The Loud House was blanketed with an atmosphere of tranquility. Friday nights were one of the few times during the week that the house was reliably quiet, for the simple fact that most of its residents either went to bed early or went out to enjoy the weekend. On this night in particular, Lori and Bobby were having a double date with Leni and a cute boy from her chemistry class, Luan was sleeping over at Giggles' house, Lynn was having an evening sparring session with her boxing coach, and Lana and her friends were at the park catching fireflies.
On most Friday nights, Lincoln would be out of the house too, but Clyde had to cancel their plans on account of an untimely sinus infection. As such, he intended to spend his night playing his 3DS until he fell asleep, which he usually did on school nights anyway.
But before that, he thought he'd treat himself to a nice, long shower, taking advantage of one of the few times he didn't have to wait in line to use the bathroom. On his way down the hall, though, he heard Luna calling to him from inside her room.
"Hey, Lincoln, is that you?"
Lincoln looked into the room to see Luna reclining on her bed, laptop in her lap.
"Yeah, Clyde got the sniffles and had to bail on me," said Lincoln. "Why?"
"I wanna show you something. Come through!"
Lincoln, figuring that he had nothing better to do, obliged. He walked into the room and took a seat on the floor, prompting a smirk from his big sister.
"Come on, bro," she chided. "I know I've told you that you're free to use the beanbag. Mi casa es su casa!"
"O-oh! Sorry, I forgot," said Lincoln, picking himself up off the floor and falling back into the beanbag chair. Most of his sisters had a strict "don't touch anything" policy whenever Lincoln visited their rooms- if he was allowed in at all- so this was a bit of an adjustment for him.
"So what did you want to show me?" asked Lincoln.
Luna pulled out a CD from under her blanket and held it aloft. It was in a transparent jewel case, with "LYNN'S BEATLES MIX" written at the top in sharpie.
"Dad gave me his Beatles mix CD to listen to. I was just gonna do it alone, but now that you're here, I thought we could check it out together!"
Lincoln smiled. As disappointed as he was about Clyde, an evening spent listening to some golden oldies with his cool big sis didn't sound half bad. At least, it was better than beating Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon for the umpteenth time.
"Sure, that sounds great!" he said. "Or should I say… fab?"
Luna let out a hearty belly laugh. "Oi, you're a riot, mate," she said in her faux-British accent. "Let's pop this in an' go for a ride!"
With that, Luna popped the CD into her laptop and waited for iTunes to boot up. In truth, neither of them knew what to expect. Sure, they knew all the iconic classics- "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," "All You Need is Love"- but they knew little about the Fab Four beyond their biggest hits. Luna, as a music aficionado, always felt a bit guilty about that.
"See, that's what I like about you, Lincoln," said Luna. "You got respect for the classics. All of my other sisters were like, 'Ew, that music's for old people!' or, 'I'm afraid thoth simplithtic three-chord melodies do nothing for me,' or, 'Leave me alone, I'm trying to access the Netherrealm.'"
Luna's impressions left Lincoln rolling on the beanbag in fits of laughter. Before he could even regain his composure, the first song- "I Am the Walrus" - started playing. It began with a simplistic piano melody, backed by what sounded like a pair of maracas, followed by some fuzzy, distorted strings. A moment later, the drums started up, and a moment after that, the unmistakable voice of John Lennon came in.
The first line- "I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together" - threw both of the Louds for a loop. Luna and Lincoln exchanged confused glances, as neither of them knew what to make of that borderline indecipherable grammatical nightmare. Their befuddled expressions only grew more pronounced as the song went on. Who wrote this? What wrote this?
By the time they got to the chorus, both of them started snickering at the sheer absurdity of it all. But even then, they weren't prepared for the bizarreness that followed: I am the eggman? I am the walrus?
As soon as Lennon got to "Goo goo g'joo," both of them broke out into a cackling fit that didn't let up until the bridge.
The next three tracks played out largely the same way, with Lincoln and Luna letting the atmosphere of each song absorb them, pausing only to exchange glances to see how the other was reacting. They jammed to "Back in the USSR," gawked at the sheer audacity of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and enjoyed the playful whimsy of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
Then came Track 5 - "Eleanor Rigby".
"Ah, look at all the lonely people!" the track wailed, over a melancholy string section.
THIS is a Beatles song?, thought Lincoln. Where's the guitar? Where are the drums?
He looked over at Luna, expecting a similar reaction. Instead, Luna's expression was more indicative of intrigue than incredulity; her brow was furrowed, and she was stroking her chin in quiet contemplation.
The first verse had Sir Paul lamenting the lonely, pitiful life of an old spinster- the titular Eleanor. The first line of the song had her going to a church after a wedding has ended just to pick up the rice, which struck both Lincoln and Luna as profoundly pathetic. Neither of them were sure what it meant to wear a face that you keep in a jar by the door, but it sounded poignant the way Paul sang it. By the end of the verse, Lincoln noticed that Luna's brow was beginning to un-furrow. By the end of the chorus, her chin-stroking had stopped and her hand was drifting away from her face.
The next verse told the seemingly unrelated story of Father Mackenzie, a lonely old preacher up late darning his socks and writing a sermon that nobody was going to hear anyway. From the few details given, Paul painted a heart-wrenching picture of the preacher's existence, capped off by the purposefully callous final line:
"What does he care?"
Lincoln wasn't sure, but right after that last line, he thought he saw her bottom lip begin to quiver. At this point, Lincoln was starting to grow a little concerned, but he knew that music affected Luna more profoundly than it did most people, so he kept quiet.
Then they came to the last verse, where it's revealed that Eleanor died and that nobody came to her funeral. That sermon Father Mackenzie was working so hard on? It was her eulogy. Mid-verse, Luna let out a very audible gasp at and clamped her hand over her mouth, keeping it there for the remainder of the song.
"All the lonely people; where do they all come from?
All the lonely people; where do they all belong?"
By the end, Lincoln found himself getting a little choked up himself. He spent the entire song hoping to find some silver lining, or some sliver of hope, but the story ended without a trace of either one. Eleanor Rigby died before she ever found a sense of purpose, or a community who would embrace her.
Even so, he got over it by the time the next song started, making the conscious choice to set his mind on whatever came next. The same could not be said for Luna. Through the next few tracks, she held that same despairing, grieving expression. By the end of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," she leaned forward and rapped the spacebar on her laptop, bringing their listening session to an abrupt halt.
"T-that's enough for now," she whispered. "You can go."
Lincoln raised an eyebrow at her. "You feeling okay, Luna?"
"I-I'm fine," she choked out. "I'm just tapped for the night. We'll finish it tomorrow."
"Um… okay, if you say so."
Lincoln tentatively picked himself up off the beanbag chair and started towards the door, glancing back at his sister to see if her expression changed. It didn't.
"Boy, that was some album, huh?" he asked, forcing a smile.
"Yeah," said Luna, her tone static and her eyes fixed to her laptop screen. "Yeah, it was."
As Lincoln walked back to his room, he hoped that she would be fine after a decent night's sleep.
His hopes were dashed, however, during one of his late-night trips to the bathroom. On his way down the hall, he heard sobbing coming from the inside of Luna's room. His brotherly instincts overrode any concern he had for her privacy, and he let himself in after a single knock.
He opened the door to the harrowing sight of Luna sitting on her bed in a fetal position, weeping into her lap. He walked over to the side of the bunk bed, reached up and gave her a nudge on the shoulder.
"Luna? Luna, what's wrong?"
Luna had to choke back a couple of sobs before she could respond. "It's- it's nothing, Lincoln. It's just… I can't stop thinking about that song."
"You mean Eleanor Rigby?" asked Lincoln.
Luna nodded. "Nobody loved her," she whimpered. "Nobody missed her…"
"Luna, it's okay! It's just a song!"
Luna craned her head up and wiped away a few stray tears with her sleeve. "You're right. *sniff* I'm being stupid."
"N-no, that's not what I meant!" Lincoln stammered. "I don't think you're…"
Lincoln stopped himself mid-sentence, out of fear that he might end up digging himself deeper. At this moment, all Luna really needed was someone to be there for her. So he climbed up onto her bed, took a seat next to her, and draped an arm around her sobbing, trembling form.
After a few more minutes of crying, Luna spoke again. "Why do we live in a world that lets this happen? *sniff* Why do we bring people into this world just to forget about them?"
Lincoln sighed and started rubbing his hand across Luna's back. "I wish I had an answer for that, Luna. The world can just be a mean place sometimes."
More silence.
"Lincoln," Luna said with a sniffle, "I… I don't wanna die alone. I don't wanna be forgotten."
Upon hearing this, Lincoln scooted over to the center of the bed, placing himself directly in front of his sister.
"Luna, look at me," he demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Look at me!"
Luna lifted her head, revealing her reddened, tear-swollen eyes.
"You. Are. Loved. Luan loves you. Mom and Dad love you. I love you. There's not a single person living in this house who doesn't love you. And I promise that none of us will ever forget you."
Lincoln wasn't sure how Luna was going to respond, but there was no way he could have anticipated what came next. She flung herself at Lincoln, threw her arms around him and squeezed him tight, now crying harder than ever. Although her reaction took him a bit off guard, Lincoln's brotherly instincts took over after a moment, and he returned her embrace.
"It's okay," he whispered, patting her on the back. "Just let it all out."
And that's exactly what she did. For some indeterminate amount of time, Lincoln continued to hold her, pat her back and let her cry into his shoulder, until she was finally spent. Once she reached that point, she released the hug, looked Lincoln in the eye, and gave him a faint, but brave, smile.
"Feeling better?"
She nodded.
"No more tears?"
She shook her head.
"Glad to hear it," he said, returning the smile. "Good night, Luna."
But just as he was starting to dismount from her bed, Luna reached out and grabbed him by the arm.
"Wait!" she exclaimed.
Lincoln looked back at her. "What is it?"
"Would you, uh…" Luna's gaze drifted away from Lincoln, and she broke out into a sheepish smile. "Would you mind bunking with me tonight? It gets kinda lonely when Luan isn't here."
Lincoln nodded, hopped down from the top bunk and slipped into Luan's bed. Before he got himself comfortable, he checked the mattress and sheets to make sure that Luan hadn't booby trapped anything. Thankfully, she hadn't.
"Comfy?" Luna called. Lincoln grunted in the affirmative.
"All right then. G'night, bro."
With that, Luna clapped twice, causing the lights to go out.
"And Lincoln?"
Lincoln poked up his head. "Yeah?"
"You're the best little brother ever."