Occasionally I lose my head in trying to pass at prose while forgetting plot. This lasted till (vii.), at which point I gave up. But I stumbled across it tonight and decided to just go ahead and finish this chapt. So beware slight style jump after (vi.)
This chapt may be similar in minor aspects with the (possible) upcoming chapt of Grey Space. This is because I didn't intend to continue this fic till tonight-- 10 months written at the current pace will take. Ages. Like. Lots of. Chapts. Gnnh. So I may take the lazy way out, scrape this off, and just briefly cover its plotline via 1sentence format (see One and Fifty); I really don't know.
Anyhoo, warnings aside, thanks for reading. :)

- iv. the inch between truth and self-destruction -

Evey does not have V's serene fatalism yet. She has not yet learnt how to appreciate the world and all its gaping crevasses and still be an alien continent to it.

She knows this, which is why the apartment is still bare. Which is why her home is merely rented space in her heart; she is still a tenant misplaced and mapping the geography of her land, elemental and unfathomable as the sea she has never seen. If she has nothing, she thinks--nothing can she lose.

The landlady comes on the fourth day, either three days too late or two days too early. Evey widens the crack of the door, slips off the chain and invites her in with a cordial smile. The little girl slips in with a hand gripping her mother's skirt, a sullen bespectacled thing clad in drab plaid.

Is everything alright? the woman asks. A smile also stretches her lips, polite and tight anxiety. Is the water going well, the heater working? The electricity should be fine- all the bulbs are working? Everything is in order?

Evey nods, nods, hums an agreement, folds her hands pleasantly in front of her, punctuates a word or two with little diffident gestures. Yes, it's fine, thank you. No, there was a little problem with the pipes at first but they've been fine since yesterday afternoon. Thank you, yes; I'll handle everything.

She soothes the older woman by body language; she would bare her neck if wasn't too obvious, and if it wouldn't reveal fingerprint branding like grey pebbles on her pale skin. She keeps her voice lower than the other and adopts a soft lilt that swallows her vowels, stumbling over her words. Darts her eyes like a shy child in the principle's office, startles like a young filly when the woman reaches out a hand to gesture behind her. Evey becomes a series of disconnected angles, awkward and soft around the edges, always swaying, fidgeting, harmless. Her youth emphasized in the lopsided smile of her bitten lips.

It all comes so naturally Evey doesn't even feel impressed; she watches the woman ease into the comfort of superiority. The afternoon hangs low and thick in the air; Evey has just woken up but already her body is longing to rest again. She blinks once, slow and doe-eyed, aware of the effect.

Poor dear, the woman says understandingly. A motherly hand pats her shoulder as if a prelude to a lullaby. Already Evey can see her spinning a back story for her, a web of interconnecting brittle strands spelling scared and runaway and nobody. Little glistening dew-drops of harmless distracting from the lack of actual documents; such is the glamour of sentimentalism.

Evey ducks her head and offers a smile. Poor dear, the lady says again, understanding nothing.

'I've got the payment for the next couple of weeks, Mrs. Hampshire,' Evey murmurs. She presses the carefully crushed notes into the other's palm, noting the way her hands grip around paper hungrily. The family must be short on money, no surprise.

The woman counts the money on the spot, making no subtleties of it. When she looks up, the relief in her smile makes her look younger and somehow more human.

Thank you, dear, she says briskly. I won't bother you any longer; I'll see you in three weeks? Yes. Come, Lette, we're leaving.

The glasses flash up from the bundled creature as her mother turns, a wariness glinting in studied defiance. Evey thinks she recognizes that kind of defiance for the sake of-- the kind every London child seems to adopt before learning the survival merits of hoarded emotion and blank eyes. There is a strange touch of pity when she looks down as this girl-child bundled in slate-grey uniform, but then the door clicks shut and there is a slight chill brushing her face- they are gone.

Evey considers eating something; the last time she ate was one? two? days ago. Her body needs food, she knows; surely something as simple as broth would do her some good. It can't be good to recover solely on lost hours of sleep, spikes of semi-consciousness only forcing her eyes open during the brief intervals of struggling to the bed and collapsing to the flat relief of the floor. The floor induces memories; the bed makes her motion-sick. The last two days are the best sleep of her life.

Evey is still considering which flavor to chose when she collapses on the sheets. Still reaching into the larder, hands turning the stove on and waiting for the heat to stir beneath her palms. Still dreaming.

She falls asleep with taste of moths in her mouth, like damp ash thickening down her throat. She dreams of being one and breaking a wing in the corner of the Shadow Gallery, and wakes up with a gasp caught in her chest, remembering nothing.

Then she moves to the floor and dreams all over again.

- v. the taste of autumn in a snowstorm -

Her senses ambush her when she wakes up one day. An immediate burning of the skin, a mesh of unscratched itches prickling down and along her arms, her legs. Her vertebrate in smooth undulations as Evey tries to curl up, one palm twisting uncomfortably to brush away the lump of sheets at her back. She can smell a mix of dust and own skin from the cotton, rich as stale coffee.

She gives up trying to sleep and gets up. Her skin itches where anything touches it; she rubs one arm absently as she goes to the living room. There are muffled grumbles of coughing motors from the window, though it is shut fast. It is irritating.

The first taste of water makes her cry out, nearly drop the mug. She fumbles with the handle, gripping it tight with clumsy fingers. Like iron, like musk... overnight the water has become flavoured, waking her tongue. At least, that's what she thinks, until a fresh refill brings the same shock of taste. Evey puts down the mug carefully in the sink and stares at it. Thinks.

Her thoughts are still train-wrecks, more headache then sense. A week without practice of thought and sleep makes the world incoherent, a drunkard's gravity. Evey grips the sink's edge dizzily and waits for equilibrium. For world and body and head to right themselves in equal footing.

The sink's metal bites cold anchor in the tips of her fingers but she doesn't let go. Clearly, Evey thinks, clearly- they must have been in hidin- clearly… Clearly, my senses are returning. Reality returning to bite in the arse.

Clearly. She is suddenly aware of how ravenous she is. Hungry enough to eat meat raw. The tiles underfoot are micro-steps-- patchwork of uneven placements-- when she steps towards the fridge, jerking the door open like an act of violence. She had bought only the very basic necessities during a single trip out; she hadn't been feeling hungry at all then, throat closed in a way that seemed to promise forever. There is only a small bottle of milk in the side, a barely touched loaf of sliced bread. In the corner, one forlorn cherry apple and a half-empty can of pea-and-ham soup, probably long gone.

There is a can-opener in the drawers somewhere, Evey knows. Simple enough to open a can of baked beans, to wait just a few minutes for the beans to heat and eat with bread. To take out a plate and spoon, civilization served with a glass of cold milk. But she can't, she can't. Foodfoodfood, her stomach drums over mind, salivating demands: now! now! now! From the fridge itself, her fingers tear the plastic opening and stuff bread down her throat before she can decide, nose already sniffing greedily. Slowing only to chew better when a damp piece chokes in her throat; Evey regurgitates it and swallows again, tearing off smaller pieces with her teeth. Her breath comes in heavy gasps from around the food- and the taste! It is near overwhelming, an explosion in her mouth- texture and mad flavour, wheat seasoned with impossible, familiarly exotic sauces. She chokes again, half on bread and half on emotion, cramming taste in her mouth like her last meal, her first meal, her stomach an gaping hole that needed to be filled, there was only rat mush there, not like this, this bread of heaven, oh god, praise god, ohgod; her fingers scrabble for the milk.

The weak currents from the fridge are like an arctic storm against her face; the numbness in her fingers shock into stiffness the moment they touch the bottle and there is dull chunck as it falls back again, barely lifted into the air. Evey whimpers and sucks her fingers instinctively, a child again, but she can't stop- she is shivering from the chill but she reaches out again, a quick swipe, and white, thin liquid nutrient blazes its way down her throat, trickling in freezing tributaries from her mouth, numbing and burning her lips from the bottle's ice-glass. She nearly cries from the flavour, so full! so much!-- already her sight is blurred, though whether from pain or ecstasy or both, she doesn't know.

Evey finishes almost half the bottle before she stops, chest and neck and toes burning with cold wet. Smelling like a sick babe, bloated without burping, swaying on feet. She manages to put the bottle back on the fridge shelf, where it judders against the tremble of her fingers. Takes a breath to regain her sanity. Takes time to close the fridge, which resumes its hums with groaning protests. Takes in a moment of serenity.

Then Evey staggers to the sink and throws up.

A surprise: it tastes almost the same, only faintly acrid. Everything is a mess.

- vi. the minutes of prelude -

Evey makes the beans after cleaning up. The scent fills the apartment, gelatinous as memories, though it might be her heightened smell. The metal fork cool between her thumb and forefinger, an unremarkable feat of balance. Synthetic cotton patchy and awkward like unshedded snake-skin, feeling all bones and nerves beneath her loose shirt, her uncomfortable shorts. The air like the minutes before a storm, hair-trigger of undercurrents and nagging whispers, the ghost of sulfur in the air. Senses must be going into overdrive to make up for lost time, Evey notes dully.

She eats slowly, with the air of one who has all the time in the world. Spearing each bean with the careless jab of her fork, giving her stomach warning enough. The tomato sauce is sticky sourness overridden by sugar in her mouth, her tongue breaking down each component in an effort to cope with the barrage of taste. And Evey considers.

So: she's free now. So: she can do anything she want now, no chains of mortal fear. She's almost alright now, physically- she can feel it, the skin finally loosening around her bones. Still a stranger in her body, but learning, less wary of nerve-ambush of phantom pain. The moment in rain still captured and unafraid, cool as hoarded water deep within. Free, Evey thinks. The word teeters sweet and deadly on her tongue, unspoken.

So-- this is what it feels like. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, one inch away…

What would V do—no, screw him. What should she do? What can she do? Get a job? Start an underground party? Go back? – No, never. Or at least, not so soon. He didn't even ask…

Oh, shut up, she tells herself irritably. She presses the prongs flat against a pile of beans, watches them squeeze between the gaps as mush. Her stomach complains at the waste, but they look too much like the old rat slop-- prison feed. She scrapes it in a corner of the bowl with more force than necessary.

…On the other hand, she could wait. Wait till past the Fifth, see what happens. See England go up in kaleidoscopic flames, probably to his theme song of Tchaikovsky. Gothic romanticism with a debonair dash of poetic irony, so like him. Try not to thinik about him too much, or at least not so much it aches. And in the meantime… in the months till then…

Evey catches the moment it happens this time-- that flicker-wisp of longing to sleep, soft tugs from the back of her mind. Dream away, till she forgets, away, away, away. Away from this terrible, adult awareness, this inch between truth and self-destruction that is cold enough to burn. It would be so easy to go back to the way it was before, without responsibility. A finger to point at every injustice, sinking back into the furtive eyes of a sideliner. So easy to let go.

So unthinkable. The next ten months would be a lifetime to relearn. But she will do it. Relearn everything. Maybe get a job. Whatever. The second most important thing she has committed to in her life so far.

… V really has cracked her good and well, huh? That unbelievable bastard. That complete psycho.

"Free," Evey says aloud without thinking, the single syllable disconnected, like the name of an old acquaintance remembered. For a moment, despite it all, she wants to smile. Instead she finishes what she can of the meal and wipes the table.

Then Evey puts on her coat and walks out. Walks down, down into the streets, eventide on the prowl, numb hands in pockets. Just walking for the movement of it, breathing for the joy of it. Somewhere past her neighbours' bins she starts humming, old jukebox love songs; the sky is already darkening bruise-blue when she finally notices, when she stops.

- vii. a drink of coincidence –

Three weeks pass by surprisingly fast. Playing by ear and strained nerve, she manages to track down a life-seller, complete with fake documents and painstakingly bad photography for her photos. Detail counts, the man had grunted, and had counted her money twice before handing over her new identity like a grudge.

The black market is flourishingly shockingly well, perhaps even better than the legal economy. She had known of its existence, of course--- oh, who didn't?—but not of its vast empire. Ironically and typically, the more government-related the industry, the more certain that bribery, blackmail, and backstabs would be the currency. The three Bs of our Britain, Evey thinks sardonically.

Perhaps it would do well to keep an eye on its ongoings; the rumors tend to spread quicker and more bluntly frank than the official grapevine.

Evey is debating the possibilities of this when she opens the door, and the expression on the little girl's face prompts her. Right. She's forgotten something…

Surreptitiously, she checks whether her shirt is on. Check. Pants. Check. Hmm.

Living alone by yourself and with hypersensitive skin has its effects on social sense. Then Evey follows the girl's eyes and brushes her scalp… ah. No hat this time. Luckily the mum isn't here.

'I have the money,' she pulls a light smile. 'Come on in.'

'My mam's waitin' downstairs in the car,' the girl informs warily, as if brandishing a defense to the strange man in the car offering sweets. 'She's waitin' for me.'

But she steps in anyway, darting guilty looks around. Her glasses give a comically enlarged look to her eyes, as if a spotted ladybug testing the surroundings for predators. I could bethe bird of prey, Evey thinks suddenly, amusedly. The bald eagle, hah. Though eagles go for bigger fish than little creatures such as you…

'I won't bite,' she says blandly to girl as she shuts the door. 'Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back.'

In her backpack, she peels off the necessary amount. When she returns to the living room, the kid is perched on the sofa, ladybug in plaited uniform clinging to a leaf's edge. There is that spurt of pity again.

'You sure you don't want anything to drink?' Evey hands over the rent money as if a bribe. 'You can watch that I'm not poisoning you, if you want.'

There is a quick indraw of breath; the eyes behind the magnifying glasses widen. 'You won't poison me,' the girl protests automatically, uncomfortably. Etiquette lessons with her mother didn't cover this topic. 'Urm. Would you?'

'Only one way to find out!'

Obviously, V's brand of insane hospitality is contagious. Somehow this realization doesn't dampen the mad cheerfulness that has stolen Evey's voice. If this is what one month of solitude does to you, she thinks distantly, then she's amazed V wasn't chipper than a chipmunk with her after twenty whole years. She always knew that damned man had will power.

Evey sweeps into the kitchen and the girl tails behind after a beat, as if drawn by the currents.

'Is that it, then?' The kid watches the careful spooning of lemonade powder into two mugs, the can conveniently unmarked. She eyes Evey with a kind of awed skepticism. 'Rat poison?'

Evey's lips twitches. 'Only the best,' she says solemnly. She fills the mugs with water, stirs. Offers it to her guest with the gravity of a treaty.

The girl sniffs at it as Evey downs a mouthful, wincing a little at the taste. God, sourness to twist the tongue. Her guest looks faintly disappointed at her conclusion.

'It's lemonade.' There is a trace of an accusation in the tone, not unlike when she had discovered real butter still existed. But that was a long time ago, when V was--- Evey's throat dries close; it must be the citric.

'I must have mixed it up,' Evey manages. Her smile is a dart across the face this time, forced. 'There's always a next time.'

The girl flashes a quick look at her, and her answering grin is just as uncertain, as lopsidedly awkward, as if rusty from lack of genuine use. The breakthrough eases the knot in Evey's stomach a little, reluctantly given as it is.

They sip their drinks in nearly companionable silence, Evey only wetting her lips and imitating swallows.

'Where's your twin?' the girl initiates at last, shyly. 'The lady who paid the rent first. You're identical, right?'

If she had been drinking, she would have choked. 'Oh yes,' Evey says weakly. Laughter peeking behind the words; the girl looks suspicious and she pulls herself together. 'I guess we are. How could you tell?'

'It's obvious,' the girl says dismissively. 'Though,' she considers slowly, 'your eyes are the same. Which is kinda strange, because she was more…' A hesitation, a hasty gulp of lemonade to cover the pause.

'Afraid.' Evey's voice is deliberate, precise as acupuncture needles. 'Unfocused. Desperate. Submissive.' A beat of silence: the girl's eyes are wide behind the magnifying rings again. Evey looks straight at her, calm as underground water, and softens her tone to a kinder lilt. 'Ignorant.'

She has, perhaps, just described the majority of the adults that surround this child—plucked the forbidden words right out of the air, out of the secret uncertainty in the child's mind. There is a stab of something, white-hot, at the look on the girl's face: she has no right to crumble anyone's world, not yet.

At least she hadn't been this impressionable, Evey knows.

'Your mum is waiting,' Evey reminds gently. The girl blinks, then obediently returns the mug. 'Thank you for having a drink with me.'

''s alright,' the girl mumbles, embarrassed. The school bag is picked up from the sofa and they are at the door when she finally looks at the woman in the eyes again. For a moment, she nearly balks, then the strange lady blinks once, slow and puzzled, and the steel in her eyes fade to doe-hazel again.

'My name's Verity, but people call me Lette,' Lette forces herself to say at last, before it's too late. A ramble of shy desperation; she wants to learn how to look like that too, as if there was hell tamed in her stare. As if she wasn't pretending. 'I came from school.'

She hesitates, agonizing; if she tells the woman her mam isn't actually here, she'll loses her bluff and trust. 'Urm—'

The woman interrupts, an odd look on her face. 'Verity. Of course you are. He calls me Evey,' she says, an unconscious deepening of the inflection on the syllables. 'You better go before your mum gets worried now, should you?'

An amused flicker across the lady's face tells Lette that she's probably called her bluff some time back, somehow, and is now politely looking the other way. There is a strange pride that someone as old and… and different as Ms. Evey actually seems genuinely interested in her—it fights with the defiant shame of her lie.

'Ms. Evey,' Lette repeats obediently, as if an apology. Her voice muffled to her ears as she bends down to slip on the shoes easier. If she runs home fast enough, she might catch the ending of the cartoons. 'Is he your boyfriend?' she adds, by way of conversation, remembering the fleeting look on Ms. Evey's face.

'Who?' The raw edge in Evey's voice literarily passes over Lette's head; her left heel is proving especially tricky to fit in while balancing.

'The one who calls you Ee—vee,' she intonates. Yes! Gotcha in. Lette stretches up again, shifting her schoolbag to slip over both shoulders. 'So, urm, thank you…'

Her voice trails off. Ms. Evey looks like someone had struck her, hard in the gut. Her eyes are dark and flat, an agony compressed. 'Ms. Evey?' she says, alarmed. Her eyes are drawn instinctively to the lady's shorn head, the fuzz of growing hair curling around her scalp like one of those cancer patients in the science books. Perhaps she is dying now.

'Ms. Evey?' The high panic in her voice seems to draw her out more than the clumsy tugging of her arm. Evey shakes her head and looks at the girl like seeing her for the first time.

'Evey,' she rasps, then clears her throat. 'Call me Evey.' Her smile is distracted. Her eyes focus down on her; Lette forces herself not to look away. 'I mentioned him, didn't I.' Ms. Evey doesn't seem to expect an answer, which is good, because Lette doesn't understand the quiet horror in her voice.

There is a beat in the air where anything could have been said. Worlds can be destroyed in moments like this. Then--

'Go home,' says the woman with the most honest and unreadable eyes Lette has ever seen, and it would be an order if not for the softness in the tone.

Lette doesn't look back when she flees, anyway.