Chapter 17

Pull it together.  Pull it together now.  Now, God damn it! 

Slowly the red haze of her anger and hurt started to clear and the first thing Evey noticed was V’s hands in her hair, gently turning circles as if massaging away the hurt.  Mum used to do this.  She would rub my head when I was sad.

Evey realized his trousers were soaked through at the same time she discovered her face was buried in his lap.  Her arms were around his waist and cramping from the strength of her grip.

Let go, she told herself.  Pull it together and let go.

Slowly, as if fighting her will, her hands unclenched from the muscles of his lower back and she heard him groan in relief.  She must have been clutching him for a long time because her arms felt like lead and barely supported her weight as she pushed herself into an upright position.

V immediately moved settling into a cross-legged position with his back against the door to wait while she collected herself.

When most of her body was once again under her control, Evey found the courage to glance at him.  He had cried with her.  His clothes were damp from his chin to halfway down his chest.  He was staring at the floor.

“I’m sorry, V.  I guess I lost it, huh?” She said as she began her own contemplation of the flagstone floor.

“Never apologize for showing feeling.  When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” [19] He responded without looking up.

“Is the lift really broken?”  She asked fearing a return of her childhood asthma.  Her breath was a little short and she felt light headed.

“For now.”

It isn’t really broken.  He wants me to stay down here.  She tried to explain. “I’m not going to take my phone.  I just wanted some air.”

“I’m sorry, Evey,” He said, “Perhaps you simply need rest.”

“No.” She responded, trying to still the tumbling thoughts in her mind.  She looked up at him.  His shoulders slumped in defeat as he made careful study of his hands in his lap.  Evey forgot her own troubles, feeling her heart reach out to him.  “I’m sorry, V.  I really am.”

“You’ve not wronged me, Evey.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”  She replied, knowing it was not, but struggling anyway.

“They could not have done what they did without me.”

She took a moment to think about it.  What he said was true, but there was a fundamental flaw in his logic.  Were the circumstances not so bad she would have enjoyed pointing it out, but this was not a moment for gloating. “No, they had the virus before you got there.  They were just trying to figure out how to make it useful.”

“Without me, it would not have been.”  He returned, still refusing to look up.

“Because you survived it.”  She confirmed.  His counter argument was undisputable.

“Yes.”

“So I am supposed to blame you because you had the audacity to live?” She asked. 

“The fact remains without a survivor they would have had no cure.  With no cure they could not have released the virus.  Without the virus, the political climate never would have shifted in their favor.  You cannot absolve me, Evey.” He looked up, Guy Fawkes’ grin a parody of the anguish in his voice.

“I can’t blame you either.” 

His head cocked sideways, voice challenging, “Can’t you?  Your family…”

“Was not your fault.”   Evey cut him off, unwilling to hear him finish the sentence.

VEV

Uncomfortable silence descended between them.  V felt as if his skull was under siege by all the thoughts trying to break free.  He was splitting apart with the effort to hold himself together.  No matter what he did, his control would fail.  The only choice was whether to fall apart in front of Evey or to accept cowardly retreat. 

Evey interrupted his thoughts, “How did you survive the fire?”

His mind instantly leapt back in time.  Flames.  Smoke.  So much smoke.  Pain. Pain.  Pain.  No pain.  Nothing.  He could feel nothing.  Stand up.  Get up.  Get out.  Run.  Staccato thoughts had forced his battered body to move. 

He had wanted to die in the explosion, but his legs had supported his weight.  His eyes had opened and he could see.  He could watch them scurrying about in the haze, blinded by smoke and fear.  He stepped out in the midst of the fire, watched it lick evil tongues against his flesh and he felt nothing.  No pain.  No more pain.

Surveying the remains of the camp, V had known he had succeeded.  They were destroyed.  He had taken back what they had stolen.  Forty-eight lives avenged.  Countless others saved.

He stepped over a dying guard and, listening to his agonized screams, felt victory begin to well in his soul.  The rubble was filled with corpses and the air churned with the cries of the dying.  It was the music of angels in V’s ruined ears.  The triumph of it surged through him.  He was free for the first time in his memory and he roared until his throat bled.

They heard, they saw and then they ran from him and it felt righteous and just.  For the first time he tasted power, he tasted vengeance and he wanted more, but as his rage reached its zenith his body had begun to flag. 

V pulled himself back from the memory, unsure if he had been narrating aloud, but suddenly able to hear his own voice.  “I tried to steal a car.  It was the first thing I could not do that day.  The skin on my hands…”  He remembered watching it stick to the door handle and he had felt the first twinge of horror as his skin slipped off his flesh as if it had never been attached.  He shuddered.  “She took pity on me.  I don’t know why.  Her name was Meredith.  She let me into her car and drove me to a burn centre in London.”

Evey’s red, puffy eyes were brimming over with tears again.  “God, V.  My God.”

He must have been talking his way through the memories, why else would she cry.  He wanted to tell her to stop, to tell her he did not deserve her pity, but the words would not come. 

Her grief was a springboard for his own and V did not want to cry again.  Too much time spent in mourning.  No more.  Stop.  Finish the story. 

It took two attempts to force his lips and vocal cords to work together.  Finally he picked back up, “They thought I would die, the burns were too extensive. They shot me full of morphine in an attempt to ease my passing.”

“But you were stronger than that.”  She looked up at him, proud amber sparks glittering in a glaze of tears.

He shook his head.  “I wanted to die, Evey.  If I could have willed my life away I would have.”

The elation of his triumph had been short lived.  Once in the car the adrenaline which had sustained him through the fire began to fade and shock started to set in.  His limbs had begun to quake and he could see his blood, so important to them, begin to trickle through cracks in his charred skin.  His breathing had quickened, his heart rate accelerated and he felt light headed and cold.  He had known Meredith was talking to him, but he could not comprehend her words.

It was not until she pulled into the emergency bay that he realized she had taken him to a hospital.  His mind rebelled and his soul screamed.  He had had enough of doctors to last several lifetimes, but when he tried to protest, he lacked the energy to make his lips move.  His body had become a prison and he could not break free of it. 

V remembered being lifted from the car and looking over the shoulder of his rescuer and seeing the skin from his back still clinging to the car seat.  It was the last memory he had for several months.

“People give up and die all the time.  You never gave up.”  Evey’s hand touched down on his thigh, reminding him she was there. 

“When I made it through the night they decided to treat me.  I spent a month in a chemically induced coma and the next several months so drugged I hardly remember them.”

Evey crawled closer, paused and then climbed into his lap.  V let her, finding he needed the comfort of her closeness but feeling guilty for accepting it.  She rested against him as if he were cradling her and then drew his arms about herself to complete the illusion.  This too he allowed. 

“I saw a man the other day in the bakery below my new flat.  He was badly burned too, but he was not nearly as mobile as you are.  All things considered he was in very good shape, but not like you.”  She said.

“He was probably treated in the traditional way.  I was not.”

“More experiments?” She asked and he could feel the tremor which ran through her as she spoke. 

He squeezed her tighter against his chest.  “Before the war, there were scientists in Australia who pioneered a new technique for treating burns.  Rather than the traditional grafting, which takes the top layers of skin and transplants them from one area to another, they developed a way to use deep layer skin cells to actually grow new skin.”

“How?”

V’s discomfort eased as he slipped into teacher mode.  “Your skin is always growing.  The surface is basically a layer of dead cells.  Underneath are several layers of skin cells in various degrees of maturity.  By harvesting the bottom most cells and putting them in growth medium they are able to take only a small sample and grow large quantities of cells.  Once they have enough and the area to be treated is clean of dead tissue, they essentially spray paint the new cells on.  The cells grow and cover the area and as they mature the upper layers form.  It dramatically reduces the scarring.”

“But this is experimental.”  There was a growl in her voice. 

It was so easy to demonize science.  Those adversely affected by it always shunned it while those helped so often took it for granted.  V had been a victim of research and had every right to curse the curiosity leading to his torment, but he shook his head at Evey’s anger.  “There can be no advancement without experiment, Evey.  What the burn centre did was all they could do.  I was not a candidate for the traditional method.  There was not enough surviving skin to harvest for grafts.  It was either experiment or let me die and it is exceedingly difficult for most doctors to do nothing when death is the alternative.”

She was quiet for a long time.  “It must have been terrible.”

“I remember very little of it.”

Another silence descended.  When she spoke again she asked, “Burns kill nerve endings don’t they?”

But that is not the real question now is it, darling Eve, V thought.  “Can I feel?  Yes.  Once again, I am different.  My burns were deep, but as new skin cells grew, sensation returned.”

“It hurt?”  She stammered, indicating how rhetorical her question was.

“It did.”  He confirmed, remembering against his will.  There had been pain in the few areas of second degree burns and it had been bad, but as his skin began to repair itself, he experienced a new pain which eclipsed anything he had ever felt before.  They had been forced to increase the morphine and he had been reduced to a near vegetative state once more.

“But it doesn’t now?”  She turned to him and the pity he expected to see was not there.  Her expression was thoughtful and concerned but certainly not pitying.

There was strength in her gentle gaze and V drew from it, steadying himself against the past’s relentless horrors.  There was a wane smile behind the mask when he responded, “Not anymore, no.”

She snuggled back into his chest, putting her hands over his arms.  For a long time they were quiet, absorbed in their own thoughts. 

Finally Evey broke the silence.  “You blew up Larkhill to escape?”

“I did not expect to survive.” He paused, trying to find the words to explain his first venture into suicide.  Not true.  Not suicide, he told himself.  Aloud he said, “I wanted to prevent them from proceeding.  They could not be allowed to profit from Valerie’s death, from anyone’s death.  I was the only one left and it was my duty to stop them. Do you understand?”

VEV

Evey felt numb inside, like her heart had turned to ice.  She lacked the will to be angry anymore.  There wasn’t enough energy left for tears.  All she had were questions.  Each one forced him to relive a nightmare.  His past was nothing but nightmares.  It was little wonder he hardly slept.  She felt sure she would never sleep peacefully again. 

No wonder V is a little crazy.  If I were him I would never want to spend a single moment in reality.  I’d in locked away in a sanitarium for sure.  He’s not that crazy, relatively sane most of the time actually, but we are due for a visit to the rubber room soon, she thought.  Last time he had been obsessing on a pattern.  The diary also mentioned a pattern, one Diane was fascinated by until it exploded.  Thinking out loud Evey asked, “Was the design you drew on the floor in your cell the same one I saw?”

“Yes.”

“What does it mean, V?”  She asked, knowing she was skirting the edge of his madness, but unable to overcome her curiosity.

He sighed and his arms slackened their grip around her.  “I don’t know.  I always feel as if I can almost reach out and grasp it, I strive for it, obsess on it, drive myself mad with it and then when I am too exhausted to continue it fades away.”

“She said you lost your memory.  Was that true?” Evey asked, unable to stop the question before it exited her lips.  She did not want to torment him, but she had to know.

“Yes.” 

“So maybe it’s something you want to remember.”  Stop this.  You have to stop asking questions, she scolded herself, but he wants to do this.  He needs to get it over with.  He said so.

He shrugged, seeming nonchalant.  “It is as good a guess as any.”

You see?  He wants to do this.  Get it over with, ask everything.  He’ll tell you when he’s had enough.  Trying to imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and not know who she was or where she was or why she was there, Evey asked, “You really don’t remember anything from before Larkhill?”

“It’s not that simple.  I remembered how to tie a shoelace and I remembered my Latin.  I remembered Shakespeare.  I remembered how to do things, but I could not remember why I knew or where I learned.  I still cannot.”  His voice was unreadable. 

“When I asked for your birthday, I was asking for a whole lot more.”

“It was a simple question.  How were you to know the answer was so complicated?”  He replied, shifting behind her.

“I’m sorry.” Evey replied, wishing she had been happy in her ignorance.  She did not want to know what she now did. 

V was quiet, holding her against himself, the hand on her arm rubbing back and forth rhythmically.  He was clearly lost in thought.  Evey wondered what he was thinking about.  Though she now knew more about him than she ever had, his thoughts remained a mystery. 

You know yourself better too.  You know where you come from and finally you know why.  It would take a while to work through again.  She thought she had come to terms with the loss of her family, but now everything was different.  Her thoughts returned to the beginning of the end.  “You were in hospital when St. Mary’s hit, right?” 

“Yes.”

“My brother was in hospital the same time as you then.”  They might have been in the same hospital too.  The beginning of the end and the start of a new beginning might have existed together in the same building. 

“I thought I…”  His voice choked off Evey thought she could feel him drawing in the energy to continue.  “I failed and once again I watched all those around me die.  It was history repeating itself.”

“Until the miracle cure.”  Evey snarled, remembering how it was announced only days after her brother died.  “Those bastards.”

“Two weeks after the outbreak, after thousands had died, Norsefire pushed through a bill in Parliament to forgo the normal testing period and bring a new drug to market.  Everyone was terrified and clamoring for help so the bill passed and Norsefire was the hero of the hour.  Then they found the perpetrators, two Muslims with no money, no scientific training and no ties to militancy.  Torture forced confessions from them, fear convicted them and lust for revenge executed them.”  The muscles under her stiffened and his voice was eerily cold.

“Norsefire released St. Mary’s here so we would be afraid enough to bend the rules for them.  It was all a means to power.” 

“Yes.”

“So you fought back.”  Evey said, trying to rein in her anger before she went searching for her mobile which she noticed was strangely missing.

“There are no coincidences.  I fought because I was meant to.”

“My parents fought back, too.” Is that pride or bitterness in your voice, she asked herself. 

V perceived it as bitterness, chiding, “They did.  Your parents were smart people.  They might not have known exactly what was happening, but they knew it was wrong.”

“I always thought they were selfish.  My mum wanted to leave when it was starting to get bad, she wanted to flee to France but dad refused to go.  If dad had listened to her, they would have made it.” And I would still have a family, she continued silently.

“What they did was profoundly brave.”

“And stupid.”  I am definitely bitter.  I wish I could be as proud of them as V is. I wish I could be as proud of them as I am of him.

“Could you have stood idly by watching your world torn apart and do nothing?  Could you willingly allow your one remaining child, your precious daughter, to grow up under the fist of oppression and live with yourself?  There are many ways to die, Evey.  Your parents’ death was honorable.”  His icy chill was now directed at her making her skin crawl. 

“I know.”  Evey replied, wanted to believe on more than an intellectual level.  Her continuing anger was not helping either.  “I just wish none of this had happened.”

His voice softened a degree.  “As do I, but we can only right the wrongs, we cannot undo them.” 

He has a point, Evey thought.  She was in the perfect position to eradicate the remnants of Norsefire.  She could destroy them.  “We will set things right.  Those bastards will pay for what they’ve done.”

“You refer to Dascombe, Ethridge, Heyer and…”

She cut him off, irritated by his reasonable tone.  “You’re damn right I do.  To hell with…”

“Then I suppose you will also be executing me and Finch as well.”  V said calmly.

Evey’s internal ranting stuttered to a halt.  She had already decided it was not V’s fault, but, “What does Finch have to do with it?”

V answered in his teacher tone of voice.  “He was already a party member when Larkhill took place.  He holds a position of power within the Norsefire government and has for a very long time.  He was once friends with the Chancellor.”

Evey considered this and eventually identified the hole in V’s accusation.  “He didn’t know.  You would never have let him live if he did.”

“So he must not have known.  Using the same logic, would it stand to reason the others were ignorant as well?”

She did not realize her hands were balled into fists until V’s hands touched down on hers and drew her fingers out.  I am so angry!  Someone has to pay!  What don’t you get about that, she wanted to yell at him.

He read her mind.  “I know you want revenge, Evey.  The only one left to blame is me.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”  She said automatically.

He nodded, but she wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with her or if she was simply heading in the direction he wanted.  “The only way to have the vengeance you desire is to restore what was destroyed.”

He was right, she could stomp them into the ground, rid the earth of their vile policies and then, “Wipe them from the history books.”

He quickly scolded, “No.  You must not.  Too soon people forget the evils of the past.  We can never forget Norsefire.  We must always remember what happens when we allow fear to cloud our reason.”

“I know.  I know.  I’m just so angry.” Evey grumbled aware she sounded like a petulant child and somehow unable to care.

“I understand.”

Instantly her head snapped up.  “I hate it when you say that.”

“Why?”

“Because whenever you say it, you don’t understand at all.”  Evey felt tired.  She did not want to repeat the argument.  She didn’t have the energy for it.  “To me it means you’ve assumed I hate you or I’m leaving you or something.  Is that what you’re thinking?”

“No.  I meant you have a right to be angry.” He replied, his voice empty and unreadable.

“Oh.”

V shifted under her again and asked, “Perhaps you would like some breakfast?”

“Is it morning?” Evey asked climbing out of V’s lap and using his shoulder to push herself to her feet.  Every muscle felt stiff, her back was sore and her hands hurt.  How had she not noticed before now?

“It is.  Shall I cook for you?”  He ascended to his feet easily as if there were no aches and pains to slow him down.  The super human illusion lasted until he bent backwards and Evey heard the popping of several vertebrae returning to their correct locations in his spine.

Evey looked down at herself, finding her red dress rumpled and dirty.  She felt sure she looked as bad from the neck up as she did from the chest down. 

I need to think about something else for a while.  Her eyes moved around the room and took in all the decorations.  It’s Christmas soon, she thought and then remembered something.  “I left stuff out in the tunnels last night.  I need to go get it.”

“I’ll see to it.” V said as he moved off toward the kitchen.  “Perhaps a shower and something to eat?”

He’s had enough.  I need to let him rest and get his mind on something else.  My mind needs to be on something else, too.  “Okay.  I’ll be back in a jif.”

VEV

The shower felt good, the water taking with it some of her turmoil.  Her parents died almost fifteen years ago, her brother a year before.  She had grieved them much of that time and had wasted many hours wondering what her life would be like if Johnny had never gotten sick, if they had not joined the resistance.  What kind of life would she have had?

The only thing she could know for certain was she would never have met V. 

Evey stayed under the spray until the water turned cold.  Some jiffy, she thought as she grabbed a towel and dried off.

Wiping the condensation from the mirror, Evey stared at her reflection.  Her eyes were puffy and red.  Her face seemed swollen and a little gray.  She had cracked the skin on the heels of both hands.  Fortunately she knew where the first aid kit was.  A couple elastic bandages and her hands were taken care of. 

Returning to her face in the mirror Evey realized it was hopeless.  She looked like she had been crying all night because she had.  There was nothing she could do about it except try to go several hours without any more waterworks.  Fat chance.

Having started down the path she continued to nitpick her appearance.  She looked for blemishes but found only the tiny v shaped scar Dominic had left on her forehead. 

It was just a scar, small and relatively invisible but it was also symbolic.  Fate had marked her destiny on her face where she would be reminded of it daily.  It was the most beautiful coincidence.

V would enjoy hearing about it.  No doubt he had already thought of it, but if ever there was a time to show him she loved him, this was it.  Do I still love him?  She paused, considering all the new information she had.  Thoughts of V stilled the swirling tempest of her grief.  He was the calm eye in the center of a hurricane.  She loved him still, perhaps even more than before.

When she stepped out of the loo Evey was greeted by the slow, sonorous melody of a classical piece she recognized but could not name.  V was in the kitchen, though it looked like he had only recently gotten there.  He had changed clothes too.  Rather than one of his beautiful suits he wore a bodysuit with a set of black drawstring trousers.  Were it not for the mask and wig he would have looked like an athlete in loungewear. 

He paused when he heard her but didn’t turn to face her.  Perhaps he feared what a little time alone might have done to her mood. 

Evey stepped into the kitchen effectively cornering V in the small U shaped space. There was nowhere for him to go when she moved up behind him and slipped her hands around his waist.  V stiffened and then relaxed, but it happened so fast Evey wondered if she imagined it.  Resting her face in the valley of his spine she asked, “What are you making?”

“Crepes.”  He replied as the muscles of his back worked and the sizzle in the pan told her he had just flipped one.

“They smell fantastic.” She complimented. 

He snorted.  “That would be the raspberry reduction.”

He seemed okay.  He also seemed to not want to talk yet.  Neither did she. Wanting to pretend it was just another morning, Evey tried to act like she usually would when he was sarcastic.  “Whatever.  I’m starving.”

“While you wait, mademoiselle.”  He held up a fluted crystal glass.

To take it she had to let go of him with one arm.  “What’s this?”

“Mimosa.”

“Which is?” Keeping a hand on his back Evey released her grip around his waist and took a sip.  It was wonderful. 

“Orange juice and champagne.”

I love champagne, she thought as she took another sip.  V had never given her alcohol before.  “So we’ve started drinking have we?”

He looked at her over his shoulder, “If you don’t want it…”

“No, it’s good.  I like it.”  She smiled, wondering what he was thinking and how much effort it was taking for him to sound unaffected.

He turned around holding a plate mounded with crepes stuffed with fruit.  “Very well.  Your breakfast is served.”

“Thank you, V.  I missed this.”  She sat at the table as was custom and waited as he put her plate in front of her. 

He sat at the opposite end and though he was perfectly still she could feel the anxiety wafting off of him.  Trying to maintain the normalcy he seemed to want, Evey ate, but found it hard to swallow past the lump in her throat.

“Will you excuse me?” V asked suddenly, jumping to his feet as if a bee had stung him.

Thus the façade cracks.  Let it go or tackle it head on?  Better to probe a little.   “Are you coming back?”

“Yes, Evey.  I will return.”  He said as he walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

He voluntarily touched me.  He is reassuring me.  God I do love this man.  In an effort to master her emotions, Evey put her hand over his and squeezed.  “Then I will be here when you get back.”

VEV

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