Everyday after work, Lincoln Loud played basketball at the YMCA on Braintree Avenue, sometimes with random people he met on the court - the way kids make friends for a day at the beach then never see them again - but mostly alone. He didn't mind either or, because for him, the appeal in the game was closing out everything in the world but that tiny little hoop. It was more challenging when another guy was coming at you, but eh, Lincoln was fine by himself.

Today, August 9, Lincoln left Pissy's Pizza at five, climbed into his 2021 Dodge, and drove through the late afternoon streets of Royal Woods, the windows down and the radio on WKBBL, the oldies station out of Elk Park. Lincoln liked oldies - there was something honest in it, pure, not like today's stuff. Today's stuff was all about having sex, or, if you were into country, drinking beer, eating fried chicken, then having sex. He couldn't say he was particularly enamored with the singer-songwriter stuff from the early seventies...you know, James Taylor and Cat Stevens...but he respected the hell out of it. Those guys took their music seriously, and sometimes even turned it into art. Today's singers were a drab Soviet apartment block by comparison.

At the intersection of Main and Pine, he stopped at a traffic light and waited for it to change, his mind wandering. He needed to stop at the store on the way home and, true to form, he forgot to make out a shopping list. He was twenty-five and had been living on his own since leaving for college at eighteen, you'd think that he would have gotten the hang of adulting by now, but nope.

Speaking of, his power bill was due. He lived in a two bedroom apartment in a nice complex outside of town, and the electric was through the roof. The funny thing was, he didn't even use it all that much. It's like they charged him more just because hey, buddy, this place is better than most, you gotta pay extra.

Thankfully, he could afford it: He was the day manager at Pissy's, worked three evenings a week at Clyde's dads' consulting firm, and sold art on the side, so he was never without, though some months he came close. The art thing wasn't steady income, that was why - some months he made five hundred bucks, some months he didn't make anything.

The light changed, and he went through, then hung a left. The Y sat between a vacant lot and an abandoned factory, its facade mostly glass and clustered with well manicured trees that waved in the hot breeze. Lincoln pulled into a slot facing the street, grabbed his gym bag from the back, and went inside, nodding to the receptionist behind the front desk, a woman with long black hair and sparkling blue eyes. She'd been working here since he came home from college two years ago, and he still didn't know her name. She was pretty, though; maybe he should ask her out.

In the locker room, he went to an empty locker, dropped his bag onto the floor, and changed out of his street clothes. Clad in dark blue basketball shorts and a white T, he shoved his stuff into the locker, grabbed his ball from the bag, and went through a door that lead to a hall bordering the court. A group of boys played on one side, chasing each other and clumsily pawing at the ball. Lincoln went in and took the empty half for himself.

Dribbling the ball, he looked up at the hoop and nodded to himself. Your ass is mine, buddy. He took a deep breath, forced everything else away, and took a shot. It hit the backboard and dropped in, the net swishing.

He played for fifteen minutes before his focus broke and thoughts of the desk lady came. He was being facetious when he said he should ask her out, because he knew how it'd end...just like all the other dates and false starts he had over the years. They'd go somewhere, maybe to a nice restaurant, talk, and Lincoln would feel nothing. No spark, no connection, hell, he might even end the night flat out disliking her.

Knowing this didn't mean anything, though - there was a damn good chance he'd try anyway because...deep down...he wanted to love someone, and wanted to be loved by someone in return. He wanted a hand to hold and eyes to gaze into, someone to be there when he woke up in the morning and when he came home at night. Sometimes he wanted it so badly he ached. Most normal aspiration in the world, isn't it? To have and to hold?

For him, it wasn't so much an aspiration as it was a pipe dream. No matter how badly he pined for it, he couldn't have it because…

He missed his tenth consecutive shot, the ball bouncing off the rim and landing out of bounds. Sighing in frustration, he went over, snatched the ball out of midair, and left. This didn't happen every day...or even most days...but it did happen, and by now he knew himself well enough to know that his concentration was ruined; if he stayed out there, he'd keep missing baskets and gathering wool until either the ball hit him in the face or his thoughts turned firmly and openly to Linka.

Something stirred deep in his chest, like the like dying embers of a wind-swept fire, and he quashed it as quickly and as savagely as he could, a communist leader putting down a protest with tanks and soldiers because if he didn't, it would spread. Linka was always in the back of his mind, but this time of year, she had a way of drifting to the front. August 10 was their anniversary: Fourteen years ago she and her brother crossed over and came into his life...fourteen years that felt some days like four months, and others like fourteen hundred years.

An image flashed across his mind before he could stop it: Linka, twenty-five and even more beautiful than she was at eleven, doing the exact same thing as him - stepping on his memory like a venomous bug.

A twinge of pain clinched his heart, and his step faltered. The last time he talked to her, he begged her to find someone else over there and to be happy. Every day for the past decade and a half, he hoped with every fiber of his being that she had, that he no longer ruled her heart the way she did his.

He knew that he did, though. She was like him, and he like her: Both empty, cast adrift, filling their lives with meaningless waste-time activities like basketball and art. Did she make futile attempts at dating the way he did? Had she ever had loveless sex with someone she barely knew hoping desperately to feel even one-eighth of what she felt with him? He thought she did...he thought she was just as sad and lonely as he was...and that brought tears to his eyes.

Damn it. Looks like the revolution has come, comrade. He tried to pull a Li Peng, but wound up doing a Nicolae Ceaușescu instead.

At his locker, he grabbed his things and hurriedly dressed; thick steam from the showers clogged the humid air, and as he pulled on his pants, a fat man in his fifties wearing only a smile walked over to the bench and propped his leg on, looking for all the world like Captain Morgan; his tiny, shriveled package swung free, and, as Lincoln watched in horror, he started talking to another man, this one fully clothed. The second man crossed his arms and stared into the first's eyes intently, perhaps, Lincoln thought, because the alternative was to look at his pecker.

Fully dressed, Lincoln shoved his shorts and shirt into the bag, swung it over his shoulder, and checked his phone.

One missed called.

Oh, God.

The only person who called him - aside from Mom - was the evening manager at Pissy's, a twenty-one-year-old upstart named Matt who only got the job because his uncle's cousin's brother's sister's daughter's neighbor's grandmother's son's friend knew the owner. He was a likeable enough kid, but he had a way of turning everything he touched to shit; last week he started the kitchen on fire; the week before that he misplaced important paperwork that wound up being thrown out; and today...idk, he summoned Nyarlathotep or something.

Coming to a halt, he swiped his thumb across the screen, then blinked in surprise.

It wasn't Matt.

It was Lisa.

Oh, thank God, he thought with a titter. He hit the CALL button and pressed the phone to his ear, then went into the hall. She answered on the third ring with a curt, "Lincoln."

"Hey. Lise," he said and went through the main doors. The sun was lower and the day cooler. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you'd stop by the house before going home. I have something to talk to you about."

He knew in an instant that that something had to do with Linka...or, rather, Levi. Eight years ago, such a call would have ignited hope in his chest, hope that she finally found a way through. Today, it did not, because he knew it was impossible. She just needed someone to talk to, someone who shared the same pain.

It happened every year. "Sure," he said, not wanting to talk about it at the same time that he did. "Give me ten minutes."

"Alright," she said, "I'll be waiting."

Lincoln ended the call, slipped the phone into his pocket, and slid in behind the wheel. Eight minutes later, he pulled to the curb in front of his childhood home, 1216 Franklin Avenue. It never ceased to amaze him how it looked exactly the same, but, for some indefinable reason, different as well. Nothing had changed, really...save for the lawn. Once upon a time it was strewn with toys, now it was empty, the children grown.

Killing the engine, he got out, slammed the door, and crossed to the porch, the shaggy too-tall grass tickling his bare calves. He'd have to come out and mow this weekend. Probably Sunday. He and Clyde were gonna hang on Saturday - that was the one day a week Lynn would let him out of the house.

At the door, he started to reach for his keys, but thought twice and tried the knob.

Unlocked.

Sigh. Lily, being the happy, good-natured little ball of sunshine she was, apparently had a hard time comprehending the fact that pedophiles, serial killers, and Kramers were attracted to unlocked doors like magnants. Guess he'd have to bitch her out again.

Inside, he found the object of his brotherly concern curled up on the couch with her tablet, a slight blonde with a cowlick much like the one he buzzed off in high school (he was sick of jokemasters giving it high fives in the hallway...up top, Loud). She was dressed in black sweat pants and an oversized grey T-shirt, an outfit she called her "work clothes." From the time she was little, she wanted to be an artist just like you, which meant she wanted to make shit for fun and feel like junk about everything she did, but I digress. When she was working on a project, she wore comfy clothes because I can't just walk around in my underwear like you. He didn't see why not, she wore bathing suits no problem, but eh, whatever.

He closed the door behind him and she looked up, a bright smile lighting her neutral features. "Hey, Linc."

"Hey," he said, then, assuming his best stern voice, "what have I told you about leaving the door unlocked?"

She regarded him blankly for a moment, then grinned sheepishly. "Whoops. Sorry. I was in kind of a rush."

"Yeah?" he asked and went over, leaning on the back of the couch. "For what?"

Beaming with pride, she presented him with the tablet and he took it. A budding pink flower, as true to life as he had ever seen, filled the screen, half of it colored in soft shades of pink and the other white. "I'm not done yet," she announced, "but I'm, like, half of the way there." She twisted around and preened. "Pretty good, huh?"

Lincoln smiled down at the tablet. Yes, actually, it was very good; she was a much better artist than he was at fifteen. He liked to think that had something to do with it...all those lessons he gave her were finally starting to pay off. "It looks like junk, delete it," he said and gave her the tablet back.

Her jaw dropped in a perfect O of shock. "It does not look like junk. It looks beautiful." She whipped away and went back to work, the corners of her mouth turned up in a satisfied smile. He told her he had to keep her ego in check and that's exactly what he was doing.

"It looks great," he said and ruffled her hair.

"Hey! I'm trying to work!"

"Well sor-ry," Lincoln said and backed off, his hands going up, palms facing out. Hey, man, don't shoot. His and Lily's interplay was one of the few things he genuinely enjoyed in life. They'd always been close, but after dad died two years ago, their relationship took on a deep dimension. He could never replace their father, but, perhaps subconsciously, Lily needed hm to try...and maybe he needed himself to try.

As he climbed the stairs, his thoughts turned once more toward Linka. Lily reminded him a great deal of her - happy, upbeat, full of life and energy and playful. In a way, you could say Lily had been filling a vacant role for him this whole time.

He reached the top of the steps and turned left. Lily and Lisa were the only ones who still lived at home, and with all the extra space, Lisa expanded her lab to three rooms in place of one. He found her, as he expected, in her quarters, Lori's old room; she sat in her computer chair facing the door, her elbows propped on the arms and her fingers steepled against the tip of her nose. One foot tapped restlessly against the floor and she anxiously chewed her bottom lip. She glanced up as he entered and shut the door, then drew a deep breath.

The past fourteen years had been just as hard on her as they had been on him, if not harder; to this very day, she was looking for a way through the veil and hating herself because she couldn't find it. Lincoln wished she wouldn't wallow in self-blame, but he supposed it fueled her, and while it wasn't exactly healthy, she needed something to keep her going.

"Hey," he said.

She looked at him and seemed tho think a long time before she spoke. "I'm doing it," she said.

That caught him off guard. Doing it? Doing what? He tilted his head in confusion, and Lisa darted her eyes shamefully away. "I'm going through."

When he realized what she was saying, his heart came to a crashing halt and his stomach rushed up to meet it. Hope, like the kiss of a warm fire, filled him for the first time in almost ten years. "You found a way?" he asked, his tone urgent.

Staring at his feet, unable to meet his eyes, Lisa shook her head. "No," she said, "I didn't."

"But…"

She lifted her gaze to his, and tears brimmed in her dark eyes. "I've been trying for fourteen years, Lincoln. I can't do it and...I can't wait any longer. I can't."

"Lisa," Lincoln sighed, his hopes crashing. "You can't do that. It -"

She cut him off. "There is a chance of creating a black hole. Yes. But that's all it is. A chance."

"A 41.5 percent chance," Lincoln pointed out. Before they even lost contact with Linka's world, Lisa boosted the processing power of the transporter. It could get through the "fabric" but the possibility existed that the ripping effect caused by passing through it would spawn a cosmos eating black hole that could potentially kill everything in the universe.

Them included.

Their loved ones included.

Linka and Levi included.

"Those odds were not acceptable before," she said, "but they are now."

Lincoln hung his head and went over, dropping onto the edge of the bed. Many times over the years he told himself the same thing. "Lisa...:"

"I can't do it anymore, Lincoln," she said, her voice flooding with emotion. "I can't go on like this. It doesn't get any better, it only gets worse. I miss him so badly it's as though I'm being eaten alive from the inside out. I dream about him every night, Lincoln, and have for ten years. It might not be rational...it might not even be healthy...but I don't give a shit. I need him. I -"

Lincoln. "Feel lost without him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"Yes," Lisa said, her voice cracking. "I also feel as though I'm missing my heart."

He felt the same way about Linka; always had and probably always would.

"What I said was true. I firmly believe now that the denizens of his world are literally our other half. I'm still not exactly sure how that works, but I know it to be true. I told you the story of Zeus…"

Lincoln nodded. The thing about humans being split in two.

She chewed her bottom lip. "I don't think it happened that way, but I do think that is, in essence, what happened, that we were somehow split - through a natural process, of course." She turned in her chair, her tone becoming more impassioned, like a defense attorney pleading with a jury. "Don't you feel it, Lincoln? Don't you feel the biting sense of loss? Don't you feel as though there's an open wound in your soul that never closes, never heals?"

Reaching out, Lincoln took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Yes," he said, "I feel it every second of every day. I try to pretend that I don't, but I do."

"Wouldn't you give anything to be with her again? To hold her in your arms and kiss her? To feel whole again?"

He started to reply, but stopped. Yes. He would. Even, he realized now, if it meant…

No. "We can't. The risk is too high. We're talking the possibility of killing everyone we love." His first thought was of Lily, so much like Linka, so full of vitality and so...fun. He could never hurt her. Never.

His second was of Linka, trapped across an infinite gulf of space and time, dying a little more each passing day, wilting like a flower in the desert sun.

"41 percent, Lincoln," Lisa said with wild-eyed desperation, "that's not even half."

The sound of Linka's tears the last time he spoke to her echoed through his head like a ghostly wail. His hand tingled with the warm phantom of her touch, and his heart throbbed achingly, wanting so badly to beat against hers as it once had.

Lisa squeezed his hand. "Not even half," she repeated solemnly.

He didn't know he was speaking until he heard the croak of his own voice. "Will we be able to get back?"

"I don't know," Lisa said, "and I don't care."

He hung his head. "I-I can't leave Lily. And Mom."

"I can," Lisa said evenly. "I can't feel this way anymore, Lincoln. I can't. I'll miss everyone, but I can't." She pulled her hand away and got to her feet. "I'm going. Now. You can stay if you like; just keep in mind that Linka's been feeling the same thing as you, and she will never love anyone ever again. She'll live alone, Lincoln, and she'll die alone."

Lincoln winced at the image of Linka old and wizened, no one in the world to hold her hand and tell her she was beautiful despite the wrinkles, no one to pass long winter evenings with, no one to be there for her in the end.

He thought of Lily, and of his mother. They above everyone else needed him.

Everyone else, that is, except for Linka.

He looked over his shoulder as Lisa uncovered the teleporter, the whipping of the sheet kicking up a cloud of dust. It had been sitting there for years, untouched, waiting to take him to Linka...to take him home.

Or to the grave.

In that moment, he was so conflicted he didn't know what to think or do; he simply watched as his sister hooked the machine to her computer, crossed back around the foot of the bed, and sat in her chair, her hands going to the keyboard. "Do you know how happy she'll be to see you?"

As happy as he would be to see her.

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair.

"Very happy. And excited as well. I envision her bouncing up and down, throwing her arms around her, and crying tears of joy." She pressed a button. She got up and looked down at him. "Are you coming?"

Lincoln rubbed his forehead. He didn't want to leave his family...but he wanted Linka, wanted her to be happy, and him too.

"I have ulterior motives," Lisa said, "for one, our shared commiseration has bonded us, and I've grown quite fond of you. For another...I'm afraid of to this alone." She darted her eyes away as though admitting that embarrassed her.

He suspected. He looked up into her downturned face and allowed himself to linger on the image she invoked, the one of Linka bouncing up and down and crying tears of joy. He felt himself upsetting and beginning to tip, and instead of fighting it, he gave in. Swallowing hard, he nodded. "Yeah. I'm coming."

A wide smile spread across Lisa's face, and she brushed her fingertips affectionately across his cheek. "Let's go."

He got heavily to his feet and followed her to the teleporter, but stopped. "Can I have five minutes?"

Lisa frowned. "Why?"

"To say goodbye."

"Alright. But hurry."

He nodded, then went downstairs, his heart and stomach both aching: One with anticipation and the other with dread. Lily was where he left her, drawing on her tablet, a grin of determination on her face. It struck him then just how much he was going to miss her.

At the back of the couch, he leaned forward and stared at the screen over her shoulder. "Almost done," she chirped.

He loved her dearly...but she wasn't his other half. He would miss her like a man missed his sister. Wth Linka, he missed her as a convict missed the sun, stars, moon, and air.

"It looks great," he said, and sad tenderness welled in his chest. "You're a great artist, you know that?"

She smiled. "I know."

"And a really great girl."

He kissed the top of her head and she cringed. "I'm working," she drew through a grin.

"I know," he said, tears brimming in his eyes. "Do me a favor, will you?"

"What?" she asked curiously.

He flicked her cowlick. "Never stop being you...and please be happy."

She looked up at him like he was bonkers. "Uh...okay. I'll get right on that."

"Good," he said.

For a moment he lingered, seriously having second thoughts, but then he pushed away from the sofa and trudged back up the stairs, his hand trailing on the bannister. He felt like the most selfish piece of shit to ever live...but even so, he was excited.

He might very well get to be with Linka again.

In her room, Lisa stood in front of the machine with her arms crossed. When he entered, she turned hurriedly around and input the combination; the door whoosed open and Lincoln's stomach clutched. This was really happening. He was going to Linka...or kill all life in the multiverse trying.

Lisa stepped in, and after a brief hesitation, Lincoln followed, turning to face the door as it slid shut. Standing side by side, neither he or Lisa moved. "This is it," she said, her voice breaking with uncertainty.

"Yeah," he said, his heart beginning to race, "this is it."

Her hand crept into his, and he clutched it tightly, hanging on as if for dear life. She punched in a few numbers on the keyboard flanking the door, and the teleporter began to shake.

Lincoln threaded his fingers through his sister's, and she squeezed, communicating her fear...and her excitement.

The crackle of electricity filled the air and the astringent smell of ozone burned Lincoln's nostrils. He closed his eyes and called up a vision of Linka's face; in his mind, it glowed as if suffused with the light of heaven, and her eyes shone like beacons in the dark. The memory was so vivid that he could feel her body pressed to his body, her shape molding perfectly to his, could taste her lips, could hear her sweet, melodic voice.

Shaking faster, the teleporter began to whirr, and Lincoln's heart pounded. He tightened his grip on Lisa's hand.

And together, they crossed to the other side of forever.

*Now* it's over.