Vindication
There was dancing in the streets of London tonight.
Chief Inspector Finch could hear the joyous commotion from the still-burning Parliament all the way to his home. Somewhere out there London was glowing in the night, whirling and twirling on her fiery stage. He could imagine the varied footsteps as citizens celebrated their freedom from an oppression they had barely recognized until a masked man known only as V revealed to them the pathetic nature of their own lives and encouraged them to take action.
Finch had parted with the former "terrorist" Evey Hammond an hour earlier, probably with the same questions in his mind:
Would these people, so caught up in the intensity of the occasion, ever really appreciate what had just happened? Would they appreciate the man who gave everything, including his life, to help them secure their freedom?
Finch wasn't even sure that he valued the man's actions. His lack of understanding prevented such ease of acceptance. But one thing he did know and understand was that these actions were necessary. England could not survive much longer in such a repressed state. However, the thought that plagued most him was the thought of what was to come.
For this was not as simple as blowing up a building. The rebuilding of England's entire government would take countless months, years even. Every charred, broken piece of Parliament was a piece of the country's infrastructure that would need to be carefully replaced, consciously remolded.
At the current moment, such serious thoughts did not matter, and, as Finch sadly suspected, neither did V. All that mattered now was that chaos was running rampant and order would soon follow. And that, Finch thought, was the real purpose of all of this.
A late firecracker went off, a lingering testament to the power reverberating in the air. Even Finch could feel it, heavy in his veins, exciting him. But he was too weary to dance to another man's vendetta, even if it did serve the interests of an entire country.
Briefly, Finch wondered the whereabouts of Chancellor Sutler and his lap dog Creedy. If he'd come to expect one thing from this year-long nightmare it was that "good guys win, bad guys lose," a line he thoughtfully attributed to a man who assumed himself saintly and ended up dead. It was most likely, then, that he would receive a call from Stone, or Bascomb, after the festivities in the square had died down.
For now, Finch ignored all thoughts of V, the Party, and even Dominic, who had failed to get in touch after the madness ensued, and allowed himself to experience the rush of emotions this Fifth of November had brought forth.
Glancing over to the open FedCo box on his sofa, Finch could just barely make out the knowing smile of a porcelain Guy Fawkes. With a decisive and deliberate nod of respect to the mask, Finch raised his scotch glass to the empty room and said the familiar words he'd never fully believed until now.
"England prevails."