I could give a lot of reasons why this chapter took so long, but I'll just condense it down to real life got in the way. Sincere apologies for how long this chapter took.

Rather than give my usual drawn out note at the beginning like in the past, I'm just going to ask a question that I want to stick in your head for this chapter and beyond.

How would you feel if you were in love with someone you saw get raped?

Disclaimer: The Loud House and characters belong to Nickelodeon.

There's a lot to be said about what it's like watching a disaster unfold in front of you. Imagine what it was like for the passengers on the lifeboats that could see the Titanic sinking in front of them and they could do nothing about it, only able to watch as the freezing water continued to incapacitate and kill the unfortunate onboard. What if a train derailed on a bridge that caused it to plunge into a ravine, or a plane entered such a steep dive that the pilots couldn't recover it? At least the people on board both would pass quickly.

It's in contemplating thoughts like these that one has to wonder if the people who die in these situations got the better end of things, because the people who live or watch it unfold are haunted by the memories of those events for as long as they live. It couldn't be stopped, and the past can't be changed.

For someone like Lucy, however, the disaster she witnessed was one of the rare occasions where it brought about life, rather than take it away.

She never got over everything that happened with the family for the past three years. Everything that was happening was all sorts of disgusting and cruel, as her brother was put on a path that only spiraled farther into the rabbit hole. She felt bad for him, sure, but she was also becoming more afraid of him. His sanity wavered on a spectrum ranging from completely intact to almost invisible, and because of her silent nature and ability to observe her surroundings, she knew what that materialized as for him. He never physically broke anything, but he would go through episodes where he would become extremely paranoid about being around his sisters, locking himself in his room to do God-knows-what (she really didn't know because, by this time, she was too big to fit in the vents), although his elevated breathing clued her in that a really nasty thought/memory came to mind, and he was either trying to do everything in his power to suppress it or just ride it out until it passed. Plus, their parents were starting to really question the sisters on what they knew about Lincoln, but the most they could ever do was lie by omission, letting their parents know that, in the past, Lincoln had to deal with a lot of issues as a result of his sisters, coming clean on a few occasions but never revealing the big one. The parents were obviously not happy about hearing some of the things said, but they had a hard time coming up with good punishments considering four of their daughters had already moved out of the house, and the pattern they sensed was that having to deal with ten sisters at once put a huge strain on the boy's shoulders. Stuck in a bad spot of lacking equal punishments (they couldn't really enforce a punishment to kids they no longer had jurisdiction over), the parents decided they would let things slide, not being happy at all about how clueless their parenting must have been to let everything happen, at least according to the girls.

Lucy really did feel bad for Lincoln, though. There was no one who had to deal with this in a worse light than him. Women, his sisters, had children with him, each for different reasons, and now all of them were moving away from him and they were taking the kids with them. It was almost systematic in how everything was unfolding, and aside from the kids, there really were no good guys…not even Lincoln.

But Lucy knew better than to just put blame on him and call it a day. There was context to all of this, events playing out that warped him rather than him making these decisions out of the blue. She wanted to talk to him to see how he was handling all of this and maybe, just maybe, she could convince him to try and make himself better.

Too bad that was easier said than done. That wasn't going to stop her from trying, though.

"Hey Lincoln?" She walked in to see him sitting on his bed, blankly staring at nothing. He was in one of those moods, again.

"What?"

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it. "Are you doing okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Don't play dumb. You know exactly why."

Here comes yet another check-up talk. Lincoln just wished his sisters would realize that their talks did nothing to help, or at the very least, don't make the whole conversation predictable. The talks lost much of their impact when he could start guessing their lines. Add in that they never really turned into genuine conversations and the sisters may as well have not bothered.

"If you don't have anything new to say to me, then leave. I'm really not looking for another 'feel better'."

"I'm not here to do that." She walked over to Lincoln's bed and sat with him. "I promise that I actually want to talk with you. I want to know how you're handling things."

Was this supposed to be a therapy session, then? Lincoln wouldn't mind getting a couple points off his chest, but this was very out of the blue for someone who wasn't known for her persistence in interacting with others. Of course, when it came to Lucy, actual conversation meant she had a close relationship with that person, and as an added bonus, she was really good at keeping secrets, things that the two siblings used to regularly share with each other. Finally, she wasn't Lisa, who put pragmatism above all else, and as such, Lincoln's talks with her may as well have been him talking to a computer program. Lucy, meanwhile, was very human when she listened to others, always showing compassion, understanding, or any emotion that was appropriate for what the person confiding to her. To some, that may seem out-of-character, considering how rooted she was in being goth (even though Lincoln's situation started to make her question those beliefs), but she has much more personality when one gets to know her.

He took in a breath and said "How am I supposed to feel? I was attacked, had a kid, had sex two more times with two other women who just happen to be my sisters, and I get more kids out of it. They all leave, and I can't tell the world what happened not only for the sake of my family, but I'm fairly certain that no one would believe me, anyway. I'd say those are some good reasons to not have a fucking clue how I'm supposed to feel about all of this."

She was not expecting him to go right for the jugular, but she would be lying if she said that him venting this out didn't need to happen. Her talks with Lola a few times confirmed to her that it was probably best to let his attitude cycle play out like this, lest he lets it build up and risk it coming out in the form of a complete blow-up.

Now the tricky part for her was to respond to this properly. She didn't want to drive him to the point of a complete blow-up because she said the wrong things, either, a fear every sister in the house shared after Lisa talked with them about handling someone suffering from PTSD, as the severity of the symptoms may make them liable to scary reactions and behaviors.

"Lincoln, no one blames you for any of this."

"Why? I consented both times after Lori got done with me. I'm complicit at least a little bit in all of this, and it's because of me that two more kids were born."

Lincoln was officially going into uncharted territory. If he was complaining about his own kids being born, he really was at a low point. Good thing most of the family was out shopping right now. This would have been a really bad thing for everyone to hear.

"Don't you love them, though?"

"Of course, I do. They're my kids. But they deserved to be born under so much better circumstances. Could you imagine if they actually found out who their father was, having to constantly shoulder the weight of what I did and keep it a secret?"

"But you didn't start this."

"No. I didn't. Lori did, but I made things much worse than they should've turned out."

Turns out Lincoln's old character never did leave him. He was still the kid who was willing to own up to the mistakes he made and would rather shoulder the blame than let others do it. Lucy, however, knew better than to let him feel like this. He may be ready to take responsibility, but the sisters still had their part, and the roles they played was the bottom part of the iceberg, in Lucy's eyes. Like he said, Lori started this. Leni then dowsed the flames with gasoline by doing what she did, which easily stands as the single dumbest decision she ever made, and it wasn't even a contest. Luna's decision wasn't far behind. Sure, Lincoln may have consented, but consent is a two-way street that Leni and Luna should've realized. If an abuse victim consents to something because they don't know any better, they are being taken advantage of, and Lucy, completely overcome with how important her older brother was to her in her life over the years, refused to lay much, if any, blame on Lincoln.

"Lincoln, look at me." She got up and grabbed his face to make sure he was. "You. Did. Nothing. Wrong. All of this is because of our sisters. They should've known better than to do what they did to you, even if you said 'yes' to them."

While Lincoln heard the words, his focus was more on Lucy's touch, a touch that, like last time, made his blood pressure rise. However, rather than feel the panic he felt when Luna touched him, he felt determined anger, directed at himself, to not let his younger sisters get mixed up in this seemingly ever-increasing mess, so he swatted her arms away from him.

"Lucy, for everyone's sake, don't touch me."

Seeing the series of events her brother went through over the years was nothing short of tragic. While there were still inclinations of Lincoln's former self, gone was the happy older brother he was when he was eleven and she was eight. He was more direct, more pessimistic, less apologetic, and way more unpredictable. Eleven and Eight. Boy, were those days a distant memory compared to who they were now? While there was no shortage of stupid drama the siblings got into back then, that was a hell of a lot more preferable to what life was like now. She was probably the sister that was the least offensive to him back in those days, but that didn't mean she still felt like she had something to do with all of this.

"…I'm sorry." He turned his head back up to her. "If I ever did anything to hurt you in any way, I'm so sorry."

He knew why she was doing this, and he also knew how out of the way she was for much of his life. "Trust me, out of everyone, you were probably the best at not making things more difficult."

"But all those times I joined the sisters in ganging up on you or doing something stupid-"

"Still would've happened if you weren't around. If there were nine of you, I still would've gotten my ass handed to me."

"And I don't like it. One of us should've stood up for you…I should've-"

"Can you please stop? I already had this conversation with Luna, and I don't want to keep hearing 'sorry' so much."

"But-"

"Lucy, I appreciate the apology, but I don't want to keep hearing this from everyone. Let's just respect each other's spaces and things will be fine."

Yeah, right. 'Fine' isn't incest.

"No, it's not fine." Thinking about this finally let Lucy break a few walls down, and show emotion. A few filters were cleared as Lucy raised her voice to a higher octave than usual and just said what she needed to say. "Nothing is fine. Everything sucks right now, Lincoln. WE started this mess and there is nothing that can fix this!"

It was Lucy's turn to vent her frustrations about everything that's happened. She was quiet and not known to reveal too many insecurities or negative thoughts about things around her, except for when her goth persona demanded she do with quotes about how life, in general, sucks. However, she did little to actually get emotional over things that really did bother her, although every now and then, Lynn heard her speaking emotionally when they were trying to sleep (whether Lucy was actually awake or not was something Lynn was never able to figure out). But now she did, and with years upon years of holding up any sort of peak emotion, she was bound to let loose in a way no one would expect from her. It's just what happens when emotions are locked up for too long.

"I wanted so bad to believe that things would go back to the way they were, but there's just no way they possibly can. I'll never be able to look at our sisters the way ever again and I know that you won't, either. Not with what they've done. I tried to believe so many times that there was a way for you to turn back into the brother that I knew you as. Always happy, always cheerful, always caring. I know I'm selfish for wanting that, but I don't like who you've become, now. I don't like what the whole family has become, now. We've had to keep so many secrets from everyone and I'm just not sure I can handle any more of this."

Lincoln just resigned himself to listen to his sister blow out her lines to him. It was clear to him this was something she needed to get off her chest. As cold as he became in the previous years, he still felt brotherly instincts towards his sisters, specifically his younger ones. As reserved as he became to the sensation of touch, he decided to go ahead and give her a hug, hoping it would be enough to calm her down a little.

"It's okay, Lucy. Right now, things really are. Remember, whatever you're going through right now can't be worse than what happened to me." Lincoln wasn't exactly known to be a wordsmith, but that last sentence really rubbed Lucy the wrong way.

"Why do you have to make this about yourself?"

He loosened his hug on her to look down at her, legitimately confused. "What do you mean?"

"Do you actually think you're the only one affected by all of this? Do you really think things start and end with you?" She pushed him away saying all of this, and now, it was Lincoln's turn to get worked up over the assumption that Lucy was, somehow, dealing with more turmoil over the whole thing than he was.

"In case you forgot, I was the one who got raped! How can you even think that what you're going through is worse than-"

"I SAW WHAT HAPPENED!" Lucy had no control over herself anymore. She just started crying, the only reserve she granted herself being just enough composure to be able to formulate words. "…H-How could you s-say that? I-I s-saw. I saw…"

She felt betrayed by what he said. After Lori confessed, he was told everything about that night, and that included the fact that if Lucy hadn't saw, then no one knows if the whole thing would've even been discovered to begin with. And even if he forgot that, then he should've, at least, remembered how close she was to him for the years that followed his rape. How she clinged to him like Velcro, how she was always afraid to see him leave the house, how she accepted every decision he made regarding how to handle Lori and the kid, and how she attempted to always try and help him see something good in the fallout from everything…including his consenting to the next two encounters. She was like everyone else in that she just got tired of being upset when it was Luna's turn, but she was willing to live with all of this if it meant Lincoln would be happy.

But underneath everything she felt lied a particularly nasty feeling that she was struggling with more than anything else, a feeling of self-hatred for not being able to do more for him. Why couldn't her little sister mode have kicked in earlier? If it was just Lori, then fine. That one had all kinds of messed up context, but at least she could live with the fact that it wasn't really a fully conscious decision. What do the other two count as? Lincoln said yes. She knew that just by the fact that there wasn't any trauma afterwards. In fact, he seemed to get better…and that was the worst aspect of all of this.

If she had just acted and tried to help him in a better way, if she could've stopped any of this, then maybe he could've recovered in a healthier manner, but she didn't know what to do. She had no clue how to properly help him and held herself back from making any big decisions that could've improved the situations in a much better fashion.

She saw, "…b-but I didn't d-do anything."

She was carrying a massive burden that hung over her like it was a developing hurricane. She was never able to get over the deep hatred she felt for thinking she wasn't able to do anything that night. She may have thought then that she couldn't do anything, but the more she thought back, the more she didn't care. She should've rushed in, hit Lori, run full-speed at her to try and get her off of him. Instead, she panicked, and while she didn't know when it happened, maybe if she acted sooner, then Loan never would've been conceived, and all of this may not have happened.

By extension, that meant that Luan may not have moved away as early as she did. Lucy knew the main reason was to get away from Lincoln and that only added to her guilt. She felt it was because of her that her mentor and closest sister left. This whole thing was on her.

She looked right at Lincoln, clearly seeing him with no hairs in the way of one of her eyes, and simply let out a weak "…I'm sorry" before booking it out of his room and to her own. Whatever a completely broken Lucy looked like in the minds of people, this was probably worse than that.

Lincoln was left feeling angry, shocked, and really stupid right now. How could he be so dumb as to throw that line in about her possibly forgetting what happened? He knew she saw what happened. It was one of the first things Luna told him about what she witnessed that night. He was spared any bad memories about it due to the fact that he was knocked out, but Lucy had to be completely traumatized by what happened. He also admitted earlier that Loan, Liena, and his coming daughter should not have been born like this. What he wouldn't give to have their genetics completely rebuilt from scratch and given different parents so they could experience life like normal kids.

Now, there were aspects of all of this that weren't completely terrible, at least in his eyes. He knew he was doing a lot wrong considering the girls he was chasing after but at least there was consent. Plus, the children showed no sign of abnormalities so the biggest reason to hate incest wasn't actually present within the kids. Of course, there was little to be justified in that regard, and if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, the kids weren't the main reason he was doing this multiple times. By the time he did it with Luna, he would actually hazard to say he liked it…a lot, and that feeling, whatever it was that made sex so enjoyable, was the one thing eating at him that made him hold off from denouncing it entirely.

Lincoln's mind was in a tug-of-war situation where he wanted it to keep going because of how good it felt but wanted it to stop because he knew the relations and what his sisters did in the past. It was a fight between staying a family and being a good brother (which is why he hated the idea of sleeping with his younger sisters), and just giving in because it's what his body wanted. One would think he would have enough reasons to say 'no' to continuing what was going on, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to break a habit that is so bad but feels really freaking good. And if he had any sort of defense, it was that his whole being was really thrown out of whack because of when Lori actually did what she did. If he was awake, he probably would've, at least, recognized that she was drunk, maybe have a talk with her and, worst case scenario, fight her off, but because of how far she got, it caused a wave of conflicting thoughts and feelings about it.

At the end of the day, though, the easiest conclusion to come to about this whole thing was that this should not have happened, and he just made his little sister cry because he couldn't get his head straight to think about her concerns. She wanted to help him, admitting she was left traumatized from what happened as well, and he just callously brushed it off because he thought she was trying to compare hers to his.

He was just angry at everything. She walked in on him having one of those days he just hated the universe/God/spiritual force in charge for letting all of this happened. He let out a hard yell, his feelings from the beginning of the day now compounded, and stormed out of his room. He wasn't sure where the best place to go for what he wanted to do next, but one thing was clear to him: driven by sheer anger, he needed to get this emotions in check, somehow, and right now, he thought the best way to do that would be to break something.

What he would break, though, he didn't know, but he needed to do it, for the sake of not letting his emotions drive him to go from harmlessly breaking things to vent, to actually destroying precious valuable the family had. Even in this state, he was smart enough to not just go ahead and break the nearest lamp because that would have to be replaced. He was thinking of breaking a couple of Lynn's old hockey sticks and baseball bats, since she never used them anymore and moved on to using better equipment, and made a beeline for the backyard.

He had to get through the kitchen to get to the backyard and on his way out, he actually noticed something that may actually be better. It was the recycling bin, filled with glass bottles from a variety of drinks both the kids and their parents drank, from simple pop bottles to beer bottles. They were glass bottles, perfect for throwing against the fence. He grabbed the bin and headed outside, angrily grunting as he threw the bottles one by one, the glass shattering on impact and scattering across a small portion of the backyard. Lana recently replaced the chain-link fence with a wooden one, so no shards made it over to a neighbor's property.

He needed to do this. Talking wasn't cutting it anymore. All it was doing was making things worse with his sisters or just repeating the same thing over and over again, and nothing ruins the impact of something quite like repetition. He got everything off his chest, but that's all he was doing. There was nothing in simply talking to his sisters that was positively affecting him. He didn't feel bothered taking the next step in healing and his sisters weren't doing anything to give him the actual help he needed. For now, this was as good and therapeutic of an act as he was going to accomplish in a long time.

For Lucy, she heard the shattering and grunts outside, but she didn't bother checking it out. She was too caught up in the exchange she just had with him. It went wrong, very wrong. She went in expecting a hard, but necessary talk that ended with the two siblings giving each other a hug. What she got was Lincoln honing in on his insecurities to put himself down and accuse Lucy of not caring about how he feels. She honestly wasn't sure if he was right or not. He was the main victim and she made the mistake of pushing him away in anger over him not considering her feelings. It was in a fit of rage and sadness, but she had to remember that Lincoln was the first priority. She was dealing with some pretty bad thoughts and they needed to be dealt with, but like Lincoln said, he had much worse to deal with. He was trying to make her feel better and put her thoughts into perspective, but she was too upset to see that.

Worst of all, she did something she hoped to never do in front of him: she suffered a complete breakdown. Her emotions were laid full-bare for him to see and if there was one case where it would've benefitted her to not show much emotion other than compassion, it would've been that one. Instead, the walls came down fully by what could only be described as emotional destruction. Her mind collapsed at the thought of her siblings committing incest, and from there, it would just get worse for her.

Now in her room, she was left a crying mess as she tried to come to terms with everything. Everything was going wrong and she could only stand back and watch, just like how she felt on that first night. She was never going to get over that. The more she thought about it, the more disgusted she felt. She should've helped, but believed getting help was the better option and it may very well have made the situation so much worse than it could have been. Of all the bad things she did to Lincoln, she was honestly debating if this was the worst thing she had done. She may have been the best to Lincoln over the years, not hurting him nearly in the same way as the rest of their sisters, but she wasn't clean. All ten of the sisters seemed to do all they could to make Lincoln's life a living hell growing up and Lincoln was never fazed by it at all.

It was the very thing that made her fall in love with him to begin with.

He could tank what they threw at him and still figure out a way to either make things better or get off better than he probably should've. He had a character to be envied and Lucy absolutely loved that about him. It shouldn't have happened, but, somehow, it did. She probably would've never realized it without Lincoln suffering something of this magnitude, and it would've been for the best. She can't say that, now. She knows her feelings and she knows that her sisters share her feelings. They went from having typical sibling squabbles that Lincoln seemed to get the worst of to damn near destroying the entire family, and while none of them have actually told him how they feel about him, saying it may very well add more fuel to the fire and introduce even more trouble than was already happening. It was the very definition of forbidden love, and now Lucy had to live with it, living with watching someone she truly loves undergo something traumatizing, not doing more than she did, and knowing she cannot admit that love to him because this isn't the guy she should've fallen for.

All she could do was cry. For the rest of the day, she refused to leave her room. She didn't leave when the shattering ended, she didn't leave when she was called for dinner. She just stayed lock up in her room, lying on her bed, wishing she had a time machine.

"Lisa" he said, not even bothering to knock.

"Greetings, brotherly and broken unit. Care to dispel any more undesirable thoughts from your cerebral cortex?"

"Listen, Lice. I want these sessions to end. I think we can agree that they aren't doing a single thing to help me out, and quite frankly, I'm getting really tired of just saying what-the-hell-ever during these sessions."

"I would advise against that, dear sibling. While you may view these meetings as mere exposition sessions, therapy has a proven track record of helping patients come to terms with their predicaments and taking the first steps towards recovery."

"Lisa, we've been doing this for three years now. If this was supposed to help me, I'm guessing it would've happened much earlier."

"Some patients just take longer to rationalize these things."

If the talk with Lucy and the bottle throwing from earlier today convinced Lincoln of anything, it's that Lisa was doing almost jack-shit to help him get better. It was come in, talk, get told to keep taking his meds (Lincoln was this close to asking for a new medication just so he could look forward to something new), and leave. There was no redirecting to other sources deemed helpful, no support groups, no 'I promise things will get better', just get this crap over with and leave. She has said that she has dabbled in the soft sciences, and 'dabbled' really was the word to describe her relationship with psychology; she had a therapist's ability to diagnose certain psychological issues, but had almost no ability to help someone through it.

"No. I'm the farthest from knowing how the whole process works, but I know damn well that this should've worked out better. If it did, I probably would've been able to say 'no' to Leni. I'm done!"

Her voice was slow, but stern. "Lincoln, I'm telling you that you shouldn't do this. You need to keep doing this."

"And what if I don't? What would actually change if I stopped doing this? You're a genius, Lisa. You, above all other people, should know what the actual outcome of this should be, because frankly, what's been happening shouldn't be happening!"

Lisa was a very prideful person who hated having her intelligence thrown at her face, but in this case, Lincoln was putting her in a bind. The truth was that she actually did know that her method of therapy wasn't working too well. What she was actually doing was hoping that, by having him constantly tell her his problems, something might snap and he would be able to come to some sort of enlightening that would lead him to have made better decisions. She wasn't trying to be uncaring by just telling him to take his medication. Growing up with her intelligence may have helped her gain fame, but it did very little to actually help her sympathize with people. Her telling him something as practical as taking some pills was really all she could tell him. It was all she knew what to do. There was the option of screwing around with the chemicals in his body to temporarily spike his mood, but that would go against the ethics of science she abided by, in particular, the fact that spiking his hormones would effectively force him to live a lie. He may be happy, but that wouldn't cause the memories of what happened to go away, and the thoughts of that combined with his random happiness might cause him to go insane from thinking he might be happy about being traumatized.

There was also the option of erasing his memory of everything that happened entirely, but that would mean his emotional bonds with his daughters would be completely gone as well, and he loved them too much to willingly give that up. Plus, it did nothing to actually erase what his sisters did, who would never be able to be one hundred percent comfortable around him ever again. Could Lisa erase the minds of her sisters, too? If she did, then what would happen to the kids? Murder was completely off the table and Lori had a family now, and Bobby would question how Lori forgot her own daughter existed. Included in all of this would be trying to explain to Lincoln what happened to the three years he effectively forgot happened.

Simply put, there were way too many unknowns in these thoughts to make them worthwhile. Her only option really was to just let all of this play out. That meant relying on her psychological expertise, but as mentioned previously, she was awful at being a therapist. She may be super smart, but she was still presented with problems she couldn't effectively solve.

"Lincoln, I want you to get better. As your full-blood sibling, it pains me whenever you are hurt. Please, just give it time and I promise, things will get better." Unfortunately for her, he was not about to be convinced otherwise.

"…Are you dense? How can you actually believe this is working for me?"

"I have to get back to my studies. I do not wish to discuss this matter with you any longer. A week from today. Please, do not make me remind you."

"…No."

"Lincoln, this is not up for debate. You're sick and you need help."

"Fine! I'll admit I do, but I won't be from you."

"What other choice do you have, brother?"

"Plenty of people who don't sound like computer programs, for one." He was a bit quieter when he said that. Clyde came to mind for general venting, while his other sisters allowed him to blow out the lines whenever he needed and responded with compassion.

"I'm the only person you know that's qualified to give you professional help!"

"Your diploma means jack if you suck at your job, Lisa."

"Lincoln, please!" It was at this point that she had a similar episode to Lucy, running to him and embracing him in a tight hug, crying with emotion that he was not used to seeing from her. "Just let me help you…" She sniffled a bit before saying the most revealing sentence she may have said to someone. "I need to do this."

Lisa was the other person who couldn't get past the guilt of not doing anything that night or anything, in general, to make the family's life easier in the past. Selfishness ran deep in the veins of the family and she had the offense of possibly being responsible for most of the physical damage caused by a single person's actions to the home and, sometimes, her family's health. When she wasn't using her grant money to pay for home improvement to her room after explosions, she was secretly harvesting the vestigial organs of her family for experimentation. She had Lincoln's appendix, Lori's gallbladder, Luna's wisdom teeth, Luan's tonsils, she even took her own mother's ovaries after her tubal ligation operation was completed. All of this done in the name of science without even asking for the person's consent as she knocked them out even harder while they were sleeping.

Of course, nothing beats her sin of sloth that was her just watching on camera Lori commit several crimes against Lincoln, doing nothing but thinking of a way to act rather than actually act. Like Lucy, she didn't have the physical strength needed to take on Lori one-on-one proper, but doing something would've been better than just being paralyzed with fear and trying her damnest to think of something to fight Lori, some ideas of which would've landed her in prison. And the worst part for her? She believed it wouldn't have been any different if it had been two of her other siblings. It could've been Luna, Lana, Luan, whoever; she didn't trust herself to actually act for any of them. She was good at thinking, but her acting wasn't the best, especially when you account for all of the failed experiments.

It was a terrible thought to think about, being the resident genius who had a powerful mind but an awful will. It didn't matter how groundbreaking a discovery for her was, she chose family every time. It was why she was so determined to, at least, try to help Lincoln through this; she wanted to prove to everyone and herself that she still had the capability to help just one person through a particularly dark moment in their life. Right now, though, she couldn't have felt like more of a failure. Her flawed system was exposed and her inadequacies were laid full-bare as she had now had to come to terms with the fact that she couldn't help her brother the way she wanted to.

And Lincoln knew better than to continue this for the sake of making her feel better, especially in the mood he was in at the current moment.

"I'm sorry, Lisa, but for both of us, we have to stop with these talks. I won't be coming next week." He did stay, though, hugging her until she was able to calm down a little. He learned from the mistakes he made earlier with Lucy to not make the situation worse by sounding selfish or uncaring, especially when he just got on Lisa's case for doing just that.

If there was any good to come out of this, it's that he didn't have to worry about Lisa being another mistake for the two of them to make. He was against sleeping with his little sisters and would never dare try to make a move on them, and neither would the two youngest sisters, Lisa having lost all amorous thoughts for other potential suitors as her passion for her studies only intensified with age, while Lily was too young to remember the family's darkest days and her brother's fortitude back then. For Lisa, though, tonight was important for her as she finally felt some feelings she hadn't felt in a long time. It reminded Lincoln that, for all of her objective analysis and practical decision-making, she was still very much human, his sister, who shouldn't be looked at as anything other than that for him. Lisa finally felt again for what seemed like ages, and honestly, she needed this. She needed to be reminded of her own shortcomings so she could learn and correct her behavior. Maybe if she showed herself to have done her homework, after this, and learns what it means to help people with any level of trauma, he may consider coming back. For now, though, they both just needed a break.

There was something in Lincoln, that night, that felt angry and unfulfilled. In just a day, he made two of his sisters suffer breakdowns (both of whom were sisters that had a history of suppressing emotions) and, being who he was, it wasn't going to stop eating at him easily. He had to with Lisa, though. Going several years through therapy with no sorts of progress was nothing more than a waste of time, and Lincoln, even after calling the sessions off, was still incredibly bitter about it. On top of everything, he never made an effort to check on Lucy because of a combination fear of past mistakes, not wanting to put her in a vulnerable situation, and the possibility that she probably just didn't want to talk with him for the rest of the night, anyway. Lisa was able to calm down, though, so at least he didn't have to worry about her.

He had a lot on his mind, and it was working him up to aggressive levels like earlier today. Unfortunately for him, it was night, so breaking bottles was completely out of the question. In fact, there was little he could do to relieve his anger in general, as it would just wake everyone up.

…Unless he polished a bottle off.

His parents did have a decent amount of beer in the fridge, as they didn't need to sacrifice as much room for general food like they did when all eleven kids were still there. One bottle gone wouldn't cause a big stir. Besides, he needed to do something. What's wrong if he was three years underage. Many teens younger than him have already gotten drunk, so he wasn't exactly preparing to commit an unheard-of offense.

Should he be doing this, though? Probably not, but what else was he going to do? Not much of an option when it's 10:45 and pretty much everyone in your family is asleep, unless the idea of completely destroying a pillow was sound. Not for Lincoln, who spent his afternoon breaking bottles against a fence, which brought about so much more satisfaction than punching a pillow, so the exertion would feel extremely hallow.

Ah, screw it. Take one beer and leave. That should be plenty, considering he never drank before, and considering the really stupid stuff his family did while drunk, he wasn't about to find out what he was capable of and add his own name to that list. One beer, done.

He went down to the kitchen and opened his fridge to see about eleven bottles perfectly chilled. He grabbed one, searched around for a bottle opener, and cracked it open. It wasn't how he imagined having his first beer, but hey, what else was he going to do?

One sip and he knew instantly he wasn't going to enjoy himself. It was bitter, a far cry from the kinds of tastes his taste buds were used to. Were it not for the alcohol, he would've just emptied it in the sink. However, once the alcohol kicked in, he felt a lot better than before. The depressant part of the substance kicked in and he no longer felt like breaking anything. In fact, this was one of the better feelings he had since all of this started. It wasn't like a complete high or anything, but it was a solid mood lift that he was looking to achieve.

He wasn't about to push his luck, though, knowing full well the consequences of getting completely drunk, so he stuck to his laurels and downed only one bottle, making his way back upstairs and locking himself in his room to just feel the effects out until he needed to pee and eventually go to bed. He was just happy only one beer was needed to make him feel better.

Unfortunately, that one beer worked too well for it to be a one-time thing.

Part of what I want to go for in this story is an authentic look at how something like what Lincoln experienced can affect both him and those around him. Lucy and Lisa, being the one's who witnessed it take place, needed a chapter that explained what they were going through and the turmoil and trauma they, themselves, feel, too. After all, Lincoln wasn't the only one affected.

And yes, for those curious, Lincoln will not be hooking up with Lisa or Lily, as I've always viewed Lisa as more or an asexual (yes, I know there's evidence against that, but I just thinks she works better that way), and I just don't have it in me to put Lily though this as well, especially since, as of this chapter's publishing, I would effectively be writing her blind with no canon personality traits to go off of. Plus, being the youngest, even by this story's standards, that wouldn't accomplish much for me in terms of a satisfying narrative.

My apologies if Lincoln isn't coming across as the most authentic trauma victim. The thing about trauma is that you're essentially writing around five different characters held up under one body, so of course, their attitude is going to be the most inconsistent thing in the world. It's another case of me probably biting off more than I can chew for this story, but considering the ever-growing number of Loudcest fics (not trying to sound mean. Several of the authors who write them are quite talented), a story such as this one, I feel, is one that needs to exist, if anything, for the sake of balance.

Thanks for reading. I can't predict future updates now that college is back under way (especially considering that I have four classes where writing is a major component of the course), but I promise to keep writing when I feel the drive to. Hope to see you all next time!