Things were normal in the Loud house right now. The sisters all were at their own tasks. Lola and Lana remained the only two who really had any idea of what their brother was doing. That was what they thought anyway. The two were having their own talk at the moment over it.

"Sooo, you really think he's getting married?" Lana asked confusedly after what they had seen at the park earlier. She was unsure, after all that girl in the frog hood coat who had stalked them was more engraved into her mind than anything.

"I mean he put a ring on her finger and they sure spent a lot of time kissing. sounds like an engagement to me," Lola replied, the two just in their room. Lily was nearby, playing with building blocks. The sun had set about half an hour ago. Every passing minute made them more worried for their brother. The money really did not mean much if they had to spend another night without the older sibling. They heard a knocking at their bedroom door.

"Come in!" Lana chimed up. They saw Lynn open the door and step inside.

"Hey Lola. Hey Lana. I wanted to ask when you said Lincoln would be back," Lynn requested. She had an agreement with her brother to check him for any new self inflicted wounds, so she could see if he gained any new ones. The twins had told anyone who asked that he would be home soon, but the two had fallen off using that lie once two hours had passed, and they had no idea what errand to make up to cover for their brother either.

"We dunno," Lana simply answered, casting her gaze to the floor. Lola was more distracted in thinking about their brother's possible marriage.

"Do you need help with something?" the girl in the red cap added. Lynn shook her head, looking depressed from hearing the answer.

"No. I'm just very worried about him," Lynn confessed. She was not the only one in that position. Nearly the entire family was concerned after he told them all he felt worthless and a burden to them all. Their parents only thought that their only son needed some space or just starting puberty early. Even so, Lynn was the only sister to know about the gashes.

"Uh…What was that noise?" Lola chimed up, her attention being drawn to the sound of a siren travelling a short distance before cutting off. The three went to the window to peek into the front yard, and they noticed a police squad car outside. It sent a fearful tremor throughout Lynn's body.

"Come on, we should go downstairs," Lynn insisted while picking up their baby sister Lily who seemed to be getting tired already, wanting to go to sleep early due to missing her naptime earlier. The four siblings were not the only ones to take notice of this, and any sister who had not seen the police car pull up had their attention drawn by the sound of their doorbell.

"Like what's going on?" Leni questioned, seeing Lynn and the twins. They had no clue as they continued downstairs to the living room. What they saw mortified them.

"Lincoln?!" a lot of the family spoke up, their parents at the door. Their middle brother stood there with handcuffs binding his wrists together. The family saw bruises covering his very body, and his visible arms gashes. Standing beside him was a tall and lanky police officer.

"Girls! Girls! Calm down please!" Their father saw them all about ready to mob their brother. Lori could not help but get a picture of this either. No one could believe it with their own eyes.

"Lincoln, what happened, honey?" Mrs. Loud asked. Her son gave no reply as the officer beside him coughed, gaining their attention as he pulled out a notepad.

"About an hour ago we got a report that there was a lot of noise coming from the parking garage of the Royal Woods shopping mall... You sure you don't want to talk yourself young man?" the officer asked with a menacing glare. Lincoln gave no response, looking away to the grass of their lawn. The cop shook his head like he was disappointed.

"When me and another unit arrived to the fourth floor of the parking garage, we found about ten people fighting. Your son here was one of them. Everyone stopped once we showed up, but he and a few of them decided to make a run for it, but thankfully your son tripped," the officer pulled out the key to the handcuffs, undoing them and freeing the young boy from his bindings. Lincoln still did not speak up, while rubbing his sore wrists.

"Your son here should be charged with resisting arrest, assault and participating in a turf war… but we had a small talk while the doctors in the hospital examined him, and I'm deciding to cut him a break," the officer claimed. Mrs. Loud felt her heart freed from the tenseness of the situation from hearing that her son was going to not receive criminal charges.

"Really? We-well thank you, officer, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience…" Mr. Loud said before the officer waved his hand and chimed in with his harsh tone.

"I'm not doing it because your boy here did something stupid. I'm not going to lie and say I did something like this when I was his age. I'm only cutting him slack, because out of all those kids, he seemed like a partial victim and the only one who cared for what he did. His boss vouched for him as well, and let me just inform you all that if your boy here gets into another situation like this, he'll have all those charges back on his head and then some," the police officer put it bluntly, claiming that one of the deciding factors was Lincoln's obvious to view guilt and his boss supposedly acting as a character witness. His sisters were confused since their brother had told them he was only going to start work at Monday, they wondered how well he knew his boss.

"Thank you, officer. Really, we'll make sure this doesn't happen again," Mrs. Loud thanked him, Mr. Loud sharing the same gratitude.

"I sure hope so… cause I'd hate if Child Protective Services get involved," the policeman stated before placing a hand on Lincoln's shoulder. Lynn noticed three rings on the officer's hand. Each one had a ruby in it, one of a snake with the red rock in its mouth, another of a bear holding the ruby in its paws, and the last one of an ox with one of its hoofs on the ruby. Their designs matched the style her brother's black widow ruby ring, the rubies almost resonating with each other somehow.

"Don't worry, it won't," Mr. Loud declared. After another brief chain of thanks and apologies, they closed the door in the span of the few seconds. Lincoln lay on the couch and leaned back, looking to his sisters, seeing all of them staring at him. A few had their mouths agape. Others could not even look directly at him, and some looked violently shaken mentally.

"Sorry I'm late," Lincoln chimed up, and he was swamped instantly. The Loud children's parents looked to each other.

"Kids, your father and I are going to go talk privately while you all… do this," Mrs. Loud said, though they weren't heard. They needed to talk about what to do about this. As the parents went upstairs, their father looked down there.

"This time, ignore the breathing space rule!" Mr. Loud said before continuing off, his feet clanking against the stairs. Normally if someone cried out about breathing space, they were supposed to give some space to whoever they were surrounding. The father thought that it would be better if Lincoln endured that for now.

"Feels good to be home," Lincoln sighed in relief with a smile on his face, despite the fact that everyone of his siblings were asking him a lot at once all, but Lynn was trying to put a metaphorical puzzle together in her head. That officer came off more hostile than most, but did not feel like it was real.

"What did you do?!"

"Who beat you up!?"

"We know you wouldn't go starting a fight! What happened?"

Lincoln looked back and forth between everyone talking. However he had no care in his mind, which left him with mixed feelings. He had a smile on his face and could feel the tranquil pounding of his heartbeat. It was like that was all his brain needed to be happy, which frustrated him, because the young boy knew he should be under a lot more worry than that.

"Say something, bro!"

"What did they do to you there!?"

"Wow, you must have been cruisin' for a bruising."

"Luan!"

Lincoln was going to let them keep talking until it all winded down, because he would either be drowned out or have even more things piled onto him. He would rather answer a million inquiries with less shouting. Before he knew it, an argument had arisen because of the gifts he had given them. For some reason his siblings started blaming one another for taking all his savings, which they presumed was a heavy stress causer for their brother.

"Lincoln…?" Lynn nervously spoke. Her brother had gotten away from the other family members without much notice due to a dust cloud of fighting. Now he, Lynn, Lily and Lucy weren't involved, the goth having been presumably watching from somewhere but not in their sight.

"Don't worry about me, Lynn. If you still want to check me out for wounds, go ahead. Though I think you're in for a lot of results," Lincoln joked. The sports loving girl was happy to see her sibling with a bright smile on his face, but she felt disturbed by his weird, gleaming eyes that made them look like he was almost in a world of his own. Lincoln took Lily from her, his baby sister cooing in glee with no understanding to what happened, just happy to be in her brothers arms.

"Hey Lily. Come on, I'll get you changed and fed. I think everyone else is busy," Lincoln said while cradling her in his arms, Lily giggling when he tickled her chin the white haired boy taking the infant upstairs to take care of her. Lynn stayed downstairs, something was going on but if the auburn haired girl wanted to find anything out being passive was no longer going to do anything. The only problem was now trying to figure out how to go about this. Lynn had no idea if he was suicidal, content or having issues finding a purpose in his life, resulting in an early life crisis, but even so, he was not as depressed as before, which was a good sign.

Lincoln spent the next bit of time alone with Lily. After getting her a clean diaper, he was sitting in a rocking chair. Lily lay in his arms, drinking a bottle of milk, while his cellphone was held between his head and shoulder.

"…and that's what's been going on. Sorry that I took so long to tell you, Clyde, but not going a single day without a near death experience is… well, distracting," Lincoln had just finished explaining everything that was occurring to his best friend. He felt bad for not telling his friend until late. He looked down to Lily who had gotten halfway through her bottle of milk, the infant close to falling asleep while rocking in his arms in the chair.

"I just… Lincoln, I wish this was something I could help you with," Clyde sighed. Lincoln understood his friend's frustration. Not only was his practical brother's life in danger, but hearing every last bit of information of it at once was a bit overwhelming.

"I don't want you to get involved, Clyde. Ronnie Anne only got in because she forced her way in. But hey, take it as a good thing. When I die, you'll at least know the truth behind it all," Lincoln laughed, for some reason making light of this situation.

"Lincoln! How can you act so calm about this?! And what do you mean when you die?!" Clyde began to panic. Lincoln rolled his eyes, noticing that Lily was done with the bottle. He rested the empty bottle aside, letting his baby sister cuddle into his chest, the white haired boy still smiling while patting her back.

"What can I say, Clyde? I'm not gonna lie to you and say everything will be alright, because we both know it's not. At some point of this, something bad is gonna happen to someone, and if I don't mess up too badly, it'll probably be just me. I feel like I found a purpose in life. It's weird, but that's how I feel," Lincoln explained, noticing his baby sister's eyes fluttering a little. Lily was close to falling asleep. The young boy could still hear his family downstairs for the most part. Normally the white haired preteen would be down there breaking the fight up, but he felt like he would make it worse.

"Lincoln… dude, I know it's going to be rough, but if there's one person I know that can pull off impossible things, it's you… and everyone in your family… but I can't believe you actually sound so happy talking about the chance of dying," Clyde stated. It was very depressing to hear his friend talk like he expected to die before he would even turn thirteen in under two weeks, he dreaded to imagine his friends birthday being a tragic memory rather than a festive joy to celebrate another year in this world.

"Well to be fair, I did get tricked into taking some weird drug, whether that's what's making me happy with everything or not, I don't know… it's a long story," Lincoln stated. So far he saw no side effects from the energy pop in his stomach, leaving out the part where he might not be able to sleep. The closest he can get now would just be lying still and keeping his eyes closed.

"Jeez, Lincoln… If you need anything and think I can help, call me up. But for now, I gotta go and help with dinner. Take it easy," Clyde told his friend before hanging up. Lincoln did not lose that smile while pocketing his cellphone. He looked to Lily who was chewing on one of his fingers. The white haired boy decided to just let her continue, not like that one tooth could do any harm to him anymore than those thugs already had.

"I love you," Lincoln told Lily while rubbing her head, fixing what little of hair the baby had. Lincoln was glad that this devious plan worked wonders in the end. David had called up another co-worker of theirs, which happened to be a police officer to not only help give Lincoln and Ronnie Anne rides home, but to also give the young boy a good cover for the reason he had the bruises. However, when he put his phone into his pocket, he felt something in there that he had no recollection of acquiring.

"Huh? What's this?" Lincoln asked himself, pulling out two things from his pocket. The first was a weird baseball card. On the front of the card appeared to be a girl looking nineteen years old with long red hair that looked very messy and unkempt. She was holding a ton of bats under each arm like she had been caught cleaning up when the photo was taken.

"…so that's why you were familiar," Lincoln realized that it was Maddison when she was younger. The name had been so familiar, but now he knew why. The white haired boy had Lynn tell him about her before, but there was an older news report he had seen circling around the net about the star Maddison going missing after murdering her husband and sports manager. All she took was the bats from the house, and no one knew what happened to her two children.

"Just had to leave me one last creepy thing, huh?" Lincoln chuckled, seeing a bloody thumbprint on the bottom left of the baseball card, "…or two."

He turned his attention to the other item, which appeared to be a photograph of Maddison beside her husband with their children standing on the sides of them. There was writing on the back which he noticed when he turned it over.

"Y'know, people try and say insanity has no reason. Everything is crazy. If you start to go insane, you begin to become an uncontrollable monster. They're wrong, my reasons are planted at the cause. There is no endgame. One day, I got bored of the high end lifestyle, the constant games and appearances. While my husband was asleep, thinking me and my children were off visiting relatives, I murdered him and my manager while they slept together. I got sick of being handed everything, so I decided to get rid of it all with a side of revenge. Nora found me a day later and got me to join her, claiming my wildness could help out. Try not to lose yourself to insanity, Lincoln, unless you have no other way out."

"Maddison… you never cease to amaze me," Lincoln thought, seeing the writing of Maddison's background as much as she could recall on her own anyway. He was unsure what to think. Everyone in Nora's group was crazy, but they seemed to be relatively in control of themselves. The young boy looked down to the sleeping Lily on his chest, she had fell asleep while he was looking at the two items he got. Lincoln stood up before resting his infant sibling in the crib to let her sleep, before he began to leave the room turning off the lights and leaving the room to get to his own bedroom.

"I won't let insanity take me though, that would be a sad way to go out."