Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings from V for Vendetta; they belong to Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

I had to change the rating from K+ to T because of adult themes.

Thank you immensely for taking the time to review this so far.

Enjoy!


Chapter Two

Some Things Vivid

Evey lay in the darkness that night, trying not to forget the way V's hand felt around hers, the way the deer moved in the stillness of the abandoned park, the way the pond whispered for her to join it. Sleep came and went in twenty minute intervals, teasing her with comfort and pulling away, leaving her to face the darkness in and out. It wasn't until she turned her nightstand lamp on and let the light saturate the room that her frenzied mind finally relented and let her dream.

She hadn't felt herself getting out of bed, couldn't remember weaving her way through the tunnels, climbing the steps into the air. But she was standing by the pond.

"Evey..."

She heard his voice from all directions, caressing her face, running through her hair like the breeze that rippled the glassy surface of the pond. She closed her eyes and spread her arms, leaning forward slightly, testing her balance against the pull of the pond.

Fingers on her shoulders. "Pull me in," she whispered to the water.

But she was pulled away by a force stronger than her own, stronger than the water. She turned and found herself facing the white Guy Fawkes mask that meant so many things to her. She took a deep breath, as if she had just broken the surface of a bottomless sea, and was overcome by faintness.

She lost her balance, but his hands guided her gently to the ground. Her fingers touched the edge of the pond and the water crawled over her palm. She looked up into the mask, smiling and inanimate, as his arms wrapped around her small frame.

"V," she whispered. "Pull me in."

And she was back in her bed again. Her eyes opened slowly and the light seeped in. "V?" she whispered. There was no answer. She was alone. A glance at her watch told her it was just past nine.

For a moment, she felt a crippling need overcome her – she had to see the pond. She had to see the water in the daylight. She had to see that beneath the surface, there was just more water. Water, mud, and cold.

She wanted to explore the tunnels again. She wanted V to grab her by the hand and take her out somewhere majestic, somewhere pensive, somewhere that meant more than simply something.

But then music, as the jukebox turned on, brought her back to her room. Her bare feet stiffened on the cold stone floor. She hurriedly slipped into her jeans, socks, a sweater. Part of her didn't want to leave the room and face V, not after dreaming of him holding her and saving her. She didn't want to stand away from him, keeping her distance like she knew he preferred. She didn't want to sit beside him on the couch and feel him pulling for her with imaginary arms, imagine him whispering her name like the water, reaching out for her with ambiguous intentions.

It was always in her mind and he never sat close enough.

-----

Walking out of her room and turning the corner, Evey found V lying on the piano bench. He had one foot up, the other on the stone floor. He was reading a book as the jukebox emitted the sultry voice of a woman singing about rain and heartbreak.

V closed the book when Evey got near and sat up quickly. "Good morning, Evey," he said.

"I woke up on time for it, at least," she replied with a smile. "I can't thank you enough for last night."

He was straddling the bench and slouching a bit, tapping the book almost silently against the bench cushion. She realized he was tapping along with the slow drawl of the woman's voice filling the Shadow Gallery with her sad symphony. "The fresh air was refreshing," he finally said, then stood and set the book on top of the piano. He walked past her into the kitchen. "Would you care for breakfast?"

Evey stared at the book for a moment, immediately recognizing the French author's name. Her head cocked to the side and an eyebrow went up.

V saw her staring intently at the book. "Evey," he said, "Are you hungry?"

She looked at him. "I suppose. I'm not sure, really. You're reading the Marquis de Sade," she said, picking the book up. There was no script on the back or the front, only his name on the spine. It was an off-white color, with watermarks along the edges of the pages; it was well used.

V smiled from behind his smiling mask. "Makes for good early morning reading," he said.

"More like in bed late into the night and in a certain mood reading," Evey replied, opening the book at a random page and immediately soaking into the words.

"Not necessarily."

"Oh, the erotica's just a fun little bonus. It's the philosophy you're really after," she said, the sarcasm thick in her voice.

V walked over to her and took the book. "Despite the sarcasm, you are absolutely correct," he said. He put the book back down on the piano and went back into the kitchen. Evey followed him, seating herself at the small rectangular table.

"What are you hungry for?" he asked.

Evey smiled, trying not to imagine any undertones in his comment. "Oh, I don't know," she said in a sing-songy sort of way. She was suddenly in a playful mood.

"How about some french toast?" he suggested, opening the cabinets one-by-one and perusing their insides.

But Evey was distracted by the book, by its contents, by its long-dead author. "I could never get over the fact that de Sade was a degenerate," she said. "Couldn't quite take him seriously."

"A degenerate?" V turned to face her again. He leaned against the counter, a metal pan hanging from his gloved hand. "You sound like Bonaparte."

"Napoleon had a point in locking de Sade away," she said. "He was a philanderer. He was a nymphomaniac, an adulterer, a seducer who engaged in countless orgies with men, women, boys, girls. He glorified sadomasochism, fetishes, unrestrained promiscuity. He's fortunate he managed to stay alive."

V set the pan on the stove with a clank, opened a drawer and fished in it for a moment as he said, "Which would you prefer? Enduring a moment of your own execution, or trying to survive day after day locked away in a prison, listening to the crazed cries of anonymous someones, trying to convince yourself that you're not one of those voices?"

Evey stared at him, watched his black-clad back as he stopped everything he was doing and fell motionless. They stayed there in the stillness for quite a while, Evey sitting and watching, V standing and breathing. Something had happened, but Evey wasn't quite sure what. V had said those words, but she didn't know what he was telling her. It went beyond the Marquis; it went beyond Napoleonic France and the Reign of Terror. It was too V; too distinctly him.

Finally, her vigilante companion turned around and Evey looked up at him. A bit of tension fluttered off his shoulders and he stood up straight, saying, "'We ought no more be astonished at the diversity she has put in our features than at that she has placed in our affections.'"

"Who is 'she'?" Evey asked.

"Nature."

Evey sighed and leaned back in the hard kitchen chair. "I think nature, like many things, is capricious."

V turned back to the stove and stared at it, tentatively fingering the handle of the pan. "I don't much feel for making anything," he muttered.

"I'm not hungry," Evey reassured him. "How about a banana?"

He nodded and grabbed a banana from the counter. As he peeled it for her, handed it to her, and took a seat across from her, he said, "All the world is marinated in capriciousness."

"Why, do you think?" Evey asked, taking a bite of the banana. For a moment, she thought she could live off bananas and never need anything else. "This is so tasty," she muttered.

"Because intentions are fostered by convenience," V replied. "And I'm sure it is tasty."

Evey smiled. "It was convenient for France to lock the Marquis away, but not convenient to kill him."

"They used him. They were afraid of what he had to say, so they used him, took away his liberty, pilfered his words, all in a desperate but vain effort to find the balance between letting him breathe but keeping him quiet."

Evey stared at the table, at V's hands flat and black on the white surface. "Do you think Sutler hates literature because writers are revolutionaries?"

V leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Sutler hates literature because it is enlightening."

"And he wants to keep us in the dark." Evey took another bite of her banana. She chewed on the soft mushiness of it for a while in silence. V's mask was facing her, but she couldn't tell if he was watching her, or if his eyes were closed, or if he was staring off somewhere. It unnerved her, not knowing where his eyes were focused, or even what color they were. All she saw were black, lifeless slits, staring at nothing and everything.

She put her banana down on the table, gazing at it for a moment before looking up at V again. "What color are your eyes?" she asked on a whim.

Without replying, V stood up and walked over to the piano. He took the book in his hand and turned his head slightly in Evey's direction. "Red," he said, and walked away.


The quote "We ought no more be astonished at the diversity she has put in our features than at that she has placed in our affections" is from Philosophy in The Bedroom by the Marquis de Sade, from whose name the word "sadism" was derived.

Again, thanks beforehand for any reviews or criticisms. Thanks so much. :)