#noah x elisabeth | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

steamed-ham · 5 months ago

Text

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐲 𝐃𝐚𝐲

SUMMARY ➣ What happened on that rainy day Elisabeth lost her hat and came home late?

╭┄┈┄────────❍•

│ 𝐀𝐎𝟑

╰┄┈┄──❍•

It was raining heavily, but Elisabeth didn’t mind much. She skipped through the puddles without a care in the world, her gloves swinging wildly at her sides attached by mitten clips. It was as if two kids hadn’t just gone missing. No, something like that wouldn’t be on the mind of a nine-year old anyway.

She waited for her mom to pick her up for what felt like hours after deciding to walk home herself, as she did everyday up until this point. She was waiting outside in the rain by herself, what was the difference if she walked home by herself? People needed to stop treating her like a little kid already, she had a boyfriend after all. Little kids didn’t have boyfriends, therefore, she wasn’t a little kid.

The walk home wasn’t long, but it wasn’t short either. Eventually Elisabeth stopped skipping and settling for walking while stomping in the puddles instead. She kept her head down, not wanting the rain to fall on her face and mess up the lipstick she just put on. The firm tone of her mother telling her, ‘always pay attention to your surroundings’, replays for a brief moment in her head but Elisabeth disregards it. She was nearly halfway home already, nothing was going to happen to her. At least that’s what she thought before a hand suddenly fell upon her shoulder.

She hadn’t thought about Erik or Mikkel being taken at all the entire day, however, at this moment Elisabeth feels overcome with fear. What if she was about to be taken too? Heat pricks at her neck and back, anxiety rising higher when she turns around to see a black figure standing closely. She should be running right now but instead finds herself looking straight into the eyes of a potential kidnapper.

Elisabeth has never seen him before, he’s dressed all fancy: A long overcoat, dress pants and a hat. Everything is black except for the white of his collar. That’s the hint that she needs to conclude that he’s some kind of religious figure, having seen a priest wearing something similar online. (She didn’t go to church nor was she religious.) He stares down at her with intense blue eyes, he doesn’t smile, rather his lips are pressed into a grim line. Elisabeth can’t seem to read him or his intentions. And though the stranger appears to be religious, her heart continues to pound erratically at the thought of being taken.

She takes a step back from him.

He makes no move to grab at her but his facial expression quickly shifts from unreadable yet severe to saddened, tired and… something else, Elisabeth can’t quite tell. Then, much to her surprise, he signs to her, “I won’t hurt you. I am Noah.”

She answers back immediately, “what do you want?” There’s a momentary pause between her gestures, “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she adds, though it’s unnecessary since they were already talking at this point.

“Children have gone missing. You shouldn’t be walking home by yourself.” His lips are moving meaning he must have been speaking aloud as well and Elisabeth blinks owlishly at the stranger noting the way he signed with confidence. Not only did he know sign, but he also appeared to be fluent. Whoever he was, their meeting may not have been so coincidental. It’s with that thought that Elisabeth’s skepticism returns, she really shouldn’t continue to talk to this man, Noah.

He seems to have read her mind, or body language because he repeats the sentiment that he meant her no harm. Elisabeth crosses her arms at him, looks him up and down dramatically then tells him off, “I walk home by myself everyday! I’m not a baby!”

For some reason, this seems to be amusing to Noah. It’s almost unnoticeable, the way his lips quirk into an almost smile. Elisabeth catches it though. “I’m not!” She insists with great emphasis on her gesture.

“I apologize. I didn't mean to suggest that you were, babies don’t wear lipstick after all…” She’d feel more excited that someone noticed her lipstick if not for the fact that Noah could, again, be a creepy child stealer. “I suppose this is a dangerous time for adults too.” He finishes and Elisabeth gives Noah an audible ‘hmph’ in response. He didn’t even look sorry at all.

It’s then that the rain turns from ‘rainy’ into a complete downpour. Noah asks her if she has an umbrella and when she shakes her head ‘no’, he says that they should take cover in the woods and Elisabeth agrees a little too eagerly. The idea of Noah being a kidnapper is all but forgotten… her hat wasn’t waterproof and was getting drenched!

They hurry to the woods and Elisabeth peels the heavy sodden fox hat off her head as they go, stuffing it into the mesh of her backpack where a water bottle would normally go. Noah is a few steps ahead of her and she follows him as he searches for a more dense population of trees. He comes to a stop underneath the thick of a tree whose branches do well to mitigate the downpour of rain.

As soon as Elisabeth feels the rain let up, she wrings her hair out. There’s a fallen tree to her left and Noah offers her to sit. “We might be here for a little while.”

Elisabeth plops herself down on the felled tree and looks to Noah expectantly, she pats the space next to her, “sit down.”

He raises an eyebrow at her and doesn’t sit down, instead leans back against the tree that shelters them. This causes her to huff at him in annoyance, whatever. He takes his hat off at least and hangs it on a low branch near his head. He’s back to looking sad and tired though, making Elisabeth wonder why. There’s a lot of questions she wants to ask this stranger and considering he hadn’t done anything she deemed suspicious (yet), she thought it was an open opportunity to ask said questions.

“How old are you?”

“Can you guess?”

Noah looks to be as old as her parents, maybe younger. “You’re old…” She begins, looks at him thoughtfully, then takes a random but educated guess, “forty-five?”

“Close. I’m forty-one.”

Elisabeth thinks that his tiredness or whatever was going on with him was making him look older than he was. Sometimes her parents would come home from work wearing a similar look Noah currently wore, theirs was because of stress though. Was Noah also stressed?

“Why do you look… gloomy?”

The question has Noah looking taken aback, but only momentarily before he signs, “Someone was taken from me, I am looking for them.”

“Who?”

“My daughter.”

It was no wonder Noah looked like that. Elisabeth had not yet known or felt the pain of losing someone, but she knew that whatever Noah was going through must have been depressing.

“I’m sorry.”

“I will find her.” His sign is confident still, but his eyes have turned glassy with emotion and his hands are trembling faintly.

Being unable to hear and thus unable to notice tone and inflection of peoples voices, Elisabeth had learned how to read body language. She soon realized that body language was a powerful indicator of people's feelings. But right now with Noah, she doesn’t really need to analyze his body language to sense the desperation of his words. With one sentence, she no longer feels intimidated by him.

I will find her. He says it as a statement, but the way he looks down at her, it feels as if he is speaking personally to her: Like it’s a promise. To that, Elisabeth doesn’t know what to say.

Noah looks away from her, shoving his hands in his pockets, probably to hide the shaking and then nothing follows. By the looks of it, the downpour hasn’t let up at all making Elisabeth wonder just how long they’d be stuck here. She wouldn’t mind trekking out in the pouring rain, she’s done it before, but she was with Noah. Admittedly, she felt bad for him and decided that she’d keep him company until the rain stopped even if it was awkward.

Both busied themselves by mindlessly watching the rain fall around them for… Elisabeth didn’t know how long but it felt like a long time, forever even. Noah captures her attention again though when he removes his hands from his pockets and in his right hand is what looks like a large golden locket.

He reaches out to her with it and Elisabeth accepts curiously.

“I want you to have this,” is the only thing he offers.

The locket looks slightly worn but still has an elegant shine to it. She then opens it realizing it’s actually a pocket watch and not a locket. Engraved on the lid of the watch it reads, ‘For Charlotte.’ Was this her moms? Why would Noah have it?

She looks at Noah accusingly and proceeds to bombard him with questions, “how did you get this? Is this my moms? Do you know her?”

“Yes, it used to belong to your mother but I don’t know her.”

Elisabeth doesn’t like how he ignores her first question, so she asks again with greater emphasis. “How did you get it?”

“I found it at the clock shop, however, I didn’t notice the name inside when I bought it.”

His explanation makes sense so far. “And how did you know it used to belong to my mom?”

“Tannhaus raised your mother, did he not?”

Elisabeth nods, it was true. But she still feels conflicted in what to think now. It’s true that anyone could figure that out but… why now?

Noah once again has an accurate sense of knowing what she’s thinking. “Sometimes life passes you by, small and seemingly insignificant things like this hardly have any priority.”

There’s really nothing else she can think of to question him about. He could be lying but what proof did she have? So Elisabeth just nods in reluctant acceptance, closing the watch in her hand and pushing it into the pocket of her raincoat. She would give it to her mom after all.

“How did you learn sign?” It’s something that she had wanted to ask right away but had gotten distracted by the turn of conversation.

Noah’s solemn gaze is replaced by warmth and softness as he begins signing. “My wife was deaf, she taught me long ago.”

It’s clear that Noah loved his wife very much and Elisabeth almost asks where she was, but stops herself. She doesn’t miss how he uses the sign for past when talking about his her, meaning they weren’t together anymore or she died… Not wanting to upset Noah, she instead asks, “what was she like?”

There’s a pregnant pause, Noah looks thoughtful about what he wants to say, or maybe he had too much to say. “Like you, she was curious. She was never afraid to ask questions, to be upfront with people. She is brave, smart, kind, beautiful…” His hands fall, it’s like he wants to say more but likely realizes he’s talking to a nine year old. It shouldn’t matter though and Elisabeth prompts him to continue.

“Sign was difficult to learn, but she was patient and we had all the time in the world… When I first saw her, I never would have thought that we would fall in love. But love, it’s unpredictable.” Noah is no longer looking at her, but off to the side. Elisabeth concludes that he must be remembering things about his wife.

When he turns back to face Elisabeth, she tells him, “she sounds like she was a nice person.”

Noah nods, “she was, she is… she is everything to me.” Looking at Noah, Elisabeth finds herself wondering how it was possible that he could appear so scary and mean looking yet in this moment be able to express such love through his gaze. Similarly as Noah had thought he would never fall in love with his wife, Elisabeth never would have thought of the man in front of her to be a caring husband or father. Don’t judge a book by its cover was right after all. Elisabeth can see Noah exhale deeply, a sigh, that gloomy look he wore previously returns to him shortly after.

“Tell me about your family, your friends.” He’s changing the subject, but Elisabeth doesn’t mind, she’d be happy to talk about them. So she starts with her family.

“My mom is a cop, she kicks ass.” Noah’s eyebrows raise at her choice of words and Elisabeth can’t help but grin that she got a reaction from him even as small as that. “She arrests evil people. Well, actually she’s the chief of police so she’s the boss and tells everyone else what to do…” Elisabeth pauses, looking towards the left in remembrance. There was something else important that she was missing— “she’s also the first chief of police who’s a girl!”

Noah nods approvingly, “that’s very impressive. I’m sure she is doing everything she can to find these missing children too.”

“Yup!”

Elisabeth talks about her dad, then her sister. When talking about her sister, she has a lot of complaints. Like how her sister got to do adult things such as wear makeup and she couldn’t and how her sister could wear certain clothes and she couldn’t. As well as how they wouldn’t say certain things in front of her, well that was more of a family complaint. To sum it up, she was annoyed at being babied but Noah already knew that from earlier. While she had many complaints she doesn’t forget to say that she still loves her sister and family, no matter how unfair they were.

“And is that your sister’s lipstick you’re wearing?”

“Yes, I stole it.” She replies all too honestly.

But through all of her ranting, Noah had done nothing but give her his utmost attention. She didn’t think he would but when she realizes, she can’t help but feel a little embarrassed. He seems to agree with everything that she says though, that or he was humoring her. He also offers her some advice, ‘cherish the time you have with them while you can, you never know when it could be your last,’ is what he says.

The next topic she goes onto is of her friends and school. She tells about her boyfriend, Yasin. A topic which appears to pique Noah’s curiosity because he ends up asking more about him. Elisabeth can tell what he’s really thinking though, he thinks that she’s too young. He doesn’t comment about it at least.

After Elisabeth finishes describing her friends and school to Noah, she continues to tell him random tidbits about her life events that happened or anything else that came across her mind. At the same time, she goes through her backpack, shows him her homework and little trinkets which he strangely takes a great interest in. It’s mindless, but it was still raining, it’s not like they had anything better to do.

At this point, Noah probably knows that she’s taking advantage of his attention. Elisabeth had mentioned that it wasn’t often she was able to share everything about her day, her thoughts or feelings. Her parents were always so busy and only so much could be shared at the dinner table. It was also nice to talk to someone who knew sign fluently besides her parents and young school mates. She even tells Noah what she had told Yasin earlier, how girl snails bite the willies off the boy snails and then they become girls! That’s how she gets Noah to laugh, after, he rubs his face and shakes his head at her in exasperation.

What surprises her is that he knows already. How would he know something like that? “Did you learn that from television too?” She asks and she’s really dying to know.

“No, someone told me that before.”

A random guess, “your wife?”

“Yes.”

To that Elisabeth grins.

The rain must have been letting up because Noah moves out from the safety of the trees branches and sticks his hand out into the air. He signs to her, “It should be fine to walk now.” Elisabeth gives him a thumbs up as Noah goes to retrieve his hat. The sun was starting to set and her parents must have been worried by now.

She follows Noah out of the forest and back to the road. She expects him to leave her and go his own way, however, he’s still walking beside her.

“Where are you going?”

“I will walk you home. It’s getting dark.”

‘It’s dangerous’ goes unspoken but Elisabeth doesn’t feel the need to protest.

The walk home is uneventful; the only difference is that Noah is with her. She doesn’t really have any more questions or comments for him, except for one thing. When she asks, she steps in front of him to stop him from walking. “Why were you nice to me? We don’t know each other.”

“I’m a man of god.” Noah responds simply. He pulls the left side of his overcoat away to reveal a small silver cross pinned upon his suit. It’s crooked.

Elisabeth sees, but she doesn’t believe it. Somehow she just didn’t, she rolls her eyes at him and keeps walking.

When her house finally comes into view, it’s dark out. Noah stops walking until they’re a little less than a block away and Elisabeth knows it’s time to part ways. There’s a lamppost nearby that extends just enough light to allow her to sign her goodbyes. “Thank you for listening to me today.”

“You’re welcome.” His face is hidden by the shadow of his hat and Elisabeth can’t see his face very accurately but then Noah reaches out and places a hand on her head in a gentle caress. “Go on home now,” he says.

“Where will you go?”

“To find my daughter of course.”

“I hope you find her.”

“Goodbye,” she mouths and starts to run home.

On the doorstep of her home, Elisabeth’s hand is on the handle of the door, she’s just about to walk in… Her thoughts flash to Noah one last time, just who was he? She turns around to have one last look at him, she’d be able to see him through the light of the lamppost, but when she looks back, he’s nowhere in sight. She doesn’t know why but she feels a little disappointed, even more so when she reaches down to the mesh bottle pocket and realizes her favorite fox hat is gone. She must not have stuffed it down far enough and it fell out.

She grumbles to herself and pushes the door open. Home at last. Her mom and dad are there, sitting on the couch and clearly in distress. When they see her, relief washes over their faces and Elisabeth is enveloped in moms embrace before being grilled with questions on her whereabouts. Elisabeth tells them that she met someone, someone named ‘Noah’. He must not have been lying when he said that he didn’t know her mom because her mom asks who he is, only Elisabeth doesn’t know because he never actually said who he was.

“He gave this to me.” Elisabeth reaches into her pocket and pulls out the pocket watch handing it to her mom. “He told me it used to belong to you.”

Her mother takes the watch in her hand carefully and looks it over. Her sister comes downstairs at the same time expressing her own worry. Franziska hugs her but when looking at Elisabeth’s face, realizes she’s wearing her lipstick. She swipes a thumb across her lip to confirm it and when it smudges, she smacks her across the face, “hands off my stuff!” She signs angrily and storms back upstairs.

Getting smacked leaves Elisabeth slightly dumbfounded but she turns back to her mother who is still looking at the pocket watch with an expression of concern on her face. Noah must not have been lying about that either.

That night Elisabeth sleeps peacefully. She has a weird dream that she’s living in a cave, she’s with someone but doesn’t know who. In the morning, she forgets what the dream was even about.

Her mom takes her into the station after school so Elisabeth can describe what Noah looked like. There’s an artist who sketches a drawing of Noah based on her description, it takes a while to get it right but eventually the picture turns out looking very much like him.

Yasin doesn’t show up to school, and her mom tells her later that day that his parents have reported him as missing.

Elisabeth cries on the couch after her mom leaves because her boyfriend has disappeared and Noah has become a suspect in the case of the missing children.

His words still echo in her head, cherish the time you have with them while you can, you never know when it could be your last.

#my fics #so im writing them now #dark #dark netflix #dark series #dark fanfiction #elisabeth doppler #noah dark #hanno tauber #elisabeth x noah #noah x elisabeth

7 notes · View notes