I feel like no one talks enough about how losing Noodle affected Murdoc
-Murdoc and Noodle have the video and Noodleâs escape all planned out, and itâs all perfect. Murdoc tells her, âIgnore the radio calls. Ignore the search parties. Parachute off that island, call me when youâre safe, and go take your break.â Noodle promises, and everythingâs ready.Â
-Russel and 2D are panicking after the crash, the support team is trying to radio her, the crew is searching through the wreckage, but Murdoc isnât worried. Heâs waiting for the call.Â
-But the call doesnât come. Murdoc waits a day. Then two days. Then a whole week. And Noodle isnât calling. None of his calls go through. And thatâs when Murdoc starts to panic.Â
-Itâs the way he burns through a pack a night staring out his cellphone and waiting for a text, the way he holes himself in the radio room resting his forehead on the rim of a rum bottle, hoping sheâd maybe try to catch him on the waves. But he doesnât hear anything. Itâs all static.Â
-One night heâs too drunk and too manic and he stumbles to the crash site and just starts digging. Pulling away the wooden slats, burned clumps of Earth, empty bullet shells, metal sheets stripped from the bombs that were dropped. Itâs been hours, his hands are bloody, his shirt is soaked through in sweat, and he finds nothing. He sits there on his knees, staring at his hands, looking around him, and he feels his throat close up. He realizes he fucked up.Â
-He visits that crash site every week to look again, long after Kong is burned down, long after the group is in shambles.Â
-One day at the crash site, when heâs thinking about plastic pieces hiding in the sand, he finds a clump of Noodleâs hair. He sits there, runs his fingers through it, realizes he finally has a piece of her that he gets to keep, and comes up with an absurd idea.Â
-He pulls out medical journals, books on coding, programming languages for robotics, and dozens and dozens of pictures of Noodle. He slaves for nights on end, so many nights he canât remember, and he knows this idea is absurd, but what if it worked? What if he could actually do it?
-It takes him months but sheâs finally ready. When he runs his fingers through her hair, it almost feels real.Â
-But itâs not the same. Cyborg doesnât remember their inside jokes from when Noodle was 10 and still using pinky promises to keep them sacred. Doesnât remember the time Murdoc would always buy Noodle chocolate when he went out to get smokes. Doesnât remember the smile and the pat on the head he gave her when he heard her Demon Days sketches. Cyborg kills and does what he tells her, and he knows Noodle wouldnât have tolerated that for a second. But he needs his band. He needs her. He needs what keeps him sane. He canât do without it. He wouldnât survive.Â
-Then there are nights he sits in Cyborgâs charging station, watching the sparks, reading her malfunction logs, looking on eBay for replacement parts, and feeling his throat close up once more. His fingers shake as he flips through pages and pages of error messages. He prays in secret that she doesnât burn out. He canât lose her twice. He might not survive it.Â
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