"Noah."
He didn't want to open his eyes. He knew that voice, even if it was so soft, so quiet amidst the loud beeps and hum of iridescent lights. He knew it too well, so well. He breathed out evenly, weaving in and out of synchronicity with her quiet gasps. It was almost calming. His hand twitched against the slick grain of the chair, and he knew she saw it. He was thankful that she didn't say anything. His eyes burned behind his eyelids, too red in his sight because of those lights, those to bright lights. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to know.
"Noah."
It was a mute point now to feign sleep. She knew him well enough now to know he wasn't that kind of guy. She knew that this was too important for him to even try to be. He hated it at the moment. She wasn't going let him fake it, and he hated himself for believing her. She knew too much, even.
"Noah."
With that, he opened one eye, catching hers in the process. She looked like a mirror image of how he felt, however a million times better. If the dark circles under her eyes could mirror his, she'd look like death itself. Her lower lip quivered as she caught his eye, and he wasn't sure if he should be touched by her kindness, laugh, or scream. It was all so much to handle.
"Noah,"
Whatever she wanted to say, he suddenly didn't want to hear it. Sweet words, hateful words, nothing would matter. He clenched his fists, eyes burning again; it wasn't from the light this time. Her hand found his clenched fist, and somehow that tiny hand wormed it's fingers around his. He liked the feeling. He hated it too. He didn't even know.
"N-noah,"
His fist clenched around hers of it's own accord, and she squeezed back with a ferocity he found he'd come to accept of her. It was something constant, a familiar in this world of his turned upside down. He didn't want to be here until he was ready. He didn't want to be here ever with the given problem he was faced with. He leaned forward in his seat, laying his face in his fists, her hand still clutched in his. She didn't fidget, and he didn't know if he wanted her to pull away. He supposed he didn't.
"Noah…"
He unclenched his fingers from hers and let her hand fall away, not moving his head from his hands. It was getting to him, so fast. He didn't even know how he got from that classroom he had become so fond of to here, to this place he'd come to dislike, worried out of his mind. He wasn't used to it. He was terrified, which was such an old emotion, so raw again as it was wrenched from it's hiding place he had packed it in so long ago. If she was unaccustomed to this, as he knew she was, she was doing a good job of hiding it. The hand she rubbed down his back wasn't slow, it was soothing. He appreciated it. He had to draw strength from something, anything.
"Noah."
The change of voice was so abrupt that he knew what was coming. He looked up before he heard the soft tap of the shoes on the linoleum floor. He drew his eyes up from the suddenly blinding light into the face of the man who so many hours ago had been urgently telling him something about his little girl. He was half listening at the time. It didn't matter. He just… wanted his little girl.
He wasn't listening at all this time. He saw the doctor's lips move without hearing his voice, felt Rachel's nails dig into his back. He knew what was being said. He wanted him to take it back. When no voice screamed that it was a joke, that it was a lie, that his little girl was safe in Quinn's belly, not where he'd never see her beautiful face, he broke.
He broke. He was gone.
The last thing he heard he'd never forget.
"Noah."
It wasn't the voice he recognized, completely. It was her's, and his baby girl's.
And he could live in nothingness with that.