With Lincoln gone

by zman123

For as long as the ten girls in the Loud house can remember, they've always depended on a certain white-haired brother to assist them in their simple day to day tasks. To keep the balance in an otherwise very unstable and chaotic setting where any kind of peace is short-lived. Yet how will such a family survive when their only source of relief decides he's finally had enough?

1. Future Lynn Loud

The story of Lynn Loud. AKA: Daisy Roberta Pollon
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Lynn: "Firmly Grasp it in your hand"

Lynn hands Lincoln a tennis racket but Lincoln drops it.
Lynn: "Grr. Firmly Grasp it"
Lincoln once again drops the racket that Lynn tries to give him.
Lynn: "FIRMLY GRASP IT!"
Lynn forcefully shoves the racket into Lincoln's hand so that he is forced to hold it very tightly.
Lincoln: "OW!"
Lynn: "That ought to do it"

I lay stretched on my bed dreaming, staring at the ceiling not knowing what else to do to waste the day away.
My team would not be called to play another game anytime soon after we crushed our opponents yesterday at the finals, hours of strenuous and devoted practice coming from the combined effort of every last player on our team both junior and senior making the whole ordeal of scraping a win manageable even if still far from easy.

Though who'd have thought that our opponents would fight so savagely and barbarically, having regrouped under the terrible banner of their new captain, a fearful man known only as "Bowser".
Showing my team and me no mercy as they stared us down through their fiery eyes just as each match began, unleashing howls of unrestrained fury as they punctuated each throw of the big and heavy ball with the full force of the fierce resentment they would hold against us till they breathed their last.

The late nights I would spend comforting my teammates, some of whom were so devastated at the prospect of facing such a terrible opposition that they would fall to the ground crying after even the slightest failures during practise, those finally paid off.

It was just as my dear and beloved little brother had put it during the years he still lived with us.
That it was not all about winning and that the truly greatest sportsmen (and sportswomen for that matter) took their losses with but pride and dignity while never letting their victories blind them to what truly mattered in the long and treacherous journey known as "Life".

Warnings that a younger, more stupid and reckless me could never accept.
Warnings that too late, had taken me to the place I had reached now.

Even in the weak and tired state I was in at this moment and now as I felt the many passed by years bending my almost breaking back, I still heard his voice.
His beautiful, passionate voice that was the only thing that put me to sleep on my sleepless nights.

What I took to be his last warning that even he was through with trying to help me realize the errors of my younger self, was ironically the one memory I had grown to treasure the most. The one that brought me back to earth when another loss at my sporting games brought pain to my head and tears to my eyes.

"You know Lynn." He had said to me that terrible day as he sat looking at what was clearly an old album of his most treasured photographs, not even looking at me "You used to be cool because making sure all of us had fun meant more to you than anything, including yourself. But now look at what you'll do the second you don't win. And even when you win, it still doesn't make you completely happy and you still do mean things to us, to me especially."

The me in the past reacted off course as anyone could expect from a whiny and really immature infant in the body of a nearly grown up fourteen-year-old who was even allowed to sit at the grown-ups table during meals.
And that was to ask in a soft, still very dangerous voice that was on the verge of exploding into a highly violent tantrum just what my poor brother meant by any of that as well as warning him not to insult me anymore than he already had since back then, I was still clueless enough to have the fantasy that I was the best at least in terms of sports in the entirety of our city Royal woods if not on the face of the entire earth.

We all had our fantasies even back then, but mine were particularly selfish even if you took that into consideration.

I should have realized the second I finished my sentence that I had already unleashed the unthinkable onto what might have been for a happy family as I saw that when he turned to face me as a mark of politeness, his face as white as his almost snow-tinted light blonde hair.

"Well?" I had demanded, spreading my arms wide so that he could continue to throw more insults to enrage me further, feeling almost stupid the instant I said it even in the enraged state his very honest words had put me into.

Poor Lincoln was never the most popular guy in school as kind as he tried to be.
As a result, he was socially awkward, shy and the almost perfect definition of a shrinking violet.
But he was no sucker and he avoided the bait, instead opting to walk almost straight past me to go out of his room and downstairs, to do something that clearly did not involve me whatever it would be.

I expected this to be the last I saw of him that day but just as he made it to the stairway, he very cautiously turned his tired face back to gaze at me once more.

"It's not your age that's changed Lynn. It's you."

And before I had any chance to even take in half of just what that meant, away he went making almost no sound at all as he took the stairs down one slow step at a time.

I should have known since that day, that the events about to transpire would be most of, if not all my fault.
My own stupid and selfish fault.

Sure enough, not long after that terrifying stare of disapproval my little brother had graced me with as he said what I only now realized were his parting words to me, he was gone.
He'd clearly taken with him his signature plain orange shirt and navy jeans had gone with him as well as a few cans of soup which he had no doubt ransacked while we were all sound asleep the previous night, but all his other possessions remained completely untouched.

Not even a note was left for us. None of that teary junk most runaway people left with all that shtick and rubbish lying about how they would miss the family that they were now leaving far behind.
A lot of people in my school would say it was because our brother held too deep a grudge to care enough to do that, but even in the few tragic days that we spent waiting with bated breath for joyous news that never came, I knew those people were jerks I wouldn't touch with a barge pole if I knew what was good for me and what remained of the family I'd cruelly betrayed with my antics.

Little bro Lincoln loved us more than he loved himself. The happiness of his family to him was no chore but rather his aspiration. His purpose in life.
It mattered not how many times we tried and failed to appreciate his kindness since to him all that mattered was that he saw us happy.
Free time and material goods for himself were but little more than trinkets to him.

He always seemed like the rough-skinned and always happy boy that we only too late realized he really was not. Apparently at one point in the past we as a group of siblings were too stupid to realize that a person talking to themselves frequently and habitually was actually nothing short of a severe mental disorder that was very difficult to treat, and only got worse the longer it was left unchecked.

But why did we care about how an important trip to some sort of psychologist could and probably would have really spared our brother from just about all the horrific trauma's he must've been going through now in the unknown place he had wandered away to by now.
We certainly couldn't have given less of a dang when he was being so overworked by us that his calendar had not one day free of the difficult tasks we had thrust onto him.
We hadn't noticed his extra baggy eyes or the fact he had been breathing with a lot of difficulty in the days before we'd well and truly crossed the moral horizon and really sunk our good names as our only brother's loving sisters down the drain.

By more or less breaking every known law on the subject of family rights and treatment by kicking him from the house like he was some sort of dumb animal, his pleas for mercy only falling on our deaf and stupid ears.
All the time he'd dedicated to his family, to his sisters, to us. All his precious time which he'd selflessly sacrificed just to see our approval.
It meant nothing.
Absolutely nothing.

"You're not allowed to have any free time to yourself because you owe us favours. And if you say no to even a single thing we ask you to do, we kick you from our house and don't talk to you because screw how tired you are" was what we more or less told the poor guy, our completely unjust actions doing all the speaking for us.

Not long after Lincoln or "Linc" as we preferred to call him left never to return, things started going downhill real fast.
Our family losing our only brother was like an athlete losing an arm and leg.
Except that the athlete could find some hope and comfort in those metal limbs that were according to my more scientifically inclined sister Lisa, were getting more advanced every day.

There were no prosthetics for those who drove their family apart with their neglect, indifference and outright stubbornness and refusal to admit to their own mistakes which were plain for all but themselves to see.
There was no honour in a winner who could not take pride in losing as well as winning.

Since as I had learned too late from the less than pleasant experiences that'd come later as a result off my share of the bad decisions that led to this growing rift in an already very unstable household, there was no better sportsman than the one who'd seen defeat and toughed it through.
And the things that didn't kill you whether pleasant or not, could only make you stronger provided you put aside your pride to take in each and every experience as a valuable lesson.

But there's no need to prolong a story that's already long outstayed its welcome into talking any further about how all this could have been avoided had we as a family put aside our pride to see what could not have been more obvious if someone waved it up as a sign before our eyes.
Pride went before a fall. That was another lesson I'd learned in my years away from the house in the town I loved so well.

Suffice it to say, that after Lincoln's mysterious disappearance to heaven knew where, the deep and hidden worries that I had about not being the greatest sportsman that I could have been began to surface more and more.
I had always as the tomboy of the family considered myself the closest with our only brother, with us being the closest in terms of age and all that but his sudden leaving had been the hammer that finally shattered the mask of lies that I had refused to take off all this time.

I wasn't his favourite sister, not even close.
I could hardly be further from the truth if I tried.

That was one lie I'd always told myself, perhaps even then worried that it might not be true after all.

The other lie was how I was a good example to all my siblings, with me being the lucky sibling to be named after dad.
A high and valuable honour since that was usually an honour reserved for princes and princesses, and even then only the favourite one of them would get it.
It meant that dad found me special. Thought I'd be the one to go on to do all the amazing things he wanted to do when he was my age, but never could despite being a wonderful man.
I was probably the kid he talked the most about when he was out drinking with his friends and boasting about the great things he had, and the one he had the most good things to say about.

But how conceited I found I really could be, shocked me to no end when I thought back to the series of beyond tragic events my selfishness had caused.
No surprises that among the first of those events was for my roommate Lucy to refuse to ever speak to me again.
Not unlike what she had done during the "Room change" incident which I will not talk further about for the sake of keeping together my remaining sanity.
But far worse since this time there was no one else who'd accept me as a new roommate, much less accept my explanation as to why they should be the one to help me reconcile with my estranged roommate who became less and less talkative every day that Lincoln was away.
Eventually she could hardly even speak, opting to nod or shake her head to most questions mum or dad asked her.
The closest I ever got to being comforted or understood came from the sister I'd least expect to give any such kind of good treatment to an overzealous overachiever meanie like myself.

It came from eldest sister Lori, who despite usually never doing what an oldest sibling ought to have done for his or her younger ones, managed to salvage some form of empathy in Linc's absence.

I didn't really remember what she had told me during the counselling session she had reluctantly scheduled with me one sunny afternoon where she allowed me into her room so she could talk with me in private.
Something she rarely used to do with Lincoln around, with how much more her boyfriend "Bobby Boo Boo bear" seeming to matter so much more to her than any of us did, Lincoln inclusive.
And that cloudy afternoon as I sat on Leni's bed while Lori sat on hers there was a certain sympathetic and soft warmth in those usually hard and uncaring eyes of my oldest sister.
Something almost as worth a photo as when Lucy smiled.

Lori spoke to me as if she had been a trained and full qualified counsellor all her life.
She even placed her hand on my shoulder as she tried to soothe the sadness that had festered in me like an itch that wouldn't go away now that our brother was to all intents and purposes as good as dead with how all the best policemen in Royal Woods couldn't find him nor any real trace of him. And if not actually dead, then at least dead inside with how angry he must still be at us all for never once feeling anything but indifference for all the good he'd gone out of his way to do for us knowing full well he'd be the one to suffer for it.

As Lori continued to soothe and advise (unaware sadly that her kind and gentle words were having no effect on my depression or feelings of helplessness) I begun to see a completely different side of the domineering and control-freak that never let us do what we wanted when mum and dad always foolishly left Lori in charge just because she was the eldest and the eldest had special privileges or something like that.
I even began to empathize (something I had almost forgotten the meaning of) as I saw more and more clearly how despite how hard she was trying to keep it together and conceal it, Lori was in truth as scared and uncertain of what was to come as I was.

But more importantly, I had now realized too late as we looked at each other like two young soldiers on different sides from some long and pointless war who were unsure whether to shoot each other or not, that the pains of being in a big family were not something everyone was built to handle.
Like a nightmare that kept repeating.
A war that never ended.
A maze with no prize save perhaps the self-righteous feeling of satisfaction at toughing through each day without inciting any more sadness for the others that we were forced to be around whether we liked it or not.

The stresses of now having nine younger siblings since the addition of baby sister Lily into the household had irrevocably changed and crushed eldest sister Lori.
Just as the pressure to always win and be first place in every competition I took part in so that I could prove to daddy that his choice to name me of all his children after himself was not wasted, had made me blind to what really mattered.
Had turned me from the much less obnoxious and sensitive girl that Lincoln once deeply respected into this monster that probably took the greatest part of blame in finally destroying his determination to go any further. I could only consider myself lucky now that it hadn't come to a fistfight in which he unleashed the rage he'd probably been bottling his whole life now.

But what she actually told me about how I could better cope with my depression, I couldn't properly hear since halfway into our little discussion, Lori's words had become like static and the pounding in my head had become far too severe for me to just shrug away.
And so half lost in deep reflection and half consumed by guilt for my own part that I played in bringing this family to ruin, I continued to try without success to listen as Lori seemed to keep using longer and longer words.

I had however heard all I needed to hear from oldest sister Lori who was not generally well known for giving good emotional support but had still managed to do wonders for me this time.
Had clearly heard her say the sentence quietly and respectfully yet nonetheless very angry.

"You made your bed. Now lie in it."

I barely remembered how I spent the days after Lori's help session with me after Leni returned home from the mall and Lori announced that that she and her roommate had some work they now needed to conduct in private and that she regretted not having more time for me.
I remembered that conversations at the dining table, both the one for my younger siblings and the one I sat at with my older siblings and my parents were now deathly quiet.
You could have gone to the graveyard out of town in the dead of night and have heard more noise.
You couldn't even drop a pin anymore without everyone at the table hearing it vibrant and clear.

We still played board games and other kinds of general games together to try and shrug away the guilt and boredom that having one less sibling in the house had left us with.
Funny how we each always used to complain how having to share a living place with nine other people was nine too many.
Ironic now that with just one less of those people the little house where it had to be for the most part two a room on account of how tiny it was, now seemed like a big mansion so huge that you could spend an entire afternoon giving a guided tour of it and still have plenty of unexplored spaces to return to for the next day trip.

It didn't matter that I no longer insulted my siblings when I won our games and that I had long given up my bad habits of writing the word "Loser" onto their foreheads when they were asleep.
It also didn't matter that with a bigger budget mum and dad could now buy us a bigger compendium of sports equipment and other games.
These gaming sessions were now pointless.
Bland, bitter and utterly boring.

So that by the time that the next card game of Go Fish was over, half the players had fallen asleep and those who hadn't were already yawning when they spoke, drooling slightly as they did.
Perhaps the biggest irony of this all was how I was always among the first to lose my grip on concentration and drift into darkness despite previously being the most hyped family member for every game.
Another game meant another chance to win after all, and another win meant that it was time for Lynner, Lynner chicken dinner.

I was the greatest footballer on my football team. Little sister Lana beat me ten times in a row throughout the first ten football games we played without Lincoln.
I scraped a close draw on the eleventh only because Lana had been forced to stay up the previous night fixing some pipes which had been neglected for a long time. They say I was a great runner who gave even Usain Bolt a run for his money. Heh get it?
From the day Lincoln's room went back to being the supplies closet it once was, I was always last in line when we went for a morning walk or jog to try and stay fit and get some fresh air.
"The sky" I tiredly replied when dad asked just what was so interesting to make me go so slow.

It was a wonder therefore why none of my sports team ever thought about kicking me away even when urgent news that a timid and young ashen-haired boy from Royal Woods Elementary school was never seen again begun to spread like wildfire through a forest during a hot summers heatwave.
Aside from a few cold glances that some of the teammates who already thought pretty badly of me, no one harmed me.
Perhaps deep down I wish they did.

It was not a smear campaign nor a remorseless bully in the end that ruined me. I was tough and abrasive enough for most of the jerks in town to be too scared to even come near me and my sisters and parents had the courtesy to still love me in spite of my bad habits which I'd never tried to control until too late.

It was something far, far worse than simple depression which could be at least helped with regular help sessions with good friends or maybe even a doctor.
What I began to suffer from was far more serious than anything that the so called "Happy pills" given as a last ditch resort for the most urgent cases.
I never asked for a visit to the clinic however bad I began to feel in the years that followed knowing deep in my gut that ten happy pills a day which was ten times the recommended intake, wouldn't do the slightest good to me whatsoever no matter what mum and dad firmly insisted time and time again when they saw me slumped on my bed when I came home from school too tired to talk to anyone.

What I felt then and even now that I've somewhat recovered from the worst of my pains, was far worse than the hurt that an athlete who'd broken both his legs and his arm.
Since while the athlete could take painkillers and even get a metal limb if necessary, I could not.
To feel the same degree of suffering that would plague me for at least the next five years as I accustomed myself to the joys of living in a house with no brothers and just nine sisters, you would have to hit your best friend in the world until you crippled them for life and they needed to spend their remaining days in a hospital bed hooked to a mass of tubes that they could never be disconnect from.

I felt that what I had done was the same as if I had personally stabbed my missing brother in the chest with a great big knife.
I certainly wasn't stupid enough to realize that even as an athlete who was used to exhausting training regimes to improve my skills that sleeping outside on the damp grass and fallen leaves even on a warm summer day wasn't the most pleasant way to recover one's energy for the next day's morning laps.

Or that ripping other people's homework that they spent valuable time on in order to make victory confetti was something far too stupid for anyone not an emotionless psycho to even think about.
Don't even get me started on how I'd never properly have the chance to thank my brother for that time he let me use his bedroom without me even having to ask very nicely and how all I had done was completely spit on his kindness by trying to turn his space into mine.
Like a space invader, my comedian sister Luan was bound to quip if she saw me writing this now.

I'd been a bad sportsman both in terms of being the captain of my team and in being a player.
A captain's goal was to keep the team's spirits up through both win and lose while a player's goal was to simply give everything the best they could, staying true to the belief that it was hard work that paid off while leaving nothing to random chance and dumb luck with no effort of their own.
I failed in both those roles, the first when my brother was kicked from the house to be ignored even when he begged with tears in his eyes to be forgiven and let back inside.
The second when after I lost but one stupid board game, I went completely crazy and began trying to turn everything around me into a competition just for the sake of satisfying my even more stupid ego and adrenaline rush.
During my wild rampage I managed to slam Leni into a wall, keep my tired family up all night with my obnoxious snoring and (perhaps most shockingly) knocked a bunch of toy blocks onto my helpless baby sister Lily so that they fell hard onto her burying her underneath.
I was lucky that all Lily had given me in return was a blown raspberry and that she didn't start crying or trying to hit me for being the terrible older sister and roll model I reduced myself to that day.

Trophies and medals began to have no impact on me.
What was one more or one less to me when all that another award had made me do in the past was brag and rub my successes in other people's faces.
When all that trying to get the trophies in the first place made me throw a big and immature tantrum when I didn't get one.

Not one year had passed before I begun to politely resign from my old teams while shaking each and every one of my teammates warmly by the hand as I thanked them for the years we played together as teammates on the same field.
I wanted to leave then and there while I was still well remembered and liked. To quit before I was fired, so to speak and keep what few shreds of dignity I had left.

The rest of my years at school I really preferred not to talk about.
I was always keeping a wary eye out for the bully that never came.
Ready to defend myself from the punch and kick never aimed at me.

Bags appeared under my eye when I realized I would for a number of years lie awake every night pondering why I hadn't said two simple words that could have made a world of difference to what was happening now.
Two words that could help a lot to save a friendship or any kind of relationship any day.

But I'd never be able to say them now with the person I was meant to say them toward out of my life forever. My punishment was to forever hold my peace.

The sleeplessness began to make it harder and harder for me to even see.
It blinded me just as my pride had blinded me once to the bad things I was doing to my own family.
I don't even remember that well how the next few years for me went.
I think that my father and I got into a lot of argument and that my schoolwork went terribly but I'm not sure.

I do remember that the terrible final grade marks which I felt was the last straw for dad was what led me to do what anyone would consider the most hypocritical and reckless thing anyone could have done in my situation.

Not waiting for my dad to arrive at the mark collection point so that he would see with his own eyes that I'd only achieved a D for my best subject and a horrible combination of E's and F's for the others, I turned tail and fled without looking back.

I ran and not even checking the destination, boarded the first bus I saw.
The tears in my eye that day made grasping much more of what happened next difficult.

I did remember all too clearly however that the bus took me to a rundown squalor where I was yelled at by the disgruntled driver to leave.
I obeyed and did my best not to feel too badly when as a sort of cliché the bus threw up a puddle of muddy water onto me as it drove away to leave me to myself.

Still with tears obstructing my vision I began to make my way as best I could through the new streets I found myself in, taking note for no particular reason that a worn and barely readable sign written in badly worn paint read "Welcome to Sarisaland".

The lucky once in a lifetime thing that snapped me back to reality was something I doubt anyone would believe if I told them.
Something far luckier than any friendly guy letting me into their house.
Something I needed and had in a weird way been hoping for.

A scream rang out from a corner. No ordinary scream but the very sound of terror and despair which seemed to vibrate right in the deepest recesses of my eardrum and my mind.
Even in the half crazy state I was in that moment, I who had devoted my life to toughening myself and priding myself in being my little brother's "protector" knew that sound anywhere.
I knew that it was time to shake off my own stupid feelings of self-pity which even I knew I didn't deserve.
I knew it was time to wipe the tears and say the old phrase that even I as a hardened athlete didn't like saying which was "to deal with it".

But most of all I knew that it was time to prove to Lincoln that I was more than just another roughhousing freak with no feelings.
And that years of pummelling my siblings to the ground, of throwing balls for them to catch when they were begging me not to since they were not ready to catch yet.
Years of training extra hard from the fear of losing even a single games because I was such a defeatist unable to stomach losses, was about to pay off in a very strange but very useful sort of way.

Smearing away the fluid from my eyes with one quick movement of my sleeve, I quickened my sprint while altering my direction so that I took whichever turn the screams were sounding loudest.
I knew that it was time to do what I should have been doing years ago. And I had only seconds to do it in.

I knew even before I got to the source of the horrible cries of help exactly what I would find.
And I had readied my fists and my courage for exactly that.
With one lightning quick movement I lunged forward and grabbed the arms of a large and muscular boy bigger than me and pulled him away before quickly releasing him so that he staggered backward a short distance before regaining balance.

I hoped that this would be enough to deter him since I was reluctant to use any more force unless it was my last option.
"Bad guys never like the easy way, only the hard way." My brother's sweet voice rang in my mind as the thug straightened himself and with a cry of great fury charged at me like a savage beast.
His only intention clearly being to smash every bone in my body so that all the doctors in the world wouldn't be able to put me together.

I sighed silently to myself as I realized what this entailed.
As I threw myself out the way easily and threw a quick but still powerful punch at his chest as he passed me.
The blow was heavy enough to stun him and I quickly followed with a slam which took him to the ground.
The same kind of slam Lincoln had told me time and time again to please stop using on him when he wasn't ready yet since it was extremely hurtful and very mean.

Then before he could react, my arm had reached out like a snake and entangled itself around his neck making him completely powerless.

"I don't want to hurt you." I managed to say despite the flood of emotions coursing through my knackered body "Just say you give up and no one will get hurt."
I tightened my grip slightly to show him I was serious about needing to use more violence if it was my only option. Hoping to intimidate him enough to realize that it was just not worth it to continue this pointless fight.

Long tense seconds passed as I looked at him and he looked at me. We were both making a decision.
This bully was clearly contemplating his poor life decisions that brought his neck into my strong and painful grip. Wondering why stupid people like me didn't just mind their own business and let him bully others smaller than himself in peace.
As well as wondering how soft he would likely look in front of his gang of other bullies if he did give up here and now even if his life was being squeezed out from him bit by bit for every second he hesitated.

I was thinking if I'd have it in me to keep this hold up much longer since I was disobeying my brother's rule of nonviolence which was probably among the leading reasons he had chosen to "GTFO". As well as what I'd have to do if the bully tried to resist any further.

My strong and tight grip had its intended effect in the end and the bully eventually muttered in a barely audible voice that he gave up.
"I didn't hear you. Say that again." I demanded trying to sound as intimidating as I could.
I needed to be completely sure that he had at least for the time being understood that he had lost and that it was time for him to be completely sincere about turning over a new leaf.
"Please don't kill me. I said I give up." He replied, a little louder this time. He clearly thought I meant what I said and for the time being at least he was actually scared of me enough to not try anything else stupid.

I didn't reply as very slowly I loosened my grip on him and kept a close eye on his every movement all the while with my free hand still clenched and aimed at his face.
With one gesture of the arm that had held him prisoner I gestured for him to leave immediately.

He stood indecisively too stunned to move.
"Leave now!" I shouted angrily.

And with tears forming in his frightened eyes he finally did what I wanted and with wobbly but fast steps ran back into the darkness of the bleak evening.

I continued to keep my legs apart and my fist poised until the sound of his footsteps had finally died away for several long uninterrupted seconds of absolute silence.
Then very cautiously I approached the hapless victim of this mean man who dare I say it gave even myself a run for my money in terms of meanness.

A young dark haired girl dressed very plainly in shorts, a sports top and cheap trainers.
She reminded me in some ways of my roommate Lucy with how silent she was and how long it took her to acknowledge my presence even if I was not the bad man that had harassed her and threatened unthinkable things to her.

"It's alright. The bad man is gone now and there's nothing to worry about. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise." I managed to say as the girl very slowly accepted my hand in helping her get back up from the ground and to stand once again.

"Thank you" she eventually said in a surprising clear and unbroken voice despite the fear still in her eyes as she dusted herself and turned to look at me like I was some kind of great hero that deserved a museum and a library full of memoirs and a golden statue in every city around the country dedicated to me. A hero which now I was not but would strive with every bit of effort to try and become. Starting now with how I had done perhaps my first selfless act in years.

"You didn't have to do all that." She said as she continued to gaze upon me like a diehard sports fan gazed on their favourite idol.
"Don't mention it" I managed to reply, never great at conversation or making introductions as my sisters rightfully pointed out time and time again.
I would have wanted to leave then and there, grateful that I had been of service and done a good deed.
But unbeknownst to me, the girl was not done thanking me for the kind act that meant even more to her than I thought it did.

"What's your name." she asked after a little small talk we shared about how she'd taken this dark path specifically to try and avoid the bullies that loved to rough her up for her little loose change again and again.
She asked this seemingly irrelevant and small question as if it were the most important thing in the world to her right now. As if it were the question that decided whether the entire rest of her
life would be happy or sad.
And I knew that if I were to continue being the better and less detestable hero that I had told myself I was going to try and be starting from now, I knew I would have to answer it carefully.

But I didn't have long I realized as the girl's big and inquisitive eyes seemed to stare right into my very soul. They were not mean or scary eyes. But rather sympathetic ones. And sympathy was not a thing I deserved right now after all that I'd done to get here.

Though not the brightest tool in the garden shed even I knew not to say "Lynn Loud Jr" which was the obvious answer to a seemingly no brainer question which in reality required the deepest thought process.
It would spit in the face of everything my brother and my family had done for me and make me look like the most insensitive and sociopathic jerk.
To call me an idiot would be an insult to all idiots.

What had Lynn Loud Jr ever done besides gloat and make fun of others when she won and throw big and violent tantrums when she lost?
Besides lie to her supposedly favourite little brother that she'd always be there for him when he needed her and in truth do almost the exact opposite?
Besides dragging her dad's good name through the mud by never learning the error of her ways?

Lynn Loud Jr would not have tried to stop the bully.
And so the answer to my newest best friend's question was not Lynn Loud Jr.

I needed to think of a new name and quickly before the girl decided I was just as bad as the bully who'd try to take her money and decided to leave me alone forever with no chance of ever being cared about or loved for as long as I lived.
But not just any old name either or else I'd be lying to my new friend which would be just as bad.
A name that was true to myself and would describe me accurately and without exaggerating while making it clear that my bad ways were things of the past.

A whirlwind of different names went through my mind giving me a splitting headache which made me feel as if my skull would split in half as I tried to picture the new and kinder big sister to my long lost brother Lincoln which I would try and become starting from this moment onward.
A big sister who was still competitive and pretty rough as I would have to be if I was going to go back to playing sports and giving these no good bullies the kick in the backside they deserved.
But a kind one who understood when it was time to put a dam on the tears and self-pity in order to improve.

One name remained as I silently promised my brother that I would treat my new best friend like a friend and not a tool or punching bag.
That I'd try and comfort her when she needed it instead of ignoring her and making her feel worse.

"Hi. I'm Daisy."

"Nice to meet you Daisy."

And thus ends my first chapter of what I feel the Loud House would be like if Lincoln left.
Now don't get me wrong I like the Loud House as a show and I'm always eager for the next episode. But I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say that Lincoln isn't treated the best.
And even if the show makes it clear that he finds how he is treated acceptable and that he can tolerate it, I do think that even he has a limit to how much he can handle and that he's already getting close to this limit.
I also don't like how a lot of characters don't get punished except for Lincoln.
One thing I always felt was that many of the Loud sisters have traits comparable to a lot of other well known characters which no one can notice except for me.
And I feel it'd be fun to write a fic where I point this out.
So with our beloved white-haired boy in a household of ten girls out of the picture we see one sister ready to repent and change their ways for the better.
Review and tell me how you feel those whose stories are yet to come after the brunette jock's tragic tale will likely turn out.
But until then thank you greatly for reading and I will see you in the next chapter.