"𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚍 𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜"
ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘴' 𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵
𝕥𝕙𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘
A COLD, EMPTY FEELING. Noah's thoughts are racing, but there is no feeling. A million thoughts trying to break through the numbness Noah is deploying in her mind and body.
It is strange to think that Noah has learned about half of her past. Finally, an answer to the longing question; who is my mother? The teen never knew that once she found out, it would destroy a piece of her.
Noah had been crying all night, but she fell asleep somewhere in the midst of her breakdown.
The teen sits up in bed and groans to herself. Her duvet is on the floor, along with two of her pillows. Her clothes from the night before are carelessly discarded on the floor along with her pajamas as she changes into her school uniform.
Noah leaves her room as it is. She washes her face and quickly brushes her teeth before making her way downstairs, thankful that Emily has yet to come down yet. The teen takes her opportunity and grabs her bookbag, heading out the front door.
Emily stops brushing her hair as she hears a door slam. She walks out into her bedroom and peers across the hall, seeing Noah's bedroom door now wide open. She had heard the teen getting ready, so she did not bother checking in on her. Emily knows the teen needs to be left alone until she is ready to talk.
Emily finishes getting ready and makes her way to the kitchen. She notices that the teen is nowhere to be found. As Emily walks up to the front door, she sees that Noah's bookbag is gone.
"The death of me," Emily groans to herself and grabs her car keys. She quickly grabs all her stuff and rushes off to the car. Emily tosses her purse and work bag into the backseat and drives into town, hoping to find Noah along the way.
Emily approaches the school building and sees Noah walking up the sidewalk. She has no idea how the teen made it there so fast, but she is just happy to see she is safe. Noah seems to be rushing to get inside, so Emily decides not to stop her.
Noah bursts through the doors of the school and fast-walks to her class. The walk to school was actually nice and refreshing, but the length of it almost made her late.
As Noah plops down in her seat, she pulls out her phone. She unplugs her headphones and makes sure to silence her phone. She opens a text from Emily, rolling her eyes at the message.
𝐞𝐦 <𝟑
We are having a very serious talk when we get
home tonight.
—
𝐞𝐦 <𝟑
We are having a very serious talk
when we get home tonight.
i felt like walking today
I don't care, Noah. You don't
just leave the apartment without
saying anything.
i'm sorry
first time we talk since
last night and ur yelling at me
You walked away from our conversation
last night. I was trying to talk
to you.
This is about being safe...you
scared the hell out of me.
jeez relax, i had my pepper spray
—
Emily does not respond, letting Noah know she hit a nerve. The teen throws her phone into her bag and gets her notebook out, ready to take notes. Anything to keep her mind off of the mess that is her home life.
—
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘶
"You good, princess?" Derek asks Emily with a small chuckle.
He watches carefully as Emily pours herself a coffee, having forgotten hers at home because of Noah. The woman's hands are shaky and she seems to be hyper-focused on a certain spot on the wall.
"Don't call me that," Emily snaps.
"Woah, I was just checking on you," Derek says with a worried expression, now knowing something is up.
"I'm sorry, I just have a lot going on," Emily replies. She tries to think of an excuse, but she knows there is no point in lying to the team.
"Did something happen with Noah?" Derek asks with concern.
"Uh, yeah, but..." Emily trails off, "I don't know if we're ready to talk about it."
"Okay," Morgan pauses to analyze his friend, "If you need anything, just let us know."
"Of course, thanks," Emily puts on a fake smile and grasps Morgan's arm to show her thanks. She walks out of the kitchen and sees Penelope silently gesturing for her to follow her.
"I did some digging like you asked," The blonde says as they enter her office, closing the door behind them for privacy, "I would've had it sooner had I not destroyed the old file we had on her."
"And?" Emily pleads to know.
"It is Noah's birth certificate. And Matthew indefinitely approved her adoption." Garcia says as she hands Emily a small file, "Whatever you asked Matthew to do, he did a fantabulous job at keeping your name out of everything."
Emily looks away in shame. For her friend to even know about her giving away her own child destroys her. She can only imagine the monster that Penelope sees in her.
"Did you ever figure out how Noah even found this?" Emily asks the blonde.
"Well, I was doing my usual digging and couldn't find anything," Penelope pauses as she prepares to tell Emily her findings, "But, this morning, I got a call asking if Gia Collins needed any more information from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Noah called them and used Gia's name on my phone to ask for her birth information."
"She what?" Emily mutters.
"Yeah, but I covered for her," Penelope mentions, "You're welcome." She adds as she slumps into her desk chair. Emily notices a hint of anger within Penelope's attitude and body language.
"Thanks again, Garcia," Emily says and sees herself out.
—
Noah walks alone down the street of the city. She decided to take the long and scenic route to the BAU — mostly to avoid Jess and her questions.
Noah skipped out on lunch for the second day in a row. She also barely talked to Liv in class, which the redhead found odd, but minded her business nonetheless. Liv is the only one in the group that understands how Noah works. They have a similar temper, Noah's being slightly more violent and quick to explode.
Jess, on the other hand, is a worrier. Not seeing Noah has worried her and hearing that she was in class from Liv worries her even more. She tried to look for Noah after school but she was clearly gone.
The brunette eyes the sidewalk as she passes some government buildings. She tries to look up at the sites, but she knows her resting bitch face would scare the people passing by. So she walks with her head down all the way to the BAU.
"Homework in Penelope's office," Emily says once Noah approaches her in the lobby. No hug, no eye contact, no greetings.
Noah does not respond to the statement. She simply walks to the elevator, finding as much comfort in the silence as she possibly can.
Once the elevator doors slide open, she heads straight to Penelope's office. Weirdly, a small smile crawls upon her lips as she nears the blonde's office. Something about seeing Penelope calms everything in Noah's mind. Suddenly, all her problems are off the table and the only thing she wants to do is sit and listen to Penelope's typing and her techy jargon-filled rants.
"Penelope?" Noah quietly says after opening the office door.
"Not today, Noah," Penelope replies, not even turning away from her monitor.
"But—"
"I'm really busy, I really need to focus on this and I can't..." Penelope stops herself as she takes a deep breath, "I can't focus when you're in the room."
Noah nods, even though Penelope cannot see because she still has her back turned to the teen. Noah swallows the lump that slowly forms in her throat. Each replay of Penelope's rejection playing in her mind hurting more than the one before.
The teen turns to walk out of the room, her hand on the doorknob. With the rejection suddenly clouded by anger, she speaks up.
"Did I do something?" Noah confidently asks. It surprises Penelope.
"Noah," Penelope groans, "You used my phone to call the adoption agency."
"I'm sorry—"
"Sorry won't get you anywhere, Noah," Penelope sighs angrily, "I could've gotten into a lot of trouble! You're lucky I covered for you! I have no idea what they would've done if they had found out."
"I didn't know what else to do!" Noah replies.
"You could have at least asked me!" Penelope argues.
"You would've said no!"
"And maybe that's what you needed to hear!" Penelope says and can see the sting of her words on Noah's face, "I—I just mean that maybe you wouldn't be so mad right now. Like a 'what you don't know can't kill you' type of thing..."
"But what I didn't know was haunting me! Driving me insane!" Noah raises her voice, "Do you have any idea what it feels like to not know something like that?! To have to push all of your questions to the back of your head because everyone tells you it doesn't matter?!"
Noah watches the blonde shrink before her. She huffs and shrugs her shoulders, letting out a short, dry laugh.
"No, you're all right," Noah sarcastically continues, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that Emily gave me up for adoption. It doesn't matter that I was abused for eleven years. It doesn't matter that my father left knowing what was going on. It doesn't matter that I was coincidentally saved by the one person who threw me away in the first place. None of it matters because it was all in the past!"She takes a deep breath as she finishes her rant. Penelope stays silent, never having witnessed Noah go on one of her furious rants.
"And the past just disappears into thin air, doesn't it?" Noah snaps and walks out of the office.
Penelope sits still, wishing she would have had something to say. But there is nothing. Nothing to describe Noah's feelings, nothing to express Penelope's desire to help the teen, nothing to say that would make Noah feel better.