My Fanon for Noah Bennet
Title: My Fanon for Noah Bennet
Characters: Noah Bennet
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 800
Setting: All of my alternate universes
Summary: This is the life story of Noah Bennet as I write him.
Notes: I have intended, many times, to write an actual life story for Noah - like an involved, dramatic sort of thing, but I've never gotten around to it. My main problem is that he has no villain to conquer or conflict to overcome, aside from internal. So until I think up something gripping and worthy of writing, I'll capture the basic outline of events and relationships. My main departures from canon are in rejecting the relationship with Lauren, the death of Kate, and the revenge angle for Noah's involvement with specials.
Special thanks to von_krag for giving me background on the special forces in the military.
Noah Bennet was born on August 6, 1962 in southern Kansas, a tall, strapping, good-looking son of Kent and Anita Bennet, a conservative, Protestant farming family. He had an older brother and two younger sisters. He did well in school, played football and was good at it, but not as good as his brother had been. Failing to get a football scholarship, he got a job selling cars at the dealership where his brother had connections. Noah was horrible at it. He had a girlfriend named Kate, but things were rocky. Her parents thought he was shiftless and no-good (and white), plus she fell in love with a college guy with professional aspirations - big plans that Noah couldn't match.
For a while, he tried going to the local community college where he took a mix of classes. He didn't know what he wanted to do with himself. He thought about maybe being a drama teacher or involved in theatre. He wrote some plays. The car salesman thing wasn't working and finally Kate dumped him, which was a mercy to both of them. He bummed around aimlessly with the drama crowd, started smoking weed and then dropping acid. He partied hard, meeting Sandra. When his older brother discovered that he'd blown all his money intended for the next year of college on drugs, the family staged an intervention.
They didn't tell Noah what to do with himself or how to live his life. Nor did they cut Sandra out. She was invited, too. The family, the minister, Sandra's mom, and Noah all crowded into his parent's house and had a long, serious discussion about what Noah was going to do with his life. He was almost 20. Eventually, Noah decided to join the military and get clean, which was not a decision imposed on him by others. It was mutually decided that Sandra would move on with her life, not waiting for him. Their parting was amicable.
He did well in the military, advanced quickly, and served with honor. He flourished in the structured environment, applying for and being accepted in the Green Beret special forces program. He was honorably discharged in 1987 with back problems, just short of completing the program. In the meantime, Sandra had taken jobs as a clerk, cashier, and later as a waitress. She'd been on several dates and gone steady once. When Noah was cycled out of the military, he was approached by the Company (as were many others in his position). Since they were mysterious and gave so little information, he ignored them and headed home.
'Home' had just as little for him as it did before he'd left most of a decade before. He didn't want to be a salesman for the rest of his life like his brother. He didn't want to be a kindergarten teacher like his sister or a minister like her husband. He didn't want to be a home office manager and stay-at-home parent like his youngest sister or an air conditioning repairman like her husband. In fact, everyone else was moving on with their lives and building families except for him. Despondent, he looked up Sandra and moved in with her. He had plenty of cash saved up from the military. He began to spend it on the hard partying lifestyle as he'd done before.
It was only a few weeks later when he realized that he'd been down this path before and it didn't lead to anywhere he wanted to go. He realized he was ruining Sandra's life and his own, and that it would soon be impacting that of his siblings and parents. People cared about him and he was failing them. He considered his options and decided that before he went down to the hated car lot to sell more cars, he'd check out the unassuming, uninformative business card he'd been given by a Mr. Eric Thompson.
Within a month, he had a solid job at Primatech Paper and plans to relocate to Odessa, Texas. His back problems were cleared up when he was introduced to a few of the Company founders during his new employee orientation. He proposed to Sandra, who accepted. They moved to Odessa and honeymooned in Puerto Vallarta and then flew together to Berlin. Although he didn't see his family much anymore, that was okay. It held down the questions about his work or his frequent travel schedule. As the years passed, he let the familial bonds wither with claims of business or other engagements on holidays, to the point that Claire and Lyle hardly knew their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. Sandra's mother had died early on and her brother was estranged from the family (and an ex-con), so he didn't have much to answer for from the in-laws, either.