Rooftop Chat

"I have quite a few regrets in life, and even more during my time here. But one thing I definitely don't regret is meeting Cactus Girl."

With the pretentious musician behind them, Lincoln and Cactus Girl were making their way back to the house. They weren't headed for the front door, however. The lasso looping gal was leading the young man around the side of the house, to a gutter spout toward the back. With a little help, the white haired boy started shimmying up, followed by Cactus Girl, until they eventually reached the roof. "I know it's not ideal, Lincoln, but we should be safe up here." She said as they carefully edged across the roof.

"It's fine, Cactus Girl." Lincoln said with a soft smile as he laid down on the side of the roof. He figured the two of them could lay low there, give Gregory and Mama time to give up looking for him, or more likely when they decide to look outside for him. "So, what brought you outside, my friend?"

"I was looking for you, Senor Loud. I was hoping I could get a chance to talk to you some more. Really get to know you, you know?" She told him before she sat down next to him. "I had looked in your room first, but I found Gregory and Catherine there instead."

"...so they're waiting for me…" The one son commented with a frown. "I wonder how long they plan to wait…"

"I had a feeling you were trying to stay away from that escoria, and where else would be best for avoiding him than outside?" She continued on with her story.

"Good bit of deduction, but I wasn't outside necessarily to avoid him. That was more of a happy result." Lincoln explained. "You see...I'm planning to leave this world."

"...Oh. I see…" The little cactus' voice had a sad edge to it, which Lincoln picked up on almost instantly. The white haired boy turned to look at her. "I can't say I blame you...I wouldn't wish this place on my worst enemy…"

"Yeah...I had a chance to leave pretty much right now, though, but-"

"Wait! You had a chance you didn't take it!?" She asked, looking at him like he had lost his mind. The young man just calmly nodded.

"I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye to you, and my few other friends here." He told her. She just looked at him in astonishment. He stayed in this literal hellhole, even for a little while longer, for her? Apart from her brother, she had never had someone do something like that for her. She looked away from him so he couldn't see her blushing. The Loud family couldn't help but find this positively adorable as they watched through the crystal ball. "I have a few hours before I make my, hopefully, final departure, so we could talk now if you like."

"...I'd like that." She replied, taking a moment to calm down before looking back at him. "So...what did you like to do? Before you got here, I mean."

"I mostly read a lot of comic books, played a lot of video games, and watched quite a bit of tv with my friends and family." The white haired boy explained, looking up at the dark, swirling sky above them.

"...heh. Like I thought earlier. Nerd." She commented before she could stop herself. Lincoln just laughed it off though.

"Hehehe. Yeah, I know." He replied. He was so used to being called a nerd by Ronnie Anne and his sisters, so it didn't bother him at all. Cactus Girl was relieved he wasn't insulted. "How about you?"

"Me? Oh...I don't really have a lot of time for hobbies or games." She answered, sounding saddened by this fact. "Having to take care of my brother is a full time job in and of itself. Add onto that, I help him with his plans for revolutions for CactusLand…" She turned her gaze toward the ground far below as Lincoln gave her a sympathetic look, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I know how you feel." The one son told her.

"Yeah...I had a feeling you would." She replied to him. "You mentioned how much time you dedicate to your family last time we talked." Lincoln nodded once in response.

"But, honestly, I don't mind helping them from time to time. Sometimes, it can even be fun: like being Luan's test audience, joining Lola for a tea party, or just spending time with Lily..."

Luan smiled when she heard that her brother enjoyed the time they spent together as she tested jokes on him. Almost as pleased as Lola. "He really does enjoy my tea parties! See, I told you!" She cheered, looking smugly at her twin, who just rolled her eyes.

"...but then there are times I feel like I'm forced to give my time...whether by guilt, blackmail, or even physical force…"

"...like when your sister threatened you to go to that game?" The Middle Loud nodded, Lynn cringing in guilt.

"It's not the only time, either...when my sister, Lori's, boyfriend broke up with her (which I admit was as a result of something stupid and insensitive I said about his sister, Ronnie Anne), she went positively mental on me. I nearly got hit by an end table that day, before being forced to go on a double date with her, Bobby and Ronnie Anne…"

"Lori!" Rita snapped, giving her oldest daughter (who looked uncharacteristically timid at the moment) a very stern look.

"...ok, maybe we overreacted somewhat...but he did make Ronnie Anne cry…" Lori said kind of feebly.

"...we'll discuss this later…" The Loud Mother said angrily, before looking toward the orb again. She wondered why Lincoln never brought this up before.

Cactus Girl just shook her head in disgust. "And Lola...she's the queen of blackmail. Show the slightest weakness around her and she'll exploit it for years to come. Like when she overheard us all discussing our secrets to one another." He continued. Now it was Lola's turn to look really small under the gaze of their parents. "Lisa, on the other hand, is another story entirely. If she wants help with one of her experiments, she doesn't usually even ask. She just uses us as guinea pigs without our knowledge. And don't even get me started with Luan on April Fools day...though she gets everyone that day, not just me."

"Hmph. What about your parents!?" Cactus Girl asked in outrage. "Don't they do anything?"

"Both of them work most of the time...with a family as big as ours, they have to, so we try and resolve things on our own, for the most part. Though, even when they do get involved, they don't always get it right...heck, one of the first memories of my mother that returned to me was when she was scolding me for our family getting banned from a grocery store...because my sisters were acting up."

Rita gasped when she heard this, looking around at the girl's around her with a "that's not true, right?" frightened expression. The Loud sisters looked to one another, feeling terribly as they nodded in unison. The Loud Matriarch winced, then look down at the ground, feeling very guilty.

"...and my father...one time, the toilet ended up getting clogged. My sisters blamed me for it, which, to be fair, I had...accidentally plugged it up a few times in my younger days. But without evidence...without even questioning it...my father took their word for it and punished me."

"...did you do it?"

"No, I didn't-"

Lynn Sr's eyes started to fill up with tears when he heard that. He started sobbing into his hands, with his wife and Leni patting him on the back. "Wait...hold on a moment…" The pageant princess said with a frown. "Didn't Lincoln say in the end he DID clog the toilet?"

"Now that you mention it...he did." Luan intoned, looking confused. "...but then, why would he say that if he didn't?"

"...but in the end, I took the blame for it anyway." He said, a slight smile appearing on his face.

"WHAT!?" Cactus Girl, Lincoln's sisters and his parents all exclaimed at once. With everyone yelling at once, it kind of came out as a garbled mess, which made the one son look around in confusion as to where the noise came from. "Why would you do that!?" The spine covered cowboy inquired in outrage.

"I'm sorry, Cactus Girl, but I'm sworn to secrecy on that matter." He said calmly after he gave up trying to find the source of what he heard moments ago. "Let's just leave it as it was for a very good reason."

"Lincoln...took the blame?" Lori asked in astonishment, hardly able to believe what she heard.

"He missed out on that dorky con of his for something he didn't do?" Lynn looked equally shocked and confused.

"But...if he didn't do it...who did?" Lola asked, her eyes squinting as she glanced suspiciously around at everyone in the room. "...and why did he take the fall…?" Most of the girls started to think back to the moment when their only brother 'confessed' to the crime: what happened around that very moment? Before they could consider the answer, Lisa spoke up.

"While I am as curious as the rest of you as to his logic on the matter, I feel it is not the important point of this story." The young brainiac said matter of factly. "We can question him on his actions should he return."

"...you mean, when he returns, right?" Leni asked, looking very worried when her smarter little sister said that.

"I'm afraid should is the more realistic thought process, Elder sister." Lisa replied, though it somewhat pained her to say. "While he has voiced a desire to get home, and I myself would be ecstatic to see our brother up and about again, we cannot be certain he will succeed."

"Some family…" Cactus Girl said, positively furious now.

"...again, to be fair, Cactus Girl, those were only the worst of times...minus the whole bad luck stuff." Lincoln retorted before he sighed sadly. "Besides, I'm far from a boy scout myself...I've done my sisters wrong just as many times as they've done me wrong. Like when I posted embarrassing videos about them online without their knowledge…"

"...posting? Videos?" The green rinded child inquired in confusion.

"Oh...there is a service back home where you can place videos online for others to see, via computers." He explained, though his explanation didn't seem to help in the slightest.

"...what's a computer?"

"...er, nevermind. Just suffice to say I embarrassed my sisters for what would have been my own gain." He told her, looking blue once more. "And that's not all. I also tried to force my sisters into taking what I thought was the 'perfect picture' of all of us, treated them terribly after I won a day in a limousine...got them all fighting again after they had made up TWICE after big fights, because I blabbed too much…"

"Maybe...but at least with the picture and Sister Fight Protocol, you had the best intentions…" Lisa commented, shaking her head lightly. "Though that is what the road to Hades is paved with."

"...and that's just what happened with all the sisters at once." He continued, covering his eyes with one hand, cringing as he recalled the next memories. "I pushed Lana into doing a beauty contest to win tickets to a theme park, tricked my parents into thinking I was playing football when it was Lynn the whole time...and Lori...I especially gave her a hard time...I nearly cost her her prom trying to win the favor of a popular kid, staged a coup with the others when she was left in charge one time, sent her a nasty voicemail when I believed she broke my video game…"

"How nasty?" The little gunslinger asked cautiously.

"If my parents ever found out, I'd probably have my mouth washed out with soap until I turned sixteen…"

"Oh, it wasn't that bad." Lori interjected, though she still winced. "I mean, it was hurtful...but he was angry when he said it. We all say dumb stuff when we're angry."

"Don't remind me…" The sports loving sister groaned, using the bill of her baseball cap to cover her face.

"...hell, when I was convincing my sisters I was bad luck, I ruined some of her golf clubs...her expensive clubs…"

"...That's right! He had destroyed some of my best clubs!" The oldest sister exclaimed angrily glaring down at the orb.

"Hold up...what was that he said? About convincing us he was bad luck?" Luna interjected, a startled expression on her face.

"Does that mean he was telling the truth when he said he was faking being bad luck?" The ditzy fashionista asked simply.

"I think it does…" Lana answered.

"Well, that was a dumb thing to do…" Her prissy twin said with a scowl, her hands on her hips.

"Perhaps, but does that excuse our actions?" The little genius inquired.

"...I never said it did…" The beauty obsessed young girl said, looking hurt and sad.

"...yeah, I try and make things right after...but I still made some big mistakes. I'm only human, just like them." The white haired boy continued.

"Are you saying you aren't angry at them anymore?" This REALLY got the attention of his family, everyone except Lucy (who wasn't present) and Lynn getting so close to the crystal ball, their breath was starting to fog it.

"...yeeeee...nnnn...I don't know." He admitted after a moment of waffling about the question. "...I mean, I'm certainly more upset with some of them than I am with others. Lily, for example, I can't be angry with. She's only a baby." The Loud infant smiled brightly at the image of her brother. "And the twins...they're both little kids. I can't really hold the fact they believed it against them." Lola and Lana looked to one another before breathing a sigh of relief. "And Leni...let's just say I don't blame her much. Lori, you'd think I would be more upset with, since she's older...but I'm not."

"You hear that, Lori? He's not upset with us!" Leni said in a pleased tone. Lori's eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair, she was so surprised. He wasn't that upset with her?

"Lucy...I am still pretty angry at. I would think someone who knows as much about witchcraft, hexes and jinxes as her would be able to spot a real jinx...though maybe that is kind of unfair." Most of the Louds listening in grimaced, glad that the gothic gal wasn't around to hear that. "Lisa, on the other hand, should have been able to spot I wasn't really unlucky. She may be four years old, but she's a literal genius."

"...fair enough. I myself am somewhat embarrassed I fell for that as well." Lisa said in her usual deadpan.

"Luan, I'm angry with, but I think I'd be a LOT more furious if this were her idea of a joke...and unfortunately, this would be just the kind of joke she'd pull…"

"Come on. I wouldn't go THAT far for a joke…" The family jester objected, only to get 'are you kidding!?' looks from her siblings. "...right?"

"Luan...you tricked Lincoln into triggering all your April Fools traps by exploiting his feelings for Ronnie Anne…" Lori informed her sternly, causing Luan to shrink down some.

"Luna...yeah, I'm still really ticked off at." He continued on, not knowing his family was listening. "Out of all my sisters, she's usually the most level headed...of all my sisters, I would have thought she would have been the first to say kicking me out was going too far." The rock and roll sister cringed terribly when she heard that; it was like someone told her that her music sucked, only it hurt a lot more. "My parents...of course I'm still irate with them. They were fool enough to go along with the hysteria and they had the final say in kicking me out!" Mr and Mrs Loud had both descended into tears again, with Leni trying to comfort them. "But I'm just as furious with myself at the end of the day…" The white haired boy said, looking toward his spine laden friend with tears in his eyes.

"Himself? Why is he so angry with himself?" The family fashionista asked, looking puzzled. An inquiry that was also voiced by Cactus Girl.

"Did I have the nerve to tell Lynn no? Did I speak up to my other sisters about not having enough time to myself before that point? Did I stop the jinx rumor from spreading? No...I had the opportunity to stop it. I had several opportunities...but I didn't take them until it was too late. Heck, I even added fuel to the fire. I'm just as responsible as most of them…" Cactus Girl waited until he finished his dialogue before she shifted over closer to him and gently hugged him, careful not to poke him with her spikes.

"Curious. He didn't mention anything about Lynn." Lisa piped up, tapping her chin a little.

"Does he really need to…?" The sports star of the family asked glumly. "He knows what I did...we all do. Of course he's going to be pissed at me...I'M pissed at myself." She declared, putting her head in her hands. "...he's probably going to hate me forever…" She added, tears of anger and sorrow trickling down her cheeks.

"Now Junior...that's going a bit far." Rita said to her athletic daughter, once her own tears had ended.

"is it, Mom…?" She replied sourly. Her sisters looked to one another with worried expressions. Lynn wasn't necessarily wrong; she was at the center of what happened to their brother. No doubt he would be angriest at her. But this was Lincoln they were talking about. He couldn't hate any of them forever...right?

"...thanks, Cactus Girl." He said, putting an arm around her in return, also careful not to get poked. "You know…" He continued, in an effort to change the subject to a happier subject. "...you remind me of a close friend of mine from back in reality."

"I do?"

"Mmhmm. My friend, Ronnie Anne." He told her with a small smile. "Headstrong, confident, a bit of a temper, rough on the outside, but sensitive on the inside." The little green cowgirl blushed lightly, a bit of a silly grin on her face. "...and a bit of a brat." He quickly added with a smirk. The spine covered girl's eyes widened as she pulled away from him and punched him in the arm. Lincoln winced a bit, but chuckled after, rubbing his arm. "Yep. You even punch me in the arm just like she does." She just stared at him for a moment in silence before the both of them just started laughing softly. The white haired boy may have only a short time left in this world, but he was determined to make that time as enjoyable as possible as he lay there on the roof with Cactus Girl, just shooting the breeze for a while.

AN: A bit of a long one, as Gregory Loud Horror Story goes. However, I had quite a bit of ground to cover. Sorry if this episode came off as kind of rant or vent-ish, but I thought it would help for the Loud family to hear what Lincoln really felt about past and recent issues. However, I did try to be fair, voicing Lincoln's wrongdoings as well.