"Where the hell is it!?"

Lincoln hastened his movements, stuffing the bag with whatever he could.

"Where is he!?" the voice bellowed. "That little…"

The voice trailed off, and the young boy knew it would be no time at all before they reached upstairs. He zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder, moving to the window in one swift movement. The window, opened in anticipation for this moment, provided Lincoln with an escape.

He had planned it all well enough. The back gate in the alleyway, the fire escape, the window's broken lock. The…small fire in the kitchen so his foster dad and step brother would be too busy to stop him and beat him.

He could hear the door to his bedroom fling open as his shoes hit the pavement. His bag was filled with some essentials. A single pair of socks, pants, underwear, and a shirt, packed next to some granola bars and a jar of peanut butter. And... a lighter. For emergencies.

"Where'd you go you little monster?!"

Lincoln paused to look back up to his room, he was by the back gate: two more steps and around the corner, and he'd be out of sight in the middle of the night.

"You get back here and look at what you did!" the man called out to him.

Lincoln ignored him, defying him one final time before walking out to the sidewalk. He had no intention of ever returning to that awful place.

He had no solid plan for the night. He hadn't really thought beyond "Get away from there." But he was out now. Surely this is better than living with Greg and Candy, his foster father and mother respectively.

"It's gotta be better out here," he told himself, "Better than there."

He trudged through the late neighborhood, but without a real destination in mind, he found himself at a school playground some miles away from home. The school to which the playground was attached to wasn't familiar to him. He didn't even go here, it just seemed like a good place to think.

He rested his feet on the bench by the gate. He closed his eyes and tried everything in his power to remember. Surely there was something in his memories that would allude him to his real family. His real parents. The way he was able to piece it together, he got separated from them when he was around two years old. After that, the orphanage. Then came the foster parents. His white hair was quite the eye catcher in the orphanage, to both parents and bullies alike. The bullies would find him first, though, and searching parents aren't looking for a kid who gets into a lot of fights, so he never got adopted at first.

Then came those people. Lincoln wasn't sure how, but they could tell he wasn't a real fighter. They adopted him for tax reductions. There're about six or seven other foster kids in that house with two lazy parents, and a bully for a step-brother. With the parents constantly checking on all of them so they don't go anywhere, it was a miracle Lincoln escaped at all.

Lincoln rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the mulch under his feet.

"No good," he shook his head, unable to come up with any ideas. "Nothing."

"You, ah... you lost, bud?"

Lincoln jolted in his seat and turned to see a Police officer had snuck up on him. He was casually leaning against the fence next to him on the other side. There was another officer standing on Lincoln's other side, looking more ready to jump the fence if he bolted.

Lincoln lowered his head, "No."

"You sure?" the first officer offered. "We can take you home, if you need it."

Lincoln felt another jolt run his spine, as he faced the cop again.

"No!"

Lincoln blinked at his own outburst. The cop looked surprised too, and glanced at his partner.

"I mean," Lincoln clarified. "Please, don't. I can't go back home. I'll go to jail, or anywhere else, but please, please don't send me back home."

The cop just looked at him and started to nod.

"Okay," he reached over and patted the boy's shoulder. "Alright. We'll help you out, bud, but you gotta come with us, it's getting ready to storm out here."

Lincoln agreed.

He couldn't tell how much time had passed, but he found himself sitting next to someone's desk in the police station. Someone had been kind enough to leave donuts for him. He had been nibbling on them one by one, until the box was eventually cleared out. He wasn't entirely sure what the cops were doing, but he had been here for at least an hour.

A woman cop approached him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"How're you holding up, sweetie?" she asked him. He shrugged.

"I, uh," he coughed. "I just ate a whole box of donuts."

"Brag about it, why don't ya?" The woman laughed. Lincoln could help but giggle, himself. She turned serious.

"Honey," she told him, "We thought it be best to prepare you for this. Do you know where your parents are?"

Lincoln blinked. "No."

"Do you know their names?"

"No."

She just stared at him with a stern look. It was unbeknownst to him, but she just got off the phone with his biological parents. By chance, she found a missing children's file. The report would be "renewed" every year on the kid's birthday. The report would always be insistent on one thing. The kid had white hair.

Honestly, how many kids in the US (hell, even in the state) have genuine, natural white hair at birth?

The parents were from a small town some hours away from here. The couple must have called every station in the state. How it took this long to figure this out…

"Okay," she said, "I want you to hang tight, okay?"

"Okay…?"

He was forced to wait another hour, and his seat was getting sore against the hard chair. It may have actually been forty minutes, and it was encroaching on midnight. How do adults sit in these all day? That guy across the precinct hadn't moved since he got here. He got up just to stand for a change.

"Oh my god."

Lincoln turned, pausing in rubbing his backside as he saw a couple across the building. They were soaked to the bone from the storm outside. The woman had blond hair, wide hips, and tired eyes, like the woman hadn't slept well in a long time. The man with her had a pointy nose, and very little hair left on his head. He had a spare tire around his waist, hidden under his clothes. He looked just as tired as his wife, perhaps more so.

They approached the eleven year old, moving past the other officers, who all took a moment to stare at the scene. The stood before the boy, almost unblinking. The woman looked scared to speak.

"L-" she dared to try. "Lincoln?"

Lincoln blinked.

"…Yes?" he suspiciously answered.

"I'm Lynn Loud," the man said, his eyes starting to water. "This is my wife, Rita Loud. We're your parents, son."

Lincoln's eyes grew wide. He opened his mouth to utter a question, but it just came out as a dry rasping.

"H-how…?" he wheezed. "How do you know-?"

"Honey," the woman crouched to his level. She gave a hard sniffle as tears streamed down her cheeks. "We've been looking all over for you. You've been missing since you were two-years-old."

She reached out, her hands had callouses, but were cold, and gentle. Lincoln embraced the touch, as her thumbs ran over his cheeks.

"You look so handsome..." she spoke softly. "And you still have your freckles. It's like you never..."

She couldn't finish the sentence, as it turned into gross sobbing. She lunged forward and grappled Lincoln into a hug.

"My baby!" she sobbed softly into his shoulder, "My baby boy has been all alone for so long…"

Lincoln's arms were pinned to his sides. The man soon leaned down to wrap his arms around the two of them.

Could it really be this simple? This is the dream, right? That fairy tale the other orphan kids never talk about. That your real parents would show up, explain away everything, and take you to their castle in candyland, or something stupid like that. Right? There's no way this woman sobbing into his shoulder and kissing his cheek was his actual mother. It's got to be some kind of mistake, right?

Regardless of all of this, he was allowed to go with them. They drove a van all the way up here, and the thing looked ready to break down any minute. Rita sat in the back with Lincoln, and Lynn drove the whole way back.

Rita seemed reluctant to even let go of Lincoln's hand on the trip home. She just kept staring at him with a look he couldn't identify. He figured it was a long drive "home," he might as well ask some questions.

"You think I'm…your kid," he wondered.

"You are, honey," Rita insisted. "I know you are."

Lincoln remained unconvinced. "Okay," he said, "So why'd you abandon me? Where've you two been all my life?"

Lincoln saw the hurt in their eyes. Rita's were focused right at him, pushing out more tears. Lynn's were visible in the rearview mirror, which he may or may not have positioned to look at Lincoln.

"We didn't leave you, Lincoln," Rita told him. "You were taken from us."

Lincoln's eyebrows knitted together as she tried to explain.

"The police there explained that you were found in a car crash, with your name on a bracelet. They made assumptions, and they didn't suspect that you were a kidnapping victim."

"Wires got crossed," Lynn offered, "Not enough people talking to each other. I hate to say it, but it happens. We never stopped looking for you, son."

Lincoln looked down, looking at the tips of his shoes.

"You don't know what I've…" he was about to say, "been through," but the words died in his mouth. He was angry, but he couldn't be as mad as he wanted to.

Rita rubbed his back with sympathy. "I'm so sorry, baby," fresher tears still rolled down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

Lincoln stayed silent for a few minutes.

"Uh…" he hesitated to say it. The word was so foreign to him. "Mom?"

She smiled warmly and gazed down at him patiently, waiting for his question.

"Where are we going?" he asked her. "Where do you guys live?"

"Oh," Lynn answered for her, "A little ways away from the city. A small town called Royal Woods."

Lincoln blinked. He had never heard of it.

"You'll love it, sweetie," Rita kissed the top of his head. "I know you will."

She smiled more, like she just thought of something else.

"Your sisters do, anyway."

"Wait. Sisters?"