Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

WARNING: Blood, violence, detail and treatment of injury.

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"RAAH!" V bellowed as he tore the mattress up from the bed frame. No matter. There would no longer be anyone to occupy it. He heaved it to the side, toppling a few stacks of books as he went. No matter. There would no longer be anyone to reorganize those, either. Next, he yanked the frame itself from the floor. With a snarl, he bashed it against the wall, the splintered wood adding to the carnage around him.

He fell to his knees, moaning as his world began to spin. He could hardly breathe, so thick was his rage. He clutched his shoulder, the searing pain intensified by the pounding of his heart. V was hurting. Evey was gone. V was bleeding. Evey had betrayed him. V had been shot… And Evey was gone.

The crack from Lilliman's fired pistol resounded in his ears. That disbelieving outcry to his most beloved traitor lingering yet in his throat. A choking sob racked his body as he grasped the battered bed frame and hoisted himself to his feet. The room tilted and he nearly lost his balance, his equilibrium altered. Moments passed before he thought to move or breathe.

Out into the hall he staggered, his heart stumbling along with his footing. He hesitated and steadied himself, a hand on the partition between Evey's room and his office. There! He kept all of his medical supplies in the infirmary just through his office. He took the ring of keys from his belt and fumbled through them with clumsy fingers, his eyes unable to focus, his mind unable to interpret the designs that distinguished each key from the next.

He was shaking and had lost all control on his short, erratic breathing. The keys fell from his hands. I'm going into shock. He groaned in defeat as he slid down to the floor, then clamped his hand over the wound on his shoulder again, hissing in pain and flattening himself to the wall.

The mask came off, Guy bouncing violently across the stone floor, scuffing his cheek. His mop of hair was soon to follow. V took the fingertips of a glove between his teeth and pulled it off. He spat it away and leaned his naked head back against the wall behind him, choking on the air he was trying to swallow. Relax. Breathe. He tried to take a deep breath but a shock wave of pain shook his body, and he coughed so hard that he seen after tasted blood on his lips. He looked down, fearing that the bullet had punctured his lung. All he could see was his cloak and doublet soaked in his own vital fluids. Lord, how did I lose so much blood?

"Evey," he answered himself, barely uttering both of the syllables before gasping again. She has bewitched you, his mind taunted. She will be the death of you. After the Bishop had shot him, and after V had rewarded his cries for mercy with death, he had hurried back to the Gallery to see if Evey had returned. She doesn't even know where the Gallery is, you fool. Needless to say, he had lost control of both his temper and his awareness of the severity of his injury. How he made it home, he wasn't sure. He reasoned dully that he must have pushed himself on pure adrenalin and rage. She will be the death of me... Must stop the bleeding.

V removed his cloak, which he had wrapped tightly around his shoulder. It seemed a good idea at the time, once he was well enough away from the Abbey, to cease the bleeding before he left a trail all the way to the Gallery. He traversed as quickly as he could manage back to his home, brooding all the while, thinking of Evey and her wicked betrayal. He drove his fingers into the wound, a little harder than he had intended, shrieking in pain. He removed his other glove and tore his thick doublet wide open. His undershirt was drenched, as was his chest, he found, as he tore the shirt and armored vest away as well. This sodding thing isn't bulletproof. He noted that he would have to remember to get some better armor.

Blood was flowing steadily from his heaving breast. No arterial bleeding. He couldn't locate the wound from amongst the smeared blood and as he wiped it away with the remainder of his torn shirt, he realized that the hole itself was not within his line of sight at all, but just beneath his clavicle. He rested his head against the wall behind him as he pressed a clump of his shirt into the wound.

How could she do this to me? After everything? How could she?! He groaned, Stop this. You need to focus on not passing out. You'll never make it the infirmary if you fall unconscious. He nodded softly, allowing the logical side of his mind win out over his emotional side.

V sat in the dark hallway for a few moments, trying to control his breathing, applying pressure to his shoulder. A few minutes passed before he was able to regain control over his physical pain. He took up the keys and rose to his feet again. The bleeding had slowed for the time being and he had regained at least a little control over his breathing. On the other hand, however, his loathing and malice, buried deep within his psyche as they were, slowly began to escalate.

He unlocked the door and stepped into the dark corridor that lead to his office. Several doors along this hall lead to rooms where V did most of his work. One room was full of chemicals, another full of ancient weaponry and sword collections. Another full of various tools used for interrogative torture. He had never allowed Evey in any of these places. There were many an item in these secret compartments of the Gallery that V had long ago decided never to reveal to her. One room was filled with a number of art pieces which he hadn't yet circulated through the Gallery since inviting Evey into his home, but that he still visited frequently. He had meant to expand the Gallery and make room for these priceless works or art, but alas, his vendetta came first. Now... It didn't really seem to matter anymore. He gritted his teeth as he realized that, even if he had wanted to share these secrets with Evey in the future, he could never do it now. That opportunity was gone.

He sighed as he entered the central room that was his office. It was dark, a row of screens on a large black desk lighting the room with an eerie white glow. He hesitated before them for a moment. His link to the outside world. Fate in his own home. He brushed his bare fingers over the panel of buttons that directed his control over these media. The urge to smash them with his fist was overwhelming. V would find her again. He hadn't a doubt that he had not seen the last of Evey Hammond. She wasn't rid of him that easily. He jabbed a key and watched as each monitor lit up, each with its own broadcast. His vision spanned all of London. V would find her. And he would make her... Make all of them pay.

He passed by the rest of the monitors without second glance as he made his way toward another door in the back of the room. He unlocked it and stepped inside, turning on the overhead light to reveal a large space quite unlike the rest of the Shadow Gallery. His infirmary resembled a standard operating room. It was bright and plain. White cabinets and walls, a stainless steel sink and a large mirror mounted on one side. The examination table was positioned at an angle in the center of the room, fitted with white linen and a stiff pillow. V had always been at a loss as to why he had built such a room to begin with, for he would just as soon dismember the next person that came at him with a syringe. He hated this room, but it had served its purpose many, many times over the years.

He moved further within to the sink and turned on the water. He removed and tossed his soiled doublet and vest into a nearby bin, and then carefully peeled away his handcrafted bandage. The bleeding had stopped as far as he could tell, though his chest stiff with wet and dried blood. He washed himself up, turning slightly to watch himself in the mirror on the far wall, trying to clean the wound as best he could without dripping water and blood everywhere. He wincing as he patted the area dry and quickly dressed it with gauze. He coughed again, a splatter of blood coloring the white counter. Coughing blood, he thought slowly, trying to remember what this particular symptom was a sign of, wheezing lightly. Punctured lung... right.

He swore softly as he trudged to one of the the closets next to the sink. He dragged out a respirator and put the mask over his mouth, cranking up the oxygen while he searched frantically for a chest tube. He remembered the first time he had punctured lung and how much it hurt to put in his own chest tube. It had happened six times to him since and it never got easier. His lung had already collapsed, he could tell by the feel of it. His chest was filling with air and the pressure was suffocating him. He was beginning to fear that the other one was about to collapse as well.

Once he found what he needed, he trudged back to the sink, dragging the oxygen tank with him. He yanked open a drawer, fumbling to open the iodine swap and smearing it across his rip cage. He dropped the scalpel on the floor, panicking as he started to hyperventilate. Quickly. Quickly! he urged, so fearful of suffocating that he could hardly grasp the other scalpel in the drawer. He raised his arm, ignoring the pain in his shoulder and pressing his fingers into his ribs, counting the spaces between. Five... Six... Seven! Then without a second thought, he quickly punctured his side with the scalpel and slipped the chest tube in. He had no air left to cry out from pain, falling to his knees as he began feeling faint. But then he breathed as the tube drained the air between he lungs and his chest cavity, and his lungs filled on their own once again.

He was still for a few minutes, focusing on breathing and securing the one-way valve with shaky hands. "That was close," he muttered weekly, snorting painfully at his own dry humor. He leaned back against the cabinet below the sink and listened to the sounds of is own breathing. He chastised himself silently. He had wasted valuable time and had lost a lot of blood when he tore apart Evey's room, time and blood that he could have spent saving his own life. "Can't let yourself die yet, you old dog," he muttered to his blurry reflection in the steel oxygen tank. He saw himself flash a bright smile and heard himself laugh derisively. It wasn't funny. He had nearly died just then. Everything he had worked so hard for had almost ended in that moment. But the pure oxygen from the respirator and lack of blood made his head swim.

He stood again slowly and went about taping the chest tube to his side. He removed the respirator mask and trudged back to the closet and knelt down to open the cooler on the floor. Every time it came down to this, he commended himself for thinking about storing his own blood. He pulled a bag out and rose to his feet again. As he prepared an IV, he recalled the first time he had come back to the Shadow Gallery with a life-threatening injury and no blood to replace what he had lost. After that, he had read every medical book he could get his hands on. It seemed obvious really, that he should have spare blood around for self-transfusions. He slipped the IV catheter into his arm with surgical precision and squeezed some of the blood into his veins. It was uncomfortable, the feeling of the cold blood surging through him suddenly, but he knew from years of experience that it would soon pass and that he would be able to function again shortly. He sneered as he looked down at his arm. He had done this so many times that his arms had scars upon scars of needle holes. V smirked at the thought. Many of the holes hadn't even been placed by himself.

He put the respirator mask back on dragged everything with him to the examination table. He hung the bag of blood on the IV stand next to the bed and laid back. He was exhausted. Between emotional and physical stress, he could hardly stay conscious. Still, he knew he couldn't sleep yet. He needed to stay awake until he stabilized. His heart had slowed considerably, so much so that he couldn't feel his own pulse. If he had waited a few minutes longer, he might have died of shock. He hadn't removed the bullet from his shoulder yet, but he wasn't bleeding anymore, and he was breathing normally again. He closed the valve on the oxygen tank and took off the mask. It was making him lightheaded, and he needed to focus his mind.

It would probably do more damage than good to remove the bullet now, he reasoned, considering that it might cause more damage to his lung. He turned his thoughts over to the medical aspect of his position, which usually helped him stay awake and focus his thoughts. I could leave it there but... It disgusted him to consider that Lilliman would might still have any sort hold on him, even a mere bullet slug. I need to take some antibiotics. He didn't move, his body not willing to let him stand. His eyes drooped a little as his exhausted started to take over. "No," he whispered. Need to stay awake. His head lolled to the side and he reached out for the oxygen tank. He was going to pass out. He couldn't stop it now, but he needed to put the respirator back on.

I'll be fine. He finally gave in. I'll only sleep for a little while... His body fell limp before he could reach the oxygen mask.