Thank You Ann, Killer K-Jay, and Whysoseriousblack (which by the way is just the coolest pen name ever!) for your reviews. Its nice to have fans and, once I rule the world, you can have as much chunky monkey ice-cream as you desire (once you're done building my pyramids with everyone else.) It is a pleasure to feel wanted, so thank you. :D
It had been a few days since Evey had brought him back to the gallery and she was already seeing his health improve. She rarely left his side. She brought him food. She kept him healthy just by being there. But in the back of his mind he knew that she didn't intend to create any hope in him. She couldn't love him. Ever.
He would never deserve her after what he had done. His hands, those hands that had held daggers to throats, that had forced steel through innocent flesh, that had taken the lives of hundreds… maybe thousands of people didn't deserve to touch her skin. V had never really considered himself a bad man. He never felt real guilt for what he had done. Not until he had met her.
He could never forget the scars he had given himself for what he had done. Every time he had hurt her during her during her time in his strange staged prison, V had cut himself. Because the mental agony hadn't been enough. His touching her then and his want to touch her now both skimmed along the very edge of his physiological limits. He knew that she could never want him like he wanted her. At least he thought he had known. And then she said it…
She had been lying next to him on the now freshly sheeted bed, her arms supporting his head against a pillow that lay across her chest. It served as a wall between them, that was why she had put it there, he had thought. But no. Now things were all wrong. She couldn't have meant it. Not in that way. His head was swimming. Every touch of hers made him weak at the knees.
The contact he had craved was enough to send him soaring but suddenly… suddenly that all meant nothing. Not by comparison. If he had been standing he would have collapsed from his feet giving out underneath him. She had really said it, after all the torture he had but her through, after all the suffering he had caused, even after she had been his face… she couldn't have. He was tired, he must have imagined it. But he could tell by the way she looked at him now he hadn't.
V couldn't help but reply. As agonisingly as his brain denied it, his heart spoke for him. He spoke and he couldn't take it back. That moment lasted forever. In that second all his inhibitions were lost. His mind was blank. Nothing else existed but the two of them. Looking into each others eyes. Locked in one another's arms. And it wasn't until he had said it that he realised what it was. Was this how she felt? Feeling like she shouldn't have said anything at all? Did she regret it? V's mind was a battle field.
Evey heard him reply to her. Her heart tingling. Her soul ablaze. Had he meant it? V was always so serious about what he said, so careful. And he had told her that he would never lie to her again. Was she getting her hopes up? It was suddenly very hot. I should say something but I don't want to ruin the moment, she thought. Instead she smiled at him and in return he smiled at her. As perfect as it seemed from the outside, on the inside they were both so confused and frustrated.
Their hearts beat wildly as one, minds working to think of the repercussions of what had just happened. What would happen now? What was to come? But neither one could take back what was said. It was more than just words, it was something that you couldn't just suck back in again or pretend it hadn't happened. And neither of them wanted to take it back. As frustrated as they were, they knew that this moment belonged to them. This was their tree.
"I love you." Evey had said.
"I love you too", he had replied.