50. Ch 50- A Loud's Eye For Trouble

(A/N: hey, guys! First of all, we did it: we freaking did it! We got to fifty chapters, and I can't believe it! I never thought I would end up creating something his long, and even less that you guys would stick around for something this long! The support you give is awesome, so thank you all so much!

Now, just so you know, the next chapter for this will probably be slightly late- maybe a few days, not much longer. The reason for this is I'm gonna do a one-shot for Valentine's Day, which will be… actually, I'll keep it a secret for now. Just know that, I think you'll enjoy it.

So, other than that, all that's left to say is, thank you for reading and enjoy!)

When Lincoln woke up on Wednesday morning, he started to think that he was okay. He didn't feel immediately nauseous and he didn't feel like he had a temper, so he tried to get up and get ready for school. However, things didn't turn out the way he wanted, and when his parents came to check up on him, he admitted that he still felt weird in his stomach, so his mother advised him to take another day off from school. He didn't feel too happy about it at first, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to do well in class if he wasn't well yet, so he resigned and went back to bed, waking up later once again. His mother watched over him again, and made sure that he was eating right to combat his illness, while also checking on his condition regularly. Thankfully, he felt almost as good as new later in the day, using his time by himself to catch up on the homework he had been given by Jordan on Monday and by Clyde the day before. The girls all checked on him again when they got back from school, with Lori showing Lincoln a video she had recorded of her friends Becky and Dana pretending to be nurses and promising to give Lincoln a 'checkup', resulting in his cheeks turning bright red and his nose bleeding slightly, albeit with a bit of a goofy smile.

Still, he managed to get through the day okay, and when he woke up on Thursday, he felt like the rest of his illness had disappeared- his nausea was gone, his fever had settled, his stomach felt fine, and he didn't look green in the gills anymore. After a quick examination from an insistent Lisa, she deemed that he was well enough to go back to school, and Lincoln even managed to beg his mother into letting him go to gymnastics later as well, which had him grinning from ear to ear. So, once he had brushed his teeth, showered, dressed and eaten, he gathered his completed homework and put it in his book bag, then grabbed his gymnastics bag and joined the girls in Vanzilla, with Lori eventually pulling up in front of the elementary school.

"Alright, twerps, we're here," she told the youngest kids in the van. "Have a good day, and I'll pick you up after school." As everyone from Lincoln to Lisa started to exit, she put a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Lincoln, if you're feeling like you need to go home at all, ring me. Mom and dad will be busy, so they gave me a note explaining it to my teachers, so I can drop you off at home while they're at work."

"I'll be fine, Lori," he assured her, flashing her a confident smile. "I'm feeling much better."

"Alright. Have a good day, then."

"You too." With that, he got out of the van and shut the door, waving off his older sisters as they drove off. Once they were gone, he turned to the entrance, and after seeing that his younger sisters were already making their way inside, he followed their lead. The AC hit him like a breath of fresh air as he went inside, passing by the crowd of students heading to and from their lockers and classrooms. As he did the same, walking over to his locker to deposit his gymnastics stuff and some of his books, he saw some of his friends heading his way, so he smiled. "Hey, guys!"

"Howdy, Loudy!" Liam greeted first, with Zach and Rusty giving a similar greeting. "Nice to see you're back on your feet!"

"Yeah, I'm feeling better now. Feels weird to say, but I'm actually glad to be back here now."

"Really? It sucked that much?" Rusty asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, you'd think being at home all day would be great, but the other stuff kind of takes away from that."

"Well, we're glad that you're back, Lincoln," Clyde told his best friend.

"Me too, buddy." He then realised that their group was one short. "Hey, where's Stella?"

"She might be talking with Girl Jordan," Zach answered.

"Yeah, they've been getting on pretty well since Tuesday," Clyde recalled. "Stella still sits with us at lunch and Girl Jordan has gone back to sitting with her friends, but they tend to talk on the bus or after school."

"Okay. Well, I'm gonna go say hi to them before class starts, so I guess I'll catch up with you in there."

"Okay." So, while his friends made their way towards the classroom, Lincoln closed his locker and looked around, his eyes eventually seeing the two girls chatting by another set of lockers. He made his way over, and when the brown haired girl saw him out of the corner of her eye, she turned and smiled widely. "Hey, girls."

"Hey! You're back!" Jordan replied, somewhat excitedly, moving forward and hugging him. Though he was surprised, he returned the gesture for all three seconds before she realised what she was doing and backed away. "S-Sorry."

Though his cheeks weren't as red as hers had become, he did give a nervous blush as well. "It's fine… it's good to see you."

Stella noticed the slight awkwardness between the two, and decided to break the tension. "You're looking better, Lincoln," she told him with a smile of her own. "How are you feeling?"

"Good, thanks. Thankfully, I think I'm all better now."

"So, will you be coming to practice after school?" Lincoln nodded, and Jordan's smile lit up a little bit again. "Awesome!"

"Yeah, it really sucked not being able to practice on Tuesday, but hopefully I can make up for it later."

"You'll be fine, don't worry,"

"Hey, I'm gonna head to class, so I'll catch you both later," Stella told them.

"Okay," they both replied, before Stella left the two to themselves. "So," Lincoln decided to say, "is everything okay now? You know, between you and your friends?"

Her smile dropped a little when he asked this, but it still stayed on her face. "Yeah, we managed to patch things up. I'll be honest, it was a little awkward when I spoke with Mollie yesterday, but-"

"But, thankfully, we talked about it rationally, and saw that it wasn't losing our friendship over," Mollie told them, as she, Joy, Sadie and Kat approached the two. "After that, the rest of us spoke with her, and we agreed not to tease her as much."

"Were you listening in on our conversation?" Jordan asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nah, we only heard the last bit of it," Kat told her friend. "Pure luck."

"Right…"

"Anyway," Joy spoke up, turning to the white haired boy, "guess we owe you one, Lincoln."

"Yeah, things might have gotten worse if we hadn't talked things out," Sadie added. "I don't want to think about what would've happened then."

"I appreciate the thought, but I didn't do anything," Lincoln insisted. "You would have patched things up without me."

"Don't be so modest, Loud," Mollie told him with a slap to his back. "Seems the Girl Guru got one right for once."

"You know, one of these days, you're gonna get over reminding me of that."

"Yeah, but not today." This brought the other girls to start laughing, and though he rolled his eyes at them, he gave a couple of chuckles himself. "Anyway, good to see you're back on your feet. We'll catch up better at practice, but right now, we need to borrow Jordan for a little bit."

"No worries, I need to head to class anyway, so guess I'll see you later."

"Sure thing."

He gave a small wave as he walked away, heading through the crowd of students before reaching the elementary school class. As he entered, seeing his friends and other students chatting with themselves, his teacher looked up from her desk and caught sight of him.

"Ah, Lincoln!" She greeted, making him come over. "I see that you're feeling better."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

"Well, that's good to see. I take it that you were able to do the homework I had Clyde bring you?"

"Uh… yeah, I did."

"Alright. Well, hold on to your math homework for now, I'll collect that later. The rest of it, just place it here." He didn't argue, pulling the completed sheets out of his backpack and placing it on her desk. After taking a look through the work, she nodded to the boy. "That seems to be all of it. Alright, you can sit down now." He nodded back, then sat down with his friends, chatting until class started.

Once everyone had gathered in the classroom, Mrs Johnson went through the register and they heard the morning announcements, before getting in with the first class of the day. Fortunately for Lincoln, the first class was art, a subject that he had something of an affinity for. He was able to focus on his sketch work without disturbance and produced a pretty decent piece within the available time, and while he was sure that he could do a better job at it, his friends assuring him else-wise made him content with his result. After that, the rest of the day was something of a blur- science before recess, and general studies before lunch, which once again saw him trading parts of his lunch with the others for part of theirs.

After a couple of afternoon classes of maths and English, the school bell rang, meaning that school was over, and he could go to gymnastics.

"Alright, class," Mrs Johnson somewhat tiredly announced. "Make sure you have your… homework complete for tomorrow, and… I'll see you in the morning." She fanned her face with her hand, muttering "I hope this heatwave ends soon."

The students paid no heed to her qualms, as many of them were also feeling the effects of the increased heat- some were less affected than others, while some were sweating like mad. Lincoln fell somewhere in the middle of the two, his forehead beaded with sweat, his white hair slightly wet from sweat as well.

"Why are we having a heatwave in November?" Rusty complained, the taller boy faring somewhat worse from the heat, the sweat patches somewhat noticeable in his shirt. "I can't win over the girls if I'm sweating!"

"You couldn't do it if you weren't, either," Zach reminded him, to which Rusty just grumbled. "But, yeah, this is way too hot!"

"I think you're all fussing over nothing!" Liam boasted. "It ain't no worse than workin' on the farm!"

"With all fairness, you do that quite regularly," Clyde told him, wiping away the sweat from his glasses. "We don't, so we aren't as used to it."

"You'll be fine, guys," they heard Jordan say as she approached. "You guys get to go home and relax, while me and Lincoln are gonna be working out for a couple of hours at practice."

"Yeah, hopefully Chris will make sure the air conditioning is on," the Loud boy agreed as he pulled his gymnastics bag out of his locker. "Still, gonna build a sweat exercising anyway, so the heat won't make much of a difference there."

She gave an amused chuckle, putting a hand on her hip. "That's one way to look at it, I guess."

"Well, I need to get going before my dads wonder where I am," Clyde told his bestie.

"No problem, Clyde. I'll see you guys tomorrow." They all waved as they walked away, before Lincoln turned to Jordan. "So, are we just waiting for the others?"

"Yeah, apparently Principal Huggins needed to speak with some of them about something."

"Alright, there's no rush."

"There you are, Loud!" They heard a familiar voice call, turning to see Markus and his friends approaching. Lincoln's face instantly formed a scowl. "We've been wondering where you were."

"What do you want, Markus," he spat, resisting the urge to growl.

"Woah, easy, easy! We just wanted to ask how your week was! We haven't seen you at all, though we can't really blame you. If I had to take part in some girly fashion show, I wouldn't want to be seen at school either!"

As the three jocks laughed, Lincoln gritted his teeth and clenched his fist slightly. Though he didn't say anything about that, Jordan didn't like what Markus was saying. "What is your problem?" She challenged, taking a step forward.

"Listen, Girl Jordan, this has nothing to do with you, so why don't you just step back and keep quiet."

She gave him an appalled look, but before she could lash out at him, Lincoln had stepped forward, his face showing even more anger. "First of all, you don't talk to her like that!" He yelled, attracting someone attention from nearby students. "I don't care what problem you have with me, you have no right to treat her that way! And you know what? So what if I did some fashion show! Just because I have family I actually care about, and am willing to do stuff like that for, doesn't mean I'm a girl! It just means I have the guts to do something like that! Something I don't think you have."

A bit of an "Ooh" was heard by some of the students that had started to crowd around them, but Markus still smirked. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"Neither do you. I didn't choose to be off school, I was sick, and I wouldn't try and skip school for something stupid like that."

"Aww, is the girly getting upset? Are we hurting his feelings?"

This led to his friends starting to chant "LINCOLN'S A GIRL" at him, which began to irritate him, so Jordan put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, let's just find the others and leave."

"Yeah… you're right. Let's go."

He turned around and tried to leave, but Markus reached out and pulled him back by his shoulder. "Where you going, Loud? We aren't done talking!"

"Knock it off, Markus." He swiped the hand away and tried to leave, but Markus pulled him back again. "I said, knock it off." He swiped the hand once again, but Markus pulled him back a third time. "I said, knock it-"

This time, Lincoln didn't get to swipe the hand away, feeling a fist collide with his face and knock him to the ground. While Jordan gasped at this, some of the others winced a little from the impact. "Lincoln!" She exclaimed, kneeling down to help him up into a seated position. He was groaning slightly and held a hand over one eye, but didn't seem too hurt. She then turned to the bully with a fierce look in her eyes. "What the heck is wrong with you?!"

"What? Oh, I get it! You want to see it again! Well, step aside and I can show you."

"Get away from us, you jerk!"

He scoffed. "You can't tell me what to do! In fact, if you don't move, I'll do the same to you."

"I think not!" An older voice cut in, getting everyone to look back and see Principal Huggins stood with a stern glare in his eyes. As the other students decided to walk away before they risked getting in trouble, the balding man approached the pee wee footballer. "Markus, my office, now." He then turned to Jordan and Lincoln. "Miss Rosato, would you escort Mr Loud to the nurse's office? I'll come and get your accounts for events once I've gotten Mr Thomas' account."

"Yes, sir," she told him, waiting for the principal to escort Markus away before helping Lincoln to his feet. "Come on, let's go."

In the school infirmary, Jordan stood next to Lincoln as he sat on he bed, waiting for Nurse Patti to hand him an ice pack. The nurse in green scrubs with almond skin, dark hair and red lipstick eventually pulled an ice tray out of her mini freezer and popped some cubes into a little bag, tying the ends to keep it in, then handed it to the boy. "Here you go," she told her patient. "You don't need to return the bag, just keep it on for about twenty minutes or until it melts- which, in this weather, might be sooner. You might be left with a black eye for a few days, but just think of it as a badge of honour."

He gave a small chuckle at the joke she gave, holding the makeshift icepack against his eye. "Thanks, Nurse Patti."

"No problem." She then saw the principal enter from the hallway. "Principal Huggins."

"Hello, Nurse Patti. Might I speak with these two real quick?"

"Of course. I'll come back in a moment."

"Thank you." He waited for the nurse to leave before turning to the two students. "Now, first and foremost, I already saw enough to have Markus suspended for fighting, and I know that neither of you engaged him physically, so neither of you will be in trouble. I just need to know what happened before the punch was thrown. Lincoln, would you mind answering first?"

"Okay," he replied, before beginning his recollection of events. "Well, me and Jordan were waiting for our friends so we could head off to practice, when Markus and his friends come up to us, teasing me about helping my sister with her fashion show a few days ago, saying I was skipping school to avoid being seen because of it. He then started talking down to Jordan when she stood up for me, so I told him that I wasn't ashamed of what I did. We tried to leave, but he kept pulling me back, and when I tried pushing away his hand, he punched me."

"I see…" He then turned to Jordan and asked her, "is that true?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much what happened," she responded. "Lincoln and I were minding our own business, he came up and started causing trouble, and when we tried to leave, he punched Lincoln and threatened to punch me too."

"Don't worry, I overheard that and am adding that to his punishment. From what I can tell of the situation, he attacked Lincoln unprovoked, so he will get a minimum of three days suspension. You two don't need to stick around any longer, so you can go to your practice now. If I need to, I'll speak with you in the morning. Is that alright?"

"Yes, sir," Lincoln told the man, both him and Jordan nodding. Once the middle aged man left, Jordan turned to her friend. "How you feeling?"

"Well, it stings a bit… and now, it feels a bit cold." She couldn't help but giggle at him attempting to make light of the situation, which made him smile. "But, yeah, not too bad."

"Well, I'm glad. Markus is a jerk, and you don't deserve to get hurt because of him."

"Thanks."

"Hey, guys," they heard a familiar voice say, turning to see Mollie stood in the doorway. "Everything okay in here?"

"I thought you and the others were gonna go on ahead to gymnastics?" Jordan asked.

"They went, I said I'd wait for you. How you holding up, Loud?"

"Alright, though I'm probably gonna look like one of those dogs that have a patch over their eye in the morning."

"Nah, those dogs are cute."

He gave a dry scoff and a "thanks", to which she stuck her tongue out at him. "Anyway, are we gonna go to practice, or stick around here and make jokes about the black eye I'm going to have?"

Mollie gave a fake pout. "Hmm… I really wish we could do both."

Jordan rolled her eye, before finally saying, "shut up, Mollie." She then turned to Lincoln and said, "let's go", before they all started to make their way out of the school.