The time was four in the morning. Lincoln was back in his normal orange shirt and blue pants while at his main place of work, which he referred to as Nora's base. Lincoln sat in the doctor's office in one of the medical beds, with an IV hooked up to him, giving him some fluids. Lincoln was in an odd state of emotions right now. On one hand he felt mentally broken, knowing that so many people wanted him dead. He was not able tell if he was happy that his family would be alright and knowing only his life was in danger, or upset that he could die at any moment from just one random lunatic from an opposing gang who would see his ring and go on in an all-out offensive against him.

"Hey Lincoln, how are you feeling?" Jeffrey chimed while coming over to check on him.

"Oh… I'm feeling good… just… hard to take everything in at once, you know?" Lincoln replied. The doctor nodded understanding how things felt, especially when multiple bombshells were dropped at once.

"I got good news and bad news for you… here's the good news first," Jeffrey handed over a piece of paper to him. It was more test results, and just like before, Lincoln had no clue what they read.

"What's good here?" Lincoln requested to have things put simply for him. The African American doctor began to remove the IV from the young boy's wrist.

"Your white blood cell count has dropped, and by a lot too… that means you have an infection. Congratulations," Jeffrey told him. Lincoln was confused, but had already been informed that some infections did not have fevers or many symptoms one could notice easily.

"Wait… so that means... I don't have cancer?" Lincoln gasped. The doctor nodded, showing that same smile of his. The white haired boy could only tackle the doctor into a tight hug.

"Thank you so much!" Lincoln felt a lot more uplifted and better with that burden off his shoulders. It was one less thing to worry about now, and he really needed that relief.

"First time I've heard a thank you from another worker of Nora's in a long time… but I still need to tell you the bad news," Jeffrey reminded. Lincoln was more than all ears now that he knew that he was no longer under a huge medical threat.

"Your arm's gonna have to heal on its own. The cuts aren't that deep, and whether or not you get a scar is how it heals," the doctor told him. Lincoln looked down at his arm, the three cuts on it still prominent. The young boy looked at a nearby mirror, seeing the choke bruises around his throat from where that man had nearly strangled him unconscious.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Lincoln questioned while the doctor was at the medical supply cabinet, rummaging around to find something specific.

"For what? Getting cut up because you had a run in with some topaz guys? Not exactly in your control," Jeffrey responded, presuming he was referring to the restaurant incident.

"No, I mean… am I stupid for joining Nora? I borrowed that money to make all my family happy… and I did, but… I'm worried, because I have no regrets for borrowing the money either," Lincoln elaborated on what he meant as Jeffrey closed the supply cabinet and came over, presenting an arm cover for the young boy so he could keep his arm's wound from being exposed to the elements too much.

"Heh… funny you mention it… about five years ago, another worker asked me something like that, and all I can tell you is that you either really love your family so much that you don't even care about your own wellbeing… or you hate yourself so much that you can brush off near death experiences like it's nothing," Jeffrey explained. Lincoln had no idea how to respond. Hearing that someone similar was in a position like his years ago was not much better.

"Nora wanted me to give you this, by the way, before you go home," the doctor handed over a small envelope. Lincoln opened it to view a small note inside of it.

"You did extremely well."

"What is… ohh…?" Lincoln was in shock as he pulled out five hundred dollars from the envelope. The thing keeping the wad of bills together was another ring for him, the ring looking like a crab that was holding the ruby between its pincers. The preteen did not have any hesitation to slide that ring on his other hand. Now he had one on each ring finger.

"Congrats, kid. You're going up in the world fast," Jeffrey congratulated him. Lincoln knew this money was going to go to his debt to help pay it off, or he could just keep working and spend it on what he wanted. It appeared that Nora had a 'pay however you want' method setup, though he recalled what David had told him, that the mafia was not interested in getting their money back but rather get free labor and have it worked off.

"I'm going to go home. Tell Nora I'll be back Monday," Lincoln pocketed the money, willing to take two personal days off. The doctor nodded, letting him go. The loud member had a long walk if he wanted to get back home, though right now the young boy needed to go to a store that hopefully had abysmal open hours so he could get something he needed.

Lincoln had spent the next two hours walking through Royal Woods. The night life was nice, but he was not fit for it. He had an idea in mind for what to do to get a ride to work now. He just had to tie up the loose ends for it. He had stopped at a twenty-four hour supermarket that stayed open at this time of night. Lincoln pulled out his cellphone. At least twelve text messages had been sent to him during his work last night, the two phone calls were the least of his worries.

"I really need some way to wake myself up…" Lincoln thought. He had spent a whole day awake now without any rest. The young boy entered into a public bathroom he found along his walk.

"This could be an opportunity… scratch that, this could open a lot of opportunities for my family," Lincoln thought. If this was how much he was going to be paid for doing a great job, and if Nora only wanted him to work off his debt, that meant he could get plenty of money. He would be able to help his family with anything they needed. The white haired teenager put those thoughts away for now. He just needed to enjoy the two days off from work, and look forward to going home.

"For now, I gotta deal with these…" Lincoln spoke, looking in the mirror to view the bruises around his neck and the very dark bags under his eyes that showed his lack of sleep and energy. He got out the bag he had been carrying from the store and pulled out a small makeup kit from the bag, thinking it would be best to do his best to cover up the injuries with makeup. Unfortunately, he had no real way to cover up the cut marks, having to rely on the cover the doctor put on his arm to act as the camouflage.

"I should thank Lola for showing me how to put on makeup. Never thought it'd be useful outside of a tea party," Lincoln thought. One of the twins loved playing dress up, and sometimes asked for help when putting on her makeup, and the one she always went to was her brother.

"So far so good…" Lincoln had spent twenty minutes in the empty public bathroom, applying the makeup to his neck to cover the bruises, and once that was done, he began to cover up the bags under his eyes, trying to add some color to his face as well to take away the paleness. The preteen was surprised by how scary today had been, but he was disturbingly able to move on so fast.

"I should probably keep this," Lincoln said to himself, putting the makeup kit back in the shopping bag. It felt nice to be out of that orange suit and be back in his normal clothes again. Once the young boy had finished doing everything here, he left the public bathroom. Lincoln could not wait to see his sisters again.

"Waaah! Waaaah!"

Luna's trip to dreamland was forced to a short halt by the sound of Lily crying. She had slept in her bed, lying on her stomach until she was forced awake by the noise.

"Ugh… what time is it?" Luna rubbed her eye. Her clock by her bed read 6:26am. She took care of Lily a lot and normally had no problem with the youngest sibling. However, Lily had wakened up the entire household several times with crying in the night like she was having constant bad dreams from missing her brother. No one could stay asleep longer than thirty minutes, aside from their parents who were very hard to wake up. The rocker got up in her pajamas and headed out into the darkened hallway, where she saw Leni coming up from downstairs.

"Morning, Leni," Luna yawned, seeing her sister with a mug of coffee. She seemed to not have gotten much sleep herself.

"Morning, Luna… Sorry, I fell asleep on the couch," the blonde girl stated while drinking from her mug.

"What made you sleep on the couch? You fall asleep watching TV?" Luna questioned while walking down the hall, her older sister following.

"No… they said Lincoln would be back early this morning… so I thought I'd stay down there in case he showed up early…" Leni confessed. She had been hoping her sibling would be back a lot sooner than that woman said. Luna felt disheartened by the reminder of the visit from the CPS worker. The two arrived to the younger children's room. The crying Lily was in her crib, the only one awake in the room. It seemed like the others were too tired to wake up to her cries this time.

"Hey, Lily, did you have another bad dream?" Luna asked, her sister calming down while being cradled in her arms. Lily's chinchilla costume was off of her and in the wash. The infant sniffled, snuggling up to her lightly. A moment later, the sound of knocking on the door drew their attention.

"Wha…? Who could it be at this hour?" Luna questioned. Leni had no idea. She went off to see who was at the door, letting her older sister take care of Lily. The long haired woman could not see outside of the eye hole in the door, since the light bulb on the front porch was in need of changing, thus the area was still partially dark.

"Who is it? …OH MY GOSH!" Leni squealed as she opened the door. Standing before her was a brightly smiling Lincoln. The preteen did not get a chance to say anything before being yanked inside into a tight hug, his shopping bag still in his other hand.

"What's going on?" Luna asked before her eyes saw the scene before her, Lily seeming a lot happier now by seeing it all as well.

"Lincoln! You're back!" Luna rushed right down, joining into the hug. Lincoln did his best to not make the pain he felt on his arm from the touch be seen. He even felt Lily's little arms doing their best to give him as big a hug as she could. Lincoln was more than glad to return the embrace.

"I missed you guys too much."