Author's Notes: Ok, my dear readers, this story has just one more chapter to go and then it will finally be done. It's hard to believe that I started this story three and a half years ago and that at long last, it's coming to a close. I will be trying my darnedest to get that last chapter written and posted as soon as I can. As always, a big thank you to all of you who have stuck with me this far.
"FREEZE!" Dominic orders the dark figure in front of him. "Get your hands on your head! Do it now or I'll shoot!"
"I must say I'm rather astonished by the response time of London's finest," V calmly states as he places his hands on his head and slowly turns around. "I hadn't quite expected you to be so Johnny on the spot."
"We were here before you even got started," Dominic smugly tells him and while V keeps his face pointed towards the detective, he can see Evey stealthily coming down the hallway towards them. "Bad luck, chummy."
"Oh, I don't know about that," V replies with an amused purr.
Before Dominic can say anything, he feels someone tap him on the shoulder and turns to see who it is. He gets a snoot full of pepper spray for his carelessness and he instinctively strikes out at his attacker. He doesn't get the satisfaction of seeing his attacker taken out of the fight as he mouth, nose and eyes all feel like they're on fire.
V spins the detective around and barely manages to pull his punches in time to only knock the man out instead of killing him. He stands over the prone man, surprised by the rage within him and then he looks over at Evey. It feels as if a hand is squeezing his heart and he goes to stand over her, bewildered by these feelings.
He watches the gentle rise and fall of her ribs, assuring himself that she's still alive and he feels the constriction around his heart lessen. Still confused by these strange emotions as he looks at her and then reality butts itself back into his awareness. Before anyone else can do something stupidly heroic, he carefully lifts Evey up into his arms and quickly leaves Jordan Tower.
Once he reaches the safety of the Shadow Gallery, only then does he allow his guard to relax. He immediately heads for Audrey's old room and he's eternally glad that he never got around to converting it back into a storage area. He sets his precious cargo down on the bed and briefly admires the way light plays across her honey colored locks.
He gives himself a mental shake and then goes off to get a cold compress for the growing lump on her forehead. As soon as he takes care of her injury, eternally grateful that it's just a bump to the head and not another bullet wound, he leaves her to rest. He heads towards the source of sound that he feels can give him relief to his sudden surge of emotions for this girl and randomly pushes the buttons. When he hears Nat 'King' Cole's voice start to croon 'Unforgettable', he has to chuckle to himself.
"Besides," an amused female voice from his memory says, "maybe ya'll find yaself helpin' another damsel in distress who just happens ta be another letter in tha alphabet an' then tha two o' ya can run off an' raise a whole bunch o' little letters."
"How I wish that were possible, Audrey," he sadly sighs to the nonexistent woman and then goes to check on the mayhem he's created.
The sharp words of the beauty still sting the beast hours after they've been spoken. Working out and sharpening his blades have done little to improve his humor. Looking for a way to lessen his black mood, he heads for his computer.
With some grim satisfaction he watches the officials as they scramble to figure out who he is and how to find him. However, he can't seem to keep his concentration on his task as her words come back to haunt him. He tries to keep his focus, but doubt now plagues him and clouds his judgment.
Why do her words concern him? Why does he feel this need to protect her? To care for her? What is it about her that ties his thoughts into a knot? What is wrong with him?
Desperate for a distraction from these questions running around in his head, he turns to connecting to the Canadian news agencies. It's not an easy task and it yields little reward except for a small blurb about a woman who was brought in on a fishing boat called the Liberty. It takes him several hours to hack into the Quebec port authority's computers only to find that the woman was transferred to Ottawa. Another hour later gives him the answer he has been seeking and the smile on his face easily matches the one on his mask.
A while later, when the beauty finally emerges, she finds the beast happily humming to himself and making her breakfast.
"Four hundred dollars?" she hisses angrily.
"What's tha matter?" he asks, surprised at the venom in his wife's voice. "She just bought what she needed."
"What the problem is, James, is that we can't afford for her to go on a shopping spree," Debbie softly snarls.
"It wasn't a shoppin' spree," he counters, trying to keep his own ire in check. "She needed clothes an' toiletries. She came here with nothin' more than the clothes on her back an' that guitar. Even as a man Ah know she can't keep wearin' tha same thang day in an' day out."
"James, we can't afford for her to live here," she states bluntly. "We're barely making ends meet as it is. We barely had enough to cover the utilities and the rent but with all you've spent, we're not going to be able to pay some of our bills."
"Ah'm sorry, Debs, it's my fault," he quietly admits, sinking down to sit on the edge of their bed. "She only wanted ta buy a couple pairs o' cheap sweat suits, but Ah insisted she buy somethin' a bit more durable. She said she'll pay us back."
"Unless she takes to walking the streets at night, I don't see how," she snaps.
"Deborah!" he snarls through clenched teeth. "That's my sister ya'll are talkin' about!"
"I'm sorry, James," she softly replies as she sinks down onto the bed next to him. "It's just with the five of us already living here and our paychecks barely covering our bills, we just don't have the money for another mouth. The landlord will have a fit if he finds out she's living here too. We can't afford a bigger place. Where will we go if we get thrown out?"
"Ah'm sorry, sweetheart," he sighs as he wraps an arm around her shoulders. "We'll figure somethin' out."
"Not if your sister keeps wasting half a loaf of bread and nearly a dozen eggs to make French toast for breakfast we won't," she grumbles. "That loaf was supposed to last us all week."
"Ah'll talk ta her about that," he assures her.
With a sigh, she leans her head on his shoulder and tries to figure out where her emotions lay. On the one hand, she's very happy for the man she loves to finally have his sister back after exactly ten years to the day without her. However, she also has her own family to worry about and she's not sure how they're going to manage.
What money she has managed to save from their paychecks each week is now gone thanks to buying Audrey new clothes. She doesn't want to resent a woman she's only just met, but it's hard when she has her own kids to think about. It's bad enough she has to leave her babies at home with Catherine every day because of the woman's advanced age, but they have little choice.
Before she can wallow in any more self pity, there's a soft knock on the bedroom door. James gets up to answer it and she silently hopes that whatever disaster that's about to be sprung on her won't cost too much money. When she's sees that it's Audrey at the door she tries not to grit her teeth.
"Ah hope Ah wasn't interruptin' nothin'," Audrey nervously starts.
"We were just havin' a quiet moment before all hell breaks loose again," he jokes.
"Ah know how that is with li'l uns," Audrey smiles. "Ah was wonderin' if ya'll have a large bowl an' a seam ripper or a pair o' sharp scissors Ah could borrow."
"Um...yeah, give me a sec," Debbie replies.
She's confused by the request, but she gets up anyway. Debbie goes over to the sewing machine in the corner of the room and opens the box she keeps her sewing supplies in. She digs around a bit before finding what she's after and then she hands it over to Audrey.
"Thank ya," Audrey says just before turning and heading back down the hallway.
The other two follow her into the dining room and find Audrey's pea coat draped over the back of one of the chairs and her guitar laying on the table with the strings removed.
"Is there something wrong with your guitar?" Debbie asks.
"Tha sound's a bit off, but Ah'll fix that in a jiff," Audrey answers as she takes a seat at the table. "Can Ah get that bowl please?"
"Yeah, hold on," Debbie responds, still perplexed by Audrey's request.
When she returns with the bowl she finds James watching his sister and Audrey has put her hand through the hole in the body of her guitar. Too confused to say anything, Debbie simply puts the bowl on the table, takes a seat next to James and watches too. After a minute or so of her rooting around inside the guitar, they hear the sound of tape being pulled off of wood.
"There we go," Audrey happily states as she carefully pulls her hand free of the instrument.
"Oh my gawd," James gasps when a large piece of tape with several rings and a pair of pearl and diamond earrings attached appear.
"That's the guitar," Audrey states as she starts to peel the jewelry off and drop them into the bowl. "Ah'll restring it in a bit."
"Where did you get those?" Debbie nervously asks.
"Let's just call 'em payment fo' services rendered," Audrey grimly answers as she pulls her coat into her lap and picks up the seam ripper.
"Audrey, where did ya get these?" James asks in an authoritative tone.
"Who long does Grandmother normally take tha kids ta tha library?" Audrey counter questions.
"They'll be back in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half," Debbie answers.
"Please, don't tell Grandmother what Ah'm about ta tell ya'll," Audrey requests and the other two hesitantly agree. "There are some thangs she'll be better off never knowin'."
Once she has their word, she tells them all of the things she had left out from her narrative the night before. She talks as she rips the seams out of her coat. Little by little, the worse parts of the past ten years of her life are revealed while strings of pearls with small diamonds spaced between them are pulled from the hem and collar of her coat. As she tells of her encounter with Abigail Percy, she's removing the bracelets from the cuffs.
"So, like Ah said, payment fo' services rendered," Audrey concludes and the other two silently agree.
"What do we do now?" Debbie finally asks, staring at the nearly full bowl.
"Find someone who'll give ya a good price an' sell 'em," Audrey says, emotionally exhausted from having to relive the worse parts of her slavery. "Ah sure don't want 'em."
"Ah'll see what Ah can find," James states as he pulls the bowl towards himself. "What do ya intend ta do with tha money?"
"After Ah pay ya'll back, then Ah'd like ta go back ta school an' get my high school diploma or whatever the equivalent is o' it," Audrey replies. "O' course Ah'm gonna need a job an' get my own place. Ah don't wanna be a burden ta ya'll an' ya don't need tha stress o' another mouth ta feed. Maybe when Ah move out, Ah'll get a place big enough fo' Grandmother an' meh. Ya'll don't need ta have family under foot when ya're tryin' ta start un o' ya're own."
There's a stunned silence for a while and Audrey takes the time to start restringing her guitar.
"Thank you, Audrey," Debbie finally whispers.
"Ya're quite welcome," Audrey softly replies as she finishes with the guitar.
Nearly asleep from a long day of standing in more lines than she can count, filling out forms that probably required the destruction of an old growth forest and talking to what seems to be half of the workers at the Department of Immigration up in Ottawa, Audrey wishes the news would hurry up and be over with. Since the only place left for her to sleep is the couch, her grandmother's bed being much too narrow for two people, she has to wait until everyone has gone to bed before she can sleep herself, but currently, the other adults in the apartment are watching TV. So she waits, curled up in the overstuffed chair, letting the drone of the news cast lull her to sleep.
"Audrey!" Jimmy calls and she barely responds to his voice. "Audrey, wake up!"
When she still doesn't really acknowledge her brother, he goes over and shakes her awake.
"What?" she asks irritably.
"Look at tha TV," he instructs.
She blearily stares at him for several seconds before his words finally register on her tired brain. She finally drags her attention over to the TV and stares at it for more than a minute. It takes her that long to realize what she's seeing.
"Why is V on TV?" she asks groggily.
"He blew up the Old Bailey, hijacked the TV station and then he tried to blow up the station," Catherine answers. "But they shot him, so it's over."
"What!?" Audrey demands, instantly awake just as the program goes to a commercial.
"I saw it on the news this afternoon, but that was just a preliminary report," Catherine tells her. "This one should be able to tell us everything that's going on. I would have told you earlier, but Chrissy had her melt down about then and it just went right out of my mind."
"Come on, sis," James says soothingly when he sees that Audrey's upset. "It's ok."
"He saved my life, Jimmy," she quietly replies, staring at the TV, willing it to return to the news. "It can't just beh over. Not like that."
The others look at each other, unsure of what to say, so they stay silent and wait. After what seems to be days of waiting for Audrey, the news finally comes back on and she leans forward in her seat. She barely dares breathe as the video is shown of the Old Bailey being blown up, followed by V's broadcast and then the final clip of a man running through fog towards a camera before gunfire can be heard and the man falling to the floor.
"That's not V," Audrey states with a sigh of relief.
"How can you be sure?" Debbie asks.
"Ya don't live with a fella fo' six months an' not know how he moves," Audrey answers, relief on her face. "Ah don't know who that poor man was or why he was dressed like V, but that was not V. O' that Ah am certain."
The TV gets turned off and the other adults ask her questions about her time with V. She answers until it seems she's yawning every other word and the others finally get the hint. Soon they're heading for their own beds and Audrey is making up the couch for herself.
After the light is turned off, Audrey thinks of the news broadcast and a shiver runs down her spine. He said he wasn't going to blow up Parliament this year and now she knows why.
"Stay safe, V," she whispers to the night, but she knows that V's idea of staying safe and hers do not coincide. "At least beh careful."
"V!" she shouts in fear.
She bolts off of the bench she's been sitting on and runs towards the masked man as he comes stumbling into the station. She catches him as he collapses, but his weight is too great for her to hold up, so all she can do is slow his fall. The blood that soaks his clothes and his ragged breathing has her in nearly a panic.
"Oh, God! We have to stop your bleeding," she nearly sobs, not knowing which hole to try and plug since there are so many of them.
"Oh please don't," he gasps, the punctured lungs making it hard to breathe. "I'm finished and glad of it."
"Don't say that," she begs, looking into the mask.
"I told you, only truth," he softly reminds her. "For twenty years I sought only this day. Nothing else existed...until I saw you. Then everything changed. I fell in love with you, Evey...like I no longer believed I could."
"V, I don't want you to die," she cries.
"That's the most beautiful thing you could have ever given me," he softly admits as his world starts to darken.
"V? V!?" she yells as his chest stills and she can no longer hold back her tears.
He feels his life slipping away from him and as his spirit slips from this earthly coil, he can hear a voice singing to him.
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
As they watch the train head down the tunnel, knowing full well what will happen when it reaches its destination, she slips her arm through his.
"Tell me...," she starts as she turns him to head towards the Shadow Gallery, "do you like music, Mr. Finch?"
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, a young woman sits on a stool on a stage in a smoky bar playing her guitar and singing a song she's composed and written. The song tells the story of a woman lost in despair until a mysterious stranger saves her one night and shows her how to be free again. She's completely unaware that sitting in the audience is a music producer who only came in to get directions to a nearby theater, but who has completely forgotten about what he came in for. Oblivious to everything else, all of her concentration is on her music and the freedom it gives her.
As the last notes fade away, Parliament is blown sky high with the man who inspired the song.