A/N: Well, I did a coin flip to see which LIFL pairing I'd be covering next; it came down to Francisco and Lynn (heads) against Chaz and Leni (tails). I'm sure you can guess which side of the coin I landed on…

I would've had this story out earlier, but I had to wait until my hand healed from all the vigorous back patting I did for the "oh-so clever" wordplay that came to me when I was deciding on a title for this two-shot.

It was about fifteen minutes past four o'clock in the afternoon when Lynn Loud finally began to stir from unconsciousness.

Even without opening her eyes, she could tell that she was laid out across a bed. Though her brain felt tacked with drowsy fog, she could still make out her surroundings well enough. The smell of medication and the sensation of chintzy, leathery cushion against her back nearly overwhelmed her, and her lips made a grimacing scowl at the uncomfortable accommodations that she couldn't even remember being forced into dealing with in the first place.

Her frown twisted into a sharper, thinner line when suddenly, the top left side of head throbbed, swells of aching bursts of pain rattling against her skull and pounding her brain.

She groaned with clenched teeth, both from the pain and from the frustration at herself—the sharp pang of agony jogged her memory and reminded her of exactly why she found herself in the nurse's office. She didn't know all the details, though; someone (her first guess was her coach) must've carried her in here after she blacked out.

Scratch that; in her mind, "blacking out" was too good of a term to describe the total wipeout that had happened, a literal fall from grace that earned her both the throbbing bruise on her noggin and the single most embarrassing moment of her entire life.

In front of her entire baseball team.

In from of him.

Partially because of him.

She found herself heaving another heavy groan, this time from the torment of humiliation as the recollection of her shame worked its way into her head, compounding the burden of pain that she was already suffering from. She wouldn't complain if the earth beneath her just decided to swallow her up—there was no way that Francisco didn't think she was a total dweeb now. What else could someone think of a girl who couldn't do something as simple as running to second base while waving at their crush (and contending with the butterflies in her gut from the wave he gave back to her) without tripping over their own two feet and conking their head on the ground?

Okay, so maybe the process wasn't so simple, especially when all it took was one flash of that boyish grin of his to send her rapid-beating heart sailing through the clouds, but she was supposed to be better than that! Team captains were supposed to be composed, reliable players, not ditzy, boy-crazy fools who couldn't go one second without wiping out during afterschool practice.

At this point, Lynn knew she could bear the pain enough to open her eyes, but she kept them closed all the same. It was wishful thinking at best and pure foolishness at worst, but maybe if she kept her eyes shut— the world blocked off from her immediate sight—it would all just…just vanish.

Poof. Gone. No more reality where she was undoubtedly the biggest loser in Royal Woods, and the laughing stock of her entire team. To even think that was plausible was a practice in vain, but Lynn let herself to succumb to such a childish notion anyway.

It didn't take long, however, for the thought of the world becoming nothing but a blank void of nothingness to be rendered boring—meditating on the prospect of nothing but her existing was something that she quickly discovered was a bleak set of circumstances that only Lucy could think about with such fond reverence.

And so, more minutes ticked by in silence as Lynn allowed herself to find peace within herself with what was real and possible. She thought back to home and how there were some leftover chili dogs that never failed to send her taste buds to the heavens. The experience would be amplified with the added taste of the fizzy, tangy taste of the cherry-flavored coke that she kept hidden in the corner of the fridge (good luck finding it, Lana!).

Ah, now that sounded like a good time; the simple pleasure of pigging out in the comfort of her room without a care in the world—she couldn't imagine anything else, not even the gnawing worry of Francisco's opinion of her, getting in the way of that little slice of paradise for long.

And that's when her ears picked up on the door clicking, followed by the slow creak of it opening with caution.

A/N: Yeah, I know what you're thinking; that wordplay was totally off the chain, right? Yeah, I know. ;)

Hope you're all invested enough for the final chapter, hitting a fanfiction website near you sometime…this year. Yeah, let's go with that.