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Nightmares and Dreamscapes	By : JackHawksmoor Category: DC Verse Comics > V for Vendetta Views: 3371 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own V for Vendetta, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The first time she saw him she was talking to a large number of common, everyday, furiously angry protesters. It was fitting, she would think later. At the time, all she had was a flash of that face, and the abrupt conviction that it was *him*. Not a mask, not just some random Londoner, V. Standing out in the crowd, watching her finish talking. To the new world, the new people that he'd helped force into creation.

He stood out in a sea of raised fists, of shouting and cheering faces. A swatch of calm regard in the patchwork crowd. It stole her heart away, took it right out of her chest and dropped it on the ground at her feet.

Finch saw it. He saw everything, he had a knack for it. He was already leaning over toward her, a question in his eyes as she stepped back, shaken.

Her eyes would search the crowd over and over again. Evey saw people dressed like him, but she did not see him again.

She could not say, exactly, how she knew it was him. She could not say, when Finch asked, what it was that made that man different.

Later that night, pinning her hair up in front of the mirror, her hands started to shake. She had to stop, had to lay her hands flat on the vanity and face what she was feeling.

God help her, she knew what it was. Five years. Five years since she'd held him close and watched him die. Since she'd felt that her steps were already laid out in front of her, waiting for her feet to fill them. For a frozen second, looking out and finding his face, it had happened again. Like she was falling toward something and couldn't stop.

She saw Finch in the mirror, saw him come up behind her. His face was sad even when he was happy, and he seemed happy when he laid a gentle hand at the back of her neck.

“You look lovely tonight.” He said, his sad eyes lingering on the white curve of her shoulder. She suddenly felt very painfully fond of him.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and had to stop, her words echoing back at her in an odd way (and she knew what that felt like, didn't she, she'd felt it before...). Evey forced up a smile. “I don't think I'm up to an evening out after all.”

Sad policeman eyes going sharp, raking over her.

“Not feeling well?”He asked softly.

A brief swell of pity. For him. For herself. Her hands, she noticed, had started to shake again.

“No.” She breathed. “ Not really.”

He was a perfect gentleman as she showed him out. She wouldn't put it past him to stay, to wait outside her flat all night in his car, watching to see who came and went. If she was charitable she would say he was making sure that no one had spooked her at the meeting, that no one came by that night to harm her. If she was not charitable she might suspect he had someone doing that every night, just to make sure she didn't get into trouble.

There were too many shadows in her room and she thought to go to sleep early, to banish the day into her past.

After she got into bed the darkness started seeping in on her like black mold on the walls. The lamp on her bedside table dimmed like it was dying before it flickered out. Then, as if he'd only been waiting for that to happen, V sat down beside her on the bed.

She watched his mask melt out of the shadows like the moon coming out from behind a cloud, felt him shift the mattress with his weight as he settled himself next to her.

She'd locked the door. And the windows. Every one.

“I missed you.” The words fell from her lips without thought, sounding simple and foolish to her own ears.

There was a sigh in the dark, and a piece of it lifted to her face, folding into a glove to brush over her cheek. It felt like leather. It was warm. She choked a little, at the touch, and suddenly flung herself forward, half expecting to find shadows and bedcovers and nothing else.

Instead she fell into strong arms, buried her face in warm cloth. She grabbed onto him like he would fly apart if she let go, and he returned the embrace, his hand cupping the back of her head. Hot bubbles of pain welled up, spilled from her eyes, wetting his shirt. He held her tight and let her cry.

“Evey,” He said, once the raw edges had faded a little. It was the first moment she registered that he wasn't doing too well himself. He sounded terrible... She looked up at the mask with a tear-streaked face. He brushed her hair back, pulling strands free of the wet tracks down her cheeks.

“What-” She asked, and something large and cold shifted in her spine. “Why are you here?”

“I have something for you.” There was a break in his voice and it frightened her.

“Wait.” She said quickly, suddenly feeling like she was about to push through into something terrible. She reached up and cupped his face. Her voice went soft, wistful. “Just wait a moment.”She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his false cheek, smearing tears on his painted smile.

He made a faint, anguished sound and gathered her up, the strength in his arms holding her tighter than she could have managed on her own.

Just let her live, right there, in that moment, forever.

“I wanted this world to be yours.”He said, his voice doubly muffled, by the mask and by her shoulder. She could still hear him. His voice would make angels weep. A voice like his, she would have heard him through a brick wall.

“I can't keep a world in my pocket.” She said into his shoulder with a little laugh. A breath of sound in response. It might have been a laugh.

“I know.”He was stroking her hair. His hand was shaking.

“V.” She murmured, and at hearing her say his name he tightened his arms around her until she could barely breathe. “V, what is it?”

“I...have something for you.” It sounded forced out, and she burrowed herself a little deeper into his embrace.

“Bad?” She asked, but she wasn't really asking. V hesitated.

“'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so .'” He said finally, loosening his arms around her very slowly, like a small boy dragging his feet. He touched her face as if he wouldn't get the chance again.

“I missed you.” She said quietly. Those were the words she spoke, but she was saying something else. He stopped, as if she'd put a fist through his heart.

“I was here.” He said, barely loud enough to understand. “I was always here.”

A chill grabbed her by the spine and wouldn't let go.

He reached back, into the folds of his cape. Produced his prize like a magician.

She was staring down at a Scarlet Carson, perfect and delicate in his hand.

“This is yours.” He said. She took it from him, charmed. Smiled up at him over the petals.

“Not a world.” She commented, and abruptly cursed herself, he seemed so sad.

“No.” Dejected. She had an odd notion that this might be more about him than her. Worse for him. He drew himself up sharply, as if he'd made a sudden decision. “Evey-” He began, urgently, leaning toward her, and she was startled when he continued to lean in, to press a carved smile against her lips in a kiss.

Then his mouth moved.

He was kissing her, the mask was alive, kissing her, and she couldn't breathe.

She woke up flailing against where she'd crammed her face into the pillow and took a few lungfulls of air before the dream came crashing back down on her.

She sat up in the sunlight, pushed back her bedcovers, went to wash her face. Tried to get on with things. Tried to ignore the fact that all the color seemed to have leeched out of the world during the night. It left everything looking tired and sad. She stood on her doorstep for a long moment before she shut the door behind her, wishing it was already night. At least then she wouldn't have to see how gray everything was.

When she looked out across the street she saw a low, black car parked so the driver could see her leave. Her hands clenched on her keyring, driving a point of metal into the soft flesh of her palm hard enough to hurt. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a fraying rope snapped with a twang.

“Oi!” She called, striding into the street. “You!”
She saw the man behind the wheel jump, turn to look at his companion in the passenger seat.

“Shove off!” She shouted, coming to a halt beside the car. “Get out of here!” She gave the door a good solid kick as the driver started talking hurriedly into his phone. “I'm talking to you!” She slapped the window with the flat of her hand, hard enough to thump the glass.

Apparently needing no further encouragement, the man started the car, swatting away the hand of his partner as he gestured at Evey.

“Yeah, get going, shows over!” She growled at them both, stepping back so the car could drive off without going over her feet.

Finch usually stopped by at least once a day, to talk to her about something or other. He didn't bother trying it that day.

She saw V again, two days later, on her way home from work. She nearly ran her car into a ditch. Just a flash, a turn of his shoulder going behind a building...she jumped out of the car and ran to catch him, but there was no one there. She cried a little on the way back to the car, wondering if she was going mad.

“Why now?” She asked herself in the car. She'd nearly...she'd nearly managed...
Evey thumped her hands once, hard, on the steering wheel. She cranked the car so firmly it coughed in distress.

Finch was waiting for her, on her doorstep. He looked like he'd been there a while, his briefcase and coat set down by her door, a large bunch of roses hanging from his hand. She didn't say hello, and neither did he.

The neighbor boy ran past her, ran between the two of them with a careless grin tossed her way. Blonde hair flashing a path between them in the sun.

When she stepped up to the door Finch brought the roses up quickly, a faint echo of the boy's path between them. White and cream, not quite her favorite. She looked down into the bouquet, up at the man hiding behind it. A white flag, so to speak?

Finch tried a smile. He looked tired and worn out and even a little bit apologetic.

She took the roses, smiled down into them, a little. Finch leaned in as if he was sharing a secret and he loomed over her. She forgot how tall he was, sometimes.

“I am sorry.” He said to her, and she had no doubt that was at least a kind of truth. He worried about her, she knew that. She stepped past him and unlocked her door, feeling rather than seeing him slump a little at the brush off.

She glanced at him with a sly curl of her lips as she stepped over the threshold.

“Are you coming in?”

She set the roses on the counter and fixed him tea while he told her in a politely veiled way about all the dangerous things going on in London lately, and how they were all threatening her safety in one way or another. He told her about a woman he'd found murdered the week before in her own home, he told her about a bomb found on a bus the week before that. He told her how much he cared about her.

She unwrapped her flowers from the paper and said nothing.

While she was trimming the stems he lost his patience.

“You're a public figure now, Evey. They're calling you the new Voice of London. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

She looked up at him in surprise, and a flicker of amusement crossed her face.
“'I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.'” She said.

Finch stared at her.
“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“It's from-” She began

“I know where it's from.” Finch snapped, and they were both quiet for a moment.

“I don't think,” Finch said finally, his voice much softer, “That you understand what-”

“I understand perfectly well.”Evey interrupted firmly, pulling a bottle from the cupboard. She selected a glass, added ice and several fingers of good liquor. She went over to the rumpled man sitting on her couch and offered him a substitute for his tea. His eyes searched hers, as they always did, for some kind of disappointment, some sort of rebuke in the offer. He knew he probably drank more than he should. She knew it, too.

If he was looking for her condemnation he wouldn't find it. There were worse things in the world than a good policeman who occasionally drank more than he ought to. He took the glass from her with a nod of thanks, and she returned to the kitchen to get some water. She gave some to the flowers in her vase, then moved past Finch into the living room to give some to the scarlet carsons in her flower box by the window.

She dipped her head to smell them, to feel the brush of the petals on her cheek, and thought briefly about love and death.

Finch watched her do it, watched her hair shining in the sunlight, roses everywhere. It was fitting, somehow. The quiet look on his face. She turned from the setting sun with a ghost of a smile, trailed her hand over his shoulder as she walked by him.

She turned on the telly, raised the volume with a pointed look when Finch started to go on again about her lack of sensible fear. Belatedly, he got the hint, but his pensive silence had a definite air of 'postponed until later'. Evey ignored this, and fixed some sandwiches. By the time she was done fiddling Finch had dozed off on her couch, drink still in hand. She regarded him with affection for a moment, retrieved her glass with a flick of her fingers. She watched the news for a while, thinking idly about bombs and a dead friend she'd seen vanish around the corner. Finch woke when she draped the afghan over him, preparing to retreat to her bedroom with a book.

He was embarrassed, and got up to go even when she told him it was all right, it was fine, he had her couch any time he liked.

“No...” He looked at her strangely for a moment. Like it hurt just to look at her. “No, I've left some things back at the office...” It was a lie, obvious from the second he said it, and it startled her. He leaned over, kissed her quick on the corner of her mouth, and turned to go. He stopped at the door.

“Thanks,” He gestured with one hand. “For the tea.”

“Any time.” She said to his back with a frown, and shut the door after him.

That night, the dream she had was much more difficult to ignore.
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Nightmares and Dreamscapes