Like Light and Cloud Shadow
A "V for
Vendetta" short story by Tina Price.
Preview: V's life was forever changed the night he brought an unconscious Evey Hammond down to his home. Little had he realized that they would ultimately change each other's life... for the better.
Disclaimer: V for Vendetta and all characters therein are the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment Company and DC Comics.
Author's notes: This story (overall) is rated R. Criticism and advice are always appreciated!
Chapter Six: The Spirit is Willing...Down beneath London, in the abandoned architecture of part of the city's erstwhile tube system, a man sat beside a bed and reminisced.
V had his chair pulled close to the bed, and as he leaned his weight forward, supported by his elbows on his knees, he frowned beneath his mask. This bed was indeed his shrine to Evey. It elicited memories of the most wonderful night of his life, the most profound moment and one when he had stopped hating and suddenly felt... human.
The fire at Larkhill had given him back his spirit, his freedom; it had truly been a baptism by fire. Yet, the soul baptized that day had been feeble, weak... twisted. And so it had remained for twenty years.
It took a slip of a girl, no: a woman, and she nearly half his age, to restore his soul. She did it in this very bed, in this very room. For the first time in his remembered life, he had felt accepted, wanted... loved. And despite their long separation since, he had continued to feel that way. Despite that she had countered a statement of his by saying that he had become a monster...
He sighed. She would never know how those words, coming after what they had shared, had tortured him. They had literally rocked him back on his heels and left him momentarily speechless. He understood in a flash that she was not angry at him, that she was not rejecting him. She had, in fact accepted him, but that did not mean that she would condone his vendetta. Moreover, she would not allow him to use his past as an excuse for his actions.
"Evey," he breathed her name.
She would never know how his already amble respect for her had grown three fold at that moment.
It was then that he realized that she was a better version of him.
The parallels between them were ample: Their lives spanned the same breath of years if one considered that he could not remember anything before Larkhill and they had each been reborn, unafraid of facing injustice. Yet herein lay the major difference:
She had been baptized by water, he by fire. She had come out the other side with her soul intact, able to love and therefore capable of mercy, compassion and forgiveness. He had emerged with his soul all but obliterated, charred by the fire that set him free and the treatments that removed all memory of love or the better things in life.
Evey was V as he wished to be. She was now his model, even as he had begun their acquaintance as hers, albeit almost against her will.
And that was why this bed was so important. It was his symbol, a tribute to her and a reminder of the night his soul had reawakened.
His frown deepened. It seemed she was not coming after all and the ache within his chest intensified. He had so wished to see her, this one last...
Music.
The jukebox had begun to play the song he had played so long ago for her, on her first night in his home.
Standing, he moved to the door so quickly that several of the paperback books in the room ruffled their pages in his wake. But he knew nothing of this, his entire mind focused on greeting the person who had just arrived, but whom he had been expecting for months.
He pushed the door open and moved forward past the wall of shelves... and there she was, waiting for him at the jukebox. Her head was still shaved. She had somehow chosen to keep it that way. She was wearing a too thin shirt which showed off her breasts, a skirt and flat shoes.
All in all, she was, as ever, beautiful to his eyes and V felt as though his chest would burst as his heart seemed to swell within him. Was this what the literature referred to as a lump in one's throat?
For once, his articulate nature deserted him and he found himself mute, his mind too distracted to form clever sentences.
"I wasn't sure you'd come," he said, using the hidden accusation to mask his elation.
"I said I would," she smiled.
He nodded. Of course. He should have known that she would not break a promise to him.
"You're looking well," he finally managed. It sounded horribly like small talk to his ears, yet now that she was finally here with him, he felt suddenly shy and uncertain. There was so much he wished to say and couldn't. There was so much more he wished he could have... but never would.
He had very little time left with her. He had to think of it that way, for it seemed unlikely that he would survive the night, but there was something he did want from her, something he had wished for months ago and every day since. It was a simple request, but difficult to ask.
What if she refused?
Evey stood next to the jukebox and leaned upon it, supporting herself. Though she appeared outwardly calm, it was but an act. Inwardly she was a jumble of emotions and her legs felt like jelly. Seeing him again, hearing that charismatic voice... knowing that at any time now he would leave her...
He was speaking again and it snapped her attention back to him, as she tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
"I have a gift for you, Evey. It's the reason I wanted to see you again, but..." he began, as he walked slowly towards her. His next words seemed unusually hesitant. "Before I give it to you... I was hoping you might like to dance?"
She was stunned, and then remembered that he had mentioned dancing at their last meeting. She smiled up at him.
"Now? On the eve of your revolution?"
"A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having," he replied, having reached her side. His body language revealed him to be more than a little anxious for her response.
"I'd love to," she replied honestly and had the satisfaction of hearing him exhale softly with relief.
He offered her his hand while his other punched a well-memorized selection on the jukebox.
And then he was pulling her to him…
He remained silent as they danced, but he held her firmly and the eyes of his mask never left her face.
After a time, unable to bear the intimate perusal, she stepped closer to him, wrapped her arms about his neck and leaned her head on his shoulder.
He responded by placing his arms around her and slowing his steps.
It was a slow, intimate dance that felt right.
It lasted until the song ended, at which time he reached out and without a word, punched up another selection. Then they drew apart and went back to a more formal dance style. She imagined that was because he, like her, felt a deep sadness welling up within, knowing that they would soon be parted. They were in fact trying to protect themselves.
To help lighten the mood a bit, she began to make small-talk, wanting to let him know how much she admired his plan in general and his intelligence in particular.
V seemed to graciously accept the praise, but offered little back in the way of conversation, seemingly focused entirely on her and their dance. Perhaps he was making it a memory to be held to no matter what was about to befall him.
Yet she had one more thing she had to bring up; she wanted to let him know that she had seen him that night in the darkened room, and that it had changed nothing, he was still the only man she ever thought about…
So she steered the conversation around to his face and how she didn't even know what he looked like. It was a white lie. She did know, she just hadn't seen all the details.
Then she slowly reached for his mask, intent on removing it and kissing him, to prove that he didn't need to hide from her, not anymore, but he brought his hands up and gently stopped her.
His voice was equally gentle, as he tried to convey something important, "Evey, there is a face beneath this mask, but it isn't me. I'm no more that face than the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath that."
She withdrew her hands, uncertain of what he was actually telling her. In any event, the moment was gone and along with it, her chance of convincing him that it didn't matter to her. So she said the only thing she could.
"I understand."
"Thank-you," he replied.
Then the music was over and he stepped away from her, once more the cool, composed mastermind.
"Come, it's growing late and I have something I must give you." He pointed towards her jacket as he collected his cloak, knives and hat.
They fortified themselves against the cold and then he led her from the Shadow Gallery.
V led her through the unused portion of the Shadow Gallery, which was, as she had seen on the way in, completely cleaned. No trace of the detention center remained except for the desk, the two interrogation lamps and a few chairs near one wall. Also present were several mannequins, now stripped of their uniforms.
They passed through the doorway which led up to the street, but instead of continuing straight ahead towards the stairs, they took a u-turn through an arched doorway. Then he unlocked a very large steel door and ushered her ahead of him.
After they passed the locked rooms that housed V's roses and the shrine to Valerie, the corridor changed, becoming more tunnel-like.
V paused next to an alcove in which there was a small treasure trove of tools and mechanical supplies. On the floor was a wooden pallet with wheels and a pull cord. Behind it was another naked Mannequin.
"What is all this?" she asked, unable to comprehend what it was he was trying to show her. Was this the gift he had spoken of?
"This is not my gift to you," he answered, correctly reading her expression. These are merely some of the tools I've made use of these past twenty years. The pallet came in handy for moving heavy loads.
"Heavy loads? Whatever were you doing?"
"You're about to see..." He sounded amused.
"Is this another trick, V?" she asked, suspicion in her eyes.
"No. No more tricks. No more lies. Only the truth," he answered. "You made me understand that I was wrong, that the choice to pull that lever is not mine to make.
Her eyes narrowed. "But why?"
"Because this world, the world that I am a part of and that I helped shape, will end tonight. Tomorrow a different world will begin, that different people will shape and this choice belongs to them."
When he saw alarm begin to transform her face, he knew it was time to take his leave.
As he exited the train, unseen by her, his hand produced a domino from beneath his cloak and stood it upon the train's control box. It was the very domino he had plucked from his huge domino arrangement only days ago.
The very day BFC had begun the massive delivery of his masks, he had begun to lay a huge circular pattern made up entirely of evenly spaced dominoes. Some were red, some gray and some black and together they had formed, over the course of several days effort, a large red V, his symbol, in the center of a circle of black and gray.
The point of the V was the trigger, comprised of one domino which would go on to topple two, which would topple four, and on and on... putting the entire arrangement into motion.
He had imagined that large V as his plan, himself the trigger that set one portion of that plan after another into motion. In his mind, all the dominoes making up the right side of the circle represented the citizens of this so-called state, while those on the left represented the government and all its Norsefire supporters.
His masks had been delivered and his domino emblem completed the day that a little girl died in the world above. As the final portion of his plan went into motion, as that little girl's death began the chain reaction in London that would spread throughout the U.K., he had sat before his domino art and toppled the first domino.
He had watched, as before him, the model of his plan unfolded and as the final two arcs of the circle clashed, he had wondered which would come out on top, the government or the people? He was therefore stunned when he saw that one perfectly placed domino did not fall, but remained upright.
"There is no coincidence," he had said aloud, rising from his position on the floor and striding about the emblem to investigate this unexpected twist.
Leaning down, he had plucked out the final domino and then blinked in amazement as he turned it over in his gloved hand. On it was a double five, depicted in the roman characters he preferred.
And he knew it in an instant: this domino represented Evey.
He had orchestrated the plan, put everything in motion, but when all was said and done... she would be the one to decide which way the final dominoes fell.
And so he had left the choice to her, having seen that it was not his decision to make.
Should she set this train in motion, that final domino would fall and by her will his plan would be completed.
And now his time had come; his enemies, those who created him were awaiting him down the track. He continued on out of the train and down the platform.
"Where are you going?" he heard her call out behind him.
He had so hoped to make a clean break, but there was nothing for it now but to turn and answer.
"The time has come to meet my maker and to at last repay him in kind for all that he has done."
Again he turned, intent upon finishing what was started twenty years ago, but Evey was now running towards him.
"V, wait! Please!"
He did.
And then she was there, gripping his hands, holding him back so that she could make her plea.
"You don't have to do this." She searched his mask desperately for some clue to his response. "You could let it go. We could leave here... together."
And there it was; the one offer he had both dreaded and hoped for. She was offering him a second chance, one with her.
"You were right about me," he replied. "I am become a monster. All that I deserve now lies down that tunnel."
"Don't say that," she sobbed. "It isn't true!" And then her arms pulled him close as she reached her face towards his.
He found himself dipping his head down to meet her, his own hands now on her waist.
She kissed him. She kissed the mask and although he could not feel the touch of her lips, still he reacted to the feel of her in his arms, to her warmth and the gift she was offering him.
When she pulled away they stared at each other for a long moment.
And he found himself actually torn... her plea, her offer of a future being given almost equal weight with the need to complete his vendetta, even if it cost him everything.
"Evey... I can't." It was a testament to his will that he had even managed to say it. Somehow he forced his hands off her waist and instead took her little hands in his own. It might be the last time they touched and he just couldn't leave without slowly weaning himself of her.
Then, with a supreme effort of his indomitable spirit, he dropped her hands and leaped off the platform, striding away quickly lest she call him back.
Out of her sight, well down the tunnel, he retrieved three items he had hidden. Throwing back his cloak, he removed his jacket and strapped on the standard police issue bullet proof vest. Over top of that he added the breastplate to a suit of armor.
Then his jacket was replaced with a larger one he had made to fit over his new undergarments.
He was ready. He'd done all he could to stack the odds in favor of his survival. Now it was up to the powers above to determine his fate.
Creedy and his men were waiting for him when he arrived. He took great pleasure in moving quickly into their midst and making himself seem to appear out of the shadows.
Soon the moment was upon him, the one that would remove a great evil from the world: Sutler was dragged down the filthy stairs and dropped in a puddle at his feet.
"I want to see his face," he growled.
The next moment he was confronting the man who had exterminated tens of thousands of human beings in the name of, of all things, unity. And he didn't seem so omnipotent anymore, the front of his pants stained with urine and the smell of feces bearing witness to his disgrace.
Creedy killed the man with a bullet to the head, just as he was meant to all along.
V felt no elation at Sutler's death, simply a sense of relief; the most difficult man to get to had been gotten to. And now all that remained was the 'Spider' himself. To get to him, he would need to go through nine of the man's best fingermen.
He was up to the challenge and removed two right off the bat for trying to unmask him.
"Defiant to the end, eh?" Creedy had commented. "You won't cry like him, will you? You're not afraid of death. You're like me."
"The only thing that you and I have in common, Mr. Creedy, is that we are both about to die," he replied, taking a deep satisfaction in his chosen words.
"Is that so? And how do you imagine that will happen?"
"With my hands around your neck," he answered with relish.
Creedy seemed taken aback. "Bollocks!" he finally spat. "What are you going to do? You've got nothing! Nothing but your knives and your fancy Karate gimmicks. We've got guns!"
"No," he countered. "What you have are sixty-two bullets and the hope that when your guns are empty I'm no longer standing. Because, if I am, you'll all be dead before you've reloaded."
"That's impossible!" Creedy's words were forcefully delivered, but his face showed a shadow of doubt. Then he gave the command," Kill him!"
And V felt himself battered by a barrage of bullets. The force of each shot that found its mark knocked him back and he had to fight to stay his ground. Yet despite the pain, he did remain standing. His will, his spirit having taken over complete control and forcing his body, his flesh to do the improbable.
Then there was silence.
His adversaries were out of ammunition.
V found himself doubled over and it took him a moment to catch his breath and take stock of his condition.
He had a broken nose, possibly a broken cheekbone as well. Although his mask this evening was made of metal, it had effectively pounded his face with each shot that hit it.
One eye was starting to swell closed. He needed to act before it did, his precision with his knives depended upon stereoscopic vision. His nose was bleeding, gushing over his lips so that some dribbled through the mouth of his mask.
Pain was everywhere; in his chest, his arms and his legs. Pain was something he knew well and could deal with. Yet, something was not quite right; he had broken ribs, of that he was certain. Perhaps one had punctured something...
No matter.
He straightened carefully and found himself still up to the challenge ahead, though it hurt to even draw breath.
And then there was nothing but his determination to beat the clock: him taking them out depended upon his bizarre reflexes and speed.
It was time to make good on his promise to Creedy and his men.
He stood up and centered himself for what was to come: his 'Dance Macabre' as he liked to think of it. His opponents stood before him, literally too stunned to move. Now was the time to inform them that the clock was counting down; that they were about to race him for their lives.
"My turn," he stated, matter-of-factly, then let fly two blades with his off hand.
They spun in deadly arcs through the air, too fast to be seen as more than just a blur, diverging in their trajectories before slamming with unbelievable force into the men standing on either side of Creedy.
The fingermen flew backwards from the impact, both of them dead before hitting the ground.
Instantly the remaining seven men began to move, intent upon reloading. They were now taking his threat very seriously, he thought with grim satisfaction.
With a blur of motion to those around him, he began the dance. To him things actually seemed to slow down, the neurons in his brain firing just as quickly as those that commanded his muscles. His muscles, possessing the ability to contract at many times the speed of those of a typical human, responded in turn. 'And what good would this fine arrangement be if his brain lagged behind?' he thought. This then was the reason for that facet of his mutation. His increased intellect and voracious search for knowledge was actually just the by-product.
Mentally shrugging off the 'whys' and 'hows' of his abilities, he took the first steps, accelerating forward as time slowed around him. His was a minimalist style; no wasted motion, everything balanced and graceful, each move setting up the one to follow. In a split second he had taken stock of his opponents' positions and now he embarked upon the path that would introduce him to each of his dance partners in the swiftest fashion.
One swing, one slice, a pivot and swing resulting in another slice… Two opponents fell dead. He took a step forward, crossed his arms and then brought them outward in powerful arcs as he turned. It made a deadly pirouette, as another partner fell before he even knew they were finished dancing.
Leaning back, he let a knife fly over his shoulder. It caught a man on the far side of the station, taking him out of the equation.
Three men left.
He moved onward and all the while, his body sang to him; nerve endings humming with bioelectrical signals, his tendons and ligaments creaking under the strain produced when velocity contributed to force and the very air around him whooshing as he displaced it.
He slammed a man, slicing his throat as he was propelled backwards, then swiveled to greet the next, his arm arcing upward to sweep his legs forcefully into the air. His opposite arm delivered the downward coup-de-grace in perfect time with the man's fall. Then he stepped forward and let another blade fly. It took the last fingerman in the forehead and drove him backward with a vicious snap that broke his neck. He was doubly dead before he hit the pavement.
It was nearly over.
Nine fingermen lay dead, all before they could reload their weapons. All that remained was the worst of them all, the butcher of thousands: Creedy.
It was then that he made his first mistake; he slowed down. Under other circumstances he might have taken the man out as quickly as he had dispatched the others... but this was the spider himself, the worst of all his enemies. V had threatened to kill him with his own two hands, and he wanted the man to see it coming.
It was therefore with some surprise that he took a bullet to the chest. The impact actually knocked him back a pace as it occurred to him that he had been out-foxed.
Creedy had not discharged all his bullets during the initial round, nor had he fired while his men were dispatched. The shrewd and vicious man had waited for the right moment.
The question was; how many more shots did he have left?
These thoughts flew through V's mind in the second before Creedy fired again.
"Die!" the bastard screamed as a second bullet slammed into V's thigh.
And then V managed to put on a final burst of speed, dodging the next three bullets as his nemesis continually commanded him to die.
After five total shots, the pin clicked on an empty chamber, but Creedy continued pulling the trigger, hoping for a miracle.
"Why won't you die?" he asked, his voice suddenly small, uncomprehending.
V lunged suddenly and now had him by the neck. He lifted the much larger man up as though he weighed nothing, as Creedy's eyes widened in shock at his strength.
"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh," he replied. "Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy... and ideas are bullet proof."
With that he ended it, snapping the man's neck as though it were merely a stick. With a great deal of satisfaction, he dropped him in a heap and turned to leave...
And then he realized his second mistake. Creedy must have used hollow points, otherwise known as cop killers because of their ability to penetrate protective gear.
He had been hit, and badly, too. The round in his upper chest had passed through armor and bullet proof vest alike... and his thigh was pulped.
A great wave of dizziness hit him, the walls and floor of the old station seeming to warp before his eyes. His life was ebbing away, his task completed, his will no longer burned hot enough to sustain him.
Reaching beneath his cloak, he eventually managed to free the armor chest plate. After one look at the hole in the upper left side, he dropped it on the floor. It had served its purpose; the rest of the bullets that struck it had left large pock marks in its surface, but had not pierced it, nor the vest beneath. It had been enough for him to make it to Creedy.
Another wave of dizziness overtook him. He was getting worse. Only one thought was on his mind now, and he summoned the last reserves of his considerable willpower to complete one more labor...
He had to return to Evey... had to tell her how her really felt...
He took a moment to bind his thigh with strips from his cloak. The pressure bandage would slow the bleeding and buy him enough time.
...he hoped.
"Ah, Evey," he spoke aloud. "My spirit is willing, but this time I fear my flesh is too weak..."
Part way down the tunnel, he stopped to remove the bullet proof vest. It was soaked with his blood, and again a hole was clearly visible in the upper left side.
Reaching up, he felt his wound. Strange how numb it seemed... In addition to the bleeding, his collar bone was badly shattered and he finally realized why he could no longer seem to move his left arm.
His thigh was unstable and threatening to collapse at any time. As it was, only his determination and unique muscular control allowed him to walk on it. In any other person, he felt certain the muscle would have given out, leaving the shattered bone to snap and buckle.
Not much further now: Just a bit more and he would see her again.
Oh to see her again, to have her face there before him as his eyes grew dark... He could think of no finer way to die.
With a final burst of kinetic energy, his last reserves, he propelled himself forward, two, five, ten paces to the entrance to the train platform.
"Would she be here? Had she waited for him?" His vision was blurring, he was on the edge of blacking out...
And then he heard the most wonderful sound in all the world... Evey was calling his name. There she was; running towards him. He tried to hurry to her, but his leg finally gave out with a snap and he went down.
She caught him, somehow breaking his fall and he found himself wrapped in her arms as he had been all those long months ago.
It had been long, too long, since he had felt this way, since he had felt such love ...
Yes, that was it. It was love, and there was no longer any reason to hide it from her.
He had precious little time left to say the things that really mattered.
Evey was moving to treat his wounds when he stopped her. He needed her to listen to him and as badly hurt as he was, he knew her treatment would be no more than a waste of time.
There was no point in telling her that he had tried to stack the odds in favor of his survival. That would just make it so much worse for her. Yet, he could tell her that he wished with all his heart that he could have lived, for her sake, and so he did:
"For twenty years I saw only this moment," he whispered, weakly. "Nothing else existed until... I saw you. Then everything changed... my life... my reasons... my wishes."
He tried to raise his hand to her face, but found that he couldn't, he had lost all of his strength and she was already fading before his eyes.
"I fell in love with you, Evey... like I no longer believed I could. And every day that drew this day closer made me understand that it wasn't blood I wanted... it was another chance..."
"For what?" she sobbed.
"For roses," he said, struggling to finish the thought before the darkness claimed him. "...not for me... for all of us."
V sagged in Evey's arms, suddenly heavy, seemingly dead and she felt a panic rise up inside her so intense she thought she would go mad.
"V? Veee!" she wailed his name as she pulled him to her and rocked him in her arms.
And then an anger rose up inside her and it was directed towards herself.
That part of her that HE had awakened, that HE had liberated sneered at the Evey of old. If she was too weak to even try to save him, then she didn't deserve his love. Best that he die than see her failing so abysmally after all the precautions, all the risks she had taken!
Reaching into her pocket she removed a small knife and began to cut his clothing wherever she saw the most blood. She quickly located the thigh wound. It was by far the most life-threatening as his life's blood was running freely from beneath bandage he had tied there.
My God! He was still alive. His heart was beating! Cutting up his already mangled cloak, she fashioned an old fashioned tourniquet and twisted it tightly with piece of steel she found on the platform.
Loosening his mask, she swept her fingers beneath it, clearing a large amount of blood from his mouth, making certain his airway was open. She wouldn't be able to tell where he was bleeding from without looking, and that she would never do; not without his permission.
Heaving, she managed to turn him on his side and positioned his head so that the blood would not choke him. Then she whacked him in the back.
No reaction.
Clenching her fist as her good friend Michael had taught her, she took her knuckles and dug them into the skin above his sternum, raking back and forth with them.
This time she heard a faint wheeze and gurgle.
Thank God, he was breathing!
Jumping to her feet, she ran like all the demons of hell were on her heels. Through the passage connecting the tube station to the gallery, to the area where he had stored a wheeled pallet. Rushing back with it she managed to brace it so that she could pull him atop it.
Then she was pulling him behind her, moving as quickly as she could maneuver without losing her precious cargo. She took him all the way back to the Shadow Gallery, to the area which had at one time housed the detainment center.
After a quick check to make certain he was still breathing, she backtracked to the passage that led up to the street... And as she neared the street exit, she had her cell phone out and on speed dial.
The connection was made.
"Michael!" she all but screamed into it as she burst outside. "Hurry! Hurry!"
"I'm on my way."
In the distance she heard an engine turn over.
"How bad is he?"came the voice on her phone.
"It's bad! Oh God! Hurry! He could die before we get to him!"
An ambulance roared around the corner and squealed to a stop. She was in motion before the driver even got out, pulling a gurney out of the vehicle's rear, then taking the things that he handed her and throwing them on top.
He himself shouldered a large knapsack and added two heavy cases to the pile, then together they grabbed the loaded gurney and disappeared into the darkness that led down to the Shadow Gallery.
Dr. Michael Cahill was in the middle of applying the last pounds of pressure to the traction splint on his patient's right leg when he heard the man grunt.
Could he already be coming around? Impossible!
Looking up, he was startled to see that the fellow wasn't only coming around; he was apparently lucid, alert and watching him intently. The scarring on man's face was too rigid to allow him much expression, but the look in those eyes was chilly, distrustful and perhaps even resentful. Only the barest quiver of his lower lip and the tremor that now began in his limbs, gave away that he was in pain.
And it had to be some seriously terrible pain, the doctor thought.
"I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced yet," he addressed his patient, as he secured the torsion apparatus in place. "I'm Dr. Michael Cahill, an internal specialist from St. Thomas'. Would you care for some pain relief? You're not allergic, are you?"
His patient seemed to still be judging him, his eyes raking him from top to bottom in a slow, insolent manner. Then again, perhaps he was used to such things, what with the mask having provided cover all these years. Perhaps he no longer realized the rudeness of his perusal.
Then V noticed that he was being stared down and quickly turned his eyes elsewhere, towards his surroundings, which confirmed Michael's supposition.
His patient first noticed that he was on a blood-soaked gurney in the middle of the unused portion of the Shadow Gallery. Then, looking down, he spotted a good deal of his blood pooled and splattered on the stone floor around him His eyes passed over the extra lamps which had been brought in, the desk they were set upon and the surgical trays which sat there beside them. Then he tipped his head up, noting the final two units of blood which were dripping their contents directly into his external jugular vein. Hanging beside them was a bag of IV fluid and a smaller one of antibiotic, these traceable to the vein in his right arm. Only then did his gaze return to Michael's face.
"As far as I know I have no allergies," he managed to say. "and I will take a little pain relief, if you don't mind."
Incredible! Although weak, there was no doubt that his voice was indeed the same cultured voice all London had heard that day the Bailey went up. This man, whom Evey had told him was known only as V, was indeed the very same man who had roused up the masses by blowing up the Bailey, taking over London Tower and reminding everyone of what they had given up: their freedom.
As he gathered a syringe and a bottle of synthetic morphine, he began trying to build some trust in the hopes that his patient would relax enough so that his body could begin to heal. From the little that Evey had told him, this man had no reason to trust physicians and every reason to hate them. Best to try and get around that hurdle now.
"Please allow me to fill you in on what is going on," he said, as pleasantly as he could. As he reached for V's arm, the man offered it to him. "Evey had me waiting up on the street on the off chance that you lived long enough to make use of me."
"Where is she?" V asked as he injected the morphine.
Michael smiled. "She phoned me a short while ago. She's just finished having a good long chat with a detective named Finch. She's on her way back."
V's eyes softened and his voice seemed stronger as he asked, "What time is it?"
"Oh, about three hours past parliament," Michael replied, having a hard time keeping the amusement out of his voice.
"So she did it."
"Well, she did tell me she was off to blow up parliament," he laughed. "And not long after that, this place shook as though an earthquake had struck, so assume she was true to her word."
His patient nodded and seemed to relax.
"You know, I've never had the pleasure of treating a hero before," he quipped. "It was awfully nice of you to decide to live and make it a very good memory."
V sighed wearily. "The spirit is willing, doctor… As to the rest; there are those who have called me a monster, not a hero. I myself agree with them. I did what was necessary in uniting this country against Sutler and his toadies, but I also carried out my own form of justice and one I may add, you would not condone."
"Without the facts, I cannot agree or disagree with your assessment of me." He shrugged, and then began removing the bloodied sheets from beneath his patient, intent upon cleaning him up. "I wanted to explain about your mask," he continued, pushing clean sheets beneath V and smoothing them out before tucking them in. "Firstly, Evey has not seen your face."
His patient sighed in apparent relief upon hearing this.
"I, on the other hand had to see you in order to help you. All I can say is that doctor-patient confidentiality is sacred. I'll not ever tell anyone that I've treated you, nor will I ever reveal what I have seen."
"Thank-you."
"You know, your face is not all that bad off, chap. A good surgeon could restore it by eliminating much of the distortion your untreated scars are causing. You really should consider it."
V frowned and cut him off. "Please, doctor. I have lived this way for over twenty years. This is no face, it is a mask, as immobile as the mask you removed and of as little consequence." He said with some passion; despite the drug he'd been given. "I do thank you for your timely assistance tonight, but please do not mention my face or the treatment possibilities to Evey."
"I won't, but I don't think you understand me. When I say that they can restore your face, I am also talking about motion. If the worst of your scars are 'released', you'll find you have greater mobility and less discomfort."
The man known only as V briefly closed his eyes. When they opened, they stared at him fiercely, almost angrily. His voice, however, was emotionless, "The surgeons you speak of would simply be gilding a mask. It still would not be my face anymore than it is right now."
"Right. Well... about your injuries..." he began, somewhat shaken by the man's insistence that he had no true face. "You've a broken nose, which I've set, hence the bandages. Your left cheekbone is fractured. It will heal. Your face is pretty badly pulped from the pounding those bullets transmitted through the mask..."
"Doctor, you surely are not telling me that I've lost my good looks?" V sneered.
"No, I'm telling you that it has improved your looks. Now, please, no more interruptions..."
He had the satisfaction of actually eliciting what seemed to be a stunned look.
"Ah yes, as I was saying, your entire torso is one massive bruise. You have several broken ribs and your left clavicle is pretty badly broken. I had to actually remove some bone and bullet pieces and stitch up the punctures in your subclavian artery. Bone and bullet bits together make some pretty nasty shrapnel."
"And therein our first major problem: the main body of the bullet is still in there and I cannot begin to guess exactly where it is or what other damage it may have done. We will have to talk about this a little later on and come to some important decision."
V nodded in agreement, apparently feeling more relaxed now that the edge had been taken off his pain.
"The second major complication is that you've suffered a collapsed lung. I had to put in a suction drain." He gave his patient what he hoped was his most authoritative look. "I strongly recommend that you not remove it! I will take it out in a few days when your lung is unlikely to collapse again."
"And finally," he continued with a sigh. "...there is your leg wound. V, the bone in your right thigh, your femur, is shattered. It's a mess. I know, I actually had a good look at it while I repaired your femoral artery. Again, I removed the smaller splinters, but if you want to walk again, you'll need surgery. I may not be an orthopedic surgeon, but I know enough to see you'll need a rod in that bone if you ever want to walk again, the bone is too splintered to mend properly on its own."
"I'll not allow you to put me in hospital," the vigilante responded.
"Again, we'll talk more about this after you get some rest."
"I agree," came his dry response.
"Something I should know?" Michael threw back.
"Only that there is a possibility you may be wrong," he answered. "I may require no further intervention, so it would be best to wait a day or two before reassessing the situation."
"I suppose this is related to the fact that you survived your burns? At over sixty three percent of your body, your chances of survival were quite small, yet survive you did, even without medical intervention. The shock alone should have killed you and surviving that you should have been dead of a massive infection within days."
His patient nodded. "Evey has, of course, noted some of my unique abilities, doctor, but she doesn't know the extent of them. Nor do I wish this repeated to her."
"Of course not!"
"I was an inmate at Larkhill, which is to say that I was no more than an experimental rat," V explained. "I won't go into the specifics of the experiment I was a part of, suffice to say I was the lone survivor. In their zeal to understand why I alone should survive and why I developed my, shall we say, 'quirks', my captors subjected me to obscenely thorough exams." He paused then and seemed to wilt as exhaustion overcame him. "What they found was that even before their viruses had the chance to mutate my DNA, that I was not entirely… normal."
Michael sat down; fascinated with the information he was being given. "You possessed a mutation to begin with?"
"Yes, a deletion/addition. It exists in all my cells. I cannot recall my past, not one day before Larkhill, so I do not know if I was capable of anything out of the ordinary before the virus mutated me further."
Michael's mind made a sudden connection. "I see. So the chances are good that this genetic rearrangement would interfere in your ability to successfully sire a child. ...Well, that explains a lot..."
It was out before he knew he was about to say it and Michael felt the blood drain from his face even as he saw V's eyes narrow and grow steely. Dear God, he had given her away… his patient was far too intelligent not to figure it all out.
"But enough of that," he said, trying to change the subject. "Let me get these empty units down. Did you know that we almost lost you twice? We ended up replacing your entire blood volume. You have Evey to thank for your life."
Still, his patient watched him as though he had suddenly become his prey.
Michael attempted to press on. "If you continue to be a model patient, I may even tell you how she held up the hospital blood bank and nicked an ambulance... and all on the way to seeing you tonight."
As he pulled down the empty units, his patient's arm moved like lightening and in the next moment he felt himself hauled down by an iron strong grip on his collar.
When V spoke, his face was inches away, his voice pitched low and dangerous, "Doctor, all I want to hear from you right now is; how is it that you know Evey?"
Michael felt a prickle of fear course through him. Though his patient had been at death's door only a short while ago, he did not doubt the abilities Evey had told him he possessed. Even now the man seemed too far too strong, considering his wounds.
Trying to keep his voice even, he spread his hands in a gesture of good will and desperately tried to find a way to explain without betraying her.
Next time: The
conclusion!
