Author's Notes: Many thanks go out to the three reviewers of my first chapter, I apperciated it very much. I'm very happy that this story has (so far) been well received.

Chapter Two takes place directly after the first, and I consider it more of the second part to the first rather than a separate entity. Please keep that in mind while reading.


How Evey managed to get V to the nearest hospital was a jumble in her head. Her adrenaline had been running high, and she had found his tall, lithe body surprisingly light as she hoisted him over her significantly smaller frame. She could recall the sound of her feet against the pavement, trying to run with a close to twice her weight slung over her shoulder.

She stumbled up to the emergency unit entrance of Our Lady of Grace Hospital and glanced at it with a slight cringe. The building was fully decorated in Norsefire paraphernalia, from the color schemes to the enormous illumined portrait of the high chancellor on the side of the building that spanned several stories. She tried to shake off the eerie feeling that his eyes were boring down on her in a condescending gaze as she lay V down on a patch of grass to remove his cape, weapons, wig and mask. Evey's notion was that it was best to remove anything on V that gave away his identity and to hide it away in decorative plant life in front of the entrance, so that he remained anonymous, thus securing the safety of all parties involved.

She allowed herself a moment of regret for bringing V to there, but instinct and adrenaline had guided her footsteps rather than reason. Evey knew that a place so connected to everything V stood against would be the very last situation he would want to be on the eve of his would-be revolution; and she was happy for his unconsciousness, so that he couldn't make any protests, or point out the circumstantial irony of the moment.

There was no wasting of time once any remnants of the terrorist were carefully concealed. Evey swung open the clear glass door, dragging V's weak frame in her wake. She screamed bloody murder, the only way she could concoct to receive any assistance or service. Upon seeing her blood soaked figure on their doorstep, two nurses rushed forward ushering for her to come inside. When the hospital staff realized that it was not Evey's needs they were needed to attend to, V was rushed inside and taken into room, a trail of stony faced doctors and busy nurses following. They left Evey standing in the doorway unassisted, a wave of physical and emotional exhaustion hitting her with force.

A long time passed before Evey managed to will her legs to move inside the actual emergency room, and her thoughts were pleasantly empty, the strain of the day's trauma had numbed her for a while. When logical thoughts tried to sneak in they told her to sit down, to rest; they assured her that V would not be walking through the doors at any moment, telling her the whole thing had been an elaborate hoax in order to teach her a lesson. It took the gentle prodding of a young and squeamish orderly who had been making a nuisance of himself trying to help, to coax Evey back to reality with promises of clean clothes and other small comforts.

The mantra had not left her head yet, and as Every waited for news, any news, "He. Must. Not. Die." Cycled through her consciousness, as rhythmic and sure as her heartbeat. The words had yet to lose any of their urgency or meaning to her.

The fear that had been compelling her ever since heavily wounded V had turned the corner, took a vice-like grip on her heart as memories and images came to the forefront of her thoughts in rapid succession. She was seeing V and all the ways he had touched her life, she saw her own transformation from a frightened girl into a confident woman, and her heart ached, wishing she had understood him then like she did now. Their time together replayed in front of her eyes; her rescue from the fingermen, the first time he made her breakfast, watching The Count of Monte Cristo together, the absurd outfit he made her wear for Bishop Lilliman, her torture, their dance, his confession.

"He did so much for me," Evey said in a whisper audible to only herself, "and how did I repay him for any of it?"

A small, weak, voice in the back of her head had the answer for her, but Evey's train of logical thought was reluctant to let to it speak, terrified that what finally admitting it to herself might mean.

"You fell in love with him, Evey. You fell in love with him, and that gives him a reason to live besides his vendetta. That is repayment enough."

It was a simple thing when said like that, but the implications of it, the history they shared made any kind of confession a complicated matter. Evey's only hope was that her love, her strange, twisted, complex, love, would be enough for V to forgive her for this one night. She had gone against everything he wanted…abandoned his revolution, took him to the hospital instead of allowing him to die, but her most grievous sin was that she had seen his face.

Evey shivered, the image of it burning into her memory. The illumination from the chancellor's portrait had been the only light to be found, and as she gingerly removed V terrorist apparel eerie shadows fell across his lithe body. She removed the mask last, knowing how badly she was violating his personal space, hoping he could understand the necessity of it. Evey knew not to expect some man of great beauty underneath it, and did her best to avoid looking at him out of respect, but she was human and could not help some small curiosity.

Once, in what felt like a lifetime ago, Evey had seen V's hands. They were mottled and almost dead looking, frighteningly red skin was marked with thin white scars. He had been cooking breakfast for her the morning after he had salvaged her from the chaos at Jordan Tower, and brought her to the Shadow Gallery. She hadn't been repulsed then and instead had felt pity and compassion…but nothing had prepared her for that face.

It was a hideous and yet tragically beautiful site to behold. Like his hands, the skin was a bright crimson that made him look almost hot to the touch and deep white scars resembled an intricate spider web. There was no hair on V, not even the trace of an eyelash, and the lack of it gave him a look that was all hard angles and aided in making him appear even more alien. Where there should have been a nose and ears, there was only cartilage covered in a slight layer of that same red casing. His lips somehow, were in perfect condition but they were rough to the touch, and remarkably dry. In a mesmerized moment, she had traced the contours of that deformed face with a ingenuous finger, but when she realized what she was doing Evey felt as though she had thoroughly raped him of his dignity, and the guilt of it was still eating away at her conscious while she waited for some word of him.

A few minutes before midnight, a copper-headed and weary looking nurse walked into the waiting room, headed towards Evey with a look filled with purpose.

"Miss Smith," she said briskly, greeting Evey with the name she had given the desk workers and shaking her outstretch hand, "Thank you for waiting here so long, after you've been through such an ordeal."

"Yes," Evey responded, "but I'll be all right…what news can you tell me?"

The nurse frowned, causing a small wrinkle to appear in her forehead. "Please understand that this isn't normally my job, Miss Smith…but I do have some good news."

"Good news?" Evey asked, her voice filling with a lightness she didn't remember ever being there before.

"I won't push luck and call his condition right now anything less than critical, Miss…but the man is out of any immediate danger." The woman began.

A cry of relief rose from Evey's throat at the words, a mixture between a sob and a laugh that became strangely twisted. "Thank God." She replied, and she felt the fear for him that had been growing inside of her lose some of its hold.

"This is nothing short of a miracle." The nurse continued, "Over thirty bullets were found in his torso and his legs so far, yet none of them did any serious damage…" She paused, as if not quite believing it herself. "Blood loss and infection are the real potential killers now, and we are fighting off those as best we can."

Evey nodded eagerly and asked perplexed, "His organs weren't damaged?"

"Heavens no!" she responded, her upper teeth pinching her lower lip in gesture of frustration. "That's what's so shocking about the whole thing, my dear. It seems utterly impossible that the patient is alive, and relatively unharmed…there is a possibility of extensive damage to the nervous system, and we'll have to keep him here to be monitored for two weeks at the very least."

"Two weeks!" Evey exclaimed in disbelief. As relieved as she was that V was alright, (to a certain extent), she knew that there was no way she could convince him to stay so long, and Evey would be inclined to agree! Without her at Victoria Station to pull the lever, there would be no revolution, and Norsefire would not be usurped. It simply was safe for the pair of them to remain any place above ground for too long.

"It very well could be longer, child. That all depends on the results of the tests and such."

Evey frowned and turned away from the kind lady, resting her head against the window frame behind her. She glanced outside into the night sky, thinking of the pros and cons of leaving V to heal at the hospital. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes…and for a second thought she heard music.

"Do you hear that?" Evey softly asked her companion.

A pale face turned towards Evey. "Today's the fifth, isn't it?"

Evey said nothing, but nodded vigorously, raising the thick blinds and peering into the night. "It's music…" she muttered under her breath, "his music."

The plump nurse rushed next to her spot pressing an upturned nose against the glass. "I didn't think it would actually happen…." She whispered hoarsely. "As much as I wanted to believe that someone could stand up to them…I couldn't."

Evey made no response as the pair watched the parliament building suddenly burst into flame. The flames were a magnificent sight against the black backdrop of the night, and as fireworks launched into the air, she felt a grin spread across her face. V's dream was coming true before her eyes and Evey's heart swelled for him. She wished he was standing beside her then, making some profound comment on the vision of horrifying loveliness before them, or spouting out some silly quote.

She couldn't understand what was happening…she hadn't pulled that lever. She wasn't the cause of this. Chimes rang, signaling the midnight hour marking the day as the sixth. She stared out the window long after the display had ended, a thousand different scenarios playing in her head. Had it been rigged all along? Had V entrusted the task to someone else in case she failed?

Or had some random civilian found up at Victoria Station and pulled the lever….and if so…Who was it?


Author's Notes: Please review! It's the best encouragement towards updates. :D