[ TRIGGER WARNING — semi-detailed depiction of suicide. Read at your own discretion. ]
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At the start of the episode, Stiles and Scott are both yelling around and looking for Noel. When Scott gets distracted by Allison, Stiles keeps going and asking around for Noel.
When Jackson finishes his talk with Scott and walks away, Scott calls after him and says "Doesn't it bother you at all that Noel wasn't here tonight?"
Jackson stops and laughs, saying over his shoulder "You still like to think that I care about that idiot, don't you, McCall? Just because he's related to me?" He turns to face Scott fully, saying "There's room for one starting Whittemore on this lacrosse team, and that's me. It will never be Noel. Are we clear?"
He walks away again after that, leaving Scott stunned and looking like he's reconsidering something (the way he and Stiles have been treating Noel).
—
After Stiles tells Scott they have a huge problem and Scott acknowledges it, we cut to Noel at the Hale house standing over Laura's grave in tears. He yells down at the empty space "I don't know that you want! You want me to 'find him, and tell you', but I still don't know what that means!"
Suddenly, Laura appears in front of Noel. He is unfazed by her sudden appearance, just letting his tears fall freely.
"I thought you meant find who the alpha is and tell you, but you know. You know it was Peter. You saw him before he killed you, you know who he is, so who do you want me to find? What do you want me to tell you?"
Laura smiles sadly and puts a hand on Noel's shoulder, over his leather jacket. It looks a bit dirty but still the same and undeniably Derek's, something that appears to bring tears to Laura's eyes. She doesn't look at him, just touches the jacket almost thoughtfully. Noel looks down at her hand as she says "Find him and tell me... If he's making the right decision..."
It suddenly clicks. Noel looks up at her in shock and says "You're talking about Derek... You want to know if he's being smart about this whole alpha situation."
Laura looks ready to cry, saying "Go find him, and tell me. Please."
Noel nods and zips up the jacket, running off in the opposite direction as we cut to Allison in bed.
—
Noel is in the car with Jackson later in the episode, in the passenger's seat looking horrified. "Jackson, why aren't we going toward our house right now?" he asks in terror as he holds onto the handle above him, but Jackson ignores him, shifts gears, and goes faster. When Jackson notices the light on in his car and gets angry, Noel says "Well what the hell did you expect was going to happen?" Jackson glares at Noel and gets out of the car, Noel doing the same. When they see the car roll up and Chris come out, Noel's eyes widen and he looks ready to run.
As Chris puts on his gloves to work on Jackson's car, Jackson's line is changed a bit to be "It's okay, my cousin was just gonna call a tow truck. Right?" Noel nods in agreement and pulls out his phone, Chris saying "Don't waste your minutes, I know a few things about cars. It might be something simple."
Noel takes Jackson's next line and gets the same response to it from Chris. Noel and Jackson shoot each other looks, twin expressions of "I'm uncomfortable, Allison's dad is freaking me out."
Chris says "It's Jackson, right?" he looks at Noel, tilts his chin toward him, and says "What about him?"
Before Jackson can answer, Noel says "Sam. Sam Leon."
Jackson looks at Noel in confusion, and Chris says "Leon? Haven't heard that name around here before."
"I'm just in town visiting, actually," Noel responds and gestures for Jackson to keep quiet, which Jackson thankfully respects. Chris nods and says "Well Jackson, it's your car, right? Come here, let me show you what to look for." Jackson comes over and stands by Chris, and Noel moves to do the same, but Chris says forcefully "Sam, you stay put." Both Noel and Jackson are surprised by the slight hostility, before Chris smiles and says "You keep an eye out for those pesky auto repair people. I've heard they're able to GPS broken down cars nowadays."
Noel looks like he wants to say something but just nods, shooting Jackson a supportive glance before standing by the front of the car. The scene between Jackson and Chris remains the same, with occasional shots of Noel eavesdropping on the conversation. Suddenly Scott and Stiles pull up, and Noel looks relieved. Scott calls out "Hey, Jackson! And N-"
Before he can say his name, Noel mouths aggressively "SAM! SAM!" He also fingerspells the name using sign language, which Stiles picks up on, saying "And Sam's here too! It's practically a family party down here."
Scott notices Stiles' suggestive tone of voice, and says "Jackson, Sam, get in, there's a car repair shop just down the road, we can get a tow truck."
"Yeah, two attractive boys like you guys are too pretty to be standing out here with a busted car," Stiles says almost playfully. Noel nods and rushes toward the jeep, climbing in over Scott's lap. Jackson goes to do the same, when Argent shows that he fixed the car. Argent leaves, and Noel and Stiles get out of the car to join Jackson and Scott's argument. When Jackson and Scott get physical, Stiles holds Scott back while Noel holds Jackson.
When Scott says he "can't protect anyone" and looks at Stiles and Noel, Stiles says "Why are you looking at us?" instead of just "Why are you looking at me?"
Noel grits his teeth as Jackson goes back to his car and drives off, when it cuts back to the three boys and Stiles asks Noel "Who the hell is Sam?"
"Don't worry about it," Noel replies and gets back in the car, his eyes still on Jackson, Scott and Stiles getting in the car silently after him.
—
After Stiles stops his dad from taking another shot, we get some more Noel. He's standing at his corkboard, where a calendar styled with different van Gogh works is stuck up. He sighs as he crosses a day off on the calendar. The next day says "Dad - 5 Years" and " Mom - 4 Years" in red ink. Noel's eyes narrow before closing as he looks at the date, and suddenly we're in a flashback.
—
Noel, about age ten, stands in a hospital room beside the man that's in the family photos with him- his father. He is bald, and hooked up to numerous machines. He looks pale, thin, and weak. Noel and his mother stand there on either side of him, Noel laughing and joking with his father as his mother smiles through her tears. We can't hear what they're saying, and everything moves in slow motion. Noel's father holds a hand out to his son and a hand out to his wife eventually, and when he has both of their hands in his, his eyes close and his heart monitor slowly goes flat. Noel looks confused as his mother sobs and reaches out to her husband, and a shot of Noel's confused face fades to him crying while standing in a black suit. He watches as his father is lowered into his grave, his mother's hands on his shoulders. She stoops down to his level, putting a loving hand on his cheek and smiling sadly. Suddenly her smile fades/transitions into a look of exhaustion and sorrow. She looks at the calendar on the wall, and her eyes fall on the date that Noel had indicated on his calendar in present time, which just says "Dad" in a child's handwriting. She looks into the cabinet across from her and opens it, multiple bottles of prescription pills inside, both hers and Noel's. We get one more closeup on her face as a single tear falls before we see Noel walking in his front door, laughing as a young Jackson walks in the opposite direction waving. Noel goes into his mom's room, presumably to greet her, but he is met with her laying on her bedroom floor with a bottle of the pills in her hand. Noel's smile falls and becomes an expression of shock, and he slowly starts to scream before suddenly, in the middle of his scream, we get a shot of him in the backseat of a police car. He looks traumatized, his eyes staring straight ahead and he is expressionless. Jackson comes and sits beside him, and the cousins smile at each other before we cut back to present Noel. He looks at the photo on his desk of his family together, tears falling from his eyes. He walks over to the picture and traces over his parents' faces longingly as we cut to Scott and Allison talking in Scott's room.
—
While he has no lines, Noel is with Stiles when he runs into Peter's car before the date with Melissa. Scott grabs him before he runs off to find Jackson, pulling the boy along with him while Noel asks what's happening and getting no answer.
—
Noel stands at the top of the stairs with Scott when Scott says "Excuse me. CO-captain." Derek looks up at the two and he looks scared to see Scott, but even more so when he sees that Noel is with him. When Scott jumps off the top of the stairs, Noel runs down, putting a hand on Jackson's shoulder. He tugs on Jackson's sleeve and says "Come on, we gotta get out of here." But Jackson is frozen in fear staring at Noel in apparent shock that his cousin decided to save him instead of leaving him for dead like he himself might have. Noel is affected slightly when the arrow goes off in the Hale house, and he quickly runs out of the house after that, pulling Jackson with him and covering his eyes with his arm.
—
He's not seen again in the episode.