Chapter twenty-five. Timeline 3-3… Eventually I'm going to get through enough cycles that I'll get to Timeline 11-11. When that happens, I'll celebrate by ramping my car off another car.

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Leni had an idea. A fantastic idea. A fabulous idea. A totally fantabulous idea! She needed help though.

"I'd like to help you Love, but I haven't the foggiest idea what we're supposed to be doing." Luna told her, even as she picked up her guitar anyway; ready to help Leni. It was one of the things about Luna that Leni liked the best.

"I already told you." She pouted, gathering up her wood working supplies.

"Yeah…" Luna paused. "But how?"

"With your music and my ears." Leni didn't know why Luna wasn't getting it. Oh, she knew that it was going to be hard, and she knew that it was something that most people didn't do, but she didn't know why. Lisa once told her that the most difficult things were, a lot of the time, the most worth doing.

"No, like…" Luna stopped for a second, and started again. "Okay so, I'm going to play a song, and you're going to carve a sculpture of it?"

"Yup!" She chirped, happily setting up her work station in the center of the yard, while Luna plugged her guitar into a small amp.

"At the risk of sounding a bit daft, how does that work?"

"Like dancing." She explained.

"What?" Luna stared at her blankly.

Maybe this wasn't as obvious as she thought it was… Sometimes Leni forgot that other people didn't know the things that she knew… She was just so used to everybody knowing more than her, that whenever she figured something out, she always assumed that everyone else figured it out way before her. Leni felt her brow furrow while she thought.

"Well…" She searched for the right words. "When you listen to music and you dance, how do you know how to move? Different ways you can move your body just feel right, right? When you look at those wavy line machines that wave crazily to measure sounds, they wave the same way to the same sound. I just thought…" She flapped her hand through the air to have something to do with it. "I just thought that movement and flat shapes can be matched to sounds, so deeper shapes should totally have matches too… I don't know how to explain it better than that…"

"No that's…" Luna's face was scrunched up in thought. Her expression melting from thoughtful confusion, into her normal easy going smile. Leni felt warmth like freshly dried laundry. "I've never thought of that. That's really cool Leni."

A toothy grin stretched across her lips and she nodded her head, bouncing in place. Setting out her tools within easy reaching distance. That was important. When making a sculpture, sewing an outfit, or creating anything at all, you needed to have easy access to your tools. Some ideas would drift in and out of your head with the breeze. If you wanted to keep track of them, you needed to write them down. Sometimes you had to do something really fast, and if you couldn't reach your things in time, everything would be ruined.

"So what song do you want me to play?"

"Hmm…" She tapped a finger against her bottom lip. "Something… Happy."

"Like Pop Rock, or Funk? Bohemian Rhapsody, or Hell Horse Dancing?"

"… And cute…" She continued, as thought Luna hadn't said anything.

"Well that narrows it down a right bit." Luna scratched her head while she thought, a thoughtful look on her face.

"Like family… I want a song about our family."

"I don't know if there Are any songs about our family, unless you want me to make one up right now… Or…" Luna chuckles, plucking the strings on her guitar. "I just thought of something. There may not be any songs written about the whole family, but there's at least one song written about One of us."

One of us? "Oh!" Leni clapped cheerfully. She liked the idea of that. A sculpture to match the song about him. "I totes love it!"

"Yeah?"

"Mmmhmm!" She confirmed.

Hell Horse Dancing isn't a real song, as far as I know. I just made up something that sounded funny.

Okay, let's see… Cookies, cookies, cookies. Lori couldn't claim to have ever seriously tried to bake before, but it literally couldn't be that hard right? It was something to do, and Lori was glad Lincoln suggested it when she drew a blank. They could learn together, because she was pretty certain that Lincoln didn't have much experience with it either. He definitely had more experience in the kitchen than her, but breakfast foods and cookies were completely different… She was pretty sure… Not having done this before, she couldn't actually say for certain.

Right so, all purpose flour. That was in the fridge, right? Pulling on the handle hard enough to overcome the vacuum seal, the door opened. Her gaze flickering across everything in search of what she needed. Not ketchup. Not milk. Not apples. Not jam. Not… Oh. Someone left a… They wouldn't mind if she just took that would they? She stealthily slipped the badly hidden chocolate bar into her pocket. She'd eat it later, maybe tomorrow at work. Whoever left it should have known better than to hide it in such an obvious spot. Back to cookies. All purpose flour. There! Not bread flour, or cake flour. All purpose. She grabbed it and shut the fridge. Though she had a thought.

"What Is the difference between bread flour, all purpose flour, and cake flour?" She wondered aloud.

"What? Oh," Lincoln shifted his focus away from the door to the backyard, through which a familiar tune was drifting. When was the last time she heard that song? It had to have been years ago. "Bread flour has the most protein in it. Cake flour has the least. All purpose is in the middle."

"Oh. Huh…" She trailed off, thinking about it. She didn't actually know what that meant. What did protein so in baking?

"What else do we need?" Lincoln asked.

He stood by, ready to help if she asked for it, but letting her lead and take things at her own pace. She didn't say it, but she kind of liked it. She'd literally never baked anything before, so the thought of making cookies was sort of intimidating. Nothing she couldn't handle, of course. Still though, she appreciated his consideration.

"Salt." She picked up the shaker beside the fridge, wondering how she was going to measure out a fourth a teaspoon of salt when she literally couldn't get the salt from the shaker without shaking the shaker, which wasn't a very precise way of doing it.

Shrugging she took both the shaker and the bag of flour across the kitchen, setting them to the side of a large plastic mixing bowl.

The next ingredient was baking soda. Duh, DUH, DUH! Lincoln Loud! He's the best hmm mur… Had to have been… His fifteenth birthday. She had a lot going on and literally forgot until Leni reminded her on the day. She sang the song as a gift, and he accepted it, but she felt really bad about it anyway and got him a new drawing pad later… Which she also felt kind of bad about… A drawing pad wasn't a very good combination apology and birthday present… Baking soda though. Where would that be?

"Where would the baking soda be?"

"Probably with the vanilla and spices." He answered absentmindedly, His head cocked to the side, listening to the music with half an ear.

"Uh…"

He turned his full attention to her, when she didn't say anything else or move. He rolled his eyes and opened one of the thin upper cabinets next to the stove. He stood back as she approached, reaching into the cabinet to get what she needed… Baking soda… Baking powder… She needed baking soda right? Fishing a folded up piece of printer paper from the pocket of her shorts, she opened it up and scanned down the list of ingredients. Yeah. She needed baking soda. She pushed the powder aside, with the back of her hand, and grasped the soda with the returning motion. She wondered if Lincoln would know the difference between baking soda and baking powder. He seemed to have all the answers so far, despite the fact that she was almost positive he'd never baked cookies before… Or maybe he did it while she was away at college… She kind of just wanted to bake though. Right now, at least. She'd ask after they were done, if she remembered.

Coco powder. She knew what that did. It was time to add the chocolate to these chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Or, at least, some of the chocolate. As she retrieved the container from the same cabinet she got the baking soda from, she had to resist the impulse to stick a big spoonful of the stuff in her mouth. She'd done that before, when she was little. Despite the fact that coco powder was literally pure chocolate, it didn't taste very good by itself. She supposed it was a little bit like pure vanilla in that way.

What next though? She consulted the recipe. Brown sugar. It was like regular sugar, but brown… It was also softer. Again, she couldn't help but wonder why brown sugar was different from regular sugar, but she didn't ask this time. She simply placed the bag next to the other ingredients and scanned down the recipe for the next ingredient. If she asked about everything she was curious about, they'd literally never get to the part where they actually started baking, and that was not okay. These chocolate chocolate chip cookies deserved to exist.

Okay… Vanilla extract. She tread back to the cabinet she got the baking soda and the coco powder from. Eggs. She snatched them from the fridge. Butter. She reached back in. And… That was it. Time to turn the oven to three-hundred, seventy-five degrees, and get everything put together.

"Hey Lincoln, can you get out the stand mixer and start mixing together the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla?" What did whisk mean as a verb? How did you whisk something?… She needed the tool obviously, but… Just mix with it?

She looked up from the creased paper to get the whisk. Lincoln hadn't moved.

"Lincoln?" He was standing near the screen door. Looking through it, at Luna and Leni in the back yard.

"Wha?" He shook his head, glancing back at her.

"Can you get the stand mixer out and mix together the sugar, eggs, butter, and vanilla?" He'd been distracted literally from the moment they entered the kitchen. She wondered what was on his mind.

"Oh, yeah, sure." He moved away from the door.

I decided to write the second section from Lori's perspective because sometimes a situation can be better understood from an outside point of view.

A lot of sharp angles and smooth curves, Leni focused on her piece. A swirly fog clouded the area behind her. Or, at least, she imagined so. She hadn't actually looked up in a while. She couldn't, or she may mess up. She Was aware though. Of her family gathered around to watch. She didn't know what they were doing, and she wasn't looking at them, but she could feel them. A fluffy hug from a hot sugar cloud. Each sibling with their own flavor.

She couldn't think about it now. She had work to do. The Best Dang Brother statue wasn't going to carve itself… Or maybe it would. Leni didn't know. She'd never seen a statue carve itself, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen, right? Lisa once told her that you couldn't prove that something didn't exist. Leni didn't quite get it, but she basically understood, she was pretty sure… How totally amazing would it be if a sta-… No. She was getting off track. If she continued, she'd never find her way back.

Lincoln Loud! Lincoln Loud! He's the best dang brother anywhere around! The first three notes of the song. Lincoln Loud! Started low, then middle, then high. Not a smooth shift. It was very sudden. Not Lincoln Loud! Instead, Lin-COLN-LOUD! Just asking for a sharp angle… But was that best? She stuck the tip of her finger in her mouth, sucking on it in thought. It tasted like wood. She already carved in the main shape, so she couldn't do that much to change it now. Still… She almost wished she chose a different song to start out with, so she could become more skilled at carving songs before she tried this one.

Would it have been better if she showed sudden shifts in tone as straight lines and right angles, and smooth transitions as softly flowing twists? She could-

"Chocolate, I'd be willing to Chip into this. Ha ha, get it?" Luan's voice broke through the fog.

Wait, what? Chocolate? Leni turned away from the carving, looking back and forth between her various siblings. Someone said something about chocolate? She could finish her sculpture in a bit.

Luan cocked her head, as Lucy said something that Leni didn't catch. She was too far away.

"Oh right." Luan looked down at their darker sibling. "I'm not supposed to do that right now… Uh, I mean, Nobody can understand the darkness in my soul!"

What?

"Lori and I made cookies yesterday." Lincoln said.

Lori made cookies? Leni glanced at her older sister, who looked a little bit uncomfortable at suddenly being the center of attention.

"What kind?" Leni asked. Luan said something about chocolate. Hopefully they were chocolate.

"Chocolate chocolate chip." Lori told her, nervously scratching her arm.

"O, M, G!" Yes! Chocolate. Best Dang Brother statue could wait. Leni was going to get some chocolate chocolate chip cookies from her best dang sister. Chocolate Chocolate Chip! That's totally at least thrice as good as regular chocolate chip cookies. "I Totes want some!"

"Not to disappoint you, but you probably don't." Lincoln claimed. "It was Lori's first attempt at anything like it, so… It's not awful, but you've definitely had better…No offense." He added at the end, throwing Lori an apologetic look.

"It's fine, you're not wrong." Lori sighed. Even though she accepted his apology, she still looked kind of annoyed.

"Who cares." Lana piped up. "It's chocolate chocolate chip! As long as you didn't burn it to a crisp, it'll still be delicious!" She got up and started for the kitchen door.

"Wait!" Lori called, standing from the back step and holding her hand out to stop anyone from passing. "They may not be literally the best thing ever, but I still made them… Well, Lincoln and I did… You can't just eat them all."

"Are you seriously going to tell us we can't have any?" Luna chimed in. "That's not cool dude."

"No, you can have some. I'm just saying that they're mine, so I get to decide how many you each get.

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Chapter notes:

To Zhilo: You mentioned that you thought it would have made more sense to have Lori reflect on her lack of hobbies Before Lincoln suggested baking. I didn't do that for a specific reason. That reason is: Lori isn't a terribly introspective person. In the second cycle she wanted to spend time with Lincoln so much, that she woke up early to make sure she got to him first. She didn't even think about why it was so important to her until Lisa asked and she didn't have an fast answer. Changes don't set in overnight.

I currently have an inner ear infection that's fucking up my ability to unconsciously correct my balance. It's like gravity keeps shifting… It's super surreal.

In case anyone was wondering, I haven't abandoned Mirror More. I've just decided to work my way through an entire cycle of Splitting Hairs before I continued.

This timeline is basically a one for one match on my unaltered timeline. The difference is in the nuances. I have very good reasons for why this chapter is the way it is, but I don't feel like explaining them right now. If you really want to know, go ahead and PM me.

I no longer have that inner ear infection.

I apologize for taking a while with chapters a lot. So to mix things up, I'm not going to do that this time. Instead, I demand that you apologize to me for how long this chapter took. First person to do so, in the reviews, get's a prize.