Something was different. She didn't understand just what it was, but Linda could tell something had changed since she'd woken in this snow-covered hideaway. Surrounded by her family and a few trusted friends. No threat of harm to those she'd let get close to her, no phantom scolding from the Lex in her mind at every better choice she made with her new life. Her sisters had either rekindled or found the love they deserved, and most important of all despite his at times near dulling personalities she finally had the chance to have a more than friendly relationship with the man that surprisingly liked her in return the same way she cared for him and not having to worry over harming him with her near god-like abilities.
Everything was perfect.
"It seems perfect but it's really not."
Linda huffed at the near-perfect example of her newfound observation of Winn's ever-changing personality. Three days of this now she thinks. It was hard to keep track of time in her perfect bubble of happiness. "Lin please," Winn whispers his voice seeming so far away now despite his being right behind her.
"Dude you are hashing her buzz." Ryan interrupts from his seated place on the floor in front of the pair cozily snuggled on the sofa.
"I thought you were on our side." Winn argues while Linda tries to focus on the now fuzzy-looking holiday movie playing on the tv screen.
"I'm more the only one keeping her mind from breaking completely." Ryan corrects after finishing a few handfuls of the popped corned snack Eliza had made for them. "You may be her anchor in this but she's still not totally out of the woods." The teenager lamented his eyes once again on the tv screen "Or should I say the cabin." he amends getting more comfortable in his chosen spot on the floor. Rory letting out a tired yawn of her own as she lays across his lap while he scratches behind her ear.
"She can hear you." Linda grumbles reaching over the side of the sofa to steal another handful of popcorn.
"Okay, this isn't exactly how I wanted to do this but-dispirit times." Before Linda could ask what he meant Winn was gone and yet she could somehow feel the warmth of his arms around her.
"Please let this work." She hears Ryan plead as the red-eyed and extremely angry though oddly burled figures of the rest of Linda's family and friends come charging down the hall.
All of them armed and itching for a fight.
"Now would be a good time to wake up." The teenager gulped his eyes flickering between Linda's puzzled face and the group "Just you know don't forget about me when you do?" he adds his tone saddened but hopeful while Rory steps between him and the incoming gang.
Winn in new clothes and his eyes a terrifying blend of glowing ruby and dark onyx at its point with Alex and Maggie flanking him each with their weapons drawn seeming to be waiting for his signal. Kara beside Maggie her fists clenched ready for a fight with a saber armed Lena on Alex's other side.
"Come on Snowie, it doesn't have to be this way." The dark-haired Luthor purrs a hand resting on the hilt of her saber as the others spread out behind the sofa warning a low snarl from Rory and a rather grown-up curse from Ryan.
"Besides, we still have more cookies to make remember?" Alex agrees. "Even if they are that gross vegan kind." She chuckles pretending to gage whilst spinning her preferred alien gun around her fingers like an old west gunslinger.
"Don't lie, Danvers, you love those." Red-eyed Maggie argues sending a sneer of a smile the agent's way in a scarier version of the couples' playful banter.
"Don't you dare leave me, Lin."
"Don't make this harder on yourself, sweetheart." Eliza sighs always the voice of reason. Already she was sending Kara and Lena back into the kitchen whilst Alex and Maggie rounded the sofa in the same move like two leather jacket clade jungle cats ready to strike at any given moment taking seats on the opposite side ends of the couch. "I'll make you some fresh cocoa." Eliza offers before Linda could think too hard on why the couple wasn't at least sitting closer together given how wrapped in one another they had been until now. "Linda. Honey, come on."
It would be so easy to reach out and take her mother's hand and the offered drink did give her something else to think about besides the pulsing ache both in her head as well as in her chest. It was as if her heart were about to beat right out of her chest with the pain yet Linda takes a few stumbled steps backward her hands fisting at her sides as her gaze finds Ryan's the teenager shaking his head in denial "You give in now and we lose you for good."
"He's lying Lin." Maggie pipes up earning an angry growl from Rory.
"We would never let anything hurt you. You know that." Alex echoes as Kara and Lena reappear in the doorway leading to the kitchen. The candy cane in Kara's hand sporting a rather intimidatingly sharpened edge.
"Punch me for this later alright?"
The question was little more than a whisper as the unnerving cracks of red and black break into the walls surrounding them the same moments Maggie and Alex both sprung toward Ryan. Linda would have stepped in to help the younger boy but the glow of the lights filling the cabin's living room was blinding and the new warmth against her lips was a little more distracting even if she was able to properly see her surroundings.
When Linda dared open her eyes Winn was back in front of her. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear anything he was saying over the thundering gallop of her own heart in her hears over the fact that he man she loved was looking at her like she'd arranged the stars with one hand cupping along her jaw the other resting against her lower back.
Only this time when his lips touched hers, she didn't shy away as Kara had. She clung to him trying her best to copy the gentler touch of his mouth to hers considering that unlike her original version Linda had been craving, dreaming, longing for something like this to happen between herself and the cute computer genius trying so hard to get out of his villainous father's shadow since she'd opened her eyes to this second chance she'd been granted.
"I'm not letting you go yet." Winn says against her lips as Linda squints past the blinding glare of the lights around them to see his face as her hands grip his arms as hard as her tired body would allow not wanting to lose him as the world breaks around them.
"I've got you, Linda." Her anchor promises. "but it's up to you now."
Then Linda hears something beyond the roar of blood and her own galloping heart rate filling her ears. Just about one of the few sounds that could tare her away from the sparking embers Winn's kiss had stirred within her.
A sound she'd sworn she'd never allow being heard again.
Glowing ruby tinted blue eyes snap open as Red Daughter forced herself to break with the pleasantly distracting heat of Winn's body curled against her own willing her warn out body to comply as she breaks passed the barrier of the celling of her captures hiding place into the darkened sky outside doing her best to absorb as much solar energy as she could before taking off into the darkness following the sounds of her tiny tigers screams toward their source.
Maggie Sawyer was once again in danger and Linda Lee was going to make whoever was harming her pay dearly for that mistake.
