And I'm far out on an ocean
Trapped in a disaster
I'd say I still adore you

– One Hand Holding, The Maccabees

Linda sat awkwardly on one of Marla's spindly chairs waiting until her friend and co-worker reappeared. Fidgeting with the satin fabric of the slinky purple dress clinging to her breasts and thighs Linda spared the clock an anxious look, she had to hurry up and get to the Marriott. A few moments later Marla came back into the kitchen, a small box in her hands, quite uncharacteristically she looked somewhat eager. Sitting down next to Linda she lifted the lid to the box with a certain amount of reverence, then her hands were carefully easing out a chunky looking brooch. She motioned for Linda to lean forward, the reporter acquiesced, her flinch almost audible when Marla clipped the brooch on to her dress.

"There," Marla sat back and stared at her handiwork for a moment before starting up her laptop.

Linda meanwhile began rummaging around for her compact, when it became clear that a supervillain was not about to use the reflective surface as a gateway to her camerawoman's kitchen she held it out in front of her chest. The brooch was looking dangerously close to pulling the top half of her dress down – Linda frowned.

"Its fine," Marla reassured her before looking back to her computer screen. "And it looks like it works." There in a small window was a perfect replica of Marla's kitchen, complete with tabby cat blinking morosely at the dolled up Linda.

"Good and you're sure this is going to work for the whole night?"

"Absolutely," Marla nodded. "I've just got to make sure I stay in range of you."

"And you're planning on doing that how?" Linda asked, her fingers itching to move the brooch.

"The hotel has a multi-storey car park, I'll wait there for you."

Linda nodded, "Do you think you could give me a lift home after?"

Marla looked at sharply at Linda, "Sure..."

Linda beamed, "Thanks, because I really don't want my date getting anywhere near me."

"Date?"

"Henry Cavendish," Linda frowned in distaste. "I needed some way to get into this thing didn't I?"

Earlier that week

Linda had been staking out the industrialist for several hours, she probably could have tried to work some of her colleagues at Channel 4 for a ticket to the annual charity gala, however, ever since her debacle at the Flash Museum she had been lucky to get anything more than small human interest segments about surfing budgerigars. Such had been the annoyance of the almighty Mr Richards at Linda's performance (as he had put it: a wanton display of unprofessionalism and sheer school girl idiocy) pulling strings to snag herself a ticket would most probably cost her benefactor a stay in the doghouse courtesy of Channel 4 execs. With that avenue closed Linda had come up with one of those schemes, an 'its-just-so-crazy-it-might-work' scheme.

Henry Cavendish eased off his $200 jacket and deftly rolled up his sleeves, summer had finally hit Central City. Sitting down at the road side table Henry lent back and smiled, he'd checked his bank account on the way out of the office and if the dividends kept rolling on in he'd be able to buy that house up in New Hampshire come winter. Life was good and it was just about to get better he thought somewhat lecherously as a petite Asian woman came careening around the corner. Her bag was open, several papers dangerously close to flying away on the breeze. And then she tripped; some might have called it an unfortunate accident, others, serendipity.

"Let me help you up," Henry dived down and pulled Linda to her feet, offering her greasy smile.

"Oh thank you," Linda replied, the perfect little girl lost.

Now

"So remind me again why you want in on this gala?" Marla asked as she shut the door to her apartment.

"The Mayor, I can't get a more legitimate interview with him and I just know there's something shady about his re-election." Linda replied, her eyes steely as she subconsciously patted her hair and brushed down her dress.

"Right, so you're going to quiz him at a charity event?" Marla countered, somewhat incredulous.

"Champagne; apply regularly on the hour, every hour."

Marla didn't say anything, instead she opened up the car for the two to get in, it looked liked tonight was going to be an interesting one.

Linda stared down into the tumbler held in her hand; the amber liquid swirled invitingly, its earthy, peaty aroma hitting her nose as she downed the drink. Placing the now empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter Linda made to head towards the Mayor. With one resounding bang all thoughts of interrogating him were swept to one side, in fact every thought Linda had ever had was gone. The reason being a number of armed gunmen had quite literally crashed the party, several shards of glass littered the floor as heavyset men repelled down from the now ruined skylights. Linda stumbled backwards, her arms coming up and over her head, trying to shield herself from any falling debris. Skidding to halt she sheltered by the now silent jazz musicians, the sultry Jessica Rabbit-esque singer had taken refuge behind the large double bass, her red lacquered fingernails just visible clutching onto the varnished wood. Linda quickly assessed the situation; Kalashnikovs, as favoured by numerous terrorist factions, were being branded at the wealthy and influential of Central City, the vast majority of them looking towards the Mayor for some form of leadership, but none was coming. Linda slowly pulled her sequined clutch bag into her lap, carefully attempting to yank open the catch, hey eyes gazing unwaveringly at the ski masked covered faces.

"Lucy!" a voice hissed in her ear as another body came to rest against hers. For a moment Linda didn't look up.

"Lucy!" the person tried again, this time her brain kicked into gear, Lucy Parker, her alias for the night.

"What Henry?" she asked, her tone somewhat snappish.

"You have to help me get out of here!" Henry was pale faced, his collar loosened as beads of perspiration ran down the back of his neck.

"Just you then?" Linda replied, anger threatening to bubble over was barely held back.

"Well, you too." Henry offered half-heartedly. Linda gritted her teeth, still playing with her handbag. "Henry, after careful consideration, I think we're done."

Henry didn't reply, instead he was transfixed by the events unspooling. A musician had stood up; he was strong and tall, like he could have played college football.

"They ain't gonna give you anything," he spat, his tenor sax held loosely in his left hand, his right gestured to the shaking, terrified crowd.

One of the men turned to face him, a hand gun pulled out from the folds of his jacket, "Don't matter what you think kid."

Linda saw the smoke before she heard the crack of two bullets leaving their chambers; the smell of burnt gunpowder soon assaulted her senses. Fighting the urge to scream as several of the women around the room succumbed to the action, Linda gestured for another jazz player to help her. The assailants were now heading around the room ripping emerald chokers and diamond rings right from the necks and fingers from those in attendance.

"Oh-god-oh-god..." Linda muttered, "What would Meredith do?" The musician had two wounds, one in his shoulder and the other in his leg. Linda swayed slightly, taking in several breaths she looked down at her dress. Ripping the bottom train away she began to apply pressure to the wound.

"You," she hissed at the man who had helped her, "give me your belt."

"What?"

"Your belt dammit, he's been hit in the leg, he'll bleed out if we don't stop it. Give me your belt and keep applying pressure to the wound in the shoulder."

The sax player was still lucid, leaning over him Linda gave him her most reassuring smile.

"You're going to have to be quiet ok?"

She snatched a glance over her shoulder; the gunmen were still preoccupied. Grabbing the worn black leather belt that had been handed over she strapped it round the saxophonist's leg and pulled, tears tumbling down her cheeks. Linda then scrambled back over to Henry, addressing him in a clipped voice "Your jacket."

Henry most reluctantly handed over the piece of haute couture, as Linda snatched it off him she whispered further instructions, "call the police Henry."

"I cant..." his eyes were glazed over in fear as Linda crawled back towards her patient. Pressing the purloined jacket against the seeping wound Linda prayed that the Flash was running – running towards them.

"He has to come..." she muttered under her breath as she looked on in horror as Henry's jacket slowly soaked up the blood that was being steadily pumped out of the man's femoral artery.

"Who?"

"The Flash..."

Any further conversation was cut short.

"Hey Florence Nightingale!"

Linda looked up, fear radiating from her very core as her hands still attempted to stem the flow of blood.

"You want to get up here?" the man motioned with his gun. Linda reluctantly complied, rising to her feet she shuffled towards the gun wielders.

"Yes?" she whispered, the confidence she so often radiated in work lost.

The man raised the gun so it was level with Linda's head, "You know, we don't have time for do-gooders."

It was then he pulled the trigger. Linda stood for what seemed like an eternity, there were no flashes of her childhood, her graduation from college or her first live broadcast, instead it was all a blissful blank. Linda waited for the white-hot pain to course through her body, for the large door waiting to be opened. Instead each and every man lay unconscious and disarmed, a lone bullet dropping to the floor.

Earlier

Marla began shaking; her shoulders wracking with unshed tears. Shrugging off the fear she shoved her laptop off her legs and onto the passenger seat. Marla then pulled up her large bag and began riffling through it, her small hand made contact with her smooth phone, pulling it out from the brown leather bag she fumbled with the keys. With four staccato stabs she held the phone to her ear.

"Flash," Mr Terrific's voice sounded slightly garbled through the comm's link, "There's been a couple of 911's concerning a possible hostage/shooting situation at the Marriott hotel in Central City, you think you can get over there?"

"I got it T, on route now."

Wally quickly downed the rest of his shake and was out of the door, the correct change having been deposited on the table of the small, cosy diner. Wally was across town but that was no problem, kicking it up a gear he ran. In no time at all he was rounding the last corner before he reached the hotel. The entire building was a blaze of lights, the first of the squad cars were still minutes behind him. Bracing himself he headed for the lobby, the only indicator he was there was the slight air turbulence felt by those in the foyer. Following the signs that had been helpfully laid out for the guests the Scarlett Speedster ran up to the ballroom. Linda was just getting to her feet, her whole body trembled with unspoken fear and the Flash had seconds. Running towards the knot of men, several uppercuts to the jaw took out the first three, the magazines removed from their guns were cast aside, rendering them useless. The Scarlett Speedster didn't even cast them a backwards glance, he was racing for the bullet that was travelling towards Linda, this was where he had to concentrate, he had to steal the velocity from it before it reached it Linda.

Now

Before any one of the onlookers could register what had happened Flash doubled back, yanking the gun from the one remaining aggressor's arms his fist connected with the man's face laying him out cold. Turning back round he saw Linda, her eyes for a brief moment showed a glimmer of thanks before she promptly fainted.

A/N: Fist off, I cant remember if Linda's camerawoman had a name, if she did and any of you remember please correct me! Also, I'm gonna say this now I haven't read many Flash comics [I know this is a DCAU story but I have a point]. So the whole taking the speed from objects in motion thing is information I've gleaned from reading stuff on the internet, so I'm not sure if he can actually do this or still does. Moreover, I'm unaware if he's displayed this ability in the cartoons or not. If anyone can clarify and if it so happens that he can't I'll go back and change what happened. I realise this was kind of Linda heavy but I'd like to get to know her etc. So erm, I hope you liked it anyway. And Happy New Year!

Edit: Thanks to West189 and Kyer for the camerawoman's name and various other corrections.