A/N: Lincoln needs a story where his efforts are actually rewarded. There are probably quite a few of these stories out there, but this kid deserves it. As such, here is me throwing my own hat into the ring. The chapters shouldn't be too long and should get the point across by each one's end. The first 2-3 chapters will be the event and immediate aftermath, while the rest of the chapters will each focus on a certain sister doing something for or spending time with Lincoln.
Also, I looked it up, and Royal Oak, the city Royal Woods is based off of, is actually fairly close to Detroit. It's less than thirty minutes away by car. Unless I've missed the episodes where they do reference it, it amazes me that the show hasn't acknowledged how close the two places actually are to each other. As such, I decided to take the time to rectify that in this story and give the motor city some dues.
Hope you all enjoy!
Disclaimer: The Loud House and characters belong to Nickelodeon.
Today was a day that was highly unusual for the Loud family. Rather than spending the day doing their normal activities at their house, their parents made the half-hour drive to take them to downtown Detroit. Now, this alone was a very odd thing. Sure, Royal Woods was considered a suburb of the city, being no more than a half-hour drive away, but there was never any real reason for any of them to go to the city. Luna and Luan were both too young to perform in any underground clubs and venues, and the crime rate scared off potential bookings for inner-city school tournaments, so Lori didn't golf on any of the courses down there, Lucy never went to any poetry cafes, and Lola didn't go to any pageants held there. The only person who would have legitimate reason to go down there was Lynn because of her sports fixations. Only problem was that, aside from her parents not wanting to spend so much taking the kids to games and her being preoccupied with her own sports ambitions, the teams in the city weren't the greatest at the moment. The Lions and Tigers are teams that are the butt of many jokes when it came to their respective sports while the Pistons and Red Wings haven't been truly competitive for at least almost a decade.
Today was different, though. With the recent uptick in revitalization efforts going on across the city, the city had organized a festival to celebrate the continuous rebirth of the city, and the parents thought it would be good to show some hometown pride by taking the family downtown to take part in the festivities (with the first stop being the food trucks).
The family was enjoying themselves, taking part in everything that the festival had to offer that interested them. Lincoln and Lana, for example, were salivating at the prospect of having some barbecue, something their dad never really made an effort to make. The moment they found a food truck that served it, they were prepared to pig out on ALL the pulled pork and brisket, the barbecue sauce they put on their food only amplifying their appetite. Even coming from a family that had a master of a cook in Lynn Sr., they never felt so satisfied after eating in their life.
Everyone else had their own interests. Lori, Leni, and Lola spent their time looking at the different racks of clothes a few family shops were selling. The names of the game here were sunglasses and scarves. Luna was caught up in the different music stores that were selling old records of bands she liked. She'd been meaning to get into vinyl and if she found a cheap record player, she was going to jump at it. Luan and Lucy, meanwhile, was caught up in the antiques collections a few places were selling, with Luan wondering if she wanted to give Mr. Coconuts some company while Lucy was curious about the haunted nature of a few different artifacts. Lynn was excited in that a few players on the different teams the city had were present at the festival as well, and she was able to get a few autographs from them. She was never going to wash that shirt again. Lisa didn't find much that would stimulate her intellect, so she just stuck close to her parents and Lily, where they were spending their time browsing through a collection of vintage reading material one stall was selling.
It was a legit good day for everyone. They all eventually met up and asked what everyone had done.
"Let's just say you don't need to worry about feeding Lana and me tonight." They both belched in unison, still rubbing their full bellies.
"Well, you literally don't need to worry about us going to the mall next week." Lori, along with Leni and Lola, held up the bags they had, full of clothes and accessories they found while browsing.
"I found myself one heck of a find for Mr. Coconuts. You could say it's quite im-PECK-able for him. Hahahahaha. Get it?" said Luan, holding up a small model of a bird she was going to hook onto her dummy's shoulder. It took everything in Lola's power to not take that bird and shove it right into her older sister's mouth to get her to shut up.
"I found myself a companion for Edwin when I'm not around." She pulled out a small bust of Griselda from her bag, something she bought from a stand run by a local sculptor.
"I'll be relishing in a few nineteenth century journals on mathematics for the next few weeks." Classic Lisa.
Everyone then looked over at the end of the table they were sitting at to see Lynn hugging herself and making cooing noises with her mouth, absolutely thrilled at how many players she got to sign the shirt she was wearing right now.
"Looks like we all had a good day, today" Lynn Sr. said with a proper sense of joy in his voice.
"Yeah. Thanks for bringing us, dad." Lincoln started the choir of thank you's that followed.
"No problem, kids. We haven't exactly done much in the way of showing some hometown pride. This seemed like a nice way to fix that."
"From a food point of view, it definitely did." Lana gave Lincoln a fist bump after she said that, both of them wearing the same kind of smile on their faces.
After some light discussion, the family decided to take a walk around the rest of the city to just take in the sights. It was daytime, so they weren't too worried about any crime taking place, especially with a festival happening in the city. The family never took the time to grow intimate with the city they lived the closest to, and since today was Saturday, they all didn't have anywhere they needed to be. A good time to take in the sights and bond.
Their trek took them to the usual big spots in the city, such as the Renaissance Center, the Fisher Building, Comerica Park, and Ford Field. When driving back home, they were going to make it a point to drive past a few other sites, like Michigan Central Station and the place where Tiger Stadium once stood.
They spent a good amount of time admiring the Renaissance Center, partly because it was the one thing everybody knew about Detroit and because a few of the sisters were insistent on checking out the on-site retail space. After more shopping, the family decided to make a trip back to the car to offload some bags.
They made it a couple blocks away from the building complex, doing their usual thing of simply chatting with each other about all kinds of things. The only person who wasn't actively engaged in the conversations was Lincoln, who hung back just a little bit to take in his surroundings. He remembered the "tour" Ronnie Anne took him on when he visited her in Great Lakes City and how he didn't get to see much of anything because of how indifferent she was about the city, and decided to not let the same thing happen again. It was in doing this that something caught his eye and made him stop walking.
Some girls, no more than Luna or Luan's age, were about to cross the street. Three of them, all on their phones. He looked to his left to see a car coming down the street after turning the corner, the driver on his phone, obviously texting someone. Judging from the speed the car was going, it was going to hit the first girl no question, maybe another as it was entirely possible the girl behind her would get nicked. The driver didn't seem to be aware that he was accelerating faster than he should on a street like this. Depending on how the driver hit the girl, at best, he would cripple her with major hip and leg injuries. At worst, she dies from any number of issues that come from getting violently hit by a car, such as blunt force trauma or internal bleeding. Almost unconsciously, he ran into the street without any worry about his own well-being, his family only now turning around after making it several yards away from him while caught up in their talking, too far to stop him from doing this.
He ran. Fast. His plan? Jump when he was close enough to push the girl back by her chest, leaving him to take most, if not all, of the injuries the car would cause. He hoped he planned this right. At best, only he is injured while the girls escape without any injuries. Worst case scenario, two, maybe three people would need to be transported to the hospital. He only wanted it to be one. Himself. And so, he ran, with neither the driver nor the girls noticing him. When he was close enough, he executed his plan.
He jumped, holding his arm out in front of him to push the first girl away right as the car reached them. She stumbled back while he felt himself getting rocked by the impact of the car, his legs, in particular, getting swung out from under him with a nice cracking sound. His family could only watch in horror as he tumbled from the hood to the roof of the car, before it suddenly breaked, making him roll back the other way, tumbling down the windshield and hood and finally hitting the ground, his final resting position being his body facing the sky. He was knocked out.
At that moment, it was entirely possible the world heard every sister and Rita scream at the top of their lungs "LINCOLN!"
No time was wasted before his family rushed to his aid. The girl he pushed back took time to get up and regain her bearings. Once she figured out what happened, she collapsed to the ground and cried as the realization of getting saved from being hit by a car fell onto her. Her friends cried right along with her as they tried to comfort her.
Lincoln was able to only partially regain consciousness at some point after the impact, his vision blurry and his ears picking up only mumbling when they weren't ringing so loud. He was aware of his parents and sisters' appearances enough to make out who was standing over him. He only saw his parents, Luna, Lisa, and Luan, as the rest of the girls were in bouts of hysteria outside of his field of vision.
If he was in pain, he wouldn't remember it. He passed in and out of consciousness two times before and ambulance finally came to take him to the hospital. The last things he heard before being loaded up in the ambulance were the cries of his family, hoping to God that he was okay. The last thing he saw, however, was the girl he saved sitting down in the same ambulance he was in, having gotten in under her own power. He passed out one more time, satisfied with the knowledge that his rescue attempt worked.
Whatever happened to him, at least he knew the girl was okay.
A/N: Like I said, fairly short but gets the point across. From now on, Lincoln's going to have a lot of love thrown his way.
And before anyone asks "Why didn't he just scream to get her attention?" there are several reasons why I went the heroic route. 1) This being a city, people's voices can drown others out, and 2) Lincoln, to me at least, comes across as an action guy, preferring the option that he knows will get the results he wants. This being in the heat of the moment, Lincoln simply wouldn't trust his luck that shouting would get her attention. He felt he needed to do, rather than say.
With all that said, thanks for reading, folks! I hope to see you all around next time for the aftermath of what happened.