Disclaimer: I own nothing...except Dara. She's all mine.

Chapter Fourteen

By unspoken agreement, neither of them ever mentioned what had happened the night that Lewis Prothero died. V was a bit quieter than usual; and he did freeze up momentarily every time she walked into a room, but as the days passed it seemed they both went out of their way to pretend that nothing had happened at all.

It was not, perhaps, the healthiest way to deal with the issue, but avoidance was far preferable to the seething rage she'd expected from him. If he was content to pretend nothing had occurred, then she was perfectly willing to play along.

She was, however, particularly careful not to treat him any differently than she had before. Having told him that she didn't care about what lay beneath his mask, she wasn't about to give him any reason to think she'd lied.

Yes, he was scarred. Yes, it was very likely that he was quite horribly disfigured. Did that change her opinion of him?

Not even in the slightest.

If anything, her feelings for him had only grown with the discovery. She still wasn't quite ready to call it love, even to herself. But that would come with time. She was no longer in any doubt of that.

She had also come to a very important decision.

Over the days and nights that had passed since that night, she'd come to realize that she was now just as passionate about his vengeance as he was. He had been right when he'd dismissed her reproaches over Prothero's death as ignorance. She was ignorant. She had no idea what Prothero had done to earn the fate that V had dealt him, but she was no longer the least bit inclined to believe that V had been out of line.

She'd lectured V about keeping sight of the higher purpose and not mistaking simple revenge for vengeance—and oddly enough, she still stood firmly behind her censures. He was too great a man to allow himself to sink to the level of his enemies.

On the other hand, she was just plain old Dara Turner. There was nothing even remotely great about her and the only standards she had to live up to were her own. And if Lewis Prothero had been in any way responsible for what had happened to V, then he had deserved what he got and more. As did anyone else who had been involved in what happened to him.

They would all be held accountable. V had been quite clear about that.

And she would be right there beside him—lending aide if aide was needed, or simply bearing silent witness to the righting of a terrible wrong. She would be whatever he needed her to be.

The only catch was getting him to agree. He was an intensely private man, and she knew that making him see that she could be an asset to him in such situations was going to take a good deal of convincing. But she would do her level best to make him understand that a second set of eyes could be a good thing to have about with so much at stake.

That was the task she set herself that day. It had been two weeks now since that night, and while he was still quieter than he had been, he no longer tensed the instant she walked into the room—he had even recovered enough to again sit beside her on the couch with her when they watched television, rather than sitting in the armchair across the room.

Emerging from her bedroom after a mid-day reading session, she sought him out.

He had taken advantage of the quiet to read as well she discovered, finding him tucked away into one of the many alcoves in the main chamber with a book in hand. His head tilted almost imperceptibly, and she knew that he had taken note of her presence. But he didn't lower his book, nor did he offer any greeting.

Perhaps things weren't quite as well mended as she thought.

Frowning now and suddenly hesitant to approach any further, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around her left wrist, twisting absently—a nervous habit left over from childhood. "V?"

He neither dropped the book from the level of his eyes nor offered a word of greeting, but she knew that she had his full attention.

"I need to ask you something," she began, moving until she was beside his chair, "and I need you to listen to me with an open mind and honestly consider my request before you answer."

Now, the book did lower while the mask tilted up. "I would never presume to give you anything but the fullest answer of which I was capable."

A ghost of a smile curved the right side of her mouth. "In that case," she blew out a quick, fortifying breath. "I wanna help you...will you let me?"

There it was again—her own special angle—confusion. "Help me?"

"Yeah," she decided to just get it out there. In for a penny, in for a pound. "I wanna help you any way I can—both against Norsefire itself, and with any more like Prothero."

He was silent for a long moment, and then a new angle presented itself. It was only after he spoke that she was able to recognize what this one signified.

"I confess myself surprised by your offer," it was there in his voice as it was in the tilt of his chin—suspicion. It cut her as nothing else had done in the course of their acquaintance. "I recall your words to me upon the occasion of Prothero's death, damning me for appointing myself as judge, jury and executioner. That you would now seek to lower yourself to my level is curious, to say the least."

Dara took an involuntary step back. She dropped her arms to her sides as her expression turned incredulous. She had expected he would throw her words back at her, but she hadn't expected this. "You...you're questioning my motives?"

V lowered his head and lifted his book. "You will forgive me, of course, if I find your change of heart somewhat suspect, my dear. And as I have no way of discerning your true intentions, the answer is obviously no."

"Discerning my true intentions?" Dara continued to stare at him, his profile cutting a sharp line against the darkness of the walls around him. "I can't believe you would accuse me…"

"I have accused you of nothing," V interrupted smoothly. "I simply do not understand what has induced you to make such an offer."

"Well there's an obvious solution to that," Dara shot back. "You could ask me straight out, couldn't you?"

"I could at that," V agreed, turning a page with his eyes still focused upon the book. "Or, even more obvious, my dear, you could simply tell me. I have never known you to require prompting to speak your mind."

"What's the matter with you?" She nearly stamped her foot, but caught herself before the urge could translate into action. She doubted V would have ever let her live down such a display. "You're being deliberately confrontational!"

"Yes, I am." He turned another page, but he hadn't read it anymore than he had the past three or four pages to pass beneath his fingers. "And I find myself enjoying it exceedingly. Tell me, my dear, as I have no frame of reference by which to judge my performance—am I doing an admirable job of it?"

Self-control became the sole focus of her world for a few long moments. Wrestling with the urge to knock the book from his hands and start screaming bloody murder at him, she balled her hands into fists so tight that she could feel her nails scoring her skin. "You," she hissed out finally, "are by far the most infuriating man in all of England."

"Oh come now, my dear," he chided, voice laced with the sort of indulgence one might expect to be shown to a small child, "surely you are being overdramatic. You cannot possibly know all the men in England."

Dara made a strangled sound of frustration, which was quickly swallowed by anger. Stalking forward, she did just what she'd wanted to do—she swatted the book from his hands with nearly the full force of her strength, sending it flying across the alcove. It hit the wall hard, knocking a lovely Impressionist landscape to the floor before landing square atop an old Victorian cordial set which promptly shattered upon contact, sending shards of colored glass everywhere.

That got his attention. "That was rather uncalled for, I think...and hardly dignified"

"Fuck dignified," Dara snarled as she leaned down toward him, glaring daggers through the black-screened eye slits of the mask. "You wanna know why I wanna help you? I'll tell you why—that night, V. I wanna help you because of what happened the night you killed Prothero. After everything that happened that night, I came to the conclusion that anyone who could do what was done to you, doesn't deserve to live. That night, I heard pain and I heard fear in your voice, V," her expression turned cold and unforgiving. "Now I wanna hear it in theirs."

"Again I am surprised," his voice was strained, but not so much that she could fail to miss the mocking tone of it. "To think that I could effect such a change—that I could, literally without conscious volition, inspire such a thirst for vengeance on my behalf. Truly, it is a wondrous and mildly daunting achievement."

He was determined not to understand, and she was swiftly approaching the end of her patience. As she suspected that screaming at him was hardly going to get her what she wanted, a strategic retreat was in order. Spinning on her heel, she walked away from him. "My offer stands indefinitely," she snapped over her shoulder, trying very hard not to imagine how satisfying it would be to strangle him. "I'll be in my room if you need me."

*

It was perhaps two hours later that the sound of a throat clearing drew her attention. She was sitting at the dressing table in her room, hunched over its smooth rosewood finish while she read. When she looked up, her eyes found V's via the reflection in the mirror before her.

"I trust you have not changed your mind about helping?"

"Said the offer stood, didn't I?" she replied, brow arching at him. "Why? Decided to take me up on it?"

A pause, followed by a single nod of his head. "A situation has arisen which requires an acceleration of my plans. If you are willing, there is a part for you to play in them—a part that I believe shall benefit greatly from your...flair for the dramatic."

"Just tell me what to do, V," Dara turned around, facing him in truth and ignoring the mild dig he'd gotten in, "and I'll do it the very best that I can."

Another nod, though slower this time, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. "Yes, my dear, I do believe you shall," he replied, then turned to walk away.

Dara frowned. "Wait a minute! Aren't you gonna tell me what you want me to do?"

He leaned back around the corner. "Of course I shall. Why?"

Dara shook her head. Frustrating, infuriating man. "Because I'd like to know, that's why. You aren't seriously gonna just leave me guessing are you?"

"All in good time, my dear. Tomorrow will be here soon enough, and you shall know everything then. But for now, have patience."

He ducked out of her room entirely then, and she stared long at the spot he had just occupied. A tickertape of adjectives rolled through her mind—all of them about him, and none of them kind.