Chapter Text
Chapter 24: First Date
The first week was hell wrapped in gauze and punctuated by pills.
Terissa's body staged a rebellion that even her enhanced healing couldn't fully suppress—fever spikes that left her sheets soaked, wound sites that throbbed with their own malevolent pulse, muscles that had forgotten how to cooperate with basic commands like "stand" and "walk to the bathroom without assistance."
Judy was there through all of it.
She appeared each morning before Terissa had fully surfaced from medicated sleep, armed with fresh bandages and the particular brand of stubborn determination that brooked no argument. She changed dressings with careful efficiency, monitored medication schedules with the precision of someone who'd memorized every instruction Doc Lenard had provided, and absolutely refused to let Terissa do anything more ambitious than exist.
"Eat," Judy commanded on day three, setting a bowl of soup on the nightstand with enough force to slosh liquid over the rim.
"I can—"
"You can sit there and let me feed you if you don't pick up that spoon in the next five seconds."
Terissa picked up the spoon.
The routine established itself with military precision: wake, eat, shower (supervised, despite Terissa's protests), rest. Judy had somehow transformed the cramped Watson apartment into a functional recovery ward, complete with a medication station on the kitchen counter and a schedule posted on the refrigerator that tracked everything from pill times to wound checks.
"This is excessive," Terissa observed on day four, watching Judy adjust the pillows behind her back for the third time that hour.
"This is what happens when you date someone who's been kidnapped as leverage against you." Judy's hands paused on the pillowcase, her expression softening slightly. "I'm making sure you actually heal this time. No arguments."
"I wasn't going to argue."
"Yes you were. I can see it in your face."
She wasn't wrong.
The painkillers made everything feel slightly distant, wrapped in cotton wool that muffled both physical sensation and emotional regulation. Terissa found herself reaching for Judy more often than she probably should—catching her hand as she passed, pulling her down for kisses that started innocent and threatened to become something else entirely.
Judy tolerated the affection with amused patience for the first few days. Then, on day five, when Terissa's wandering hands ventured past the boundaries of innocent comfort, she pulled back with a gentle but firm hand on Terissa's chest.
"No."
"But—"
"You have literal holes in you, T." Judy's voice carried the particular exhaustion of someone who'd had this conversation before. "Holes that are still healing. Holes that could reopen if you get too... enthusiastic."
"I can be gentle."
"You don't know the meaning of the word." But Judy softened the rejection with a kiss pressed to Terissa's forehead. "When you're healed. Actually healed. Not 'I feel fine' healed, but 'Doc Lenard clears me for physical activity' healed."
Terissa groaned, letting her head fall back against the pillows. "You're killing me."
"No, I'm keeping you alive. There's a difference."
The distinction felt academic when Judy was right there, warm and close and smelling of jasmine shampoo. But Terissa had to admit—grudgingly, privately—that the enforced rest was working. Each day brought slightly less pain, slightly more mobility, the gradual return of something approaching normalcy.
By the end of the first week, she could make it to the bathroom without assistance. Small victories.
The second week brought progress measured in careful increments.
Terissa's enhanced healing finally kicked into higher gear, knitting tissue and rebuilding what had been damaged with an efficiency that bordered on unsettling. The wound sites closed properly, the bruising faded from angry purple to sickly yellow to something approaching normal skin tone. She could stand without swaying, walk without clutching furniture, breathe without feeling like her chest was wrapped in barbed wire.
Judy noticed the improvement with the sharp eyes of someone who'd been watching for exactly these signs.
"You're fidgeting," she observed on day ten, looking up from her tablet where she'd been catching up on work she'd been neglecting.
"I'm restless." Terissa shifted on the couch, her body practically vibrating with the need to move. "I've been lying around for over a week. My muscles are starting to atrophy."
"Your muscles are fine."
"They're screaming for activity."
Judy studied her for a long moment, running some internal calculation. "A walk."
"What?"
"We can take a walk. Short. Slow. If you start looking pale or breathing weird, we come back immediately."
Terissa was off the couch before Judy finished speaking.
The first walk was barely a walk—more of a shuffle around the block that left Terissa embarrassingly winded. But it was movement. It was progress. It was something other than staring at the same four walls while her body complained about inactivity.
By the end of week two, they'd established a routine. Morning walks through Little China's crowded streets, Judy matching her pace to Terissa's gradually increasing stamina. Afternoon rest that actually felt restful rather than enforced. Evening meals that Judy somehow kept making from actual ingredients despite the apartment's limited kitchen.
"Where did you learn to cook like this?" Terissa asked on day fourteen, working through a plate of chicken adobo that had no business being this good.
Judy shrugged, not quite meeting her eyes. "Mi abuela. Before..." She trailed off, the sentence carrying weight that didn't need elaboration.
Terissa reached across the table, her fingers brushing Judy's wrist. "Thank you."
"For cooking?"
"For everything. For being here. For not..." She struggled to find words for what she was trying to say. "For not letting me push you away."
Judy's expression did something complicated before settling into warmth. "Someone has to keep you alive. Might as well be me."
The third week brought something that felt almost like normal life.
Terissa's walks grew longer, faster, her body remembering what it meant to function without constant pain as a companion. She started doing light exercises in the apartment—stretches, mobility work, the kind of careful movement that rebuilt strength without stressing healing tissue. Judy watched with the critical eye of someone ready to intervene at the first sign of overexertion.
"You're pushing it," Judy observed on day eighteen, watching Terissa work through a series of slow lunges.
"I'm testing my limits."
"Your limits nearly got you killed a month ago."
"That was different." Terissa finished the set and straightened, barely winded. "That was combat. This is just... maintenance."
Judy's eyebrow climbed toward her hairline, but she didn't argue. Progress, of a different kind.
They fell into patterns that felt domestic in ways Terissa hadn't experienced in, well, ever. Shared meals at the small kitchen table. Evenings on the couch with Judy's tablet casting blue light across both their faces while some documentary played in the background. The particular intimacy of occupying the same space without needing to fill it with conversation.
Judy still drew lines around physical intimacy—kisses that didn't progress, touches that stayed above the waist, the enforced patience of someone waiting for proper clearance. Terissa found herself oscillating between frustration and gratitude, her body's demands tempered by the knowledge that Judy was right.
"Soon," Judy promised on day twenty-one, after a kiss that left them both breathing harder than strictly necessary. "Soon."
A month.
Thirty days since Terissa had watched a shuttle carry So Mi toward the stars. Thirty days since she'd killed Solomon Reed and lied to the President of the NUSA. Thirty days of healing, of Judy's stubborn care, of learning what it meant to let someone close enough to matter.
She returned from her morning run—an actual run now, her body finally cooperating with demands for speed and endurance—to find Judy waiting at the kitchen counter. Arms crossed. Expression unreadable.
Terissa paused in the doorway, suddenly wary. "What's up?"
"Shower." Judy's voice carried no room for negotiation. "Get ready."
"Ready for what?"
"You owe me a date, Terissa Scott." Judy's chin lifted, challenge and anticipation mixing in her dark eyes. "A real one. Not soup on the couch while you're doped up on painkillers. Not walks around the block so you don't forget how legs work. An actual, proper, first date."
The grin that spread across Terissa's face felt almost too big for her features. "Yes ma'am."
She headed toward the bathroom, already pulling her sweat-soaked shirt over her head. The movement was deliberate—showcasing the muscles she'd rebuilt, the scars that had faded to pink lines against her skin. She let the shirt drop carelessly to the floor.
In her peripheral vision, she caught Judy's attention tracking the movement.
The sports bra came next, up and over her head and discarded with the same calculated carelessness. Terissa reached for the waistband of her running shorts, making a production of the stretch, the bend, the slow revelation of skin that she knew Judy was watching.
A throw pillow hit her square between the shoulder blades.
"Hurry up," Judy called, her voice slightly rougher than it had been moments ago. "We don't have all day."
Terissa's laugh echoed off the bathroom tiles as she closed the door.
She emerged twenty minutes later, hair still damp, wearing the nicest clothes her Watson wardrobe could offer—dark jeans that actually fit properly, a fitted charcoal shirt, the leather jacket she'd barely worn since everything started.
Judy was waiting at the door, Terissa's keys dangling from her fingers.
"This date better be good." She tossed the keys in a lazy arc, her expression carrying the particular challenge of someone who expected to be impressed. "You've had a month to plan it."
Terissa caught the keys one-handed, her mind already racing through options. Unplanned meant improvisation. Improvisation meant relying on knowledge she'd accumulated over years of living in Night City's shadows—the hidden spots, the overlooked gems, the places that existed outside the usual circuit of corporate entertainment.
"No pressure," she said, her grin carrying more confidence than she entirely felt.
"Plenty of pressure," Judy corrected. "This is literally our first date. You set the tone for the entire relationship."
"Thanks for that."
"You're welcome. Now drive."
The restaurant occupied a space that shouldn't have existed—a converted garage tucked between two corporate towers in Charter Hills, invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. Abuela's Kitchen, the sign read, hand-painted on weathered wood that seemed to belong to a different era entirely.
Judy's eyebrows climbed as Terissa pulled the Arch motorcycle to a stop in the narrow alley. "Here?"
"Trust me."
Inside, the space opened into something that felt transplanted from another world. Mismatched tables covered in bright cloths. Walls decorated with photographs spanning decades. The smell—God, the smell—of actual spices, actual meat, actual food being prepared by people who cared about what they were creating.
"Welcome, welcome!" The woman who emerged from the kitchen was small and round and radiated warmth like a furnace. Her eyes found Terissa first, recognition flickering across weathered features. "Ah! La pelirroja returns! It has been too long."
"Señora Martinez." Terissa accepted the enthusiastic embrace with only mild discomfort. "I've been... recovering."
"So I see, so I see." Dark eyes tracked to the scars barely visible above Terissa's collar before moving to Judy with sharp assessment. "And who is this?"
"Judy Alvarez." Judy extended her hand, but found herself pulled into the same enthusiastic hug. "I'm her—"
"Girlfriend," Terissa supplied, testing the word. "First date."
Señora Martinez's face lit up like Night City's skyline. "Ay, first date! Then you must have the special table. Come, come!"
The "special table" turned out to be a small corner booth with actual flowers in a ceramic vase and a view of the kitchen where Martinez's team worked with the coordinated chaos of people who'd been doing this for decades. Menus appeared, handwritten on paper that showed signs of frequent updating.
"No synthetics here," Martinez declared with evident pride. "Everything real. Everything fresh. You eat, you taste what food is supposed to be."
She vanished back into the kitchen before either of them could order, leaving Terissa and Judy alone with menus and the particular awkwardness of a first date that had been preceded by kidnapping, surgery, and a month of enforced cohabitation.
"How did you find this place?" Judy asked, her eyes scanning the menu with growing amazement.
"Information broker, remember? You'd be surprised what people trade when they're desperate." Terissa leaned back in her seat, watching Judy's expression shift from surprise to delight as she read the offerings. "Martinez's son needed help with a corporate harassment situation a few years back. She pays me in food whenever I stop by."
"This is..." Judy shook her head, seemingly at a loss. "This is not what I expected from you."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Something... flashier? Corporate dining? The kind of place where they judge you for using the wrong fork?"
Terissa's laugh was genuine. "I spent enough time in those places when I was working. They're all the same—expensive food that tastes like nothing, designed to impress people who can't tell the difference." She nodded toward the kitchen, where someone was grilling something that smelled like heaven. "This is real. This is what actually matters."
Judy's expression softened into something that made Terissa's chest tight. "You're full of surprises, T."
"Keeping you on your toes, remember?"
The food arrived in waves—tacos al pastor with actual pork, chiles rellenos stuffed with cheese that hadn't come from a lab, arroz con pollo that made Judy close her eyes in something approaching religious experience. They ate until their plates were clean, then ate more when Martinez appeared with dessert she claimed they hadn't ordered but obviously needed.
The conversation flowed easier than Terissa had expected. Without the weight of crisis pressing down on them, without the constant awareness of danger lurking in every shadow, they could just... talk. About Judy's BD projects and the innovations she was still developing. About Terissa's plans—or lack thereof—for what came next. About Night City and its endless capacity for destruction and creation in equal measure.
"I want to go back to the shop," Judy said eventually, scraping the last of the flan from her plate. "Eventually. Once things settle. Works been piling up and some of the girls have been trying to handle it, but..."
"But it's yours."
"Yeah." Judy met her eyes directly. "And I want to see the looks on everyone’s faces when we tell them we’re dating."
The word still felt new, unfamiliar in a way that had nothing to do with language and everything to do with what it meant. Terissa turned it over in her mind, examining it from different angles.
"I'd like that," she said finally. "Though I should warn you—my track record with meeting people important to my partners is... limited."
"Partners?" Judy's eyebrow climbed. "How many are we talking?"
"That came out wrong."
"No, I think it came out exactly right." But Judy was smiling, the teasing warm rather than sharp. "We'll work on your social skills. After you pay for lunch."
"How do you know I'm paying?"
"Because you asked me out, T. Or rather, I told you that you were taking me out, which functionally amounts to the same thing."
Terissa couldn't argue with that logic.
The afternoon sun had mellowed into evening gold by the time they left Abuela's Kitchen, Martinez's enthusiastic farewells echoing behind them. Judy leaned against Terissa's back as she navigated the Arch through Night City's traffic, her arms wrapped around Terissa's waist with comfortable familiarity.
"Where to next?" Judy's voice came through the helmet comm, curiosity evident.
Terissa had been thinking about that. The date was going well—better than well—but she wanted to give Judy something more than a good meal. Something memorable. Something that proved she'd been paying attention during all those conversations about art and technology and the way Night City crushed dreamers without mercy.
"You'll see."
The ride took them north, out of Westbrook's corporate geometry into the fancier districts where Night City's skyline could be viewed from the nearby mountains. North Oak's mansions were spread out amongst the hillside and they passed by laughing at some of the tacky decorations and architecture until Terissa guides the Arch to a stop at an abandoned lot.
Silver Pixel Cloud Drive-In materialized from the twilight like a ghost, its massive screen dark against the fading sky, its lot empty except for the skeletal remains of cars that had been left to rust when the business closed decades ago.
"What is this place?" Judy asked as Terissa killed the engine.
"Used to be a drive-in theater. One of the last ones in the city before everyone switched to home BD setups." Terissa swung off the bike, offering her hand to help Judy dismount. "Been closed for nearly ten years now, but the equipment's still here. Still works, if you know how to turn it on."
"Breaking and entering." Judy's voice carried amusement rather than disapproval. "Very romantic."
"I prefer to think of it as... self-authorized access to abandoned infrastructure."
The fence was more suggestion than barrier, its chain-link rusted through in multiple places. But Terissa took a quick look at the old digital lock and cracked it in a couple seconds, opening the door and ushering Judy inside.
Inside, the drive-in felt like stepping into another era. Rows of speaker posts stood like metal sentinels, their cables long since stripped for salvage. The projection booth sat above the main entrance, its windows dark but intact. And scattered throughout the space, the remains of vehicles too damaged to tow, left to slowly decompose into the earth.
"This is..." Judy turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. "This is actually incredible."
"Thought you might appreciate it." Terissa moved toward the projection booth, pulling out the tools she'd need to bypass its security. "Give me a few minutes?"
The booth's lock yielded to her skills with minimal protest, the door swinging open to reveal equipment that had been state-of-the-art probably twenty years ago and now looked like museum pieces. Terissa ran her fingers along dusty surfaces, remembering the first time she'd discovered this place—bleeding from another job gone wrong, looking for somewhere to hide while her body healed.
The projector hummed to life on her third attempt, its ancient systems cycling through self-tests with mechanical patience. She checked the film still loaded in the system—Bushido X: Fade to Black, according to the faded label.
She chuckled, imagining Judy's reaction.
"What's the movie?" Judy called from outside, her voice carrying through the booth's open door.
"Bushido X," Terissa replied, already moving toward the shelves where other reels sat in dusty rows. "Action flick. Lots of sword fights and dramatic deaths."
"Absolutely not." Judy appeared in the doorway, her expression carrying firm rejection. "Last month had enough action for a lifetime. Something else."
"Your call." Terissa gestured toward the shelves. "Pick whatever looks interesting."
Judy moved through the collection with the focused attention she usually reserved for BD equipment, fingers trailing across labels and cases. Most were action films—the drive-in's specialty, apparently—but tucked among them were romances, comedies, the occasional documentary about subjects nobody cared about anymore.
"This one." She pulled a reel from the shelf, examining its faded cover. "The Silent Sea. Romance set on a deep-sea exploration ship."
"Never heard of it."
"That's the point." Judy handed her the reel with a smile that promised interesting things. "Something neither of us knows. No expectations."
It took a bit to figure out how to swap the digital reels, but eventually the projector clicked into readiness. The massive screen flickered to life, casting pale light across the abandoned lot as opening credits began their slow scroll.
They found a spot on the hood of an ancient Thorton, its roof caved in but its hood still intact enough to support their weight. The metal was cool through Terissa's jeans, the evening air carrying the particular freshness of Night City after dark—smog and ozone and the distant smell of the ocean.
Judy settled beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. On screen, a submarine descended through digital waters while orchestral music swelled from speakers that had no business still functioning.
"This is nice," Judy said quietly, her attention more on the setting than the film.
"Yeah." Terissa's hand found Judy's in the darkness, their fingers intertwining with familiar ease. "It is."
The movie played. Neither of them watched it.
The tension that had been building for a month—through recovery and enforced rest and careful boundaries—finally reached its breaking point somewhere between the submarine's first crisis and its romantic subplot. Terissa couldn't have said who moved first. Maybe it was her, turning toward Judy with intent she'd been suppressing for weeks. Maybe it was Judy, finally releasing the patience she'd been maintaining since the first week.
The first kiss was careful, almost tentative. Testing. Making sure this was okay, was wanted, was happening.
The second kiss was anything but.
Judy's hands found Terissa's jacket, pulling her closer with force that spoke to weeks of waiting. Terissa responded in kind, her fingers tangling in Judy's hair, tilting her head for better access. The movie's dialogue became background noise, irrelevant to what was happening on the hood of a rusted-out car in an abandoned drive-in.
Clothes began their gradual surrender. Terissa's jacket first, pushed off her shoulders and discarded without care for where it landed. Judy's shirt followed, pulled over her head in a movement that broke their kiss just long enough for Terissa to appreciate the view—Judy's skin painted in flickering light from the screen, her tattoos transforming into something almost magical in the shifting shadows. The ink seemed to dance as the projection flickered, turning Judy into a living canvas of light and art.
"You're staring," Judy observed, breathless.
"Enjoying the show." Terissa's grin was unrepentant. "Though this is much better than whatever's happening in that movie."
Judy's laugh was bright and genuine, her head falling back in a way that exposed the elegant line of her throat. Terissa took the invitation, pressing her lips to the pulse point there, feeling Judy's heartbeat quicken against her mouth.
"That's cheating," Judy managed, her fingers tangling in Terissa's hair.
"I don't remember agreeing to rules."
The car's hood was cold against Terissa's knees as she shifted position, the metal protesting with a groan that made them both freeze for a heartbeat before dissolving into laughter. The absurdity of the situation—two grown women fumbling on a rusted car in an abandoned drive-in—only made it better somehow. More real.
Judy's jeans proved stubborn, the button catching, and Terissa's muttered curse earned another laugh that turned into a sharp inhale when she finally succeeded. Her fingers traced the newly exposed skin of Judy's hip, following the line of ink that disappeared beneath fabric still waiting to be removed.
"You're going slow on purpose," Judy accused.
"Savoring the moment."
"Savor faster."
Terissa obliged, helping Judy shimmy out of the remaining barriers between them. Her own clothes followed in a tangle of rushed movements and impatient hands, Judy's fingers proving far more efficient at buttons and zippers than Terissa's had been.
The first press of skin against skin drew sounds from both of them—relief and want and a month of careful restraint finally releasing. Judy's body was warm against the cool night air, her curves fitting against Terissa's like pieces designed to interlock.
They fumbled for position on the curved metal surface, the awkwardness leading to more laughter when Terissa nearly rolled off entirely, catching herself with a grace that had more to do with luck than skill.
"Smooth," Judy observed, pulling her back by the hip.
"I meant to do that."
"Sure you did." But Judy was smiling as she said it, her eyes dark with want in the flickering light. "Get back here."
Terissa went willingly, settling between Judy's thighs with a deliberation that made the other woman's breath hitch. She took her time then—learning the geography of Judy's body with the focused attention she usually reserved for tactical planning. The spot below her ear that made her gasp. The sensitive skin along her ribs that made her squirm. The way her back arched when Terissa's mouth found her breast, tongue tracing patterns that drew increasingly urgent sounds.
"T—" Judy's voice cracked on the single letter, her hips rolling upward in wordless demand.
"I've got you."
Her hand slid between them, finding Judy slick and ready, the evidence of her arousal making Terissa's own need pulse sharply. She explored with deliberate patience—learning what made Judy gasp, what made her moan, what made her fingers dig into Terissa's shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
Above them, the movie's orchestral score swelled toward some dramatic moment neither of them noticed. The only soundtrack that mattered was Judy's breathing, growing ragged, punctuated by sounds that might have been Terissa's name or might have been Spanish or might have been nothing but pure sensation given voice.
Judy's climax built in waves—Terissa could feel it in the tension of her thighs, the way her body tightened around exploring fingers, the increasingly desperate roll of her hips. When it finally crested, Judy's cry echoed across the empty lot, her body arching off the car hood in a display that Terissa committed to memory with fierce satisfaction.
She worked her through it, gentling her touch as aftershocks rippled through Judy's frame, pressing soft kisses to whatever skin she could reach. The flush that spread across Judy's chest was beautiful in the screen's pale light.
"Dios mío," Judy breathed when she could form words again. Her eyes opened, finding Terissa's face with an expression that promised reciprocation. "Your turn."
Terissa found herself flipped with surprising strength, her back meeting cool metal as Judy settled above her with predatory intent. Whatever clever response she'd been forming dissolved into a groan as Judy's mouth began its own exploration—throat, collarbone, the sensitive skin between her breasts.
Judy traced Terissa's scars with her lips—the new ones still pink and just healed, the old ones faded to silver. Each mark received attention, acknowledgment, acceptance. It was more intimate than the touching, somehow. A conversation without words about what Terissa had survived and what she'd become.
Then Judy's hand slid lower, and thinking became impossible.
She knew exactly what she was doing—had clearly been paying attention during their month of careful boundaries, cataloging every reaction, every response. Her fingers found their target with unerring precision, establishing a rhythm that had Terissa's hips moving of their own accord.
"Look at me," Judy commanded, her voice rough.
Terissa forced her eyes open, meeting Judy's gaze as pleasure built toward something inevitable. The connection felt electric—more intimate than the physical sensation, though that was considerable. This was Judy seeing her, really seeing her, in a moment of complete vulnerability.
The climax hit like a wave breaking, pulling a sound from Terissa's throat that she'd deny making later. Judy held her through it, her free hand stroking Terissa's hair as her body shuddered and released the tension of a month—of a year—of years of careful isolation.
They lay tangled together afterward, breathing hard, sweat cooling on skin that still hummed with sensation. On the screen above them, credits had begun their slow scroll, white text against black that neither of them bothered to read.
"That was..." Judy started, then seemed to lose the thread of what she'd been trying to say.
"Yeah." Terissa pressed a kiss to her shoulder, tasting salt and satisfaction. "It was."
The night air cooled their overheated skin, raising goosebumps that had nothing to do with temperature. Somewhere in the distance, Night City hummed its eternal song of violence and commerce and survival. But here, in this forgotten place, two women who'd found each other through chaos and blood lay together and let the world turn without them.
"Best first date I've ever had," Judy said eventually, her voice carrying the lazy satisfaction of someone thoroughly pleased with how things had turned out.
"Must have been a high bar to clear."
"You'd better believe it." Judy propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at Terissa with an expression that made something warm bloom in her chest. "This sets expectations, you know. Future dates need to meet this standard."
"Future dates." Terissa tested the phrase, found she liked how it sounded. "Already planning ahead?"
"Someone has to. You'd probably just keep finding new ways to get shot."
"That's not fair."
"It's completely fair." But Judy softened the words with a kiss that lingered. "Come on. We should probably get dressed before someone calls NCPD about suspicious activity in an abandoned lot."
The process of re-clothing was slower than it should have been, interrupted by kisses and touches and the general reluctance to let the moment end. By the time they were both presentable, the movie had long since finished, the projector showing a black screen with patient determination.
Terissa shut it down, returning the booth to the darkness it had occupied for years. The drive-in settled back into abandonment as they made their way to the fence, the screen standing silent sentinel over the ghosts of movies past.
The ride back to Little China passed in comfortable silence, Judy's arms wrapped around Terissa's waist, her head resting against her shoulder. The city scrolled past in ribbons of neon, beautiful in its destruction, alive in its chaos.
Home materialized from Watson's familiar decay, the apartment waiting with its worn furniture and healing memories. They climbed the stairs together, and Terissa found herself thinking about what came next—not in the tactical sense she was used to, but in the way of someone building a future rather than just surviving the present.
Whatever it was, whatever challenges waited in the weeks and months ahead, she wouldn't be facing them alone.
And in Night City, that meant everything.