V stopped twirling the apple around in his leather-clad hand and simply held it for a moment, studying it closely. He hadn't planned on eating it when he plucked it from the fruit bowl, nor was he particularly hungry. But it was so very red and shiny, with tempting little patches of green, here and there...

He grabbed hold of the long stem between his thumb and forefinger and began to twist, absently. This simple action quite unexpectedly triggered a memory from his childhood. It rarely happened, and when it did, it was of litttle to no importance, and never yielding a single clue as to who he was before he became what he was. Like this: something about saying a letter with each twist, and whichever letter it was that you said when the stem finally broke off was the first letter of the name of the person you were going to marry.

Hesitantly, he began to indulge in this childish nonsense, until moments later, snap! The little splinter of wood fell the to the floor.

"'E'..." he said with a little scoff, and, after a moment of bitter contemplation, threw the apple at the fruit arrangement on the table so violently that the bowl was knocked over, spilling it's colourful contents all over the floor.

No stem was strong enough to ever possibly make it all the way to 'V'.

+++

Evey Hammond hadn't eaten all day. She peeked into her refrigerator and sighed when she found it sadly empty save for a the half-empty (or half-full) jug of milk that always seemed to occupy such depressingly barren ice boxes, along with a few leftovers in containers, and a bag of apples. She reached into the torn plastic bag and retrieved one of the latter.

Before she commenced devouring her first meal of the day, she did what she always did before eating an apple. It was a ritual of sorts, like eating the fortune cookie before reading the fortune. She'd done it ever since she was a little girl, and she remembered her mother cheating so that the stem always broke when it got around to her father's name, just to prove to little Evey that it was true. This time, Evey decided she would do a little cheating of herself. It was silly, and girlish, and she was terribly embarrassed, almost to the point of blushing. But no one was around, and he would never know.

This time, she decided to start at 'Z'.