A/N: This has been sitting on my computer for a long time now, since way back when we all thought the Brotherhood was the evil ones here. Inspired by V for Vendetta, the comic because it was just better, and it's sad. It's just... angsty. Angsty McAngst. Read.


Give me a Viking funeral, she says.

I stare down at her numbly. A few months ago I was reading V for Vendetta when she wanted to have sex, and I managed to persuade her to try it. She loved it, of course, especially the poetic nature of the last scene: Give me a Viking burial. It's yours, my love. It's yours.

The Vikings would place the dead on a ship with their possessions and burn it. In the graphic novel, and the movie, Evey placed V on a train loaded with explosives and sent it to the heart of evil.

I know what she wants. I don't want to do it.

Pete comes to try and comfort me, but I simply tell him what she said. He nods, and begins looking for something.

Give me a Viking funeral, she says. I can do that, my love, I can do that, even if I don't want to. Even if I want to hold your hand and cry and never move until we've both become mummies. I don't want to do it, but it's what you wanted, and I'll comply, because I love you.

I don't have a train, but I know what I do have, and I still don't want to do this. You looked so peaceful in your final moment and that's what kills me the most: You were always serene in life, but in death you were at peace.

Give me a Viking funeral, and there it is, and I still don't want to do this. I want to bury you and have your grave to visit, not a fake grave that has your brother in it, an actual, proper place to sit and remember you and talk to you in my dreams.

The steering wheel is jammed in place and you're in the back with your grappling hook that they recovered two weeks ago, and the bomb from the wheelchair is with you, and you're crashing into the headquarters of the Brotherhood.

And that's it.

I watch the place burn, but it doesn't feel good. They killed you, my love, but killing them leaves me hollow.

Even so far away, as we are, I can feel the shockwave of the blast. I can feel your fury, my fury, and suddenly I'm just… not.

I don't feel alive. I don't feel like anything, anymore.

"Goodbye, Helena, my love," I whisper into the air.

"Come on, Myka," Pete says gently. "We have to get back to the Warehouse. I'm sure there's going to be questions."

"I'm sure." I sigh. "You go on ahead, Pete. I'll… I'll catch up in a few minutes."

Pete squeezes my shoulder. "You did what she wanted, Myka. And if you want a grave, we can make one. I'll be waiting by the car."

I stare down at the destroyed building. Give me a Viking funeral. There you go, my most beloved, there you go. There's your funeral, your pyre, the burning ashes of our enemies.

When I get home there will be questions about what I've done. I think I'll ask to be bronzed. It has to be better than this… maybe I'll find a future like the one you imagined, one that's simply better.

I decide suddenly that the hardest part wasn't how peaceful you looked. The hardest part was how whole you looked… everything was fine, you might have been sleeping, except for the wound in your chest, the knife straight to the heart that punctured a lung as well. But that's over now.

I've finished them. And I sit down, and let the tears fall.