Mid point warning: I own nothing, claim noting, want nothing, and earn nothing besides your fingers typing a review. ;)
Chapter 7.
Evey felt the droplets of rain on her bare head as she moved through the streets of London. The droplets on her scalp, running down her neck made her think of the last time she had felt rain like this, on a rooftop. She tried not to think of V, and most of the time she succeeded. He was a wound in her that had only just begun to scab. She could feel it, the size of the wound; it's rawness and pain. It was less than it had been, she was trying to move beyond and heal, but it was slow going.
She remembered the last time she saw him. She was so confused; she said and did things she didn't understand at the time. Calling him a monster, she meant it, and yet she didn't. It wasn't the whole truth. As she walked past Fingermen in the streets, who looked at her and didn't recognize the woman who's face was in the papers or on the news, she understood a little. More importantly, as she walked past those same Fingermen and didn't quiver, didn't fear their brutality and rape, just looked them in the eye and kept walking, she understood a little more.
That still didn't make the wound heal.
And she remembered, after calling him a monster, after saying she should thank him with a slight amount of sarcasm in her voice, she found herself making a gesture. She didn't remember doing it consciously. It was as if the affection she had felt for him, before the wound had carved its way through her chest, managed to surface. She remembered clinging to the thought of him alone in that damned cell, and the warmth the thought of him had given her. She looked him in the eye, took a step forward, and paused, her face close to his. In that moment, she wanted to do it. To gently press her lips to that mask, feel the enamel against her, and connect with the man. And then the moment passed, before it had even really begun. She felt the wound, the knowledge that she would not really be connecting with the man, but with the symbol that was that mask. The symbol that had tried to break her, the symbol that had changed her, the symbol that was a revolution. V the man was locked away behind that façade, and she could not touch him.
So she stepped back, thanked him with a degree of sincerity, for what specifically she didn't know. And after agreeing to see him one more time, she left.
And she lived. She had a little bit of money from V, she found a tiny flat, found a meaningless job, and she got by. As the days and weeks passed, and she walked the streets a free woman, in every sense of the word, she found the pain in her chest had lessened. Summer passed by quickly, and she reveled in the rain of fall. She found a roof with a view she liked, and she let the rain fall. She felt it run down behind her ears, around her nose and between her eyes, and tasted it at the crease of her mouth. She felt it run paths through her incredibly short hair, and felt it all settle at her neck where it soaked into her already soaking clothing. She looked out, and instead of the wound, she felt her freedom. She felt the shape of it, the size and scale, and realized it was bigger than herself, her freedom. She felt the rain mingle with a tear of her own, and in that moment, she forgave.
V simply let the dominos fall.
And as he watched them fall, he thought of her. He forgot his revenge, and was thankful he had done all of this, if it gave her a future.
And as the dominos stopped falling, and he found that one solitary tile standing tall, supported by the others, he thought of how he saw the whole meaning of the world in her eyes, and wanted to give her everything.
Sorry it's been so long folks. Soon, I think we will earn our M rating. Not the next chapter. Maybe the one after that. Or after that. :)
What do you think so far? Believeable?
