24. The Storm - Part II(2)

She had given it to him. It had always been her personal favorite, and one afternoon she decided to share her bowl with her baby brother. He had loved it, and now, ten years later, he was still buying that very same flavor.

She had to find him. She needed to fulfill her promise.

She stretched a hand towards Carol, and her friend helped her stand up. The young Pingrey continued listing out all places Lincoln could have moved on to in order to run away from the rain, and Lori tried to think like him. Where would he go? If she was Lincoln and she was caught out in the open by the rain, where would she go?

She started looking around, spinning in the same spot like a crazy woman. The bus, evidently, hadn't been an option. Maybe he didn't want to go home after all? Why? And where did he go, then? There was nothing particularly interesting near them, they were at the other side of town, right outside of Sunnyside Garden, with nothing to-

Sunnyside Garden. Lori remembered that place. Her parents used to take them there not too long ago. They liked it because there were less people there than in the central park, and it was easier to keep an eye on all of their children. They had all spent some great times there, they had had fun on the swings, the slides, the seesaws, playing next to the creek… The creek…

She turned to look at the Garden. The trees were moving, trying their best to resist the strong wind that shook their tops. She could see some of the games, completely empty and abandoned for the day, and a little further beyond…

She once again left Carol behind, sprinting into the park. She ran as fast as her legs allowed her to, leaving behind the slides where Luna used to play and the swings from which Lynn used to jump. She passed the sandbox where Luan practiced her clown acts, but the wet floor made her slip, and she fell onto the ground with her knees hitting the cold, wet tiles. She grunted in pain, and even without looking she could sense the scrap on her knees and elbow, which would soon begin to bleed.

She ignored the pain, though, and stood up once again. Not the rain, the pain, nor the wind would stop her as she got closer and closer to the creek and the tiny bridge to cross it. She went out of the path, moving towards the side of the bridge. The tiny stream had widened with all the rain, but there was still a quite important slope filled with mud and plants that she needed to climb down.

Lori tried her best to carefully go down, but her left foot slipped on a mud pool and she fell almost six feet before she could stop right at the edge of the creek. She cursed out loud but still managed to stand up, fighting to keep her balance and not trip again.

When she finally managed to do it, she turned to see under the Japanese bridge, and it was then when she thought she would pass out. She fell knees first into the mud and a hand went over her chest. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt, and she could feel each bump trying to break her ribs and leave her body. Her throat closed on itself, and it took her several seconds to breathe in, like she had been underwater and her lungs weren't allowing anything to get in them. She kept staring right there as long as she could, making sure that this wasn't her mind playing tricks on her, that what she saw wasn't a mirage of her own desires, but the true form of her little brother down there.

"Lincoln…" She pronounced with what little breath she had left. "Lincoln… LINCOLN!"

The figure of the young boy was sitting under the bridge, with his knees pressed up against his chest and his head hanging low between them. His hands were desperately clinging on to his sideburns, messing it up just as much as the rest of his hair was. His turkey tail was almost gone with how disheveled he was. Shortly after she called him out loud, he looked up.

Lori's heart twisted inside her chest when she saw the tears falling down that precious but pale face, with his bloodshot eyes and trembling lips. With the last remaining ounces of strength she had left, she stood up and ran right into him, easily fitting under the bridge, falling on her knees right next to him and throwing her arms around him before he could even react. She squeezed him against her, feeling the warmth of his body, leaning her head over his, and after breathing in the soft scent of shampoo that he still had on, she cried.

She cried harder than she ever remembered doing. Loud groans that went on for as much as her lungs allowed. Breathless wimpers that agitated her, making her dizzy and losing her sense of direction and balance. She didn't need those, though, because she clung to Lincoln as if her life depended on it, and there was nowhere she needed or wanted to go. There, where the rain didn't reach them, rocking him back and forth in her arms, weeping loudly and with her heart expelling all the anguish and fear that had been building up inside of her for the past few hours, she was finally aware of what she had almost lost.

A stream of memories flooded her mind. The day he was born and how she had been the first of her sisters to hold him. When he was five months old and she changed his diapers for the first time. When she taught him how to ride a bike. His first day of school. His seventh birthday. The halloween of 2013. When he took the "perfect picture" of all of them, last summer. She thought about it, and finally her fear of almost losing him shook her to her bones. She realized how weak she was, how much she loved and needed him. She and everyone else.

Lincoln, after going over the initial surprise, hugged her as well, burying his face on her chest to keep crying. She didn't know why he was crying, but it didn't matter at all. She'd be there for him, whatever it was, and she wouldn't let anything bad happen to him. She'd protect him with her life.

His crying made him shiver, and the sudden movement reminded Lori how cold it was out there. She had to make an inhuman effort to move away from him barely enough to take her raincoat and put it over him like a blanket. Lincoln tried to protest, but she wouldn't have any of that. She wrapped the fabric around him and hugged him again, her hands roaming through his body, grabbing his arms, his torso, his head, his shoulders, anything that would reassure him that he was real, that she had actually found him.

"Lori! Lori! Whe-?! AAAAH!"

Lori looked back just in time to witness Carol trying her best to keep her balance as she walked down the slope. The blonde girl was trying her best to use her purse as an improvised umbrella, without any satisfactory result, but she stopped complaining the moment she saw both of them. She whispered something to herself, something Lori couldn't hear, and then she joined them under the bridge.

"Is he-? Lincoln! Is he okay? How is he?" She asked, sounding desperate.

"H-He's fine… He's fine… he's fine", Lori repeated over and over again, hanging onto him ever tighter.

She heard a relief sigh from Carol, and for a few minutes, the three of them stayed there, with only the rain hitting the surface of the stream and the two Loud's crying breaking the silence. Lori knew that they couldn't stay there, but she wanted… no, she needed to have a moment with him. With Linky. Ever so carefully, she grabbed her phone from her slicker, unlocked it, and handed it to Carol.

"L-Look… Look for Luna and call her", she asked her. "Tell her… tell her I found him. He's with me. He's safe. We'll go home soon."

Carol grabbed the phone that was being offered to her and looked at the other girl in the eye.

"I'll be waiting in the car", she told her, letting her know that she'd give them a very necessary one-on-one time. She seemed to be about to lean in to give them a hug, but she hesitated, regretted it at the last second, and simply walked away without saying anything else.

Once she was left alone with her little brother, Lori tried to get a grip on her emotions. It was hard to do it, but she needed to be as calm as possible. She took several deep breaths, enough to be able to talk without panting.

"Take this", she said, searching with still shaking hands into one of the pockets of her slicker. She was able to fish out the tiny bottle Lisa had given to her. She opened it and moved it closer to her brother's mouth. "Lincoln, you need to drink this."

"L-Lori, I-I'm-"

"Just drink it", she begged, pressing the border of the bottle against his lips.

Shaking in either fear, cold, or both, he parted his lips a bit, and Lori tilted the bottle so the liquid could spill inside his mouth. He took two solid gulps, but then his eyes suddenly opened up and he yanked his head away. Lori watched a bit scared how he began to loudly cough.

"I-It burns!" He complained, still coughing.

It will raise his body temperature to prevent infections, Lisa had said. She also mentioned how it was important that he would have all of it. His health was as stake, she said. Him drinking that liquid could be the difference between life and… and…

"Linky, Linky, you need to drink it all", she told him with tears in her eyes, placing a hand behind her brother's head, moving the vial close to his mouth.

"I d-don't want to!" He said, crying a little louder.

A sharp blade cut through Lori's heart, leaving her bleeding on the inside. Her teeth clenched so hard she feared she would splinter them, but even in her pain, she knew what had to be done.

"You need to drink this, Linky! Do it, please! For me!"

Her brother looked at her in the eyes, his deep brown meeting the slightly lighter shade of hers. He was still scared, but one long look of her was enough to reassure him that she would be there, that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to him. She still had her hand behind his head, ready to keep him in place, but he made no move to escape as she once again presented the bottle to his mouth.

Lincoln was still crying, but he closed his eyes and reluctantly parted his lips to allow the liquid to invade his mouth. He immediately complained, grunting in pain and with his whole body twisting, his hands going to his chest and stomach, pressing on the slicker that covered him. Watching the way he looked, Lori wished she could take all the pain for him. She would gladly carry that cross, she would take any sort of punishment Destiny would lay onto her as long as he didn't have to deal with it.

After a minute that managed to stretch itself to feel like an hour, he finally finished drinking Lisa's antidote. As soon as he was done, Lori carelessly dropped the glass bottle to the ground and hugged Lincoln as tight as she could against her chest, her own tears falling onto his hair. She kept stroking his arms and head until the burning sensation seemed to die off. The sound of water streaming down behind them and the rain that covered the city were no longer perceived by them. Her whole world was reduced to him and her, together under the wood boards of the old bridge.

"I'm sorry", he said a few minutes later, a little more calm, but still crying in a very desperate way. "I didn't w-want to worry you, I just… I…"

"It's ok, it's ok", she soothed him, giving his forehead a quick succession of kisses. "You're here, that's the important thing. You're alright. Oh, Lincoln…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't… I couldn't help it", he confessed, whimpering stronger and harder, turning his head to look away from her in shame. "I couldn't help it."

She moved away enough to put both hands on Lincoln's cheeks, making him look at her. Her crippled heart suffered yet another hit when she noticed how vulnerable and terrified he looked, and she could only hope for the heat she felt with her palms to be a positive effect of whatever Lisa had given to him.

"What happened? Why did you come here?"

He tried to look away, but she didn't allow it.

"Lincoln, tell me, please", she insisted, and the pain she felt inside was reflected on her words.

Her little brother's shoulders kept shaking, and it seemed unlikely that he was in the proper conditions to talk. She was about to insist, but he leaned forward once again to press his forehead against her breastbone.

"I don't wanna… worry you", he whispered.

"Whatever it is, tell me! Don't keep it to yourself! Don't worry about me, Linky, just tell me what it is!"

He was a kid on the verge of puberty, but his crying was still that of a young child. Sharp, strong, uncontrolled. She was almost petrified with fright, since she couldn't remember ever seeing him so vulnerable, desperate, and afraid.

"Whatever it is, I'll be here for you, Lincoln", she assured him, planting a new kiss on his damped hair. "You're not alone. We'll go through it together, Linky, just talk to me."

He struggled to free his arms from his sister's embrace so he could wrap them around her, and she accepted him, fixing her raincoat to cover him as much as it could.

"It's… it's d-dumb…"

"No! No, it's not! I'm not going to be mad, I swear to you. Let me help you, please. Please. Let me help you."

Huddled against his eldest sister, sheltered from the rain and with no one to interrupt them, Lincoln allowed himself to be honest. He told her about his mood, increasingly hard to control in the recent days. He explained in detail what had happened to him that very same morning. That horrible sensation that invaded him for several minutes. He also told her, as much as his crying allowed it, all the events that had unfolded at Rusty's house. The reason he was angry and everything his body experienced. Lori couldn't help it, she cried harder when she heard all the things her little brother had been enduring and going through on his own. She could have never imagined that he would be suffering that way, and she felt like an idiot, a useless sister for not having noticed any of it. She didn't interrupted him at any time, devoted as she was to just listen to him, to embrace him, to caress his back, to kiss his head.

"And then… t-then I went back to the bus stop", Lincoln told her, shaking. Whether it was for the cold or the fear, she couldn't tell. "And there was… there's… a-an Ace Savvy poster."

He looked up to meet Lori's eyes, tears falling from his own like open sinks.

"They're making a movie", he explained with a grimace, his voice trailing off. "I-It's coming out in s-six months… A-Ace… H-He's my f-favorite superhero and…. and I… I-I'm dying before seeing it."

She gasped, feeling a cold hand closing around her heart. Lincoln wasn't any better.

"I-I'm d-dying, and… and there's so much I'll be missing on!" He exploded, finally venting his heart out to her. "I'm s-scared! I-I don't wanna die, Lori, I don't wanna die! I'm scared, but I can't let anyone know! I have… I have to be s-strong! For you! 'Cause I don't wanna s-see you guys cry! But I c-can't! I can't, Lori, I can't!"

His words got lost in an uncontrollable bawl, a crying that was only matched by Lori's as she held him tight and tried to think of a way to help him. His panting was now a full-on struggle to catch his breath amongst his soul-tearing screams, the ones that got lost in the absolute chaos around them, with no one but his sister to listen to them in that recondite corner of the park. Horrifying cries that froze her heart and filled her with despair, draining her of all hope and replacing her blood with a painful venom that attacked every fiber of her body, spreading inside like a plague.

She should have known… That integrity… That solemn attitude with which he seemed to face his condition… It wasn't real. It had never been. It was nothing but the mask Lincoln wore whenever he was around them, worried for the mental health and emotional state of his family rather than his own. That's how he was. Selfish and stingy every once in a while, but always putting his family first, even before him. She should have figured out that all the effort he put into helping his sisters was killing him, exhausting him. He was silencing his own voice, bottling up his feelings, fears and worries, forcing himself to not acknowledge what he felt, and now they were both witness of the consequences of that. Anger attacks, panic attacks. Way too much pain, much more than any eleven-years-old boy should ever have to deal with.

Lori didn't know what to do or what to say. How could she make it all better for him? How could she tell him that everything would be alright, if she herself felt a tremendous pain that cracked her heart and put her on her knees? She couldn't even fathom everything that her younger, baby brother would be feeling right then. She could understand, in part, why he did it, why he kept all his problems for himself. Just like her, he wanted to keep the house from falling apart. They were both trying to help everyone else to go through these tough times, to find some kind of solace among the unbearable sorrow. They both felt the responsibility to carry that weight on their shoulders so no one else had to.

Lincoln, however, was nothing but a kid, and being the main victim of circumstances, it was unfair, inhuman to ask for him to carry all the weight of his and everyone else's anguish. Maybe he was a better leader than her. Maybe he was the one that truly kept balance in the house. Maybe she had failed her family, her parents, her sisters, herself, and maybe she hadn't assumed the responsibility that everyone expected and needed her to assume. Maybe she had failed them all.

But she wouldn't fail Lincoln.

"Linky, look at me", she asked, moving away from him.

Her brother was still wailing between her arms, but he looked up and placed his hurt eyes on her. She used her thumbs to try to wipe away all the tears she could, and she summoned all the strengths she had left in her to talk to him.

"I don't want you to be strong for me. Be strong for our sisters if you want, for mom, for dad. Be strong for them… but you don't have to be it for me. Every time you feel bad, I want you to come to see me and I want you to let it all out. Don't pretend, don't try to fool me, don't worry about me or how I feel. I don't… Maybe I can't make you feel better… but I'll be there for you. Always. Until the end. Because even if you're the most beautiful, kind, thoughtful, perfect and wonderful kid in the world, you're still my little brother. And I'm your older sister. I'll always be. And I'll always be there for you whenever you need me."

He closed his eyes and his whole face turned into an ugly, hurt grimace just as his crying came back in a full-on assault, renewing the siege to her heart. She surrounded him with her arms, pulled him in against her body, and she began rocking her body with him on her lap, almost cradling him like she used to do when they were younger.

"I'm here… I'm here… I'm not going anywhere", she reassured him in whispers, with silent but devastating tears escaping from the corner of her eyes. "I'm here."

Rain kept falling around them. The flashes of lightning and thunder ruled the afternoon's cloudy sky. The creek kept streaming down towards the ocean, and the gale seemed to be composing a fanfare with the sounds it produced as it pierced through the treetops, but none of it seemed to matter to the two Loud siblings. Carol Pingrey would have to be patient in the car, because Lori had no intentions of moving away from that improvised refuge under the bridge, not as long as she was the only one with a shoulder upon which Lincoln felt free to cry and vent his frustrations and fears. Not as long as she was his only way to find a catharsis. It was her turn now to be strong. For him, for Lincoln, for her brother. She was the one who needed to leave her feelings aside to allow him to unburden himself. She was the only one in the family, nay the world who could take the weight off his shoulders.

And even though the load may make her crumble, even if her shoulders weren't enough, even if Atlas' curse rested now on her, toppling her down to her knees, hurting her, making her weak, tearing her heart and soul, she wouldn't complain. She'd soldier through it, she'd survive it. She'd take the punishment as long as necessary so he wouldn't have to.

Because that was her duty. She was the eldest sibling, she was the one that was supposed to be there for everyone, to lighten everyone's burdens. She was the one everyone should and could rely on, the one who would always be there for them. She'd summon strengths from where there were none in order to help him. Her loving embrace and her reassuring presence would take his suffering and redirect it to herself, no matter how much her own health could be affected.

All for him. For Lincoln. Her little brother.

.

.

.

At this point I think everyone realized that this is not the final chapter. When I said "don't miss the conclusion", I meant the second half of the chapter that, like I mentioned, had been divided in two. And when I compared it to Infinity War and the culmination of two years of work (the MCU does continue after IW, lol) I meant it in the sense that this is the climax, the point where Lincoln finds himself at his lowest. For two years I tried to show Lincoln worried about everyone else, helping all his loved ones one by one. He neglected himself to save others, and he finally paid the price. This was Lincoln's crisis. Now we know more about what was going on in his mind, his heart. His panic attacks (whenever he stopped to think about the fact that he's dying), his anger attacks (when things didn't go his way or he thought people was treating him like a dead man already), they were all the product of not having anyone to cry with. Of bottling up his feelings. Of not accepting the dire truth, instead escaping from it by helping other, forgetting about his own mental health.

To make this simpler and avoid any more mistakes from me, I'll be honest: there are two more chapters. One chapter, and then the end. The end end. No epilogue, no continuation, no sequels, nothing. If it takes me 40K words to write that final chapter, so be it. No more splitting up chapters. Two more chapters, period.

Thank you all who wrote to me, I read all your messages. They're a LOT! But I do read them all. I give y'all a giant hug, dear readers, and I'll see you next time.