Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Loud House or other franchises you might recognize.

Lincoln was unsure of what to do. He was used to dealing with the nightmares of Lola and Lana, but to him Linka was still very unknown. He decided he needed to do something, and so he pulled back the saffron curtain and entered his sister's side of the room.

She was sobbing into her pillow, yelling every once in a while. Very obviously she was having a nightmare. Illuminated by the moonlight which came through a minute space in the blinds, the tears were shining on Linka's face.

Lincoln rushed to her bedside, knocking over her leg in the process, and shook her to wake her up. As she came to, she was still sobbing.

"Are you alright?" Lincoln looked quite worried.

"Yeah, I was just having a nightmare." Not convinced was Lincoln, that much was obvious. His frown was very apparent.

"Are you sure? Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I'm fine. Trust me. When I have a nightmare, I usually don't have one the rest of the night. I'll be fine. You just go back to sleep."

Reluctantly, Lincoln obliged. To give up on his sisters' problems was not in his nature, but he was too tired to argue. He would talk to her in the morning.

…

The sisters and Lincoln had agreed to not wake Linka up, and to let her sleep in however long she wanted. However, 10:00 was rapidly approaching, and Lincoln was worried that she hadn't come down yet. He went up to check on her, only to find her sitting up in her bed reading. Her right leg dangled down the side of the bed, while her prosthetic was nowhere to be found. Whatever book she was reading was obviously very interesting, as she didn't look up until he was nearly upon her.

"Oh, hey Lincoln." She put down the book and indicated for him to sit on her bed with her. Lincoln sat down next to her.

"Why haven't you come down? Aren't you hungry?"

"Oh, yeah. It's just that you broke my leg last night. I can't really move without it. Sorry for waking you up, by the way." She said it so matter-of-factly that Lincoln was concerned.

"It's not your fault, you were having a nightmare. And if you can't move, then why didn't you just call someone for help?"

"Well, I didn't want to wake anyone up. I don't know how late you all sleep around here, and I didn't want to make anyone mad." Lincoln was now very concerned. He opened his mouth to say something, but Linka beat him to it. "Look, Lincoln. This has happened before at the orphanage. My roommate and I were able to fix it easy. You've got a sister who's an engineer, and a sister who's a genius, right? They can help."

"Fine. How did it break apart from just falling, though?"

"Oh, its kinda old. I got it 3 years ago. The orphanage just wasn't able to get a new one."

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, older brother and sister. I have something you might enjoy." Lincoln and Linka turned to see Lisa standing there, with a prosthetic leg.

"This was designed to help disabled veterans returning from abroad. When I learnt that we would have an amputee living with us, I used Lincoln's measurements to redesign the leg to fit someone of your height and weight. Here, why don't you try it?" Linka slipped on the leg, and stood up. She walked around very slowly.

"This is going to take some getting used to, and I'm going to have to repaint it. It's an absolutely horrid color. But I love it. Thank you so much!"

"I'm done testing it, it's yours to keep." The words were hardly out of Lisa's mouth before she was in the air, being wrapped in a tight hug by Linka, and having kisses administered to her forehead. Lincoln could hardly believe this was the same girl who, 5 minutes ago, was too shy to tell people she was stuck.

"Well, I have to go. I'm tutoring some Harvard and Oxford students online." Lisa ambled out of the twins' room. Linka turned to her brother.

"How is she going to kindergarten if she's tutoring kids at Harvard and Oxford?" Linka asked. Or, she tried asking. She was too giggly to get all the words out of mouth coherently.

"Well, someone's in a good mood."

Lincoln helped Linka, who was getting still getting used to the new leg, hobble out of the room, through the corridor, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where Mr. Loud was buttering some toast for her.

"Thanks." Linka took the toast from him and sat down for breakfast. Mr. Loud tried to make small talk ("Well, I see you've got a new leg"), but Linka was too busy chatting with Lincoln to notice. No sooner had she sat down than a flash of green burst into the room, before slowing down enough to reveal its true form, Leni.

"Are you ready?"

"For what?" Linka was wary of the older girl.

"To go to the mall. You need new clothes, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"Well, like, the entire family is coming. Except Mom and Dad. And Lucy. And Lisa. And Lily. And Cliff and -"

"Yes, I think we understand. When are we leaving?" Lincoln looked like he'd rather not.

"Like, now."

Linka slipped on her dirty shoes and entered the van, still eating toast, with the rest of the Louds. The ride to the mall was rather uneventful. Linka found herself in between Luan and Luna, and behind Lincoln. She had been offered something called the sweet spot, but she declined. Luna, Linka, Luan, and Lincoln talked about various things on the way to the mall.

When they arrived at the mall, the family all split up. They had agreed to meet at the food court by 1:30 for lunch. That gave them 2 and a half hours to do whatever they pleased. Lori went to meet her friends at the ice cream parlor to gossip and chat. Luna went to the music emporium for some new ideas for her song. Luan went to the prank supply store ("Don't look so worried, Linka. I wont prank you until you've spent a month in the Loud house"). Lynn went to the sporting goods store. Lincoln, much to Linka's dismay, ran off to the comic book store. Lana went to the pet store to get some more food for Geo and Walt. That left Leni, Linka and Lola.

No sooner had Linka made that observation than the two blondes were dragging Linka to their favorite clothing store. She was sent immediately to the fitting room. 5 minutes later, Leni and Lola came in with a mountain of clothes higher than Linka. After 2 hours, Linka had an outfit: an orange blouse with blue skirt. They had gotten her 10 pairs of the same outfit, because in a normal town like Royal Woods, everyone wears the same clothes every day. She also had new socks, shoes, and sandals. They left the clothing store, moving slowly due to Linka's leg. As they were slowly walking to the food court, they were joined by Luan and Luna. Luna noticed Linka eyeing the crafts store.

"You want something from the crafts store, bro?"

Linka was staring at her feet again, and she could feel her cheek becoming hot. "If it's no bother, could we go into the arts store?"

"Nah bro, it's cool. Come on dude, lets go into the store." The 5 girls walked into the crafts store.

"Whatever you want is yours,' said Luan. The sisters followed Linka around the store. She ended up getting a drawing pad and some colored pencils.

"Thanks so much!" Linka was positively grinning.

That the mall trip was a success would be a false statement to make, however. As the 5 girls approached the food court, they were met with the other 4 Loud kids and together they entered the food court. It was Saturday, the first Saturday of the summer vacation, and it was lunch time. The food court was like a watering hole. Little rambunctious monkeys weaved in and out of taller elegant giraffes and fat rhinoceroses who were all eating "food", drinking water and sodas, and making loud primitive noises. The Louds wriggled in-between of people and families to look for a table…

"Hey, guys? Can you come back here? There's something wrong with Linka." The Louds hurriedly retraced their steps until they found a flustered Lana standing next to Linka, who was standing stiff, shaking, and silently crying.

"Why don't you and Linka go with Lola, Leni and Lincoln to the car and try to get her to calm down. We'll stay here and get lunch for everyone." The Louds agreed and split up.

By the time they had reached the car, Linka had calmed down enough to talk, though she was still sniffling.

"I'm sorry. I just am not a big fan of crowded areas."

"It's fine, Linka. It's not your fault. We should have known better." Lincoln continued speaking words to that soothing effect until she had calmed down enough that she could eat her sandwich on the ride back. Lori and the others had gone to a sub place after Lynn had begged. Linka didn't talk to anyone, not even Lincoln, on the ride home. It was like the previous night, a setback, a reset button to how she was as she ate dinner previously. She only observed, but never participated. She was too tied up in recovering to do otherwise.

As the cyan sky turned crimson, Linka was in her room, recovering from the mall. Only now, she was sketching. There was a knock on the door.

"Linka, are you in there?" It was Lana.

"Yeah. Come in." Linka was sure that she would try to apologize or something for her inaction at the mall, and was fully ready to tell her there was no need for an apology. She saw the blonde pigtails peering through the room.

"Lori is having a sibling meeting in her room. Be there in 5 minutes." Linka wasn't expecting that.

"I'm not your sibling, though."

"Yeah, you are. Lincoln's my brother, and if you're his sister, then doesn't that make us sisters too?" Linka couldn't really think up an counterargument for the 6 year-old's logic, and so she followed the younger girl into Lori and Leni's room.

"Ok. Now that we're all here, I call this sibling meeting to order. First order of business: welcoming Linka to the Sibling gathering." Lori paused, and the Loud siblings greeted Linka enthusiasm or some form of it. Lisa and Lucy were a bit less enthusiastic, but Lincoln assured her that they were still very happy to have her.

"Alright. Second order of business. We're literally not doing anything this week. I think that we should each plan 1 activity to do with Linka starting Monday. Well, asides from Lincoln. He literally will see you all the time. If that's alright with you, Linka, then we can all "

"No, that's fine."

"Anything else?"

Nothing.

"Ok, if no one else has anything to say, I think it's good night. See you all tomorrow."

The Loud siblings all dispersed, and within 2 hours they all went to sleep. Linka was much calmer as she went to bed, so she wasn't worried about having nightmares. Even then, she set her leg on the other side of the bed this time.

Thank you for the positive feedback!

Also, the website screwed up and got the chapter 4 document which wasn't quite finished yet to publish just now. Sorry for any confusion that that may have caused