Her eyes open with a start as she sits up with a pained gasp as her last conscious moments replay in her mind.
The burn, the angry whispered voices she'd been too dazed to hear properly as her captures loom over her as she falls to her knees holding her stomach as she falls to the side curling into a ball on the ground. She'd held them off as long as she could, unlike Kara, Linda wasn't as used to fighting past the pain of the fire in her veins even with her time being once again merged together with her older sister.
At least, Winn, Eliza, and Jeremiah were safe.
"Hey, Hey easy. Easy."
Linda pauses at that particular soothing voice tickling her ear as she allowed its owner to wrap their arms around her needing the comfort they offered. "You're safe now."
"Cadmus-they-they…" she tries to tell but her words a hushed as a soft hand slides into her hair
"They tried but we got you back. You're safe now." Winn soothes his lips dusting against her temple as she clings onto him as tight as her battered body would allow. Too tight she guesses yet he doesn't seem to be in any discomfort as he climbs onto the bed beside her "It was just a bad dream."
She's still shaken and more than a little warry given what Maggie had shared of her time under Cadmus's clutches or what had happened in Kara's memories of the black mercy and how Alex had warned this new threat had gotten some.
No, she wasn't going to give in just because her enemies warn the faces of friends. She'd been burned too often before. She wasn't about to make the same mistake.
Like Alex had when she'd been taken Linda will hang on just enough until her family can find her.
"I—I made you something."
She'd started dozing off again, her body felt so weak almost as weak as when she'd first woken into her new life and her head felt as if it'd split in two at any moment as she took another deeper breath of that calming mix of aftershave and a forest scent that reminded her of the better days in Kaznian. Playing that soccer game with Mikhail, finally being allowed outside and seeing sunlight firsthand before her powers overwhelmed her that first disastrous time.
"—and after all red and silver were always was your colors." He chuckles reaching up to tuck her hair back behind her ear as Linda's gaze finds his. She felt a little guilty she hadn't been paying attention as he talked but sometimes, she just enjoyed how enthused he got that she tuned out his actual words. "I hope you like it." He adds nervous now as he balances a little grey box against her leg.
Linda gasps under her breath once she'd figured out how to open the delicate little thing without completely crushing it in her shaking fingers. "Like I said before this isn't like the big question it's just—" it's rather adorable watching him scramble for words as he lifts the ring from the box and reaches for her hand.
"I like it." Linda promises allowing him to put it on her.
It was a simple silver band and the red stone in the center seemed to glow as soon as it made contact with her skin.
"Come on. The others are waiting for us." Winn offers before she could think of anything to say.
At first glance the cabin they'd brought her to reminded her a little of the house Mikhail lived in until she blinks a few times as Winn's arm wrapped around her waist to steady her when she swayed on her feet after she'd stood up from the bed.
"May I?" Linda blinks puzzled by the question as they pause a few steps from the bedroom door. "I'm going to carry you if you'll let me." Her crush explains
"Da. Please." Linda nodes wrapping her arms around his neck as his other hand swept behind her weakened knees.
Why he seems unsure of himself when they reach the door is puzzling, but Linda doesn't ask him about it as she opens the door for him.
"Hey, looks who's awake."
"Welcome back Snowie." Lena smiles from the chair beside the sofa. Black rimmed glasses on her nose as she lowers her book into her lap. "Kara, Kar get in here. She's awake."
The room broke out in low giggles when Kara comes skidding into the room half-covered in flour with chocolate icing smudges at the corners of her mouth as Winn rounds the edge of the large couch setting on the other end from the other couple already sitting entwined at the other end.
"Mom and Dad are already buying replacement cookies as we speak so don't blow up too much alright?" Linda pouts when she hands over the half-full container. "I said they are already being replaced." Kara reminds dropping with a sulking sigh across Lena's lap.
Almost as soon as Linda and Winn seem settled against the sofa, however, Alex pounces. "You have to stop scaring me like this Lin. I have enough time wrangling Kara I don't need-."
"Alex be nice she just woke up." Maggie scolds even going so far as to rest her wedding band clade hand over the red-haired woman's mouth when Alex looked ready to argue. "Leave your baby sister alone, Danvers."
"Yeah lay off, Lex. She's been thought enough in the last 48 hours." Kate scolds from her place sitting on the floor next to Jamie beside the fireplace. Rory gets up from between them to hop up onto the only unoccupied sofa cushion resting her chin against Linda's lap.
"What's wrong with the window?"
Every head that wasn't Linda's or Rory's turn toward the growing red spiderwebbed crack in the window behind Lena's head.
"Nothing why?"
Linda gasped when the same cracked red glow seemed etched permanently into the lines of every face, she looks into apart from Rory's at Winn's puzzled question but then she blinks, and the disruption seemed to have fixed itself.
"Nothing." Linda yawns resting her head against Winn's shoulder.
"Great. Now, who wants a nature documentary and Disney marathon?" Jamie offers.
"We'll go get the popcorn." Alex offers all but throwing a giggling Maggie over her shoulder as she gets up to head toward the kitchen.
"Ten minutes then I'm turning on the sprinklers if I don't have my doc-u snacks." Lena warns turning a page of her book while the others snicker
"Don't worry Luthor, the real trick is going to be keeping her qui—" Maggie purrs playfully swatting at Alex's backside
"Mags, Shut up." Alex whined
"Yeah WTMI Sawyer." Kate scolds as Alex finishes dragging her smug-looking detective into the kitchen while Linda feels herself becoming even weaker than she had been moments before as she snuggles against the warm body that was her crush as the pulsing warmth that was the ring on her finger heated up.
"Report."
"Subject is resisted treatment." The lab technician answers falling behind the blonde a few steps back toward the lab she'd just exited.
Allison rolls her eyes fisting her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket "as we predicted." She prodded as the door to the lab slides open allowing them access.
"But since we've introduced the red kryptonite the subject seems to be more cooperative."
Allison smiles to herself as she runs a fingertip over the side of the tank. Warm under her hands despite the chill of glass "What about the extraction?" she wonders her voice just above a whisper the low red glow of the liquified alien rocks making her look even more menacing than her standoffish demeanor as her eyes lift to the black and red tented looking liquid being stiffened from the body submerged on the other side of the glass.
The technician nodded her eyes dropping to the clipboard in her hand before she speaks. "As you can see we have already gotten a few samples but since the subject is still resisting mentally its slow going."
"If she is becoming more cooperative then why is she also still showing resistance?"
"I've ordered more mercy to be injected to make her more docile, but we don't know how much she can take given her weakened state when she was captured."
Allison curses at that. "Told those idiots we needed her compliant and they bring her in broken-"
"Going by the reports the subject was—"
"I read the reports myself." Alison growls her nails now scratching like claws down the front of the red glowing containment unit. "The subject was in a too populated area for the kind of containment we needed—"
"But we have her now." The tech pointed out in a voice just above a squeak hugging the clipboard tighter against her chest as her boss pivots around to face her properly.
Her jaw works but no sound comes out as she looms over the dark-haired lab assistant. The woman keeps her head down waiting but then her boss lets out an annoyed sounding huff and goes back to examining the submerged blonde instead. "For now pause all extractions to allow for natural replenishment but do give her another dose of mercy just to be sure she really believes in the world we're showing her."
"Yes Ma'am."
