Chapter seventeen. Please keep in mind what I said about reviews in chapter sixteen. I'm writing this chapter directly after the last, but the final chapter probably won't come out for another week or two.

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The house felt too quiet. Though she guessed it wasn't actually that quiet. The house still creaked in the wind. She could hear the appliances humming, and water running through the pipes. It was just that she was used to the house being much louder.

Lucy couldn't say she disliked the change of pace, but it put her ill at ease. Not that it was quiet really… Just the reason it was. With everyone out of the house on various trips. The trips were, again, not the issue. When people thought they were alone they talked, so Lucy had heard from a few of her siblings that Luan was the one paying for the trips. Not all of them. Lisa just had to go to the dentist and needed Lori to drive her there. The twins, Leni and Luna, and Lynn though… She didn't like it.

She rocked on her feet, doing her best not to make a noise. Trouble was coming. She could feel it. Electric anxiety sparked through her nerves, leaving her on high alert. Jumpy. As jumpy as she got anyway.

She kept herself under control though. A mixture of tranquil appreciation, and caustic bile keeping her in check. Because despite all Luan's planning, she'd forgotten about Lucy. Lucy was still here to help her precious brother. Luan was planning something, but Lucy was here to stop it… Lucy was here to spill Luan's putrid brains all over the carpet.

Looking at Lincoln as he lay in his bed, reading comic books as casually as he could while fully clothed. She stood blanketed in shadows beside the frame of the door, positioned so that the door would block anyone coming in from seeing her. She knew he'd rather be wearing the bare minimum, and she'd prefer it too, but he'd told her he wanted to be ready. Not stripping down completely would tip Luan off that something was wrong, but it was better to be suspicious than to be caught unprepared. Besides, if Luan wasn't on to them already, Lucy would be shocked.

She waited, because something would happen tonight. Luan wouldn't pass up an opportunity like this, so Lucy waited, and listened. With her eyes closed, to pick up the slightest sound, she was rewarded by the heavier than normal steps of someone moving towards Lincoln's room. Luan was almost stomping. She wasn't quite, but Lucy imagined that was only so she could look and feel like she was more in control. As if she could ever overcome Lincoln. She wasn't good enough.

The door swung open sharply. Jerking to a stop before it could hit Lucy, and Lincoln casually looked up from his comic.

"Hey Luan." He gave an absent wave. "You need something?"

For the longest time Luan didn't say anything. Simply standing in the door silently, while Lincoln pretended to go back to reading. Lucy could see his eyes occasionally flicker up to look at her without turning his head. The quiet dragged until-

"Come with me." Luan's tone lit a spark of contempt in Lucy's heart, as it demanded no argument.

A spark. The beginnings of an inferno. A stinging pain in the center of her being, that could grow stronger with a generous application of unadulterated disgust and hatred. How dare she. Lucy's chest tightened, her slight breath becoming more labored.

"Sure. I've got nothing better to do right now."

And her treasured Lincoln got out of bed to follow Luan into the hall. Lucy forcing her rooted feet to move, and slipping out unseen after them. She dwelled in the open frames of the other rooms on the way, keeping out of Luan's gaze when she turned back to regard Lincoln and held the door to her room open to him, stepping in after his passing. She left the door ajar, letting Lucy peak through the crack to see that Lincoln had settled down on the far side of the room, leaving Luan's back to the portal. Lucy's eyes swept to Luan's unprotected throat, before she wrenched her gaze away and settled in to watch.

It was tempting, but she couldn't risk missing anything important. She wouldn't fail Lincoln again.

"Well, "Luan began stiffly. "I want to say that I saw this coming, but I honestly didn't. So good job catching me off guard." She walked to stand beside her desk. "You're smarter than I thought." Breathing in deeply, she pressed a few buttons to boot up her computer. "If only you were even smarter than that, and you wouldn't have betrayed me in the first place; because Lincoln… That. Wasn't. Smart."

Ruinous darkness reverberated through the core of Lucy's being. Echo's of hatred that scraped along the walls of her throat as she took labored breaths.

"I'm… Sorry?" Lincoln sounded honestly confused. "What are we talking about?"

"Don't play dumb with me," Luan ground out. "As much as it suits you." She tapped a few more buttons on her computer, bringing up a video sharing site.

The blackness spread, curling through her. Seeping into her blood. Poison.

"I mean… Ow" Lincoln's face faltered. "But seriously?"

"Stop."

"I don't know how to react to this. I actually have no idea what you're talking about."

"My FILES! You deleted my files." Luan shouted at the start, before regaining a semblance of control.

Her bones ached. Her muscles trembled. A psychic hand begged to lash out, wrapping a vice grip around her thoughts, until only one rose to the surface. Kill her.

"I… What files?"

Kill her.

"I said stop it." Snarled through clenched teeth.

Kill her. Kill her.

"Are you okay? I-I Actually don't know what's going on. J-just tell me, and we can work through it."

Kill her. KILL HER.

"FUCKING STOP!" Luan roared.

Kill her. KILL HER. KILL HER.

Lincoln stood still. His mouth open, but no sound coming out.

"FUCK IT!" Luan turned to her computer and brought up a certain screen. "You didn't think I didn't have back ups did you?!" She wrenched a flash drive from her pocket, waving it in front of Lincoln, even as her other hand hovered over the mouse. "You're mine now. You were never anything else. Stop fighting me or a video of you and Lori will be uploaded to the internet. It's already started, and if you try to get passed me I'll stop you until it finishes. You have no choice. So I'll give you five seconds to agree. Five. Four. Thr-"

"LUCY!"

She moved. Hatred screaming in her brain, drowning out everything except Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. KILL HER. KILL HER!

Luan's own startled scream sounded muffled in her ears, as she drove the older girl to the ground, and wrapped her hands around her throat.

KILL HER. KILL HER. KILL HER. KILL HER!

Her muscles burned, her tendons stretched, her bones felt like they were breaking. Acid filled her lungs.

KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER!

Luan struggled and flailed beneath her. The putrid girl batting at Lucy's face and body, trying to get her off. A well aimed blow crushing the cartilage in Lucy's nose and spraying blood, but Lucy didn't feel it.

KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER!

Lucy felt something give under her hands, and felt a visceral satisfaction as the other girls struggling got weaker.

KILL HER! KILL HE-

"Lucy stop!" A sudden clarity rushed into her thoughts as her beloved pulled her off her sister. "What did you do?"

She looked down at Luan, laying motionless on the ground. Her eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling, as an angry hand shaped bruise formed on her throat. And Lucy felt a sudden shame in herself for breaking her promise to herself at the start. She'd failed Lincoln again… Though, try as she might, she couldn't regret the result.

I bet that shocked some people. Based on the reviews I've been getting anyway. I had that planned from the beginning of the story though.

Lisa fidgeted in her seat as the family van pulled up to the house. Normally she wouldn't consider a gut feeling to have much validity, generally putting more credibility in cogency herself, but she couldn't shake the impression that something was wrong. A gut feeling was, after all, merely the result of the subconscious mind interpreting data without overlook from a more rational source. Sometimes though, the subconscious picked up on details that might have been otherwise missed.

With quick and efficient movements she unbuckled her seat belt, swung open the sliding door and started for the front of the house; leaving Lori to park and turn off the car.

"Where are you going?" Her eldest sibling called to her from the rolled down side window, a note of worry present in her tone.

"Something came up!" She glanced at her sister over her shoulder, as she marched up the porch steps. "I don't want to talk about it until I know what's happening for sure."

She'd received a simple text from her brother earlier. It was vague, yet somehow alarming. Simply reading "Something's happened. We need you to come home." Not a problem, in and of itself. She was always willing to help a family member in need, but she'd received the message hours ago. That was the problem. If this was a case of legitimate need, rather than panicked desire, the situation could have gone from bad to worse in the time she and Lori had spend stuck on the side of the road, waiting for a pick up truck to come and take the broken down van to a mechanics.

She flipped her own phone from her pocket and typed out a quick reply, "I'm here." Before entering the house, throwing off her coat, and starting for the stairs.

Her phone buzzed again. "We're in your room."

She could only think of one possible cause to this issue; the initiation of Lincoln's plan of attack. It was plausible that she was incorrect. Despite her recent, but frequent, camera aided observations of her family, she did not know everything that was occurring in their lives. Still… The house was oddly silent, and she couldn't help but wonder why that was.

She reached the top, hearing the front door open and close as Lori entered the house, and rounded the corner. Walking as briskly as she was able without running, or tripping. Coming to her room, and entering to see Lincoln and Lucy looking at her. She supposed that explained who Lincoln met by "we" in his text. His expression was stoney.

"What happened?"

In lieu of a verbal response, he waved her over to a large cooler she kept in one corner of the room, for the purposes of preserving samples, and opened the lid.

Lisa breathed in sharply, even as the air caught in her throat. Luan lay inside. Blue lipped and vacant eyed.

"What happened?" She directed him to pull the body from the cooler, and covered it with a sheet. At his questioning look. "I don't have the facilities to help her here, we're going to have to take her to my bunker, and Lori is downstairs."

Eyes widening, he nodded, and began his explanation. Telling her everything that had transpired in the time she was gone, even as he followed behind her.

"Hey Link, what'cha got there?" Lori peered from the kitchen, preparing a bowl of cereal for herself.

"This is the situation I was talking about earlier." Lisa answered for him, as she somewhat suspected that he wasn't in any condition for small talk. "Lincoln's been helping me with an experiment, and something went wrong while we were gone, but I don't have the needed equipment to deal with it in my room." So saying, she and Lincoln never stopped moving.

"Is it dangerous?"

"I can honestly say that it's of no danger to you."

"Okay. I'll be waiting in my room when you get back Lincoln. We can literally watch a movie together."

They exited onto the lawn and quickly entered her bunker. Lisa directing Lincoln to set the body on a medical table. She pulled over a few scanners, and various medical devices. Taking some readings for a preliminary diagnosis.

"Can you help her?" She looked up at her brother, his face hopeful and pleading.

She opened her mouth, but hesitated.

"Yes." She lied. "But I need absolute concentration for this, so you have to leave, and she's going to suffer from some minor brain damage no matter what. I'll have to put her on a medication plan to fix it."

Lincoln breathed out an audible sigh of relief, his expression relaxing, as a weary smile quirked the corners of the his lips.

"Alright, okay well, I'll leave you to it than."

"Make sure to close the hatch firmly on your way out!" Lisa called after him as she left. "We can't have any risk of outside contamination, or there might be some complications in her recovery!"

"Alright!"

And he was gone.

Lisa didn't immediately get to work on her sister… Or more accurately, the corpse of her sister. There was no saving her, she was already dead. She'd just lied to save Lincoln the grief.

Things weren't as bad as they could have been though. She'd been preparing for months for something similar to this possibility that someone may die for their involvement heavy in her mind. And honestly, this wasn't as bad as it could have been. Not to sound cold hearted, but if one of her family had to die, she'd prefer it was Luan. To be fair to the former comedian, it wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. One often couldn't help brain abnormalities. Still… It didn't fix the damage she'd done.

She Had been preparing for this though, and this gave her a unique opportunity. An opportunity to fix a previously unfixable problem. Lincoln had guessed shockingly close to the mark when she'd explained her project to him before. A clone of Luan, but with a stronger sense of empathy. Remove her psychosis. One would think that she just wouldn't be the same person at that point, and they'd be partially correct. However, by copying as much data as was possible from the brain of her old body, she could hopefully create a Better version of her sister.

At that point she'd just have to explain the change in Luan's behavior to the rest of the family, but she already had that covered with the pills and the brain damage.

Now she just had to get as much data as she could from the corpse, dispose of it, and imprint the data of the mind of the clone.

"Damn…" She'd left the clone up in her room.

I finished two sections in a day! Woooo… Normally I only finish one.

She… She wasn't sure she wanted to be here. She had things to thing about, and they weren't made any easier by Leni's presence beside her, but Luan said she needed the house for something. Even if Luna's life was currently a disorganized mess, she was always willing to help Luan.

She a Leni walked… Somewhere… She wasn't really paying attention. It was all too much. Everything was too much. She wanted to hide under the covers and never come out. She wanted to get to work on steeling Lincoln away from Lori, but she'd never do that to her. She wanted to cry in the bathroom for a week. How were you supposed to separate the discordant noise of a thousand bands playing at once into something sane and recognizable?

"Hey you love Lincoln too right?" Leni's question cut through the racket like a beat drop.

"What? No. I mean yes. I mean, bloody hell… Yes, I love him. He's the best brother I could have asked for." She struggled to say something that made sense.

"But you also love him in the special way too right?" Leni gazed at her with a tilted head.

"Special way?"… Uh… Ah… H-how was Luna supposed to answer this?

If she didn't know the details of Leni's relationship with their brother… She still might have lied? If only not to give Leni any ideas about looking for that kind of relationship with Lincoln, but she also wouldn't have known what Leni was talking about when she said "Special". She did know about it though.

Was Leni? Would she get offended, or angry, if Luna admitted to it?

"Like you want to kiss him and taste his mouth until your head gets all fuzzy, and dizzy, and floaty. And you want to hold hands with him and cuddle, and touch his skin with your hands."

Luna felt her mouth working, even as no words came out.

"…No…?" It came out as more of a whine than a definite answer.

"Don't lie to me. That's not nice." Leni apparently wasn't fooled anyway.

"Yes?" She tried again.

"Do you want to join in with Lori, Lincoln, and me?"

"Yes." She said too quickly, her eyes widening. "I mean no. I mean… Yes? I mean… Bloody… What?"

That was a short section. It didn't really need to be longer though. Leni wouldn't have dragged that out any longer than she needed to.

There was literally too much to think about in the last few days. Lincoln, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lisa…

Lisa apparently saved Luan's life or something. Lori didn't know all the details, but she'd been told, along with everyone else, that Luan had been injured when everyone was gone the other day. She'd fallen down the stairs and hit her head pretty hard against something while only she, Lucy, and Lincoln were home. The two had contacted Lisa for help, Lincoln was literally carrying Luan's unconscious body under the sheet that day. They'd lied to her because they didn't want to upset her.

It was… Lori didn't know how to feel. She didn't want to ever see her family hurt, no matter what they did to her, but Luan had started acting differently in the last few days. She was still a comedian at heart, but… She was nicer…

There was an explanation for that too, apparently. Lisa said that Luan suffered from some minor brain damage from her fall, and had to take some pills to help fix it. They'd driven Luan to the hospital for a second opinion, of course. As good as Lisa was, nobody wanted to take the chance that she may have missed something. The hospital gave Luan a mostly clean bill of health though. She seamed fine, other than a medium level of memory loss. She had spots and patches where she just couldn't recall anything at all. It was pretty worrying, but Lori tried not to think about it too much. There literally wasn't anything she could do.

Luan was acting nicer though. Lisa said that Luan had a previously undiagnosed birth defect, in her brain, that made it harder for Luan to connect to others emotionally. The pills were also supposed to fix that. Their effect was shockingly immediate.

So… Lori literally had no idea how to feel. On one hand her sister was hurt, and that wasn't good. On the other hand, she came out the other side healthier than she was before… So… Was it a good thing that she'd been injured in the first place? She refused to think that her family getting hurt was ever a good thing, but she couldn't deny the improvements… It was tough.

She sat on the edge of her bed and lay back. Her crossed arms working as a pillow under her head, as she stared at the ceiling.

Luna had been acting a little out of it in the last week. Like she wasn't all there, and Lori couldn't figure out why. She had a hope that Luna had some kind of emotional breakthrough with her relationship with Leni. Leni liked spending time with her, Lori could tell. Not to mention that Leni called all the times she'd spent with Luna dates, which was encouraging. Lori wasn't as good at making plans as Lincoln was, but maybe she was getting better. Or if not, maybe her plan just worked this time?

Luna seemed almost eager to go out with Leni too… It was… Well, Lori would probably miss having Leni around so much. if only a little. She'd sort of gotten used to it. Still, it would be better to literally have her two younger sisters out of her hair. It would be better to have Lincoln all to herself.

The door to her room flew open and Leni happily skipped in. Jumping and face planting in her own bed. The springs bouncing her in the air a little bit, as joyful giggles escaped her.

"Hey Leni." She nodded to her sister.

"Hi Lori." Her giggly sister gathered the white bear, she'd won from the claw game, into her arms and smothered it in snuggles.

Yeah… It would be nice when she could have Lincoln all to herself.

"How are things going with Luna?" She wasn't the best at making plans, but she was learning from the best… Or not, actually. She got to See the best in action a lot though. Would Lincoln actually teach her if she asked? Yeah, of course he would. He was the best boyfriend she could ask for. Her thoughts were getting off track though.

She wasn't the best at making plans, but she knew from watching that it was always better to check in every once in a while to make sure your plans were keeping on the rails.

"They're totes the best!" Leni rolled around onto her side and sat up to face Lori, bouncing in place energetically. "She's been letting me help her pick out new outfits to wear."

Huh, that explained the rockstars recent change in style. Not that she'd changed completely. Her new one being pretty close to her old one, but she seemed to have gotten more variety in her wardrobe. Lori approved. You should always strive to look your best, and dressing the same way got boring after a while.

"Oh yeah, I was some of that. She was wearing a blue and purple flame shirt the other day." She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. "It was literally the best thing I've seen her wear in forever."

"Mmhmm!" Leni nodded, bobbing her head in enthusiastic agreement. "It's really fun to talk to her, and we go to so many totally amazing places!" Lori was pretty sure Leni didn't take a breath through any of that. She was talking so excitedly. "Dating her is amazing."

Okay. Lori didn't know what to look for when figuring out if her plans were working, still being pretty new to this and all, but that sounded good. She should still make sure though.

"And Luna knows that you two are dating?" She figured it would be better to ask than to find out later that Luna didn't even know Leni thought they were dating. That could break Leni's heart.

"Yeah…" Leni tilted her head in thought. "She didn't know at first, I don't think." her pointer finger rose to poke herself in her downward facing cheek. "She asked me a bunch of questions about what dating was, and I don't know why, but I think she agreed with me when I told her."

That might explain why Luna was acting so out of it. She just found out that Leni thought they were dating, and she was literally still processing it… Lori didn't know what to do now… It, she wasn't a master planner. Maybe she should ask Lincoln for help? He'd know what to do.

"Ok good…" She paused for a second, searching for her next words. "Is dating Luna good?"

"It's totes the best!" Leni perked up.

"Better… Better than dating me and Lincoln." Please say yes, please say yes.

"Hmm…" Leni pursed her lips. "No. Dating you and Lincoln is still better I think." Crap… "But that's okay because now we can all date each other, so I don't have to choose." Uh…

"Why?… Can we all date each other now?" Something was happening. Something inside Leni's head, that could… Lori didn't know, but it sounded confusing. Like something that could mess up her plan.

"Oh! I didn't tell you yet." Leni brightened, grinning widely. "I invited Luna to join us!"

"What? Why?!" Lori's eyes were as wide as they could literally be. She could feel the AC blowing air across the surface and drying them out. She had to blink a few times very quickly to get them wet again.

"Lori…" Leni gave her a disapproving frown. "I'm not dumb Lori. Luna totes loves Linky. You know that. That's why you pushed me to start dating her, so that I'd see it too, and invite her."

"I… I did?" What!?

"Mmhmm!" Leni nodded. "I was always better at talking to people than you."

WHAT!?

This chapter took a lot of preplanning to do.

"And I just…" Lori sighed. "I don't know what to do." She walked side by side with Lucy, on a trip to the park and back, while she told her younger sister about everything that happened. She found herself unconsciously slowing down as they neared the house again, because she didn't want to go back in. She didn't want to be forced to deal with everything before she knew how. She was lost. "You know Lincoln makes it look so easy. Sure his plans fail too, but he always has like literally fifty back ups, that he can fall back on."

"Yeah…" Lucy murmured, nodding encouragingly.

"Literally, what am I supposed to do?!" She shouted, before calming down again. "It would be one thing if Leni wasn't involved, because I would just tell Luna no. It would be one thing if I Wasn't the One to Come Up with the plan." She pressed her face into her palms. "It's another thing entirely that it's only Because of me that this is even happening in the first place."

"I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"I don't Want you to say anything!" She shouted again, dropping her head. "That… That came out wrong. I'm sorry for shouting. I don't want you to just say whatever you think will make me feel better. I want actual advice here."

"Okay, well." Lucy took her hand and guided her down to sitting on the curb as they arrived back in front of their house. "Do you hate the situation?"

"I… I literally don't even know. I mean, I want Lincoln. I want to hold him and love him, and I don't want to share him if I don't have to, but I also want my sisters to be happy, and I like spending time with them too, and if They want him also… I don't know."

"Would you be willing to share?"

She didn't say anything for a long time, searching for the right words.

"Maybe? I don't want to, but if it was the only way to make sure everyone was happy?"

"Sigh…" Lucy's said, even as she actually sighed. "I can't tell you what you should do, but I think I can tell you some things about Lincoln that might make your decision easier."

"Okay… I'll take anything at this point."

"Lincoln…" She seemed to struggle for words for a second. "Lincoln falls in love easily, but he also just cares a lot normally. When he first started dating you, or trying to get you to date him, he wasn't in love with you, I don't think." Lori felt herself suck in a breath in anticipation for some kind of devastating emotional blow. "I think he just saw that you were hurting because Bobby left you, and decided that the best way to help you heal would be to step into the space Bobby left behind. Instead of a gaping wound, where there was something before, there would just be something different. He's definitely in love with you now, so don't worry." And the breath was let out in a sigh of relief, as the blow never came. "But you're not his first love. You're just the one who first returned his feelings. Before you, Luna was his first. He still does love her, he's just faithful to you. He loves Leni now too… So…"

"That literally doesn't help at all."

"Yeah, well. I didn't make any promises." Lucy sighed again.

"Thanks though… I have a lot to think about."

"Bye…" Lucy breathed. Getting up and walking back into the house.

Lori was left on the curb, thinking about everything. Confusing thoughts swirling around in her head. Then she heard the front door to the house open and close behind her, and footsteps approach, and she sighed. She didn't want to deal with anything right now.

"Hey… Lori?" She tilted her head back to see Luan standing awkwardly behind her.

"Yeah?"

"I… I know this doesn't make up for everything that I did…" She grasped the elbow of her left arm with her right hand, looking away in shame. "I can't remember a lot of it, but I want you to know that I'm sorry for everything I did to you and Lincoln."

"It's okay Luan." She sighed explosively. "It's certainly not the worst thing that's been done to me…" She didn't know whether or not she wanted Luan to hear the last part, but she whispered it anyway.

"Do you… Do you want me to go?"

"Yeah…" She paused, before adding. "I forgive you, don't worry, I just have a lot on my mind right now, and I need some time alone to think."

"Alright well, I'll see you later than."

"Bye."

And she turned back to staring out over the street, thinking heavy thoughts, as she listened to Luan's soft footsteps get further and further away.

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There's only one more chapter after this, and it's going to be comparatively short.