Chapter 5
Lynn Sr. and Rita were sitting at the dining room table, going through bills and other mail while discussing what had happened with Lincoln between themselves. They both heard someone in front of them clear their throat. They looked up into the scowling faces of their three eldest daughters.
"Mom, Dad, we need to talk about Lincoln," Lori said firmly, Leni and Luna standing to either side of her and nodding in agreement. Rita scoffed.
"No, we don't. He got in trouble, so we grounded him. End of story," she replied, equally firmly.
"The twins and Lucy told us what happened," said Luna. "Why is Lincoln in trouble for saving another student's life?"
"He's not. He's in trouble for fighting another student and sending him to the hospital," said Lynn Sr.
"So? He saved a girl's life in the process. Linky's a hero," Leni stressed, her growing anger uncharacteristic of someone normally known for spreading tooth rot with her sweetness. Before either of her parents could respond, the oven timer went off.
"Look, let's talk about this later. KIDS! DINNER!" Lynn Sr. shouted. One by one, the Loud children came downstairs and took their seats at the dinner table, Lincoln trailing behind the rest with a grumpy frown. His mood instantly improved when Luna placed a plate of that night's meal in front of him.
"Oh, boy! Lasagna!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together eagerly. He picked up a fork to dig in, but before he could even touch the fork to the food, his mother swooped in and yanked the plate away, replacing it with a bowl of dry Corn Flakes. Flabbergasted, he tried to reach for his stolen plate, only to receive a hard slap on the jaw.
"You're still in trouble, mister! No lasagna for you!" Rita scolded.
"Hey! How come we all get lasagna and Lincoln doesn't?" demanded Lana.
"Yeah, that's not fair!" added her twin.
"Now that I think about it, you and Dad have been spoiling us girls lately while Lincoln is left with either the sloppy seconds, or nothing at all," Lucy noted in her monotone. "Care to explain that?"
"Sweetie, Lincoln gets different treatment because he's a boy," Rita tried to explain.
"So, by your reasoning, Mother, because Lincoln, quote, is a boy, you deem it fair to deny him the affection he has undoubtedly been craving the past several weeks?" Lisa asked. "The affection you and Father have been showering on the rest of us in excess? Have you no love for our brother anymore?" Both parents thought about it for a few moments while the girls and Lincoln stared at them in silence.
"Well, when you put it that way...no, we don't love Lincoln anymore," Lynn Sr. finally answered, and the girls gasped.
"Well, you should! You're the ones who bloody ADOPTED HIM!" Luna screamed in anger. When everyone fell silent again, she realized what she said and clapped a hand over her mouth. Lincoln stood up, looking at his feet.
"Luna...what do you mean by adopted?" he asked slowly. It was Lisa who answered him.
"Pardon me, elder male sibling. I planned to find a...gentler way to inform you of this but...the results of your DNA test were made known earlier this afternoon. It calculated zero percent biological relation between you and any of us. I'm sorry you had to find out like this."
For a long time, Lincoln was silent as he digested Lisa's words. Then his form started to tremble, and the house lights started to flicker.
"You...you told me that I was born in a limousine...that I was delivered by the First Lady..." he said softly, the others barely able to hear him. "You told me that I was a Loud...that I was your son...you...you LIED TO ME!" he screamed at his parents. The lightbulbs above the dining room table burst in a shower of sparks, which caused Lily to start crying. Lincoln slumped to his knees, tears streaming down both cheeks. With a genuine look of concern, Lynn Jr. crouched and tried to lay a hand on his shoulder. "NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" Lincoln yelled, slapping her hand and running across the room.
Stopping long enough to fling open the front door, Lincoln kept running as far as his legs would carry him, ignoring his sisters' pleas for him to come back. By the time he stopped and collapsed to his knees once more, he was smack dab in the middle of Ketchum Park, a full six blocks away from his house. He trudged over to the nearest bench, pulled his knees up to his chin, and began to ugly-cry. So lost was he in his despair that he failed to notice the rain that started to fall, quickly drenching him from head to foot. He only stopped crying when he felt someone lay a gentle hand on his back.
"Are you alright, young one?" spoke a soft female voice. Lincoln looked up to see the same teenaged Revonnahgander he and Clyde had seen earlier that day sitting next to him on the bench, shielding both of them from the rain with a dark blue umbrella. She wore a brown leather jacket over a white T-shirt, black jeans, and the boots from her uniform. Part of Lincoln didn't want to involve a total stranger in his personal problems, but a bigger part recognized the same motherly aura that his sister Leni possessed.
"No. I'm not," he admitted, wiping his eyes with a sniffle. The girl smiled and offered him her hand.
"Come with me, then; it would not be fitting to discuss what troubles you in the middle of a rainstorm." Lincoln placed his hand in hers, and the two started walking. "I am called Blanca. What is your name, young one?" she asked.
"Lincoln," he replied. Before long, they were standing on the front steps of Blanca's house, Lincoln holding the umbrella while Blanca sorted through a key ring to unlock the door. They stepped inside, and Blanca closed the door behind them.
"My boyfriend and our mutual roommate are shopping for food at the moment. You may use the shower to warm yourself if you wish," offered the Revonnahgander girl. Lincoln accepted, and half an hour later, he sat on the couch with a mug of hot cocoa, dressed in a slightly too big black-and-green bathrobe belonging to Blanca's boyfriend while his clothes were in the dryer. "Now, tell me what has made you so distraught," Blanca purred, gently running her claws through Lincoln's damp hair. Between sips of cocoa, Lincoln told her almost everything, from getting in trouble for the school fight to finding out he was adopted and his "parents" no longer loved him.
"...after that, I ran away. That's when you found me," Lincoln finished. Blanca was quiet, but the look in her eyes betrayed her train of thought. It was a look of cold fury, the look of a lioness protecting its young.
"On Revonnah, my homeworld, parents are expected to sacrifice their very lives to ensure the survival of their children if they must," she calmly explained. "Therefore, such a blatant denial of affection is considered an unpardonable offense. Once found guilty, the perpetrators are publicly shunned from the community to live the remainder of their natural lives in exile. I would like to have a talk with these parental figures of yours as soon as possible, but for now, you may stay here for the time being."
"Really?!" Lincoln could hardly believe his ears: a plainclothes Deputy Plumber was offering him sanctuary from his toxic parents! Something then occurred to him. "Hey, you're young enough to still be in school, right?" he asked her.
"By human standards, yes. My boyfriend and I will start attending the local high school tomorrow. Why do you ask?" she replied. Lincoln rattled off the names of his older sisters and descriptions of their appearances.
"If you see them tomorrow, can you tell them I'm safe and ask them to bring my belongings? I'm still technically suspended from school," he requested.
"Of course. With my photographic memory, locating them with the descriptions you gave should not be much of a problem," Blanca confirmed with a warm smile. She then wrapped an arm around him and pulled him into a hug, causing his cheeks to turn pink.
"Uh...what are you doing?" he asked.
"It is customary of human beings to provide comfort through physical displays of affection, is it not?"
"It's a little weird, cuz I've only known you for, like, an hour, but I guess so." The two turned their attention to the door when they heard the key in the lock to see the other two homeowners walk in, arms laden with bags of groceries.
"Good golly, Blanca, the price of food in this town is astronomical! And that's coming from someone who grew up on a space station!" complained the human boy, who Lincoln assumed was Blanca's boyfriend. He then noticed Lincoln sitting on the couch with Blanca's arms still wrapped around him. "Uh, babe, who's the kid? And why is he wearing my bathrobe?" he asked while he and the Tetramand deposited the many, many groceries on the dining room table. Blanca noticed both of them giving Lincoln suspicious looks and decided to take action before they did something drastic.
Parting from Lincoln and standing up, she asked, "Will you excuse me for a moment, Lincoln? I would like to have a private word with my housemates." Reaching up, Blanca grabbed each aforementioned housemate by the ear and dragged them both, stumbling and cursing, into the kitchen. Upon letting go, she closed the wooden sliding door that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house.
A couple minutes passed before all three of them came back out, the boy adopting a sheepish look as he approached Lincoln. He wore an open black jacket with green trim over a green T-shirt tucked into black pants with a single green stripe running down the side of each leg. There was a black belt around his waist, with the buckle depicting the green hourglass symbol that was on the face of the Omnitrix. Clipped to the left side of the belt was his Plumber badge, and like Blanca, he wore the same boots from his uniform. His hands were covered by form-fitting black gloves.
"Hey there, Lincoln, right? Listen, I might've been a little hasty to judge when I saw you cuddled up to my girl. Blanca explained what happened, and I'm sorry. So, let's try to get off on the right foot this time." He held out a gloved hand. "I'm Ken Tennyson, nice to meet you." Lincoln's eyes widened, and he looked at Blanca.
"You didn't tell me your boyfriend was Ken Ten!" he practically shouted, grasping his hair. Blanca just looked perplexed.
"Did I not? I am sure it must have come up at some point during our conversation." Upon hearing this, the Tetramand burst out laughing.
"Oh, way to go, Blanca! I bet you didn't even tell him you're the Magister's kid!" he said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye.
Lincoln fell off the couch in a dead faint.