Author's note: Hi! This is my first fanfic here in the fandom. So as you all know(unless you've been living under a rock), Stephen Hawking, renowned physicist has passed away. I was wondering what would Lisa react to this, since he should be one of her role models, so this fic was born. Without further ado, let's begin!
"Dinner's ready, kids!" Dad shouted from downstairs. All the Loud siblings dropped what they were doing and ran down to the dining room. They wouldn't trade their favourite Lynn-sagna for the world.
The Louds sat in their respective places, chatting excitedly as they waited for their food. Luna was singing her newly composed song. Lynn was gloating about her latest baseball victory. Lana and Lola were arguing about the former putting a mud pie in Lola's face recently this afternoon.
"Alright, settle down!" Mum called out. Then she noticed a certain pair of glasses and a head of shaggy brown hair were absent. "Where's Lisa?"
The siblings stopped their chatter. "I haven't seen her since she came home from school," Lori said, "that's strange. She loves dad's lasagne. She also forgot my calculus tutorial. That's literally impossible of her to miss it."
"I heard strange noises coming out of her room," Leni chimed in.
"Lisa always makes Loud noises. Get it?" Everyone else groaned at Luan's pun.
"Name puns are lame." Lucy sighed. "Wow. That rhymed."
"She must be working on those weird experiments of hers again. Lincoln, can you go up and fetch her?" Mum asked him.
"Sure, Mum." He got out of his chair and started to leave. He turned back to his sisters and added, "Don't eat my fill."
"Don't worry Lincoln, we won't." Lincoln highly doubted that statement, but he didn't bother replying.
He knocked on Lisa's bedroom door. "Lisa?" No answer. He tried again, but his sister was silent. "Lisa, it's me. Lincoln. It's time for dinner. Lisa?" There was some sort of sniffing sound inside though. Did Lisa create another monster or was she kidnapped by aliens? He thought, as he turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Luckily, there was no creature or aliens to be seen, and Lisa was still in the room, wrapped in a few blankets as she curled up on her bed. She seemed to be shaking though, and as he walked closer, the sniffling he'd heard earlier on was coming from her.
Lincoln was dumbfounded. His second-youngest sister was always stoic and emotionless like a robot. Sometimes he wondered if she was a robot. But robots didn't have emotions, did they?
"Lisa?" At the sound of his voice, she looked up. Her hair was messier than ever and her eyes were red-rimmed. She had been crying for a while.
"Greetings, male sibling." She unsuccessfully tried to hide the tremor in her voice as she untangled herself from the nest. "I had been previously involved in an experiment concerning Allium cepa, ergo I am suffering from the complex secretomotor phenomenon characterized by the shedding of tears from the lacrimal apparatus." At Lincoln's confused look she replied, "I am crying because I was cutting onions for an experiment."
The room did not smell of onions. "Is there something wrong, Lisa?" He asked her. "Is it something at school or work?"
"Nothing. I will be proceeding to ingest our parental unit's carbohydrates immediately." She tried to leave, but Lincoln stopped her.
"You're trembling all over, Lis. Are you sad?" He told her gently. "Look, I won't tell anyone. You can trust me."
Lisa relented after a while, then went back to the bed and showed him a picture that she retrieved from the blankets. It had an old man with his head on his shoulders sitting in a strange wheelchair on it.
"Do you know who this is?" She was starting to cry again, but she did her best to hold back the tears.
"Is this Stephen Hawking?"
"Correct. Wait, how do you know him?" Lisa inquired, perplexed.
"I watched some of his documentaries on black holes."
"I do not think you would be able to comprehend his theories."
'Actually, I don't. But black holes are very fascinating. Like, what happens if you fall in one?"
"You disappear from our universe and are torn apart into your smallest subatomic particles, where they are stretched and squeezed until you become part of the singularity and increase the radius of the black hole," Lisa said bluntly while Lincoln looked at her in horror. "But that is not why I am crying. He… he passed away this morning."
"I'm sorry, Lisa." But Lisa never cries when someone dies, especially when she doesn't know that person! Wait… maybe she does, with their common interest in science. "Did you know him?"
"We had several video conferences. He respected my intellect and didn't treat me like a little kid. He provided me with a lot of information on cosmetology. And most of all…" Lisa lowered her voice to a whisper. "His jokes were better than Luan's."
Lincoln snorted. "He sounded like a really nice guy."
"He was. But—but why did he have to die so soon?" She burst into tears. "I know death is inevitable, but had he lived longer, he would have been able to contribute more groundbreaking discoveries to the scientific community and benefit humanity. And… and he was like a friend to me." She started wiping her face with her sleeves. "I shouldn't be crying. It's childish. It wouldn't do anything anyways. But I just can't stop it."
"It's alright to cry, Lisa. You're sad and I don't think no one's ever cried. I do sometimes. Dad does too." Lincoln patted her on the back. "Besides, Professor Hawking did suffer from a disease for a long time. He was supposed to die fifty something years ago. But he carried on and changed the world."
"It's motor neurone disease, Lincoln. But I'm still emotionally compromised even though I know he will die someday."
"Everyone has emotions. It's okay to feel sad sometimes. Just remember that in the end, there's always someone you can talk to. And perhaps Professor Hawking is playing poker with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton wherever they are now."
"Is that from Star Trek?"
"Well, yes."
Lisa smiled a little. "Thank you, Lincoln. I feel less emotionally conflicted now."
"You're welcome. By the way, I think he has a quote, 'Look up at the stars, but not down at your feet'. I believe that when you see the stars, he'll be watching you from up there in the universe."
"Your statement is illogical. However, it is rather comforting and uplifting." She wrapped her arms around her brother and gave him a big hug, something she had seldom engaged in. "Shall we proceed to the dining room?"
"Let's go." They exited Lisa's bedroom. Somewhere far far away from Earth, Stephen Hawking saw his young protégée and smiled. He knew she was going to achieve greater accomplishments than him. He winked and continued his walk across the universe.
So that's it. Please leave a review so I can know what to improve. Constructive criticism is more than welcome. Thank you!