User blog:AustinDR/Fanfiction: Lincoln's Farewell

OK, so this is the final part of the response that I made to Requiem for a Loud. I was originally going to include that into "Remembering Lincoln," but I had no idea on how to expand on that. So, here goes nothing.

Lincoln's Farewell
Lincoln stirs awake from his bout of unconsciousness to the full realization that he was back at the hospital. He seemed to faintly remember feeling lightheaded and passing out, but everything else was a blur. Before he could process his surroundings, a familiar voice caught him off guard. "Lincoln," screams Luan "Guys, he's awake!" Without any warning, his sisters charged into the room at full speed. "Girls, girls, we talked about this," drones a tireless Rita. Lincoln rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. "Hey there, sweetie, how are you feeling?" inquires Rita. "I feel as though someone stepped on my chest." Lynn Sr. walks in with a cup of coffee. "Son, you really gave us a scare back there." Lincoln looks at him in curiosity. "What did I do?" His father explains that when Lynn was nearing the end of the game, he suffered a major heart attack, causing him to hit his head on the railing. "Did...did Lynn's team win?" Lincoln asks despairingly. "Son, your sister quit the game when she saw the paramedics roll you out on a gurney. The game was called off." Lincoln rolls to his side in disappointment. "Dad, I'm sorry that this had to happen." Struggling to keep back tears, Lynn Sr. assures his son that it was no one's fault for his condition. Lincoln, who had been trying to keep himself from crying for his sisters' sake, couldn't help but to let a few bitter tears escape his eyes. Almost instantaneously, Lincoln's sisters broke down as well. Gathering around Lincoln, the sisters goad him into a group hug. "No matter what happens, you'll always be our brother" says Luna comfortingly.

The doctor strolls into the room with a grim look on his face. "Mr. and Mrs. Loud," he says drearily, "I'm afraid that the major heart attack that your son suffered from greatly weakened him. Start saying your goodbyes." His sisters reacted in horror that they had even less time to spend with their brother, and they nearly dogpiled on the doctor to make him reconsider his judgment. "Girls!" shouts Rita "I know that you love your brother, we all do. But you shouldn't badger the doctor for answers." Knowing this to be true, they walk back towards Lincoln's bed in defeat. "Well, who's going to start?" asks Lincoln. His sisters nearly fought each other for the position, but they decided that the best way to do this is to go by oldest to youngest. As the elder of the Loud siblings, Lori goes first. With mascara running from her face, Lori walked over to her brother, and bent down to reach his eye level. "Lincoln, I know that I've said and done things to you that seem harsh, but that doesn't mean I despised you." Lori tried to blink away fresh tears before continuing. "Truth is, despite everything, I actually liked you, twerp." She lightly taps Lincoln on the arm in a playful fashion.

Leni was next. "The best memory that I've had with you is how you would often model in my dresses. I know that you never cared about modeling that much, but I felt that it was the only way that I could spend time with you." Leni blows her nose into a tissue. Lincoln smiles slightly. "Well, it wasn't as troublesome like you'd think." This causes his family to share a chuckle for a few moments. Luna goes next, followed by Luan. When they got to Lynn, however, she was standing by the door with her back turned. "Lynn, please Lincoln needs this as much as we do," begs Luna. Even though she no longer felt guilty about Lincoln's condition, she refused to see her brother in such a condition. While infuriated, the sisters understood her plight, and they skip over her. Lucy slowly walks over to her brother, clearly unhinged from the predicament. She pulls her hair away to look at her brother. Seeing his frail body triggered more tears to erupt from her tear ducts. "Lincoln, thank you for always being willing to listen to my poetry as well as for keeping our little secret." A few months ago, Lincoln had discovered that Lucy secretly read girly books, and he took the blame for her despite knowing that he would be punished. "No problem, Luce," replies Lincoln.

Lincoln felt a tug on his bed sheets, and he looked down to see the teary-eyed twins. "Please Lincoln, don't leave us!" shouted the twins in unison. They were the ones who had held out the most hope that their brother would recover only to have their hopes dashed by the harshness of reality. "Who's gonna play Princess Makeover with me?" wines Lola. "Who's gonna watch me roll in the mud," bemoans Lana. While Lincoln was feeling rather weak, he mustered up enough strength to tenderly pet his younger sisters' heads. "Lola, promise me that you'll win all of the pageants," demands Lincoln. Lola looks up at her brother with a mixture of sadness and understanding. "And Lana, promise me that you'll be the best engineer in the world." Lana wipes her nose with her bare hand before vowing to make him proud.

Lisa was the last sister to come before the bedridden young boy. Lisa removes her glasses momentarily to wipe away at the tears. "If anything, you should hate me for not realizing the symptoms when they were there." Lincoln quiets her down with a hug. "No, no, don't beat yourself up, sis." Lisa looks up at him in astonishment "But, you're..." Lincoln shushes her. "You are one of the greatest scientists that I know. Don't see this as a mistake, see this as an opportunity." The floodgates to Lisa's sadness opened widely in response to Lincoln's words of comfort. Before Lincoln could say any other words of comfort to his sisters, his heart began to beat rapidly. "Lincoln, Lincoln, no!" screams his sisters as the doctor was alerted to the dilemma. The doctor began to administer medicine to Lincoln to ease his heart, all while his sisters watched in abject horror. The drugs seemed to lessen his heart rate, somewhat for him to give his family some closure. Weakened by the heart attack, he slowly expressed his final wishes to his family. "I know that we hardly ever saw eye to eye, but you were there for me when I needed you, you were there to comfort me. There isn't anything more that a boy could ask for. I love you all."

Right before he closed his eyes for the final time, he saw some familiar boy looking at him with a look of happiness. "Great work, Lincoln, I am so proud of you." Realizing who it was, Lincoln musters up one word before he went to sleep. The doctor checks Lincoln for any vital signs before shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Loud. He's gone." His sisters burst into tears when the final verdict was delivered. They tried everything that they could think of to possibly revive their brother, but they were forced to part with his body when the doctor covers Lincoln with his bed sheets. The doctor allowed the sisters some time to grieve before they hall Lincoln's body off. Lori turns to Lynn to inform her on what the doctor had said, but she was nowhere to be seen. She had left the room once Lincoln flatlined. While she initially refused to look at Lincoln's body, through some encouragement, she saw her brother lying lifeless in his deathbed. Luan consoled the grieving Lynn as she let her inner sorrow loose. In all his effort, Lincoln succumbed a week shy of the two week verdict that the doctor gave him.