Verification (3)
A heartbeat. That was the first thing V remembered, his first flash of real consciousness.
The second was his forearm, crusted over with red and white pustules and other morbid anomalies. It didn't hurt, oddly enough – as a matter of fact, he felt vaguely numb all over except for a few patches on his face which ached indeed. He stared at the arm in morbid fascination, turning it over to examine his hands and the soft flesh of his inner wrist, and found the underside to be slightly less scarred. Further inspection showed the same red and white pattern along most of his right side, with patches of black in some of the really nasty-looking spots. His left side, though shielded somewhat from the blast, didn't escape unscathed either – he was now a patchwork of scars, weals, and mangled tissue – like an especially gruesome ragdoll.
Slowly he forced himself to sit up, and found two more surprising things: one, that he was naked (it wasn't the issue of being nude so much as the issue of being nude and not being caught) and two, he still had eyelashes. How in the world did he still have eyelashes? In the process of peering through them he also noticed the sky, the beautiful flash of peach-coloured sunset on the English countryside and the parting of the rainclouds that poured down on him earlier and thought about it all – his freedom, its price, and his God in the Rain. This was a benevolent God, and he'd just been usurped in a glorious, celestial revolution that was lighting up the sky.
He felt a loss, inside, to see the God go, especially after all that had just occurred… the third memory of that time was the wonder and sadness at feeling tears catch in his eyelashes, blurring the reds and oranges of the sunset.
For a long time after she'd walked Eric Finch out of the Gallery, Evey sat in the near darkness and studied V. The door was cracked open – partially out of curiosity on Evey's part, and out of deference for the man lying on the bed, fitfully sleeping. She'd seen his face already, once, at St. Catherine's, and the memory stuck with her. Evey would never tell V this, of course, but in the dimness of the room she fancied she could still make out the curve of his jaw, the shiny scars of his cheeks and forehead, and the shadow of his eyelashes.
The thought of V's face – the man behind the mask, as it was – forced her stomach to twist into knots. It was like peeking into a secret diary, or divulging a secret, a broken pact between them, one of their last remaining barriers shattered down in a rush of IV needles and harried doctors. Eric – Finch – had seen it too, of course, though he was a cop, and they were as a rule better at hiding their surprise at the world around them. Finch had left without mentioning the gross invasion of privacy, which she was grateful for; she felt guilty enough as it was, and didn't want or need him adding to it.
Nevertheless, she could still picture his eyes, wide and frightened at the trauma she had just put him through. V, frightened – it was a thought she couldn't even fathom, and she'd even seen it. Twice now, as a matter of fact, except the latter time she'd seen it without the face of Guy Fawkes overshadowing.
If the thought scared her, she couldn't even imagine what it would do to V. She trembled in the darkness of the room, and tried to turn her thoughts onto sunnier paths.
V had hazel eyes. Hazel eyes with lashes, because he'd thrown his arms up protectively at the explosion and saw the world through unmarred eyes, she mused, before catching and mentally chastising herself. At least, that's what she supposed as they rushed him into surgery to remove the bullets. Why she was thinking of his eyes of all things, she couldn't fathom – she should have instead been worrying about his wounds or even his very survival, but a pair of green and brown irises plagued her thoughts, and she craved to see them uncovered again.
The quirk of fate that were V's eyelashes bugged her, continuing to plague her thoughts until she walked away from the room in frustration to get a glass of water. She felt guilty about leaving him alone; Evey supposed that it was the inevitable buildup of nervous energy, and walking was better than fidgeting, at any rate. After a few minutes she settled down again, and tried to focus her thoughts on the man in front of her and his condition: fussing with his IVs, refilling the saline, and checking the dressings on his bullet wounds.
The saline was running out quickly, she noticed. She'd have to do something about that soon.
The bullets, interestingly, had played less of a role in V's dramatic fall than Evey and Finch originally guessed. They were hollow-points, a nasty sort of bullet with a small hole in the tip that expanded as the bullet rotated – a favorite of Creedy's men – but they had impacted with something hard on his torso and the worst of the volley was spared. They had never found that object, but on V's chest were a number of flesh wounds, nasty blue and red bruises, stark against the white of his skin. It was all rather patriotic, actually. The major damage was to his shoulders, arms, and legs – where the spray of bullets actually hit and left gaping exit wounds. Those made for quite the bloody, if not life-threatening, surgery and it would take a long while for those to heal up. But he would heal, and that was what mattered.
Except that he may never be able to throw his knives with the same precision, she thought suddenly, looking down at him. Or play the piano with the same amount of skill, or – and the thought was exhilarating – dip her when they waltzed to the Wurlitzer in the ways that he did. V would recover and he would be furious with her, she knew, when he woke up. Furious for not putting him on the train, for taking him to St. Catherine's, for letting the world (or at least half a dozen doctors, her, and Finch) see his scarred torso, arms, and legs.
God forbid he ever find out about his mask. That was something she doubted she could ever tell him.
"Fie!" V muttered, and the sound of it nearly made Evey jump out of her own skin. She watched him intently for a moment more, watched him as he grunted in his sleep and sounded out a few, unintelligible words. It reminded Evey that she hadn't slept in almost three days, but she wasn't tired. As a matter of fact she was tensed, ready and waiting for something to happen. As she set the water down next to him, she was taken with the sudden urge to get back up walk around some more. To the center of the gallery, to the vanity, to go outside – wherever.
If I had any sense, she thought grimly, staring at the prone man's form, I'd walk out of here entirely. Just… leave him to get up, which he will do, and never come back. She thought for a moment more, then decided that the main hall was far enough.
When she was a girl, Evey had a problem with pacing. It made the other girls nervous, she was told, but it was a hard habit to break. The feel of a rhythmic gait, the click of heels on a stony floor – there was comfort in its repetition, and so she ignored the supervisors at the group home she had stayed in and kept it up anyway.
Evey paced the hallway that night, from V's room to the other end, to the vanity over to the kitchen. She ignored the stacks of books and papers piling high with dust – to her, this was rest, only the active type. She didn't dare sleep, but thought instead of her responsibilities: keeping V alive, getting more saline, cashing in her food vouchers (if they were even good anymore), mending her costumes, laundry.
What have I become? a stray thought passing through her mind asked her, while coming up a shopping list. Nursemaid to a psychopath, becoming a psychopath... Evey blinked, still pacing.
When did introspection become so annoying? she asked herself nastily in return, pacing in front of a mirror. The reflection caught her eye, and she paused. She was wearing V's costume, and her face – which was pale and sleep-deprived and twisted into a frown – glared back at her, the angry counterpart to V's smirking leer. Evey drew a breath, surprised her own sight, and reached out tentatively to touch the mirror when from V's room when a voice – his voice – spoke from the other room.
The spell was broken. Evey fled.
At first, it was a flutter behind his eyelids, almost an itch that caused him to blink a few times and finally open his eyes. The rose smell still hung strong, but the music had stopped playing and the sliver of brightness at his door was now gone, bathing him in a warm, living, breathing darkness.
"Wha –" he croaked, before there was a commotion in the next room and something filled his room with light, putting a cool glass up to his lips and tipping water into his mouth. It was the most refreshing thing he'd ever had, better than any vintage or soft drink or shot of liquor. He swallowed, feeling the water slide down his throat and pass down into his stomach, then took another greedy sip.
"How do you feel?" a woman asked him. Evey, he knew, even though he couldn't see her.
"I – how…" he paused, at a temporary loss of words. There was a gap, somewhere, between the train station and the radio show and now.
"May I have some more water?" he croaked instead and Evey chuckled, then tipped the cup once again.