Title: Material Culture
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: PG-13 for some kissing and some explosions
Summary: Every object has significance. The goal of study is to determine what it is. (Finch/Dominic)
Disclaimer: 'V for Vendetta' belongs to Alan Moore and David Lloyd. The theatrical version of the story belongs to Warner Brothers, the Wachowski brothers, and possibly a few other brothers. I don't own any of it, am not a brother, and write this solely for my own pleasure.
oOo oOo Music oOo oOo
It was like a dream, just letting Miss Hammond throw the switch. He could have stopped her, but he knew his place in history. More than that, he knew what would happen if that damnable building didn't go up that night: the military would open fire on the crowd, and that couldn't happen. For history's sake it couldn't happen. For the sake of any future he might hope for it couldn't.
He let her throw the switch. He let her take him by the arm and lead him up to the rooftop, a serene goddess with a shaved head and the look of a woman who has already passed through the storm. She spoke softly over the explosions and the music. She spoke of people he hadn't heard of and a message he understood: it didn't matter who V was in the end. He was, and maybe always had been an idea. Now there was a sea of him below, and somewhere in that sea was Dominic. Parliament was a heap of rubble. The crowd still stood. After a while, he left Miss Hammond to her own memories on the roof and went down. Maybe in a year or so, provided he made it through this with his skin intact, he would visit her again. Maybe he would take Dominic along. Maybe she would wear a blue dress and serve them both whiskey and the room would be filled with the smell of Scarlet Carsons. Maybe the world would turn and things would indeed get better for everyone.
He stepped out into the street. There were hundreds of people there, masks still on or just in their hands. He passed through them and they were too caught up to notice or recognize him. He walked through the throng toward the Parliament. He didn't have a hope of finding Dominic, but wasn't hope what this whole exercise had been about in the first place? Dominic was a brash man, for all his years on the force. He'd be near the blast radius. He couldn't resist.
When Finch got close to the front he stood and just watched the crowd. Some stood in mute remembrance, but others were beginning to cheer, or dance, or celebrate. A few of the soldiers had joined them. Others stood, looking around as though they, like he, worried that they would be lost in such a strange new world.
The crowd would break apart in celebration soon enough. He wouldn't find Dominic that night. He turned to make his way back to his home. It was a distance, but he felt like a walk. He felt like thinking over what his options might be, and how best to go about the business of being a copper when he, like so many, represented a fallen regime.
He didn't get the chance to think about any of that. Dominic stood right in front of him, a smile tugging at his lips. He looked ridiculous in his cheap black cape, with a hat in one hand and a Guy Fawkes mask in the other. "I thought we said tomorrow, Inspector," he said, his tone light.
Finch shrugged. "I just stood by and watched a tiny, bald slip of a girl blow up Parliament. Tomorrow seemed a bit far away."
Dominic's smile could light up the whole square. His mask and hat fell to the ground when they reached for one another. They were kissing and clinging in the middle of a massive crowd in a public square. No one cared.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
Finch's questions are answered, of course. In time, they are both questioned, avoid public trials thanks to a few quiet words from Miss Hammond, who points out that her revolution would not have happened without the acquiescence of Chief Inspector Finch. That, combined with the rather embarrassing footage of the two of them kissing before the fallen Parliament, and they become too difficult to convict. There are a few months of bureaucratic dithering, and they are quietly demoted. Finch settles back to being a DI, and Dominic is once again his DS. The new Super and the new Chief Inspector are revolutionaries, both, and tend to lump the two ranking remnants of the past with all the worst cases. Finch doesn't mind. Makes him a bit nostalgic, really, to be stuck with poor hours, bad cases, and Dominic getting soused on the couch once more.
Two years to the day after Parliament went up, and he finds himself fulfilling a half-promise made that night. He knocks on a door, Dominic in tow, and Miss Hammond lets them into her home. She's wearing a blue dress.
The sun shines brightly through the windows, and it catches on shelves upon shelves of previously censored books. Miss Hammond's hair has grown back, and it haloes her face in curls. She has a great box of Scarlet Carsons growing in her window. Dominic fidgets at Finch's shoulder when she invites them to sit, but Finch knows this has to happen. Everything has to come full circle.
When they're seated, she gives them tumblers of whiskey. Finch closes his eyes against the familiarity. He doesn't know how to square this with his understanding of reality, but he can accept that it has happened and move on.
"We wanted to thank you," he says. "We would have lost our jobs, and probably gone to prison, if you hadn't spoken for us."
Miss Hammond is holding her own tumbler, and he remembers Delia with a pang that will never truly fade. "I don't know," she says, "I think you would have done all right without me."
Dominic snorts. When did he become the more practical of them? "How do you figure that?" he asks. "They were looking for any excuse to make examples of us."
She looks at him, and Dominic squirms. People do that around Miss Hammond. She has an air of the untouchable to her, something divine. She smiles at Dominic then, and it's something full of secrets and understandings. She crosses to an old, battered jukebox set up against the wall. "Tell me, Inspector Stone," she says, "do you enjoy music?"
She presses a button, but the 1812 Overture doesn't play. Instead, a soft, plaintive love song fills the room, smoky and quiet and terribly sad, but filled with hope. She turns away from the jukebox, a smile on her face. It's the instant Finch has been waiting for, the instant that he hasn't been able to get out of his head, when Evey Hammond, at peace with the world, turns and comes over to sit with him.
"Are you going to answer my question?" Dominic asks.
"I already have," she says.
Finch lays a hand on Dominic's knee to still his questions. Dominic understands, of course, but he likes the simplicity of a confession. Miss Hammond sips her whiskey and watches them over the rim of her tumbler. Finch leaves his hand where it is.
The world has turned.