Chapter Text
The Shadow Gallery was silent save for the gentle crackle of a Beethoven sonata playing from an old gramophone. Candles flickered along the curved stone walls.
The air was warm, filled with the faint scent of books, gunpowder, and rose petals – the egg from this morning’s breakfast still tracing the air.
V moved like a ghost through his sanctum, gloved fingers trailing over the spines of dog-eared volumes. Tonight was like any other night, but he appeared to have returned from somewhere, tracing items on the shelf as though a detective in a film noir, suspecting something had shifted in his absence but not quite certain what.
"Surprise!"
The word detonated in the air, incongruous and impossible.
From behind one of the columns stepped Evey, holding a modest cake, though chocolate in flavour, held the colour of a deep rouge, crowned with a single, flickering candle. Icing in the shape of roses circled the cake. Her eyes were wide with nervous mischief.
For a moment, time held its breath – or rather, Evey did, but it didn’t feel that way.
V did not move.
What was obviously right in front of the two, that stumbled both of them like a gust in the wind, was a cake.
It stood out like a sore thumb in the Gallery, not so much from its appearance or scent, but in its existence, its implications.
His head tilted slightly, analyzing the moment from every conceivable angle; vulnerability, manipulation, sentimentality, danger. Then, without a word, he reached up with one gloved hand and slowly removed his hat in an exaggerated, almost Shakespearean bow.
"A most unforeseen development, dear Evey. You have, quite literally, taken me aback."
His voice, as always, was calm and rich with cadence, but softer than usual, less a speech and more a confession. She never ceased to surprise him, time and time again. This was no different, but he wasn’t expecting her to remember, let alone do something about it.
Evey tittered a half grin at his remark, her entire face lit up by the candlelight from their home and the cake she held dearly in front of her. The sight was confusing to V. He was both flustered and stupefied by the beauty standing in front of him.
It’s a good thing she can’t see his expression.
She stepped closer, unsure. “I know it’s not exactly part of your...usual routine, but I thought, just for one night, you could be surprised…just a little.”
Eyes hopeful and hesitancy evident in her voice, she held the cake up to his eye level for him to inspect. The cake was simple, perhaps even childish in its homemade charm, but it was all she had been able to manage. Evey held the plate carefully, heart knocking against her ribs like it might break through. He regarded the cake like it was an artifact, both sacred and utterly alien. Slowly, he extended his hand toward the single candle, and with a breathless whisper–
“Happy...birthday...to me?"
Evey let out a short laugh that sounded more surprised than amused. “Well, that was the most dramatic birthday declaration I’ve ever heard.”
“Honestly, you made it sound like a funeral rite,” she continued.
V inclined his head in mock gravitas. “Given the occasion’s implications, one might say it is." Quick-witted, as always.
V wasn’t wrong, afterall, what were they celebrating? A birthday or the celebration of a man who died long ago? Her smile faltered, but not from offense. She studied him, the candlelight catching the edge of his mask.
“You really don’t like your birthday, do you?”
She knew the answer from this, pondered it way too long anyways. It was a stupid question she wished to take back. Sounding like the sort of thing an adult might ask in that sickeningly endearing tone.
Why would there be anything to like about a birthday in his case?
He didn’t answer right away. His fingers hovered near the cake again, the flicker of flame mirrored in the polished black of his gloves.
Then, at length, he said quietly, “To celebrate one's birth is to acknowledge the self. The man I once was is no longer the man who stands before you.”
Evey tilted her head and thought of the best response to give, perhaps some optimism masked as an observation would do.
“And yet...someone stood there long enough for me to bring him cake.” That earned a pause.
“I was going to sing,” she added carefully, testing the waters. “The whole embarrassing song, but I wasn’t sure if you’d want that.”
If his eyebrows were visible they might have arched, sing? Evey gave a sheepish shrug.
“The ‘Happy Birthday’ song, off-key of course, I’m not promising it’d be good." Evey wasn’t fond of singing in front of others, she sang only to herself alone in her old flat, and no one had asked her to sing, not since childhood anyways.
Then V spoke, quieter now. “I haven't been sung to…in a very long time.”
Evey’s smile faded to something gentler, tinged with sympathy but not pity. "Would it be alright if I did?”
His fingers twitched faintly at his side. For a man who wielded bombs and ideas like poetry, this was uncharted territory. The candle was burning fast; makeshift, just wax and string, borrowed from his chest of materials, probably intended for bombs, not birthdays. Internally, he was at war – the idea of a ritual celebration clashed against the identity he had constructed from loss, pain, and revolution -- a birthday was a tether to a life he’d long severed. After a long moment, he nodded slowly, like someone making peace with a vulnerability they couldn’t quite bury.
And so Evey began. Softly, awkwardly, her voice wavered on the first note but found its footing as she sang the simplest, most universal song in the world.
“Happy birthday to you…”
The melody was imperfect, charmingly human.
“Happy birthday to you…”
He stood still, arms gently folded behind his back, not watching the cake but her.
“Happy birthday, dear V…”
She faltered on the second line, almost laughing through it but kept going. His name – well the only name she had for him, felt oddly tender on her tongue.
“Happy birthday to you.”
When it ended, the quiet returned and Evey felt suspended like the smoke in the air coming from the candles. “You’ve done something rather subversive,” he said at last.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve made me feel...remembered. That’s a dangerous thing.”
“And it was excruciatingly sincere,” he added. “A most dangerous form of weaponry.”
Evey grinned. “You’ll live.”
“Yes,” he murmured, almost to himself, “perhaps I will.”
The candle still flickered, steady in its small vigil. Neither of them moved at first. Evey glanced down at it, then up at V, then back again. She shifted her weight slightly, fingers adjusting on the plate, preparing for something, though she wasn’t sure what. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought this part through while planning his birthday surprise.
She had deliberated on some scenarios for this moment. In one:
V hesitates before the candle, gloved hand hovering just beneath his chin.
Then, slowly, he reaches up and lifts the mask just enough to expose his mouth.
Evey can’t see much, just the hint of his jawline, the shadow of a man beneath the mask.
And with a gentle breath, he blows the candle out.
In another:
With a flourish, he raises his cloak ever so slightly and gives it a quick flick. The air displaces and snuffs the candle clean out.
Evey blinks. “Did you just fan it to death?”
“I, um…” she trailed off.
“You don’t have to blow it out, you know, if that feels strange.”
“Yes, a tradition usually reserved for wishes. And I–” he stopped himself, she waited.
“–am a man not prone to wishing.”
Evey’s voice was soft. “You don’t have to make one, you can just blow it out.”
She knew the implications of what she had just said, but V was a force of his own, and try as she might as she did in the past, could never successfully convince him to let his mask down, even just a little. He took a slow step forward, gaze fixed on the flame.
“You see, that’s the curious part. I’ve spent so long lighting fires, it feels almost rebellious to put one out. So, I never imagined my undoing would come by way of wax and sugar," he chuckled.
“I suppose,” he continued, “there may be a way, a...compromise.”
Evey raised an eyebrow. “A compromise?”
V took a measured step forward, then slowly removed his hat and held it to his chest like a gentleman offering terms.
“If you turn around,” he said, “and do not watch...I shall blow out the candle.” Her lips parted slightly. “Wait, you mean–”
“I mean precisely what I said,” he interrupted gently.
“A moment of privacy. A courtesy extended. One small, foolish indulgence, but it is mine to give, if you will not look.”
She held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded. “Alright,” she said quietly. “I won’t look.”
She passed the cake to him, hands brushing far too long as they traded the fragile object to each other.
She turned her back. Behind her, silence.
Then.
She heard it before she felt it. A soft, barely audible click, the sound of porcelain shifting against skin, or perhaps leather brushing metal. He was less than two steps away from her and the air felt unusually charged. Just knowing that he was maskless behind her sent shivers down her very spine. If there were ever a time to single in on one of the human senses, it was now. Never in Evey’s years of living did she ever try so hard to expend all her efforts onto the muscles of her ears. She couldn’t see, no she dared not see. Her respect too great, his trust too fragile. Her ears were her compass in this very moment.
Then a faint, deliberate exhale. Barely audible, a single, gentle stream of air. Evey was dreaming.
It had reached her. It stirred the tiny hairs at the back of her neck. Moved like a ghost across her skin, cascaded her shoulder. The very first time V had ever touched her without the covers of his garb, all without so much as a touch from his fingers. The flame went out. Smoke curled into the air like a secret let free in the dark.
“You may turn around.”
The candle had extinguished. They’d moved from the center to the small kitchen alcove.
"Thank you, Evey, for this.”
She grinned from ear to ear, delighted that he accepted with such kindness, despite any inhibitions he might have felt. Perhaps he disliked it? Perhaps he felt another way all together but didn’t say to save all her good graces? To Evey, it was all the same, progress.
Her cheeks heated into the colour of his precious Violet Carson both at his words and something brewing deeper than any words have yet conveyed. She placed the cake gently on the table. Her fingers lingered on the edge of the plate, grounding herself. V stood very still. His posture was straight, elegant as ever, but something had shifted. He was thrown off. Not defensively but like a man navigating unfamiliar terrain. Here he was again, his true sentiments veiled behind Guy Fawkes’ white smile. Evey wondered for the millionth time, what more did he need to conceal?
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said quietly.
“And neither did I, but…”
“Precisely why it matters,” he replied.
There was a pause long enough for the music to cycle into a more melancholic movement. Evey watched him and he could feel it, her gaze not at the mask, but through it. If his mask were off, the sheer intensity of her gaze would have undid him completely. She saw the theatricality, yes, but she also saw the man who played it to survive.
“You’re not just…this.”
V’s shoulders tensed and he did not respond. For a man so skilled with words, his silence was always more revealing. Evey, brave now, continued.
“You’re not just a symbol, you feel or at least remember things, and I think–" Her voice faltered slightly.
"I think you miss being seen.”
He turned his head slowly toward her. The mask, with its unchanging grin, didn’t move, but the air around him did, something fragile inside him had exhaled. Everyone wants to be seen. It's inherently human nature – but V was no human, no normal one at least. Still, it was true – perhaps to be seen by her.
“You must understand,” he said, voice low, “that being seen is not the same as being understood, and to be understood is...a perilous indulgence.”
For some reason, Evey was reminded of one of the Greek tragedies she had read in V’s collection earlier in her stay. It was a translation of lines from Euripides’ Orestes:
PYLADES I’ll take care of you
ORESTES It’s rotten work
PYLADES Not to me. Not if it’s you.1
In thinking so, Evey wanted to admit that a perilous indulgence or any for that matter, would be a risk she was willing to take.
Of course I would do it. A hundred times over.
His hand gripped the edge of the table, mirroring her own gesture of quiet anchoring. “And yet,” he added, almost a whisper, “here I am, flushed, flummoxed, and dare I say, fond.” He took a half-step back. Evey saw the silent battle of restraint.
“It’s alright,” she said.
“It’s just a day for you to be you,” she offered quietly. “Not the man with the plan, not the idea, just you.”
Who was this supposed you? What did the man without the plan and idea entail? She gestured to the walls; the towering stacks of books, the relics of art and rebellion, the machinery of revolution. All of it him. And none of it him. The black slits narrowed just a touch, trying to understand the gravity of what she was offering him.
“You’ve done a terrible thing, Evey. To remind me of my own humanity,” he said.
“But I...I thank you.”
He fell quiet for a moment, considering it. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was a silence shared by two people who had been bound together by pain and survival but now perhaps by something else, something unspoken. For V, the concept of a birthday carried too many associations. The birth of a man who died a thousand times and the creation of something that should have never been. A celebration was out of reach, but this was Evey, things always felt like a game of tug-of-war.
“Happy birthday, V," she said, “for what it's worth.”
“For what it's worth,” he echoed back.
"’I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.’" 2
A beat passed.
"Though I suspect Mr. Shakespeare never envisioned gratitude over chocolate sponge."
That earned a laugh from Evey as she retrieved the paring knife – V would insist on using proper terminology of course – and began slicing into the cake.
V took a seat just opposite, hands together resting atop, eyes fixed on Evey.
“Evey, if I may do inquire, how did–”
She answered swiftly, happy to indulge him and happier to agree to the change of subject. “Oh, I’ve just done all this while you were gone. I hope you don’t mind my…” The realization of being a house guest had suddenly registered and a sort of embarrassment washed over at using his tools, his utensils and food and ingredients. He caught on quickly.
“You must know already, everything is at your disposal Evey, you needn’t ask,” he stated calmly.
Truly he was more than delighted, it not only was his pleasure to know that she was finding ground in her stay here, but it also made things easier for him to know that she wasn’t feeling too awkward making herself at home.
“Thank you,” was all she could think to say.
He watched as she moved about the small kitchen, turning on her heel as she got two plates out. When she would traverse around the Shadow Gallery like this, he would let his eyes linger on her figure as she twisted and turned, but that was something he’d never admit to himself.
The plan had started innocently enough. One idle conversation, a passing mention from V.
One night, after he had returned from one of his long excursions into the city, a brief exchange took place, as they often did. He had spoken of a birthday in a detached way, so matter-of-fact that it hadn’t even registered at first. Something about a celebration of Sutler’s regime, perhaps it was the Chancellor’s birthday.
It wasn’t until a few days later, when Evey was alone, that the word began to play with her mind, pulling at the edges of her curiosity. Birthday. Did the man have a birthday? Surely, he did. He was human, at the end of the day he went to bed, he ate in private, and took warm baths, she presumed.
“Yes,” he had answered to her whim, and when she asked when, he gave her a date to her honest surprise. She suspected it wasn’t real, it could have been an invention, an attempt to play along with the idea of human connection. In truth, it was somewhere in between.
Memory preceding Larkhill was scattered or completely lost on him. Something so simple as his birthday was definitely lost on him, but the date he gave her was based on a feeling that he had whenever it passed. So, it could’ve meant something, perhaps his birthday or someone else’s? He just wanted to indulge her a little. She held on to it. Maybe because it was the first time he had ever shared something so personal, even if he hadn’t realized the significance of it. For weeks leading up to the date, she had thought about it, though she tried to shrug it off as something he could care less about. She told herself not to make anything of it, that V would find such gestures frivolous, even foolish, but it rubbed on her like a stain.
The thought had come slowly. A cake. It was such a simple gesture. V was a creature of strange rhythms, unpredictable and silent in ways that made it difficult to plan anything with precision. His schedule was something of a mystery, often veiled in hours spent deep within the Gallery’s labyrinthine hallways or in the streets above. Before his arrival she had already gathered her materials, though it hadn’t been easy. Flour, butter, eggs – things she had scavenged and pieced together with whatever could be found in the back of the kitchen.
She found some sugar too and a bit of vanilla extract hidden away in small bottles that V must’ve accumulated over the years. Evey knew that V sometimes hijacked the food transports to the Chancellor’s residence – smuggling out supplies meant for the elite, and occasionally small packages of rich, decadent chocolate – a rare treat reserved for those with power, the sort of thing the Chancellor and his ilk hoarded for themselves.
She didn’t know if it was ever enough to justify a request, but she couldn’t think of another way to get it. V couldn’t say no, he could never say no to her, and even though she never outright requested for it, the brief mention alone promoted chocolate to the top of his grocery hijacking list at the number one spot. God, if only she knew the things he would do to please her.
Everything had been cautiously hand mixed, you could say then, made with love. She had no doubt he knew something was up, but if he did, he hadn’t let on. Perhaps he was humouring her, or he had simply decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of figuring out. She had made birthday garland out of paper, fabrics, and leftover materials, many from remnants of thread or yarn left in the Gallery that she assumed to be from his occasional costume repairs. The banner took more time. Using scraps of old fabric, ripped sheets, and threadbare curtains, she created a long strip, a makeshift canvas on which she painted the words “Happy Birthday.” The letters were uneven, with some darker and more legible than others. And then there was the birthday crown.
It wasn’t much, simply a circle of twigs that V had discarded from the Violet Carsons, wrapped with some of the dead rose leaves. She had fashioned it late one night, weaving the natural materials together with a delicate touch. There were many things that were true in this situation they now faced; that he didn’t really know who he was, much of his life’s memories perished with the dust or in Room V, that the date he gave her had a one in three hundred-sixty five chance of being true. No matter the details, it wasn’t Evey’s place to get caught up in the uncertainties.
They moved through the soft-lit corridors of the Shadow Gallery to a familiar sitting room, one of the few spaces that granted its own special purposes. Hanging from a ceiling beam, between two armchairs that faced each other near a low table, was the curtain.
Deep crimson velvet, the kind that once dressed the wings of a forgotten theatre stage. It was old, probably from one of the dusty theatre storage trunks V had salvaged long ago during one of his forays, but it still held its weight and richness, pooling just slightly at the ground in heavy folds. It had been here as long as she could remember, though its purpose hadn’t been clear at first, she had assumed it was for ambiance, another dramatic flourish V had inherited from his love of performance.
It had started months ago, this strange dining ritual. One evening, she had brought her tea to the seat just beside the curtain, unaware that, on the other side, V was also there, quietly sipping his own. Apparently, he hadn’t minded, or he did and allowed it anyway. Then, one dinner – not tea, not happenstance, but dinner – she had heard the soft clink of cutlery from the other side. V was eating there with her, separated by velvet, yes, but near. Shaking from excitement was an understatement. The first dinner was total silence, followed by the second with a word or two from V; a dry observation about the weather, then numerous more where they couldn’t go eating without talking. Over time, it became their unspoken compromise.
Tonight, it felt different. Tonight, there was cake.
“Where were you today?” She was the first to speak again, bringing the fork away from her lips.
“Rest assured, Evey, I wasn’t out hunting, as it were.”
She arched a brow, skeptical, and he caught on by her silence.
“Nothing so gruesome,” he clarified.
“I was...following up on a lead. A personal matter, no blood was shed.”
Evey nodded to herself, though part of her still wondered, she didn’t push.
“How old are you V?” She had the courage to ask, seeing as all her cards were already laid out.
V made a sound on the other side of the curtain, a half sigh and chuckle.
“Evey, I don’t intend to tell you this again,” he said with a tease, “old enough to be your father…though I am not your father.” He drew out the last word with theatrical flourish, ending it on a playful high note.
“Well then, that’d make you quite the old sage,” she snorted.
V dipped his head in mock solemnity. “‘With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.’” 3
Evey groaned and shook her head as V recited yet another Shakespeare quote for the night.
“That’s what, four tonight?”
“Five,” he corrected.
“Though I could’ve made it six, had I included a bit from Beckett.”
“Please don’t.”
They shared a laugh, genuine and unguarded. Her pupils dilated as she wished so badly to know what he looked like when the lips of his smile curled up to laugh. How beautiful his chuckle already was, made for all the more appreciation that his husky vocals were coated in velvety chocolate from the cake she made.