Art, movies, good and bad dreams, pain, sadness, happiness...none of those caused an impact this huge like this dream...or nightmare, on the Loud sisters.

After that day at the spa, after the message they received from their brother, the memories of all those hurtful days came to their minds; the memory of their parents dying and their brother leaving. It's funny how dreams work, it can pass hours, days, months or even years, but once you snap out of it you realize it hasn't even been a minute. You realize it all was a product of your mind.

Even if it was a memory disguised as a nightmare, it was enough to make them all remember what they so much tried to forget. Or were they trying to ignore it?

...

Who knows?

...

Present day, years later.

After all that had happened, after all the things they have gone through just to forget, not all of them had left the past behind. As she slowly opened her tired and hurting eyes, result of crying the whole night, Leni found herself laying on her bed, gazing at the ceiling thoroughly.

"I didn't want to lose him."

As the blonde sat on the edge of the bed and got on her feet quietly, careful not to wake up Lori, she stretched her back and yawned. Ever since Lana received the message, she couldn't stop thinking about her brother, and as night passed she came to the conclusion that...she understood Lincoln; despite her kind, naive and pacifist nature, she knew that bastard deserved that beat up. Besides, nobody saw it coming, just look at the officers; their work was to keep order, and they couldn't even react when her brother lunged at the murderer and beat the hell out of him. It took him some quite enjoyable seconds to finally act up and stop him.

She walked out of the room and went downstairs, getting inside the kitchen and trying to think what to eat; it was a little early for the others to be awake, but Lana was already at the table.

"Isn't it a little too early to be up?" Leni asked.

"I could ask you the same," Lana replied. "I...had a dream, a dream about..."

"About what happened back then?"

Lana nodded. She didn't cry, but Leni could see the shadow of sadness inside her eyes. Leni didn't blame her, this was too much to deal for all of them; even if they tried to forget about it, even if they tried to do other things to stop thinking about it...well, it wasn't working as they expected.

Leni sighed. "I...too had a dream about that." She hugged her from behind, having the feeling that she needed that. "Hey, you wanna eat something?"

Lana wasn't in the mood for anything, but to be honest, she was hungry. "Alright..."

Leni took some eggs, flour, milk and butter, ingredients to make pancakes. She spent the next forty minutes cooking, making near twenty pancakes while humming that song that she first heard on the radio and couldn't stop thinking about. She felt proud of herself and the progress in the kitchen she had made over the years; she no longer dropped plates, she learned the proper timings for different dishes, she even learned how to remove guts and feathers from birds like people in rural countries did. All the sisters gave her credit for that, they didn't have the courage or the stomach to do it.

She turned around and saw that Lynn and and Lily had joined their sister.

"Morning." Lynn greeted without much energy. She sat on the table and used the bottom of the jersey she used to sleep to rub her eyes, exposing her underwear and her toned abs.

"Hello" Lily greeted, combing her golden hair.

Leni put the tray full of pancakes on the table, and in no time the other sisters came down, attracted by the delicious smell of Leni's cuisine. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the pancakes, everyone except...

Lynn just stared down at her plate, picking the food with the fork and taking just a few bites. This didn't go unnoticed by Leni.

"Lynn, what's the matter?"

She didn't respond, but there was no need for one. Leni knew exactly why she acted like this. The silence that followed was...uncomfortable, to say the least; the other sisters knew exactly what was happening, but none of them wanted to talk about it.

"So...what are you planning to do?" Lana broke the silence.

"Well...the message said that Lincoln wanted to see you, right?"

Lana nodded.

"Why did you keep talking with him to begin with?" Lynn finally spoke, she didn't make eye contact, she didn't stop flicking her fork from side to side and playing with her food. Her voice sounded harsh, resentful.

Lana didn't know if she was angry at her, and honestly it scared her to star another argument. "Well...I didn't want him to leave, I know we all felt fear when he beat the guy who killed our parents, but he did deserve it; he killed mom and dad and..." in that moment she lowered the volume of her voice. "And he had the guts to do something while we just stood there, staring like cowards. That's why a few months later after he left, I talked with him."

They knew she didn't mean to hurt anyone, but they all felt guilty when they remembered how their brother was the only one who acted back then. The blonde sighed, trying to keep it together. "I really loved him...and still do, I just wanted to be sure he was ok."

Lily made a pause before continuing. "It went ok, he wasn't angry, but sounded a little bit uncomfortable. We talked like an hour or two just to catch up, but I never mentioned what was happening here. Then we passed to talk like twice a week, then three times and so on; I guess he too missed talking to us, and talking to at least one of his sisters was better than nothing."

"So, what did you talked about with him?" Luan asked.

"Just a few things here and there about our lives; I think we get along really well, and judging by what he have told me he's doing really great."

Lily took a moment to think what to say. "To be honest, I was surprised to see him trying to reach to us; maybe he want to see us again, I really don't know, and to be honest I wasn't surprised about his reaction against the guy, I mean, come on girls, he's a man."

"I agree." Luan said. She was well aware of the situation; she too felt like punching the hell of that son of a bitch, but that anger cooled off and was replaced by fear as she saw her brother do it himself. It took her a while to finally make up her mind.

Despite finding some closure, she still felt guilty, not only she didn't do something back when they were at the scene of the crime, but she didn't do anything to stop her brother from leaving; maybe if she had told something, maybe if she had shown him that at least one sister wasn't afraid of him...he'd still be at home.

Lynn clenched her fists, feeling guilty as well for not giving a piece of her mind to that man, but...what she felt the most was fear, fear of confronting her brother after all these years; she wasn't scared that he could be mad, hell she wished he was mad at her, she wanted him to call her out for her behaviour, for not acting back then. All those years of acting tough, all those years of pretending to be a hot shot to end up being a fucking coward made her feel useless.

And because she was a coward she was scared that he might be disappointed, that he would be hurt that none of them supported him when he was dealing with so much; he had to put a straight face while dealing with Sam's pregnancy, with how things were at home after he made it clear that the love they all felt for him would never be, and then the death of mom and dad. She felt that the only way to atone her sins was to be confronted by the person she hurt the most.

I know there are a few of us who are afraid of seeing him again, she thought. I don't know if it's because of the incident...or that he rejected us...or because we don't want to see what has been of his marriage with Sam.

None of them really knew what he thought, and to be honest it was something they wanted to find out. He never said if he actually had felt something for one of them or if he wanted to see them again but...the curiosity and the wish of seeing their brother once more was really strong.

She knew chances were that she might regret this, but she couldn't just stay home and wait for her problems to be fixed by themselves; she needed a closure.

"I changed my mind." Lynn said. "I'll go with you."

There was a silence after her words, a silence that ate her alive with each passing second. After what happened when they al found out about the message she knew some expected her to be on the not going side.

But Leni knew and understood how difficult this was for her. The blonde smiled at her, at the same time that Lily hugged her; this was all she needed to know that she was making the right choice.

The blonde couldn't help but feel happy that more sisters were joining her and Lana to see their brother again, even if there were some sisters who didn't want to come, this was a very welcoming start.

And then it struck her head like a lightning. Luna.

Of all the sisters, she was the one who suffered the most; of course this didn't minimize the pain of the others, but...to know that the love of your life was stolen by your best friend who also was your ex girlfriend, find out that they're having a baby, realize that they're together because of you, and lose your parents...hell, she can only imagine what it's like.

She shook her head to get that thought out. "Alright girls, we all must discuss this and decide who else will go with us." she said. "We can't run from Lincoln forever."

They all agreed on that. The problem was that, even if she was right...there was a feeling of uncertainness; after all these years, they'd meet again with the one who changed their lives.