A/N- Chapter 2! :D This one is a bit longer. For anyone curious I got the stretcher idea from the comics- if you haven't read them- they are fabulous! :D

***COMIC SPOILERS DIRECTLY BELOW AND IN STORY*****

It never really says how many times Finch shot V- but the illustration showed four blasts- so I went with four :)

Disclaimer- I don't own anything D: ...only my humble plot...

Evey held her breath as she neared V's body- still unsure if she had really seen him breathe. Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen, but she refused to take a breath just yet... Somewhere in the back of her mind Evey knew she was being ridiculous...but another stronger part told her if she took a breath- V wouldn't.

Shaking, Evey raised a single hand and let it hover over V's chest, not touching quite yet as she stared at his masked face, looking for any sign of movement or life. Eyes watering from lack of air, she thinned her lips. She had to see this through. Placing a hand on V's chest she waited. A second passed...then two...five... Nothing.

Eyes watering for a different reason, Evey's face started to screw as a tear dropped. Taking in a large breath, the broken woman let her face drop onto V's chest- right over his heart. One hand was still resting on his chest, the other moved to rub the unmoving, cold cheek in front of her.

"V...please V... I can't..." Evey whispered hopelessly as she turned her face to nuzzle his still warm chest.

Crying she gripped V's shirt tightly...and then- a groan,"Ev..."

Head shooting up, Evey stared at the V's masked face. "V? V did you?" There was no answer.

Frantically she laid her head back on V's chest, listening hard... THERE! A slight thready pulse, but she could hear it! Unable to say anything else, and knowing she had to act fast, Evey sped off to the med room to grab anything she thought might help.

V had planned to die. He was the destroyer and now it was time. Time for Evey- the second face- the creator- to take over. It was time for a new V. With his vendetta over, the masked vigilante was prepared for whatever fate God bestowed upon his horrid soul.

He knew he wasn't meant for heaven. There had always been something hellishly wrong about him- both mentally and physically- for as long as he could remember. Granted he couldn't remember his time before...the room, but he certainly couldn't have been decent enough to have been saved before his more recent occupational sins.. Thus, with heaven out of the picture... he was prepared for the pain he felt, the fire in his head and for whatever devil decided to delve into his dubiously damned and decrepit soul... However, he was most certainly not prepared to feel a soft weight upon his chest, crying out for him...begging him. Indeed. , He was not prepared to hear his name being called out by the most familiar voice.

"Ev...?" Pain racked his chest. While pain he knew was fatally characteristic of Hell...He was definitely not in Hell... not on a train...and most assuredly not dead... he was on a mattress. Damn.

It took him several moments, but after battling against his nausea, V finally became semi-lucid. Peeling his eyes open, and taking as deep a breath that his punctured chest would allow, V lulled his head to the side. Then saw he was alone...in his room. Maybe he was in hell? Perhaps the devil was going to torture his heart with his sweet Eve's voice and taunted him with his own slice of secluded heaven before he took him into the fire. However, V never got to explore the idea farther because after a failed attempt to sit up not a minute later, the pain in his chest became too overwhelming. Letting out a strangled half-sob choke, he let the sweet allure of darkness creep up and take him away.

Eyes slowly closing he whispered out one last plea, "Evey..."

Rushing back into V's room, now armed with a large white bowl filled with varying sized bandages, medical tape, disinfectants, and a couple first aid books, Evey's gasped when she saw V's head lulled and his arms slumped slightly to the side. It was as if he had tried to move while she was gone.

'Stupid man,' she thought as sherushed over to his side. Once there she paused and sighed as she realized she would need to get him off the stretcher and out of those clothes if she was going to do anything productive.

Knowing she didn't have time to wonder if V could ever forgive her, Evey set her bowl of supplies on the night stand and got to work. First, she immediately took out morphine and a syringe, read the instructions on the side carefully, and gave V a full dose. Yes, he was unconscious, but she was about to bore into his chest with metal tweezers... It was always good to be safe.

Once that was finished, she removed his gloves- no big deal she had seen his hands once before without gloves her first day here, but seeing them up close... He must have suffered. Running a thumb up and down the scarred hand, Evey eventually shook her head- realizing she was wasting time- and got to work taking off his boots, socks and unclasping his cape as well. Then, once she was sure she had gotten every piece of clothing she could off- Evey pulled out a pair of long fabric scissors.

"Forgive me V," she mumbled softly.

Then she took the bottom of his ruined and blood soaked shirt in her she snipped the shirt off- closing her eyes- trying to make it fast. Taking a calming breath Evey opened her eyes... and was surprised to find a heavy metal plate!

"Wha-?"

Eyes widening Evey sent up a praise to God as she quickly plucked out a bullet that had just slightly punctured the skin under the protective layer off the top of V's armor. Pulling the sheet of metal up she smiled for a brief second- realizing he had used the piece of armor from his fencing partner...

After removing the metal and counting only three more unaccounted for bullets, Evey let out a sigh of relief. While she wasn't one hundred percent sure there were only four bullets in total- V's legs seemed to have been fine, and she could see no trace of any bullets in his arms or extremities...It added up just right. Cutting away the sleeves and tossing the blood sodden material onto a plastic bag, Eve turned back to V- trying not to look at his body... and failing. He was burned nearly everywhere... badly. While the right side of him could almost pass normal, it wasn't quite right. There was a discoloration and slight wrinkling that worsened to the same degree as the left as it traveled down to his arm to right hand. The left side... the left side was horribly scarred. It looked like he had butted himself up against a wall and had taken the blunt of the fire on the left side- and perhaps used his right arm to cover himself further?

Touching V's body, Evey started to breathe heavily. No she didn't pity him. No she wasn't disgusted.. She was enraged. How dare anyone even think about doing something like this to V. Her V. Angry hot tears streamed down her face. Subconsciously, her hand started to put pressure on his chest as she clenched her muscles. Oh they would pay for this...

"Uuhgph..."

Pulling her hand away as if burned- Evey looked guiltily toward's V's face. She wanted so badly to be angry, but now was not the time. She would only end up making things worse if she continued to lose control of her emotion like this...

Shaking her head, Evey took on tunnel vision- trying not to invade any more than she already had to. Taking a deep breath she tried to stay calm... She tried to remember how she had felt when she believed she was going to be executed... In control. Taking in a deep breath and steeling herself- Evey began again. V would live.

Frantically dumping the rest of her supplies on the bed- Evey went to the adjacent bathroom and filled it with hot water and sterilizers and sat the bowl on the side table. Grabbing a rag, she carefully wiped away the blood- trying to find the bullet holes. One swipe of the rag- luckily- removed a very shallow bullet from his left pectoral, leaving only two- that she knew of- still lodged in his body.

After cleaning out the wounds and adding pressure to stop the bleeding (as the book had instructed) and pulling V forward to wrap the compress around his chest woulds, that had been fairly close together(thank God for that first aid book!), Evey continued looking for the last remaining bullets. Another five minutes of wiping away blood and searching, she found them- right beside each other. Not even thinking about what she was doing, Evey used a bit of V's own blood to circle where the punctures were so as to not lose them. Then- reading the instructions for the tenth time, Evey used one trembling hand to grab a thin long pair of tweezers to gently ease into the wound, as her other one felt around the puncture for the bullet. Taking a deep breath, Evey nearly passed out as V jerked hard and let out a gurgled moan.

Startled, Evey unintentionally pressed the tweezers farther into the wound...only to hit something hard and metallic. Shaking with a sweating brow, she slowly eased the tool farther in, opening the instrument as wide as it would go to fit around the projectile. Gripping it firmly, Evey looked over to where she had several thick stacks of gauze waiting to compress on the wound...and pulled the bullet out with a sturdy slow grip.

Tossing the bullet haphazardly in the general direction of the bedside stand, Evey pushed back into the same wound- only an inch to the left and prayed. While she now knew V's breathing had been initially impossible to see because of the convexed armor, there was a growing dread that was building in her chest. V was hardly breathing. Soft shallow gasps were all he could manage at the moment. Focusing all her attention, Evey went in an inch...then two... just as she was about to reach three inches, she felt something. Trying her hardest not to cause more trouble than help- she gripped the object and started pulling.

"UHh" V moaned in protest to her attentions.

"Shhh, It's alright V..."

Another quick two inches had the mashed pulled out of V and slung onto the floor. She hadn't even tried to aim where it landed. Evey grabbed a couple compresses. Pressing down steadily on the fresh- fairly deep (two inches) wound caused V to moan unconsciously.

However, he quieted down after a few soft words from her, "Shhh love shhhh. It's alright- I've got you now...I've got you."

She was right, it took two compresses until the bleeding had stopped enough for her to bandage him. However, unlike the others that had been fairly easy to wrap, because they were higher up, these last shots had been astray. Just under- or she hoped it was just under- V's lung was were the wound had been taken. She would need to drape V over her own body if she wanted to do it properly. Shaking her head, Evey realized he was still very much on the stretcher and, while it looked steady, she didn't want to risk collapsing and killing V by leaving him there as she moved him about. Therefore, Evey then commenced to pushing the stretcher as close to V's moderately high bed as she could. Then, moving to kneel on the bed itself, she slowly began lifting V's lower half- glad she had not needed to remove his pants- onto the mattress. Although he would be slightly askew on the bed, at least he would be somewhere he could truly rest.

Next was the tricky part. Grabbing the bandages to have them close, Evey put her arms under V's and, as gently as possible, lifted him until he was over his bed and in a semblance of an embrace with her. Hurriedly she pressed back down on his compress and took the gauze in the other hand. It took some skilled and very unique maneuvering, but ten minutes later, V's wounds were dressed. Popping her knees to the side of V's body, Evey breathed heavily and laid back against the pillows for just a moment- letting her legs straighten and V's body rest against her chest and shoulder.

She was exhausted.

V was alive...

Alive.

Letting a few tears slip out, Evey gently stroked the firm chest resting atop her...only to realize how cold V was. Cursing, she gently extracted herself from under V and, as if to affirm her observation, the injured man fell victim of a horrible shuttering shiver.

"Shock..."

The book has mentioned shock, but he hadn't shows any signs until now. Frantically, Eve searched the room, paying no mind to the various books and projects strung throughout, looking for as many blankets she could find. Just as she was about to cover him with said blankets, Evey paused and laid them instead at the foot of his bed. His chest was still naked, and while it did not bother her- more than just unsettle her a bit- she knew he would already be angry with her for seeing him at all. Pulling open the drawers she assumed to have clothes in them- Evey sighed in utter relief to find the first drawer contained several flowing shirts. Nearly all but one or two were black. However, instead of choosing these usual ones, Evey picked a midnight blue colored one- not because it was colored- but simply because it looked to be bigger than the rest.

Moving back towards V, she picked him up again, this time laying his lulled head on her shoulder as she slipped each of his arms into the sleeves.

"Ev..."

Hugging the man to her carefully, Evey whispered into his ear softly- wanting him to stay unconscious for now until he healed up some...He was going to be in a damnable amount of pain once he was fully lucid. Making sure to button the shirt up all the way when she laid him down, Eve then tucked each blanket around him tightly before rushing to the TV room. Grabbing the Afghan from the couch, she sped off towards her own room to collect the blankets there as well.

Once back in V's domain, Evey laid each blanket carefully over his bruised and healing body. He was still shaking slightly, but he was not wracked with shakes as before. Methodically, Evey scooped the forgotten medical supplies from the floor- where she had cast them to make room for V. Placing them on the stretcher, she began to clean up. She had to stay busy.

Thirty minutes later, after disposing of all the extra supplies and finally changing into some clean clothes- Evey sat down beside V. He's stable at the moment, and so she allowed herself to take a clearing breath. The morphine on the side table must be something V had mixed because the directions on the side explained t0- at top dosage- re-administer the injection every two to three hours. Blinking at the small print, the exhausted woman then glanced the clock... an hour and 45 minutes. He could have more in an hour and 45 minutes.

Unable to resist the soft lure of the bed in front of her, Evey sat in a chair she had borrowed from the kitchen and sat close to the bed. Sighing softly, the exhausted woman laid her head on the mattress- facing V.

"Pull through this V," she said softly as one hand reached out to stroke his cheek. "You have to..."

A/N- thanks for the reviews guys :) I hope this chapter lives up to what you were expecting! The plot with thicken, by the way. While, yes, I am an unashamed fluffer and I don't plan on going into extreme detail, the revolution will be played out a bit more and there- of course- is the whole conflict about V's apparent suicide. Because come on- we all know that in the film- and definitely in the comic- V knows when and why and how he is going to die and does nothing to stop it. So it will go into that aspect as well :)

Thank you all, and please feel free to leave a little review... ;)