AUTHOR'S NOTE: Phlegmatic, relating to "phlegm", means that the person has a calm disposition.
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V heard the door scrape, and his heart skipped a beat. He stood quickly, straightening his wig from where it had fallen out of place. Look natural, he thought, although he could not ignore the idea as being farcical- a burned experiment dressed in black, with a Guy Fawkes mask and wig, looking natural.
There she was, her hair still shorn close, though the time since her imprisonment had been months. It was a hallmark of the new Evey, the woman who had emerged from the cell in his home unbroken, more whole than she'd ever been. He'd loved his little bird before he'd caught her in a cage, but now, now she was glorious. Her dewy brown eyes, still framed with lush lashes—her body, once defamed in the raiment of the whore, now so much more attractive in the garb of the revolutionary. V smiled softly at Evey, though the mask he wore made a mockery of it.
"I wasn't sure you would come back," he started. The admission was raw, baring him to his core, but it was Truth, and he could not escape it, no matter how vulnerable it left him.
"I told you I would," she replied, smiling matter-of-factly.
"So you did."
"Were you listening to anything in particular?"
"The jukebox is a delightful chest of emotions, but Russian composers are more appropriate now, don't you think?" He turned to a phonograph, the record on it having sat there for the past week as V wrestled with Evey's absence. V started the table and placed the needle on the edge of the disc. Sweeping brass strains issued out of the horn, followed by the soft, plaintive song of a violin.
"That's beautiful," Evey breathed, afraid to speak during the music.
"Scheherazade," V said. "She has comforted me with her stories for countless nights. I never tire of her."
"Who is she?"
"An Arabian queen who gentled a bloodthirsty king with stories. He killed a virgin a day until she became his companion and her stories stayed his hand."
"That's cruel."
"Killing virgins?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps." He felt his heart quicken, and suddenly the music seemed out of place. He picked the needle up, not noticing her wince at the noise.
"Evey, would you dance with me?"
"There's no music," she said with a smile.
"Play something for me."
"Anything I want?" She sounded incredulous.
"Anything, Evey."
She flipped through the catalog, and V got tenser with each clack of the CDs going past. He was keenly aware of the power of music; what would she choose? How would she respond to him?
When he heard the opening progressions, his throat closed and his chest ached. Hold me close and hold me fast. "La vie en rose," he said.
Evey smiled, charming beyond belief. He held up his hands for a dance, beckoning her over. She stepped into the circle of his arms, and they closed around her. Edith Piaf sang on, when you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where roses bloom. "Evey, you are a master of irony," he murmured, and she leaned in, the space between them taken up by her body.
"How do you mean?"
She couldn't know him, couldn't realize the kind of control that kept him in check, kept that madness that boiled inside him at a low simmer. He couldn't answer.
"I don't think it's ironic," she said, leaning her head against him as the song ended and they continued dancing, swaying together. "I have to thank you for it. You taught me to see things in a different light. To not be afraid of who I was, or of who I was becoming."
"Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome, Evey?" His voice was wry.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"When the captors become victims, the victims become accomplices." He paused. "You said once that you would not help me kill anyone. Do you feel differently?"
"I don't know. It's not a choice I've had to make."
Evey could feel his body warmth even through his thickly padded clothes. He was human, he was alive, and with him so close, she could hardly think of death.
"V," she started, sliding her palms up over his chest and on his shoulders. "Don't talk about death. You've done a lot of killing since I met you. Now all of England is holding its breath, waiting for you to kill again. And they're sure you're a monster, just as I was." Her hands slid up his neck, and he stiffened; she was too close to his mask, too close to casting it aside and revealing his face.
"But you're not a monster, V. When I was in a prison I couldn't see, you showed me the bars." She touched the lips of his mask with her fingertips, that perpetual grin, felt his hot breath. She swallowed, wetting her lips that were suddenly dry. "Aren't you in a prison? Isn't this mask… a prison?" She thumbed the edge of the mask.