up Parliament."

 

"On your orders."

 

"At my request."

 

"Of my own volition," Evey broke in, speaking firmly.

 

Slocum couldn't believe his ears. "You're both speaking treason."

 

"Fluently," said V with relish.[9]

 

"But isn't that why we're all here?" Alicia Drummond pointed out. "We've all thought it before. They're just the first people to do something about it."

 

Annoyed, Slocum turned on Finch. "I asked you to bring people that we could trust to discuss a workable transition of power from Norsefire to something more practicable, not known anarchists or dangerous fugitives."

 

"'A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy,'" said the masked man quietly.[10]

 

In spite of himself, Finch shivered. "Don't you ever speak in anything other than quotations?" he snapped.

 

"Yes. I sometimes speak in riddles." V held up a gloved hand. "But you need not worry, Mr. Slocum, about me transmitting my 'dangerous' ideas to your unsuspecting little war council. After tonight, you will not see me again."

 

The 'council' did a collective double-take. "What?"

 

"The world that I was a part of and that I helped shape is gone. This new world is for you to form, and in doing that, I cannot help you. Therefore," V continued, "I have not come here as a symbol, nor to be the living, breathing poster boy for this council. A martyr is only effective as such if he dies and remains that way, so if I've inconvenienced any of you by not staying dead, I do apologize.

 

"I have come here with a message for this council," he continued, his gaze seeming to linger on Caroline, "in the hope that in your passion for justice and freedom you will not give in to the zealotry that so defines this current government.

 

"My message to you, ladies and gentlemen, is this: The opposite of war is not peace.

 

"It is creation.

 

"You must be the vox for the populi. Not of business, or of the military or the government, because a nation is only as strong as the people within it." His posture didn't change, but Evey suddenly felt his eyes on her. "Just as ideas are only as strong as the people behind them.

 

"Now then." He folded his arms below his cloak. "I suggest you all go home, and have a nice long think. And if you come back tomorrow, then, Evey will talk with you about getting this revolution truly started."

 

"How do you know any of us will come back?" Slocum challenged.

 

"You may not." V looked past him, to Alicia and Hugh Drummond. He knew precisely who they were. "But they will. They will. And as long as someone believes, and follows, tomorrow will come."

 

Slowly, unwilling to go now that something important had actually been said, the assembled rebels filtered out of the condemned building and back to their various homes. All save two.

 

Caroline just shook her head, trying to process everything she had heard. "I can't believe any of this is really happening."

 

"'If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction,'" V agreed, a warm amusement playing in his words.[11] He turned to the other remaining 'rebel.' And now, my dear Javert," said V to Finch, almost fondly. "Evey tells me you have some questions for me."[12]

 

"Questions." Finch looked at V, looked at his mask and his hat, his gloves and the unmistakable glint of knives at his belt. "I have... so many questions. But do you know the answers, V?"

 

"Some. Many. But do you have any idea the number of questions you would need to ask, Inspector, to satisfy your curiosity?"

 

Finch remembered reading The Phantom of the Opera as a boy, and feeling sorry--just as he was supposed to--for the Phantom when he lost the girl. Now though, V, watching Evey, he suddenly felt far sorrier for Raoul. The Phantom died knowing he was loved, Christine got a husband who loved her, and what did Raoul get? Only half of the story, and a wife who was more than likely only half in love with him.

 

Yes, he felt very sorry for Raoul.

 

"Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this?" Finch finally asked. "I mean what you're fighting for."

 

"You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."

"Well, what of it? It'll be out of its misery."

 

"You know how you sound, Mr. Finch? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart."[13]

 

Finch passed a hand over his weary face. "Maybe I don't. Maybe what you said about yourself is true for me, too. This isn't my England anymore. It hasn't been my England for almost thirty years, and it won't be my England tomorrow." The hang-dog look on his face was even more pronounced than usual. "I don't suppose you could just do to me what you did to Delia?"

 

V sighed. "If it will mean anything to you, Inspector... I am sorry for her death. I took no pleasure in it. There was only relief."

 

"That it was over."

 

The broad-brimmed hat dipped once in assent. "For both of us."

 

"Why?" Finch asked.

 

"Because for twenty years, I was driven by what was done to me. And for twenty years, she was haunted by it. Between the two of us, I doubt if there was one night's unbroken sleep in two decades."

 

"Well, I can't say she didn't deserve it," Finch admitted. "I read her journal."

 

"Ah."

 

There was so much more Finch wanted to say. But he couldn't find the words. So he left.

 

V watched him go.

 

"V." Evey tugged at his arm. "Let's go home."

 

He sighed heavily, eyes focused on the floor. "Yes," he said at last. His chest hurt.

 

End Chapter One