Three hours ago…
Lana had been biding her time, that's what Lynn and the others had advised her to do.
The best way to deliver such news was privately. When the other sisters we at Ryan's place. The only two left were on their side, and preoccupied. Luan, who was grounded, and Lisa, who had once more retreated into her room/laboratory, with her robot guarding the door as before.
That only left four family members, including herself. But as she soon found out while taking a peek into her parents' bedroom, careful not to make the door creak, her mother was sleeping in her bed, softly snoring. Well, she was supposed to tell dad first, mom might take the news badly…well, worse than dad undoubtably would, so maybe this was for the better. But where were dad and Pop-Pop?
After leaving her room, she went to the attic, where they were last seen, but they weren't there. Going back down, they weren't in the living room either. That only left one other place Lana could think of; the garage. It was close to dusk as she stepped out on the front porch and sure enough, she found the garage opened, the lights on. Tentatively, she headed towards it.
"There's bound to be something in here that will give us inspiration?" she heard Albert talking.
"Yeah, but moving this chest here without alerting Rita sure was a chore." Lynn Sr. replied, his tiredness apparent in his voice. "I don't want her to think I'm up to something again."
Lana raised an eyebrow. Up to something? What did he mean? That mom didn't trust him? Lynn had already implied that there was a lack of trust between them.
"It will be worth it, just keep searching. Oh, look at this?" Albert guffawed. "I gave you this ol' mug as a wedding gift? Wasn't cheap, I had to go fasting for the following month."
"Our wedding? That's it!" Lynn Sr. sounded excited as Lana walked closer to the garage and peeked in to find the two men rummaging through a chest.
"I ought to do something that will remind Rita of the day we tied the knot, for better or worse. Something that might reignite that old spark? Something that will get her mind off all stress she had to endure, something that will remind her of the good old days."
"Good old days?" Lana said under her breath, as she was getting more and more direct confirmation that her parents' relationship was indeed strained.
Albert pulled out a photo album and blew the dust off it. "Well, this might give us some ideas?" he said as he flipped through the pages.
As the two set down to gloss through it, Lana took a step back, unsure of how to proceed. How would her father take it? Would he be mad at her? Would he punish her too? The idea gave her second thoughts.
"No, you can't be selfish, you promised Lynn!" she told herself. But maybe she could listen in on them for a little bit longer?
"Oh, I completely forgot about the treehouse?" Albert laughed.
"Yeah, too bad we couldn't keep it from shattering into pieces once LJ learned how to kick things." Lynn shook his head and continued flipping the pages.
"We had a treehouse?" Lana thought. And from the sound of it, her sisters destroyed it before she could play in it even once?
"Yeah, if you want to build something here, you gotta be careful, or those crazy kids might demolish it in the blink of an eye." Albert sighed.
Lana cringed at that statement.
"Oh, look? Lincoln always had his pure white hair, I forgot? Even while in diapers?" Albert chuckled. "I remember you were over the moon when the doctor told you that sixth time was the charm and you finally had a son?"
"Yeah, I sure was. And to think that I thought that would be the end of it. Having six kids was already crazy."
Lana's brow furrowed, understanding the implication. Were they really such a burden on him?
"Guess the girls always had a penchant for…causing noise?" Albert noted as they looked up some more old photos. "Ah, I remember that? Luna was only five when she figured out that pots make for great drums?"
"And that's Lori? Look at how tiny she was, and yet she had an impressive set of pipes?" Lynn chuckled awkwardly.
"Oh, I remember that. Rita used to complain all the time that no matter what you did, she would never stop crying."
Lana saw her father flip a few more pages until his features softened and a nostalgic glint was evident in his eyes.
"Ah, the happiest day in my life? Look at me…both of us?" he let out a somber chuckle.
"I know, you had a full head of hair!" Albert joked. Lynn let that one slide.
"So carefree, so full of life? We thought we could take on the world? I certainly did. It took me a while to muster up the courage to pop the question, even more to scrape together the money for a wedding ring, but after that? I don't remember the last time I was so ecstatic and sure of myself? I had no idea what was in store for us."
"Yeah, neither of you had the faintest clue what it meant to be an adult or a parent. But that's not something you can know by instinct, Lynn. It's something you must learn with experience." Albert said with similar somber nostalgia.
Lynn's smile faltered and was replaced by a familiar look of regret as he exhaled. "But now I need to fix it. After all, I proposed to her. I knocked her up more times than any husband should be allowed to. I dragged her into this mess. I have to make things right."
"That's what we are doing, Lynn. I told you, this isn't the time to be blaming yourself. Wasting time on that never helped anyone, you need to do it while you still can." His father-in-law said sagely.
Lana took a step back as tears swelled up in her eyes. She had trusted Lynn's word but now she had been given direct confirmation from the man himself, her father. But her grandfather's words echoed back in her mind, which matched what Lincoln and Lynn had been telling her. She couldn't wallow in self-pity, she had to act.
Shaking her head, she tried to regain focus and heard her father sniff as he wiped away a tear.
"Gosh, just look at us? It's been so long? How long has it been? Eighteen years?"
"Nineteen, there's the date." Albert pointed at the bottom corner of the picture and Lynn looked at it. A weak smile tugged his lips until he glanced at the date again, upon which a look of horror crossed his features.
"Oh, my god? The date?!" Lynn suddenly panicked, clutching the album in his trembling hands.
"Lynn? What's the matter-"
"Just look!" Lynn gave him the album and Albert squinted, and was promptly dumbstruck.
"Dad!" Lana called for him, not wanting to barge in unannounced.
"Lana?" Lynn blurted, while Albert's face fell while looking at the picture.
"Dad, I need to tell ya something?" Lana tentatively walked in, diverting Albert's attention back to her.
"Lana?" Lynn stammered, visibly unnerved. "I…can't this wait until another time?"
The little girl looked at him with a regretful expression. She didn't want to cause him further grief by bothering him but she had to tell him what she knew. There was no time for sitting on it.
"But I really need to tell you something? Something bad and something important." She looked down with shame.
Lynn noticed her discomfort but didn't know what to make of it. He had too many things racing through his mind at the moment until he felt Albert grab his shoulder.
"Lynn, I think you should hear her out. I have a hunch this is important." Albert told him, knowing that Lana had picked the worst possible moment to break the news.
He prepared himself to catch his son-in-law when he inevitably fainted.
Trying to collect himself, Lynn heeded Albert's suggestion. After all, he had to set a better example to his children, and hearing them out was part of it.
"Okay, sweetie…shot." He told Lana. "Whatever it is, just make it quick…I have some things to take care of."
Lana looked aside and rubbed her neck, having no idea how to break this to him.
"The girls were doing something…something bad and something they didn't want you and mom to know about?"
"Oh, no…" That alone gave Lynn cause for concern. He just hoped that whatever trouble they had caused wasn't too severe.
"Something bad?" his brow furrowed. "Lana, what are you talking about? What did they do?"
Lana braced herself. It was now or never. Glancing at her grandfather, he offered her a supportive smile and nod.
"Well, they haven't done nothing yet…but…you see…"
Meanwhile, Mr. Grouse had just taken out his supper from the oven. With his accident during grocery shopping today, he had few options for supper tonight, but fortunately, he had found the necessary ingredients to make the perfect lasagna.
Taking a whiff, he smiled as he walked over to the table. "Come here, delicious-"
"WHAAATT?!" he heard his neighbor cry out and dropped the plate, splattering the lasagna across the floor, which he had just vacuumed this morning.
Fuming, he screamed, "LOOOOOUUUUUUUDDD!"
To be continued…
Bet you weren't expecting the fic to end here. Neither did I, since that was not the original intention. But after thinking about it for a while (partially due to a very severe case of writer's block that wouldn't go away for months) I thought it would be better to end this particular fic here. As you may have gathered, there was a lot more to come and that will come eventually, but in the form of a sequel fic!
Why? Simple. "Second Chance" was the first serious fic I have worked on (aside from the prior, amateurish LH garbage I have since deleted and which I have been trying to fix with this in-universe reboot) and after nearly four years of working on it, and honing in my skills on side-projects-turned-major-projects (my SpongeBob Squarepants and All Hail King Julien fics, which are based on shows I'm actually passionate about XD), I do believe I have significantly improved as a writer and while I'm overall happy with how this fic turned out, as with any writer looking back at their old work, there's certainly plenty of stuff I would have done differently in hindsight, and the thing I regret the most is just how freaking lengthy every chapter wound up being, making this fic much, much longer and much wordier than I intended it to be, especially since it was meant to be a fun romp and not some introspective drama. But working on my other fics, I have gotten better at pacing and simply compressing my stories into a neater and simpler format, unlike with this fic, where each individual entry essentially contains three to four chapters worth of story. It was never intended for this to be some kind of doorstopper fic, which you can glean from the short timespan in-story, but due to inexperience, I started making each chapter longer and longer and after a while, I became a slave to the format, despite growing more and more aware about this misstep of mine. Which itself brought a whole plethora of other issues I had to deal with, like struggling to remember all the continuity and keep every single plot and subplot into perspective (like Ryan thinking Leni was faking her stupidity, which went nowhere XD).
But of course, I couldn't change the format halfway into the story, and especially not now when I'm heading toward the homestretch, so after some mulling, I figured the best way to continue on without having to continue posting 10,000-15,000 word chapters would be to end this fic here and now, with the race against the clock being effectively over, and continue my story with a sequel fic. Leave behind the mistakes of the past and start anew with more experience (without having to resort to another reboot, thankfully).
By "sequel fic" I of course mean immediate sequel, starting off right where this one left off, with this stinger introducing a new source of conflict. Spoiler alert, Lynn Sr. and Rita's anniversary happens to be on the same day "the incident" took place, talk about rubbing salt in the wound XD, and that will be the catalyst for the next story (a.k.a, the original continuation and final arc of this fic). So if you've enjoyed this fic, don't worry, the story will continue, and will try my best with the experience I have gathered these last four years to continue writing for my LH series but in a neater, more focused, and less time-consuming format.
