Author's notes:

This is my first foray into fanfiction in many years. While I encourage you to read and review, I beg you to be kind, for the story has not yet finished revealing itself to me, and I'm a bit rusty at writing.

The timeline will jump back and forth throughout the story. At temporal transitions, be patient and read along and you'll soon find your bearings.

This fic is movieverse, as I have not yet acquired a copy of the graphic novel. However, my birthday is coming quickly, and it is on my list... :-)

Thanks for the reviews thus far. I have fixed the quote that was messed up -- thanks Shadow Systems!

I truly hope that you enjoy,

Regards,

Jade

Disclaimer: The characters V, Evey, Fitch, Dominic, etc, everyone who appeared in the movie are not mine. Any characters appearing in this story that weren't in the movie, I made up.

Chapter One

Evey moved toward V, delaying her exit from the Shadow Gallery. She knew she had to leave here, leave him, but wasn't quite ready. There was something left unsaid between them. They had argued, she had said horrible things to him. She had called him a monster, and in a way she believed it; there was no denying the deaths or destruction he had caused. And she was angry, he had tortured her, starved her, locked her in a cell. For what? His own perverse pleasure? To create a clone of himself?

He claimed it was to give her strength, to set her free. Part of her believed him, but part of her still felt betrayed. They had shared so much over their short time together. They had laughed, his deep, rich voice ringing through the Gallery, they had read side by side in companionable silence, he had shown her old movies, and, with the letter, given him an insight into the man he tried to hard to hide. How could he have done such horrible things to her?

Yet, part of her found him irresistible. His grace, his elegance, his gallantry and power. She had watched him spar with the suit of armour and watched the muscles ripple beneath his tunic and caught herself wondering what it would be like to be held by those arms, run her hands up and down the flat planes of his chest.

She moved forward, towards him, until she was inches from his face. V's his heart stopped. How he longed to close the distance to her, hold her in his arms, feel her warmth against him. Perhaps, if he held her tight, her light would banish the darkness from him, the pain, the hate, the need for vengeance. Perhaps he could lose himself in the kindness in her eyes.

V knew he had gazed into the abyss for far too long and thought that his heart was no longer capable of feeling anything but the void. Much to his surprise, however, he felt a freedom in the fact that fate had placed her in his path, that this woman had reawakened his stone heart, where months before, there existed only the abyss gazing back into him.

He wanted so badly to embrace Evey, pull her into his arms and beg her not to leave. But he pulled away. She had said it herself –he was a murderer, a monster, not worthy of someone so pure of heart. She might have been attracted to the man in the mask, the ideal purging Britain of Norsefire, but she could not love the gargoyle beneath the mask.

As she left the gallery, she said she would return. He prayed to a God he thought had long sense abandoned him that she would keep her promise, that she would once again walk through those doors. If only to see her one more time, if only to take in her beauty, to see his love before he died.

Before he died. Again. He should have been dead twenty years, but had survived. He had fled the burn unit before the plastic surgeons had their chance to fully evaluate him for reconstructive surgery, afraid to hear that he was hopeless, needing to escape into the solitude of his broken soul. The weeks in the hospital had done little for his soul, but had, at least kept him alive.

But kept him alive for what, he mused. Justice? Vengeance? Or was it simply hate? He sat down at the piano and stared at the unmoving keys, his inspiration for music gone. He had played for her a few times and had delighted at her bright smile. He realized then that, while he had taken breath, walked the streets at night planning and plotting, he had not actually lived. What a waste of a life, lost in darkness.

--VEV--VEV--VEV

V strode down the dark corridor, staring into its depth, knowing he was destined for his death. A myriad of emotions surged through him – a sense of completion, his twenty year odyssey finally drawing to an end. As he sailed through the darkness, towards his Ithaca, his heart fought against his mind. While he was weary of the planning, the plotting, and, most of all, the death that surrounded and subsumed him, and he wished to find finality, his heart was heavy. Intense loss filled his very soul, as he realized that his quest would truly not take him home, but instead away. V paused, wishing to warn away any suitors for his Penelope, but knowing that eventually she would move on, that she should move on. Tears fell down his face as he came to realize what he was losing.

Gasping, V awoke and sat up in bed. He could feel the dampness on his cheeks and was haunted by the images in his dream.

Months had passed since Evey had left the Shadow Gallery and he had been busy finalizing his plans. In just a few short days, his dream would become reality. His day of reckoning drew near. Those responsible for so many horrors would soon find themselves in Hell, alongside their executioner.

He could see no other way. Nor should his life continue after the fifth of November; his quest completed, he would be a ship without an anchor, adrift in a sea of chaos. Twenty years of his life, dedicated to a single cause, but yet, he found no relief in that knowledge, for his enchanting Evey had changed everything.

Evey. She was his lighthouse, his guide. While the Furies and the impostor standing in the stead of Madame Justice had been his muse for twenty years, Evey had become his raison d'etre. She was his protégé, he knew she would carry on in his stead.

What would England soon look like? What would her life be like once Norsefire had been thoroughly ousted from office? He longed to know. Evey. His love, his life. If only he could bask in the world that would become, if only he could see her joy return as life improved. If only he could live the life the new world would allow. An idea tickled in the back of his mind. Could he?