"I HATE YOU, LINCOLN LOUD!"

She screamed this as she squeezed his hand so tightly it turned purple in less than a second. He almost cried out in pain, but he knew this wasn't his place to be in pain. It was hers. For a few hours now, she had been calling out in pain on her hospital bed as the contractions became more and more unbearable.

That's right. The time had finally come.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to leave!" one of the doctors yelled at Lincoln over Jordan's loud screaming and her kicking legs.

"I can't just leave her alone!" Lincoln called back.

"She's with professionals, young man. Move!"

She looked into his eyes, and he noticed how red and puffy they were. The sweat pooling from her forehead had been dripping in and poisoning her eyes with salt. Still, they were able to plead with him all the same. Please don't leave, they begged of him.

"I'll be right outside," he said softly, with a smile. He doubted she could hear him, but maybe it was something about his smile that calmed her down, and seemed to put her in a state of… less pain.

He was shooed outside and down the hall to the waiting room, and it was there that he faced both his family and her family. His sisters smiled at him, her parents glowered at him, and his own parents, too wrapped up in their own excitement, ignored him. Lynn Sr. was gripping his camera with a wide grin, while Rita muttered prayers with the speedy force of a machine gun and rubbed the wooden rosary in her hands so quickly that the fact it didn't catch fire was its own Biblical miracle.

His eyes traveled past them all to meet Lori's. His eldest sister was sitting in a chair, her own child in her arms. The young baby, whom Bobby and Lori named Albert in honor of his great-grandfather, stared blankly at the ceiling, drool spilling over at the side of his mouth. Lincoln walked over and touched his nephew's cheek, and the baby giggled.

How such a simple sound could make the shadows of the world disappear for a moment was something Lincoln would always try to understand.

"So how is she?" asked Lori.

"Screaming, cussing, sweating and in a lot of pain… so normal, I guess." His shoulders shrugged like a weak bird taking flight.

"Did she say she hated you?"

Lincoln chuckled and nodded. "I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you said the same thing to Bobby."

"Oh, please. I said so much worse. The day I gave birth was the day Bobby Santiago regretted teaching me all those Spanish curses." Lori's own giggle came to a musical end before she said, "So are you still nervous?"

"Nervous? Who, me? Nervous? No, I couldn't… like you can't believe," he admitted.

She patted his shoulder affectionately. "If it helps, you're more than welcome to take some of the baby stuff Bobby bought. Well, the baby girl stuff he bought. I mean, assuming Jordan has a girl, of course."

"You know, I once suggested we call the baby 'Jordan', so that whether it's a boy or a girl, the name works. Sorta like how 'Lynn' works in our family. She didn't really like the idea. Got a nice slug in the arm for suggesting that."

An especially loud scream emanated from Jordan's room and traveled down the hall. Lincoln cringed at the pained sound. "You'd think with modern medicine, they'd find a way to make it less… painful," he remarked in a voice dripping with guilt. As far as he - and her parents - were concerned, he was the reason she was in so much pain.

"Funny thing about pregnancy pain… it's supposed to be one of the most painful things a human being could ever experience. I believe one metaphor that was used was 'imagine if every bone in your body was broken at once'. But despite that," Lori paused, a smile crawling on her painted lips, "the first thing that a woman thinks about when it's all over isn't herself. She doesn't worry if she's okay. She worries whether the baby she just brought into the world is okay."

Albert blew a wet raspberry, and Lori smiled down at her child. "Yes, that means you, little Al-Al. You hurt Mommy a lot, but it's okay because of how cute you are."

"You know, it's still a bit weird when I realize that you're the same person as the phone-addicted senior years ago."

Lori rolled her eyes. "What, do you need me to litter my sentences with 'literally' and 'twerp' every five seconds?"

"Nah," Lincoln said, shaking his head. "Just trying to make small talk and keep my mind off-"

"How things are going in there?"

"I was going to say how Jordan's dad looks like he wants to take me to a room with no witnesses, but yeah, that works too."

Suddenly, the loud ruckus down the hall died down. Everyone went quiet, waiting for a professional to arrive. They heard footsteps, and around the corner came a nurse. Lincoln gulped when he saw blood on her gloves and smock. That was normal, right? Right?!

"Lincoln Loud?"

"R-Right here," he raised his hand hesitantly.

She beckoned him to come with her, and with a final look of confidence from Lori, and a cheerful cry from his nephew, Lincoln took a deep breath and began to follow her. Every footstep she took reverberated through the hall, while his footsteps were more faint, as if he were floating rather than walking.

The nurse led him back to the room, and gestured for him to go in. He wet his lips, and with shaking hands, peeled the door open. A doctor stepped out just as Lincoln tried to enter, so he jumped to the side. The doctor met the teen's eyes, and he gave him a soft smirk. "I don't wanna condone teen pregnancy," he said, "but congratulations, son."

"Congratulations?" Lincoln repeated, in a voice so soft even he couldn't hear it. Then his eyes widened, and his smile grew so long it stretched from ear to ear.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" Lincoln repeated again, this time in a voice so loud everyone in the hospital could hear it.

He couldn't help himself. He hugged the doctor. He didn't even care that he stained his own clothes.

He burst through the door, an excited blur of orange. His wide smile grew even wider when he saw the beautiful sight. Behind a flowing, silky curtain was Girl Jordan. Her hair was a mess, her clothes even messier, and her face blotched with red and pink. But her expression… it was calm and soothing, and her eyes were aimed not at the doctors, nor at Lincoln, but at something sitting in her lap, wrapped in a soft pink blanket.

When she looked up to meet Lincoln's eyes, he saw the tears that shone in them.

"It's a girl, Lincoln. It's a girl."

If there's one thing the Loud House stands for, it's family. Family runs deep in the DNA of both the show and the fandom it has spawned. I'm not the first one to write a story where one of the Loud siblings forms a family of his or her own, nor will I be the last.

I know that some of will expect me to write about the Jordcoln family and their child...but I won't (maybe in another story in the far future, but not now, not here). The purpose of this story is in the title: Jordan's confession(s) and Lincoln's reactions to them.

Thank you for following this story to the end. I apologize for taking a huge hiatus in the middle, so thank you for being patient with me. I haven't decided which story I want to publish next (and even less idea about what I actually want to write next), but whatever I decide, I hope I'll see you then.