Disclaimer: I do not own V for Vendetta as I'm sure you well know. Just playing, not profiting.

Simple things

V prepared for everything in his life—that is the life he'd been living since Larkhill. Every inch of his home, once it became his, was meticulously plotted and thought-out to both please him and serve the greater purpose that had become the whole of his existence. His actions in his home were the same, his days thoroughly planned. Time, after all, was starting to wind down. The end was indeed near.

He was not prepared for Evey.

V had stepped from the shadows and there she was, cowering in a dank and dark alleyway looking at him when he'd finally turned to her with the same resounding fear she'd bestowed upon the fingerman she'd had the misfortune to stumble upon, or rather been called to this time and place to confront. But then that fear had astonishingly slipped away in the course of a few exchanged words and she'd taken his proffered hand. And he'd found himself inexplicably asking her to come along with him on his evenings endeavor. 'Is not a good show made great with a lovely escort on one's arm,' he'd thought fleetingly.

V was not prepared for her to say yes.

But she did.

Evey was stunned by the music, shocked by the Bailey's startling, fiery demise and when the fireworks began...

V had watched her as she self-consciously tried to scrub away the tears that filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks, using the back of her hand like a child. Tears of mourning for a freedom she'd never really felt. Tears of wonder for the beginnings of a dangerous hope she was incapable of recognizing or comprehending.

She was spellbound…he was seduced. He could not have dreamt of a more glorious beginning to the end.

V was not prepared for the ache in his chest when he'd bid her goodnight.

Nor was he equipped for the painful bliss that he experienced hours later, feeling as if his chest had split open, when Evey took a tentative step toward him from the doorway where she had hidden in Jordan Tower.

"We were here before you even got started. Bad luck, chummy." *

'Chasing an innocent girl from Fate's security vid and colliding with the true Villain in her stead' a sing-song voice in V's head mused as he politely considered the officer and his gun.

The Finger had not come looking for V but for Evey and what's more she knew it. V saw the reality of the situation flit across her face as she heard the detective's words from where she stood behind the man.

Lady-bird, Lady-bird, Fly away home, your house is on fire, your children will burn. **

Evey could have turned and run. She could have thrown herself on the mercy on the detective, revealed herself and told him she knew nothing, which was of course the truth. Instead she stepped forward, tapped the man on the shoulder and maced the bloody hell out of him getting a sharp crack to the head from the gentleman in the bargain. She'd squashed the urge toward 'flight' to put up a fight…for him.

As if V had needed the help.

And then he was moving, fleeing with her crumpled form tucked tightly to his chest.

No. V was not prepared for Evey Hammond. Not one bit.

Xxx

"Are you saying I have to stay here? I have to stay here for a year?" *

She stayed to her room more often than not.

V knew Evey would struggle with the necessity of becoming his unexpected guest. At times she would appear to some extent at ease with him, venturing out to ask him questions about a book she'd found or a painting and then listening to what he had to share about the item with an attentiveness he found beguiling. But he could see the mistrust, the fear, so wholly ingrained in her being shifting to and fro beneath the surface, as if she were waiting for the dark power he'd unleashed in the alley on her would-be assailants to be turned, without warning, on her. Yet V waxed poetic, deciding Evey was akin to a living, breathing work of art that, like so many of the others contained within the Shadow Gallery he'd had the fortune to find, was undeniably damaged but not beyond repair. And unlike his painted friends, his sole companions for these many years, her smiles—when they miraculously showed themselves—were heart-stoppingly real. So he strove to make her as content as possible, not only for her sanity but the pleasant reemergence of a little piece of his own.

For his part, V was taken aback at how quickly he'd acclimated to her presence. He had expected a disruption, but her company was unaccountably soothing to him. Whether she was melancholy or content she was most importantly there. V had never stopped in his pursuit of justice long enough for it to occur to him that he might be lonely for more than those souls etched in oils and ink and celluloid…that some small piece of him that was less than an idea and more like a man still needed.

After a month of their co-habitation V heard Evey giggle. The seraphim sound came from the sanctuary of her room as he'd passed by and he had been hard pressed not to bound into her quarters so as to be made privy to the sounds origin, if only in the hopes of being able to cause her to do it again. In the end the revelation of his vast video collection to her worked as well to garner the suddenly sought after sound as any half planned and thoroughly inappropriate room searches could have been. Blackadder elicited an unfettered, full bodied laugh from her that he simply found unprecedented.

Xxx

"Do you celebrate…any of the holidays, I mean?"

V was always starkly aware of the calendar. There was much to do in the final year of his plan. Yet he stared at Evey from behind Guy Fawkes visage, tipping his head to the side when she asked him about the impending holidays as if she'd spoken a foreign language.

"I have never…that is to say…I have been in other ways occupied."

"Oh…"

"Would you like too?" V felt a tad appalled at the hope that threaded its way into his words.

Evey studied her feet and then the room at large appearing as if she felt equally aghast at bringing the whole issue up in the first place. V couldn't help but be amused at their odd situation. 'Begging your pardon, Mr. Vigilante, but would you fancy spinning a dreidel or caroling about the gallery with me—your unwilling housemate?' V pressed his mouth into a tight line behind Guy's mischievous smile to avoid barking out a laugh at the thought.

"The time of year hadn't occurred to me really…and then I saw…that is there was an ad on the telly…" Evey mumbled, gesturing toward the other room while she went back to studying her feet.

"Ah…I see."

"I was just curious…I suppose."

"Yes, of course." V said giving a small nod he'd taken to using to make the unmoving mask he wore appear more animated. "Do you celebrate, Evey?"

"Not since I was a little girl."

"And what did you celebrate?"

Evey gave him a slightly curious look and then gasped and blushed deeply realizing her omission. "Oh… sorry! Christmas, V. My family celebrated Christmas. Nothing big, a tree, a few presents, lots of food. We went to a candle light church service on Christmas Eve. You know, one with little kids playing Mary and Joseph and the wise men."

V didn't 'know' anything about children acting out the birth of Christ in religious services but shook his head in agreement nevertheless. He asked if she would care for some tea as a way of changing the subject and after making and delivering it to her excused himself. He spent the better part of the afternoon scouring the Gallery for his copy of 'A Christmas Carol' by Dickens hoping Evey would acquiesce to his planned suggestion to read it together. V could not remember if he'd every celebrated a Christmas. He hadn't a clue if he'd ever given or received a gift to mark the occasion. But he thought sitting with Evey at his side sharing a book with her would be a very fine gift indeed.

A simple thing but still…

Obviously he would have to work out what to get for her.

End

*Direct quotes from the film V for Vendetta

** Mother Goose