Monster

"Sparkling angel, I couldn't see
Your dark intentions, your feelings for me."

Towards the end she began to think that freedom would only come with death.

The idea did not dawn on her immediately, of course-- the instinctual desire for life had forestalled all such thoughts in that vein for the longest time, reducing it to no more than a hushed whisper issuing from the dark, unknowable well in her soul. But when the time came when she could no longer tell if it was night or day beyond those horrid four walls (or even if such things as night or day even existed in the first place)-- when the time came that she could no longer remember how many times her head had been held down in a bowl to the point of drowning, when the rat that occasionally appeared in her cell was greeted with all the warmth of a long lost friend-- the truth rang out through the hollow pale of her soul like a slow, knowing death knell. A requiem for freedom; the numbing cold of silence.

During the first few weeks of her imprisonment she managed to hold out some vague hope of rescue, clinging to it and wrapping it around her like a veil to keep her mind apart from the beatings, the water torture, the awful sound of shackles banging closed around her wrists and ankles with bruising force. She saw the blood, her blood, as if from far away, regarding it with detachment. Disbelief. Surely such horrors could not really be occurring, certainly not to her-- at any moment the man reclining in the shadows across the table from her would let out a barking laugh and declare the whole thing some bad joke. Then Gordon would come in, Gordon with his friendly smile and his face free of blood, and he would clap her on the shoulder and tell her of the great show he had lined up that night just for her while the chains binding her to the chair were stripped away. Yes, Gordon would be there, and everything would be alright again.

But the man behind the lights was speaking again, calling her a liar, a whore, and the man with the iron hands was shoving her face beneath the water as she struggled for air, needing to breathe so badly she thought her lungs would burst, but he wouldn't let her up, wouldn't let her breathe.

Okay, so maybe Gordon wouldn't come waltzing through the door. Although surely, surely, someone at the Finger or the Nose would look at the surveillance tapes and realize that she hadn't done all those awful things they accused her of. They would realize she was innocent and let her go, let her pull her head up out of the slimy water and relieve the terrible pain in her chest with a gasping breath that would banish the black stars bursting at the edges of her vision. Then they would give her back her clothes and send her on her way, and Gordon would be waiting outside for her, Gordon with a bandage on the corner of his mouth, and everything would be alright again.

But the nasally man was jerking her arms over her head again and shackling her wrists to the thick chains dangling from the ceiling, and suddenly there was nothing but the shrieking agony of scalding water cutting into her skin like a spray of razorblades, tearing into the livid wounds on her back, tearing into the veil of denial in her mind.

Not Gordon, then. Gordon wouldn't be coming.

--dead dead dead, a black magic bag thrust over his head and vanishing him from existence--

But even without Gordon there was still V. Even if they didn't let her out, surely V would come for her. V, who had saved her at the radio station and risked his own safety to bring a near-stranger into his home. V, who had given his bed to her and slept on a cot night after night, waking her every morning with the smell of eggs and toast and waffles and sausage, all freshly made by those terribly scarred hands while their owner flounced about the kitchen in a frilly apron, humming absently.

Knives flashing like a demon's kiss, cloak flaring out behind him like the wings of some dark angel, he would sweep into the room just before the man with the iron hands shoved her head down in the bowl again, easily laying out her tormenters like sacks of flour before they even had time to shout. Then he would slash the chains cutting cruelly into her limbs, lift her into his arms, and carry her back to the Shadow Gallery, far away from the cold and damp and the silence echoing with the ghosts of screams. Yes, that was it. Any moment now V would come, V would save her from another session with the bowl of water.

But once more the iron hand clamped around the back of her neck and plunged her down beneath the icy surface, and she knew that V would not be coming. He might have already been captured and thrown into a cell much like hers. He might have been dead.

But deep in the recesses of her heart, she knew that V would not be so easily captured or killed. No. He was alive and well as always. He simply didn't care enough to save her.

One by one all her illusions were stripped away from her. The veil enshrouding her mind was rent in two; the crystal around her heart shattered. And all the horrors came pouring in. At the very last there was nothing left her, nothing but the certainty of agony and the looming specter of death. Nothing...expect Valerie. No cozy flat, no job at the BTN, no Gordon, no V. Only a letter scrawled in pencil on toilet paper, rolled into a tight little scroll and tucked into rat's hole. A flimsy little remnant of paper covered in haphazard sentences, misshapen letters-- a message of love so simple, so powerful, so aching in its stark despair and sharp-edged hope that it sank into her heart like a dagger, rending her asunder and building her back up again with untouchable strength as tears streamed from her hardened eyes.

And in those final days, even Valerie went away-- Valerie, a woman she would never meet and who might have been facing her end before a firing squad at that very moment--leaving only her words and her inch. Just an inch. Freedom.

A freedom which she knew, watching her cell door open for the final time, carried the cost of her life. Such a heavy price it had seemed before, yet suddenly it became as if nothing at all. She would hold her head high as they led her out behind the chemical sheds-- she would not cry or beg or scream for them to spare her life. They could beat her, rape her, kill her, but nothing they could do would ever touch that inch. Within that inch she was free, and more powerful than they could ever imagine.

But they didn't take her out behind the chemical sheds and shoot her. The nasally man left her cell door open and walked away. Freedom? No, it couldn't be. Not there, in that horrid place. Her only escape would come through death. But the door was still open and no one was shouting at her to stand up, no one came to drag her to her doom.

The realization came slowly at first, dawning on her piece by wrenching piece. First there was the guard at the end of the hall-- or rather, what she had taken to be a guard. Her heart turned over in her chest as her gaze drifted to his face and saw nothing but seams and latex and blank, unseeing eyes, causing the world around her to tilt and skew dangerously. At first she scarcely dared to believe it. It had to be another trick, some other game to torture her mind.

But then she reached out a hand and eased open the unlocked door at the end of the hall, and something inside her splintered. It was like looking at a picture of a vase and suddenly seeing two faces-- the damp, dark world behind her did not vanish, but suddenly its presence in her mind inverted, becoming something else entirely. No longer a prison, but a set piece. The backdrop for a play whose lead male role suddenly appeared before her, tugging his gloves back into place (--iron hands, hot like a furnace, gripping the back of her neck--) and greeting her amicably.

The Shadow Gallery. She was in the Shadow Gallery, and had been for two unbearably dark months. There were no prison guards or interrogators or torturers to hold her head beneath the water, only V. Her long-awaited guardian angel had been there all along.

As she stared at him, his picture inverted too. Gone was the silly, eccentric, friendly, well-read companion she had known, and in his place stood the essence of distilled evil masquerading as someone who had claimed to be her friend. Her unearthly courage evaporated like a drop of spilled tea under the comparatively bright lights of the Shadow Gallery, leaving her trembling, weak, bloody, bruised, and shattered.

Every memory of him hurt like shards of glass being shoved down her throat. The pancakes, the movies, the books, the long hours discussing artwork or debating a line of poetry. It had all been a game. All of it. How could she have ever burrowed down in his sheets and giggled quietly at the thought of sleeping in his bed? How could she have ever thought his flowery aprons endearing or been touched by his thoughtfulness for making her breakfast every morning?

She had regretted betraying him all throughout her stay with Gordon and her imprisonment--

--all a lie, only painted doors and recorded voices, only a tame rat in a cage and V's gloved hand tossing dog food through the hole in the door, V's hand trying to drown her, V's arms dragging her back to her cell, V's boot kicking her unmercilessly in the stomach as she curled and writhed like a pathetic, mewling worm on the concrete floor--

She had lain awake at night in Gordon's bed hoping that he had gotten away, hoping that she had not doomed him by succumbing to her fear. V's not really all that bad, she had thought.

How stupid she had been. How naively trusting. If only she had realized that the thing she had glimpsed lurking within him the night she had learned of Prothero's death (--murder--) was not merely a figment of her imagination, nurtured by her paranoia and fear.

Oh how very right she had been when he had calmly replied that he planned to kill more people.

V wasn't just a terrorist. He was a monster.

........

Author's Note: I seem to have a thing for PTSD and bucket loads of angst, as my fans from 'Instability' will probably note. I feel so evil. MUWAHAHAHAHA!!

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, on to the important info. This may stay a one shot, although at the moment I have all sorts of ideas brewing for a long-ish fic about Evey's recovery period (which we didn't see in either the graphic novel or the movie) and how she came to be grateful for what V did. The movie made it seem like she came down off the roof and suddenly realized how glad she was some madman had tortured her for month. Honestly, people, it doesn't work that way. She would be seriously screwed up both mentally and physically for a long time and would have a lot of inner demons to excise before she could move on. This story will, I hope, be able to delve into that angst-ridden process of healing and self-discovery.

If I do continue this from a one-shot, please be aware that I will mix elements from the book and movie as I see fit.

/end note