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She walked along the beach in a daze of white light. The sun sat high in the pale blue sky, glaring harshly, searing her vision with a blinding light. The humidity was tangible, especially in her lungs; with every inhale she could tase warmth. In the distance somewhere was the cry of seagulls, but nothing was louder than the roar of the ocean as she walked alongside the shore.
The sky had been a deep organic blue, littered with stars and the green light of distant galaxies when her raft had washed ashore late last night. The sands were cool under her feet, a gentle midnight breeze weaving though her hair. It was soothing. The beach had been calm.
Now, it was furious.
A heart shaped locket dangled from her pocket, chiming with every step on uneven sand. Inside was a photograph. She clutched the locket tighter, the warm metal sliding between her sweaty fingers. She knew she could never have what she had when she was young: B-rated movies and fast food after midnight, group jam sessions where the music seemed to lift them off the ground, even the arguments and crass jokes— all things she would never have again.
But she was tougher than that.
The sun had dipped lower into the sky now, just enough to peak into the cracks around the left eyehole of her mask. She lowered it. Sweat trickled down her temple. She should sit for a moment. Fainting from heatstroke and exhaustion was unnecessary.
But rest felt like surrender, and she refused to surrender herself to this version of the story: the mysterious disappearance of a beloved guitarist prodigy, lost at sea and swallowed by the elements on a deserted island 2,700 kilometers from land. There was no ending to this story where she was found alive because no one knew she was.
Noodle shaded her eyes and peered into the distance. There was something way out on the horizon, a squiggle waving about. Perhaps a tree. Or, most likely, a mirage; something she could see but never quite reach. Just like rest.
She pushed forward, smothering that sense of hope that fluttered up like startled butterflies because no one was out here. Hope was for dreamers, she scolded herself. She was a survivor.
A survivor whose mind and sense of reason had failed them because she was certain that squiggle was human-shaped.
She started to move faster.
“H-hello?” she called. Her voice, weak with disuse, was swallowed by the ocean and the distance between her and the mirage that wasn't really there.
The human shape had blue hair.
Noodle stopped dead in her tracks, something cracking in her chest. The elements had finally gotten to her; she was hallucinating someone that had been dead for weeks now.
Heaven knows when she began running towards the mirage.
Her feet pounded against the burning white sand. Her legs trembled, knees threatening to buckle as she fought to close the distance between her and the mirage that bared an eerie resemblance to 2D who had been shot down by pirates and been dead for weeks. Tears attacked her eyes as she ran with all of her strength.
“Wait,” she pleaded between gasps. “Please— do not disappear,” she begged, her chest tight with foolish hope and breathlessness. “I am here.”
The hair on the shape only seemed to get bluer in the desert.
It couldn’t be real, she chanted in her mind, her feet thudding one after another, a furious rhythm. She had seen him collapse. Bleeding.
She stumbled on a mound of sand, kicking dust in every direction, but she ran even faster, forcing her exhausted body to just make it to him. Her chest was heaving, every muscle on fire, her blood screaming in her ears when she finally reached him. He was here. Was he really here?
"Is that- how are you-?"
But when he turned, she froze. His face wasn't his face but was a plastic clown's. A large blue nose stuck out between two cartoonish eyes that conveyed no emotion, no depth, because they weren't real. The paint was sun-bleached and cracked.
“2D?” she whispered, frantic with the fear he might disappear completely.
“Noodle?” His voice was hollow with disbelief and fear from behind the plastic barrier. "How did you..."
It didn't sound like 2D. It didn't look like him. But she couldn't tell with that mask in the way. She reached to remove it, but he violently flinched from her touch. Her hand froze in the air. Her chest tightened.
“I need to see you.” Her voice threatened to give out. He didn’t answer, still recoiled from her touch. The not knowing was the worst part. “I need to know you're real."
"Are you?" he whispered back with the same frantic fear she had moments ago. Her mouth opened, then closed. She didn't know. In the summer heat on this beach, time was measured in breaths, feeling had been reduced to warmth and exhaustion. She studied his posture. It was all wrong. This wasn't 2D. She'd gone crazy.
But when he took her hand and pressed it to the mask in a silent permission, his skin was warm, real, alive, and she knew who those hands belonged to.
"Why a clown?" she murmured, tracing the hot plastic, feeling every chip and scratch. It was clear he’d been wearing this for a long time, maybe months.
"Keeps the ghosts away, I suppose," he breathed, but it sounded thin, like he was holding back, scared to breathe. She gently pulled the mask away, allowing him a moment to reconsider, but he didn't stop her.
She had seen him like this before, his skin pale and bruised, his cheeks taut with withdrawal.
But there was something else. A primal fear in his eyes that told her more had happened than he’d ever admit. His eyes were dull now, their playful shine wiped away, their indignant spark forcefully stamped out. His lips were still; no cheeky grin, no annoyed frown.
Her lips trembled with a hundred questions and unspoken condolences.
"Are you hurt?" she asked before she could stop it. The sun was making dizzying prisms in her eyes. He shook his head, blue hair swaying on his shoulders.
"Can I.." He reached for her mask and paused. Perhaps he feared what he’d find. A killing machine. A monster. Or maybe he wasn't ready to see how much time had passed in her features. "I want to see you."
As he pushed the mask up into her hair, Noodle could feel the warmth of the sun soak into her skin now, the breeze planting tender kisses on her face. The sunlight turned the back of her eyelids into a deep red. She blinked in the fresh light, and they now stood face to face. Their eyes met, an empty silent exchange. It lasted longer than either were ready for. She couldn't read those black eyes that now seemed deeper and hollower simultaneously, and he didn't know what to make of the darkness and tears in her usual warm eyes.
His large hands came up to frame her face, and she let him. She relaxed into the touch, just a fraction, guilt creeping in at the corners. A low gust of wind glided through their hair, tossing around black and blue strands.
“You're hurt?” he muttered, thumbing the swelling under her eye.
“No, I am alright,” she murmured, gasping in the next second when 2D violently clutched her to his chest, strangling her with his grip.
“You were dead,” punched through his teeth, his voice low with hurt. Noodle instantly went rigid, every instinct screaming. He rarely ever hugged her when she was younger. Was this an apology for that? Was this an act of desperation to make sure she was really there? Were they reuniting, or saying goodbyes they hadn't had the chance to?
“So were you," she replied, grounding herself in the scent of brine and sweat. She could feel his heart beating rapidly against her ear. He was real and warm.
“I wanted to be,” he whispered into her hair, his arms shaking. Noodle held his shirt. “Murdoc lost his bloody mind, went mad. I knew you weren't-" he broke off. His grip loosened, just a fraction. "I knew you were out there. I kept tellin' myself."
She had stopped listening to that part of her brain when she'd seen him die.
"It's been three years" she murmured, the words easy but incredibly heavy in this moment. Everything was easy but incredibly heavy in this moment: the warmth between and around them, the strength of his embrace, the truths they admitted and the ones they kept silent.