This is dedicated to anyone who can tell me where to find a transcript of the final movie. Dialogue is from memory, and I only saw it three times so forgive (and correct) me if I'm wrong.
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He aches, bone deep, soul deep. He can't remember ever being so tired. It's been weeks of sharing her starvation rations and weeks of nights spent sleepless in the hall outside her cell, weeks of slow death for the both of them. He doubts she'll ever realise just how difficult it was for him, this second time around. And there'd been no fire for her, no furious, ravenous heat. Just the rain. She'd shivered in his arms as he carried her back underground. Wrapped in his cloak she'd seemed so small and cold, pale hands shaking and hesitant around the shape of a teacup, feet bare and tucked up under her body on the sofa. She'd slept exhausted there, in front of the television.
He'd stayed with her. Another sleepless night, but what is one more to him now? He does not think he will ever sleep again without dreaming, and knowing the calibre of his dreams it seems safer to stay awake. She hadn't dreamed. Watching her face rest peacefully, turned into her arms, had been a pleasant change from listening to her nightmares.
---
Leaning heavily against the jukebox, he listens now to the sound of her footsteps. She's wearing the boots he'd found for her. The echoes are sharp, and he finds himself missing the whisper of her bare feet.
He drags a fingertip across the display. A not so random selection, and the sweetness of this woman's singing threatens to choke his breath in his throat.
"V. I'm leaving."
Of course.
"There are eight hundred and seventy-two songs in here." His hands tighten on the jukebox curve, "I've listened to them all, but I've never danced to any of them."
"Did you hear me?"
He turns his head, "Yes."
"I can't stay here."
"I know." He wonders if she can read any expression from him, if she realises anything of how this is hurting him. But then, he knows just how convincing a performance he can give.
"I was thinking of keeping this, but," she holds out the letter, her shoulders and hips all sharp lines. "Didn't seem right, knowing you wrote it."
He takes it. He employs a surgeon's precision in avoiding contact with her hand.
"I didn't."
She doesn't believe him. The denial is flat in her eyes.
"May I show you something before you go?"
Stiff politeness: "Of course."
---
He draws aside the curtain, ties it back. He resists the urge to straighten the perfectly arranged roses. He's been coming here every day. Only Valerie could convince him not to give in to his own fears as he'd wanted to.
"She was real."
"Yes."
"She's beautiful."
He looks away, evading. "Mm."
"Did you know her?"
"No, she died after writing the letter. It was delivered to me as it was delivered to you."
Her eyes widen in dawning comprehension: "That's what all this is about. You're getting back at them for what they did to her, and to you."
"What was done created me. It is a principle of the universe that every action creates an equal and opposing reaction – "
"Is that how you see it? Like an equation?"
"What they did was monstrous – "
"And they created a monster."
Oh. Evey. He doesn't move for a long moment, doesn't blink. Doesn't breathe. She did not just say that. She could not have just said that. But her chin remains lifted and her eyes are a challenge – perhaps she realises what she has just done but she's still so angry she won't back down. He looks away from her, staring blankly at Valerie smiling at him from the other side of a long gone photographer's lens. Evey had wanted to act. He doesn't doubt that she would be magnificent.
He shifts, stepping away from her. His hands go behind his back. Within his sleeves he feels the knives waiting. She's still staring at him.
"Do you know where you'll go?"
"No. That would have scared me before but," a shrug, a twisted smile. "I suppose I should thank you."
She closes the gap he's made, closes it half again. She's far too close, insanely close, but there's nothing soft about the set of her mouth or the light in her eyes or the way one hand clenches on the strap of her bag. He's fighting the impulse to draw his blades. She's staring, all hard angles, and she's not warm, this close to him, she's still angry and it's a sharp red heat. She'd been so cold, after the rain last night. He never knew she could burn as she's burning now.
Her head tilts before her eyes flick to the curve of the mask's eternal smile.
He can feel, on scarred lips, the faint echo of her breath. She holds herself back.
"Thankyou."
Boot heels are sharp on the stone floor and she is quickly away, halfway to the door before he's even let go the knife handles.
"Evey – "
She turns. His balance feels wrong and he doesn't know what to do with his hands.
"If I could have one wish, it would be to see you again, if only once, before the fifth."
"Alright."
"Thankyou."
One last look, harsh upon him. She's a graceful arrangement of lines and he feels ungainly across from her. He keeps in his breath and his hands are held stiff, muscles clenched and frozen.
She turns again, and is gone.
He spins, runs, hurtles through the maze of the gallery, away from the sound of her boot heels on stone and the sound of the lift carrying her away. The suit of armour topples, the jukebox record skips – out flew the web and floated wide, the mirror cracked from side to side. He's crying before he gets to his room and the mask is wet when he rips it from his face and hurls it into the mirror. Glass shatters but the bad luck's already happened so what does he care? His fists clench tight enough to break bones. He wants to rage and destroy things, he wants lightning and fireworks and knives and the heat of fire, the heat of blood, the heat of her anger standing so close to him and staring at him, hating him (you're sick! you're evil!) but he's cold in this small dark space, he's shaking with it, he's trembling, and his gloves are streaked in salt when he hides his face in his hands.
(doesn't the water damage the leather?)
He falls apart.