It hadn't been a great day for Lincoln. As he traversed the walkway up to his front door, he was hit with a sharp twinge of pain from his right eye, causing him to flinch. He had been given a shiner from Ronnie Anne after he accidentally spoiled the ending to the latest episode of A.A.R.G.H., which he assumed she had already seen.

At this point, all he wanted was a bit of alone time to nurse his black eye and get started on his homework. Unfortunately, he lived in the Loud House, where "alone time" was a rare commodity. Most of the time, he couldn't even get up the stairs without getting blindsided by one of his ten sisters.

In this instance, it was his baby sister Lily, who had been blithely playing with some blocks on the living room floor when Lincoln came in. As soon as she heard the front door close behind him, she crawled over to greet her older brother with a big, sunny smile on her face.

"Poo poo!" she squealed, reaching her arms up for a hug.

"Oh, hey, Lily," Lincoln muttered, giving Lily little more than a cursory glance as he began to ascend the stairs.

"Poo poo!" Lily repeated, her voice taking on a more desperate, pleading tone. Lincoln turned around to see her arms still outstretched towards him, and her bottom lip beginning to quiver. He sighed, knowing full well that he couldn't say no to that face.

"Oh, all right. C'mere, Lily."

He picked her up, carried her over to the couch, sat down and started half-heartedly bouncing her on his knee, eliciting a cheerful coo from the infant. This didn't last long, however, as after a couple of bounces he could feel her trying to squirm out of his grip. It was almost as if she could tell that his heart wasn't in it.

"What's wrong?" he asked, as if she would actually give him a straight answer.

"Owie!"

Lincoln gasped, mortified at the implication that he had accidentally hurt her. "L-Lily, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-"

"Owie!" she repeated. "Owie owie!"

Lincoln was about to apologize some more, until he noticed that Lily didn't actually look like she was in any pain. On the contrary; she was pointing up at him. His eye, specifically.

Lincoln sighed with relief. "Oh, you mean me," he said with a forced smile. "I-it's really no big deal. It doesn't hurt or anything."

Lily, however, wasn't buying it. "Linka owie!" she cried, toddling over and wrapping her tiny arms around Lincoln's waist.

Lincoln's heart fluttered with pride. Lily had said his name for the first time just over a week ago, and he still hadn't gotten over it. He gave her another smile- this one genuine, albeit rather faint- and returned the hug.

"Okay, you got me. It does hurt, and it is a big deal."

In a way, Lincoln was thankful that Lily was forcing him to open up. He found it oddly therapeutic to talk to her, even though he knew she couldn't understand most of what he was saying.

He released the hug and scooted just an inch away from her, giving himself some space. "As you might have guessed by now, Ronnie Anne did this to me," he said. "I mean, I guess I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. It really hurts when she does it, Lily."

As he spoke, Lily gave him her undivided attention, sitting perfectly still on the couch with her hands folded in her diapered lap. Ordinarily, it took the combined effort of the entire family to keep her still for more than a few seconds, but this was a special situation. Something clicked in her underdeveloped infantile brain that told her that Lincoln needed her support right now.

"And it doesn't just hurt in, you know, the obvious way. It hurts my feelings, too. It tells me that she sees me as some punching bag that she can just knock around whenever she feels like it. It makes me feel like… like less of a person.

"I want to stand up to her, but I'm always afraid that I'll make her upset. And you know what'll happen then?"

Lily just gave him a blank stare.

"She'll come home crying to Bobby, and then Bobby will break up with Lori, and then Lori will turn me into a human pretzel."

Lincoln turned away from Lily and lurched forward, letting his head collapse into his open palms.

"It's just… there's no way out of this, Lily," he groaned. "I just have to keep letting Ronnie Anne do whatever she wants to me."

"No!"

Lily snapped Lincoln out of his self-pitying trance with just a single syllable. He looked up to see that she had taken on a far more defiant stance; she was standing on the couch, hands on her hips, with her brow furrowed and her lips curled into a scowl.

"No, no, no!" she cried, stamping her foot.

Lincoln, taken aback by his baby sister's surprising adamance, needed to take a few seconds to process what she was trying to tell him. "So, you're saying… you're saying I shouldn't let her hit me?"

"No mo' owie!" Lily declared with another stomp.

Lily's confidence proved to be contagious, as her declaration sent her brother rocketing to his feet. "You're right!" he said. "I can't let her treat me like this anymore. Tomorrow I'm going to tell her, in no uncertain terms, that this…"

He pointed to his still-throbbing black eye.

"…is not okay!"

Lily cheered for Lincoln and clapped her hands, which gave him another surge of confidence.

"If she has a problem with that, then she's not my friend. And if Lori has a problem with that, then she can just lick my-"

"AHEM."

Lincoln turned around to see a very unimpressed-looking Lori, standing behind the couch with her arms crossed.

"Lick your what?"

Lincoln shrunk away from his big sister, having lost his spine just as quickly as he had found it. "Well…I…um…that is… LILY NEEDS A CHANGE!"

He grabbed Lily, shoved her into Lori's arms and bolted up the stairs, leaving both of them with bemused expressions.

Fortunately, Lincoln still intended to follow through with his promise to Lily, and follow through he did. At 3:00 the following afternoon, he burst into the house with an irrepressible grin on his face, demanding to know where Lily was. Upon being told that she was in her room, he bolted upstairs, swung open the door, zipped up to her crib and scooped her up into his arms.

"Guess what, Lily?! Guess what?!" he hollered.

"Poo…poo?" Lily uttered, a little unnerved by Lincoln's manic excitement.

"I talked to Ronnie Anne today, and I told her that I don't want her to hit me anymore, and she was totally cool with it! She even apologized!…Well, okay, she said, 'Sorry you're too much of a wimp to handle a little roughhousing', but you know, it still counts in my book. The point is, it worked! No more punching!"

Lily gasped and squealed with delight.

"And it's all thanks to you, Lily," Lincoln said, snuggling his baby sister. "I never would've had the guts to stand up to her if you hadn't talked me into it."

He put her back in her crib, tucked her in and gave her a peck on the cheek.

"You know, for a baby, you're a pretty good listener."