Chapter Text
He wanted to be remembered when it happened. That was all.
So he made sure to ask.
“Will you remember me?”
Ronan answers with only an undertone of resentment. This is not a topic he enjoys for numerous reasons, all of which he’s chosen to ignore. “Yes.”
“Do you promise?”
There’s a low growl. “Fuck, Noah. I’ve told you already. More than once.”
But Noah doesn’t mean to keep asking. Time is a circle, and sometimes he’s not quite sure where he is, or if he’s already asked this before. Of course, he knows, but he doesn’t know, and in truth it is just as confusing as it sounds. All-knowing, unknowing. Ghost, entity, decaying, living.
Where was he?
What was he?
Blue is the first one who snaps at him, surprisingly. Or unsurprisingly. He could read her easily, and he knew he often drove her mad with his incessant talking. A constantly repeated question would irritate anyone.
“Blue.”
“Yes, Noah?”
“Will you remember me?”
She sighs. It’s a tired sigh, and suddenly Noah wishes he wasn’t there. That he was no longer this source of annoyance for his friends.
“Noah, please,” she says it like she’s probably said it before. “Enough of this.” She grabs his cheeks and represses the building shiver. “We will never forget you.”
“But how do you know-?”
“Enough,” she says. Snaps. Spits. Whatever it could be called. Her hands drop.
He does not come back until a few days later.
Gansey and Adam are much more patient, and for that he is grateful. The wish is no longer going to be for him, but he’s always known it wouldn’t be. He had seen it in that circular motion of time. Besides, Cabeswater was more important. Eradicating the demon was essential to saving Ronan and Matthew and Orphan Girl and even Adam.
And truthfully, Noah did not truly want to come back.
Who was he without this side of himself? The rotting eyes and the decaying flowers of his soft aura and the blackness of his soul. Who was he without the ability to see into his friend’s minds and envision the world from such intricate points of view? Who was he without this warped feeling of time?
One night in Monmouth, when all was quiet, Noah partially mentions this to Ronan. He had been sitting, unmoving, on the edge of Ronan’s bed. Ronan thought he did it to for company, but Noah was only worried about Ronan sleeping alone. Nightmares were terrifying things, especially when they were brought to life.
Ronan sits up a few minutes after waking. His paralysis wore off and he looked at his dreamt butterfly, which had found its way to Noah’s mess of light hair. It flapped its wings, the color indistinguishable in the dark.
“You dream lovely dreams, Ronan.”
Ronan gave him a sharp look. There was a quick thought that Noah heard, but he felt like he was being invasive, and he quickly pulled himself away from the images in Ronan’s mind. “Creepy fuck,” he mumbles, but it lacks venom.
Noah takes the butterfly from his head and watches it perch along his index finger, wings flapping in the solidly dim room. “I never reached this stage.”
Ronan sleepily raises a brow. “Which stage?”
Noah indicates to the butterfly. “After the cocoon.”
For a long, stretched out minute, Ronan examines the butterfly and Noah. There’s a straight line set on his lip, and the ghost decides to keep talking as Ronan thinks.
“I made it to the cocoon. Maybe. I think. I’m not too sure.” He looks away, gaze somewhere else. “But then the cocoon shriveled up. The caterpillar lost air. It could not fight back. But there was still a sliver of air in the cocoon, so the caterpillar hung on.”
Ronan was watching him with intention. Noah did not acknowledge him. Instead, he smiled to himself. Ah, how funny it was to compare his murder to an insect. And yet, oddly fitting.
“I never made it to the butterfly stage.” A pause. “And I don’t think I ever want to. I just want the cocoon to take away that last bit of air so the caterpillar stops suffering.”
The room was silent. The butterfly did not make a sound.
Ronan said through gritted teeth, “And that’s it? That’s all you want?” You won’t fight back, was the real intention behind those questions.
“No. It’s not all I want.” He looked at Ronan, this embodiment of everything he was not, and his smirk from before turned into something small and sad and somehow genuine. “I want to be remembered when I’m gone.”
When I’m gone.
Said like it was already being accepted.
The greywaren snarled. “Get out.”
With furrowed eyebrows and pained eyes, Noah got up. He was about to let the wind take him wherever it wanted when Ronan spoke up once more.
“You know.” Already, his words held malice. Ice bit the air. “I can see how Whelk got you so easily. You’re just… there. In the end, you don’t really care about anything, do you?”
In Ronan’s mind, Noah could see the simple reasoning for those words: Hurt him! Hurt him like he’s hurting you.
It worked.
Noah wanted to say: No. That’s not it. I care too much. I care about everything. I care about you.
Instead, he said, “Yeah. I guess that was it.”
Even now, Noah wasn’t defending himself. He wasn’t defending the importance of his life like Ronan wanted him to. Noah could see himself from Ronan’s eyes: tired, disappearing, in pain from those words but refusing to fight back.
Disgust layered the greywaren’s features. “Fuck off, Noah.”
Noah left.
He went to Gansey in some other timeline. He told him those ever-lasting words as Gansey died on the ley line and would soon after return to life.
Then he fell from the loop of time.
The ley line, however, had plans for him.
Back at Monmouth, Ronan woke up when the sun began peeking into his bedroom from behind the curtains. He stretched, feeling exhausted and sleep-deprived but not knowing why. The clock read 7:38. He groaned, annoyed but unable to lay back in the bed.
There was something on his skin. Not a real thing, but a fake thing. The idea of a thing. Or maybe the memory of a thing. Whatever it was, it itched, but he could not identify the thing and so he told himself not to worry about the thing.
He went out into the living room, where he found Gansey sitting up on his bed, glasses on and reading the newspaper.
“Hey, man,” he started, scratching the short hair atop his head. “Did you come in my room last night and talk to me?”
Gansey looked up at him, eyebrow raised, eyes questioning from behind his frames. “No. Why? Was I sleepwalking? That’s a terrifying prospect.”
Ronan shook his head. “Nah. Just a weird vibe I had. Nevermind.”
They went about their day.
They’d forgotten him.
Somewhere else on the ley line, Noah woke up.
There was dampness beneath his Aglionby sweater and his body was pressed heavily into thin grass. The scent rose throughout him and he had to hold back a cough at the suddenness of it.
And then, he realized: he had woken up.
Not appeared. Not materialized. He’d woken from what felt like a slumber.
The realization struck him hard. He could not feel any prominent muscles in his arms or legs, and he felt weak. Moving any limb was a strenuous task and he lay there for hours trying to rediscover the rhythm of his connecting, and working, body parts. In those hours of slow movement, he had more time to absorb this information.
And still, he could not believe it.
At some point, he leaned over to dry heave. It wasn’t clear what caused it. Perhaps the sudden abundance of real, linear thoughts and brimming senses and working muscles. He felt the cold air hit his throat and the coughs lineup down his tongue and he felt alive.
Alive, alive, alive!
He needed to tell someone. Gansey, Blue, Adam. Ronan. His family? He’d have to be careful about it, but now the excitement was beginning to charge and it was getting fairly hard to hold back the joy.
(There was a nervous energy behind the joy, too. A terror at what this meant and if he’d be capable of handling it. A slithering question: Did he truly want to be alive? For now, though, he let the joy be dominant.)
Eventually, he got up and found his footing. Feet felt weird. So did legs. And heads and arms. It took tremendous effort, but he was determined. There was a burning inside him that made him feel more alive than he’d ever thought he’d be, and it occurred to him that this must be adrenaline. It helped him push through the pain and strangeness of his body, which seemed to be working against him.
Soon enough, he was walking. Actually walking. His body was no longer a light entity - instead, he felt the weight of his form press into each step.
Taking the focus off himself, Noah acknowledged his surroundings. It wasn’t entirely surprising, but the pain of the environment still rippled through him in painfully harsh currents.
He’d woken where he’d died.
Time was a circle. A circle, a circle, a circle, and yet! Here he was, one event (death) following directly behind another (rebirth). His head throbbed like Whelk had only hit him minutes before. He almost expected to find a discarded skateboard somewhere around him, but nothing was in sight besides green grass and brown bark.
Ignoring the anxious pit that curled around his ribs, making him feel nauseous all over again, Noah continued down a path he assumed would lead him out. In the end, though, it was merely an estimated guess. He had a bad sense of direction and, even more so, he’d fought hard to block out the truth of his death. Coming up here with Whelk had long since been erased from his conscious. All he remembered was Whelk’s face and then the smack of a board across his cheek.
He shivered and let the memory tuck itself away.
The trees were not as thick as he’d originally thought. After a while, the woods seemed to thin out, and he could see the beginnings of a Henrietta street. At this point, with the road before him and the bundle of trees behind him, he could tell where he was.
He went to the Barns.
Noah wasn’t too sure why he headed off in that direction. Ronan had not officially moved out of Monmouth before Noah passed on. But something told him time had passed in a steady, human-based flow. The air felt different. The line felt different. An instinct whispered to him about the Barns, and so he simply went to the Barns.
Later, he would think about the ley line and his new revival. Later, after he’d seen them. After he’d touched his friends with these living, warm fingers.
It took him hours. The sun had reached its peak, and while the air felt a bit snippy, he was beginning to feel dehydrated and hungry and hot beneath the sun. His forehead beaded with sweat. Dizziness swam and his vision blurred more than once.
But he thought, Ronan, and the thought made him continue.
When he eventually reached the enormous property, he could not stand still to admire the beauty. The large house, the sitting BMW, the beauty and magic of the whole place. The image felt like home, and Noah almost passed out with relief.
Here, he’d find his family once again. He’d see Ronan with his fierce, protective grin; Adam, with his friendly, welcoming gestures; Blue, with her spiky hair and lazy smile; Gansey, with his bright aura and ever-lasting leadership.
The last of his strength went to the knock at the front door. He restrained himself from just walking inside - he was new to this human thing (well, kind-of new), but he was trying to collect all lost manners.
After what felt like years but was actually a few seconds later, the door opened.
Ronan stood before him, a black tank-top and loose jeans accompanying his frame. Chainsaw made a loud, ominous sound from his shoulder.
Noah felt happiness encase him. Real, lively, shimmering happiness.
A smile, large and grand and genuine, the first one in a long, long time, spread across his face.
He breathed out. “Ronan.”
Ronan looked over him, eyebrows raised, and something in Noah immediately sank. No recognition flushed over Ronan’s face. No relief. Not even curiosity. The only thing there was an apathetic observation and a quick dismissal.
Ronan crossed his arms, trying to intimidate Noah. It would not work to intimidate the boy, but it did something else to him.
It isolated him.
He felt alienated.
“I’m not really sure how you know my name, but it would fare you well to get the fuck off my property. I’m not interested in trouble with strangers.”
Something in Noah changed right then. It was the beginning of a change, a quick snap, small yet heavy as dark blood swarmed within him. He wouldn’t notice it now, but he would soon. His bright eyes immediately dulled. The excitement wiped off him like running water, and it hit the floor with an ugly smack. He felt the world tilt, just for a second, but he held on. He needed confirmation.
“I’m sorry…” Mumbled, a hint of surprise and reluctance twinged with each word. “You…” He was scared of the answer, petrified, but he had to ask. “You don’t know me?”
“No,” Ronan said. It was an immediate reply with no hesitation. Not even Chainsaw seemed to recognize the ex-ghost. “Should I?”
He’d had hope and humanity within him for a few hours, but that was it. Now he was a shell of a person. What was the point of being revived?
There was no point if the people he loved didn’t know him.
“No. I guess not.” He faced the ground. His fingers fidgeted.
Ronan looked at him and opened his mouth as if to question him once more, but Noah couldn’t bear it.
He could not stand knowing that he had been forgotten.
He cut Ronan off. “I’m sorry to bother you.” And then he was gone, sweaty and dirty and weak-kneed and dehydrated, running back to the road and to some forest and letting the despair take him.
For a few minutes after their exchange, Ronan thought about the stranger. He thought about the pain in his face, the absolute hurt, that dead look in his eyes. He tried to remember if he knew the other, but nothing came to him.
He called Gansey to describe the stranger and ask if he knew him.
“Light hair and a mark on his cheek?” Gansey asked, reaffirming. “No, it doesn’t sound familiar. And he was wearing an Aglionby sweater?”
Ronan grunted a confirmation.
“That’s strange. I wonder why he went all the way out to the Barns?”
Ronan thought it was strange, too, but he had no answer. So he simply told Gansey not to worry, that it was probably just some nosy fucker, and hung up.