Chapter Text
The elevator shudders to a stop. V steps through, ignoring the graffiti. She’d seen it enough on her past visits. Given a pencil and paper, she could recreate it, as well as each spot and dent in the concrete steps and the tarot card that used to decorate the wall to the left of the door.
Misty informed her it was the World card when she asked. One of the major arcana. The end of a journey. Fulfillment. Acceptance.
That’s the first reason that V likes the roof.
“Hey! What the fuck?”
The second reason V likes the roof is that she’s easy to find here.
Judy crashes into her from behind. Just as quickly, she pulls away and spins V around, examining her face.
“No shit. You’re alive. Actually alive. And V!” With that utterance, suspicion slams back full force. “Wait. You are V, right? Tell me something V would know.”
“Burnt marshmallows,” V blurts. “Two sugars, no cream.”
“ Gracias a Dios ,” Judy mutters into her shoulder. “You have no idea how weird it was meeting Johnny in your body.”
“I met him in my head,” V replies. The words don't rest easy on her tongue. “Try me.”
“He kissed me, and then—”
“You win.”
Judy snorts. “Lucky me. He has no idea how you kiss. He was so clearly a man that I kneed him in the balls by reflex.”
“Good,” V says. She pauses. “He visit about the engram or—”
“Oh, yeah. Vik fill you in?”
V wiggles her hand and shrugs. “I have the bare bones.”
“Johnny remembered our dual BD. He thought it could be helpful to check your engram’s integrity, so he asked for my help.”
“...and tried to kiss you?”
Judy giggles. “It’s not the worst business pitch I’ve gotten.”
The news of your best friend and one-time hookup’s death, delivered by the jackass rocker who killed her, now possesses her body, and decides to start the interaction with sexual assault. Whatever gonk took first place for the worst business pitch, Judy probably buried. Or maybe just left to rot.
“Sorry about him,” V sighs.
Judy pats her arm. “I don’t wanna keep you. But call, yeah?”
Her first time up the elevator, he’d still been with her. They had looked over the city together. He had sat, still, silent, and let her decide.
The Aldecaldos had gotten her to Mikoshi. Alt had delivered the news. V had given Johnny her body.
Two days later, Johnny dropped by Vik’s in V’s body with her engram on a chip, demanding a second body. Vik told him it was impossible. Two weeks later, Johnny showed up with an extra body. Vik had almost gotten over the regular occurrence of the impossible, so he checked its compatibility then put Johnny to work.
It took twelve days after that to ensure V’s engram (and Johnny’s), were stable, accurate, and transferable. It took three days after that to complete the transfer. V woke up two days after that with a new tattoo, a few new scars, and strict instructions to stay in bed while she recuperates. Johnny had woken up the day after, gotten dressed, and left.
This is the third reason that V likes the roof. He can find her here, if he ever cares to look.
The elevator ekes its way up the ancient shaft. It’s earlier than yesterday, so V sweeps her gaze across the eastern sky. If she’s lucky, maybe the yellow-orange light lingering there will wash her nightmare away.
She hasn’t remembered a dream since she came back. They’re indistinct in the same way cyberspace was. All the same, she wakes up shuddering, gasping. She wakes feeling hunted, feeling caught.
Last week, Vik gave her the all-clear for boxing. It helps, somewhat, to fight. Her hands and feet remember that old rhythm, the push and pull and sway, the vicious bite and sting if she dares it bare-knuckled. It reminds her somewhat of who she was before—when she was V, just V, a first-time visitor to Vik and Jackie’s boxing club.
Vik had knocked her on her ass. Jackie had cheered the whole time. Even now, V has no idea who for.
Today, she faces no opponent but her own shadow, swinging towards it where it falls on the wall of the empty roof. Something is wrong with her left arm. It whiffs when she swings it, too high and too fast and too weak. It is too light. Flesh-and-blood. Her shadow doesn’t look like her.
V swings again. Her knuckles bloody the brick.
The elevator creaks like old mechanics and deeds slowly done. The ride feels longer every day.
Misty would say that V’s looking for solace without finding it, so every time she goes up, she feels farther from her goal, and consequently like the ride takes longer.
Vik would say after years of use, the elevator’s failing.
But they’re just voices in her head. What do they know?
It has been twenty hours.
Four more hours, and she will have kept away for a day. Four more hours, and maybe she can fool herself into thinking she’s broken a dead man’s hold.
It would be easier if she could sleep.
The elevator sways beneath her feet, unsteady and lurching. She’s seasick and love-drunk and lost, leering over the edge towards a dark and distant city.
It has been fifty-three days and twenty-one hours.
Where else could she be?
The elevator rumbles. For once, it is a distant sound, removed from where V slumbers in the rooftop chair. The door slinks open, and she peers from underneath her eyelids. The moment should feel important, but mostly it feels like throbbing behind her skull and numbness where her poor posture pinned down her own arm.
Footsteps wind their way forward from the elevator. The door to the roof creaks open. The footsteps cross in front of her. She hears a gentle exhale, and the scrape of metal against metal when he leans on the railing.
“Get up,” he says. “The city’s beautiful.”
She stands, then, and walks forward to his side.
Morning cascades across the city, but she only sees it where it lights upon his face. He’s been well. A tan has settled across his face and arms. He’s wearing an outfit she’s never seen before, casual but neat and cleanly kept. Most importantly, there’s peace in his eyes. He looks certain . He never looked like that before.
V pulls back and plants her fist in his gut. He buckles over, bent in half.
“Johnny,” she says. “You’re shorter than I expected.”
Johnny laughs, wheezing with the air forced out of him. “You bitch,” he says, and swings back.