Author's Note: edited 09/10/07. I never had a note on this chapter. I missed it in the original posting and am just now correcting it. Long delayed but still valid, I hope. I hope the edit meets with your approval. ES

Disclaimer: I do not possess the wonders of the V-verse. If I could wrest them from their owners and carry them into the darkness to force them into the servitude of the Sphinx, I would, you betcha. But alas, not mine and nothing will change it. I own nothing but the deranged thoughts of my troubled mind.


Rejoicing, Relocation, and Regrets

Stephen drowsed on the bed, half awake but not quite. The windows were open, a breeze drifting across the bed, stroking him like a lover's touch. Evey's touch, he thought with great satisfaction.

He felt warmth against his back, so like when his brother would share the bed with him, that he felt young again. A boy on the verge of adulthood, just a teenager but with a bright future ahead of him. University would bring changes, of course, and he would learn to be… What did he want to be? Everything. He chuckled at his own silliness. Probably a doctor. Perhaps a solicitor. Hmmm. He liked the law, enjoyed the check and balance of legalities. He sighed in his sleep.

Days sped past like a paperback flipped into a fan, each day a page, moving faster than he could see. He glimpsed his mother's face, her laughter gone, as she was dragged from the house. He and his brother were restrained by Creedy's blackbaggers, shouting out…

The image changed to Creedy's hateful face. He loomed over Stephen and V, his voice harsh.

"Your father says to give you a choice. Either you join the Fingermen as you ought or it's off to detention with you." He sneered at them both. "You'll get no preferential treatment either way."

Stephen winced, turning his face deeper into the pillows. Bastard. The two of them had stared up at him, both uttering the one word that damned them.

"Recusant." The word held power, old power, from the days of Shakespeare and Elizabeth the First.

"I am recusant." V's voice mingled with his as they chanted it, mocking Creedy's ignorance. "We are recusant, we defy you, and we will not kneel to Norsefire!" He repeated his defiance. "I am recusant!" The words thrummed through him, victorious and vicious. "I am my mother's son!"

"Right." Creedy's voice had been gloating. "You will be your father's sons when we finish with you or you'll be dead."

"Stephen?"

Evey's voice shattered the dreaming memory, bringing Stephen fully awake. His lover draped an arm over him. "Are you alright, Stephen? You were talking in your sleep."

"I'm fine," he said, soothing her arm with light strokes. He wondered what he'd said. "I was dreaming."

"Bad one? You sounded angry." She shifted behind him. "You sounded young."

"It wasn't a pleasant dream," he sighed. Glancing at his watch, he marked the time with a start. "We've got to get up, Evey, unless you want Mr. Finch to find you gracing my bed. He's due back shortly."

"Mmmm." She hummed against his shoulder. "Might shock him."

"He's a policeman," Stephen reminded her. "He might shoot me for contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

She swatted him. "You aren't old, you bloody minded man. You're seasoned, perfect to my taste." She bit his shoulder, and then soothed the gentle bite with a kiss. "Can we shower together?"

"Oh, I don't know." He rolled to a sitting position. "If you are going to use the perfumey girly stuff, I'll pass." He glanced back at her, his smile making the threat a lie. "I'm not sure that the shower is up to the both of us. It's small."

"I like close quarters." She smiled lazily, not at all concerned with getting up. As he took in the expanse of bare skin, his mouth went dry and his body warmed with want. Her eyes drifted down to the evidence of his attention and she smiled wider. It was an evil womanly smile and he turned back to her.

It took a bit of coaxing and some negotiation but Stephen and Evey managed the shower together, enjoying one another. Evey noticed his scars but she said nothing and Stephen didn't offer explanations. He hated the questioning look in her eyes and his inability to give her the answers she wanted. When they were dressed again, they went outside to the back porch and sat in the late afternoon sun.

"Evey," Stephen said slowly. "Do you want me to come to town?" She was leaning against him, her legs drawn under her. At his question, she looked up.

"But this is your home." She frowned. "I wouldn't ask you to give up your home for me."

"I have a place in London," he admitted. "I came here for the peace and quiet, but I have a flat in London that I got back after the fall of the Norsefire party. It's been neglected, I am sure, but probably not so badly I couldn't get it back into shape."

She brightened. "You would come to London? Be that close to me?"

"I would." He smiled at her. "It would spare Mr. Finch from having to ferry you out here." He leaned back in the seat. "I would still have to come here several times a week, to keep up with the repairs and not let the old beast fall into further disrepair."

He added that last to explain the absences that would come of his actions among the Fingermen. Getting into Palmer's good graces would take some doing and being in London gave more visibility on his part than he liked. He wished the Shadow Gallery were still available to him and wondered how difficult it would be to find a way back into its hallowed halls. He could practice there, alone and free to work his body back into obedience. Now that he knew where the danger to Evey originated, he wanted to be prepared for the Fingermen when they came.

He reached up and ran a hand through his hair, the thick black curls tangling around his fingers. So different from the smooth silky wig, his cheek soft where the mask had been hard. He felt so exposed suddenly, so out of his depth. "Evey, would you like me closer?"

"Desperately." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "I would like the chance to stay with you sometimes, not have to leave suddenly, just because I need to be home or somewhere important."

His heart ached. He wrapped an arm around her, tucking her head under his chin and breathing in her scent. "If I had to choose a home," he whispered. "Anywhere in this world, it would be wherever you are, Evey. I wouldn't count the walls and ceilings, the brick or mortar as my home. Home will always be somewhere close to that organ inside you that says my name when it beats."

She clutched at him, her fingers gripping him with almost painful intensity. "That's beautiful, Stephen." Her voice was tearful and he didn't ask why, just lifted her onto his lap and cradled her like a child. They were like that when Eric drove up.

He got out of the car, watching them separate silently, as though all the words that needed to be said between them had been exhausted. Evey went upstairs to get her rucksack, leaving the two men together. Stephen met Eric's questioning glance passively.

"Did your meeting go well?"

Eric nodded. "And did yours?" he asked wryly. Stephen chuckled.

"I like you better when you aren't after me," Stephen said. He sighed. "You won't have to make this trip again," he continued seriously. "I'll be moving back into London proper within the week."

"For her?" Eric's eyes were sharp. "Or because of what you found out?"

"There is no difference between the two, Mr. Finch." Stephen's voice had dropped to a low purr, softened to keep it carrying inside.

Eric shivered at the memory of a dead man's voice. He'd doubted himself since their last meeting, but now he didn't. He was certain. Stephen's eyes darkened as they stared at one another. "I may ask you for help in the future, Mr. Finch, and the request may come at odds with your due process. Will that prove a difficulty to you?"

"It would depend upon what you asked me to do, Mr. Avery."

"Much of it is what you do already: foster Evey's faith, forefend Mother England's foes, ferret out felonious Fingermen and fight the fears of freemen." The alliterative sentence was spoken with easy fluidity; Stephen's grasp of language was evident in his mastery of his mother tongue. "But I may need you to focus on one thing over another. I will give you whatever notice I can." He glanced toward the house. "I am currently incapable of giving you anything more than this rather vague forewarning."

Eric frowned at him, his eyes full of conflict. Finally, he thrust out a hand. "I will do what I can for you, should the need arise. You'll understand if I hope it does not."

Stephen took the offered hand, his grip firm and steady. "I share your hopes, Mr. Finch. I am not so optimistic, however. There is a threat, it is real, and it is something I must be certain to face warily." For a moment, Eric saw the man beneath the pleasant façade. Stephen's eyes deepened with concern, exhaustion radiated from the lines of his face, it was the expression some policemen get when they have done the job too long and they are jaded with the uselessness of it. Eric gripped his hand harder, making Stephen focus on him.

"Fiat justitia ruat coelum." He hoped his grade school Latin was up to the test. Stephen stared at him, mouth dropping open. Then he laughed delightly, returning Eric's grip.

"Let Justice be done though heaven should fall," he translated. "I have always liked that one, Mr. Finch. At one time it was a personal motto." He pumped the policeman's hand. "Indeed, sir, I believe I will like you better as friend than foe."

Eric privately thought the same. Stephen's display earlier had left an impression. The man was fast, powerful and disciplined. As an enemy, he would no doubt be ruthless in his pursuit of his opponent. Eric felt a pang of pity for the person or persons Stephen had his sights set upon. Evey had counted the vigilante V as her friend. Eric knew what little she would say and if he were right (he was, he knew it!), Stephen would risk everything to ascertain Evey's safety.

Evey appeared at that moment, her smile brilliant at the two of them standing together. She came to stand before Stephen. "I'll miss you," she told him. As Stephen leaned down to kiss her, Eric looked away. He realized that Evey had no idea who she was touching; she thought she'd found someone new. He wondered when or if Stephen would tell her the truth and decided he didn't want to know.

"I will be in London before week's end," Stephen promised. "You will have to help me decorate the flat. I have no talent in that regard."

Eric fought the urge to snort. The Shadow Gallery had been a treasure trove of beauty and luxury. Stephen knew exactly what he liked, he was just giving Evey a chance to nest and make an impression on his home. Evey smiled up at Stephen adoringly.

"I won't use the girly perfumey stuff," she promised gravely.

Stephen helped Evey into the car, exchanged a farewell nod with Eric and watched them drive away. He felt alone as he entered the house, the walls eerily silent now that Evey was gone. Going into the kitchen, he rummaged in the cabinets for something to eat. Settling for a bit of bacon and some egg salad, he sat at the table and pondered his next course of action.

Moving back to London, back into the thick of the shadowy world of Norsefire operatives, he was opening himself up to a number of dangers. Palmer wasn't bright and he'd remembered Stephen which meant that Stephen's name would be going to the upper echelons. It would catch his father's attention. Stephen needed to keep to his story of being sent overseas with another detachment of Fingermen. There weren't many records of the darker jobs. Stephen had proven himself good at the nastier aspects of his father's work.

He'd killed. A lot. There was blood on his hands that would never be washed away. It would not matter how many injustices he righted, how many innocents he protected, whatever penance he put himself through, it would never bring back one soul he'd dispatched during his stint with the Fingermen. Years of isolating himself in the Shadow Gallery, never interacting with any other human, cutting himself off from life and taunting himself with the fantasy worlds of books and films… None of that brought him any peace. He was tormented by V's memories, the whispered recollections of his brother's revelations in the dark, he was tormented by his own memories of Bridgewood and his shame at having surrendered to the pressure, to joining the Fingermen.

He cradled his head in his hands, fingers threading through his hair. Before Evey, he would have designed some perfectly elegant and long-range plan, set up the circumstances to favor his own survival, and then unleashed his own particular brand of vengeance upon his enemies. Evey complicated matters greatly. He'd made her important when he'd put V's vendetta in her hand. The Gunpowder Plot redux. What had Evey done but set in motion the plan he'd always had? That act had her first in line for the retaliation of Norsefire. She wouldn't be hunted now if he'd let her go then. If he'd resisted the madness of taking her into his abode and making her… a gentler him.

That was what he'd done with his savage and sadistic game of torture and incarceration. V would never have done that to her but Stephen had. He'd had a bitter dose of the evil of the camps, he'd dished out her serving, hating himself and even hating her when she proved as strong as V, stronger that Stephen had been. Evey hadn't yielded; she'd looked through him defiantly as she requested her death be served up promptly. Stephen knew he'd driven her to understand the darkness in the souls of the men running England and why they needed cleaning out. She had to know what she was facing. He couldn't let her leave him after the fifth still naïve about the government, ignorant of her personal and societal danger.

Evey hadn't broken until she realized he'd done it to her.

Her horror and betrayal flayed through the mask and man beneath it. He felt her anguish to his soul but watched the butterfly struggling from its cocoon as she gasped and fought him. He wanted to help her but it would have undone the torture he had meted out. She would never have flown without the struggle and the labor that strengthened her wings. The rain soothed her but didn't cool her rage.

And she'd used her new wings to fly away at the first opportunity.

He had accepted it. It was his lot to suffer loss upon loss. She'd gone, the one person who knew how to find him, and he let her go, almost hoping the police, the military, the Fingermen would come. When the silence fell over him, he went into his room and flung the hated mask at the mirror, shattering the reflection of his deception, and he had buried his real face in his hands and wept. His tears had been scalding, bitter and from the deepest part of heart. He wept as he had not wept for his mother. He wept as he had not wept for his brother. He wept because the best part of him had turned her back and walked away.

He wept because it was exactly what he deserved.

Now he had a second chance with her. She'd shared his bed, her generosity humbling him, and he knew that it was not going to last. She would find out what he truly was and she'd leave him again. How could she ever accept that she was sleeping with a Fingerman? How could she ever accept that V was a lie, a tribute to the stronger of the Avery brothers, a tribute to vengeance and rage and bitterness, a vendetta borne of his own failure to be what V needed to heal? He'd failed V once but not with every member of the Larkhill staff, not with Sutler, not with Creedy.

Stephen realized he was crying, tears rolling down his cheeks as he sat in numb contemplation. He shuddered. He would not fail Evey. Better she should walk away from him, to live a good life with someone who loved her, than that the Fingermen should get hold of her. He would not fail, he could not. He would survive her defection but not her death. He could not take on one more death to his credit, especially not hers, which was more important to him than his own.