#optimistically

So like

My V was a complete fucking mess after the Heist and what happened there. Her best friend (and crush) was dead, she almost died, and she had a fucking terrorist in her head who could TOUCH HERRRR and had hijacked her body and hurt her, and she was going to die in a month and slowly lose control of her body to someone who wanted to hurt her.

She. Was fucking. Terrified. Even when Johnny offered an olive branch she didn’t trust him at all (something Judy would come to relate to, although my V hasn’t yet noticed the parallel).

So when Judy refused to give her any information on Evelyn?

V, who was absolutely scared for her life and having a mental breakdown after the death of her best friend, went to visit Judy.

With a baseball bat.

And used it.

I know this doesn’t make it better at all, but V did hold back a bit -- didn’t hit the head, pulled her punches on the body and spine, and mostly went for the legs. If any permanent damage was done, it wouldn’t be to Judy’s brain, it wouldn’t be to her hands or arms. Better she disabled Judy’s ability to walk if she went too far than fucking lobotomising her or fucking up her hands.

How fucking considerate of her, I know. V basically wanted to scare the shit out of her, made her think that other people were hunting down Evelyn (”if you don’t give me this information, I’ll just fucking kill you. I don’t need you. I can wait for someone else to find her first and drop in on them. So you better talk because otherwise you’re not getting out of here alive”), and made a big song and dance about how the only reason V wasn’t going to fucking annihilate Judy on the spot was because Jackie would never forgive her for turning into a complete monster.

Anyway. Poor Judy quickly blurted out the information about Clouds once she realised V was not fucking around. V threatened her again, then got the fuck out. And obviously hasn’t been back to Lizzie’s since.

When she calmed down she wrote Judy an apology letter. (I told my friend this. She was like “your V is fucking psycho.” Yeah.) She was like “look, I know an apology doesn’t mean jack fucking shit after what I did to you, but... idk man. send me what you owe the ripperdoc and I’ll square my debt to you.”

Yeah V, because contacting someone you fucking traumatised is a BRILLIANT FUCKING IDEA, I bet Judy wouldn’t be afraid AT ALL to send you a bill!

(Naturally, Judy didn’t reply and just sent some of the Mox. V gave them everything she could spare and told them to come back in a week for the rest. They roughed her up. She fought back enough to defend herself and eventually toss them out, but didn’t attack them because she knew that wouldn’t help Judy.)

Needless to say, when she ran into Judy at Fingers’ place Judy was NOT at all happy to see her and didn’t want to work with her at all. V basically gave her all the details she uncovered at Clouds -- by now she was actually pretty damn worried about Evelyn and she’d started coming to terms with the fact she was going to die, so she was far more concerned about finding Evelyn than getting anything from her, and was terrified Evelyn was dead.

But obviously Judy was still Mega Freaked Out and traumatised and wasn’t going to work with her. V didn’t offer, either. V didn’t try to scare Judy, but she was also a bit tetchy because Judy obviously didn’t want her looking for Evelyn still, and so V probably scared her a little still because V was like “look, I’m going to find her whether you like it or not, get out of my way. She is in big fucking trouble and I don’t have time for this.”

Judy followed her into Fingers’ room and watched her deal with Fingers. V was actually pretty calm when dealing with Fingers, then realised how fucked up it was that she beat up Judy but not this asshole, so she beat up Fingers too.

Nice, V. Way not to freak out Judy even more.

But obviously, Judy didn’t want to work with V like she did in canon. So V got the snuff film by herself. Unfortunately, she needed an editor, so this was the point where she reached out to Judy again. Sent her a text message that basically said, “This film could help me find Evelyn. Give me a time when you won’t be in and I’ll use your stuff to get into edit mode and track them down.”

V’s dumbass logic: “she probably doesn’t want to see me but I need this information, so I’ll just tell her to keep away from me.”

Judy’s response was “oh my god, even if you could do this without someone on the outside what the hell makes you think I’d let you on my tech unsupervised?!”

(V: “Oh. Right.”) “Do you want me to find Evelyn or not?”

“That’s not what I meant! Come in, but I’m operating the computer and I’m putting Mox in there with us, so don’t you dare try to intimidate me.”

“... Yeah that’s a much better idea. I just knew you wouldn’t want to be alone with me.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

(V, thinking a joke might put her at ease a bit, not realising it just makes her look like a psychopath anyway.) “It’s okay, I’ll leave the baseball bat at home.”

(Judy is not at all amused.)

So the questline continues the way it does in-game, except with a very jumpy Judy. It’s when they find Evelyn that Judy is freaked out enough to be distracted from V. V carries out Evelyn, speaking to her softly.

At this point V had totally come to terms with the fact she was going to die. And Evelyn was a complete fucking mess, and Evelyn was not going to talk even if V wanted her to. So my V didn’t even bother with that, just helped Judy get Evelyn the hell out of there.

Once Evelyn was settled in Judy’s apartment (it’s only later that Judy realises “oh shit, now V knows where I live”) Judy and V’s conversation went almost exactly as it did in canon, with the exception of the more trusting/loyal responses Judy gives you, which Judy simply omitted. V also elaborated on some of the stuff in her letter -- that V was dying because of the relic slowly overwriting her presonality, and she’d hunted down Evelyn because Evelyn could give her a lead to go on to reverse the process. But V still didn’t make any attempts to talk with Evelyn. V knew she was going to die. She wasn’t going to compound Evelyn’s trauma even more. When Judy expressed concern that other people were hunting Evelyn, V was like “oh, shit, no, actually, I was bluffing.”

“...”

“I wasn’t going to kill you. I just wanted to make you think I was. I don’t know of anyone actually trying to hunt her down, and I didn’t run into anyone at all while chasing up this information on her. So either she’s in the clear and nobody wants her, or they’re being damn subtle about it. Either way, since she’s in this condition she’ll be staying inside and lying low, so that’ll help her shake off any tail she might have.”

V gave Judy some more money, though not the full amount because she’s still scraping the eddies together -- told Judy she’d make sure she was fully reimbursed before she went. Told Judy if she or Evelyn needed anything more, call her.

...

By then, after seeing her with Evelyn, Judy is not sure about my V.

After the baseball bat incident, Judy thought that my V was an unhinged violent lunatic. I mean, V was an unhinged violent lunatic -- but she’d thought my V was that by default. But obviously my V showed Evelyn a lot of empathy and concern -- genuine empathy and concern, not V trying to go “LOOK HOW NICE I AM” to Judy. She knew V wasn’t trying to show false empathy to butter up Judy because V got pissed at her in Fingers’ office for getting in the way of her trying to find Evelyn to make sure Evelyn was okay. That is, pissed at her for that specific occasion of Judy getting in the way -- V was definitely not checking on Evelyn’s wellbeing when she visited Judy with the baseball bat, but Judy tried to discourage V from going after Evelyn again at Fingers’ office and V’s response was pretty much “oh fuck OFF, she’s in a really bad situation and needs help.”

So Judy was like, okay, there’s two possible judgements you can make about V:

V is one of those people who seems absolutely lovely until she gets in a bad mood, which is even more fucking terrifying because that makes her unpredictable.

V legitimately was in the middle of a mental breakdown and Judy just happened to be really fucking unlucky in that she was the convenient target. V had said this in her letter but obviously Judy was like “What the FUCK did you really send me an APOLOGY LETTER for almost BEATING ME TO DEATH” and hadn’t really taken it seriously, but now she’s starting to think V might have actually told the truth.

Judy is hoping it’s the latter but she’s not holding her breath, and also you have to remember that even if it was a mental breakdown... it showed her exactly what V was like when she was having a mental breakdown, and therefore meant V was perfectly fucking capable of doing it again.

(Meanwhile V was thinking “If she knows I was having a mental breakdown then she knows she doesn’t have to be scared of me doing it again.” No, V. You’re wrong.)

Judy is less spooked after seeing V in action with Evelyn, but she’s still very wary of her. But after V helped her with Evelyn, Judy told her not to worry about the rest of the eddies and just accepted what V gave her then and there. V almost pushed it, but realised Judy probably didn’t want to feel indebted to someone who beat her up with a baseball bat, so she dropped it.

V later sent Judy a weighted blanket for Evelyn to sleep under. “I’ve got one, it helps when I’m stressed. It won’t make her any better, but it might give her a little comfort.”

So right now, V and Judy have an uneasy truce. V keeps her distance from Judy unless she has to, except to occasionally ask after Evelyn, and Judy keeps her distance right back.

V is, however, not sucking up to Judy or grovelling to her. All she wanted was to let Judy know she didn’t have to be scared of her (although again, Judy is perfectly fucking aware that even if it was an actual mental breakdown then yes Judy should be scared of V having another one), that Judy didn’t have to worry about V going back to have another go at her.

V’s not going to make a huge deal about what a horrible person she was. She’s... well. Even if she thought it would help, she’s got a month to live unless the omega blockers give her more time. She’s not going to wear a hair shirt over this. She gave Judy some funds for the ripper doc, she’s apologised (even if an apology feels awfully pathetic), and she’s kept away from her.