Disclaimer: I don't own V for Vendetta or any of its characters. See the original chapter for a complete set of warnings. (As for this particular chapter, certain information stated in the authors notes and disclaimers directly apply). IE: I don't own the rights to the text relating to Valerie's letter.

Warnings: This is a story that connects to the movie-verse version of V for Vendetta. It is meant to carry on post movie ending. It revolves around my own interpretations of the movie (not the graphic novel). It is a Finch-centeric fic, with Finch/Dominic slash. So, in others words, there shall be in some shape or form, man on man happy time. Not your cup of tea? I suggest you pass it by. Still with me? Fabulous!

Words will Always Retain their Power

Chapter 4 –"Accipere quam facere praestat injuriam"

It was only after he had showered and forced down a few mouthfuls of some questionable looking take out scrounged from the depths of his fridge that he sat down on the couch with a generous measure of scotch, and finally let himself bring out that delicate roll of paper.

The moment felt provincial, and decidedly auspicious in its sincerity. Something that he knew was absolute tosh, as he had yet to read even a single word of the bloody thing. Though he'd be damned if he couldn't shake the feeling..

"I know there's no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks, but I don't care. I am me. My name is Valerie. I don't think I'll live much longer, and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography that I will ever write and God, I'm writing it on toilet paper…"

After only the first few lines he found that despite the terrible nature of the words scrawled across the page in front of him, he knew he couldn't look away. The words were too raw, too powerful and too desperate to ignore. And despite all his efforts to pace himself it seemed as though all too quickly he was entirely immersed in the cramped, yet surprisingly neat handwritten script. It seemed as though every letter had been painstakingly written, like the author had been overly conscious not only of her limited space, but of the short time she had in which to write it.

And as he read, his tumbler of scotch breathed into obscurity on the side table. All thoughts of a soothing drink while he read left abandoned and forgotten on the sidelines of his conscious thought. Not even noticing when his mobile, already pointedly muted and tossed carelessly atop across his abandoned suit jacket, began vibrating insistently.

"…But I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free."

Something thick and painful rose in his throat. And for a moment he couldn't see for the flashes of memories that flickered across the surface of his minds eye. This woman… this Valerie had been right. In the end ones integrity and self worth, regardless of the situation or circumstance you may find yourself in, was something you could always lay claim to. It was uniquely yours to do with what you willed. Only with the coming of Norsefire, things such as ones authenticity and personal principles became dangerous. He had seen whole families die for it, because of it. And now it seemed as though no one told the truth anymore, not even to themselves...A crime in which he knew he was all too guilty.

"I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like 'collateral' and 'rendition' became frightening, while things like 'Norsefire' and the 'Articles of Allegiance' became powerful. I remember how 'different' became dangerous. I still don't understand it, why they hate us so much.."

The hand not gently clutching the fragile piece of paper curled into a tight fist, his fingers digging viciously into the crumpled fabric of the armrest as he sought to control the force of his rising emotions. His mouth firmed into a hard slash that cut across the span of his face like an open wound, unrepentant and angry as nervous tension vibrated up the long length of his thighs, quivering just under the skin as he forced himself to remain still. The heady silence punctuated only by the sound of the age warped paper quivering lightly in his grip.

And while no outward expression appeared on his face, just beneath the surface he fought to keep something baser, something snarling from the darkened shadows that existed beyond the confines of his conscious thought from breaking free.

Instinctively, some long forgotten part of himself even recognized it. It was something that had remained dormant for far too long, something that had turned poisonous and almost demented with the passing of the years. In the past it had always been something he had been able pacify, controlling such untoward emotions under an iron band of logic, rational thought, and a healthy sense of self preservation.

Until now that is..

Because now that there was no longer a government to fear, a fallacy to uphold, or a party line to toe he found that he could barely hold himself in check. And that fact alone scared him more then the government, in all their petty cruelty and merciless acts of injustice ever had..

Control was one of the only things he had left. He couldn't ..

He felt locked in place, his thick fingers curling around the brittle paper like a drowning man does to a lifeline, utterly besieged by the ferocity of his own thoughts. And as his emotions churned deep and undeniably powerful in his gut, rising threateningly in his throat like bile, he couldn't help but feel a small twang of fear.

Fear of himself. But perhaps more pointedly, his fear that after having repressed so much of himself and what he felt for so long, that he might have lost the ability to cope with such violate feelings entirely.

"…It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for three years I had roses and apologized to no one…"

He wondered suddenly, despite the pain building in his fist, nails digging deeply into the flesh of his palm, if he had ever seen this Valerie. Had they ever walked past each other on the street? Stood together in line at the market? Had she ever come into the station? He wondered what she looked like.. She would be beautiful, she sounded beautiful.

It was the most surreal and horribly illuminating moment of his entire life. And suddenly he felt as though he was back at Larkhill, feeling the exact same way he had standing admist the crumbled mortar and twisted metal slats. Entirely overwhelmed by the brute force of the terrible realization he had made.

And much like then he had no other way of describing it other then to say that he felt remarkably as though he was drowning. And worse, the growing suspicion that he had only himself to blame.

"I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us."

He was momentarily startled from his thoughts when a small drop of liquid blossomed across the delicate missive, encasing the last few words in a grey, lead tinted blur. Baffled he shifted place, the worn fabric of his trousers chaffing roughly across the sharp points of his knees as his aching limbs sought a more comfortable position in the well broken in arm chair.

But his discomfort only grew as another droplet quickly followed after the first. He was so unused to the sensation that it didn't even occur to him until a few seconds later as he felt the droplets start to course in tandem down his stubble roughened cheeks that he was crying.

Jesus bloody Christ..

It was more then a single drop this time. And in that way alone it seemed more then he could bear. In vain he tried to stop it, looking up at the ceiling, and blinking the damning moisture away. Desperately willing himself to pull it together and get a hold of himself. But it didn't work. Instead, all he could hear save for the damning nature of Valerie's words was a dull but growing roar building between his ears. It was a sound that he couldn't escape from, there was no corner in which he could hide or distraction to keep the reality of it at bay, because much like Valerie's words, the sound didn't come from the outside, it came from within..

The skin around his eyes felt tight, the bizarre sensation making it feel as though his eyes were suddenly far too big for his face. His vision fluttered alarmingly as static buzzed along the edges of his sight, shuttering on and off like a buggered up telly even as he shook his head in an effort to clear it. Yet despite this, he swiped at his face angrily, unsure if he was angry at himself or by what he was reading. But when the edges of his shirt sleeves came back damp and sodden through with tears, he figured that it might just be both.

..God..he had forgotten what it felt like to let himself cry..

"I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns, and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you. - Valerie."

The silence was palpable. All he could hear above the stillness was the painfully ragged edges of his own breathing. And for an ageless moment he simply sat there, fingers going loose and shell shocked around Valerie's unfurled letter.

He didn't..No he couldn't…He just..

With a sound more suited to that of a wild animal, a wordless yell tore up from his throat, his glass of scotch going flying from the side table, backhanded into oblivion by a vicious, angry swipe of his hand. Its progress hindered abruptly and quite violently as it smashed into the wall across from him, splinting with a deafening as glass shards flew everywhere, propelled across the room with the sheer force of the motion. The rich liquid painting the walls with a sick, honey-like hue as it dripped sluggishly down the olive painted wall, sinking thickly into the carpeting even as he kicked himself to his feet.

He tasted copper as his teeth sunk viciously into his lower lip, pacing the length of the room. Once…Twice… And then again.

He couldn't take this. He just couldn't. He didn't know what to do, how to stop it…

And suddenly, despite the tears that were still running steadily down his cheeks, tears that for the life of him he couldn't seem to stop, he realized that the thick, viscous feeling tightening like an iron vice in his chest, threatening to choke off his very breath, was anger.

.. Anger.

But it wasn't like any form of anger he had ever known. It was overpowering, toxic, and it flowed through his veins like liquid napalm, noxious and deadly. It radiated from within, burning him. It was too much. And he couldn't stop it.

Blimey..He didn't even want to stop it.

He was angry for all the Valerie's and Ruth's, for all the Gordon Deitrich's, V's, Dominic's, and even for all the Evey's. He was angry for all the countless thousands of stories that he would never get the chance to hear. He was angry for the families torn apart, for the love that had been trampled down, robbed, and squandered.

He was angry for himself..and at himself..

God..he thought he could die from it. Die from all this poison. This hate. He had never felt the equal to it in all his life. He didn't know what to do with it! He felt…He felt…

And all of a sudden, like a lightening bolt to the brain, as he stood there in the center of his living room, the scent of upset scotch rising tangy and acidic in his nostrils, he realized that he understood.

Because it in that sudden, gloriously horrifying moment he finally understood everything. Before he had had all the facts, he could more or less piece it all together, from the hard evidence they did have and the allusions he had been able to make on his own. But what he had been missing was the emotion, the one thing that would enable him to understand the true cause of this entire sordid affair.

For the first time in over three hundred and sixty five days he finally understood why…He knew why V had done it. Why it had happened…Why England had been spurred on towards the change it so desperately needed.. Only now that he knew, now that he knew it all, he didn't know if he could stand it.

It felt remarkably as though everything he had gleaned at Larkhill, everything that had happened in the past year.. No..in the past twenty seven years since Norsefire had come to dominate England's political spectrum had descended upon him all at once, suffocating him under the sheer weight of the years and the injustices which had accompanied them.

They were all part of it…and all trapped by it. All still trapped by it..Trapped by themselves. Trapped by the weight of those long crushing years..

And it all played out in his minds eye, flickering past his unseeing eyes like an old fashioned movie reel. The clarity sullied by an ever growing haze of damning crimson, utterly and completely inescapable in its sullen veracity.

…A plot of painstakingly tended Scarlet Carsons growing out of an apartment window box. Somehow inexplicably thriving despite the constantly overcast nature London's iconic skyline…

..Sutler speaking at a political rally, bracketed on all sides by his parties swirling red and black banners, his supporters cheering with zealous abandon as he raised his fists into the air. His hateful, virulent words echoing out through the city streets like gunshots..

..The day that movies such as 'Aimee & Jaguar', 'A Beautiful Thing', 'Brokeback Mountain', and 'The Salt Flats' were stripped from store shelves all across the United Kingdom. The gaps quickly filled with government approved drivel and other family oriented media..

..Him staring into the depths of his fireplace, watching as the flames ignited the piles of photographs and papers, systematically destroying everything he was before the dawn of Norsefire. Ignoring the sound of his phone ringing, tinny and insistent in the background as the rim of a cheap bottle of Scotch flirted with the edge of his lips as he downed one choking mouthful after another, desperate for the warm, numbing escape the brew inevitably provided.

…The destruction of Larkhill, and the inhuman yell of a man standing admist the wreckage. Roaring his terrible, unavenged anger and defiance out into the unassuming night sky, drowning out the cries and screams of the others until all that could be heard above the crackling roar of the crumbling brick and flame was that single, seemingly unstoppable sound.

…Deliha hurling her journal clear across the span of a lonely, one room apartment, anguished screams ripping up from her delicate throat as the news broadcasts reeled damningly across the screen, the responsibility for the deaths of nearly a hundred thousand people falling like stone weights across her thin, bird-like shoulders.

…Forcing himself to endure the nights he now spent alone after the coming of Norsefire. Trying to rationalize the decision to himself each and every evening when he returned home to an empty house. Eventually coming to the realization that when he did, he had scant to look forward too but a growingly common measure of midnight scotch and the hope that the criminals of London would allow him the common decency of a full nights sleep. Knowing full well that even if they did, there would be nothing there to greet him save for the stale, lingering scent of himself among his unmade sheets…

..The day Dominic appeared in his office for the first time. A cocky grin splayed clear across his handsome face as laughing brown eyes watched his every move, glinting with half veiled humour. As if the younger man knew something that he did not..

..The helpless frustration that broiled just under the surface every time friend, or colleague turned up missing, lost under the suffocating darkness of one of Creedy's damnable black hoods, effectively wiping them off the face of the earth…

…The first time he could recall hearing Dominic laugh. Coming across him in the station's lobby one day virtually surrounded by a gaggle of his extended family, as holding his youngest niece in his arms, and chuckling happily at something the little red haired cherub had said. Their heads bowed together in comedic confidence as her tiny little fingers tangled in his suspender straps, playing curiously with the edges of his silver detective badge as Dominic had hurried to make introductions…

..The feelings going through his mind when he had whirled in place, boot heels screaming across the immaculate marble floors just in time to see Dominic plunge from the ladder, the gunshot echoing perversely through the empty halls..

…Curfew lights flashing as night fell, yet another method of control in an already suffocating society..

..Dominic leaning over his computer chair, brushing shoulders companionably with him as they skim read the latest evidence report on their current case. The younger man not even seeming to notice when their jacket sleeves tangled together. Neither of them pulling away or even so much as shifting in discomfort when the bare skin of their wrists accidentally brushed together. Electricity sparking all the way down to his fingertips as he felt the hairs on the man's arm hush across the sensitive skin of his wrist in a heady, thrilling rush.

..The Old Bailey exploding in the early morning hours of the fifth, destroyed without even a hint of warning. With Dominic's name being the first to flash across the screen of his call display mere moments after the fireworks subsided, having to yell to be heard overtop Tchaikovsky's full bodied overture..

..The blinding sheen of the BTN's over waxed floors glinting in the background as Dominic yelled in pain, whirling in place as Evey's mace hit him squarely between the eyes. The butt of his USP Compact slamming across her delicate skull with a sickening crack..

..Evey Hammonds pretty face flashing across the Interlink, plastered across every surface of the station, adorning every planning board, and every wanted poster in every government office around the city. The entire city caught in an uproar as the mocking porcelain face of Guy Fawkes smirked out from the surveillance footage like the spectre of an age long since past.…

…The familiar, yet enticing way Dominic smelled when he arrived for work in the mornings, breezing through the office doors in a fascinatingly complex cloud of cologne, favoured coffee, dryer lint, and the more subtle, natural musk that always seems to herald that of uninhibited masculinity.

…The sight of Sutler's perpetually sulking face barely peeking out from the partially covered canvas of 'God save the Queen' as Creedy's Fingermen logged the piece as evidence taken from Gordon Deitrich's house at the station. No one daring to crack even so much as the slightest of smirks as they stalked grimly past..

…The horror he had felt as the gross headlines of tragedies and atrocities long since past flashed across his computer screen. The most horrifying realization of his entire career reflecting unapologetically back at him from the screen of his desktop, as if daring him to say that he hadn't half suspected it all along…

…The look on Dominic's face when he kicked the rubbish bin clear across the office floor, burning with unchecked resentment after V's impersonation of Rookwood had been revealed..

…Day three hundred as it dawned, finding Dominic hovering quietly over their abused little coffee maker, looking unaccustomedly subdued after yet another night spent buried under a mound of growingly obvious dead ends. Dark circles glowing like shallow bruises underneath his tired brown eyes. For once, they nearly matched..

…The sight of Chancellor Sutler growing increasingly irate and irrational as the months flew swiftly past, screeching vehemently at them through the Council Interlink when all they had to report were dead ends and the revival of already over discussed strategies..

…The sight of Dominic looking back at him through the dim light of the Underground, a swath of grease and dirt smudged clear across the span of his right cheek. Desperately trying to ignore the way his fingers had itched to lean over and wipe it away as they searched the tunnels by torch light only two weeks before the fifth, still playing on his 'hunch'..

…An elaborate set of dominos falling, echoing deafeningly across a cold stone floor, each one falling louder then the one that preceded it. Growing until you couldn't separate the sound of each individual piece as it fell, encompassed by the overwhelming roar of the whole..

…Boot heels flying as he jumped across the uneven length of the subway tracks, chasing the faint sound of gunshots as they echoed into the night, rolling through the Underground like thunder…

…Big Ben slowly chiming, counting down the last seconds before midnight. Feeling strangely aware of the way the metallic chill of the USP Compact had warmed in his palm, sending spider-like tendrils of heat up through his fingers, the sensation somehow combating the noted midnight chill that permeated the underground even as he rounded the last corner and spilled out into the brightly light subway station.

…The feelings that had overtaken him when he had faced down Evey Hammond through the open door of the trolley, V laid out to rest in the background admist a sea of long stemmed roses. But perhaps more importantly, the feelings roaring through his brain the moment where he had slowly lowered his gun and knowingly allowed the world to change..

..Thoughts of Dominic and the future milling through his mind as he stood alone once again on his own front steps, watching a dark haze rise where Parliament had once stood, its absence standing out like a gaping would across the urban skyline…

…The feeling of that thin little scroll brushing across his calloused palms as the elusive, phantom-like voice of a woman he had never met, a woman he would never meet echoed in his exhausted ears..

Sweet Christ!

And then, just when he thought he might finally cop out of it all entirely, lost under the all consuming weight of emotions that threatened to erase everything he was, everything he had left save for the hate and the anger, he did something that he had never done in his entire adult life…

With a feral, cut off yell infused with all the anger, fear, self loathing, and every other emotion he had no way of adequately expressing, he hauled back and threw his fist into his living room wall.

His world imploded into a kaleidoscope of razor sharp pin pricks of light, with pain riding on the coat tails of an almost perverse sense of pleasurable relief as his hand broke through the plaster and sunk up to the wrists in a fluttering cloud of pulverized paint chips. The pain centered him, bringing him back to himself in a slow, all inclusive rush that was mottled with a million other tired emotions that lanced up from his fist and back into his mind.

It felt like punishment, like redemption, like a release… Like it was what he deserved.

He didn't know why, but the pure ferocity of the action calmed him almost immediately. And despite the angry throb splintering up from his hand he realized that for some daft reason he felt..better, better then he had in a long time.

In fact, he couldn't even bring himself to regret it.

Breathing hard, he finally let it go, letting the tension bleed out from his limbs like toxins draining from a gangrenous wound. He remained where he was, slumped against the wall with his fist still engulfed, wrist deep in broken plaster and paint. He felt strangely aware of that fact that his other palm had spread, spider-like across the cool surface wall against his forehead, seeking out the soothing chill as his mind whirled, bearing the brunt of his churning, turbulent emotions.

Had this whole year unhinged him completely? Did he even care if it had?

He didn't know what he was supposed to feel anymore. He felt so much, yet understood so little of what he did feel. He almost wished that he would never feel again. But yet at the same time, as he looked down at the note in his hands, the words 'I love you. With all my heart, I love you..' just visible from around the protective curve of his fingers, he knew that he could never truly feel enough. And that he should never wish for anything otherwise. She never had.. Even at the end of things, Valerie had never begrudged herself that. Despite the consequences she had still felt, still loved.

She had had her inch.

And as if to impress that point further, his fist gave a reproachful little throb from somewhere within the mangled hole that now adorned his previously immaculate living room wall. The depression being somewhere close to chest height in orientation and easily viewable by anyone who might chance a look up the flight of stairs that led from his front door.

But it didn't matter. He wasn't hiding anymore.

He shook his head, unable to help himself when he started chuckling weakly at his own foolishness. The sound was rusty and soft, but there nonetheless, rolling up from his throat in a refreshing burst of sound. Was this where all his years of restraint and carefully maintained control had gotten him? Stuck with his fist slammed clear through his living room wall?

..Figures..

Perhaps it was time to stop reminding himself of all the reasons why he shouldn't, why he couldn't do and act the way he saw fit. And at the very least, begin trying to work towards the things that he wanted. It was his life after all, and his to do with what he wished.

A fact he had apparently forgotten somewhere along the way..

It was time to put an end to this almost three decade long saga. Because if he had learned anything today it was that to live your life afraid to love, whether that be love towards yourself or towards others, was almost as heart breaking as having that love torn away. And while he could only speak for himself, he knew that he had had his fill of living in fear! He had had his fill of censoring his own thoughts and his own damn desires simply for the sake of this marcibre charade, for the sake of survival.

..It really was remarkable how the act of blowing up a single building could suddenly change everything..

He felt remarkably as though after an agonizing twenty seven year wait, that he could finally breathe again. Christ. He felt unstable. Jittery with exhausted energy even as a sense of something close to peace descended over him, soothing him in a way that a tumbler of scotch, for all it's numbing euphoria could never equal.

..It felt like he was finally ready to start living again.

Schooling his breathing he slumped even further across the cool expanse of narrow olive coloured wall, letting his forehead rest against the smooth, tapered texture as he soaked up the chill greedily. Desperate for anything to soothe the acrid burn still burbling in his gut, the noxious anger slowly drained away, leaving him bereft of the sudden adrenaline that had coursed through his veins, burning through him like gasoline set alight.

There was so much to think about..

Every breath was an effort but he forced himself to straighten; rocking back on his heels for a long moment as he slowly regained his balance. Hefelt as though he had hit a plane of sensation that existed far beyond the realm of simple exhaustion. Feeling physically and emotionally wrecked by emotions he hadn't let himself truly experience in god only knows how long.

Bleedin' Christ.. He felt like he had been blindsided by a lorry.

And as he gingerly pulled his fist from the wall, ignoring the crimson smears that pockmarked the ragged edges, and the pulverized bits of drywall and paint dust that fluttered heavily through the air like paper rain; he swore that he could still smell gunpowder…

Glossary: Chapter title is Latin for: "It is better to suffer an injustice than to do an injustice."

A/N #1: Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! If you took time to read it, please tell me how you found it. This is how I go about improving my writing.

A/N #2: Expect Dominic in present time in the next chapter. FINALLY. YES. I know. I totally got distracted with plot, which in probably not a bad thing either… My muse is suspenseful old lady, I swear.