Evey remained in bed long after she woke. She did not know how long she had slept, nor what the current hour was. She was vaguely aware of the still present throb of her head and the complaint of her battered muscles, but those things seemed very far away.
Her mind raced.
She did not question the reality of V. Her memory of collapsing against him was just as clear and fresh as the grief she felt knowing that when she returned home, Eric would not be there to greet her. Still, her eyes remained dry. Her heart remained hollow. And her mind, frantic.
V was dangerous. Not in a physical sense, of course. She knew he was capable of hurting her with his hands, but it was not them she worried about. V had proved that his revolution meant more to him than anything else. His vendetta might have ended, but the war was still engaged. He had sacrifieced himself once, though she had begged him not to. He would do it again if he thought for a moment that it would further his effort at a changed nation, of that she had no doubt. She also knew that she would never be able survive losing him a second time.
She could not trust him. Now that the initial shock of his being alive had dulled, Evey felt betrayed that he had not come back to her. That he had let a whole year pass letting her believe he was dead. She suspected there was a very real possibility that he simply did not really care about her. It wasn't a far fetched notion to consider that his admission of love had been nothing more than the blather of a deeply wounded man. Or worse, a bold faced lie, a tool he could use to manipulate her like his own personal pawn. It hurt to think about, but she was simply too depleted to cry. Instead, her dry eyes stared up at the ceiling, her heart heavy with the knowledge of what she knew must come next.
Time passed. Eventually, Evey willed herself to get up. She did it slowly, waiting for the dizziness to return. When it did not, she put her feet to the floor and slipped out of the room. She could hear music softly playing down the corridor, but she did not bother with that direction. She would face him soon enough, but her battered muscles needed the relief that a hot shower could provide.
Evey took her time, and though the water and soap hurt the small gash on her scalp, she continued to scrub at herself. Eric's blood had covered her, and though V must have taken care to remove the evidence, it was as if she could still feel the hot stickiness on her flesh. She tried to clear her mind, to pay attention only to the physical sensations around her. Hot water. Fragrant soap. Thick steam. It didn't help, but she kept right in trying. Only when the water began to run cold did Evey finally turn it off and wrap herself in a thick towel.
She dressed carefully, narrowing her focus severely on every step of the process to keep her mind from wandering to what she was about to do. Evey knew that if she allowed herself even a fraction of the chance to doubt herself, she could never carry through. And now, perhaps more than ever, she needed to be strong...and not for anyone else but herself.
When she was ready and there was no more reason to delay, Evey finally made her way to the main room of the Gallery. V was sitting on the sofa, a weathered book held between his gloved fingers. If he heard her approach, he showed no sign of it. So she simply watched him, taking the moment to appreciate his existence. The dim lighting of the room shimmered off the midnight strands of his wig. Guy Fawkes profile was seemed to glow in that light. She remembered a time when she had thought that visage to be strange, unnerving even. Now, she thought it was beautiful...just like the rest of him. V's shoulders were broad and strong, his chest barreled with muscle. She distinctly remembered feeling the strength that seemed to emanate from him when he'd held her the night before. He was such a powerful man, one simply wouldn't believe that he could be so tender. But Evey believed, because she had felt it. She wondered briefly what he looked like underneath all of the theatrics. Mostly, she wondered about his eyes. What color they might be. What shape. What she might see in them when she did what she had to do next.
She realized that she had been standing there for quite some time...and he had yet to turn the page of his book. Evey steeled herself, then spoke. "V?"
There was the slightest bit of hesitation before he lifted his head in her direction. She felt the weight of his gaze. "Evey...how are you feeling?" He asked, setting the book to his side.
"Sore. But better," she admitted.
He seemed to sigh, and his words were cautious when he spoke. "I should think you would be. And probably for days yet to come," He speculated as he got to his feet. "Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?"
"No, thank you," Evey murmured. She tried not to pay attention to the delicate way in which he cocked his head, as if he could sense the storm that was coming. She tried to ignore the strange way that she seemed to be drawn to him, and the knowledge that if she succumbed to that urge, it would be over before it started. But most of all, she tried to neglect the way she still loved him. "V, why were you at the event today?" She asked finally.
"It was a pivotal event for this country, made possible through the work that you so tirelessly did. It was a moment for you to be proud of, and I wanted to share in it, if only from afar." He answered. But somehow, she didn't think that he was being entirely truthful.
"So you came only to watch?" She pressed.
V hesitated, seeming unsure of where her questioning was headed. "I also took liberty to satisfy my worries about the security of the event. Clearly, I failed in that regard, and for that I will always be sorry."
Evey frowned. "This wasn't the first time you saw to my security, was it?"
V was motionless, and he did not answer.
"Tell me the truth, V. Did you follow me?" She demanded, her voice a sharp contrast against the soothing tones of music in the background.
V sighed, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. "Yes," he answered softly.
It was nothing she hadn't suspected. "A lot?"
"When Inspector Finch was not with you." His voice sounded raw, as if she were quite literally cutting the very truth right out of him.
"Did you..." Evey swallowed hard against the lump that had begun to form in her throat. "Did you intervene the night I was attacked?"
V lowered his head slightly, as if his gaze had fallen to the floor. "Yes," he admitted. "You killed the first. I finished the others."
She had suspected, as she'd laid staring at the ceiling in the bed just a short time ago, that this was the case. "Why?"
"It was important that you lived. I could afford no chances." V took a step toward her hesitantly. Evey countered with a step back, and though it was clear he hadn't finished speaking, she pressed on.
"It was never about me though, was it? It was always about your damned revolution. Even in death, you played me. I'm nothing more than a puppet to you. A thing to move and orchestrate at will." She didn't yell. Her voice remained steady. She was doing good, so good...she just had to keep strong.
"Evey, no. You mustn't think that. It was never that way..." he tried to come closer again, the soft baritone of his voice strained.
Evey took another step back, staring at him hard. "Would you have ever told me? Or did you just get off on watching me suffer?"
"Never, Evey, never have I enjoyed watching your pain!" He objected, his voice raising slightly. "You were happy..."
Something in her shifted just then, and Evey lost the cool demeanor she had been maintaining. "I wasn't, and you know it!" She interrupted. "If you followed me at all, then you know I wasn't anything close to happy! All I wanted was you! I wanted to be here, with you, right in this place! I wanted it to be you that held me, that touched me! I wanted it to be you and I felt so badly I couldn't change that for Eric. He's gone now and I'm going to have to carry this guilt forever! I wasted the last year of his life!" Her hand raised, covering her eyes as she squeezed them shut. "My god, what have you bloody done to me?"
"I am so very sorry, Evey. There...there are no words to measure the horrible thing I've done. I ask only that you realize that I did only what I thought was right. My intentions were sound, but my logic was flawed. I see that now and wish I could have seen it then, if only to spare you the pain." She hated the desperation in his voice. She hated the pain. She hated that she was causing it, but most of all she hated that there was more to come.
"Until the next time you think you're doing what's best for me, right? Or even better, what's best for this country?" Evey shook her head. "I will always be your Mercedes."
He flinched as if she'd struck out at him. "I meant it when I said my place in the war was over."
"Except it's not, V. You've just been fighting from the sidelines. You still have your agenda...and I'm just too tired to keep my place on it any longer. I've done what I can for you...but it's time now for me to move on." Evey's heart was racing, her eyes burning. There were no tears, but oh how she knew they'd come later.
His head dropped. "What does that mean?" He asked after a moment.
"It means I'm leaving, V." She spoke quickly, before the words could get lodged in the sob that was forming in her throat. "Right now."
He looked up at her, clearly alarmed. "Evey, you mustn't. Its more dangerous out there for you now than it ever was."
She stepped closer to the door. Close...so close. "I haven't known safety since the moment you walked into my life. There's always been danger. And the hardest part is that it'll never get easier. I'll always have to see your face. It'll be in every history book and every news feed in the tele. I'll never be able to just forget you, V. And that's the most dangerous thing of all...because I'm not sure I can stand it."
"Evey..." he said softy. There was a wound in his voice and it bled.
Just a little more, and it would be over. Evey tried to look collected as she spoke again, but her voice broke anyway. "I won't be coming back this time. You told me once there were no more locked doors for me here. But I'm asking you to lock it just one more time...with me on the outside. And never open it again."
"Oh Evey, no..." He reached for her.
She stumbled back. If she felt his touch, she would recant it all and she knew it. "I spent a year of my life trying to cope with losing you. Nothing you did to me in that cell...nothing you ever could have done to me...compared to what I went through thinking I had lost you. And you knew! You knew I was suffering and you let it happen! You'd tortured me twice, damn you. So let me go, V. I don't want to see you again." And with that, she started for the door.
"I never would have allowed this to happen if I had realized just how much pain you were in." He paused, sounding suddenly defeated. "I know I have done so much to you. I know I do not deserve a single thing from you. A man like me truly did not even deserve to meet you." She could feel his gaze when he brought it back to her, even from behind the black screens of Fawkes' eyes. "I do not want to lose you, Evey. But If you can tell me truthfully that you do not wish to keep company with me...that it is truly too late...I will accept that. Can you do that, Evey? "
She paused, then turned and wielded the sharpest emotional blade in her arsenal, striking him deep with the lie. "I don't love you, V. And I never have. I loved an idea. I understand that now."
How was it possible to see agony on the face of a masked man? He looked stricken, impaled on the razor edge of her words. Evey knew if she stared at him even a second longer, she would lose her nerve. It would be entirely too easy to go to him, to wrap her arms around his body and apologize or her lie. Entirely too easy to tell him the truth. Entirely too easy to melt into him, to hear his heart beat alive and while. Too easy to just let him hold her...and forget all the rest.
She left him staring after her in the dimness, letting the door latch behind her. She waited, her heart breaking, and after a moment, she heard the lock slowly slide home from the other side.
With the last of her strength, she left the man for whom she would always remember the 5th of November.
The man she loved.
