Oh ho, this fic has finally gone into 3 digits for hit count! I hadn't realized the term crossover was so very terrifying. Nonetheless, its doubtless an achievement worthy for minor amusement, yes.
If you've survived the cheese that is the first chapt, I guess warnings for sap is pretty redudant now.
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May 28, 2027. (Evey is 27, V has 361 days to the Fifth and is dead.)
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EVEY: On a whim, I decide to sleep in and skip work for day. I wake feeling luxuriously lethargic and spend an indecent amount of time just staring at the ceiling. Not thinking of plans, of the new Free England; just enjoying the bliss of thinking nothing. Then I take a long bath and enjoy it some more.
I've missed the better part of the day, and there is a stack of files somewhere I've yet to plough through, but it is too quiet in my apartment. Even with windows open, the blurred chatter from the streets is distant enough to be a separate stage altogether. As always, memories congeal over my skin in this solitude, smothering. Already I am longing for home. Eric has probably set a couple of shadows watching the front entrance so I use the fire escape down the back. The rust of the ladder leaves stains on my palms; I wipe them absently while as I brisk-walk to the Gallery.
Aside from a slight delay on the street when someone recognized me, I manage to reach home relatively unscathed. The dust is making faint ash patterns on the edges of the shelves again, so I set myself to work cleaning and polishing the place up. There isn't much to do but I am enjoying myself in the way chores become pleasure for the sheer love of it, and humming along to the strains of the jukebox floating from the main room when I hear something. Soft. Undeniable.
Heart-stopping.
My god, someone has found the Gallery. Eric! His men… I jump up from my kneeling, outraged and horrified. He has no right—no right! I am furious, but more furious with myself for the trace of resignation I detect under the indignation. Inevitability does not mean capitulation. I stomp to the main room, my footsteps ringing.
'What the hell do--'
My voice chokes. V is by his piano, steel blade gleaming from his hand like the winking twinkle of an old friend. It knocks the breath out of me. It knocks my heart out of me, slamming it against my ribs.
'Evey?' He sounds surprised to see me, but it is clear he thinks nothing of it. 'What year is it?'
What ye-- what-- I can't think. I can't cry. The emotions are filling and swallowing me up inside so I am pulsing with thick joy and hollow with shock at the same time. I know I shouldn't, but something tears free from my throat anyway, a raw sound that articulates all I'm feeling more than any of my words can and I am running to him, skidding across the floor in my socks.
The last time I had done this he had caught me by the waist and held me so desperately and naturally that I had resented him for it. Now, the knife jerks between us and I'm forced to stop before I reach him. The need to touch him is so strong that I can't speak; I take a step forward, arms already half-raised.
'Evey?' Alarm makes his voice sharp, a warning. 'What's wrong? What's the matter?' He gives another swift glance behind him, wig splaying. He's checking for the reason why my face is strained when I am staring only at him. I want to cry and laugh and scream. V nods at me. 'What are you doing?'
The blade is level with my heart, unconsciously held; he does not lower it. I take a step closer, another.
'Where are you from?' I croak out. It comes out as a whisper, porcelain cracks within. 'How long, how long? How long more?'
V is silent for a moment. It drags on my nerves. 'The ninth of November, 2025 ,' he recalls at last. 'And I'm afraid I'm at a loss at what you mean.'
'God, V…'
My whole heart is in my voice. The knife's tip is biting into my skin now; I don't care. V jerks his head back slightly, then the mask tilts to the side, a question. I don't care, either. I don't care he doesn't care that I'm dying inside. He is here and I want to redefine mortality.
'What year is it?' His voice is irritable and eager and so richly right it hurts.
'2027. May.' The words blurt from my mouth, thoughtless. 'You're dead.'
Oh god. Realization seizes me. 'Wait, you're—the Fifth! The Fifth, V, you could stop it still, you don't have to--'
An impatient sound from the mask cuts me off. 'No! Not important. Is Sutler dead? Was Parliament destroyed?' His hunger is rabid, blindingly focused in the way I'd forgotten anyone could be. 'Did I finish it?'
'What? Did you hear what I—'
'Did I finish it?' His grip is suddenly bruising around my arm, the white mask gleaming close. Something must have changed in my face because he let go almost immediately, pulled back. When I try to catch his hand, he pulls away, distracted and terribly polite.
'I'm sorry, Evey, I don't have time. I can't stay lo—'
'I know,' I interrupt. My eyes are hot and dry; I stare straight at him through the mask-slits. I think it shakes him more than anything else so far. Good. Let him know I'm not the same girl who is waiting for him in the past. Who doesn't know him beyond a handful of days and bad propaganda, oh god. V. I miss you. Can't you see?
'Ah.' A puff of surprise. He joins the dots of my questions. 'A few minutes more, perhaps. I'm sure you realize the import of this time; it is more than mere fickle chance that I--'
'You would never tell me anything about the future,' I remind him, old bitterness lacing the words.
'This is different! Evey-'--my name is exhaled explosively—'Tell me—'
'You always knew you were going to die, weren't you?' I say quietly. Not accusingly, because I guess I've always known. I am aching, everywhere. And V will not let go of his knife.
'Yes! Good god, does it really matter? Tell me. I need to know. What happened?'
I've recovered enough to control my words now. 'It is better if you don't know anything, remember?' I throw his own back at him, dark with inexplicable frustration. 'The future is always beginning now.'
For a moment I am sure V is going to attack me, strangle the truth out of me; I am delighted. A thrill of something horrifying, like despair turned inside out. Realizing that V has not asked me anything about myself—my shaven head, why I'm here; he doesn't care. That this V is still far from loving anyone, from loving…
The tension heaves out of the room like a breath released and V is leaning back shakily, a palm heavy on the piano's surface.
'I suppose,' he says, more to himself than me, 'it is better…'
His voice is already fading with each word. Terror grips me from the back of my spine, shakes me to movement. 'Give me the knife,' I demand, my voice tight. V tilts his head but acquiesces after a breath. I throw the damned thing across the room and I can hear him draw a breath to voice his disapproval but already I am burying my head in his chest— breathing, living, real—, arms desperate around him like life itself, near hysterical— stay, please, please, stay—
'Evey,' V says, and his voice is almost gone now, surprise and time softening deadly intent, and it is so fast, it can't be so fast, he has barely arrived, he can't go now; 'What's wrong?' comes the fading echo, and it so stupid, so stupid…
'I miss you,' I gasp, and it is this fast: I look up, reach up to pull his head down and suddenly I am sprawled across the baby grand's surface, scrambling for balance.
He has gone, again. I am alone, again.
V is still dead.
My stomach heaves. The dry-heave leaves my throat burning, I squeeze my eyes so tight I'm dizzy from the effort. And I am—I am so angry at that goddamned bastard, that selfish man, for leaving me all over again, for not—living—I still don't like you, I don't…
After a while, the shudders stop. I get up, and collect the clothes and mask on the floor. Bunch the fabric between my fingers for a bit, savoring the phantom warmth. It is fading fast enough that everything could have been my imagination, my old grief, if not for the ache starting at the back of my neck.
A killer's reflex: V had gripped me there when I'd thrown myself at him. It will bruise pebble-grey to match the scar on my elbow. Here, an inch from love. Here, an inch from death. Here is V, setting me free and never letting me go. Here, the most insidious prison of all. You're dead. Come back.
I leave the clothes folded on the bed, the mask neatly atop. Lock the cell door from inside before closing it, as per instructed so long ago. Steady, and calm. I even finish cleaning the room I'd started on this morning—a lifetime ago— without so much as a knocked vase, without so much as a killing thought.
It is only when my fingers slip wetly when I reach over to pick up the knife that I realize I've been crying all along.
