Rita frowned as she pulled up to her new home, not because she was sad at the sight but as she parked on the grass (next to the adorably named Vanzilla of course) her own, once reliable five-seater was making a new rattling sound.

She could replace it of course, the money from selling her old home meant that she technically had a relative abundance in the bank for the first time in her life. But the old car had served her well across the years, and she knew every nut, bolt and hastily repainted scratch on the aged vehicle.

The problem was that while she could do a fair bit of maintenance on her own, it had really been her father that had kept the old engine running. If she took it to a professional it would probably clean out a good bit of those hard-earned savings to fix everything that was wrong with it. Honestly, it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new one entirely.

But that would mean giving up another piece of their old life, and another thing Lincoln would have to get used to.

But that problem could wait until later, she had more pressing ones to deal with. And judging from the slightly slumped over shape of Lynn Loud Sr through the kitchen window, she wasn't the only one.

It only took a minute to make her way to him, but he still jumped a bit when she touched his shoulder.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

He cracked a little smile. "Ahh well, I think these ones are more dollars than pennies, might be out of your price range."

"Well as long as we're bartering, I think you could give me a discount for a trade in." She sat next to him.

He sighed over a lukewarm mug of coffee. "I don't know, how do you feel about maybe biffing it with your daughter?"

Rita let out a whistle. "I don't know, what's the going rate on worries over a new workplace and your son fitting in a new school?"

Lynn pretended to ponder this, "I don't know, you'll have to let me have a look to give you a fair quote."

"I can't argue with that," Rita laughed, and got up to get herself some much needed coffee from the machine. "First things first; everything went fine with Dr Feinstein and I can start properly tomorrow, but he might not be able to give me the hours that we need."

"That'll be fine," Lynn waved her worries away. "I've been paying for an eleven strong household for… a while now. We can make do-"

"None of that Lynn," Rita reproached as she drew her cup from the machine. "I'm a grown woman, and I want to be part of this family, our family, properly. I know you'd let us stay even If I could never work again, but I'll be crossing guard again before not pulling my own weight.

Besides," she sat next to him again and gave him a playful nudge. "It's a down payment for the hours we'll spend together, we're not supposed to start ignoring each other until year three at least."

"I didn't know we had a schedule," he wrapped his fingers in between those of her free hand. "How are we doing so far?"

"Well, we're only a few months from the wedding, but I think we might have gotten started on the honeymoon period a little soon," Rita let out a giggle entirely too young for a woman closer to fifty than twenty. "We'll have to slow down if we don't want to get sick of each other…"

"Oh, and how I could ever get sick of woman who likes my jokes?" He leaned in, "you're a rare kind of woman Rita Alvarsson."

"Rita Loud soon enough," she matched his movement, and gave him a gentle kiss. Nothing too intense, just a little something to bring happy butterflies into the stomach.

They broke the kiss and his little out a happy little laugh, "well Rita Whatever Your Name is; you're my kind of girl…"

They stayed there, content in the afternoon sun with bad coffee and good company. It was a comfortable silence, the sort that younger couples often tried to avoid because they were afraid of boring the other person.

But that's the advantage of experience, they'd long learned that being together didn't meant impressing the other person. More often than not, it was the little, repetitive things, letting other things go and living comfortably with one another that built a bond.

A shame a younger Rita couldn't have learnt that from a textbook.

Unfortunately, one of the little things that keep a good relationship alive is knowing that when you're an adult; you have to take care of your responsibilities or no one would take of it for you. And Rita needed to know where she stood if she wanted start living as part of Lynn's family.

"So, did you talk with Lori?"

Lynn stared into his coffee, maybe looking at himself, maybe just trying to escape the question. Either way he let the answer slip with a sigh; "it didn't go well."

Rita a took a sip of the bitter brew. "Did she not understand about Lincoln?"

"Oh no, she understood all right. She just really didn't like that we left her and the girls out of the loop about his… anxieties." Lynn's brow furrowed. "I can't say I blame her."

Rita blew on the coffee before answering. "Do you want to have that 'talk' with them together? I know we talked about it before but-"

"Moving in, getting Lincoln registered, time got away from us," Lynn finished for her. "I guess we just got caught up in everything. But if we're giving them the talk, how much are we going to tell them?"

"Just the basics," Rita affirmed with resolution. "Lincoln should be the one to tell them the specifics when he's ready."

"I think that should be fine, at least for most of them." Lynn nodded, but still looked worried.

"But Lori?" Rita guessed.

"She's fuming; she doesn't want to have anything to do with us at all at the moment." Lynn shook his head. "I told her a few things -no details- and she… well she didn't take it well."

"How bad was it?" Rita's lips tightened. "I can talk with her myself if you think it will help-"

"No. No, I think that would do the opposite of help," Lynn frowned. "Honestly... I think she feels like she was being ganged up on. And I don't want to say you did the wrong thing, but I think you came on a bit strong with her."

It was Rita's turn to frown, but she waited for Lynn to finish his thoughts. "I know she really upset Lincoln, but she didn't know about his thing about his hair, or anything other than him being a bit shy."

"I think it was a bit more than her not knowing about his hair," Rita countered. "You've seen the way she looks at him!"

"I know, but this time she really did just make a mistake," Lynn's tired eyes met hers. "She might take a while to warm up to him. She only has sisters, so she's never really lived with a boy in the house- apart from me obviously."

Rita swallowed some more coffee and girded herself "maybe it would be best if we went and had a one on one to hash things out between us."

"No, she's out now anyway," Lynn sighed again. "She stormed out after the talk we had and I'm not sure when she'll be back. It would probably be better to let her cool off, maybe wait until after we give the girls 'the talk' anyway."

Rita mulled it over, and reluctantly settled back into her chair. "That sounds reasonable, maybe I have been a bit unfair to her as well."

Lynn's brow unfurrowed a bit. "Thanks for seeing it that way."

"Hey," she nudged him again. "We're the adults here, if we don't act like it who will?"

Lincoln shivered in the boy's toilet; hair safely restuffed into his beanie. His underwear was a bit damp after his quick handwashing and pitiful drying attempt with the air blower, but it was better than having sauce in them.

But with that task done all he had left now was hiding in a stall and thinking about what had happened.

His secret was out and judging from how they'd laughed the school wasn't going to let him forget running off like that. Maybe they'd only been watching to see how hard the new kid would get it from the school's biggest bully, but now that they'd seen how he acted about his hair; every sadist in the school knew they had a target.

At least this school seamed cleaner than Hazeltucky, these bullies probably wouldn't-

"Hey Lincoln, are you in here?"

It was Clyde McBride again.

"If you're in here you need to come to class, the bell rang ages ago; we're nearly at last period!"

He was meant to be his guide, so he was probably responsible for making sure that he didn't get lost. If Lincoln didn't show up, he might get in trouble.

It wasn't fair on him, so Lincoln licked his lips called out, "I'm in here."

Or rather he tried, his voice was a bit warbly for some reason so it was more like a muffled "erm In'ere."

Either way Clyde heard him, and quickly came closer to Lincoln's stall. "Sorry about not warning you better about Ronnie Annie, she's kinda pushy about 'asserting herself'. More on us than anyone else because of Rusty."

" 's okay," he mumbled. "I've had worse, I just wasn't expecting it."

Clyde sounded unconvinced; "Are you sure? I mean looked pretty spooked back there, how come you-"

"I-I don't want to talk about it." He was embarrassed enough.

"Well okay," Clyde didn't sound like he was annoyed. "But are you ready to go to class? I think the teacher will understand if you need more time but I've gotta go tell her."

Lincoln swallowed. He should go and get the day over with, but he really didn't want to go back out there. There where the others would be laughing and pointing again. There'd be questions about his hair, and even if he answered them someone would probably try and steal his beanie and then pull out his hair to see if he'd dyed it-

"Lincoln?" Clyde asked.

Oh, he'd gotten lost in his own thoughts again.

"S-sure I'll come." He tried to steady himself. If he stayed in there then the jeers would get worse, at least if he went out now it would probably be mostly over in a few hours.

He fumbled with the lock, stepped out to see Clyde waiting across from his cubical. "Sorry for making you look."

"It's okay," the bother boy reassured him with a knowing tone. "Trust me when I say that no one besides our group knows better about what being on Ronnie Anne's bad side is like. But I wouldn't worry about being too embarrassed about getting a sloppy joe from Ronnie in front of the school, I can't say everyone gets one of those but sooner or later everyone gets 'it' from Ronnie Anne Santiago!"

Lincoln blinked; "b-but what about…"

He didn't finish.

Clyde waited for him to, and started to look a little uncomfortable.

"MY HAIR!" Lincoln blurted, shocking himself with the volume, which made Clyde wince. "S-sorry."

"It's okay, but what are you talking about?" Clyde shook his head. "What's wrong with your hair?"

Lincoln looked at him carefully but Clyde didn't seem to be teasing him. If anything, his expression bore as much confusion as Lincoln felt.

"It's the colour," Lincoln finally mumbled. "I-it's not normal."

"Hunh?" Clyde raised an eyebrow. "How come? There's lots of blond kids in Royal Woods Elementary."

"B-blond kids?"

"Yeah, like you; I can tell from your eyebrows." Clyde pointed at his own. "Weren't there other blonds at Hazeltucky? I thought I saw some on the football team at least-"

Lincoln's fingers went to his eyebrows; he couldn't really cover them anyway but most people just assumed their light colour was because they were thin and the rest of his hair was a darker shade of blond than his natural shocking white. Of course, Clyde would have assumed the same.

"B-but you saw the rest, didn't you?" He had to know. "When Ronnie Anne d-did it to me- my hair came out!"

"Your hair, it was kinda bright to be honest- it was blond right?" Clyde asked. "The sun was behind, and you rushed out so I didn't really get a good look though."

He didn't know.

Lincoln let out a sigh of relief as some of his anxiety left him, if Clyde couldn't see; then most of the school who were further away probably didn't either. They'd probably just laughed because he'd run away like a baby-

"But your hair looked pretty light at the front, there was a bit that was all sweaty at the front so I could see anyway." Clyde concluded.

Lincoln swallowed; Clyde has seen something; but he didn't really know. "Y-yeah I'm blond."

"Hmmm," Clyde thought aloud. "Well, I can't say anything about how Hazeltucky is like, I hear it's pretty rough though."

Lincoln nodded fervently.

"Yeah, that checks out," Clyde confirmed. "But Royal Woods is a pretty safe place if you ask me, Ronnie Anne and Chandler's crew aside of course, and there's a lot of blond kids around anyway. But there's something I've gotta point out, it's also not the most 'diverse' place in the country."

Lincoln looked at him in confusion, and growing discomfort.

"I promise I'm going somewhere this," Clyde reassured him. "Yeah, there's a lot of people of the… more 'minority' persuasion now but when I was younger, I was practically the only black kid in school.

I stuck out, a lot. It's not like there were a bunch of guys in bedsheets coming after me or anything, but when you're the only one that's different… well I didn't get invited to a lot of friend groups or anything like that is what I'm saying."

Lincoln nodded along, and Clyde continued, looking a bit uncomfortable himself despite his supposed confidence.

"The thing is though, I did make friends eventually; Rusty first, then Zach and Liam, and finally Stella just a few months ago." Clyde counted them off on his fingers. "It wasn't easy going at first, and we're all kind of different in what we like. But none of us really fit in anywhere else and we look out for each other.

So, if you're worried about sticking out, I guarantee that we'll help you fit in, even if it's just with us nerds." Clyde gave a slightly nervous smile. "Of course, I'm guessing you won't need to, Ronnie's done her hazing now and once the 'Loud kid' question is answered you'll probably be fine anyway, but the seat's open if you want it."

The white-blond boy took it in.

He hadn't had any real friends for a very long time, even before the incident, his fingers scrunched up in his beanie in remembrance as a memory of the few he'd lost came back. But Clyde and his friends didn't seem like them, from what he'd seen they were the kind of kids who were quickly eaten up and had to leave Hazeltucky because their parents moved them somewhere else.

From what he could tell, they were at the bottom of the school social pole. But he'd never been anywhere else anyway; and more importantly they actually seemed to like each other. Stella roasted Rusty a bit but they didn't have any real animosity, the others were the same.

They weren't just sticking together because they had no choice, because there were other gangs that would eat them alive if they broke apart. They were friends.

Friends he was being invited to join by their maybe leader.

He looked the other boy in the eyes, "thanks Clyde."

Clyde stepped back, "no problem, but we've got to get going if you want to get to art before it finishes-"

"Art!" His excitement suddenly bubbled up; the memories of that nice studio floated before him to banish any thoughts of Hazeltucky. "We're in art?"

The rest of the school day went well for Lincoln Alvarsson, Clyde McBride was shocked by how quickly the other boy switched from shy to nearly exuberant upon realising their class. The two made their way to the class quickly; Lincoln actually leading them from having scorched the studio's location into his memory.

Not even the art teacher's gentle scolding for their lateness or the less than-ideal placement at the back of the class could curb his enthusiasm for the simple pleasure of being able to work in a real studio, even if he was just sketching a vase.

He was vaguely are of some curious looks and whispered questions about his strange entrance, coupled with words about his exit from the cafeteria but while the pencil moved in his hand it was all background noise as it had been in Hazeltucky.

Finally, he was shaken from his near-trance by a light touch on his shoulder, he dropped his pencil with a little yelp and quickly looked to fin-

The strawberry blonde art teacher drawing her hand back, "sorry Lincoln, but I've been calling to you for a while now. Class is over, you can go home."

"O-oh, thanks for telling me." Lincoln flushed under his beanie. "Sorry for not listening."

"Well, that's quite alright," the teacher angled herself back a bit. "I have to say; that was a nice piece you had there. If the rest of the class put half the effort you did into their work… well I wouldn't need to be here I suppose."

"Thanks?" Lincoln glanced back, and his sketched vase was clear on the paper. By his own eye it was still far from finished but the basics were down, and with an afternoon or two it could have been show piece worthy like something from his artbook at the house.

If not for the nasty lead line running across the page from where he'd dropped his pencil of course.

"Don't feel too bad," the teacher assured him. "I can't tell you how many times something similar has happened to me, but if you can do that in an hour then you'll have no problem making something even better tomorrow."

"Oh," he felt a bit of pride pluck up under her praise. It wasn't necessarily new, he had awards for his stuff at home after all but it was always nice to hear. "Thanks, I did art at Hazeltucky too, but it wasn't as nice as here."

Her lips thinned a bit. "I can imagine- but I can promise that you'll be supported here. And as much as I would like to keep you here a bit longer, it seems your sister has come to pick you up."

Lincoln followed the teacher's pointing hand to see Luna out in the parking lot, her purple clad form suddenly waving at him without care for the numerous other students milling about. Lincoln nodded to the teacher in gratitude and quickly moved to fold his stuff up into his backpack.

"You did well in class today, keep at it Mr Loud and you'll be winning awards in no time."

Lincoln stopped for a moment, before throwing his backpack on. "My name is Alvarsson."

"Oh," the teacher sounded confused. "But I th-"

He went through the doors, cutting her off a bit rudely. Every bit of happy warmth had been chased away with one word, and as he made his way through the school doors the name Loud plagued the assorted student's babble. Their eyes were on him again, from what he could tell it was mostly whispers about him running away at lunch but they never used his name, or at least not right. It was usually 'Loud boy' or more rarely 'Lincoln Loud', never anything with his real name.

Clyde and his friends had already left from what could tell, he vaguely remembered something about his Dads not liking him to stay too long after school so he'd probably left while Lincoln was sketching. Lincoln didn't mind, he would become sort of deaf when he was drawing so if Clyde had tried to get his attention, he might have thought the Alvarsson boy was ignoring him anyway.

"Hey there little dude!" Luna waved him over, and the stares intensified. Flushing up to his ears Lincoln sidled up next to her, trying to appear as small as possible as it could help. Undeterred Luna started marching home, saying something about how boring it was at home without her younger siblings.

"Hmm," Leni thought aloud with a fingertip to her chin. "I know; blueberry!"

True to her word, the kind-hearted fashionista quickly fished out a little packet from the part of the fridge where she kept her smoothie ingredients. It was just half a shelf that the other girls swore not to touch, but those pesky mice sure hadn't! (Oh well, they probably have families to feed anyway).

Neatly popping the plastic packet open she dumped about half in, scooped in just a little more yogurt, popped on the cap of the blender and set it to go!

"Oh, this is totes going to be delish!" Leni squealed with excited hands.

"Well, I sure hope so," Rita remarked as she came into the kitchen. "You certainly worked hard on it"

"Oh, it's nothing," Leni waved her off. "I can make you one too if you like, I juuust need to-"

"Actually Leni, I just wanted to talk to you about what you were doing with Lincoln's door." Rita politely, but firmly shut her down.

"Oh..." Leni's smile slipped a bit.

"I'm not here to get you in trouble," Rita assured her. "I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, but I still want to hear why you tried to get into his room after Lincoln locked his door."

The smaller girl fretted a bit, "well Linky-

"Linky?" Rita raised an eyebrow.

"Linky's real name is totes hard to remember, so we gave him this cute one because he cute too, that way we don't get it wrong!" Leni assured her, still slightly nervous.

Rita looked over the girl, but deception quite frankly seemed beyond Leni so she let it go; an affectionate nickname was hardly going to hurt anyone. "I'm sure he'll appreciate it, but back to the story, please Leni."

"Ooh, right," Leni needed a moment, but found her place again; "Linky went to his room looking really upset and we just thought that maybe he… wanted some company?"

She smiled a wide shaky grin and visibly sweat bullets.

Rita sighed. "Leni? I think you were trying to help, but when Lincoln wants to be alone it's best to leave him be unless he comes to you. I only came in after he let me in, and sometimes even I have to accept that he needs to be alone."

"Oh…" the sweet girls' face fell. "I wasn't trying to make him feel bad, I just wanted to help!"

"I know," Rita opened her arms, and Leni let herself fall into the slightly awkward hug. "Lynn has told me all about you, and I think you'll be a great sister for Lincoln.

You just need to let him have his space."

"Okay," Leni sniffled, then laughed a bit. "How come you were talking to Lynn about me though? I thought Dad would bring me up waaay before she would."

Rita resisted the urge to roll her eyes and gently pulled the hug apart to meet Leni's eyes. "I think that either of them would tell me the same thing."

"Aww, they're too nice!" Leni blushed and giggled, before thinking for a moment again. "Should I apologise to Linky for trying to pick his door?"

Rita nodded. "Yes, but some other time, I think he'll be a bit tired today since it's his first day at school."

"Hmm, that makes sense," Leni nodded sagely. "He totes looks exhausted right now."

"Well, that's to be- what?" Rita whipped around and saw a glimpse of orange retreating up the stairs, still closing the door was a slightly less relaxed than usual Luna Loud.

Her demeanour dropped as she stopped Rita. "Sorry Ms A -Rita, I tried to pick him up a bit, but the little dude doesn't wanna talk. I don't think things went well at the school."

Rita felt disappointment reach up, before she stuffed it back down with the discipline of Albert Alvarsson's daughter. She sketched an understanding face on and reached forwards to pat Luna on the shoulder. "It's alright; sometimes these things happen. I'll talk to him later, why don't you and Leni have a smoothie after that long walk?"

"Oh yes! I can totes make you one for maximum rehydrisation!" Leni beamed, happy to help.

Luna looked over to the sweetheart sister, who nodded to the now still blender and considered it for a moment, "sure, I was talkin' for a while there. Could use a pick-me-up before helpin' Luan with show prep."

Rita nodded, and left the chatting sisters to follow her son's route up the stairs. She knocked on his door and waited. It took a moment longer than usual, but his door opened with a creak to reveal slightly rumpled form of her only child.

She didn't need to ask; within moments they were in the familiar position. Her sitting on his bed, his head in her lap and her gently rubbing his back. When he was younger, she would run her fingers through his hair.

As always, it was him who broke the silence. "It happened again."

"How?"

"A bully, a girl called Ronnie. Everything was fine until then, mostly. She came up to the table me and Clyde McBride were talking at and started asking questions, not bad ones but she came on really strong."

"What happened?"

He murmured a bit, but his voice strengthened as she stroked his back. "She didn't like how I talked to her, I didn't yell or anything but she thought I did so she pulled down my pants and shoved a burger in it in front of the school. T-then my beanie got loose."

Rita's hand faltered for a moment, but continued. Her son let the words flow. "It wasn't as bad as Hazeltucky, I think they saw it, but it wasn't for long because I ran away. I hid in the toilets until last period and Clyde found me."

She looked down at her son, "do you know if the rest of the kids know about your hair?"

"I don't know." Lincoln shuddered a bit. "Clyde thinks I'm just blond because of my eyebrows, maybe because the sun was behind me, they thought it was just because of that."

"So, the rest of the school might not know then." Rita didn't let any forced cheer into her voice, just a simple statement with a sight undertone of reassurance.

"… Maybe." Lincoln mumbled.

Rita's lips tightened. "You know, no one besides Lynn knows about your hair here, if you're worried then it's not too late-"

"I'm not dying it."

They stayed like that for a few minutes, then Lincoln twisted around so that his face was facing hers, still in her lap but looking upwards.

"Do I have give up my name?"

Rita was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"When you marry Lynn, you said you're taking his name. Do I have to lose mine too?"

She rested her hand on his chest. "Where is this coming from? Why are you asking now?"

"The kids at school think I'm a Loud. No one calls me by my name unless I keep telling them to." His big hazel eyes looked a bit watery. "But I'm not. I don't wanna be."

Rita ran her tongue on the back of her teeth, thinking carefully before speaking. "Did you feel like this before moving?"

A nod.

She sighed, "you're supposed to tell me these things Lincoln." Rita raised her other hand and stroked his cheek. "We planned to change the names at the wedding, there's a lot of paperwork we've done already.

For a lot of things, they're expecting you to go by Lincoln Loud in a few months."

She felt her son flinch.

"But," she quickly interjected. "If you don't want it, you don't have to change it. It would just be easier if we have the same name for government reasons. It makes things easier when we're living as a family, and our family is going to be part of the Louds now."

"But it's our name!" Lincoln blurted. "It's Pop-pop's name, it's my name! I-it's part of me, it's part of you too!

Why do you have to give it up?"

Rita thumbed his cheek. "I don't have to give anything up sweetheart. I'll always be Pop-pop's daughter, I'll always be your mother. But from now on I'm going to be Lynn's wife, I hope to be at least some of the girl's mother too.

For me, taking the name is just one more step to being those things. Maybe it can be for you too."

Lincoln's body tensed despite her movements. "Why?"

Rita licked her lips, "because from now you're going be part of the family too. You're going be their brother, Lynn's son. And they're going to be your sisters and Lynn will be… your dad."

Another flinch, but she continued. "If you let them, if you try too, they can be the family that I know you wanted back in Hazeltucky.

This isn't just for me, I see in Lynn a better man than the one who left us, and those girls are special. If you become their brother and I mean let them in and really become their brother I can tell that you'll make bonds that will last a lifetime."

She faltered, then rallied; "I don't know about Lori, I really don't, but the others seem willing to try. All we have to do is open ourselves up and try as well and together we can make this house a home for us all, not just a place to live in like the old house!"

Lincoln was listening, but despite her efforts his eyes had hardened. "I can do that without losing my name."

Rita looked down at him and felt rebuffed, but she thought about it from his position. She had made the decision without really talking to him, she'd talked to her father alright; many late night talks about where her relationship was going and if Lynn was who he seemed to be. How everything would work out, what they would do if things didn't.

But she hadn't even introduced Lincoln to Lynn or the girls before bringing him here.

All this time and change, and she hadn't properly asked him about how he really felt about changing his life this much.

"I'm sorry sweetheart," she sighed. "I guess I was just so caught up in everything that I forgot to ask you if you wanted this."

Lincoln's expression softened a bit. "Are you really going to change your name?"

"Yes." She meant every word about Lynn and his family. The lonely, dead-end existence of that Lincoln's 'father' had damned them to was over, that part of her life was the past. Rita Loud would signify the beginning of something new.

His lips twitched; "do I have to change mine?"

"No," she stroked his cheek again.

"Then I'm staying me." He affirmed. "I-I'll try to fit in Lynn's family, but I'm keeping my name."

Part of Rita wanted to object, to push the issue till he caved. That selfish girl who let a charming 'man' take her for a ride while her father desperately left warning on deaf ears, only to be left with a newborn and no prospects and surely everyone else was to blame.

But she'd grown up. She'd finally grown up years too late and now well past that moment of forced maturity she knew better than to pretend this little thing wasn't for her.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she leaned down and kissed his forehead, the boy squirming a bit despite himself. "I promise I'll talk to you about any more changes, but you have to speak up if you're not comfortable about something alright?"

The boy nodded, evidently at least slightly mollified.

As much as she would have liked to just stay there, letting themselves fall back into a comfortable understanding, there was a clock ticking. Rita had new responsibilities, and today one of them was picking up Lynn Jr from her after school practice so Lynn Sr could get an early start on dinner. So, she nudged her son up, just a bit and he pulled himself upwards to a sitting position.

"Do you have to go?"

"I need to pick up Lynn Jr," she admitted.

"Oh," there was no hiding the slight sour tone there. "How soon?"

She glanced at her watch, "five minutes at best or she'll have to wait."

The boy's fingers twitched, and he thought something over.

"Lincoln?"

He suddenly dived into his bag and pulled out a sheath of papers.

"My teacher gave me this."

Rita took the papers; it was a combination of a curriculum and make up homework with notes detailing that it was to be covered with Lisa's assistance.

"She said I have some stuff to work on before I can really do class on the same level as everyone else," Lincoln flushed in embarrassment. "I-It's because of Hazeltucky- not because I'm dumb or anything."

"That makes sense," Rita mused. "I know you're a clever boy Lincoln, I'm sure that with Lisa's help you'll catch up in no time."

"Okay," he nodded, and Rita let him take back the sheath. "B-but just to be sure, which one is Lisa?"

Rita held back a laugh. "Lisa is the four-year-old with glasses."

Lincoln was visibly confused. "… But the teacher wrot-"

"She's a child prodigy Lincoln, trust me I was very surprised as well," she assured him. "That bunker in the back yard is hers, and it's like something from a science fiction book. Even that Nobel Prize in the front is real!"

Lincoln's jaw dropped.

"Yes, that was my reaction as well." Rita laughed, so that's what I looked like, no wonder Lynn giggled. "But yes, you'll be fine dear-"

Her watch beeped.

"You need to go?" Lincoln asked, still a little sour.

"I need to go," she confirmed. "Why don't you ask Lisa for help while I'm out? I'm sure she'll be happy to... assist."

Or at the very least show off while helping the boy as a side benefit. The genius was everything she claimed, but if she wasn't as immature as her age suggested then Rita would eat her father's casserole without complaint.

"I guess I can do that," Lincoln acquiesced.

"You'll do fine dear," she gave his back one last pat, and then left for the door. "Don't feel intimidated, she's your sister now too you know!"

And like that she was gone.

Lincoln waited a minute, then threw the backpack to the ground and dropped under the bed covers.

He couldn't have his room; he had their old closet instead.

He couldn't keep his hair a secret, the other kids were going to find out; he could feel it.

He even had to share Mom with Lynn and his family and they each had ten other people already.

His insides were churning, the frustration of the day rising and the bed covers weren't helping.

He threw them off and reached under his bed for his drawing kit-

A click came from his door and he froze. A quick look revealed the door opening, his mom hadn't closed the lock properly. He scrambled back onto the bed, and the tall form of Lori Loud entered his room.

"So kid," she glanced down at him. "It sounds like we need to talk."

A/N: Thanks to Nuuo for Beta-Reading.