I feel like no one talks enough about how losing Noodle affected Murdoc
-Murdoc and Noodle have the video and Noodleās escape all planned out, and itās all perfect. Murdoc tells her,Ā āIgnore the radio calls. Ignore the search parties. Parachute off that island, call me when youāre safe, and go take your break.ā Noodle promises, and everythingās ready.Ā
-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 isnāt worried. Heās waiting for the call.Ā
-But the call doesnāt come. Murdoc waits a day. Then two days. Then a whole week. And Noodle isnāt calling. None of his calls go through. And thatās when Murdoc starts to panic.Ā
-Itās 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 sheād maybe try to catch him on the waves. But he doesnāt hear anything. Itās all static.Ā
-One night heās 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. Itās 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.Ā
-He visits that crash site every week to look again, long after Kong is burned down, long after the group is in shambles.Ā
-One day at the crash site, when heās thinking about plastic pieces hiding in the sand, he finds a clump of Noodleās 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.Ā
-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 canāt 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 sheās finally ready. When he runs his fingers through her hair, it almost feels real.Ā
-But itās not the same. Cyborg doesnāt remember their inside jokes from when Noodle was 10 and still using pinky promises to keep them sacred. Doesnāt remember the time Murdoc would always buy Noodle chocolate when he went out to get smokes. Doesnāt 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 wouldnāt have tolerated that for a second. But he needs his band. He needs her. He needs what keeps him sane. He canāt do without it. He wouldnāt survive.Ā
-Then there are nights he sits in Cyborgās 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 doesnāt burn out. He canāt lose her twice. He might not survive it.Ā
