It was a chilly October afternoon. Lincoln pulled his jacket closed at the throat and walked through the door opening on the school playground. A blustery breeze sent orange, yellow, and brown leaves dancing across the ground. Lincoln looked into the steely gray sky and waited a moment. He thought he felt a rain drop, but if he had, it was alone.

He started toward the jungle gym, and saw Luan waiting for him, as she did every afternoon. She waved, and he waved back.

"Hey, Linc," she smiled when he walked up. She held a thick textbook to her chest. "I was going to leave, but I figured I'd wait. I wouldn't want to leave you fall by yourself."

Lincoln couldn't help but laugh. Puns, he had heard, were the lowest form of humor. He didn't believe that. It took a true maniacal genius to produce such cheesy fare on (often) little to no notice.

She leaned forward, and they kissed.

"I'm trying to think of something in response," Lincoln said as they started walking toward the street, "but I got nothing."

"Luan Loud," she said, "leaving them speechless since 2003."

"I didn't know you were talking when you were a newborn," he said as he slipped his arm around her shoulders.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Lincoln Loud," she said, looking at him and pursing her lips.

"Oh? Like what?"

Luan looked thoughtful for a minute. "Like that I sometimes tell dirty jokes."

"Yup," Lincoln said, "already knew that."

Lincoln was the only one she told her dirty jokes to, and only after they started dating (Lincoln had a hard time thinking of himself as "dating" his sister, but that's what it was). She always blushed crimson when she did; it was the cutest thing Lincoln had ever seen.

"Hmmmm," Luan said, and looked into the sky. "Did you know I'm secrertly afraid of millipedes?"

"Millipedes?" Lincoln asked. "You mean the bug with all the legs?"

"Yeah," Luan said, and shivered. "They're so gross."

"No, actually, I didn't know that."

"Don't tell anyone."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time you chase Leni around with a rubber spider."

"You better not," she said. "Unless you want to see me pee my pants."

"Hmmmm."

"Shut up," she laughed.

They were almost to the street. A chain-link fence separated the schoolyard from the sidewalk. A narrow opening allowed passage from one to the other. As they approached it, Lynn streaked past, running backwards, and jumped into the air, snagging a football and falling hard on the ground.

"Sorry, guys," she said as she got to her feet. "I didn't see you."

Waaaay in the distance, Joey Turner stood by the teacher's parking lot. At least Lincoln assumed it was Joey Turner. Joey's family moved to Royal Woods from Arkansas over the summer, and he started school in September. He played on the football team, and somewhere along the way, his and Lynn's paths crossed. They weren't exactly dating, but they spent an awful lot of time together, and Lynn always looked so happy, which made Lincoln happy. He was afraid that she would be crushed after what happened over the summer, and seeing her with someone else, and genuinely glad, was nice.

"He said I couldn't catch one of his long passes," Lynn said, "but I showed him." She cupped her hands to her mouth. "Booooo-yah!"

"You have practice today?" Lincoln asked.

"Yeah. Coach Johnson's running late though."

"Have fun."

"Alright," she called over her shoulder as she ran back to Joey. "See you guys at home."

Lincoln stopped and allowed Luan to pass through the gate before him, since they couldn't do it side-by-side.

"Such a gentleman," Luan said. On the sidewalk, he put his arm around her waist and drew her closer.

Fifty yards back, Agnes Johnson peered out her classroom window and watched as Lincoln and his older sister crossed Schoolhouse Road and disappeared down Denton Ave. A cup of coffee was forgotten in her hand.

"They're awfully chummy," Richard Moss, Luan's teacher, had said the week before in the teacher's lounge. The observation struck Agnes as strange. For one, she didn't make it a habit to spy on her students. They came to her classroom and then they left. After that, they only had the occasional chance encounter with them in the hall, or as she walked to her car. That Richard (the other teachers called him Jabba the Moss behind his back, because he looked like Jabba the Hutt's fatter older brother) had observed Lincoln and Luan enough to form an option on their relationship was...well, frankly, weird.

For another, she was keenly aware that Lincoln's family was very large and close knit. Once, she'd assigned the class a project: Prepare a presentation on your family. Lincoln made a diorama that was, she learned later, destroyed, and his sisters volunteered to act as a living replacement. Agnes personally thought it was sweet. Maybe they were a little chummier than the typical American family, but so what? She'd rather see that than a family like her own, where everyone was so wrapped up in themselves that they couldn't be bothered with anyone else.

Over the past week, however, she'd found herself watching Lincoln and Luan more and more, and she hated to admit it, but Richard was right: They were a little too chummy. She could possibly forgive the hand holding, but every afternoon, Luan greeted her brother with a kiss on the lips. The kiss wasn't obscene in of itself, just a quick peck. She'd seen a thousand boys and girls exchange such kisses in her years of teaching, and had learned to ignore it as harmless. But these were siblings.

Today, Lincoln put his arm around his sister's shoulders and drew her close to him, and she responded by resting her head against his.

Shaking her head, she went back to her desk and sat down. Maybe she was being too judgmental. Again, the Louds were particularly close. Still, it didn't feel right.

They're acting like boyfriend and girlfriend.

A shiver ran down her spine.

You're jumping the gun.

Maybe. And even if she wasn't, was it even her place to do anything?

What was she thinking? Of course it was.

But only if she had to.

She took a sip of coffee and began the long, arduous task of grading assignments.