The front door swung open, and Luna marched her prisoner into the living room to await judgement. As they waited, Luan tried to listen for any indication of shouting or fighting in the house. She heard nothing, and that was worse than the alternative. They weren't kept waiting for very long, as the door to the master bedroom opened to admit Leni. In an uncanny coincidence, the lights and appliances snapped back to life, their precious power back at last.

"Well, how about that?" The new queen of the house cracked her knuckles and stepped to one side. The sight set Luna's teeth on edge, and Luan raised her hands to cover her mouth. The latter bolted forward past Leni and into the room to hover over Lori's bound, beaten form. The middle child of the three made to grab her, but her older sister waved her off, choosing to observe the scene.

"Lori, no, no..." Luan dropped to her knees next to Lori, shaking her by the shoulder. Her action was met by a harsh gasp from her oldest sister, the pain bringing her back to the waking world.

Lingering in the doorway, Leni informed her, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, her arms got a pretty good work out today." As the prankster whirled her head to glare at her, she sneered, "I would do it if I were me, though. Go on, give her a spin. I'll wait."

Pointedly ignoring her, Luan hastily released her grip on Lori's shoulder and placed a soothing hand on her cheek. One of the blonde's eyes cracked open at the gentle touch. "Hey, Luan," Lori whispered, "get the number of that truck?"

The two of them shared a sad smile. "Sorry, sis. Don't have my dashcam on me right now." She glared at Leni out of the corner of her eye. 'Oh, if I had even one recording of any of this...' Luan brushed a tuft of hair out of her sister's eyes, unable to hide the sorrow in her own. "I'm sorry, Lori. I should have been in here with you."

Leni scoffed at their tender exchange as Luna joined her at her side. "Real Hallmark moment right here. Now, for the hundredth time, listen to me." Neither of them jumped to to interrupt her, and she breathed easily with the knowledge that she had finally ground them down. "There's going to be a few changes around here. Neither of you are to talk to Lincoln, like, at all after he gets home. That goes for Lucy and Lynn, too. I don't want him seeing Lisa either. Lori," she directed with a serious look and tone, "you're going to be responsible for taking care of Lisa if...when she gets better. You know, since you've got experience dealing with medicated idiots."

The quick fix wasn't lost on her sisters, and she pressed on more hurriedly, "next, room arrangements. Luan, you're going to switch rooms with Lincoln. Lori, you're going to stay in either your or Lisa's rooms, but I don't want to see you out of whichever one you pick. Of course, Lisa will be staying with you too." She looked to Luna, who nodded in agreement. "I don't want you two talking to each other anymore after tonight, and if I find out anyone tried to, like, talk to someone outside the house, it's gonna come back on all of you."

Luan and Lori did their best to look unimpressed by the threats, but there was no denying that they'd both been served a helping of their sister's punishment. Neither they, nor Lynn, were in any condition to fight back anymore, and their last hope was standing next to their abuser like a guard dog. Luan turned away from Luna in disgust, muttering, "I don't know which one of you is worse..."

"As bad as we might be," Luna countered, "our worst is better than your best any day." Leni raised her fist toward her, and she responded in kind, the two bumping between them.

Getting back on track, Leni informed them, "Lincoln is going to be home soon. After he gets back, no one comes or goes without my say so. Blah blah blah, you'll get yours if you don't listen, you've all heard it by now." Turning to her new lieutenant, she requested, "Luna, could you get something ready for dinner? I'll go round up the kids."

"Aye aye, cap'n," the brunette saluted, her gaze lingering on her oldest and younger sisters just a second longer before she departed to carry out her task.

Leni watched her until she'd disappeared into the kitchen before turning back to the others. "Luan, go ahead and get any of your important crap moved before he gets here, there's not gonna be any explanations in the middle of it. Lori, go check on Lisa, just in case. Meet back up for dinner, or don't, but so help me if either of you breaks, like, any of the rules we just covered." Clapping her hands twice, she left for the stairs, a new sense of purpose helping to keep her concerns at bay.

As soon as they heard her finish climbing the steps, Luan set about freeing Lori's hands, wincing at the pained gasps emitting from her sister. "Sorry! Lori, what happened? How did this happen?" She'd never known her oldest sister to be a slouch in a fight, and all things considered Leni looked like a beauty queen by comparison.

As the belt came free, Lori's arms fell to her sides with a weak thump. "I almost had her," she quietly lamented, "I was about to get out of the room, but Lucy was outside...Lucy!" Nervous energy filled her voice as she asked, "did you see Lucy at all after you came in?"

"No, I just got in a few minutes ago," Luan admitted. "If she doesn't wanna get found, though, I don't think even Linc could find her, much less Leni. She's kinda like a good horror movie that way," she tried, forcing a weak laugh at the joke. To her surprise, Lori chuckled a bit as well. Overcome again, she repeated, "Lori, I'm so sorr-"

"Don't, Luan," the grounded girl cut her off, "if anyone here should apologize, it's me. You got hurt because I wasn't here to look out for you. You, Lynn...Lisa..." She tried to lift herself up, but she simply couldn't support her weight on her arms anymore.

Luan slipped Lori's left arm over her back and put her right over Lori's, and together they managed to get the older sister off the floor with a shrill cry on Lori's part. She looked down at Lori's swollen ankle and the marks on her shirt where she'd been kicked. "God...Lori, are you gonna be alright?" She dreaded the thought of leaving her alone, but Leni had made it clear that they were to remain separate.

A small grin tugging at her lips, the blonde answered, "it takes just a bit more than this to keep Lori Loud down. I'll be okay, just promise me you won't try to be a hero like I did and literally end up the same way."

Against her instincts, Luan tentatively nodded her head. "No heroics, got it. I'll just leave that for Ace Savvy when he gets home."

"Actually, I'm glad you mentioned that," Lori replied, "Lincoln knows about Leni too...it sounds like he might even have had something to do with her getting off the pills. The way he was talking to her, though, it was like he was...I don't know, but something was just off about it."

"He doesn't remember the last time she went full loco, does he?"

Closing her eyes, Lori answered, "apparently not. And if he starts to figure it out, she's going to hurt him too, I just know it." Carefully lifting her arms just enough to rest on Luan's shoulders, she implored, "don't talk to him about any of this yet. We have to wait this out until we can stop her without anyone else getting hurt."

Entrusted with a solemn task by her sister-in-arms, Luan nodded more confidently. "Alright. What should I do until then?"

"Just listen to Leni and Luna...Jesus, what is Luna even doing?"

Shaking her head, the brunette answered, "she's hung up on how things used to be. I think she guilt-tripped herself into helping Leni, I'm not sure though."

Eyes opening once more, Lori let loose a profound sigh. "Whatever. One more thing to deal with when we can. And right now, I need to deal with Lisa...go ahead and find the twins and bring them in, then get your stuff moved over to Lincoln's room." By way of parting, she grabbed Luan's scrunchie and released her sister's brown locks. "I wish you'd keep your hair down more often, I think it looks pretty great." Luan blushed wildly at the praise before a small, shy smile finally won out. She hurried off to find Lana and Lola, and Lori waited just a moment before limping out of the bedroom.

As she began ascending the stairs, Leni was on her way down with Lily in hand. The two of them went to pains not to look at each other, despite the pang in her heart that their youngest sister was in their tormentor's clutches. Soldiering on, she hung a familiar right at the top and went to the end of the hallway.

Lori tried to open the door several times, and each time her hand froze before she could finish turning the knob. What was even waiting for her on the other side? 'Lisa...' Taking a calming breath, she renewed her focus on her number one priority at the moment; making sure her sisters were alright, and looking after the ones who...weren't. If what Leni had said was true, though, then what lay beyond was probably beyond her or anyone else's ability to help.

She rested her forehead against the door as the added significance of this visit came back to weigh on her. 'Luan and Lynn got hurt because I wasn't here to help them, but I was up here when Leni got her. I was one room away...' She'd been one step behind, as she had been from the very beginning, perpetually caught up in whatever happened to first catch her attention in that given moment. Rationalizing Leni's withdrawal as pregnancy; failing to follow up on questioning her and Lincoln in favour of trying to clear the air between Luna and Luan; setting aside all of her concerns at home for one fateful night to take her mind off a problem she had a large role in allowing to spiral out of control. 'I pawned that responsibility off to Lisa. If I hadn't asked her to get involved, this might not have happened to her.'

With tired eyes she looked at the doorknob once more. Dwelling on 'might haves' and 'what ifs' would do her no good now, and that was exactly what Leni was counting on. Before she could convince herself otherwise, she hastily turned the knob and pushed on the door, slow enough that it wouldn't fly out of her control but fast enough that she couldn't choke again. The mess of papers from before was still there, and her eyes scanned the room before coming to rest on her second-youngest sister on her bed. "Lisa?" The four-year old didn't respond, and she quietly made her way through the room. From a distance it seemed like she was simply asleep, at peace even, but closer inspection left no doubt about what she'd been through.

Reaching a hand out to settle on her sister's shoulder, Lori's heart broke all over again. "Oh, Lisa..." Her arms and legs were wrapped around her pillow in an ironclad embrace, her face caked with dried tears and mucus. Her eyes moved rapidly under their lids in her unconscious state, and her breaths came in irregular bursts. As she went to move the sleeping toddler, she felt the damp spot on the sheets where her courage had failed her. Lips quivering, the eldest sister collected a pair of pajamas from the closet and carefully coaxed her to release the pillow before deciding a shower was in order.

Her arms and shoulders fiercely protested as she gathered Lisa up into her arms and departed for the bathroom. The young girl latched on to her much like she had the pillow, shivering uncontrollably in intervals. Reaching her destination, Lori closed and locked the door behind her before moving finding a place to set her charge down. She noticed the panel to the ceiling vent was loose. "Loose...Lucy." She managed to pry herself from her sister's grasp and set the warm water running before disrobing them both. 'I hope she has a good hiding spot.'

Plucking Lisa's glasses from her head and setting them on the sink, she lifted the toddler once more and stepped into the running water. Finding a comfortable place to sit under the stream, Lori propped Lisa between her legs and went about cleaning the girl's hair, face and bottom. 'Now that I think about it, you're the only one I never had to do this kind of thing for,' she mused as she lathered a small dollop of shampoo into her sister's hair. Of course she'd had a hand in raising all of her siblings, and that meant more than just keeping them out of trouble when Mom and Dad were out, but this weekend had forced her to re-evaluate the relationships she shared with them.

Lincoln has always been closest to her in a way, his creativity and scheming putting him at odds with her on a regular basis. She suspected many of the others felt the same way, and it troubled her that Leni was about to abuse the bond they shared to her own ends. 'Leni...we were close before, I thought we still were...' As guilty as she'd been for so long after they had put her on the medication, Lori felt even worse for having preferred the new sister. She was so caring toward everyone, so eager to love and be loved, it was so easy to try and forget what she was before. 'What she is now.'

Rubbing her overwrought shoulders and the bruises on her sides and face, she considered the rest of the teens. Somehow she'd grown distant from Luna, Luan and Lynn, their biggest interactions coming in the form of dinner-table discussion or some convoluted plan that required most or all of them. It didn't help that Luna would seize on any chance to get under her skin, usually involving her phone. 'Always the phone,' she rolled her eyes, 'but maybe it did take up too much of my time.' The fact that she was helping Leni now didn't play to sibling rivalry, though. 'She can't be that desperate for someone to accept her that she's relying on Leni, can she?' What other explanation was there, though?

She'd recently gotten an opportunity to reconnect with Luan, and her heart swelled at the concern she'd shown for her earlier. The comedienne had always had a penchant for jokes and pranks, but it had taken on new meaning in the face of Leni's actions four years hence. They came more out of defiance than joy, the younger sister showing the older that she couldn't be kept down. Even now, Luan was the only one still trying to fight back. Lynn most likely would be too, if she hadn't been taken out of the game before it began. 'I have even less in common with Lynn than the other three...Lucy, Lana and Lola...Lisa...'

She looked down at the girl in her embrace, still shaking despite the warm water raining down on them. Lisa was an enigma, smarter than all of them combined but still a child at heart. She had a college degree, some kind of Nobel prize; she could do anything she wanted, and she chose to remain with them. 'I wish I knew why...I wish I knew all of you girls...' Lori pulled her sister close and lightly rested her chin on her head, wistful tears mixing with the stream of the shower.

When the water began to turn cold, she finally turned it off and fetched two towels for them. She dried Lisa first and got her into her pajamas before taking care of herself, retrieving a robe out of the closet afterward. Stepping back into the room proper, her heart leapt into her throat as she witnessed Lisa trying to hold herself on her hands and knees. "Lisa!" She hurried over to kneel down right next to her, setting a hand on her back. "Lisa, talk to me. Are you alright?"

The four-year old shakily lifted her head, glancing around the room before looking up to home in on Lori's face. Her mouth moved, an attempt to speak, and she seemed confused that there was no sound.

"Come on, Lisa, talk to me," Lori urged, hooking her hands under Lisa's arms to hoist her up to a standing position. As soon as she let go, the toddler nearly fell over, and Lori had to scramble to catch her. "Lisa?" Her voice took on an edge of fear as it trailed off, "do you...know who I am?"

Finally Lisa looked up to her again, eyes squinting. "Mmm...mmmu..."

Biting her lip and hoping against all hope that she was wrong, her oldest sister encouraged her, "it's me, Lori, your big sis."

"Muuuuh...m-m-uuuhm...m-mommy..."

Hunching over, Lori slowly enveloped her baby sister in her arms, swaying back and forth to keep her sister from seeing or hearing her break down. "L-Lisa...I'm your sister, Lori. The bossy one? The one who never does your gross poop research?"

Lisa did her best to wrap her arms around Lori, head nuzzling against the warmth of her caretaker's robe. "M-m-mommy, I'm t-t-tired." Her teeth chattered as if she'd been out in the freezing cold for hours, despite the sauna-like environment they'd created. "S-s-sthleepy t-time, m-m-mommy, l-let'sth go to b-bed."

Her chest racked with silent grief, Lori agreed, "yeah, y-you're right. Let's go to bed, sweetie." With great effort she picked Lisa up, accepting the horrible pain on her arms as punishment for allowing this, THIS, to happen. Lisa's head lolled against her shoulder, the young girl already out again as Lori quietly got them to her room. She laid Lisa on her bed and collected some nightwear from her dresser. Using a stray shirt to wipe her eyes and face, she quickly changed before returning to bed. Carefully sliding in, she brought the blankets up to cover them, wrapping Lisa in a loose hug and settling down to sleep alongside her.

"You're sure you have everything, Lincoln?" Howard glanced around the back seat just in case a comic or souvenir had gotten loose.

Giving everything a once-over himself, the white-haired boy replied, "I'm sure, Mr. McBride!"

"You've gotta get on the walkie later, Lincoln, I can't wait to finally have a synchronized reading of Muscle Fish!" Clyde pumped a fist in the air, his best friend mimicking him.

"After we get our dailies done, Clyde," Harold reminded him, "there's a washer and dryer with your name on them."

Sighing, his son relented, "yes sir."

"Don't sweat it, Clyde," Lincoln reassured him, "I'm gonna be up all night, one way or the other." The call earlier still weighed heavily on his mind. Leni had said she and Lori had been fighting, but it sounded like Lori was right there with her...'I'm not sure, but it sounded like something else was going on too, a bunch of thuds...Luna's drums?'

"Maybe I ought to pop in for a second and show Lori my new collection," Clyde suggested, wagging his eyebrows at his own comics. "She's a woman of fine taste, I'm sure she can appreciate these first editions!"

Rubbing at the back of his head, Lincoln suggested, "maybe not this time, man. There's a lot of...tension in there right now."

Leaning over the side of the driver's seat, Howard asked one last time, "and you're sure everything is alright here?" He looked to the Loud House just up the walkway from where they'd come to a stop. Lincoln nodded, and he concluded, "just let us know if there's an emergency, we're only a few minutes away."

"Will do. Thanks for bringing me along, you guys, you're the best!" He undid his seatbelt and hopped out the door to stand on the sidewalk.

"Thanks for joining us, Lincoln," Harold replied, "give everyone our love when you get in!"

The McBrides waved as they pulled away, and the sole (present) male Loud steeled himself for what awaited within. "It's already a hassle coming back to a house with ten sisters after being away for any length of time, but even worse when one of them drops a drama bomb like the one Leni had. I can't believe Lori and Luan would try to hurt her, though...Leni said Luna had her back, maybe she knows more than the others about her condition?"

Reaching the bright red door, he entered to an unusually calm house, the smell of dinner cooking the only familiar thing about it. Making his way to the dining room, he found Leni sitting at the head of the table, Lily's highchair at her side. The seats immediately at her hands were empty; further down the line and to her left and right were Lana and Lola, respectively, followed by Luan at the opposite end from Leni. "Hey, guys, I'm home!" Setting his things next to the doorway, he asked, "where's everyone else?" No one passed up in dinner in this house unless they were deathly ill, and that thought put a number of unsavoury images into his head.

Beaming at him, Leni greeted, "welcome home, Lincoln. You're just in time, dinner's about ready!" She looked all too happy for the conversation they'd had just a short while ago, and it put him on edge.

"Lynn got super sick last night," Lana announced, "I guess she was barfing all over the place. I wish she'd waited until we were up!"

Grimacing, Lola added, "which someone had better clean off the hallway floor before it sets in. I'm pretty sure that's your job." She pointed at her twin, though there was much less malice in her voice than usual.

Luan waved to him, but otherwise didn't speak. 'Okay, I'm officially in Bizzaro World. No pranks, wisecracks, nothing?' Then again, she was supposedly in on whatever fight had happened while he was away, and now that he stopped to look, it showed. 'Wow, her teeth got messed up even more than usual. Her wrist is all swollen up too...' He looked to Leni, whose nose was still a puffy red from where she'd been struck earlier. 'Did Luan punch her?'

Leni motioned for him to sit at her right, and he hesitantly took the seat, trying to read the air between his sisters. "So, uh, how is everyone?"

The oldest present sister opened her mouth to speak, but Lola reached the finish line first. "Ugh, just awful. The power went out last night and my alarm didn't wake me up. I spent three whole MINUTES past what I needed to in my facial mask, and now my complexion is off by one shade! LOOK at it!" She pointed to her face, and they all did as she commanded, unable to see a single thing different about it.

"I've still got you beat," Lana followed, "I was 'three whole minutes' late letting out Charles, Cliff, Geo, Izzy and Hopps. If you think there's a mess up there now, you're lucky I got to it before anyone else."

The two of them bickered, and both Leni and Luan grinned at the exchange before the former leaned over to whispered to Lincoln, "we'll talk later, right now I just want the kids to have a good dinner." Before she could pull back, he grabbed her shoulder, his face and body language full of apprehension. "Lincoln?"

"There's only half of us here. Where are Lori, Lucy, Lynn and Lisa?" She tried to pull away, and he increased his grip. "Leni, this is weird, what's going on?" He tried to wrap his mind around her attempted retreat, having encountered no such thing over the weekend.

There was a flash of anger in her eyes, and she shrugged him off completely. It was gone as soon as she regained some distance, though, replaced by concern. Lincoln drew away from her, and that concern bloomed into anxiety. He turned his attention to Luan, who was playing with her hair now that it was curiously let down. She was looking off to the side , discomfort present in her every movement. The motion of her arms revealed the scuffs and scrapes on her forearms and elbows to him. Her eyes flicked toward him- no, to the left of him, toward Leni, whom he turned back to in time to see her glaring at the other girl.

"Alright, who's ready for some grub?" Luna sauntered into the dining room with a tray of pizza, to the joy of everyone present. "Sorry, Len, it's kinda simple, but it was short notice and all."

Grinning at her, Leni replied, "no worries! I'm pretty sure, like, no one in this house is gonna complain." With something to focus on other than the oppressive air in the room, everyone started to loosen up a little bit. Everyone except for their brother, who fidgeted in his seat.

Lana and Lola led most of the discussion, most of it having to do with Lola's party in two days and how her twin was going to crash it, while Luna took a seat at Leni's left and the two indulged in some small talk.

"You've got that gig coming up soon, right, Luna?"

"Yeah, I've gotta run up here in the next day or two and get the new drum. It's gonna be pretty bangin' around here, hope you weren't planning on getting any sleep!"

"Lana, you're banned from our room on Wednesday! Leni, tell her!"

"Yeah right, are YOU gonna take care of all the pets? Or are all your sissy friends gonna help you?"

Lincoln listened to each individual discussion, but he also paid attention to the one that wasn't happening. While they were distracted, he collected his plate and moved down several seats to sit next to Luan. "Hey, Luan, you alright?" Even her anger or sadness was better than silence; silence always meant she was worse off than she wanted anyone to think.

His sister had been playing with her food, arranging the toppings into various shapes and faces when his words caught her attention. "Oh, hey Linc. Yeah, I'm alright, just kind of a quiet night, right?"

"A little alliteration isn't gonna work this time," he fired back. That earned the first real smile from her he'd seen since he got home, and he returned it as he continued, "I know that things got...rough around here since last night. What happened?"

The smile wavered, and she flicked her eyes toward her two older sisters before returning them to her plate. "I'd rather not talk about it here, not now. Maybe l-"

"No, we'll talk about it right NOW!" Lincoln slammed his hands on the table, cutting her off and capturing everyone else's attention. "Leni, Luan, tell me what happened last night!"

Eyes narrowing, Leni rose from her seat to lean on the table. "Lincoln, I said we could talk-"

"Later. 'We can talk later'. It's always 'later' with you guys," he railed, the twins hunkering down in their seats at the argument, "I'm ready to talk now!" He split his admonishment between both sisters he knew to have been part of the confrontation the elder mentioned. 'One of them is going to crack, and I don't care who it is right now!'

So much of this had gone wrong because they wouldn't just talk to each other; for all he knew, that was how the fight had begun. 'I'm tired of being the odd man out, literally, when they say they rely on me so much!'

The blonde's lip curled, and she rebuked him, "don't do this right now, Lincoln. Everything just got back to normal around here, or, like, as normal as it gets." It was the first time she'd directly confronted him after their talk, and he nearly backed down.

A tug on his sleeve prevented him from deciding either way, and Lincoln turned to fully face Luan once more. "She...she's right, Lincoln. Let's just have a nice family dinner for now, we can get everything figured out in a bit."

His eye twitching, he blasted at them, "'family dinner'? Half the family isn't even here!"

Quickly glancing at the clock, Luna interjected, "woah, is it that late already?" It really was, the sun beginning to set had just become noticeable through the window. "Welp, guess it's time to hit the sack, c'mon Lu-iiincoln!" His furious gaze fixated upon her, and she withered under it.

Confusion mixed with that anger, and he replied, "what are you saying that to me for?"

Leni closed her eyes, and in a stern tone she informed him, "you'll be bunking with Luna for a while. Luan is going to take your room." He opened his mouth to argue, and she cut him off, "and that's the way it's going to be until Mom and Dad get home."

Lincoln's mouth, already open, remained that way. 'What is going on?' Recovering slightly, he demanded once more, "tell me why."

Leni's eyes widened at the challenge, and Luna made a nixing gesture beside her. "No." The denial hung in the air, and Lana and Lola finally abandoned the table, dropping their plates off in the kitchen before making their way around to the living room.

"Why?" Her refusal hurt him for several reasons, not least of which was the desire to make sure she herself was alright. Everyone was behaving too oddly for this to have happened exactly as she explained, though, and the thought that she might be hiding something again cut even deeper.

She drew in a deep breath and released it through her nose, reminding all of them of a bull about to charge. "Because I said so. Finish your dinner and get ready for bed. We'll talk about it later," she ordered, putting particular emphasis on the last word.

Brow furrowing, he shoved himself from the table and spun to head back toward the stairs. "I'm not hungry, maybe I'll eat something LATER."

"Linc, wait!" Luna called after him again, but the sound of him stomping up the steps faded to the upstairs. "Aw, jeez. I'll handle it," she opted, leaving Leni along with Luan and Lily. The infant's eyes began to water, and the blonde looked to the brunette, who offered her a deadpan stare.

"Perfect," they spoke in unison.

On the second floor, Lincoln stopped in to see Lynn. Upon opening the door, he found her trying to make it to a glass of water on the nightstand. "Lynn, you look like you just did a thousand laps!" He rushed over to help her back into bed before collecting the drink and handing it to her.

She gulped the liquid greedily and choked near the end, sputtering all over her shirt and sheets. "Augh...thanks, Linc," she rasped, head falling back onto the pillow. "Feels more like I did a thousand deadlifts."

The two of them chuckled, hers was much weaker than his, and he asked, "what happened? Bad liver the other night?"

"I guess," she huffed, "either that or I'm just not a smoothie kind of girl. I always knew it...hey, where's Luce?"

Her brother frowned, wondering the same thing. "I haven't seen her since I got home a bit ago, I'm about to go make sure she didn't get stuck in the laundry chute again soon."

Lynn's stomach contributed to the conversation, roiling in disagreement with her having moved at all. "Yeah, yeah, you'll get yours soon, pal. Ten...no, twenty spicy meatball subs." They laughed again, and she began to drift back to sleep, "well, if ya find her, tell her to tell her ghost friends to keep away, cuz I really feel like I'm dyin' over here."

A moment later, she was out again, and after a cursory search of the room turned up no eight-year old goth, he exited into the hallway again.

"There you are, bro," Luna waved him down. "Sorry about back there, things have been kinda dicey since last night."

"So I've heard," he snarked, "I'm not sure why though since no one wants to talk to me now that I'm actually here." Leni's harsh words and attitude still bit at him. 'There's got to be a good reason, right? She doesn't just get angry for no reason!' Glancing around, he added, "and seriously, where is everyone? I haven't seen or heard Lori, Lucy or Lisa since I got home!"

Beginning to sweat, Luna offered, "well, I think Lori and Lisa went to bed kinda early. Liz had her hands full makin' sure Lynn was alright, 'specially with the power out. As for Lucy, well, it's hard tellin'. Uh by the way, Len was serious about the room switcheroo."

Slapping a hand against his face, Lincoln surrendered, "great, that's really nice. If that's the case, I'm gonna pack up some essentials and bring them over." She wiped her brow as soon as he turned toward his room, and she began making her own preparations while the house's archenemies cleaned up downstairs.

As they settled in for the night, Luna tuned her guitar, the nightly ritual doing little to soothe her tattered nerves. Instead she let most of her attention rest on Lincoln carefully arranging his new purchases on the nightstand near the lower bunk before setting his rabbit doll at the head of the bed. The others had given him no shortage of teasing over it over the years, but she understood the importance. To him, it was a gift made and given with unconditional love; to her, it was a reminder of better times. Setting her axe on its stand, she tried to make conversation, anything to break the thick ice that had frozen the air in the house. "So...how about that, uh, Glob Man?" Her brother looked at her with a questioning glance. "Pretty metal, huh?"

Giving his full attention to his new roommate, he answered in a somewhat awkward tone, "uh, not really, he's a shape-changing slime creature. That's the...opposite of metal."

"R-right, right, cool," Luna uttered, rubbing the back of her neck. She looked off to the side, searching for a talking point, and settled on Luan's Groucho glasses. Throwing her head the opposite direction, she noticed her sister's broken spider prop. Running a hand through her hair, she abruptly stood up. "I'm gonna hit the bathroom, bro." She didn't wait for an answer before striding for the door, opening and closing it smoothly before rounding the corner and entering to find...Luan.

The younger girl, examining her damaged teeth in the mirror, spun upon seeing her in its reflection. She retreated slightly, back knocking into the sink. Luna cocked her head toward the other end of the hallway, and Luan slowly complied, skirting the edge of the room to stay as far away from her as possible. The rocker watched her until she made it to her new quarters before closing the door. Shuffling to the sink, she ran a stream of cold water and splashed her face with it, the cool liquid helping to soothe her face where she'd been bopped before. 'Gotta give Lu credit, she may not be a fighter, but that sure as hell doesn't stop her.'

With a sigh, she dared to look in the mirror, wondering if she looked as tired as she felt. She couldn't remember feeling so drained, not even after her first concert. 'My first concert...Len didn't want me to go. She was worried I'd get hurt, or taken, or anything else she could think of that'd go wrong.' A weary smile worked its way onto her face at the memory. 'What happened to you, sis? Where did that 'you' get off to?' Shaking her head, she brushed her teeth, glad for the rare reprieve from having to share the room with ten other people. If only she could be happy about the reason for that reprieve.

When she made it back to her room, she found the ceiling light out, though her brother was reading by lamplight. "Oh, hey," he greeted, "sorry, I like to read a little bit before I go to sleep. I can turn it off if you want."

"Nah, it's good, little bro." She ducked to the left and stepped into the closet, changing into her sleepwear. "No peeking," she taunted from within.

"As if," Lincoln groused, "I already learned my lesson a few months ago." That was a game of hide and seek he'd never forget. Forced out of all of his usual hiding spots, he'd desperately taken refuge in Lori and Leni's closet. With Lucy searching for them, there was no chance that they wouldn't all be found fairly quickly, and he'd hedged a bet by hiding in the most dangerous territory in the house. A bet made by Lincoln Loud was never a bet in his favour, though, and Lori had made a pitstop to change into something that she wouldn't mind getting dirty during the game. One thing led to another, and, well...

"Ha! Man, you could hear her all the way from the garage!" They both chuckled at the memory, though Lincoln's laughter was tempered by the additional memory of his oldest sister's nuclear anger. "Good times, man." Luna made to climb up to her bunk, but as she set her foot on the first rung, a niggling thought worked into her head. Looking back down, she noticed that Lincoln's momentary good mood had also faded as he continued to try and read his comic. 'This sucks...I need to tell him why he's here, why Luan isn't.' It would risk putting all the gains she'd made in jeopardy, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Dismounting the ladder, she instead plopped down on the bed next him. "Linc, you alright?"

Setting the comic to one side, he drew his knees up to his chest and considered just how to answer that question. "Well...I'm alright, I guess. But it's pretty clear no one else is. This whole thing with Leni...there's something I don't know, isn't there?" He'd known that since the night he'd spoken to the sister in question, but he needed to hear it from this one.

Setting her elbows on her knees, she folded her hands and let her face rest against them. "There's a lot you don't know, bro. Stuff that you didn't need to know, and stuff it was better no one knew." She lifted her left leg up onto the bed, looking at him with a more serious expression than he had seen her with in a very long time. "You're in as deep as the rest of us now, though, so you deserve to know." He gulped and she nodded. "About Leni, and what she did. And what we did to her."

She stood and travelled to her vinyl record case, flipping through them before withdrawing one. Instead of the disc within, though, she shook it until a small piece of paper drifted out. Replacing the record, she picked up the paper and returned to sit next to Lincoln, holding it out to him for his inspection.

He refocused the lamp light on it, and laid eyes on an old photo of Lori, Leni and Luna. They really looked like him-sized versions of themselves, though there were differences; Lori wore an actual t-shirt and knee-high socks, while Leni's dress somehow appeared even shorter on her smaller frame. As for Luna..."Woah! You were a total girly girl, like, even more than Leni!"

Luna lightly rapped him one on the head. "Not as girly as you are now, bro," she insisted, before giving him a case of pre-bed bed hair. Bringing the picture back to her, she gazed at it with a sort of reverence that wasn't lost on Lincoln. "Things were way different back then, I can't believe you don't remember. Me and Len were hardly ever away from each other, it seemed like, and Lori was busy tryin' to make friends with those snobs like Carol Pedigree, or whatever her name is. This pic got taken right before the party that started everything downhill."

"Leni was already startin' to go off on people by that point, whether it was Lu with her jokes or Lynn makin' a mess with her sports. At first she tried to be like Lori and be another mom to'em, but there were already two, so she never got very far that way." She rubbed her forehead and brought the hand down to cover her eyes. "After that, she started gettin' rough. It seems like it just started out of the blue one day, but she'd smack or push the girls just a little too hard. She didn't have any patience for the twins or Lucy..."

Letting herself fall back on to the bed, she continued, "she started gettin' into arguments at school, then fights. Lori tried to get her to calm down, but all that did was bring the fights back home. She never really got angry with you or me, but Lor and Lu got under her skin like nothin' else. Whenever Mom and Dad would try to sit her down, she'd just freak out until she got sent up to her room."

Listening with bated breath up to that point, Lincoln asked, "how long did that go on for?" Before, Leni had said she couldn't remember most of it, and neither could he. 'She's not making this up, is she?' He'd withhold his judgement until he heard the rest of the story.

"Two years," she answered, holding up the same number of fingers. "It got worse and worse, and none of us knew what to do about it other than try to get her some help. Our folks took her to see a therapist, and that just got her even angrier. They recommended medicine, and that got her to finally start takin' things seriously...at first. She got more creative after that." Pointing to her ears, she asked, "remember when you had those earbuds and we pranked you with all those Lola stories?"

Lincoln nodded, a hint of annoyance in the gesture, and she informed him, "well, those stories were true, but it wasn't Lola. Len did those things, minus the frog, I think. Then, the party happened."

Rubbing his chin, her brother chimed in, "I've heard about this a couple times now. It was Carol's party, right?"

"Yeah, for her thirteenth birthday. It was just supposed to be Lori, but Len had gotten on Carol's bad side at some point and both our and her parents wanted'em to make up. Now, you may or may not believe this," she grinned suggestively, "but I wasn't always the rock-out-loud people person I am now." Lincoln rolled his eyes, though not without a smile, and she added, "I really wanted to go to a big shindig, and I begged Leni to beg Lori to let me come along. So, that's how an eleven-year old me ended up rubbing elbows with all those preps and freshmen."

"That sounds...miserable," Lincoln stressed at length. 'I can barely relate to people my own age, let alone high schoolers!' It might be kind of exciting, though, to see what awaited on the other side of those big doors...

Chuckling, Luna agreed, "yeah, it really was. Like I said, a bunch of snobs. And of course, they couldn't help but pay attention to the little middle-schooler at their party. While Len was off makin' her apology, a few of'em pulled me aside and talked me up. At the same time, I guess they decided to have some old middle school fun, and they put a sign on my back, gum in my hair, the works."

Suddenly his treatment by Ronni Anne seemed positively affectionate in comparison. "Jeez! I take it Leni DIDN'T take it too well?"

The smile slowly fell from her face. "Worse than that, she was out for blood. Literally." Lincoln gulped as that dead-serious look appeared again. "There were some fireworks bein' kept in a shed to one side of the house, y'know, never mind that they're illegal. Anyway, Len got wind of it, and she asked Carol and a few of the girls and guys who messed with me to show her. Being pretentious pricks, they couldn't help but show off."

She paused for a short while, struggling to find a way to describe it to him. "Len...she got a lighter, or a grill lighter maybe — something — and pulled a string of'em out of the shed. She shut the door and jammed it from outside, and lit it."

Lincoln's jaw dropped at the mental image of Leni, his Leni, THEIR Leni, doing something that dangerous. "No...she had to know how bad that was..."

"That was exactly why she did it. Somehow none of those kids got messed up too bad, but they still ended up in the hospital, including Carol." Luna sighed, and sat back up again, cradling her head in her hands. "No one else saw her do it, and no one could prove it, but word got around. Mom and Dad made some kind of agreement with the other families, I think, and it set us back for one or two years; remember when ketchup sandwiches became a thing?"

"Wait," he interrupted, "how did you find out?"

Her mouth pursed as she remembered, "she told me later...she was proud of it. That was about the time we started to drift apart, I guess." He settled back down, and she finished her story.

"Four years ago was the breaking point; Luan did something to really steam Len, and she just snapped. They were on the stairs together, and Leni shoved her down...Lu's arm got broken, and Mom, Dad and Lori finally put Leni under lock and key. They made an appointment with a psychiatrist, got everything in order...then they took her away."

Lincoln looked on in absolute shock as his sister tried to hold it together. "Leni...she's not like that, she wouldn't hurt them or anyone else..." None of this made any sense, how could he have forgotten things like this? 'The Leni I talked to Friday, the one I've been talking to, she's not like that. This has to be some kind of misunderstanding, or a trick, or something!' He had to believe that, otherwise it would mean that he had unleashed the monster that Luna was speaking of right now. 'She...Leni even TOLD me there was a reason she had to take the medicine, and I just didn't think it could be something like this...'

She turned to him, her face a mournful portrait. "She was like that, Linc. And...now she's back." Sensing what he was thinking and setting a hand on his shoulder, she said to him, "this isn't your fault. This was bound to happen sooner or later, they couldn't keep her on the pills forever. In fact, this might be a good thing."

The boy's head shot up, and in a flustered voice he demanded, "how? How could this ever be a 'good thing'?! I-I messed up, Luna, what if something happens to..." The cringe on her face told him everything he needed to know, everything he wished he could forget. "What did I do?!"

Putting a finger to his lips, she urgently shushed him. "Listen to me, Linc! Now we've got the chance to do what we should have done before, what I should have done before. We can get her some real help, we can get through this without some pill that completely screws with her head!"

"What can WE do, Luna? Mom, Dad and Lori already tried, you said so yourself!" His arms flailed at his sides in panic, at a loss for anything he or she could do to remedy the situation. "I got rid of her pills, and there's no telling when more are going to co-"

Luna grabbed him by the shoulders, staring into his soul with a heated glare. "Don't you dare say you want to do that to her again, Lincoln," she seethed, "I'm not going to let anyone make her into that...that thing that she was all these years. I didn't stop it before, but I'll be damned if I let it happen again."

Lincoln was reminded of the things Leni had said to him that first night. "She sounded so sad, it made ME feel sad just hearing her talk...she was so nice, too, and that made it even worse." Which version of her was that, though? The real her? The medicated her?

Her outrage quickly burned out, and with a voice heavy with remorse she said, "sorry about that, bro. But what you just said...you heard her, right?" He nodded, and she offered a small smile, "that's the real one, Lincoln, the one I knew my whole life before she got lost somewhere in there." She tapped her head with her index finger before setting her hands on his shoulders again and lamenting, "we're the only ones who really know that side of her, and we're the only ones who can get it back."

He wanted to believe there was some light at the end of the tunnel here, but one critical question remained. "Really, though, what can we do? If she was just going to listen to talk, I think she would've done it by now." Luna might be able to talk with her fists, but he wasn't sure he could or even would if it came to that. 'I'm still not even sure Leni could do that. I need to talk to her...'

"It can't be just you and me, bro, it's gotta be all of us. She needs to see that all of us want her to be better, because right now she thinks everyone hates her. Which, they kinda do, but it's not quite...I mean, they love her, but it's a love-hate kind of thing?" A lopsided grin popped onto her face, and she conceded, "to be honest, I think this whole thing's drivin' me batty too."

Slightly overwhelmed by the story and his reaction to it, Lincoln fell back onto the pillow, a foolish idea forming in his head. 'I need to talk to Leni about this.' If all of this was true, though, it was entirely possible that he could end up next on the menu if he pushed too far. One other thing bothered him, though, something he had the chance to ask about right now. "Luna, when Leni said you were 'helping' her..."

She looked like a deer in the headlights before guilt showed through her every feature. "Linc, you've gotta understand...for me to help her, for US to help her, she has to trust us. And the only way she can trust me is if the others...don't." He adopted a grave expression, and she rushed to explain, "I-I'm not tryin' to hurt them, I'm tryin' to keep them from gettin' hurt. I managed to keep Luan clear today, but Lori bit the bullet...if Len think's I'm keeping'em in check, though, she might not come down as hard."

"This could go bad, Luna," he observed, "if they found out, if SHE found out-"

"Which is why you can't say anything about it, bro. I'm telling you this because you and me, we're in this together, dig? We've gotta have each other's backs for this." She looked at him with desperation in her eyes and voice, the first chance in four years to make a difference.

Nodding, he raised his fist toward her, "we'll do this. No matter what." A big grin worked its way onto her face, and she bumped his hand with her own, a new agreement forged; the first one with good intentions in days. Now, he just needed to do some work of his own...Yawning, he quietly said, "well, I love her, and I know you do too. But," he gawped once more, "I think we'd better do it when we're both not acting like a couple of emotional girls."

"Heh, you got that right...hey, wait! I AM a girl!" They shared a good-natured laugh before she finally alighted from the bed and climbed up to her bunk. She stopped once more at the top, though, leaning over a bit to peek at him from above. "Thanks, Linc. You don't know how much this means, little bro, how much it's gonna mean to her."

Resting his head on his pillow, he answered, "I do know, just a little bit. And you're welcome." The gentle tapping of rain, nothing like the thunderstorm the previous night, lulled Luna to rest and nearly did so with Lincoln as well. He was a man on a mission, though, and nothing would stand in his way, that he was aware of.