Title: Thin Line
Author: Evelyn Benton
Rating: Non-Adult (Young Adult on Stellar Phenomena)
Date: 07/09/06
Category: General, V/Evey romance referenced
Genre: Drama
Fandom: V for Vendetta (V/Evey romance referenced)
Archive: Stellar Phenomena, The 2006 Phoenix Awards Official Website, and fan fiction dot net; all others, please ask.
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. and Alan Moore own V for Vendetta; I own this not-for-profit fan fiction; no copyright infringement intended.
Author's Notes: This is dedicated to my sweet Bear. Life won't be the same without you. Thank you, Tristan and Sus, for beta reading.
Summary: In order to hate, one must first love. As she dies, Delia ponders the disturbing revelation she had when she first saw the void for V's eyes. Movieverse.




In order to hate, one must first love. I never hated prisoner Five, the Roman numeral V. My love for humanity, the preservation and prospering of the species, was always my number one priority. My naiveté, fueled by my passion and blinded by my self-righteous state of denial caused the deaths of countless individuals. V may have physically survived Larkhill, but his soul was dead.

I saw him as he stood atop the hill, surrounded by flames and screaming in a primal state of fury, and there were no eyes. There was only darkness, a void that could never be filled.

When I started piecing together the information regarding the vigilante V, I came to the quick conclusion that it was indeed the return of the man who occupied cell V at Larkhill. Like a dark crusader in the comic books from the time before they were outlawed, V occupied both sides of the line separating good and bad. He was a dangerous hero, a champion to the good and an avenging angel straight from the fires of hell to the bad.

His unending pursuit of his persecutors, his passionate attempts to correct the wrongs committed against him and humanity by their government made me believe that the void, where a soul had once occupied his body, had been filled. My theory was soon disproved as I gathered more and more information after he murdered yet another person connected with Larkhill. I interpreted these as the activities of a man with nothing to lose, the man I saw at Larkhill who stared at me with a dark emptiness laced with promises of retribution.

In my youth, my friends chided me for my melodramatic romanticizing of people and events. I often thought of things in an epic way, that my place in events and lives was far bigger than what any of us ever intended. When he looked at me, my old habit quickly returned, except this time, it was for real. I knew I would see him again. I was important to him.

My role in V's life is that of a mother. I gave birth to a monster, the vigilante V, and like a properly disturbed child seeking revenge for his tumultuous childhood and lost years of awkward teenage uncertainty, he would eventually seek me out. Since Larkhill, I've waited patiently for the inevitable reunion.

I've done all that I can to rectify my sinful actions, however futile my attempts may be. One percent goodness mixed in a caldron of ninety-nine percent evil doesn't make the brew taste any better, but it does take away from the absolute purity of the evil.

Would this matter to him?

Perhaps it is my selfishness speaking again, but I like to believe that V and I have shared a type of love for many years. When one sets his sights on the establishment and maintenance of hate, one must nurture that hate with the delicate touch one uses when gardening—growing, for example, Scarlet Carson roses. It's a constant commitment, you see. One must consciously remember to hate. One must make the extra effort to remember the object of hatred, every major detail to every tiny nuance. One must refuel the hatred by viewing old yet still strong memories and embellishing the emotions that accompany the fading memories.

Hate is an investment and there is no way one can hate without this emotional bond. We were lovers of a sort who fantasized not about sexual acts or romantic escapes, but instead envisioned our reunion and my inevitable brutal murder at his hands. It would hurt, but not as much as my conscience has hurt all these years. I know it would be as good for him as it would be for me.

Although I'm certain my face and actions never left his mind, I often humor the idea that he is as obsessed with our connection as I am. Was I the woman who haunted his dreams? Was he teased by the ever-elusive nature of our impending reunion? Was he taunted by dreams of me in my vulnerable pale skin as I coyly asked him to hurry to me? Did he awake in a sweat as he felt hatred so painfully hot that it was almost an erotic lust eating away at what remains of his flesh?

Am I exaggerating my impact on his life in an attempt to justify my evils? After all, why should one commit a few minor evils when one can be the incarnation of the ultimate evil? I want to haunt his mind as much as he haunts my mind. Is it too selfish of me to hope that he reciprocates my inability to forget him?

Now, my end is here. He's here with me, bringing me a rose. This mother had such a sweet child—he brought me a rose, and instead of tossing it on my corpse the way one tosses a coin to a beggar, he handed it to me like a gentleman. He respects the one percent goodness I added to the ninety-nine percent evil in the brew. He respects my regrets and my improperly voiced apologies. He respects that I helped to create him, the monster V whose vendetta will save us all through death and absolute anarchy.

I see his eyes now. Despite the shadows in the room, the obtrusiveness of his Guy Fawkes mask, and my aging sight, I see his eyes. Am I the only one who can see them? Must one be moments from death before they can see into this fallen angel's eyes?

His eyes possess a determination, not the daring found in the eyes of a man with nothing to lose, but the passion found in the eyes of a man with everything to lose. These are the eyes of a man in love. I've become the other woman, the Lilith(1) to her Eve. He has discovered love in its purest form, the love that one finds in a person who is equally as beautiful inside and out. It is irrelevant to him whether or not she returns his feelings, but I admit that I am curious. I wonder what her name is.

Here before me stands a man in love, a man determined to turn his vendetta into a pursuit for goodness on behalf of his beloved. He wants to make the world a better place for her, to give her a type of peace and contentment she has never known, even if that means chaos. He wants to give her freedom, the freedom to live, to laugh, to cry, to love, to die. He wants her existence to be filled with her own choices and her own actions. He knows he must give her the life that was violently ripped from him.

His vendetta was to destroy me, to destroy all of us from Larkhill and in the government that betrayed so many citizens, but now his mission is to give her the world on a silver platter so she can pick her fate. He knows he is taking a slave away from her master, leaving her alone in a chaotic world she doesn't know how to survive in, yet he trusts her enough to survive in this world of his—her—their making. She is the damsel in distress, and he is her lover, her knight dressed in black and wearing white porcelain armor over his vulnerable scarred flesh.

Most men give the women they love roses and mine is no different. He gave me a rose. He gave me a realization. He gave me the reward he silently promised me when he first pierced his gaze into my soul. His love for me is on the wrong side of the thin line between love and hate: the side of hate. His love for her is on the correct side: the side of pure love. He would die for her.

Perhaps I wasn't that important to him after all. Doesn't he understand I've been waiting to die for him? He handed me my rose, my well-earned gift from my platonic lover. He was kind as he gave me my death, his last gift to me.

She, however, is still waiting for her gift. With each murder, each speech, each rebellion, he is one step closer to giving her the greatest gift a man in love can give a woman. He's giving her the world.




END




(1) Lilith was Adam's first wife/companion before Eve.