French, means: “It goes without saying”
Summary: V survives the shooting and the story continues.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing from V for Vendetta is mine. This is just for fun.
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Chapter 8
The thing V had thrown at her was a brass key. She turned it over and over and over her hands fingering it so much that it had begun to tarnish and turn her fingers black as she waited.
At first there was silence from behind the locked door.
Then there was crashing, banging, violence that lasted for what felt like years and made Evey painfully aware of V’s half healed injuries.
For many reasons the key turning in her hands preyed on her mind. It was a tool, a responsibility and a symbol. He had given her his confinement and he had given her the means to end it. He had given her his freedom.
If she let him out and he remained mad, she had no hope of restraining him. She didn’t want to have to restrain him. On the flipside, she was not comfortable leaving him alone behind a locked door. He was far from healthy and she knew that if he kept at it he could really hurt himself.
After eons of time passed during which Evey got no closer to a solution, V finally quieted. The relief that washed over her was like cool water on a hot day. She called to him, tried to reach him but he didn’t respond. Just as she began fumbling with the key because she couldn’t stand the silence and the loss it implied she heard scratching. It reminded her of the sound of chalk on concrete from when she was young and hopscotch was a fun game. She put the key on the ground in front of her and stared at the door.
Later, much later, she heard him lean against the inside of the door and she moved to lean on it too, pushing her weight against it allowing the pressure to silently inform him of her presence. She would not leave him and he needed to know it.
But he fled the door when it pushed against him and she could feel the rage boiling up again, knew the moment it would overwhelm him and cried hard when the crashing and banging resumed.
She couldn’t listen anymore and retreated to the kitchen. Leaning against the counter, it took her a while to gather herself.
It was inevitable that after all he had suffered, all he had planned and accomplished that the aftermath would be harsh. How could she have thought it would be as simple as a depression?
Perhaps it was wishful thinking. Perhaps she had a bloated sense of V’s invincibility. The idea V might be bulletproof, but the man was not. She still struggled to separate the two.
It was difficult to assess her options for the present problem. She probably knew V better than anyone but the vastness of her ignorance laughed as it now paraded in front of her.
She had no answers to the questions that plagued her. How much pain could a man endure and be sane, assuming a very broad definition of the term? How long was this going to last? What was he doing in there anyway? Would he bounce back from this? If he did, would it happen again? Could she live with this?
The old Evey would have run, fear overwhelming hope.
But this version, the one V created, wasn’t afraid. Not for herself. There was no fear, there was hope. Hope that somehow she could figure out the living riddle she’d fallen in love with and help him.
She had talked about V a little with Finch. He had needed to tell her about Delia, whom, in his own way, he had loved. In the process he had told her about Larkhill and the man from room 5. He had even offered her Delia’s diary, but she’d refused claiming the loss was still to raw. Really, she didn’t want to know too much, didn’t want to get ahead of V. She hoped that at some point he would be comfortable enough to share his past with her because he wanted to, not because she forced his hand.
She wasn’t sure where V had found his original vision of a new future and she didn’t know all that it had taken to orchestrate his vendetta but the more she thought about it, the more logical what he was currently going through seemed.
He had traded pain for purpose. Once finished, he had nothing but pain to fall back upon. Unlike her, he had no happy memories to draw strength from, no family to offer support, no friend who had ever been true.
But that could change. That had to change. She would change it. She would be family, friend, lover and maker of joyful memories.
Fortified by her resolve and loaded with things to make her wait easier, Evey returned to her vigil by the door. She had the blanket from his bed, the one that smelled like him and a couple of pillows that she made a nest out of in front of the door. She also had a bottle of water and some crackers. Most importantly, she had a book. It was the one he had requested back on the 5th. Witches Abroad. It was such an odd choice but it was what he had wanted to hear when he was in pain. There was no doubt that he was in pain now.
If the book soothed him to sleep that night, perhaps it would help here too. She read aloud, her voice resonating off the walls and echoing down the hall.
Shortly after she started V, who had been back at the scratching, quieted and returned to the door leaning against it pushing her into a more upright position.
She pushed back to acknowledge him but didn’t stop reading. He did not dart away.
She made it almost to the end before she finally grasped what V had seen in it. The first time she read the book she had glossed over it as a bit of fluff, which it still was, but it also had a deeper meaning. It was about stories and a puppet government trying to force feed stories to its population, making the people live in a fairytale because that’s what the godmother/government thought would make their lives perfect.
“Is this book on the black list?” She asked, not expecting an answer.
“Yes, it is.” His voice sounded scratchy but normal.
Evey sighed in relief.
In her attempt to face the options if he didn’t pull himself back together she had remembered a movie V had shown her called ‘Old Yeller’ about a faithful and brave dog who fought a wolf for his family. The wolf was rabid and Yeller was bitten. The boy that loved him, the one Yeller gave his life for, had to watch him go mad and in the end, to show him mercy, had to shoot him. Even though the film ended with a montage of Old Yeller’s puppies, she hated it and had been angry at V for showing it to her.
He had shrugged and said, "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest, It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes . . ." [6]
The thoughts his comment had stirred had been terrible and she had not been pleased by their unwanted return. Hearing his voice made her hopeful that she didn’t have to think about mercy anymore. But still she worried. She had to be sure that he was no longer in pieces, that her best friend was not rabid.
She asked, “Because it’s seditious?”
“Because it reminds us that freewill is more important than perfect, storybook endings.” He replied, sounding very much like the college professor she secretly suspected he had been once.
“Are you okay now?” It had to be asked.
He sighed and she could feel the weight pushing against her through the door increase. “Yes.”
“Do you want to come back out now?” She wasn’t sure she was ready. But she had to ask. He had spent enough of his life behind locked doors.
He seemed to understand. “Would you finish the story for me first?”
She did as he asked, sending Granny Weatherwax, Magrat and Nanny Ogg back home before readdressing the question of liberating V from his self imposed prison.
He sounded shamed. “Evey, if you are ready to open the door I am ready to pass through it.”
She climbed to her feet and unlocked the door. He tried the lock but did not open the door.
“Would you be kind enough to make some tea for me, Evey?”
“Sure.” She replied, understanding that really wasn’t what he was asking for but thankful to escape the awkwardness of the moment.
It was one thing to convince yourself that you could be a man’s rock, it was another to actually attempt it. How she handled what came next could be the defining moment between them. The thought terrified her.
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[6] Shakespeare – Merchant of
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