Chapter Text
The first time it happened - ‘though she didn’t identify it as the first time for days - she was staring blankly at the vending machine in her apartment and trying half-heartedly to decide between Sojasil Nitroglycerine and Sojasil Dynamite. She didn’t really want either of them, but she was aware in a dull sort of way that her body had been sending her hunger signals for a while. She didn’t feel hungry - hadn’t felt much of anything since V disappeared, to be honest - but she knew she should eat.
The worst thing was not knowing what had happened. V had been up to something. That holo call had made it pretty clear. “High time I faced it. Can’t be sure it’ll work, but I gotta try”. And the way she had sounded. So subdued. So unlike herself.
But then - nothing. No message from V, nothing on the news, not even a whisper of a hint of a rumour that anything out of the ordinary had happened. And it hadn’t just been a few days, it had been two weeks.
She hadn’t been all that worried at first. They still hadn’t codified their relationship, not formally, even though they had added each other to their apartment security. V would go days without contacting her sometimes, when she was in the depths of some gig or other, but she always replied to Judy’s texts eventually.
The first evening, Judy went to bed worried for V, but in an abstract fashion. By the end of the second day and still no word, she found herself chaining smoke after smoke, littering the area below her window with burnt-out butts and making herself feel sick and dizzy.
The internal argument was endless. She doesn’t want to call she can’t call she doesn’t want to call it’s your fault it’s no-ones fault it’s yours it’s yours it’s yours it’s you it’s you...
Judy had sent text after text and then that morning - if you could call it morning when she hadn’t been to sleep - sent a voice message. A pathetic, pitiful voice message that she wanted to take back the second she hit send.
“..please, just give me some kinda signal that you’re ok…”
Fuck, how pathetic. But she couldn’t take it back, and with a groan she picked herself up from the floor and stumbled to the machine.
That was when it happened.
As she was trying to make her choice, some new jingle played through the machine’s tinny speakers. The weird thing was, it sounded like old-fashioned acoustic guitar strings. She scowled. Kicked the machine, swore when she stubbed her big toe, and limped angrily into her workroom, thoughts of food forgotten.
That was the first time.
The second time was just the next day. She was walking home from Lizzie’s (walking. Alone, through Night City, at 4 in the morning. Someone could read something into that, were they so inclined) and as she came up to the entrance of an alley there was a brief, static-y blare of music from an abandoned radio, accompanied by the popping of a suddenly over-charged neon strip that flared bright red and gold before exploding in a shower of sparks.
Judy jumped and swore, the latest in a chain of cigarettes dropping from her lips into a puddle of - she didn’t want to know what. There was a scuffle from the alleyway, retreating footsteps. The little voice in the back of her head that thought it was a good idea to walk home suggested that it might also be a good idea to investigate.
She ignored it, and lit another cigarette.
She realised that something weird was happening the third time she heard the song, two days later. It was the first time she heard more than a scattered handful of notes, but it wasn’t the song itself that clued her in. It was how she heard it. She was walking across the parking lot outside her building when the car next to her suddenly came to alive, the electric starter turning over with a loud *click*, the headlights flaring to life, the radio coming on suddenly. Then the car next to it, then the next, in a wave across the lot until there were eight cars and vans lit up like beacons, each blaring the same music.
It was a song she didn’t recognise, no lyrics, just piano and guitar - acoustic again - a weird mix of upbeat and depressed. Bittersweet. Her audio implant catalogued the notes without her noticing, feeding the information on pitch, tone, sustain, into her subconscious mind.
It stopped as soon as it had started, the vehicles all simultaneously going silent and dark. Judy, who had been standing frozen in the headlights, regained her senses and darted in a panic across the lot, taking the stairs up to her floor two at a time.
She slammed the door to her apartment behind her, stabbing frantically at the control panel until she was sure it was locked. What the hell was that?!
It took almost all of her remaining cigarettes before she stopped shaking, and instead spent the night restless and nauseated, heart-racing.
After that, it was like the damned song was chasing her. It was everywhere, bleeping out of people’s holos, playing on ad boards and from vending machines and one day every single fucking stero she passed played a single note from the tune, in order.
Judy would have thought she was going insane if it weren’t for the fact that other people could hear it too. In an effort to take her mind off the music, she decided to find her courage and go to V’s apartment.
Judy had never been to V’s apartment - there had never been time - but she did know where it was, and V had added her to the security so she could get in. She debated with herself for hours. Should she go? If V was ignoring her calls then of course she shouldn’t - if V was alive but needed help then how could she do anything else? - if the apartment was empty… There were just so many different things that could be going on. The one constant , the one thing she kept repeating to herself, was that just perhaps she would find some sort of answer.
Eventually, she gave herself a metaphorical kick up the ass, and headed over to Watson, and Megabuilding H10. Making her way through the atrium, past the vendors, through the crowded gym, she managed to keep a firm grip on her feelings. But when she finally reached Vs floor, and the elevator doors slid open as she passed them and that damned song started playing once again, the screens papering the walls showing a dizzying kaleidoscope of colours, she almost lost it. She stumbled across the hallway, desperately grateful when the door to Vs apartment slid open for long enough to admit her, before closing and cocooning her inside.
It smelled like V. It was as if she had just left, and the mixture of comfort and desperate loneliness made Judy suddenly nauseous. She reached for her ever present cigarettes, but stopped just short of lighting up. V wouldn’t appreciate it if her apartment stank of smoke.
She took a deep, shuddering breath instead. It was then that she finally processed what she had seen as she passed through the door. Wait. What the fuck?
Turning around, she stepped back out into the hallway, and waited for the door to close. Yeah, that was what she’d thought she’d seen. There was an eviction notice pasted to the outside of V’s door. Notice to quit… non-payment of rent… end of this month…
Shit. It was the 29th now. And this notice was dated - what? Three weeks ago? Two days after Vs last holo call. Judy wasn’t sure what to feel. She headed back into the apartment, thoughts racing.
No way could V have been back here since that notice was posted. She had money, Judy knew, she’d have sorted out the rent issue if nothing else. Well, that was one answer. V wasn’t going about her life as normal. She hadn’t ghosted Judy after all. Not that Judy had ever believed that she had, not really. But that little voice had been very insistent. Everybody leaves you. You’re not good enough. This was all your fault.
Judy couldn’t help the flare of relief, even if this meant that it had to be one of the nastier scenarios at play.
She was shaken out of her thoughts by a rustle from the bed, and an inquisitive, chirruping noise. What the…
Her eyes widened as the rustling continued, and a sleek, hairless head popped out from the rumpled covers. Two wide, turquoise eyes stared at her and she stared back with a mixture of disbelief and amusement. A cat. Of course V owned a cat. In a city where the taxes on animals were astronomical, and owning an unlicensed pet could see you fined of every asset you had and then some - the merc had a cat.
She approached cautiously, hand held out. That was what you were supposed to do, right?
The cat came fully out of the covers and strolled confidently over to butt at her hand with its head. Judy froze. Er. Now what?
The cat nudged her again, angling itself so that it could shove its head up under her hand, pushing insistently into her palm. Almost of their own volition, her fingers curled around and scratched at the cat’s warm, surprisingly velvety skin. A low rumbling sound came from the cat, and Judy realised it was purring. She smiled, the first real smile that had passed over her lips for almost a month, and sat down on the bed.
The cat climbed into her lap and circled around, before settling itself down to knead gently at her knee, still purring, eyes slitted. Judy absently continued her stroking of the cats head and ears, and nodded to herself, a glint of determination in her eyes.
“Alright, cat. I’ve been moping about for long enough. Time to actually do something.”