Hey guys! Sorry for the long(ish) wait but here's the next chapter! I've been quite busy these holidays as well as suffering bouts of non-motivation, but I've managed to pull myself together and write this part. So I'll just stop talking now and let you read. :D

VI

This is what Patrick tells me. It was because of his story that I didn't sleep very well that night, perhaps at all. I can remember nearly every word. I thought about what he had told me, and knew that he was in just as deep as I was.

Patrick, and his parents, were freedom fighters. His father was a graduate from Oxford and was a journalist, his mother had been homeschooled and worked as a waitress. After they got married, they moved to an ex-council flat in the middle of Belfast.

It was only a matter of years after Patrick was born, when the war started.

Patrick told me how one night, he woke up to find flyers posted everywhere in their street, advertising strict government policies. There were advertisements on television, reminding everyone of the latest rules and regulations, not without threatening people with torture or execution if the rules weren't obeyed.

He remembered how once, when he was about five years old, his parents had rushed into the house, dragging a large box filled with food, medicine, thin blankets and a generator behind them. They quickly bolted the door behind them, instructing Patrick to keep quiet. The lights were turned out, the curtains drawn, the house silent, except for the wail of sirens outside. Patrick and his parents huddled underneath the dining room table, his mother holding him tightly, his father tensed up, as if ready to hear the door bursting open, and uniformed men thundering into the house. For a whole week, they lived like this, dragging a single mattress under the table, and living off what was in the big box of supplies, until one morning, Patrick's father pulled the curtain ever so slightly, and saw the last black van driving away.

His father had given a long sigh of relief and hugged both his wife and Patrick, saying how lucky they were not to have been black-bagged and taken away. He said that God must have been on their side, and that was how they managed to survive the raid.

Little did they know at the time, that they were the only ones in the street who had survived.

Patrick remembered how his entire class had been forced to watch a live, public hanging one day at school. His teacher told them that the man who was executed was a 'ho-mo-sex-ual'. Patrick didn't know what that meant. In fact, he didn't know what any of it meant, until he saw the man's lifeless body dangling on the end of the rope, swaying slightly in the wind.

It seemed that at seven years old, it was never too late to learn what the head called, 'a few life lessons'.

As Patrick grew up, the wars between the government and the rebels raged on. People were beaten, Tasered, interrogated, tortured and killed in protests that broke out all over the place, especially in Belfast. His parents would have whispered, hurried discussions that stopped whenever he came into the room. But, of course, he wasn't oblivious to what was going on. It took a lot of time before he could convince his parents to let him join up. At last, at fourteen, he joined the ranks.

One night, Patrick was at home with his father, sitting at the window and keeping watch along the street, when he heard the back door slam, and his mother hurried into the room. Calmly and quietly, she informed them that they had to leave the country. The Hao family two doors down from them had been taken away in one of those black vans; a Chinese family with two little girls, both under the age of six. And she knew that it was only a matter of time before they got taken away, too.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Patrick and his family were on the plane from Belfast to London. For three months, they had lived here, trying to keep a low profile. Nobody took a second glance at them. But then, a couple of months ago, they saw V's televised speech on the news that night, and knew that this was their calling. And if V was indeed the one who destroyed the Old Bailey, then that was just the start. They had travelled up to Nottingham the day before I met Patrick on the train, intent on spreading the message around. When he and I were travelling, he was to join them at Nottingham to plan out the next move. Destroying the Galleries Of Justice Museum.

Evidently, the explosives he had been hiding in his backpack seemed to have let him down. And it seemed that that was how the Fingermen had known, on the train that night, who they were up against.

"What are you going to do now?"

Patrick ran a hand through his dark hair and looked at me. "What do ye mean? Whether to go to Nottingham or London?"

I nodded, casting a glance around the small motel room. "I have to go back to London." For V. And Evey.

He slowly shook his head. "I don't know, Vanessa. If I go to Nottingham, there's a chance that me parents might have been taken away. But if I go to London, they'll be likely be looking for the rest of us!" He looked at me, an unsettled expression on his face.

"You have to do what you think is right." I said quietly, wishing that I could say something, anything, to make the situation better.

For a few moments, he thought about it. I said nothing, watching the clock on the wall as the seconds ticked by. Finally, he raised his head, and looked at me again. "I'll go to Nottingham on the train. Me parents may even still be alive. I'll find them, and tell them what happened, and then…" He frowned. "Well, I don't know. We'll have to think of a new plan."

My gaze flickered to his unopened backpack. "What about that?"

"Might go and throw them on a heap somewhere. That would be a grand display." A faint smile crossed his face. "What will you do when you get back to London? They still think that you're missing?"

"Yeah. But I know what I'm going to do." Go back to the Shadow Gallery. Tell V and Evey all about it. Watch as V kills more people. "But if you ever feel the need to come to London, then…" My voice trailed off.

Without warning, Patrick suddenly took my hand. "Thanks for everything, Vanessa."

I gave him a brief smile. "See you when the war's over."

When I arrived back to London that afternoon, once more disguising myself as best I could, I was afraid that someone would recognize me. My stomach had been without food for what I calculated to be seventeen hours and fifteen minutes, and it was just starting to rain as I hurried down the stone steps and into the tunnel that would take me towards the Shadow Gallery. As my footsteps echoed in the dimly-lit tunnel, all I could think about was seeing V again, having my stomach filled, having a shower, going to bed.

I carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside, finding myself once again, in the main living room. "V?" I half whispered, for some reason thinking madly that maybe he'd been taken, outnumbered at last. "V?"

Then I saw him. He was sitting on the sofa watching a TV program, but quickly rose to stand when he saw me, the surprise in his voice evident. "Vanessa." He crossed the room towards me. "I thought you'd left."

"I just–I have to tell you–" My voice faltered. I looked up at the ceiling and saw the room begin to spin. The lights from the ceiling seemed to shine more brightly, enveloping me in a white light; the sound from the TV muted. "About what happened on the train, I mean….they nearly found me, but we escaped….."

And then, everything went black.

When I came to, I found myself lying on my bed. In my bedroom at the Shadow Gallery, with the drawing I had done of my mother still pinned on the wall. But that wasn't the only thing I noticed. The chest of drawers over in the corner appeared to have something in them. Carefully raising myself off the bed, I was surprised to see that all my clothes were there, neatly folded. My toothbrush, hairbrush and everything else were placed on top of a desk that I had never seen before, and even – oh my God – my old stuffed bear that I'd had since I was little, called Teddy. The only plausible explanation was that V had somehow broken into my room and got all my stuff for me. I wouldn't put it past him. He was a master in that department.

I winced, and touched a slight lump on my head from where I had fallen. It hurt. Hopefully V had a first-aid kit.

After I had had a quick shower and got dressed, I ventured down the hallway, towards the main room. My head whirled. I had a million questions to ask V. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen Evey since I had arrived back. She was probably asleep. When I saw her next, I'd tell here everything. She would understand. After all, she'd had to escape from them as well –

"Good morning, Vanessa. Do you feel better?"

I jumped, my head turning towards the sound of V's voice. He was dressed in his usual black attire, standing beside the sofa where half a dozen books were lying on the coffee table.

"Yeah, I do, thanks." I gazed at him, unsure where to start. "Where's Evey?"

"Gone." V said simply, meeting my gaze.

I was speechless, trying to put my thoughts into words. "What do you mean, gone?"

V spoke. "She has left of her own free will, and left in the middle of carrying out a mission to seek revenge on Bishop Lilliman." There was a trace of something in his voice, which I couldn't quite place. Anger? Or hurt?

Before I could say anything more, V gestured towards me. "I guarantee that we have much to talk about, Vanessa, so why don't we talk over French toast and a cup of coffee?"

The mention of food made my mouth start watering. Eagerly, I nodded. "I'd like that. And by the way, thanks for getting my stuff for me."

The dark eye holes in V's mask seemed to smile at me. "You're most welcome, my dear."

Between scarfing down a plate of hot French toast as though I hadn't eaten for years, rather than a day, and drinking a cup of hot coffee, I told V everything. How I had written and delivered the note to my mother, how I had disguised myself, how I had met Patrick on the train, then how the train had stopped and both Patrick and I had had a narrow escape. I recount everything that Patrick had told me, including how he had decided to go to Nottingham, to meet his parents there and continue with the rebellion. When I had finished talking, V didn't say anything for several long moments, as though he was trying to make sense of it all.

Then, it was his turn to talk.

When both he and Evey had found me gone, Evey had panicked. She had wanted to go and look for me, and he had had to reassure her that there was no danger. He knew that I would come back sometime (and, I thought with satisfaction, here I was). So they busied themselves with the next stage, which was Bishop Lilliman's murder. Evey was to play the role of a young girl, who was to be sent to the Bishop, who, being a paedophile, would think that she was an object to sexually abuse. It seemed as though Evey had told the Bishop that V was coming to kill him; halfway through, she panicked and ran away, he presumed, to the house of a man named Gordon Deitrich, Evey's boss and friend.

So, after laying a single rose next to the Bishop's body, V had broken into my house to get my clothes, then had come back here, awaiting my return.

There was something on my mind, troubling me. Something that I had wanted to know for a while, but was too scared to ask about. Evidently, V saw.

"What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "I want to ask you something, but I know it's a very personal matter. You don't have to tell me."

V inclined his mask. "Go on."

"What happened to you at Larkhill?" The words were out before I could stop them, barely above a whisper.

V sat still for a moment, gazing at something in the distance that only he could see. As if he was recalling an unwelcome memory, summoned from the past by my one question.

Then, he spoke, turning his gaze fully towards me. "I will tell you, Vanessa, not because you asked me, but because, in a way, you are very much like myself. We both strive for the same goals; for freedom, but also for truth and justice. Nobody else in your position could have been through what you have, and still have enough strength and courage to carry on. And these are truly great qualities to exist in a person."

I swore that I could see the dark eye holes in his mask glimmer, as if there was something behind there, looking right into the very depths of my soul.

"However, I must warn you, that what I am about to tell you is not for the faint-hearted. There is no reason as to why, or how these events have happened. There is only truth."

And then, V told me everything he can about Larkhill, beginning with the experiments. The only thing I could do is listen, unable to do or say anything to make the telling of the story any more bearable.

"Her name was Delia Surridge. Doctor Delia Surridge, one of the main people at Larkhill responsible for the experimentations on me. She tested a group of us with something called Batch Five, a type of artificial hormone injection. After a while, I could remember nothing about my past. Nothing about my true identity. Like a robot." V gave a bitter laugh. "I could feel nothing, but even so, I took notice of everything around me. Doctor Surridge said that my personality was magnetic, that my mind was warped. Over time, the experimentation gave me increased strength and reflexes, and an expanded mental capacity that I indeed used to my advantage. All of the other prisoners died, but I was the sole survivor. The man from Room Five."

I listened, in a fascinated horror, as V told me about his 'gardening project'. How, along with growing Violet Carson roses and crops for the camp officials, he managed to stealthily create explosives out of ammonia-based fertilizer, arranging them in geometric patterns on the cell floor. Then, he told me what happened on the night of November the Fifth, after he detonated the explosives, setting the whole camp ablaze. As he spoke, I saw the same things he saw that night, heard the things he heard. The sound of the blast that shattered the windows. The smell of burning, ash and horror. The terrified screams of the camp officials.

I saw the man from Room Five, a dark silhouette emerging from the orange flames that burned behind him. He looked at Delia Surridge as she cowered from the flames; this woman who had used him as a scientific experiment. And in the midst of the flames that burned and scarred their way along his body, the heat and the ash, and the hatred he felt towards those who, in some ways, had damaged him beyond repair, he screamed, lifting his arms up as power surged into his veins.

Oh, he would find a way to get revenge on them for what they did to him. Now, it seemed that he very nearly had.

Mission accomplished.

OK, well that was a bit darker than I'd set out for, but maybe that's a good thing? What did you think of Patrick's story? Reviews are always welcome (but please don't flame me. Even though that was what V did at Larkhill). But that's V - what did you expect? Next part up as soon as I can!