✧ NAME: Noah McElroy
✧ AGE: 27
✧ GENDER: Male
✧ LOCATION: Marigny
✧ TIME IN NOLA: Seven years
✧ OCCUPATION: Detective at NOLA PD
TW: mention of death, cancer, alcohol
Born in the tiny town of Midway, Kentucky with his striking blue eyes and disheveled blonde waves, Noah Gunner was the epitome of a sweet southern boy. He was the first child born to Travis and Anna McElroy, a successful bull rider turned cattle rancher and his high school guidance counselor of a wife. They called home a thriving stretch of farmland with sprawling green hills and a constant load of chores, Noah’s father teaching him from the moment he could toddle around in his own set of cowboy boots what it meant to be the man of the house and the importance of ‘Yes, ma’ams & ‘thank yous’. When the second child, Noah’s baby sister Scarlett came along as he reached a mere three years old, he already had the role down pat. He’d wake up to her late night and early morning squeals, sitting at the foot of the rocker as his mother rocked her back to sleep, humming along to the faint lullaby and kissing her cheek goodnight.
School came easy to the boy as did athletics, tossing the football back and forth with his father as the sun was sliding down and all of the ranch responsibilities had been handled for the day, the proud gleam in his dad’s eyes as his mother watched with Scarlett from the front porch enough to keep him grinning from ear to ear for days straight. He played the protective older brother well to his doe-eyed smaller sister though the two remained closer than ever even entering their high school years.
But then the ranch hit a snag and they ran into money trouble, his father losing nearly everything along with the good of his name, the light in his eyes disappearing and the love in his heart right along with it. He turned to the bottle and to late night neon-signed bars, his mother driving their beat up and battered pick up into town to drag him back home when she thought the kids were fast asleep. Noah saw her tears more often than not, the way she kept a brave face for him and Scarlett when her patience was wearing thin, the way she grinned and beared his Friday night football games next to his drunkard of a dad, the way she insisted everything was fine even when the man she had once loved had disappeared into glazed over expressions and slurred words.
But the hell wasn’t over yet - the light of his football scholarships and even rodeo opportunities his final year of high school not enough to lighten the financial burden on the family, the final blow of the word ‘cancer’ and his sweet and innocent and wonderful mother and then the tears welling in her blue eyes even worse, the frailness of her bones and then the loss of her hair and the now frequent disappearances of their father.
Noah did his best to keep the ranch moving and his little sister fed, picking up an extra few shifts at a diner and then the car repair place in town and then even after school janitorial duties when he wasn’t at football practice, getting whatever extra cash he could pocket for his mother’s treatments and maybe even his father’s therapy. Anything to try and mend his crumbling family, to stop the constant worried tears falling down Scarlett’s cheeks, to spend even a few more days with his worsening mother.
But then came graduation and the week after his mother’s passing, a funeral instead of a graduation party and ‘I’m sorries’ instead of ‘Congratulations’.
Their father lost the ranch soon afterwards, selling it for at least a decent amount of money and giving Noah the safety net he needed to settle the three of them on the outskirts of New Orleans and back near his mother’s hometown and into her parent’s house, handing over the money he had accumulated over the years to his little sister after placing his father in a rehab facility, knowing she had two more years of high school and that he wouldn’t be there for any of it, feeling suffocated by the weight of his responsibility and the overwhelming need to get out.
After bidding Scarlett goodbye and leaving her in the care of their grandparents, Noah enlisted in the army, undergoing training and then was shipped out to Iraq, his mind and heart a mess and his anger at the world threatening to erupt into something ugly. He used that anger over the death of his mother and the mess of his father to become a lethal soldier for nearly two years, keeping in touch with his sister and their grandparents as often as he could. His father got out of rehab only to go right back in - though Noah couldn’t really blame him. He’d lost his livelihood and then his wife and though he resented the man he had become he couldn’t say he didn’t understand.
And then came his 25th birthday after four years of studying criminal justice at Tulane, the usual call home to speak to Scarlett and hear about her schooling, to hear how grandpa and grandma were and to tell her he missed her and loved her more than life itself. But instead he heard that she was sick and dying, the same cancer that had taken his mother, coming back with a vengeance to snatch his little sister.
He came back home as soon as he could, spending every waking minute that he could with her until he’d used up all the time he could. He became her caretaker, deciding to join the police academy to take the next steps in paying off her medical bills, planning for their lives once she beat it, once she was back on her feet. And things were good for a little over a year - he finished the academy, earned a badge and his sister watched him walk across the stage with tears in her eyes. But he watched the sickness take her slowly at first, and then nearly all at once.
And so he buried her right next to his mother, his grandmother and grandfather shaking with sobs at his side, his father pulling it together enough to come bury his little girl, to play the role of a dutiful father for once in his life though Noah was nearly inconsolable. His father returned to rehab and he returned to the work force, landing a job at NOLA PD as an officer and moving up in the ranks to a detective after another year passed.
Noah lost himself after the passing of his sister, trying to remain his goofy and kind-hearted self but the anger comes back in waves, that she had to suffer and not him, that he couldn’t save two of the greatest women he had even known. He’s messy, but he’s trying. And though he visits his father from time to time, trying to mend a shattered relationship, he can’t help but wait for the next shoe to drop - the next blow to come straight for him. And this time, he doesn’t know if he could put up much of a fight.
He is kind and gentle and goofy before he is rigid and hard and angry, though all swirl together to create a jumbled mess. He tries his hardest to go back to the man he was before he lost his mother - a golden hearted boy with nothing to lose, a smooth grin and charming pick up line, his manners and his compassion for others. But some days he gets his father’s storm, he allows himself to be swallowed by the anger and the bitterness, to smoke cigarettes and drink until he’s numb, to hurt others like he is hurting himself, to push people away because all he’s ever known is those close to him being taken away.
NOAH’S FACECLAIM IS SCOTT EASTWOOD AND IS PORTRAYED BY HAILEY.
