I'm grateful for all the feedback. I'm sorry it takes me awhile to update. Summer classes and work take a lot of time, as well as the pile of novels that I have waiting for me to read. But thanks for all your support, it's really a blessing and an encouragement! I'll try to update soon, but I can't promise anything.
Evey felt beyond sick. She basically wanted to die. Her stomach was empty, not being able to keep anything down and her bed was soaked with her sweat. She had never felt this bad before. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn't seen the sun in weeks. It could be that there were creepy insects or rats, even though V kept the Shadow Gallery especially clean. V. Where was he? She remembered he was there for the longest time. She felt his touch on her hand. It was such a comfort to have him there.
Evey had been fading in and out of dreams throughout the night. Around midnight she had a particularly violent nightmare.
"Evey, dearest, you are much too sick to be wandering about the Gallery." V said.
"I'm fine, V. I need to get up, I'm sick of that bed."
"I won't let you become more ill."
Evey found herself being pushed into her room by V. She entered her room only to find it to be a cell. "V?" she called.
There wasn't an answer. She turned around and saw a man silhouetted in the doorway. The door shut with a thunderous smack. She looked around the room and found only a toilet. Evey curled up into a ball on the stone floor and shuddered in the cold.
She hoped that V would save her. She wouldn't give him up. She knew that. She had grown to care for him too much to give him up to the government. She knew she was in one of their centers - the centers where only the black-bagged would ever see the walls inside.
Evey reached up to run her hands through her hair only to find her head shaved. She jumped up and looked hurriedly around the room to find a mirror. Nothing. She felt it though. There was nothing on her head but maybe an inch of hair. This had to be a dream.
Evey curled up in the corner and buried her head in her arms. She wouldn't cry. This wasn't real. This was a dream. It had to be a dream. V wouldn't do this to her. V would try to make her better. V. Where was he? She needed him most at this moment and he was nowhere to be found. Where could he be?
Evey lifted her head and found herself in a dark alley. It was similar to the one V found her in, if not the same one. She wandered down the alley, hiding in the shadows so she was not seen. She made her way to a corner and peeked around it. She felt a dull thunk vibrate through her skull and blinked hard. She hadn't passed out, but now her attacker was chasing her.
Evey made her way back through the alley and into the streets of London, not caring who saw her, only caring about outrunning the man chasing her. She ran through the streets familiar and yet unfamiliar to her. She thought she knew where she was going but ended up in a dead end. She could hear the man breathe heavily at the opening of the alley. He had a truncheon in his hand. Evey looked around her. She couldn't find anything that would constitute as a weapon. Evey glanced in the direction of her pursuer. He was large. And his voice was cold, even though winded.
"You can run no longer, Miss Hammond. Your terrorist companion is gone, and now we must put an end to this…insurrection before it starts."
"V…" it came out only as a whisper but Evey could feel hot tears running down her cheeks. He couldn't be…there was no way…but he said…V wouldn't get caught, he was an idea. Ideas don't get caught, just carry on. Evey was reeling slightly on her feet. She gripped the wall behind her and slid to the ground. V wasn't dead. He was too skilled to be caught. Evey couldn't breathe. She gripped her throat willing it to open, but it was constricting as the thought of V caught up to her brain.
"No…"
"Yes, Miss Hammond. You will come to the same end as your friend, and we shall be rid of the infestation before it grows worse."
Evey got a blow to the face before she saw him coming, and was too slow to defend herself from the truncheon as it came down on her side.
Evey woke sweating and panting for breath. Her lungs had seemed to stop breathing for a few moments in her terrorized sleep and had left her gasping for air.
Evey ran a weary hand across her damp forehead and remembered where she was. V was somewhere in the Gallery, probably reading, or maybe he had gone out. Wherever he was, he was not at her bedside and it was frightening to her. She would have rather woken up with him staring at her, than having him nowhere in sight.
Evey felt around for the covers and found the edge. She threw them off and slowly raised herself into a sitting position. Her robe was at the end of her bed and she tied it around herself. Evey rose unsteadily to her feet and fell back onto the bed. But she would not be deterred from her goal. She would find where the masked vigilante was. She had to, to reassure herself that this indeed was real. Her feet hit the stone floor again and Evey held herself erect. She tiptoed slowly, trying not to lose her balance, and made it to the door. She entered the hallway and leaned against the wall for support. Her eyes scanned everything from the myriad of paintings to the couch and even that old suit of armor V was fond of, but nothing revealed the man himself.
Feeling incredibly weak, Evey landed as gracefully as possible, under her condition, onto the couch. She rested her head where V usually sat and brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around a pillow. She would wait here, if her body would let her stay awake. She would wait all night if that's what it took.
vVv
V succeeded in bringing all the bottles into the Gallery completely unseen. After he had made his escape from Prothero's office, he had climbed down the fire escape and made it to the ground before anyone found him. After diving into the shadows of the street across the way from his office V slipped by fingermen and the Norsefire surveillance.
Upon entering his home, V saw the door to Evey's room open. He quickly went to the door and looked in. She wasn't there.
V's heart started to race and wondered where she went. He checked the bathroom, checked the kitchen, checked her room again to make sure she didn't return and made his way for the television room. V entered from the rear, which faced the back of the couch and he decided then and there that he was not going to leave Evey alone again until she felt much better.
Still in hat and cloak V looked over the top of the couch and found Evey resting fitfully in his seat. V smiled. It would have been endearing had her condition not been so bad.
V walked around the couch and kneeled on the floor in front of it. He took off his gloves and brushed his hand gently over her forehead, rearranging stray curls so he could feel if she had a fever. He tucked a few strands behind her ear and caught himself gazing at the sleeping form.
In his moments' uncertainty, Evey's eyes fluttered open, revealing depths that only opened in brief periods. V quickly gloved his hand.
"Hello," Evey smiled as she rubbed her eyes, trying to rid herself of the last vestiges of sleep.
"You shouldn't be out of bed in your condition, Evey," V replied, trying to be somewhat demanding, yet not quite able to attain it.
"I am growing sick of that bed. I've been in it for days and this is the first time I've been out," Evey said in a hoarse voice.
"Dear Eve, I know that I would have probably disobeyed doctor's orders as well, but in all actuality, the bed is the best place for you to be." V tried to encourage her to make her way on her own.
"I simply won't do it," Evey stated with a finality that shocked V.
"I won't let you become more ill," V said quite firmly. V pulled her gently off the couch and started to help her walk towards her room.
Evey suddenly had flash of her nightmare and refused to budge. She whipped around so fast V was barely able to keep them both standing as she flung herself to him. She quickly buried her head in his chest with her arms wrapping around his torso with an ethereal strength from one so sick. She sobbed into his doublet and just kept muttering "no" and "I won't" and "you can't," all quite incoherent to the masked vigilante who looked down at her. He had thought maybe the illness had taken its toll mentally as well as physically.
At a loss over what to do, V just stood there in the middle of the Gallery holding Evey tightly to his chest, wondering what he should do or at least say.
"Dearest Eve, whatever is the matter? Surely you don't despise that bed as much as this."
"I can't…I can't go back there, not now, not right now," she said into the fistfuls of V's shirt. Her tears ran silently down her cheek only to be soaked into V's shirtfront.
V didn't mind at all that she used him as her human tissue, except that he wanted to know why he was being used as such. He wanted to know what caused Evey to react to her bedroom with such vehemence. Perhaps in her delirious sleep she had a nightmare, but that was the only realistic reason he could find for her absolute abhorrence to it.
V held Evey for quite a few moments. After slowly releasing her arms from V she quickly had to grab him again. Her body was weak from whatever she was fighting and V quickly grasped her and picked her up before she fell. He gently laid her on the couch and sat next to her. "Are you alright, my dear?" V asked quite concerned.
"I'm…okay. Tired. Wet." Evey gave a small smile as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"May I ask why you are so afraid to return to your room, Eve?"
"It's nothing…I just had a nightmare…I don't want to go back in there tonight." Evey started to cough and V left to get her a glass of water.
Upon returning to the sofa he found Evey curled up in her spot. He set the glass on the table and sat down again. V switched on the tele knowing that Prothero's body would have yet to be reported, being only an hour at most from the deed.
V found Gordon Dietrich's program and left it on that station. Sound was always welcome in the Gallery and the sound of laughter was especially welcome in the present circumstances. V settled back into the sofa and glanced at Evey every few seconds as he watched girls in shimmering dresses and feathers prance across the screen.
As V continued to watch the screen he noticed a shift on the other side of the couch and felt something warm around him within seconds. V looked down to find Evey wrapping herself around him and leaning on him heavily. He was relieved to find that she no longer had a severe fever and though the coughing was bad, he had medication for whatever was ailing her. He just needed to look up what each medication dcured and he would give her whatever she needed.
V slid his arm around Evey's shoulders and felt her adjust. Whatever the demon was in her nightmares he would certainly vanquish it easily enough. She merely needed to tell him the beast and he would deal with the "virulent vermin." Evey grabbed his shirtfront in her small fist and clasped with all her might. V wondered how long it would be until she fell asleep again, but decided it really didn't matter. He would hold her all night and well into the next day if need be. He decided that eternity would be sweet indeed if he could only hold Evey close to him for the rest of it.