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

On the ceiling, there were multiple square tiles arranged neatly in rows, each one being speckled and dotted. That is what Linka saw when she opened her eyes. She furrowed her brow, as if confused, then looked around the room. The confused look on her face turned to one of shock, and then one of fear.

She noticed her left arm was in a sling and her leg was in a cast. Her right leg, that is, as her left prosthetic leg was nowhere to be seen. She started panicking visibly. She was so scared that she didn't realize that there was someone else in the room.

"Linka! You're awake!"

She jumped, metaphorically this time, then turned around to see Lynn sitting on the other bed in the room. She had one black eye and her wrist was in a cast, but despite that, she was still very happy looking.

"What happened?" When she spoke, Linka's voice was groggy and weary.

"You mean you forgot? Um… that's not good… I'm gonna call the nurse…" With that, the athletic girl pressed the little call button that summoned the nurse.

She then went and sat at the edge of Linka's bed.

"You don't remember any of it?" She phrased it like a question, but it sounded more like pleading.

Linka began to shake her head, but then understanding flooded her eyes. She paused, as if reliving memories, and then a new emotion took hold of her. Her face winced and then scowled and the fist and the end of her one working hand clenched.

"So, you remember then?" Linka was sucked out her bath of memories by Lynn's voice.

Suddenly, she propped herself up with her hand and reached in front of her to give a one-armed hug to Lynn, who was now sitting where Linka's left leg would have been. Linka pulled away from the hug nodding.

"Thanks for saving my life."

"No problem."

Linka stared at Lynn's wrist cast.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Lynn sounded shocked.

"You won't be able to play sports for the rest of the season."

"I'd rather have to miss out on a season of sports than miss out on a sister." Lynn said that, then immediately made a face. "Ugh. I hate sappiness."

Linka giggled. She was now with new emotion. It was one that would carry her until the end of afternoon. It was elatedness, excitement without energy, joy, and most importantly utterly adorable contagious cheerfulness.

There was complete and utter silence as the 2 girls sat on her bed, each enjoying the presence of the other. There was a knock at the door, and Lynn opened it to find a kindly old woman in a nurse's garb.

"Hello, dearie. What was it you – My god, you're awake! How do you feel?"

This was a difficult question to answer. Linka felt awesome and alive and great, and yet the emotional rollercoaster Linka had just experienced, in the past 10 minutes alone, was taxing and confusing, and most of the emotions she had felt being negative had certainly not helped, and she was just terribly confused about –

"Good."

"Alright. Has your sister explained what happened to you?"

"Well, she didn't tell me what all of this," here gesturing to the sling on her left arm and the cast on her right leg "means,"

"Right, right. Well, you sprained your elbow, but it was very minor and you should be out of the sling either tomorrow or Sunday. You lightly fractured your ankle, but it should be good by next Saturday. And then you have multiple bruises and stuff all over your body."

"What do you mean, 'tomorrow or Sunday'? What day is it?"

"Calm down, dear. You were unconscious yesterday."

That certainly didn't help calm her down.

"Then, you woke up in the middle of the day, but they had put you under they could do a minor operation on that giant cut in your leg."

"What happened to my prosthetic?"

She let out a gasp as Lynn reached under her bed and pulled up a badly battered, near destroyed piece of metal with a socket on top, almost looking like a leg.

"They measured your stump yesterday, and Lisa ordered another one, it should be here in three weeks."

"Oh, darn. I hate using crutches" Turning to the nurse, she asked "When's breakfast?"

"Right, well you're allowed to have whatever food from the menu."

Linka thought about it, then smiled shyly.

"Can I have a bagel with cream cheese then?"

"Sure thing, dearie. I'll be back with that in 20 minutes or so."

The nurse left.

Lynn turned to Linka, a most thoughtful expression on her face.

"You know, for as long as I can remember, every year at least 1 Loud has ended up in the hospital overnight. I was wondering when it would happen this year. I guess this year, its you."

"Really?" Linka was very skeptical looking.

"Of course! Lana broke both of her legs last year the week before kindergarten began. I've broken all 4 limbs throughout my 8 years playing sports. Lincoln has broken both of his legs on separate occasions. Lucy, Lola, and Leni ended up with some rare disease or something. Lisa has had several burns after experiments went wrong. Lori got her appendix removed. Something happened to Luna, but it was a long time ago and I forget what it was. Luan takes the cake, though. She had her head slammed into a toaster, a prank backfired and left her unable to move her leg for a month, she accidentally overdosed on her ADHD medication, and she had another prank backfire and leave her temporarily blind in one eye."

Linka took some time processing all of it, as it was a lot, but her thoughts were interrupted by a commotion at the door. Turning her head, she stared at the door as it began to open slowly. Her heart began racing, as did her mind. The door opened, revealing… Luna?

Indeed, the entire Loud clan, save Mr. Loud, Lori and Leni, had arrived. Mr. Loud had work, apparently he had been in the room during the evening and night. Lori and Leni had tests that day, but they had promised to swing by that evening as well. Even Pop-Pop was there, though this time minus his girlfriend Myrtle. Linka was searching for a particular Loud, and… He was present, her twin brother. Her heart sank, thinking of their argument.

Lola and Lana made a beeline to Linka's bedside. They sat on her right side and hugged her both at the same time.

"Umm, why do you have such large bruises?" Linka said, recovering from the intensity at which Lana and Lola had hugged her. Indeed, they were more bruised and beaten than Lynn was.

"Oh, Lola and I were fighting about which one of us got to greet you first, and then Luna said that we could both see you at the same time." Lana said this all in an oddly cheerful and energetic tone. The twins continued talking to Linka, one of the few people who could get them to act civilized to each other, for a few minutes more before Lana and Lola became uninterested and went off to pester Lynn.

Next to greet her was Lucy, who wrote a poem for her. The poem was rather dark, about how they all thought she was going to die, though it had a somewhat happy ending. Linka thanked the young goth awkwardly. Lisa came next, assuring her the leg would arrive into her possession in 1 ½ fortnights. After that, Mrs. Loud and Pop-Pop showed up at her bedside, both telling her how proud they all were that she was alive and more awake and energetic than ever before, how she wasn't letting such a negative event get to her,

Next up were Luna and Luan, the younger holding Lily. They set Lily down on Linka's right side, and she played with Linka's one functioning limb as Linka talked to her older sisters. They talked for sometime, and then her breakfast arrived. Linka was eating her bagel in silence, when Luna started talking out of the blue.

"He was really worried about you, you know."

"Who?"

"Lincoln. He is sorry for what he said."

"Oh. I forgave him a long time ago. I forgave him by dinner that evening."

"Well, you guys should make up, then."

"Yeah," Luan chimed in, "Nothing like amending hostilities in a hospital!"

Luna groaned, but Linka giggled.

"I have a lot of puns, so you better arm yourselves. Hey, Luna! I thought you were gonna sling a song for her! Wait! Luna! Where are you going? Come… Ah, she's gone. She normally likes my stand-up routines, though. That's weird. Anyways, I'm going to go there and get Lincoln to talk to you."

She hugged Linka, and then, ignoring Linka's protests, the energetic comedienne skipped over to Lincoln. Linka tried to make out what they were saying, but she was too occupied by Lily, who was now demanding her attention.

Apparently, they had finished talking, as Luan skipped back, scooped Lily up and carried her away. Linka just sat there for a few minutes, until Lincoln finally showed up. He ambled forward slowly and he couldn't bring himself to look Linka in the eyes. He shuffled to the side of the bed.

"I'm really sorry –" He managed to mumble this before he could no longer breathe. Linka had put her functioning arm around him and pulled him into a very tight hug. After a minute and a half, he was released from her grasp.

"So, that means you forgive me?" Lincoln was very sarcastic when he needed to be.

"Well, almost. You're gonna be my slave until I'm out of a wheelchair." She said this in a very grave tone of voice, and almost would have gotten away with it, but she was just too cheerful to not giggle right afterwards. Lincoln just glared at her, but he was sucked into her contagious cheerfulness and started laughing as well.

"Actually," Linka said after both of them had managed to calm down, "I had forgiven you by that evening's dinner. I was just trying to avoid you because I thought that you were still mad at me."

They sat in silence for a couple of seconds.

"Actually, could you be my slave for the next week? I hate being in a wheelchair."

"I figured I'll probably be stuck doing things for you anyways. I brought your computer. I figured that you would be kinda bored here."

"That's great! Thanks, Lincoln!" They spent most of the rest of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon on the computer playing games and chatting about how annoying it was that their sisters felt the need to solve all of their problems: both twins were still smarting over Luan's getting involved in their argument.

After Linka's lunch, she started feeling sleepy. Since Lynn was being discharged, it was decided that Luna and Luan would keep an eye on her until Lori and Leni arrived, and the rest of them would head home with Lynn.

Many farewells and goodbyes were discharged from the various parties, but one stood out to Mrs. Loud. "Bye, Mom" was said in a manner not belonging to the distinctly gravelly voice of Luna nor to the squeaky and oddly high-pitched voice of Luan, but rather to a 10-year-old sounding voice. It could only have been that of Linka. Mrs. Loud drove home with tears of happiness in her eyes.

Lnika, meanwhile, was getting ready to nap the afternoon away. Before she went to bed, she just talked to her older sisters once again.

"Just to be clear, my arm is free by tomorrow, Sunday at the latest"

"Yeah."

"And my leg is unusable until the Sunday after that and for the next week I'll be using a wheelchair"

"Toe-tally!"

"And after that I'm gonna be on crutches for a week waiting for my prosthetic leg."

"Yup!"

"Ok. That's all I wanted to know"

"Don't worry, Linka. Wheel all help you feel just like you would normally. You'll be walking again in no time."

By the time those words were spoken, Linka was already fast asleep.

I will not give the usual apology of authors who wait far too long to deliver the next chapter. I promised 3 weeks, and I waited 2 months. No, I have not given up on this story. This story will be finished soon, (though based on how long the previous chapter took to come out, the next few may take some time as well.) and when it finishes, I have plans to do a one-shot collection set in this universe as opposed to a sequel.