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Even after raiding Arasaka tower, V still chases after something in Night City—a voice without a song. Something in her head that she’s been fighting all along.
The apartment is breath-taking, situated in downtown Watson with all the lavish trappings of the rich—clean floors and walls, beautiful golden accents in the decoration, a walk-in shower, and a spacious, new bed. A balcony opens out into a view over Night City, and they exhale as they make their way to it. Something tenses in Judy’s stomach—an instinct, a warning whisper that this shouldn’t be how things are.
“This is…” Judy turns to V, who leans against the railing, looking young and golden in the sunlight, like an avenging valkyrie, a wartime goddess. “More than I expected. It’s different.” She’s hesitant, careful with her words. “It’s all you ever dreamed of.”
“But it’s not what you dreamed of, right? You’re scared that we might drift apart.” V wrinkles her nose in thought. “Can we climb this mountain? I don’t know. It’s higher than ever before, but I know we can make it if we take it easy. Slow.” She turns, grinning. “It’s like we’re burning down the highway skyline on the back of a hurricane that started turning when the city was young.”
Judy blinks. That’s awfully poetic. “Almost sounds like a song there.”
V frowns. “Does it?” She runs her fingers through her hair, eyes looking at something in the distance that Judy can’t follow. “Sometimes, I say stuff, and I don’t know where it comes from.” She shakes her head. “No matter. I know we’ll do this together.”
V smiles so brightly that Judy has to smile in return. She leans in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You’ll find a way. I know you will.”
The few first weeks, V’s at home, attentive, laughing, sneaking a hand up Judy’s thigh whenever she gets a chance. Until her phone rings, and V checks it with a raised eyebrow. She bids Judy goodbye, kissing her brow as she makes her way to Afterlife.
At first, Judy’s understanding, wishes her luck and watches her go with her heart pounding in her throat. When V returns, Judy exhales, taking her grinning girl into her arms, tugging her to the shower and then the bed, but she catches her doing odd things. Smoking on the balcony, drinking tequila with chili powder rubbed on the rim. It’s even stranger when Judy finds V doing things she’s never seen her doing before, like writing down chord progressions. “Didn’t think you were into music.”
“Hmm? Not really, but I was just listening to this song on the radio and I was so disgusted, I started writing a better one on the back of a cocktail napkin.” V shoves over said napkin, and Judy raises an eyebrow at the suggested key, beats per minutes, and a scrawl of chord progressions that look like gibberish to her.
V trails her pen over the notes. “Here, look. Key of F major, starts with a major fifth, then goes into a minor third, then back into that major fifth, and—” She stops at Judy’s expression. “What is it?”
“You wrote these as guitar chords,” Judy studies her, eyes sharp on V’s features, darting across each line as trying to catch the moment they change. “You don’t play guitar.”
V screws up her face. “Yes, I d—” She pales before breaking out into laughter that feels too fraught to be real. “Sorry, guess I’m just tired. Dunno where my head’s at.” She leans in, kissing Judy while crumpling the napkin in her hand.
She doesn’t bring it up again, and V seems to laugh the same, smile the same, but there’s a distant look to her eyes now, like something missing, something left behind. Sometimes, she rubs her face like she has a headache, jumps like she sees someone moving in the corners of the room, and her eyes trail through the air, following something unseen.
But Johnny’s gone. Isn’t that what V said?
As the weeks go by, V returns later and later with bloodshot eyes, stiffness in her shoulders she didn’t have before. Her coughs are worse—almost violent in their explosiveness as they send V doubling over, blood splattering into her palms.
“I’m fine, Judy. Just a rough patch before I get better.” V smiles through bloodstained teeth, hissing as she straightens up and takes the stained bathroom towel from her arm. “Promise.”
But she strays farther and farther away.
V’s in and out of their apartment, like Judy’s something she has on the sly. An itch opens up below Judy’s skin, like an agitated beast pacing up and down the length of her nerves, her spine. When she tries to bring it up to V, it ends poorly.
“What more could you want? You have all the time in the world to work on your BDs. Aren’t you tired of working on smut?”
“Maybe I’m tired of waiting in this highrise for you to come home.” Judy shakes her head. It feels like she’ll never leave, that she’s slowly sinking into quicksand, choking, suffocating, because she’s waiting for V to wake up and see it for what it is.
But V never does. She slips away into the shadows of the city with a constant ache to get back in the game. “What are you talking about? We have everything we want right here.” V’s phone rings, and she takes it out, eyes lighting up as she scans what’s on the screen. “Got another gig. I gotta—”
“Go. You always do,” Judy sighs as V’s stepping through the glass doors, waving goodbye. She doesn’t look back when she leaves.
Left alone, Judy crosses her arms, smoking on the balcony like she’s on fire and staring morosely into the glittering lights. Why can’t V see what’s happening? Why can’t she change?
She looks out into the city in her heartache. Sometimes, she closes her eyes and sees the places she used to live in when she was young—the ones she always ends up leaving. The girls with the broken smiles she used to collect like a cheating spouse collecting page-six lovers in a dirty hotel room. A maddening cycle that never stops. Is it her? Is she trapped?
Maybe she was just waiting on some beautiful girl to save her from her old ways. Maybe she was hoping V would be her. Time is slipping by, and V’s getting worse.
She stashes new meds in the washroom cabinets, saying Misty found her some supplies. Judy’s no fool. She can tell from the labels that the dosage is stronger, but V slides away from the discussion whenever she brings it up, distracting her by pulling Judy to bed.
Her dreams offer no respite. The same vision haunts her--her and V walking beside each other on the street as V turns left and Judy goes right, and Judy wakes up with her heartbeat skittering in her ears. She reaches over, feeling V’s warmth beneath her palm, and, instead of feeling soothed, tears come to her eyes. What is Judy supposed to do once she’s gone?
She tries to address this. She really does. One morning when V isn’t running out the doors, Judy gestures at the kitchen chairs. “Siddown. We need to talk.”
“About what?” V remains standing, arms crossed across her chest. “Breakfast? I already made it.”
Judy shakes her head. “What we should do if you—”
“I won’t.” V’s tone is sharp, fingers digging into the material of her shirt. “I’m going to make it. You know this.”
“Maybe, but we should talk just in case.”
“Why? You know I don’t want to. Don’t I do enough for you? Provide everything you need so you can work on your art?”
She sounds like Maiko. “You don’t get it. Sometimes, from the way we go on, I feel like I was up for sale, and you were the highest bidder.” When V steps back, looking offended, Judy sighs, cursing how clumsy her words are, how inadequate compared to the emotions she can express in her BDs. “I’m not saying you treat me like a joytoy, but I feel—“
“Like I treat you like a business transaction?” V’s tone is clipped. Judy winces. “Like I have no fucking feelings towards you? Jesus, Judy. Who do you think you are?” She shakes her head, stalking her way towards her gun room and packing away some iron, muttering. “If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just leave? Never fucking asked you to stay.” Her tone is harsh, aggressive, like that of a fading star with too many disappointments.
Judy reels as if struck. She closes her eyes. “I know you don’t mean that, mi calabacita. That was—” But Johnny’s not there anymore. That was all V.
She turns away, shoulders slumping. “Sorry.” She tracks over to the couch where she plants herself, hearing V shuffle around in her gun room before footsteps approach her.
Judy doesn’t look back.
“Hey, I’m sorry too. Didn’t mean to say what I said earlier.” V’s voice is quiet.
Judy closes her eyes. “You should head off. Gig’s waiting.”
V pauses as if uncertain about what to do before she leans down and kisses Judy’s cheek, who twists slightly away, the feeling of V’s lips on her skin almost mechanical.
When the door clicks shut, Judy opens her eyes, glancing over to her suitcase and calculating how long it would take her to pack, what’s the shortest route out of the city. She exhales, reining in her instinct to flee. She needs to try again, to give them one more shot, because V’s worth it. Maybe she needs more time, more support. Judy can do that.
And yet, her suitcase sits half-packed, though V doesn’t make any comment when she returns. “I meant what I said. I’m sorry I said that. I don’t know where that came from. Honest.” Her breath burns against the back of Judy’s neck as V wraps her arms around her.
Judy crosses her arms. “Mmm...so when are we getting out? Done tying up all of your loose ends?”
V steps back, withdrawing. “Night City is my city.”
“What about me? Where do I fit?”
“With me. How many times do I need to say it?”
Judy shakes her head, turning to see V walk to the other side of the room, each step might as well be a mountain between them. “Let me help you then.”
V shakes her head. “This is something I need to do alone.” She’s been saying that for the last half dozen gigs, and Judy suspects it’s for another reason entirely that she doesn’t take her along.
Still, Judy tries. Takes it back to old times when she was still a girl and putting on that red dress she hates for her grandmother, painting her toes in twirls. But V starts to falter and halt like an old machine running on rusty gear. A few times, Judy catches her standing in the middle of the apartment, staring at nothing, and when shaken back to her senses, V could not recall how long she was there. The gigs become more desperate, like V is trying to run away from her thoughts, from reality pressing down like an inexhaustible weight, and Judy finds herself alone in that gilded place for a week at a time, sliding into two.
When V comes home one night, Judy surprises her with a meal on the table, a frisky romp in the shower that continues into bed as V presses her down into the sheets with Judy sighing, running her fingers through V’s hair. Skin against skin, heat against heat. Trying to get a taste of what they had at the cabin, the sizzle of the connection that sparked and burned that night.
But the distance between them might as well be that of two stars.
V falls asleep quickly with Judy tracing the edge of her face with one finger, feeling the familiar numbness in her chest. There’s an empty ache that she constantly feels even when V’s around, like she doesn’t even see her. “How far are you going to go? How much are you going to risk? I’m not looking for a legend that’s brilliant and short-lived, like a falling star. But that’s exactly what you want, isn’t it?”
Something clenches in her chest as Judy whispers, “I’m starting to give up on you. I would have followed you anywhere.”
V coughs, blood staining the corner of her lips, and something breaks in Judy—the lies, the secrecy, the coldness. The harshness, the hunger for something that will devour her in the end.
She can’t...this love has taken its toll on her.
Judy touches V’s face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get through to you.” She presses a kiss to her cheek.
She drifts off, allowing herself to have one more day, one last choice.
When she wakes, V doesn’t seem to notice any changes. She kisses Judy good morning and heads to the showers, coughing up blood that Judy can spot clearly from the doorway of the bathroom. She slips in, tries to act like she doesn’t see, but Judy’s never been good at lying. Not like V.
V seems to sense something when she looks at Judy in the kitchen. When she doesn’t say anything, Judy sighs and leans back against the counter. “The meds. You’re getting worse.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about this.” V’s eyes narrow, turning dark and ugly briefly before they lighten. “I’ll figure out a way.”
“So, when are you going to be done?”
V doesn’t meet her gaze. “Just one more mission.”
“And then, what? Another? And another?” Judy sighs, feeling that familiar disappointment creep under her skin—like everytime Maiko’s denied what she did, like Evelyn’s ambitious promises that never came to fruition. “When did you plan to stop? Do you ever?”
V swallows. She looks at her feet, fists clenching.
That’s answer enough for Judy, who exhales and heads onto the balcony, staring into the Crystal Palace hanging in the sky and hating it with everything in her soul, her being.
V pads next to her, leaning on the railing beside her. “It’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Now or never. “Listen, V. Got something I need to tell you.”
“You’re leaving.” V meets her eyes. “I can see the suitcase. I’m not blind.”
“Just mute.” Judy shakes her head. “I messed up. I need to get out of this place. When I look out into this city, I feel...alone.”
“But...you have me.” V studies her. “But you still feel isolated, don’t you?”
Judy sighs, hands clenching around the cold steel of the railing. “I know this story. I’ve lived it before. Let me tell you the ending: spring never arrives. Summer never comes.” Judy exhales, looking up into V’s miserable eyes. “This path, this wall you’re building up? It’ll never come down. It’s a line of ice between us. Because you don’t trust me. You don’t trust anyone.”
“That’s not true—”
“Then, why didn’t you tell me it was getting worse? Why hide everything?”
“I...it’s hard for me. You know this.”
“I do, but when were you going to mention it? When are you going to treat me like your output instead of a joytoy you like keeping around?”
V hisses, “Is that what you think I do?”
Judy stands, pushing herself from the railing. “What do you think? Would I be saying that if you didn’t?” When V doesn’t answer, she closes her eyes. “You see what you’re doing to us, but you can’t stop, can you? You’ll follow this path to the end, burning everyone and everything around you,” she says softly, “and for what, V? Do you even know?”
V opens her mouth, but the roar of a helicopter interrupts her as it lands on the pad behind Judy. Her eyes cut towards it before glancing back. “I need you.”
Judy smiles sadly. V still doesn’t realize it.
“Think we both knew that there wasn’t likely to be a happily-ever-after. Not in Night City. But I had hoped...really hoped it would have been you.”
“It’s because I said goodbye too many times before,” V says quietly, “and you don’t want to say goodbye anymore.”
Judy shakes her head, glancing down. “If I don’t leave now and you don’t make it back, I’ll never go.” She can’t stand seeing V’s heart breaking in front of her. “Good luck.”
She starts to head back to the apartment to begin packing when she feels V touch her shoulder.
“Please don’t go.” V’s voice wavers. When Judy turns back, she can see the glossy sheen in V’s eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I would stay.” Judy touches V’s face before her fingers slip away, and she steps back. “But I know you’ll just destroy us more. You know you do.” She glances away. “I don’t even know who you are anymore. Sometimes, I think you died at Mikoshi, and all that came back is an engram—a copy of who you used to be. Someone I used to know.”
V looks at her helplessly. “I’m me. I’ve always been me.”
“Maybe that’s what I’m realizing, V. And I’m sorry it couldn’t be something different.” Judy sweeps one hand out towards Night City. “You’ll keep running away to this world until the very end.”
V goes quiet. “I won’t see you when I get back, will I?” She pulls Judy into a hug, and Judy feels something like glass cracking inside her chest, a roiling in her stomach like she wants to throw up. “Thanks for the memories, even when they weren’t so great.”
“You take care.” Judy turns into V’s neck, inhaling her in one last time. She kisses her cheek. “You’ll find a way. I know you will.”
“That’s the plan.” V lets go, stepping towards the helicopter, shoulders already straightening, eyes faraway. She seems to have recovered by the time she hops in. Judy should have expected that, but it doesn’t take the sting away when V doesn’t look back, already debriefing for her next mission.
And just like V, Judy turns away.
It doesn’t take long to pack away what she has. Less than an hour later, she’s rolling her suitcase down the hall to the elevator and taking it into the parking garage where her van waits. V got the thing cleaned up and repaired, running like a brand new machine, and Judy’s throat seizes before she shakes her head and pushes her suitcase into the back. Her car starts smoother than she remembers, and, soon, she’s driving up the ramp and onto the streets of Watson.
Judy doesn’t think, letting her shaking hands steer her onto a highway that leads out of Night City, going until she pulls up on an empty spot just outside, one that leads north into Oregon. She gets out and approaches the concrete railing, staring out at the sprawling city like a slumbering monster, a waiting beast. She pulls out a cigarette, the last one in Evelyn’s case that V gave to her.
It’s like closing the gates of time on another phase of her life. Like saying goodbye to Evelyn and Tom and the Moxes all at once, all their hopes and dreams, all their failures and deaths. Terrible and huge and wonderful and indescribable at once—a mess of emotions too big to feel. And V...V’ll always be in Judy’s heart. The woman she used to be before Mikoshi. Before fame.
Judy takes a last inhale on her cigarette before throwing it to the ground, grinding the bright orange light out with her heel. Turning, she looks back at the skyline, a jagged beauty against the horizon—all teeth and sharp angles and pretty lights like an oasis in a desert. She feels like she’s running away; she feels like she’s betraying a huge part of herself, but most of all, she feels—
Sighing, her shoulders relax, and Judy glances up into the sky above her, feeling lightened, weightless. Almost guiltily so. Pulling out her phone, she stares at V’s number before hitting the call button, not even surprised when she doesn’t pick up.
“Hey, V. I know we already said our goodbyes, but I couldn’t leave without one last call.” Judy shakes her head. “I can’t keep on waiting for you. I know that you’re still hesitating.” She looks into her screen. “Don’t cry for me, cause I’ll find my way. You’ll wake up one day. But it’ll be too late. Goodbye, V.”
Hanging up the phone, Judy exhales as she turns her eyes from Night City.
Just another Maiko, another Evelyn.
V will never leave.