Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
---
V dies; the world rejoices.
Evey walks home, the roar of England's rebirth in her ears. Around her, strangers embrace strangers and lovers cry as they hold each other.
She has long shaken off Finch's gentle hand on her elbow and he had tactfully let her go; she can't deal with contact so soon, so soon after he just...
Evey walks home, and the night is clear and crisp in her head. V grins at her from every street corner, the phantom-blur in the shadows. He is rocking his daughter under the afterglow of fireworks, he is the incredulous riot surging and crying with laughter in the streets. He is unmasking himself by the thousands in the multitude- a weeping man to his weeping wife, a teenage girl under the yellow-sick of lamplights, a stranger, a stranger, a stranger. England is shattered and V is in the mirror-shards of her people, a thousand facets crying and exulting in their freedom and his death.
She turns a corner and V slams her shoulder against the wall as he pushes past and doesn't stop to apologize; Evey resists the urge to pull him close to her and bury her tears in his dark coat, in his burnt hands.
---
Evey didn't love V, not in the way he loved her- she knows this.
She knows he was probably scorched and ugly under the mask, she knows she was repulsed and sickly fascinated by his hands the first time she saw them. She knows she loved him the way most people bore a grudge; he was right when he said she would hate him for what he did to her, he was always right in the end, in his own way.
She knows V loved her in the way a man loves when he believes something unattainable- unforgivingly, hopelessly.
'But why didn't you stay with me?' she whispers, and cups the face of the drunkard. Day Two of V's vision and still the world is celebrating, a whipped child in the rabid craze of joy and acid-fear. The wig is grimy and clumped with mud from the cobblestones, but the mask is strangely intact in its clay-white and Evey barely needs to hold it in place. 'You should have stayed with me!' she rages uselessly, and wants to hit him.
The man on her lap stirs from his sleep and blearily reaches for her face. 'C'mon babe,' he slurs. 'We're bloody free now, eh?'
His hand misses the first time but manages to paw at her cheek the second, and she doesn't move away. He is nothing like V but still Evey cradles him – I miss you, I miss you- like he is hers again, like the cheap gloves on her cheek might be his.
'Always loved ya Sherrie', the man mumbles, and drifts off again.
It is only the second day and already Evey hazily thinks her heart cannot take this grief- it is a cold blade against the very vessels of her throat, her gut, and it is all she can do not to let it cut her.
--and bleed, bleed, his mortality terrible and red on her arms.
---
By the time London finds the bodies, the rumors are already stronger than the official announcement. What is left of the government is still reeling from the aftereffects and can barely put together an official front for no one to believe.
A curfew is announced and is ignored with vicious glee; truths and lies entangle and spread like plague from house to house without ever seeming to pass the lips. Everywhere, there is a dark, hard triumph that glints in London's eyes and people speak in furtive, urgent whispers to sons and strangers without knowing why.
Evey smells the sharp, animal tang of fear in the streets but it is not this that drags her back into the world V died to create.
'Ms Hammond.' Finch doesn't look happy to see her, but he doesn't looks surprised either. 'You know I could have you arrested.'
Her look is almost ironic, and Finch grimaces and shrugs. 'Yeah, well,' the investigator says. 'Just so we're clear. How did you get in here?'
Evey's voice is not monotonous, exactly, but she has leant the art of becoming nobody and her tones range from blank to mild. She shrugs. 'I barely recognize myself anymore, why should anyone else? I need your help.'
Finch snorts. 'Figures,' he says, but his expression is grim. 'What is it?'
She tells him. There are too many factions, they know, too many… people involved. Years of suppression fosters wounds and idealists have become hungry to be heard, to lead England into their individual ideals of havens. There are still the desperate remnants of the old government, then those fanatic for their personalized versions of anarchism, internationalism, communism, fascism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism—all the isms of the future, as long as it has nothing to do with the past. And people are afraid, now more than ever because freedom can be a heady and fatal rush and hope makes things uncertain- they are afraid and so they will do anything to survive.
'England prevails, as always,' she says, and her tone doesn't let her meet his look. 'But that depends on which perspective you're coming from.'
Finch has been silent so far but now he interrupts. Evey has prepared herself; she has not slept since that night, not properly, and she needs to say it, to convince someone.
'I know, yeah, the same story. England will tear itself apart. But that's not why you're here, is it? Every bar in this country is full of this shit and gossip. And half of it is about V. Are you going to tell them?'
The man pauses and watches her carefully. In his gruffness there is the reluctance of concern: 'And anyway…you doing okay?'
Evey's heart is tight, it is controlled, it does not ache. Her muscles in her cheek strain upwards, she is smiling in the way she has practiced last night- sadly, resignedly, realistically. 'He died so we could live; he fulfilled his goal. November the fifth will always be remembered.' She stops and looks straight at Finch. 'I didn't love him, if that's what you're thinking,' she says, and her voice rings clear and hard. 'Not in the way you're thinking of.'
She doesn't waver, doesn't falter- she is so sincere she believes it. But Finch has been in the government for almost as long as she has been alive and doesn't listen with just his ears anymore. So he looks at her for a long time before he says, quietly- 'Tell me what you want to do.'
---
Evey finds Churchill in one of V's old history books. The pages are nearly crumbling- it is almost a century old and there are fingerprint smears on the broken spine. The man was an icon in his day, she learns. He led Britain out of the fear that paralyzed her people and mercilessly into victory, into a ruined future. He saved them and they adored him up till that moment he did. Then they set him aside and in all senses of the word, made him history.
A legend, she thinks, tracing the faded print. All words and dust. He would have liked that.
Evey could feel gratified at this; instead, she just feels- tired. Her eyelids are swollen but they do not hurt, she is becoming numb and thank god.
---
She passes the tape to Finch and sits with a plate of fried bread to watch the news at six. It is the first news broadcast for two nights and the country will be watching.
She chews slowly, savoring the last taste of real butter that she will probably not have for a long time.
The theme song plays. The familiar faces appear, on cue. 'Good evening, this is BTN news' says her ex-colleague. Delia, her name. Her smile is strained and her partner's eyes keep flicking to beyond the camera, his fingers tapping the polished table in nervous staccato. It is distracting and they both look as if they'd rather be somewhere else.
'Yes, yes, welcome,' the man says, a beat too slow. He adjusts his tie distractedly. 'Today there have been riots again at the Canning Square, but officials say the situation is under control.' In the background, someone barks a short laugh that barely snorts into a cough near the end. 'We are asking the public to please stay calm and report anyone who spreads distressing information contrary to the actual events on November the Fifth. So far, no one has been detained but investigations are supposed to be taking place.'
An underground, Evey thinks and watches the half-wild sneer on the man's face. Idiot, she says aloud, and takes another bite. The government may still be in shambles trying to save its own skin right now, but it doesn't mean it will last forever.
Delia is ghost-white, but Evey remembers she has always been professional till the end. 'In other news, we have received a recording from the government to help explain the real events of November the Fifth regarding the terrorist bombing.' She looks blank now- no surprise since Finch would have attached instructions for absolutely no previewing. 'For your protection, we will now play the whole report to you.'
This time, there is no static, no sudden absoluteness of an overridden programme. V had to force his way onto the airwaves; this time, people are practically desperate for orders. With the right documentation, with the right connections…
Evey's tape plays.
She turns it off halfway; it hurts too much to watch.
---
Evey finally moves into V's -- lair? secret residence? headquarters? – home on the fifth day. She lights up the place and turns the jukebox on. She chooses something merry, a song she has never heard before.
The music is cheery and garish against her ears; the place is too bright and warm with the radiance from old lamps. And still…
She visits every hidden room and closes empty space after empty space in silent succession: the torture showers, V's rooms, the dark rooms below, the stairway to the balcony- all places she will never have to visit again. In the end she is left with the kitchen, her old bedroom with the stacks of books towering over her, the library, the main room, the echo of her footsteps and only hers.
Halfway through her locking up the music must have changed, for she finds her feet moving in the familiar rhythm round the smooth floor. It is not even sad, this music, but it is slow and a waltz… And now there is a woman singing… it is an old, old song in a voice so honeyed, it is gentle… a caress against her cheek…
'But V is dead', someone whispers, and is this that breaks the spell. Her hair is still newborn-prickles on her scalp; it must be this that makes her feel so cold all the time, a heavy chill pressing her throat and making her sick from lack of air, like she was being born again from V's cells of yesteryear.
I need air, she wants to cry to him, I need air, come back comeback—but that is the old Evey. Now all she has is his legacy and the rest of her life reminding herself that she never really loved him. For how can one really love a man in a mask of absurd caricature, who speaks in quotations and ideas and operatic riddles, who is clothed forever in his vendetta and who would have never been able to truly kiss or smile or touch?
'I need air,' someone whispers again and Evey realizes it is her, and she is no longer on her feet.
---
Finch finds her walking on the streets. He is in a car and it is a coincidence.
His partner only glances at her when she gets in, and she can read enough wariness and determination in his eyes to know that he believes in causes higher than rules.
They drive to the outskirts of London. Between the evening broadcast till this day's late afternoon, volunteers have silently and anonymously cleared the field of debris. At first it was furtive, the scatter-dart from shadow to shadow with the flat, hunted eyes. But when no fingermen with badges and bloody crosses came, they came in small defiant herds, then in greater prides of extended family, friends, co-workers.
Everyone had seen V on their screens, like before; they had come when he called, like before.
'The army might prove to be a problem,' Finch is saying in his gravel voice as they near their destination. 'The colonel is holding them back so far, sure, but a quarter of them have already deserted. The colonel is still wary, but he's a smart man and he's got his own ideas. Sooner or later, we'll have another civilized coup in the works.'
Evey clears her throat roughly before she can answer- there are crowds on foot and she can see V winking at her every so often; her heart seems to be swallowing her voice again. 'There's always problems anyway, we do what we can,' she rasps. She clears her throat again, impatiently. 'At least this will give the people a chance to decide for themselves. All we can do is remind them of their possibilities, of past and present and future.'
Finch's partner catches her eyes in the mirror. 'And the masks?' he says, eyes bright and alert. 'We can't have people going around impersonating V. The only reason why no one has done it so far is 'cause they're still afraid but judging by how many politicians have been found dead these past week-', an ironic twist of the mouth: V's solo execution of the top ladder had sparked a trend of assassination with some members of the public, '- this government is going to the dogs soon. And about bloody time, too' he adds with harsh satisfaction. 'How do you know it isn't going to be chaos and High Chancellors all over again?'
Evey can't help it- the laughter is rumbling out before she realizes. It is low and mirthless and fills the small dim space of the car, an accompaniment to the hum of the engines. The two men in front of her exchange a look in the mirror; she doesn't care.
'Remember Churchill?' she says, and shakes her head. 'No. No, of course you don't. Not much, anyway. One thing history has to teach, is that nobody wants the past embodied to lead the future. We'll tell them the truth: that V is dead and that'll be the end of it. Just believe me,' she says tiredly, seeing them exchange another look. 'England isn't stupid, we've heard enough to know what's bollocks and what's real, and there are rumors enough to help already…'
The rest of the drive finishes in silence. It is drizzling very lightly outside, wintry-gray shrouding the sky and dampness seeming to seep into her skin when she steps outside. It weighs her down, this weather- like sorrow embedded in her very bones, like the white loneliness of empty rooms in her head.
Evey breathes in, and there is the sulphuric tang of rain in her nostrils. Here is London: spread across in the fields, a moving grumbling harvest of brown and black and blanched faces. It is a city breathing with a million lungs and still gasping to live.
Here are the people she grew up with swarming around her, here is Finch is giving her shoulder a gruff steadying squeeze, but it is no use, no use- she is still small and shivering and alone. And Finch does not have a mask, she thinks, and it is strange how such a foolish thought make her ache. He does not quote nor speak in riddles nor understand her ideas, he did not give his dreams to her, he does not touch or look or know her the way V did, the way he loved her enough to…
'Scared?' Finch's partner says naively, and Evey misses him so much she hurts, in her eyes and chest and heart, and she is becoming too tired to resist knowing why.
---
Finch had asked her why she wanted to do this, but she didn't know either. She muttered something about continuing his work and even for England's future but neither of them had believed it.
She thought maybe it was because she was tired of just following, and if she had a hand in helping shape this new world at least she'd know who to blame if things went wrong. Maybe it even really had to do with V: how if he died for freedom, then she would live for it. V wouldn't have wanted the harder task to fall to her; if she had any say in the matter, she wouldn't want either to fall on them.
But it is probably all rubbish anyway, these matters of the heart. It is always a selfish reason in the end: she needs to get away before this dark edge of her grief cuts her open and England- London just happens to be there.
---
The crowd parts as she walks to the only lump of a hill there is there. Behind the mask, the world is dimmer and somehow less real. It fades behind the harshness of her breathing in her ears.
V's mask is too big and she feels dirty, an invader. But she can see the people believing: they see blood-red roses decadent and lush against a black cloak and they think, this is he, this is the V who is carrying his mark like he said he would, and now what can she do but…
The crowd parts as she walks to the only lump of the hill there is there. There is silence louder than the dead left in her wake.
From here, she can see the clumps London is slowly dividing itself into: the madly righteous, the fearful, the fanatics, the weary, the suspicious, the impassive and restless armed. There are no fingermen anymore- in the panic most had disappeared and now those who valued their life were in hiding. But she is still cold and alone and unreal, and there is a city watching her, and--
Something wet falls on her eyelashes. A million faces waver in a glittery swell before she blinks and sends the drop trailing a damp path curving over her cheek, into her mouth. The taste is wet and cool. Evey looks up; her face is numb but she is smiling despite herself. Against all odds, a single raindrop through the eye slits—
God is in the rain
-- and there is a city watching her, and they are all afraid.
She steps forward and removes her mask; there is a strange groan-sigh from the crowd, an exhaling of disbelief and resentful resignation.
Evey doesn't waver, she doesn't falter- she is tired enough that they will believe her.
She begins.
---
All people are waiting for, V had once told her, is for someone else. Freedom, individuality, justice- good virtues, all of them, but only if someone else fights for it first. History ranks ideals in the numbers that have died for it, for they see that as an testament of the virtue's worth. Even better yet, to live for an idea- ah, that is the greatest price of all.
Like you, you mean, she'd said wryly, and he'd dipped his head in acknowledgement.
Not quite, I've not much of a life to sacrifice, he'd said. Then, teasingly: 'How prudently we proud men compete for nameless graves, while now and then some starveling of Fate forgets himself into immortality.'
I don't know that one.
Wendell Philips. His voice was smiling. How quickly they forget.
She had shifted her book on a lap, a thick loose-leafed monster of discolored pages. Sometimes they would spend more time talking- bantering- arguing than actual reading; it would start on an innocently trivial detail and work its way up into the realms of cosmic importance.
So you mean if you blow up a building- a symbol, she added hastily, seeing one meaningful glove raise-- the whole of England will rise up and… what? Turn against the governments? In pitchforks and saucepans against guns?
I think, he said dryly, maybe a little something more than pitchforks. I intend to persuade some of the military to our cause. The farce of this government will be in tatters, he said, raising his voice over her splutters- for perhaps a week, if all goes according to my plans. There will always be some who do not agree with the current constitution. Even seemingly heartless uniforms have families and minds too, even if they are rather limited. And I'll be supplying our new friends with…their necessities. Bread and butter is not the only thing I acquire, after all.
She would argue for nights in a row, sometimes- he had been so patient; she had been so afraid. Sometimes she had believed only madness lent such incredible stupidity and courage.
'The wavering multitude is divided into opposite factions', he had said suddenly. Virgil. I shall call them together for one last stand. November the fifth will be our remembrance, November the sixth our rosemary. And on the fields of London, I shall… tell them a story.
A story, she said blankly.
He inclined his head. What are ideas but the stories we live out? I shall them a story of their future, of what could be.
Evey was incredulous. You're going to tell them what to do? What makes you think they'll listen? It's just a story!
A sigh, almost unheard. For a moment she thought he would not answer- the mask was ever smiling but his head was tilted back away from her, towards the door. From there came the faint strains of a woman singing from the jukebox, a voice like honey for a song long past. It threaded through their silence and drew together the quiet spaces from the dark corners, from between her fingers, till there was only V and the song and her.
V? She had said uncertainly.
I have never danced to this song before, he had said after a long time, but she had been still too unwilling and too afraid to understand what his sadness had meant. She had wanted him so much to give it up, then- she had been frightened, even for him. She didn't know what to say.
Finally he had turned to her, and still there was that strange stillness in his voice when he said, let me tell you a story, Evey.
She listened.
It was hypnotic, his voice- deep and smooth and compelling in its rhythm. He could spin the most banal of daily civility into prose. But now it was harsh, blunt, a news reporter's biting enunciation. There were facts, and then details, and then what-ifs and history detailed and spun into facts, a terrifying whirl of nightmarish reality and undeniable future—or was it the other way around? Chancellors and locked doors and old terror-- and always, always the steady intoning of his voice, the drumming out of the rest of her life in relentless absolution, in irrevocable promise.
It was not possible of course, these things. It is impossible, for it, can't- Three Waters- things will be different, no, stop, it can't- not - stop it, STOP IT!
She could not tell when she'd spoken aloud. Her cheeks were wet. Somehow, the pages of her book were sprawled on the carpet and she was standing over him, raging.
Her fingernails were red crescents in her palm.
V was silent for a moment while she tried to gather herself together without crying out; he did not look away from her shame. Then,
Oh, Evey. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.
He had stood up. She was trembling in anger or shame, she didn't know.
It's just a story, she had said finally, but her tone was different than before.
He hesitated; he took her hands and led her down to sit on the carpet cross-legged against the sofa, as if she were fragile, as if she might lash out. She remembers thinking she could despise him for that, if only he was condescending.
Let me tell you another story, he had said, and held up an appealing hand when she looked up sharply. A different one. A story of England…
It was longer, that story. Reality and good story-telling must always compromise: happily ever after is the stamp of impossibility when a bearable future takes long enough to build up. She had wanted to listen, she had wanted to know it was possible, but it was nearly morning, and her head was thick and sleepy in the aftermath of her emotions. And his voice- had been so soothing, almost droning… like a song, long ago…
She remembers some parts now- it is hazy and surreal: words shaping a dream, so secret and possible, twisting like a ribbon behind her eyelids; a quiet stillness, a gentleness wondering and warm.
She remembers the stories, mostly.
Now she realizes: how could she not have seen? How could she not have known? She should have smiled, she should have stayed awake,she should have, she should have, she should have- oh, fool, idiot! Idiot!
But it is too late. There are these snippets of warmth and his words that is all she has left of him, and she will have to give some away.
---
Finch catches hold of her immediately after she stumbles down from the hill. He leaves fingerprints of pale pressure on her wrist as he pulls her away, leading the way through the crowd of hundreds of thousands, of growing murmurs. His partner throws a nondescript coat the colour of mud over her; she is grateful for their protective fears of attack even though it takes the nearly twenty minutes to reach the car.
London is already rumbling back to life and trudging out of the fields as they move off. Evey sees faces that are incredulous and dazed and distracted as they go past, but mostly it is determination that flashes at her. It is a determination not just to survive, but to regain what was lost, and there is a current long forgotten in the air, the uncertain electricity of hope.
'Good stories,' Finch says gruffly from the front. To her surprise, she realizes that even he is at a loss for words.
The other man coughs uncomfortably. His eyes meet hers in the mirror and there is a strange jolt of déjà vu, only now his eyes are subdued. 'Ms Hammond,' he says eventually. 'I know what you're trying to do, and its crazy enough to actually work… but what if it doesn't? What if your first stor—I mean, you know we can't really do anything if things go out of hand, right? We can't all be V.'
It is only a joke, and a weak one at that, but there is that lurch again, and there is that hurt and longing so thick…
It is Finch who answers. 'Doesn't matter, does it. All we can give ourselves is a chance. All we remind ourselves is what our freedom might mean. It doesn't matter what we do with it, but just that we chose…'
In the silence that follows, she can feel their eyes on her through the mirror. They are older than her and she knows the taste of fear enough to of how it hides in the throat, of its treachery in paralyzing hope brittle.
But she looks out the window. 'November the Ninth,' she says tiredly, half to herself. 'His rosemary.'
She has given enough today.
They drop her off on the sidewalk like she'd asked. She thanks them, and means it, and only makes her way to V's home when she sees them turn around the corner.
The sky is starting to shed pale gold on the horizons- the drizzle has cleared up in time for sunset- and already there areearly stragglers from the field, on silhouettes of bicycles and cars. Her face is streaked with rain, and she needs to get a hat to cover up her now-conspicuous hairstyle, but still she moves on.
It has to be today: she needs to close up V's home before she breaks, and it is a special day enough to mark it.
---
This is how their story could end:
In the golden-hush of her small flat, half-asleep in the warmth of her own body curled against the sofa. The tv will be on, a fuzzy muted backdrop of The Count of Monte Cristo. It will be late and she will be tired, too tired even for grief or memories or sick-ache longing.
and then…
There will be someone else in the room, this shadow of quiet dark movements and startling whites.
and then…
Through the sleepy fall of her eyelashes, there will be a familiar outline obscuring that subdued love scene, that cheesy finale of the movie. There will be a gentle dip by her side, a heartbreaking warmth ghosting her cheek…
and then…
And then maybe a hum, his smooth velvet hum of an old song long forbidden. And then maybe a whisper of Evey, my Evey, they do not love that show their love or the pressing of the phantom of a scarlet-silk rose in her hand, or his touch on her cheek or arm or lips, or just his presence-- god please, just once, to be with him, please—his presence till dawn, of just his old teasing and knowing and being …
and then…
And then what, what, what? What? What else can he do, can she do? I fell in love with you, Evey and That is the most beautiful thing you could have given me—oh be quiet, don't speak, V you bastard, come back, how could you. I ache, I miss you, you're selfish, how selfish to believe you were only an idea, I love…
And then what, what? He is dead, England is reliving, and nothing can change that. There are no ghosts, there are only ideals and ideals are only illusions, and Evey knows that...
And now what, what. V will be memorialized by history in the capitalization of November the Fifth. She knows: she must hurt and heal and move on in the parts of life that is necessary, because V has taught her this much. She knows: she is young and she must love again and years must blur the details, even though she knows she will never quite let go, because V has also become part of her this much…
and then.
This is how their story will end:
In darkness. There is the scream of sirens in the distance, someone is shouting her name. Gareth, she thinks, but he does not worry her. It is all muted, somehow, like it is far away and it must be, because car accidents are so banal and can only happen to someone else…
There had been a unbearable, white pain before but now it is gone, and her sight is clearer than it has been for the past few years. Everything seems to have faded into a haze of silhouettes. She knows what is happening though she had never believed in post-life rubbish but it is alright. There is only a faint sense of regret and wonder in her tiredness, in her relief, and she lifts herself off the heavy weight of her broken body and turns her head to the light and sees—
Evey, he says. It is his voice, his voice, and he is smiling- will you dance with me?
And there is a mask and yet no mask on his face; he is wearing gloves but all she feels is smooth, living skin as she takes his hand. And—
-- it is V, and her heart is breaking all over again.
Evey takes his hand and moves.
Into his arms.
Into the light.
A lifetime too late, but some things can not be fought and so V holds her while she cries.
A/N: I've removed an A/N from a previous VFV drabble for the sake of peace. V/Evey still remains a fascinating car crash for me though, by which I mean-- bizarre in its own way, can't understand how they happened, but somehow so inevitable. But I can see how much it has offended some readers, so I apologize and hence the removal.
1. 'they do not love that show their love', quote from Shakespeare
Anyway, thanks for all feedback, per usual. :)