38. Chapter 38

Sam Sharp quietly slipped through the front door of the Loud House, gently closing the door behind her, taking extra care to avoid catching her satchel in the doorway. She glanced around, hoping, as always, to find the home in a more positive state than when she'd left the previous day. Unfortunately, such was not the case. She sighed to herself, not for the first time worrying that the new was quickly becoming the norm, but tried not to dwell upon it, steeling her resolve before setting off for her destination.

It had been about a week since since she and the Loud siblings had played that game together. A week since the girls, herself included had said and done some pretty mean things to Carol. A week since they'd driven her from the house, crying. And a week since Lincoln had found himself more furious than he'd ever been at the people he loved more than anything in the world.

Thinking back to that day always caused a deep ball of shame to form in the pit of Sam's stomach. Yes, she hadn't physically participated in that final act that had finally pushed Carol over the edge, but only because she'd been busy venting her frustrations on Lynn, the other girl who'd had the audacity to try and steal Lincoln's affections away from her. Err, her girlfriend, she quickly corrected herself, the pale haired boy was meant for Luna, after all. In spite of that convenient excuse, Sam had treated Carol just as bad as the others had during the buildup. And, had she not been so occupied, she could not honestly say that she wouldn't have gleefully taken part in finally driving the older girl from their home.

At the time it had seemed so..sensible. Justified. The Loud House had become a sanctuary for Sam, her girlfriend, their future boyfriend/husband, and the other girls, who Sam was gradually beginning to think of as her own family. And then came Carol! Beautiful, perfect Carol. All curves, and legs, and glorious golden hair that put her own to shame. Carol, who had the audacity to...be really nice to all of them. And who...was especially nice to Lincoln. Who she clearly had a thing for, despite the fact that she was way, way, way out of his league. Which, frankly, would have been adorable if the object of the older girl's affections hadn't been the same boy that she and Luna were supposed to build a life with. Carol was a threat to all the women in Lincoln's life, apparently even extending to those who only loved the boy in the familial sense, and worst part of it all had been that the boy very clearly reciprocated those feelings to some extent. Which...still being honest, she couldn't blame him for. Carol was a catch in every sense of the word, and she and her sisters in spirit had only done what had felt natural at the time: they united against the threat. By...saying and doing really mean things to her until she cried.

She probably would have felt better about the whole thing if Lincoln had yelled. Screamed. Maybe even hit them a little. Actually, that might have made Sam feel a little too good, but the point still stood, the boy would have been well within his rights to lay into the girls in some fashion. But...he hadn't. He hadn't said anything at all. He'd run after the Pingrey girl, presumably hoping to catch her before she'd made it to her car. And when he finally came back, he just...kept going. No righteous indignation, no lambasting speeches, not even a good spanking. His eyes said it all. He was furious, yes, but more than anything he was disappointed. In all of them.

Since then, the Loud House had become considerably less loud. From what she'd personally seen, and confirmed through the other Loud siblings, Lincoln mostly kept to himself. No more working out with Lynn, no more making music with Luna, no more helping Luan with her jokes, or Lucy with her poems. The boy mostly just stayed in his room, a recluse within his own home. He'd reportedly even taken steps to avoid having to drive to school with his sisters, arranging alternative rides with his friends or his mom's carpool group, and on one occasion when no other option presented itself, walking to school. It was, perhaps a little melodramatic, but that didn't make the sentiment hurt any less.

Sam stopped as she reached Lincoln's door, unshouldering her satchel. No more time for self doubt, it was showtime.

"H-hey, Lincoln!" She called out, her voice cracking with nervousness. "It's me. Sam."

She waited a few moments for some kind of acknowledgement, but received none. Which to be fair, was exactly what she was expecting.

"It's been a while since we talked about your comics." She continued, in spite of the pervasive silence. "I had an idea for a new character I wanted to run by you."

Sam withdrew a sketchpad from her bag, flipping through it as she searched for the relevant drawings. Well, "drawings" was giving her a little too much credit. Sam wasn't an artist, and it showed, the designs contained within were little more than scribbles. A mishmash of colors that could vaguely resemble Card Sharp if one knew what to look for, an elaborate series of tunnels she been planning on luring Lynn into once she'd found a crew to do the digging, a trio of scribbles, blue, purple, and orange, all holding hands, and... there it was.

"See, she's a homeless girl just trying to get by. But then one day she meets a wizard in a subway tunnel, and he gives her super powers. So whenever she says her secret magic word, she transforms, gets super sexy and strong, and she can also shoot lightning! Because...I thought that seemed cool. Anyway, I call her Sha-Sam!"

Sam waited a bit longer, hoping Lincoln would manage to find something about her super amazing idea to criticize, finally opening up a dialogue between them, but...nothing. The younger boy either wasn't home, or more distressingly, wasn't willing to talk.

Sighing, Sam packed up her stuff and began trudging back the way she'd come, towards Luna's room. Plan B then, Try to break Luna out of her decidedly non-musical funk, and put their heads together to come up with a Plan C.

She stopped abruptly as Luna's door opened, seemingly of its own volition. However, those fears were quickly set aside as the occupants of the room made their exit. Lynn, Lucy, aaaand Luna. All three displaying the same degree of ennui that become commonplace as of late.

Luna's eyes widened as she came face to face with Sam, and the blonde gave her girlfriend a short wave.

"Hey, Lunes." She greeted her. Glancing at the other Louds.

"Sorry, luv." Luna responded, clearly intuiting Sam's unspoken question. "Sib..err, sister meeting." She corrected herself with no small amount of melancholy. "Short notice. If you want, you can wait ih the room until we finish."

"Actually..." Lucy spoke up, "I think Sam should come too." Sam couldn't see the younger girl's eyes, shrouded as they were by the girl's raven locks, but she could still feel the tiny Goth's gaze upon her.

"You sure, Luce?" Lynn asked, seemingly not particularly enthused by the idea. Sam wondered if Lana would be willing to undertake a digging project on short notice...

"Yes." Lucy affirmed, nodding for emphasis. "There are things that need to be discussed. And like it or not, Sam's part of this too."

Sam felt her throat go dry at those words. Something told her this wasn't going to be just any old meeting.

The mood in Lori's room was only mildly lighter than that of the rest of the house, largely carried by the novelty of simple congregation. Six sisters who had barely seen each other over the course of the previous week, and one Sam.

"Order!" Lori called out, banging her high heeled shoe against her podium, as was customary. Not that there was was much need for it. Family unity among the sisters had been at an all time low as of late, and with it much of their spirit. Lincoln's metaphorical departure from their group had certainly contributed to that change, but equally responsible had been each sister looking back on their own actions, and finding themselves disgusted with what they'd found. The purpose of this meeting was to figure out how they were going to fix that.

Lori cleared her throat and continued. "I'd like to welcome you all to this emergency meeting of the Loud siblings-"

"Ahem."

"...and Sam." Lori added, rolling her eyes.

There was some polite, scattered applause. Which was an impressive feat, given how few of them (relatively speaking) were present.

"Looks like we're missing a few munchkins." Luan observed, dryly.

"I just miss Linky." Leni added, somberly. Every shoulder in the room drooped a little more.

"It's an emergency meeting." Lori gestured to her white board for emphasis, indicating the relevant portion of the meeting title. "The little ones aren't involved in this.

"As for Lincoln.." She gave her podium another sharp rap. "That's why we're here."

"He's kinda mad at us, sis." Luna unnecessarily opined.

"Something of an understatement." Lucy corrected her. "His fury burned with the intensity of the noon day sun."

"I've tried to apologize to him a bunch of times. But every time I do, he just..." Lynn's voice faltered. "He just walks away. It doesn't even phase him."

"Because he's not the one you should be apologizing to. Or any of us, for that matter." It took Sam a few seconds to realize that her mouth was the one that was saying those things, but by the time she had become aware of that fact, she was already committed. She flinched, as all eyes were suddenly upon her, but pushed through anyway.

"We didn't hurt Lincoln." She continued. "If we had, this probably would have been a much easier situation to resolve. The problem is that we were really mean to Carol." She abruptly wrenched her jaw shut. Even as bad as she felt, just saying that name caused those ugly feelings to begin boiling up within her once more. Thankfully, the other girls seemed to be considering her words.

"Why did we even do that?" Lucy asked.

"Because she was all over Lincoln." Luna replied.

"Yeah!" Lynn nodded in agreement. "She was being all nice to him, and holding his hand and stuff!"

"And blonde." Leni added. "What?" She asked as the group's attention. "Linky likes blondes. It wasn't fair for Carol...to be...blonde." She finished lamely, shrinking back into her seat. No small feat for the rather tall girl.

"So..." Lucy prompted. "The the impetus here is that Carol has clearly taken a liking to our brother." Though likely unintended, Sam felt a little thrill that she was being grouped among the sisters. "The question is...why does this bother us so much?"

"It's natural, right?" Luan asked, her eyes nervously shifting from one side to the other. "Nobody's ever happy about seeing their little brother land a nice, pretty, popular girl. Right?"

Silence fell upon the room as the group digested this information. Sam discretely elbowed Luna in the side, trying to wordlessly communicate to the girl that it might be time to come clean about their intentions towards the pale haired boy.

"Ow!" Luan shouted as Sam's bare foot inadvertently slapped against her cheek. So sue her. Pantomime was already hard, and communicating an idea as complex as 'confess your undying love for your little brother. I'm sure they won't judge you for it.' would be nigh impossible without time to practice.

Surprisingly, it was ultimately Lynn who would formally break the silence.

"Look, guys." She began, haltingly, her face growing increasingly red with each word. "I've actually been putting a lot of thought into this, and I think it's time I came clean about something that...that may have motivated me to treat Carol the way I did."

Sam looked on with interest as the jersey clad girl tried to muster the courage to continue, continuing to jab Luna with her elbow as she did so.

"T-the truth is..." Lynn swallowed. "...that Lucy's in love with Lincoln."

Somehow the silence in the room grew more...silent. That was not the confession that Sam was expecting.

"...Really, Lynn?" The younger girl asked, clearly glaring at the sporty Loud in spite of her obscured eyes.

"So's Lori." Leni pipped up.

"Leni!" Lori hissed, staring daggers at her younger sister.

"Ya huh." Leni nodded. "Leni is too."

Sam blinked in surprise, then shrugged. Well, when in Rome...

"Luna too!" She called out, waving her hand in the air.

"Dude!" Luna growled, her face shooting right past red, and going straight to a color more akin to the purple she favored so much.

"Also, I'm pretty sure Lynn is too." Sam added.

"Gasp." Lucy stated sarcastically, as Lynn began sputtering in indignation.

"...Aaand if I'm being honest, I guess I kind of am too." Sam concluded, thoughtfully. She let out a shriek as what was almost certainly some kind of vice clamped itself around her shoulder. Shuddering at the ungodly amount of pain that was coursing through her body, she slowly turned to find the culprit was the hand of her very angry girlfriend. Oh, right. She'd never gotten around to telling Luna about that.

Lori sighed in exasperation as the room fell back into silence, the only sounds being Sam's whimpers of pain, as Luna slowly murdered her girlfriend's shoulder via strangulation.

"How is it that Luan of all people, would be the only one of us who isn't a degenerate?" Lori complained, angrily slapping her shoe against the podium.

"Hey!" The jokester protested. Briefly looking confused, as she tried to parse whether or not she should be offended. "For your information, I'm also in love with Lincoln!"

"This isn't the time for your jokes, Luan." Lori rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"But I wasn't—GAH!" Luan's reply was cut short as a blur of purple and blue shot past her, nearly toppling her to the ground.

Literally not the time for this, Lori thought to herself. She took a brief moment to acquire her target, then flung the shoe with expert precision, managing to not only knock Luna off of Sam in a single blow, but also effortlessly snatching the shoe out of the air at it rebounded off the younger girl.

"You two cut that out!" She warned, jabbing the shoe in their direction. Thankfully, the stunt had apparently worked, and the pair quickly returned to their seats. She hadn't need to pull that trick out in a while.

"Alright..." Lori began, trying to gather her thoughts. "How did...any of...this..."She gestured at the group as a whole, "Even happen!?"

"Who can say?" Lucy shrugged nonchalantly once it became apparent that nobody else was going to offer an answer. "Love doesn't stem from a single moment. It's cultivated over time. It could have been any number of things."

Lori found herself nodding in agreement. It made sense. It wasn't like Lincoln had actively courted any of them. The change was a gradual one. She was fairly certain that, should she examine her life on a moment by moment basis, she'd be hard pressed to find a time when she wasn't in love with her little brother on some level.

"I think it has something to do with Linky's comics." Leni opined, causing Lori to flinch. That...sounded considerably less romantic. Falling in love with your little brother because he'd drawn a bunch of comics featuring your fictional alter egos in romantic situations was just...hackneyed. It was the kind of thing you'd expect to find in a crummy romantic comedy, and an especially tasteless one at that.

"I was actually just trying to hook up Luna and Lincoln at first, because the thought of her porking her little bro sounded kinda hot, and maybe I could get in on some of that action if I played my cards right." Sam interjected. "But over time, I began to see that they were genuinely good for one another. And I guess somewhere along the way, I began wanting a bit of what they shared for myself. Not just as two friends who happened to be sharing the same girl, with all the benefits that entailed, but...as three people who genuinely loved and cared for one another equally."

Lori wasn't super enthused to find out that Sam had been conducting these machinations under their collective noses, but she had to admit that for all of the younger girl's many, many, many faults, her sentiments seemed genuine. And because of that, Lori found herself gladdened to see Luna's hand slowly reach out, and tightly grasp the blonde. This time affectionately, rather than violently.

"A-as for me..." Luan spoke up, voice quavering with nerves, "I-"

"Oh, oh!" Sam interrupted. "Also, we were in that vaguely incestual commercial together."

Sam looked like she was about to continue, but the next thing out of her mouth was a loud yelp of surprise as she was suddenly bombarded with debris from all directions. Lori looked at her shoe thoughtfully, briefly considering acting her age remaining above the petty squabbles of her younger sisters. On the other hand...

"Ow!"

Sam really needed to learn when to stop talking.

"Okay!" Lori called out sharply, swiftly putting an end to the fusillade. Order quickly returned to the meeting, and moments later, the only indication of the previous disturbance was the still quivering Sharp girl.

"Fine. So, apparently we're all in love with Lincoln." Lori put her hands on her head, feeling a long overdue migraine coming on. The situation was growing more complex by the minute. "So now, in addition to mending bridges with both Carol and Lincoln, we've got to figure this whole thing out."

"Question?" Leni asked, raising her hand. Lori gestured for her to proceed, eager for something to distract from impending, family sundering dispute that would need to be resolved.

"What is it that we need to figure out?" Typical Leni.

"Obviously we need to figure out who's going to get Lincoln." Lynn explained irritably.

"Or more importantly..." Luan added, eyeing the other occupants of the room, "Who's not going to get Lincoln."

"Um..." Luna coughed, uncomfortably. "Not to be bum everybody out even more, but isn't finding out how Lincoln feels the more important issue?"

"Not at all." Lucy replied.

"Uh uh." Leni added with an emphatic shake of her head.

"Regardless..." Lori cut in, trying to keep things from going too far off topic. "That's the situation, Leni." The fashionista's hand shot up again almost immediately.

"But, I still don't understand why the problem is." Leni didn't even wait to be called on this time.

"The problem, is that we have seven girls, and only one Lincoln." Lori replied, slowly, for the younger girl's benefit.

"Eight." Luan added. "Carol's got a thing for him too."

"Think it's actually nine." Lynn grumbled. "How else do you explain ghost girl?" All eyes turned to Lucy.

"Sigh. I'm pretty sure Lynn's referring to Maggie." Lucy jabbed one finger at the ceiling vent for emphasis.

"Just pretend I'm not here." Came a muffled voice from the rear of the room. Again, all eyes shifted in unison towards the voice's direction, but all they could see was Lori's bed.

"Really wish I could." Lori sighed to herself.

"Ditto." Said Lynn, nodding sympathetically. "Good luck sleeping tonight."

"But guys!" Leni interjected waiving her long arms around to draw attention back to herself. "Why don't we just share Linky?"

Leni seemed confused when there was no immediate response to her suggestion. Likely because the other inhabitants of the room were dumbfounded by the audacity of it.

"Leni..." Lori said, choosing her words carefully. "We can't share Lincoln."

"But why not?"

"Because." Lori gritted her teeth, trying to force down the irritation that was bubbling up from within her. "A bunch of girls can't just share the same guy, Leni! It doesn't work that way!"

"But you were going to share Linky with me!"

"Ha!" Lynn crowed, pointing one accusing finger at Lori. "I knew you guys were up to something! That's playing dirty!"

"Lynn." Lucy intoned. "You were going to share him with me." She turned to Lynn. "Right?"

"O-of course, Luce." Lynn stammered, apparently realizing it was unwise to anger a girl who owned an army of trained bats. "But that's different! We were just trying to level the playing field!"

"But you couldn't have known that we were teaming up when you decided to team up!" Lori growled, eyes narrowing. "So how can you accuse us of being unfair?"

"Nobody wanted to team up with me?" Luan asked, glumly.

"Luna and I were a team too!" Sam shouted excitedly, patting her girlfriend on the back, and inadvertently proving Luan right, much to the comedienne's consternation. "Team Sunacoln!"

"That is not our team name." Luna growled, grabbing the girl's arm mid-pat, and wrenching it straight down.

"Well Salunacoln just sounds stupid."

"This, Leni!" Lori interjected, gesturing emphatically to the other girls. "This is exactly why we can't just share Lincoln, like some kind of freaky group of sex cultists!"

Sam opened her mouth and Luna immediately clamped her hand over it. No, her eyes said.

"Every time we're together, no matter what we're doing, the situation immediately devolves into insanity!" Lori ranted on, counting off on her fingers. "Our brother starts a comic book, and we all take it as a sign that we should fall in love with him! We try to go to a convention, and Sam kidnaps him! And raises a minion army to fight us!"

"Heh." Sam chuckled. "I never even paid those dorks."

"Don't forget ambushing Lincoln and interrogating him about Carol." Luan added.

"That too!" Lori nodded towards Luan. "And we couldn't even play a simple board game without declaring a blood feud on my best friend!"

"To be fair, Lincoln's game was actually fairly complex." Lucy cut in, her tiny chest puffing up with pride.

"The point is, everything we touch turns to crazy!" Lori was shouting now, pounding her podium with her bare fist for emphasis. Her shoulders sank, righteous indignation now replaced with weariness.

"Maybe...m-maybe Lincoln has the right idea." Lori quickly turned away, feeling the telltale stinging of tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "Maybe he's better off without us." She finished, barely able to push the words through the raw emotion that was constricting her throat.

She took a few moments to compose herself, desperately fighting down the sob that threatened to wrack her body. And then, just as she felt like she was going to lose the fight, she felt a gentle touch upon her shoulder. Lori cautiously looked up and saw Leni standing before her, a warm smile upon her little sister's face.

"But Lori..." Leni gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Wasn't all of that like...totes fun?"

Leni turned to address the room. "Like, yes...we were totes mean to Carol, and she didn't deserve that. But all the other stuff...that was just great! Right?"

"I mean...how often did we all hang out like this before we found Linky's comic books?" She asked rhetorically, gently pushing the still distraught Lori out of the way and sliding into her place behind the podium. "It feels like, every day we're finding something new and exciting to do. Like, yeah, sometimes Sam makes it weird..."

"Almost always." Lynn snarked.

"L-literally always." Lori sniffled, smiling in spite of herself.

"Hey!" Sam protested. "I resemble that incredibly accurate remark!"

"But it's always fun!" Leni pushed on. "And it's fun because we're always together! Us and Linky!"

She paused, contemplatively. "Well, not Luan and Lucy. They were gone for like, a really long time—"

"Not as long as Lisa." Said Luan, Lucy nodding in agreement.

"—But then they stopped being gone, and it just made everything better!"

Leni looked around the room, meeting the individual gazes of each of her sisters (and Sam). "If we stop playing together, then everybody's going to be totes sad. And that would be really, really sad! But..." Leni reached out and pulled Lori into a tight embrace, "If we learn to get along. If we stay together...us and Linky, then...we get to keep doing this. Forever."

Leni released Lori from the hug, gently grabbed the older girl's chin, and forced her to look Leni in the eyes. "We'd be like, a family!"

"We're already a family, Leni." Lori giggled, wrenching her face out of Leni's grasp.

"More of a family!" Leni declared, giving Lori another one of her patented, spine-shattering Leni hugs. "Because now we'll have Sam! And Maggie! And maybe even Carol!"

As Lori attempted to squirm free of her overly affectionate little sister, she couldn't deny that the proposal had a certain appeal to it. Finally, she broke free, much to Leni's disappointment, but she placated the the younger girl by wrapping one arm around her slender waist and pulling her into a side hug.

"Well, what do you guys think?" She asked, addressing the other girls.

"I dunno Lori." Luna said frowning. "I mean, Sam's right, I was already okay with sharing with her. But...seven girls? Possibly nine?" That's a lot of girlfriends for one dude to manage."

"That's gonna be a lot of girlfriends." Sam repeated, considerably more enthusiastic as she reappraised the Loud sisters with renewed interest.

"Dude!"

Sam flinched at the withering glare Luna sent her way.

"What?" Sam protested. "You just said you were already willing to share with me, what's a few more girls? Besides..." She licked her lips. "Don't take this the wrong way, babe, but your sisters are hawt."

Sam shot Leni a lusty wink. "Hey, Leni." She purred.

With lightning speed, Leni reached into her cleavage, pulled out a small silver whistle, and blew into it. The remaining girls clutched the heads and screamed in agony as the deceptively small instrument produced an enormous sonic blast, which ricocheted around the small room.

"Sorry!" Leni called out, wincing as the sound reverberated back her way. "I'm supposed to blow my Lori whistle when people look at me like that."

"I'm already here, Leni!" Lori screeched amid the cacophony.

"Gah!" Lynn exclaimed as the sound finally began to die down. "Lori, why the heck would you give her that?"

"Because of that!" Lori jabbed one accusing finger at Leni. "Think about what it's like to be responsible for a girl who looks like Leni when you're surrounded by puberty-crazed boys and girls!"

"I'm very healthy." Leni said, not quite following the conversation, but repeating something her mom often said.

Luna let out a soft sigh, before turning her attention upon Sam, who was rubbing her hands together in anticipation.

"if, I were to agree to this..." She jabbed her girlfriend in the chest. "And that's a big if! You can't sexually harass my sisters!"

Sam's face immediately fell, eagerness now replaced by crushing disappointment. "But Luuuunaaaaa!"

"No buts!" Luna poked her again, harder this time. "You're my girlfriend and I love you. So I choose to put up with your...shenanigans..."

"Sam-antics." Luan interjected.

"But they don't have to! So 'no' means 'no', got it!?"

Sam pouted, her lip jutted out and her chin quivering, puppy eyes turned up to eleven. However, Luna remained unmoved.

"Sam!" She prompted.

"Ugh. Fine." Sam grumbled, crossing her arms and slouching down in a huff.

"Good." Luna turned to address the rest of the room. "Well, the blondes are apparently all on board. What about the rest of you?"

"I'll take what I can get." Luan replied, shrugging. "If I turn this down, you might all forget I exist again."

"I had already assumed things would turn out this way." Said Lucy. "So I have no complaints."

"I, on the other hand, have a lot of complaints!" Lynn growled, frowning. "But...I don't want to be that girl who has to fight all her other sisters for the right to date her brother..."

"Please do." Luan chuckled. "We incest."

Lynn waited for the groans to die down before continuing. "...so I agree. But only by filing the following sweeping declaration with Sam." She turned to the blonde. "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo."

Sam scoffed. "See..." She chuckled, "Now you've just made it a challen—OW!"

"Bad Sam." Luna stated, giving the girl another rap on the head for good measure. "Then, yeah." She continued without missing a beat. "I guess I'm in too."

"Yay!" Leni exclaimed, dashing around the room and sweeping each of the other girls up into an enormous, simultaneous Leni hug. "Let's go tell Linky!"

"Yes, about that..." Came a voice from the doorway.

Leni turned towards the door. A moment later, she adjusted the giant wad of girl flesh she was currently holding off the ground so the other girls could see too.

"Hi Lisa!" She chirped, waiving at the diminutive scientist. Despite the fact that she was now devoting one entire arm to greeting her younger sister, her remaining Loud and Sharp laden arm didn't waver in the slightest.

"...quite." Lisa responded, after taking a moment to process the sight before her. "Now, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. However, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation—"

"Through a locked door?" Lynn managed to gasp, her airway partially blocked by the pressure being applied by Leni's hug.

"—but I regret to inform you that our brother is not here at this time. In fact, he has not been home since early this afternoon."

"WHAT?" Exclaimed seven voices in unison, only one of which was not ragged by the rapid onset of asphyxiation.

"Where the heck did he go?" Luna rasped as her vision began to darken.

"Unfortunately my tracking software is currently malfunctioning, else I would be able to give you a more certain answer..."

"I want to be upset by this, by my short life is flashing before my eyes." Lucy whispered.

"—but a glance at Lincoln's personal calendar, cross referenced with local showtimes, leads me to believe that he is most likely at the movies, seeing the new Ace savvy movie."

"Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?" Leni asked, scratching her head with her airborne sisters.

"The date!" Lori managed to squeak out what she quickly feared was going to be her last breath.

"Oh no!" Leni exclaimed, losing her grip on the other girls, and unceremoniously dropping them to the ground in a crumpled heap.

"Precious oxygen..." Sam murmured, greedily drinking in mouthfuls of air. Suddenly, she was wrenched back into the air. However, before panic could set in, she was swiftly placed back upon her feet. A quick glance around revealed that the other girls were similarly standing, albeit unsteadily!

"Come on everyone!" Leni shouted herding them to the doorway, nearly trampling Lisa in the process. "We've gotta tell Linky and Carol how we feel. Now!"

"Why?" Luna exclaimed, yelping in terror as Leni began shoving the group forward with increasing speed and force.

"Because Linky can't fall in love with us if he's already dating Carol!"

Sam watched as the Leni-propelled Louds quickly sped out of the room. It had taken some doing, but she managed to slip out of the way at the last possible second, leaving her and Lisa alone together.

"Aren't you afraid they'll leave without you?" The younger girl inquired.

"Nah." Sam waved dismissively. "I trust them. More importantly...I want to know why you didn't try to get in on this."

"I'm...not certain of your meaning." Lisa replied neutrally.

"We're running off to convince your brother to try dating six of his sisters." Sam considered the smaller girl before her. "Based on the way you just happened to show up in the nick of time,I have a hunch that you're more interested in the outcome of this than you'd like us to believe."

Lisa remained silent. Sam waited, knowing that the scientist was weighing her responses. Finally her patience was rewarded.

"I think...that my elder brother is already going to have trouble coming to grips with the situation as it currently stands." Said Lisa. "Moreover, whatever feelings I might have for my brother simply aren't relevant at this time."

"How do you figure?"

"I'm four." Came Lisa's flat reply. "While, intellectually speaking, I am extremely ahead of the curve, I'm self-aware enough to realize that I don't have the emotional maturity to deal with romantic entanglements at this time." She shrugged. "And while I suspect Lincoln would try his best to accommodate me, I don't want him to have to bear that burden. I anticipate that things are going to become complicated enough between all of you before the night is over."

"That's very mature of you, Lisa." Sam observed.

"Yes, well..." The younger girl adjusted her glasses, the lenses catching the light in such a way that they appeared to be completely opaque. It was...oddly sinister looking.

"There will come a day when I am ready to tell Lincoln how I feel. And when that day comes, I intend to give it my all."

She paused thoughtfully. "Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if the twins found themselves in a similar situation."

Sam leaned down and gave the younger girl a hug. There was an awkward couple of moments where Lisa appeared to be considering how to respond, but in the end, she returned the gesture of affection. Albeit reluctantly.

"No need to worry." Sam reassured her, giggling at the scientists antics. "I'll save you all a spot at the table. I promise."

Sam allowed Lisa to exit the room before she did, then gently closed the door behind her.

"Sam!" Barked a voice from behind her, causing Sam to start in surprise. She whirled around, and was surprised to find that the voice belonged to Leni of all people.

"Sorry, Leni." She let out a short embarrassed laugh. "I had one quick thing to take care of. I'll be right there, I swear."

Leni simply stared back at her. A few heartbeats later, the older girl began to slowly pace around her, examining Sam with an emotionless, professional gaze. For the first time in her life, Sam found herself feeling strangely violated. Finally, she spoke.

"I was just thinking..." Leni began.

"About?"

"About earlier." Leni gave her one last appraising look. "...I don't mind." She said at last.

Sam blinked in surprise. "Really?"

"Yup." Leni nodded. "Really."

"But!" The older girl held up one finger, cutting off any possible response from Sam. "Linky has to be there too. And he gets to go first."

A giant grin erupted across Sam's face. "Deal!"

Wow. That was a long one. Huh. I wonder what Lincoln's been up to while all this was going on...