When cntrl+clicking to open a new tab in chrome on our site, certain queries don't seem to want to run

I'll paraphrase this as best as I can. We have apollo graphql queries that fetch user info and permissions, but I'm running into issues with these queries actually completing when I control + click to open a new tab and wait until it is finished loading before I visit it. It seems that the query which fetches user permissions never actually returns anything.

Forcing the query's fetch policy to be network-only fixes this issue, and I have no idea why. We don't want this as a solution because:
A. It feels like a work around.
B. This is a rather intensive query. If we can cache the data we want to do that. It takes almost half a second longer when I force the query to be network-only.

For reference, the code looks like so:

const { loading, data } = useQuery(GET_INITIAL_DATA);

  const { loading: permissionsLoading, data: permissionsData } = useQuery(
    GET_PERMISSIONS_ASYNC,
    {
      skip: loading
    }
  );

// not worried about this first useEffect
  useEffect(() => {
    if (loading) {
      return;
    }
    setViewer(data.viewer);
  }, [data]);

// this useEffect doesn't make it past the early return
  useEffect(() => {
    if (permissionsLoading || !permissionsData) {
      return;
    }
    setViewer({
      ...viewer,
      ...{ permissions: permissionsData.viewer.permissions },
      ...{ roles: permissionsData.viewer.roles }
    });
  }, [permissionsData]);

The code in the second useEffect should wait until permissionsData is done being fetched and then assigns those permissions to the viewer object. However, in the scenario above where I control + click and wait for the tab to open before visiting, permissionsData never comes in. It's as if the query is never actually completing/re-fetching.

Is there perhaps a concept I'm missing here? Why should it matter whether I'm actually viewing the tab or not for the queries to fire and fetch data properly? Is there a solution without having to force the query to be network-only?