Something nice I discovered this week ( fan fiction dot net/s/7946741/1/Vestige_of_a_Memory )

It was hazy… he could comprehend that much. Black and misty. Aching and infinite. Pressure from all around, like breathing under water. There were the distance notes of some faint music, kind of, he wasn't sure what it was. V felt pinned by his own weight to the ground. Unsure and slow, he made his way to his feet and suddenly he felt as if the effort of standing has been nothing at all. He could almost fly right now. Somewhere... there was some niggling thing holding him back. An ache... then V almost thought he heard his name.

V could find his way in pitch black… usually… he thought, but… this wasn't that kind of darkness. He couldn't see or smell anything. There was nothing to see there.

"Darling I need you"

"Lately I find"

And there were those notes again, tick-tick-ticking away…

...it was an Ella Fitzgerald song*

"Your out of my heart"

"And I'm out of my mind"

"Evey...

Evey, where is Evey?

"Let the Angels sing for your returning"

"Till our love is safe and sound"

"And old midnight comes around"

The light empty tap of piano…

This is a memory. An old memory.

I'm surprised at how well I can remember this song, he thought.

"Feeling sad"

"Really gets bad"

Where…?

"Roooooooooooooooooooound"

Where am I?

"Roooooooooound…"

Concrete… I can smell it, I can hear it. Concrete…

"Roooooooooooooound…"

"Miiidniiiiiight"

How long have I been here…

How long have I been here?

Slowly, the masked man opened his eyes. He felt… he felt rusty. Letting out a low growl he looked around. It all came straight back to him in a matter of seconds. He knew where he must be.

"V?" From the corner of the cell came a small voice, echoing lightly, sweetly. It was like a butterfly. V shook himself mentally and tried to sit up, pulling himself against the wall to face her. She practically flew to his side. "Oh thank god you're alright. I thought you were dead!"

She'd have checked my pulse..?

She can't hear it through the neck piece, he told himself obviously.

"Yes," he breathed, albeit more strained sounding than he had intended, "Oh, yes, yes, I'll be alright." He sat up straighter and flattened out his clothes with his bare hands. They've taken my gloves? Why?

Evey realised how wrapped around him she had been and pulled away, instead helping him to sit up and brushing off his back. A striking pain rippled up his spine and a second from his shoulder. Ah yes, his mind caught up, its all coming back to me.

The two were in a small cell about 3 meters by 2 with a tiny window 10 feet up one wall and a metal door on the opposing one. Ignoring his pain V got to his feet hurriedly and scanned the cell. His eyes set upon what he was looking for, in the corner of the floor, imprinted into the cement, was a cereal number and a smaller faded code. At the back of his mind, something chanted at him. He could figure this out?

16656 / 26-1

And in brackets..

(pdd..)

166, So we're in the outer east side Finger torture-chambers.

56...? He squinted in concentration. 56 would mean to the north- NO! We're on the western arm stretching into the underground… the underground… 26-1...

…these are the remodelled WW2 bunkers… they must be.

"V?" a startled terrorist turned around.

"I know where we are." Evey breathed a refreshing sigh. She looked so small in the half light, tiny and cold. Instinctively V tried to keep his hands hidden from sight while handing her his cloak, she looked like she might need it. He made a mental checklist, turning from her and padding down his sides: No knives, no wires, no blades? No blades without his gloves except…V felt the back of his boots along their seams, slipping two fingers between the leather, yes… something metallic, it would have to do. He would just have to wait till someone came in. Evey waited and watched as the masked man wandered round the tiny room, knocking on walls with his one knuckle both in the middles and the corners and along the cracks and smooths till he finally stopped and sat, staring at the open wall. She didn't dare speak, but waited an age before finally getting to her knees and moving to his side.

"Do you have any ideas?"

"A few," he spoke, almost whispering.

"Can I help?" He looked sidelong at her and nodded.

It took a moment, planned almost silently between the two, and Evey found herself lifted by the waist up to reach the tiny barred window and looking out into the light. Unthinking, she touched her hand out to the bars to keep balance and had a shock sent through her body and into the man below her. The two fell down, V catching her as she collapsed screeching and clutching her palm. V got to his knees and examined the area. It had left a burn, she was lucky to be conscious, heaven knows how high the voltage must have been. Unthinking she let out a second squeal as he opened and closed her palm.

My gloves… they took my gloves, V silently cursed himself. He would be happy to have been shot, it would have made it so much easier had they simply shot him, at least he wouldn't be here. Then again, what if Evey had been hit, he couldn't forgive himself. She was here, here safe with him.

"There's a window, on the other side of the bars, there's daylight and a street. And around the window there are white bricks. Painted bricks," she said, half panting. He kept two hands clasped around her injured palm. The voice of reason spoke calculatedly to him from the back of his mind again, they must have collapsed the original finger tunnels in the outer regions during the revolution, so they brought us here as a backup, to the Inner City tunnels. We must be on the top floor. Yes… 26- 1

He could barely scavenge for a memory but, somehow he knew he'd been here before. V was sure he knew why too. He pulled his cape tighter around her and stood. Examining the wall for the thickest of the hair-thin cracks, the masked man braced himself against the flat surface and brew back to deliver a blow.

It was weird, Edward thought, it wasn't exactly joy. It wasn't a happy feeling, not exactly. It was explosive and it was angry and it was sad and happy all at once. It was determination, he could feel, coursing through his veins like hot sand, painful and thick.

He felt so… he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "Large" sort of. Huge and open and ready. READY! He forgot about everything he had ever been and just became himself, the him in the right now. The him in the zone, the Edward in the space between spaces. This was his world right now. He was the now, right now.

It was almost over.

He almost wished it wasn't, he could feel this way forever.

Still, it was coming to an end. By tonight, it would all be over.

*The song started playing when William missed V and hit the Jukebox in the last chapter

this is the third time ive redone this chapter since ive published it. youll notice the small changes