There is a plot in the middle of Parliament. There is no grave, no headstone. There is merely a rose bush, climbing towards the faraway sky.
I will never know V's final resting place, there beneath the building. In all honesty, I don't really think there is one: his funeral pyre was among the greatest this world has ever seen, and I believe that now, in death, he is everywhere, just as he was in life. I imagine that his ashes are now a part of the scarlet carsons; I imagine that even now, he is reaching for the sky.
They rebuilt Parliament, of course. How could they not? It was only a building, but there was an idea behind it. V knew that when he decided to blow it up - I knew that when I decided to blow it up - and the people knew it when they decided to build a new one. It flew up incredibly quickly, within a few years. It is not quite so big and grand anymore, but it serves its purpose better than before. It belongs to the people again, both the building and the idea. The people now run this country, and they run it well. Our leaders are chosen again, and they listen again. They care again, not just for the citizens of this nation, but for the citizens of every nation. America is back on its feet, if still recovering, and relations are the best they've been in perhaps three hundred years. The world is finally sorting itself out, and for the first time I can remember, a change has taken place and been for the better.
I guess that isn't completely true, though. Many small changes led up to that grand finale, and during those times of change I was quite possibly the happiest I'd ever been. That change began with a man, and not a day passes that I don't wish he were here to see the good he's done. That he were here to see his roses.
The rose bush flourishes in its stone courtyard, surrounded by walls the same warm gold as the walls of the Shadow Gallery. In a way, it's like he's back home, within the safe familiarity of his world. It is cared for every day by one of the people working in our new government. There are doors all around, and each morning someone comes through one of them with a watering can or a plastic cup or a coffee mug - once, in the middle of a terrible drought a few summers back, three men in suits staggered through, carrying between them an entire water-cooler - whatever they can bring to pay respects to the symbol of their freedom. The roses are watered every day, but never pruned. The old blooms remain until they are quite ready to drop, and they often cling on until a storm knocks them loose. They are stubborn, those roses, unwilling to give in before all but the greatest of trials. It sometimes give the plant a tattered look, browning blossoms wound high on the trellis, but then, nothing in life is really perfect. The withered roses remind us all that while beauty fades, life never does - not while there's someone willing to live without beauty. The ground beneath the bush is always covered in a layer of fallen leaves and petals, the old gracefully accepting its place before the new, laying down to nourish it.
Rubble still litters the courtyard, but is slowly being claimed by a thick blanket of grass and wildflowers. I would have been happy to leave it bare stone and earth, but I must admit that the new life would have suited V far more than sight of barren desolation. He always loved beauty, in all its forms, and he fought for life, even unto destruction.
He would love this place. He would smile at the daisies and the bluebells, and I can see him spending days searching for a four-leaf clover. He would love the roses best, though, and would pass an hour or two every afternoon on the stone bench, gazing at them with the distant melancholy that slipped through his mask sometimes. He would remember Valerie, and he would remember Larkhill. I would remember my parents, and my imprisonment, and I would pull him close to me, and together we would sit, remembering. Then we would leave together, leave the memories behind with the roses, and return to the Galleries. We would watch a movie, he would make tea, we would dance to the other eight-hundred and forty-one songs.
That doesn't happen, and never will. Instead, I sit alone on the bench, as I have ever November the Fourth for the past several decades. November the Fifth is for celebration, and streets fill with people wearing his mask, people who fill the night with cheers and music and fireworks. The Fourth is for me, and I remember.
I remember the man, and the year I had with him. When he first told me I'd have to stay that long, it seemed some terrible punishment for an impulsively good deed. Looking back, I wish it had been ten. A year seemed so long, then; now it seems painfully short. One dance was almost too much for him to ask; I can't believe I didn't beg for more. I remember the feel of his gloves against my face and the sight of his hands cooking breakfast for me. I remember his mask, of course - how could I forget, with it as famous as it is? - and how it became the only face that mattered to me. I remember most of all the sound of his voice, and I cling to it. The day I fail to remember that voice is the day that I have failed to remember him. He was there in his voice, in ways he was never there in his body. The way he spoke, the way he hesitated, the way his words always reached into my very soul, the way he hid behind them... That was who V was. An idea, an idea cloaked in a symbol.
I miss him terribly. It aches, how much I miss him, but while his loss hasn't gotten easier to bear, it's gotten easier to accept. Every day, I see more evidence of healing in this country. The Bailey has been rebuilt, as well, and true justice has returned to the system. The fingermen are a thing of the past, and most nights, the streets are filled with people without fear.
All nights but this night.
This night, the night of the Fourth, the streets will be empty. Houses will be empty, stores will be empty. Clubs will be empty, offices will be empty. This night, it will seem as though the entire country is crowded around the site of the new Parliament. They will wear the masks and cloaks of long ago, and stand in silent reverence until the clock strikes midnight. It is painfully like that night, I have found. The music, the fireworks, the crowds sweeping off their masks in a gesture of fearless defiance - it is too much to bear, so I pay my respects in my own way. I sit before the roses, and I talk to him. I tell him of the good things that have happened this year, and I tell him the bad. I reminisce with him. I tell him how much I miss him. I tell him how much I love him. It's kind of a game with us, to see how long I can go without crying. I never make it past midnight, and sometimes I don't even make it that long. When I can no longer talk, I take a rose. It's a sort of unspoken rule never to take a rose from the courtyard, and to the best of my knowledge, I am the only one who ever breaks it. We all owe him so much, but he owes me for my tears; I selfishly snip the fullest, reddest, most vibrant one I can reach, and tuck it into my coat.
Then I leave.
I spend the morning of the Fifth in the Gallery. I remain the only one who knows of it, and even after all this time, I still expect to see him striding around a corner, tugging on his gloves and announcing that he has something to show me.
He never does.
He never will.
The Fifth is a day of celebration, but only for those who know the idea. The people have forgotten the man behind it. They never really knew him. To them, he was hope, he was the future. He stood for something they were afraid to stand for, and gave them the courage to be courageous. But he was only ever a symbol. No one ever saw the face beneath the mask, not even me, but from the very beginning I saw the person behind it. He was terrifying, yes, but he gave me a home when I had nowhere to go. He was radical, but he wore an apron while he cooked breakfast for me. He was immortal, but he died in my arms.
He has become another Guy Fawkes, famous for his actions and his message, but not quite human.
He was the most human person I have ever known. I tell that to the rose bush, and the leaves shake as if with laughter.