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In the end, it feels like a cheap magic trick.
The ones that amateur magicians do on stage late at night to a crowd they know is mostly drunk and bored with nowhere else to go. The magician waves their hands, a rabbit falls out of a hat before it’s supposed to, the assistant is bored and yawning in the corner.
No one cares about the trick, no one cares about who is on stage. The rabbit finds a carrot, runs off with it, and disappears into a hole in the wall without anyone noticing.
He feels like the rabbit.
The only one out of the two of them to come out on the other side completely unscathed, and not one single of part of it feels right.
Whatever fight there had been left in him, was gone.
Rogue was dead. V was gone with Alt, and he had absolutely no idea how to get her back.
Instead, all he had was memories, and the very jarring reminder of what V gave up for him; saw it every single time he looked in the mirror.
Continuing down the path of finding a way to destroy the lives of every single person he had encountered. Leading Rogue to her death. V, deciding she didn’t want to live six months knowing she would disappear anyway.
This way, you can have another chance, Johnny. Then at least one of us does.
Was this what V imagined?
Did she imagine him ghosting all her friends, and letting them believe she just up and disappeared? Did she imagine that he would be haunted by her every step of the day, still talking to her as if she was there? Did she imagine that the life she gave up wasn’t being fully lived?
There was nothing here.
There was nothing left in Night City that wouldn’t tear him apart limb from limb again.
It was a bitter feeling now, hearing his songs on the radio. How things had been written during a different time, a different place, a different person took on new meaning now.
Because he did lose everything, again. They had to pay the price, again.
And this was not the price he wanted to pay. Not to lose someone as important as she had become. Not when there had been so much he never said, so much he never told her. Lies he had told himself, lies that they would have time, that they would see each other again, that they would come across each other one day in a bar and laugh about all of this together.
But the face in the mirror proved that theory wrong. As always, his theories were wrong. Always wrong.
After a while, he disconnects her holo. He lets the battery die out, and he hits it with a rock until it snaps in half and continues to hit it until he’s raw from screaming at it.
And it’s not his voice he hears as he screams, it’s not his hands that bring the rock down again and again, it’s not his body that shakes uncontrollably from the weight of it all.
It’s her. It’s her, and he’ll never forget her because he will always be reminded of her.
No matter what he does, he doesn’t think it will be good enough to honor her. He tries to stay in the city, he tries to live a quiet life, but it’s hard when everything reminds him. Arasaka is scrambling, there’s another Corporate War coming, and he just doesn’t fucking care.
He should have never cared.
So much of his damn fucking life had been wasted on caring about things that didn’t fucking matter and now he was…
…alone.
He considers calling Kerry. The one person left alive who knows and might understand what happened. But he can’t bring himself to do it. Can’t bring himself to tell him that he lost another person to the actions of Johnny Fucking Silverhand.
His action caused deaths, his inaction caused misery, and he couldn’t willingly bring Kerry down to his level. Not when Kerry had claimed that V was the reason that he managed to dig himself out of the ditch he had been in for years.
And Johnny, he had ripped that away from Kerry too.
There was nothing left for him in Night City, nothing left for him anywhere. And so, he had to leave.
His last day, he decided to make it worth it. Imparted wisdom. Played guitar.
Said goodbye.
Tried to lay to rest the ghosts that would always be with him. But nothing he would every say would be good enough.
That was the thing about ghosts; they haunted.
This second chance – third chance – she had given him? He hadn’t earned it. He hadn’t deserved it. Should’ve been him to stay, and her to be here. Fighting for a chance of survival.
Now? He would have given anything to hear her voice just one last time.
The bus stops at a broken-down hotel just over the border of California into Nevada. There’s already a room in a name; not his, not hers, just a name with no attachment to it.
He steps into the room and sets his bags down. Takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
Into the air, where he knows it will never reach her, he finally tells her everything he never said. Everything he should have said. What he should have done when he had the chance. That he loves -- loved her.
There is no feeling of peace, only sorrow and regret. But to say it, to finally let it out into the world, helps.
But in the end, it’s like a cheap magic trick.
With his eyes closed and a deep breath, without the audience noticing at all, he magically disappears.