A/N: A few words. This story was originally written over the spring and summer of 2006, and I present it to you now essentially unaltered aside from formatting changes, so you will notice that my writing style has changed a little with time.
You may find that a working knowledge of Shakespeare helps as you read, particularly "The Tempest" (to which this is a vague homage) but is by no means essential.
You will also find that many scenes in the story are left either partially or wholly unexplained. This is deliberate, and it is to your interpretation that I commend these.
Final note: this is a prequel, taking place roughly twenty years before the events of the movie.
Darkness.
Agony.
Both wrapped themselves around V as he stumbled away from the distorted wreckage of the detention centre. He turned, his head a sudden, sharp cascade of disorientation, but there was no pursuit. No armed men, no dogs. Hazy, silhouetted figures fled the flames and the ruinous chaos like refugees from the shattering of Pompeii, but as V pushed through, first into the bracken and then into the inviting shroud of the beech forest, the shrieks of man and collapsing edifice dwindled behind him. He did not look back again.
The scarlet flarelight of the inferno was muted by distance now, and V staggered, regaining his equilibrium just barely. The autumn breeze rose to a fine squeal and hiss in the naked branches above him, and the chill snap of it sliced at his slick, weeping skin on every point that gave it purchase.
The pain kicked at him like a maddened horse as, finally, the incandescent adrenaline of rage and urgency flickered, faltered and died in his pumping veins. His teeth sank into his tongue; he was scarcely aware of it. The forest rattled about and above him as he stumbled again and, this time, sank to the ground, almost gratefully. The maiden carpet of leaves, although they prickled, formed a cool bed, and he curled like a child amongst them, an inch from acquiescence to a slow but peaceful death in this very spot.
Get up.
The voice in his head was soft, but sheathed in steel. Female. He knew who had spoken, oh yes, and he knew that she would continue to berate him, but nonetheless, he covered his withered ears and whined softly.
"Valerie…" he croaked, a feat achieved through vocal cords coated in smoke and seared by superheated air.
Don't appeal to me, V. You disappoint me. This far and no further?
"It's too much. I want an…end to…it."
I've seen the end, but that was my due. It isn't yours. You have work to do. Now GET UP.
Snarling hoarsely, sounding more animal than human, V dragged at the mud and leaves, his limbs twisting in the extremity of exertion. Although he couldn't know it, his back was a particular point of horror in a catalogue of biological catastrophe; deltoid and trapezius muscles shifted bizarrely beneath skin left scarcely thicker than paper.
Moment by moment, V achieved his feet again, laboured breath pouring in and out of his scorched throat. Grasping at branches along the way, grateful of any support that he could find, he wandered deeper into the wood.
"What now?" he whispered. "Valerie?"
No reply, and even through his private tornado of pain and exhaustion, he understood that there could and would be none forthcoming. 'What now?' was a question that belonged to him and him alone.
The earth underfoot became treacly and smooth, and the gurgle of water spoke of a stream, close ahead in the suffocating gloom. V waded into it with sudden abandon, finding that the freezing water numbed his myriad wounds. He dropped to his knees in the modest current, bathing his hands now, sluicing his shoulders, splashing his face…and froze like a fox as a strident noise pierced the cloak of the trees.
A dog. The bark came again, not the staccato volley of an animal crazed for the chase, but the simple yaps of a dog at play. The far bank of the stream was crowded with cow parsley, fully four feet high. Without warning, the frail chandelier-heads of the plants trembled. V hunched in the water, unsure if this was for defence or protection or, in his decrepit state, probably neither. He struggled to control his breathing, and fixed his gaze on that spot.
Abruptly, the parsley shuddered and thrashed again, this time a little way downstream. V tensed, knowing that flight was not one of his options; even at full strength he could not possibly hope to outrun a dog. He slitted his eyes and waited for the assault to begin.
The next movement of the undergrowth was no more or less than an explosion of both animal and plant. A sleek dark shape erupted from the parsley, pink tongue askew, all four legs akimbo, and eyes bursting with mad joy. The black Labrador landed in the stream with such force and exuberance that V was subjected to a minor tsunami, and then the water stilled once more as man and beast sized one another up.
V angled his head, still locked in a stiff crouch, but the dog merely stepped forward a pace or two, claws clicking and skittering on the gravel of the stream bed. Its tail swung from side to side uncertainly, and it reeled its tongue in a little.
"Nelson!"
The voice was somewhere nearby. The dog glanced towards the call, then returned its solemn attention to V. Its tail pendulumed again.
"Nelson? Where are you, you bugger?"
Even closer. V's heart skipped. He knew that a decision had to be made, but considering the evidence at hand, he had to wonder how little of a decision that would, in fact, turn out to be. He was weak and dizzy, naked and raw, and – he had a strong suspicion – this dog would not so easily be deterred. Its intentions were benign, he was convinced, but it was a more intelligent animal than any casual observer might believe, and it wanted its master to find them both here.
"Nelson! Bloody hell, there you are, you little…"
The man's tone of aggrieved relief stuttered to a halt as he caught V in the beam of his torch. His mouth hung open for second after second, and then he slipped down the treacherous bank and landed heavily in the low water.
"Jesus. God, what happened? I saw the fire from the hill, were you in that?"
V had averted his gaze from the painful glare of the torch, but now he steeled himself and regarded the man now crouching down at his side.
"We've got to get you to hospital," the man was saying, his gaze locked with V's.
"No. I beg you," V said, and licked at his lips. This slight action was both soothing and irritant all at once.
"But look at…you're…you'll die."
"So be it, but," he sucked in a perilous breath, "no doctors. Please."
"All right. All right, but I can't just leave you here. My farm's just through the woods, about half a mile up there. No argument."
With an economy of movement, the man swept his coat from his back and wrapped it around V, helping him to his feet, placing an arm around his shoulders. The man's grip was firm and infinitely helpful.
"I'm Edward," he said, at last. "Can you walk all right?"
"I believe so."
It did not strike V until some time later that Edward had not asked for his name. Perhaps it wasn't as surprising as all that; those who shunned the authorities usually had their reasons and, on the catastrophe curve that their world was rollercoastering toward, these usually went hand in hand with desperately adopted anonymity.
The two made their careful way back up the damp-slicked bank, Nelson bounding behind them, claws scratching at the earth for purchase.
V was content enough to rest his tortured lungs, but Edward kept up a soft commentary as they made their way through to the far side of the echoing wood. He wasn't in pursuit of a response, however slight; he was merely trying to reassure his companion.
"I've got a fair idea why you don't want a doctor, lad, and I'd like you to know that it's okay by me. There are a few smallholders like me around Larkhill, and none of us have any great liking for the military. We all had our suspicions about what was going on at that bloody camp, anyway."
"You were wrong," V whispered. His throat was still a column of pain, but some things had to be said. Edward reacted. "I was?" he asked.
"Yes. Whatever you thought the camp was for…I assure you, the reality was far worse."
"Ah," was Edward's eventual response. "I understand," he added.
Whatever else Edward had to say, he reserved. He was thinking, anyway. Wondering, in the main, what on earth he was getting into here. It was true that there had been some tacit gossip in the snug at The Grouse concerning the new camp, but what he'd neglected to add was that much of it was simple, fearful gossip.
Like too many people, Edward's fellow landspeople measured the impact of any new event or development with regard to only one thing: their own point on the graph. Of course they were afraid; almost all of them had finished by concluding that it was either nuclear or chemical warfare work, neither of which they wanted brewed up on the borders of their own land. Who would?
"We're here," Edward said, forcibly derailing his own troubling train of thought. He had a patient to tend to; all else could wait. He unlocked the back door and guided V into the kitchen, pausing only to close and bolt it behind them. Nelson would have to stay out from under their feet for tonight.
People often expressed surprise that Edward had a grand, bulky leather sofa in his kitchen, of all places. Edward always riposted thus: it was the warmest and most fragrant room in the house and, besides, it was the kitchen that was traditionally the hive of a farm's activities, not the lounge. Of course, that was when he'd still had a family here. He'd stopped trying to explain himself lately and, in fact, had stopped spending more time in the kitchen than bare duty demanded.
Thus it was that V became the first human presence on that sorely neglected piece of furniture in almost six months. He eased down onto the sofa and lay on his side, exhaling wearily. For the first time, out of the murk of the wood, V could see his companion properly. Edward was at least sixty, and more likely some way past that mark, with skin not so much tanned as polished by the sun; a number of small liver spots had colonised his cheek. His hair was rebellious, although a gorgeous shade of silver, and his eyes a creamy brown.
"I've got to go and get a few things," Edward said, shortly. "Bandages, zinc cream, a couple of jabs. You're not allergic to anything I ought to hear about?"
And to think, V mused, that I thought I had given up on being surprised by life's anomalies.
"Are you a doctor?"
"In a sense, but not the one you're after. I'm a vet. Don't move, I'll be right back."
The farm's consultation room was compact indeed. Most of Edward's work these days came by way of working – he'd always cringed at the dreadful pun – in the field. And after all, with the best will in the world, getting a Hereford bull into a farmhouse was a trial. The only cases he saw in here were farm cats and dogs, and there were precious few of those now, in an age of technological advance, or people's pets, from Larkhill and Durrington. The latter he was particularly pleased about. Durrington had its own vet, he was aware, but it seemed that Edward's reputation had spread itself around quite nicely.
He pulled the small refrigerator open and selected, after a moment's thought, an ampoule of amoxicillin and one of codeine. Best to stick to the old tried and tested for now. Hypodermic needles were in the next drawer, and bandages in the cupboard below.
If some part of him was surprised that the sofa was still occupied when he returned, he ignored it. V lay exactly where and how Edward had left him, his gaze fixed on some indefinable point in space.
His eyes, that was the thing. Edward had seen pain and suffering in both man and beast, not least of all in his late wife, bless her, but even though this man's injuries were the most critical he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter, his bright blue eyes weren't clouded by that pain; weren't even touched by it. They were clear and piercing.
Pushing that contradictory, tricky thought aside for fear of where it might take him, Edward studied V's prostrate form.
"It's not as bad is it looks, lad, and certainly not as bad as it must be feeling. You took most of it on your back, from what I saw, although your hands, arms and feet are in a bit of a state, too."
"And my face?" said V, the question hissed out on a short exhalation of agony. The man must have seen the hesitation in Edward's manner, because he closed his eyes briefly in understanding. Still, Edward felt he had to say something to make waves in the rotten silence that had just descended.
"You're no Brad Pitt, lad, I'll be honest with you," he said, trying for just a trace of joviality as he slid a needle into an ampoule's stopper with a tiny squeak. He avoided that still, penetrating gaze on the pretext of measuring the clear fluid out, although in truth Edward could dose animals in his sleep. Once the syringe was filled, he held it up to the light and ejected just enough of the fluid to be sure that there was no air trapped inside. Then he caught V's eye momentarily, muttered, "Sorry…have to do this," and pressed two fingers hard into the reddened, leprous flesh just above his patient's elbow.
To his significant surprise, V uttered nothing more than a harsh, nasal breath as Edward's fingers sought the vein. It wasn't as simple as all that; Edward found that there was a great deal of finely corded muscle there for the fellow's comparatively lean frame. Still, after a second's slight readjustment, the vein rose obligingly, and he slipped the needle into it.
"There. That ought to knock the corners off'f it," he said, finally, forcing his eyes back up. It wasn't easy. Quite apart from the devastation wreaked on that face – and God alone knew, that was cause enough to shy away – it was those endlessly soft, steady eyes that trifled with him. Not that they spoke of the vacancy of madness…quite the reverse. If anything, this was quite the most rational stare he'd ever been subject to, and to be pinned like this by an apparently weak, helpless man was doubly perturbing.
V, already unwinding as the codeine filtered through him, had a more than adequate sense that his host was finding events discomfiting, and not without due cause, either. He decided to try to ease some of the rigid tension.
"Edward. Thank you for your help. I believed, after my time in the camp, that simple human charity was at a loss in this land."
Edward's brows unknotted somewhat, although his general expression remained grave.
"You're welcome, lad, although I don't know that I'd call it anything as grand as 'charity', just something you do. I became a vet because I couldn't ignore sickness and pain, be it in humans or animals. And now," he went on, picking up a second syringe, "let's get along wi' this, shall we?"
When Edward had administered the amoxicillin, he had V stand up from the sofa so that some dressings could be applied. He tended to his back first, wincing at the devastation he saw there, ambiguous in the darkness of the forest, but unavoidable now in the relentless lamplight of the kitchen. The exposed musculature was like thick cuts of pork in a butcher's window. V, catching Edward's small indrawn breath, half turned over his shoulder.
"Is it so bad?" he asked, somewhat sadly. Edward mentally shook himself, and set about pasting gauze and zinc cream to the bare flesh.
"Well, you've still got some skin left back here," he talked as he worked, trying to disentangle himself from the boiled meat smell that he was wreathed in, "but not much. I'm only doing what I can, mark you. This isn't a burns unit, which is where you ought to be."
"I understand, Edward, and I am thankful, but you know yourself where I have come from and thus, I hope, why I cannot possibly solicit any more assistance than your own?"
"That I do. Now try to hold still, lad."
Unrolling a long, wide bandage, Edward passed this over V's shoulder, across his chest, and back under his arm, carefully securing the gauze pad in place on his back. Pinning one end in place, he began another roll, then another, until the whole of that red, seeping torso was mercifully shrouded in clean, sterile white crepe.
As Edward turned his attention to his hands, V felt moved to speak.
"You live alone?"
"For three years, now. Yvonne, my wife, she died. Liver cancer." This simple statement took place whilst Edward's gaze was directed down, studying V's hands, but V knew without a trace of doubt that this would have been the case even without any excuse of bandaging to be attended to.
"I'm sorry," he said, gently.
"Weren't your fault. Weren't anyone's fault. She fought it for ten months. That was just like my Yvonne, that was."
"You have children?"
"A son. He went off to university in London, still lives down there. He's a good kid; when his mum died, he said he'd drop everything and come back here to help out. Edward paused as he finished tending to V's hands, and indicated that he should sit so his feet could be treated. "Anyway," he went on, "I wouldn't hear'f it. He's got a good thing going in the city. He's earned it. And I can run the place myself, any rate.
"I shut down most of the farm operations and kept to the vet business. All I've got left now are the goats, and I wouldn't get rid of them, my boy'd kill me." Edward chuckled. "He loved them goats. Gave them all names."
"Nelson seems a diligent enough companion," said V, dryly. "Speaking of which, may he come in? I feel somewhat callous, being the cause of his ejection from his own fireside, especially given his part in my saving."
As he pinned the last bandage on V's leg, Edward glanced up in surprise, which quickly dissolved into a thoughtful, sidelong stare.
"If you like," he said, "but, you know…"
"Yes?" asked V, politely.
"Well, I don't know quite how to put this, but you're a very well-spoken young man, you could even put my son to shame, and that's no easy task, that boy could charm the legs off a camel. I just wondered how come you ended up at that camp. I thought they were only for troublemakers."
V digested this question with the gravity that he felt it deserved. Edward, although quite the most selfless human being that V had encountered in some time, had nevertheless fallen prey to the same dire misconception as so many of his countryfolk; the notion of the Other. The ideal that any difficult element of society could be simply and quickly pigeonholed, dealt with and disregarded. Setting this straight was going to require careful and precise enunciation.
"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn," he began, "was a novelist and playwright. John T. Scopes was a teacher. Mohandas Gandhi was a lawyer. In ways great or small, local or global, all of these men challenged the authorities so profoundly by their deeds that they had to be stifled. Are you surprised to learn that those who shake the deepest tenets of establishment are those of the pen and not the sword?
"I have a confession," he went on, placidly. "I cannot recall so much as my own name or past, much less the precise words or actions that brought me, roundabout, to Larkhill. However, it seems to me that I have retained all that I needed to retain and, more importantly, all that should be retained. I believe I can live without a name or a biography. What I could not bear to live without are the stories of others."
Edward hadn't moved one inch throughout this soft soliloquy, and remained still even after V inclined his head to indicate that he was finished. Finally, he shifted his features into a wry smile.
"I guess you're a troublemaker after all, lad," he said, and went to unlock the back door. Nelson slithered his glossy body through as soon as the gap was wide enough and moved to sit, panting gently, directly in front of V. Edward closed the door again and turned, his hand on the latch.
"You sure he won't bother you?"
"No," V replied, his misty gaze meeting the dog's. "We shall be fine, I'm sure, and the best of friends."
"So long as you're sure. I'll just see to your face, then, before I get to bed."
Edward moved toward the medical supplies on the kitchen table, but V held up one elegantly bandaged hand.
"If you please, but no matter," he said, softly. "There'll be time enough for masks in the future. For the time being, all I require is a blanket."
The expression in Edward's eyes was indecipherable; it was composed of too many elements to be certain of any one given aspect. However, he nodded, and left the room to fetch a blanket.
Meanwhile, V and Nelson regarded one another across the space of a few feet, both lit on one side by the crumbling kitchen fire. A log split in the hearth with a subtle cracking sound, and at last, V smiled, a smile that only the dulling effect of the codeine had made possible.
"I thank you, too, Nelson. Only the noble Gelert could possibly best you, I'm certain."
The dog pawed at the air, and for that one second, all seemed well with the world.
