In the last chapter, we witnessed Him, masked by Butch, revealing his new plan to Brick. Bubbles, meanwhile, prepared to reveal her feelings for Boomer. Get ready for a lengthily written chapter.

Chapter 15: No Turning Back

Right now, at this moment, it was all clear for Bubbles Utonium. It was not her decision to make—the desire to have Boomer for herself. Yes, she knew now, and it was no use succumbing to the denial that had been pulling at her leg ever since the first time she had been given the surprise of seeing him at her doorstep. She was only aware now of the feelings that had developed since then, and of the immaturity

It was his decision to make, and for her to accept.

If he liked her back, then she would be happy—she had every right to—and well, if it bothered Blossom, it was her own problem to deal with. There was no reason for Bubbles' happiness to be taken away because of Blossom, because if Boomer liked her back, then it was her who deserved him. Her, Bubbles Utonium.

She tried not to think of the alternative.

Gathering her courage, she closed her eyes, inhaling, and then held her breath as she forced herself to fix a determined stare in Boomer's direction. He looked at her intently, curiosity etched in his big blue eyes. If there was any other emotion there in the magnificent sea of blue, then she couldn't see it. Her sight was smeared with nervousness, and her fingers drifted to the tight space between her legs, subconsciously aware of the sweat that had formed there. Then, after what seemed like forever, she spoke.

"Boomer, I—"

The door slammed open—or at least, that's how it seemed to Bubbles, because the heart that was beating loudly in her chest suddenly popped out of her ribcage.

"Oh, here you guys are," Blossom grinned at them. Was something happening here? She couldn't help thinking to herself as she secretly surveyed the tension in the air. Then she added quickly, "Oh, what a beautiful sunset."

Bubbles looked at it as if it was the only thing worth looking at, expression tense. Boomer glanced casually at it, and answered Blossom, "Yeah, it sure is."

"The classroom's positively sparkling," Blossom exaggerated. "I can't believe you guys stayed this long to clean. Well, I'm sorry to keep you guys waiting. Were you waiting for me to pick you up?"

"No," Bubbles muttered quietly, but Blossom caught it.

"Oh, I see." Her pink eyes flicked toward Boomer, but his gaze was fixed on Bubbles, whose bangs cast a shadow over her eyes. "Well…" she shot a brief glance at the cleaning materials in disarray. "I'll be out in the hall. You guys finish up in here." Then, with tremendous hesitation, she forced herself to turn and walk away, which she did in a rather robotic manner.

But Bubbles hardly heard what Blossom said last. Her thoughts were so fixed on what the sunset was trying to tell her, that Blossom's receding footsteps seemed to echo in her head.

"Hey, last time we saw such a pretty sunset was yesterday, you know."

Bubbles snapped back to reality. "Ah. Yeah."

"Sunsets usually mean endings, you know. But that last time, it was a beginning."

"Oh…?" What's he talking about?

"It was my beginning with you guys. But I guess, in my case, it meant an ending too."

"Ending…?" Why did that word seem to strike her so severely?

"Yeah. It was the official ending of my first relationship with my brothers and I. I don't regret it. But there is one thing that I'm sorry about."

"What's that?" Can't. Stop. Short. Retarded. Replies. Her high-pitched voice, for the first time, sounded stupid to her. It's amazing what puberty can do to a boy like Boomer.

"Breaking off my friendship with the guys." His gaze dropped slightly. "I never really liked them, but I kinda realize that defeating them isn't what I want the most. Having them turn to the good side—to be really good brothers is what I really want. But it's not possible, so I have to settle for the next best thing."

He looked at her again, and he saw the curiosity that he knew would be there. Why was he telling her this? What message did he want to get through to her?

And then it hit her. This was an ending too.

"I'm sorry, Bubbles."

No. No, no, no, no, no.

He set the brooms up against the wall and started to walk away.

No.

"There isn't a next best thing, Boomer!" she cried, wrenching around to look at him leaving her, and she couldn't stop the tears that began to run down her cheeks. "It's you! It has always been you! Why?" Why? Why did she like him this long? Why not her, when it was only Blossom who just began to feel these emotions that she hadn't yet realized?

As far as Bubbles knew, anyway…

"T-this ending is also a beginning," he said in a constricted voice. "My… my feelings…"

He did not need to finish. She did not want him to finish. She knew, she knew what would come next. Blossom.

Already, she was bawling, screaming as she clutched her hair and sank to the ground. And Boomer, with much pain, left her there sobbing and hiccupping, trying to contain herself. He did not help. He knew sympathy would not help her get over him.

He walked out and scoured the hallways, expecting to see Blossom strolling in the next one, but he didn't see her. He drifted over to the exit, and there she was, leaning on the wall outside it. He joined her.

"Oh!" she said. "Where's Bubbles?"

"She said she had something to do," he said, shrugging. "She also said to go home without her, and that she'd be there in a jiffy."

"But—"

"Ah, hey you guys!" Buttercup ran up with the speed of a track-runner when she spotted them, and was at their side within seconds despite being a great distance away when she called. She was sweating, but had a huge smile on her face. "Oh, the stuff I gotta tell you… oh, hey, where's Bubbles? I'm starving and wanna go home."

"She had something to d—"

She cut Boomer off. "Ah well, no sense in waiting, she'll be back before long."

And with that, she grabbed the two's elbows and shot off into the sky, leaving three streaks of color behind them.

Bubbles lay on her side, gasping and hugging herself. Rejection. Somehow that word didn't fit her in this situation.

It was an ending.

But she couldn't make her tears stop. Nor could she stop her feelings.

She had to try, though.

She was so preoccupied with this, the sound of the door creaking open came retarded to her ears.

But when the footsteps came, her heart stopped, and her breathing ceased. The intruder kneeled behind her. Her pupils shrunk in size, so frightened was she. This was not a good aura. Who could it be?

A hand reached out and turned her over. She held her breath to brace her for what was coming—and she came face to face with Butch Jojo, a face she did not expect to see.

She scrambled onto her hands instinctively. "W-what do you want? What are you doing here?"

He stared for a moment. "I should be asking you," he said in reply.

Bubbles braced herself for a fight. Thank God his brother isn't here, she thought. I wouldn't be able to take on them at all. But where is the red one?

"Hey-a, Bubs," he said in his usual coarse voice, which was developed quicker of course, than that of his other two brothers. Despite the casual tone in his accent, however, his green eyes—which glowed a shade brighter than usual—surveyed her poorly braced poise with malice.

Bubbles scowled at the use of a new nickname. On the eve of her first period long ago, Buttercup called her "Blue" as a crude way of designating the miserly demeanor she put up at the time, to which Bubbles retorted with "Greenie the monster". It wasn't a very mature way to approach Buttercup's call of her, but this was a time when Bubbles was her meanest, and also when her pretty round head was reaped of whatever good comebacks that had been stored there. She even continuously called her innocent oldest sister "Red" as if to enlighten her that she was a constant reminder of her pain and misery.

Blossom didn't get it, of course.

"What do you want, Butch?" she said with as much scorn as she could muster with her high-pitched, girly voice, and was inwardly delighted with herself when a suitable thing to say kindled at the tip of her tongue. "I didn't think you liked school so much that you decided to stay so long!"

"It doesn't look like I'm the only one." Okay, so he could say something back too.

But so did she. "Was on duty."

He arched a dark, shapely brow. "For almost over an hour after school?

Bubbles blinked, genuinely surprised. "You can count?"

Butch's left eye twitched with annoyance at her total ease to insult him as if it were a solid fact.

"Anyway, what are you really doing here?" Little Bubbles' guard was down, and she idly dusted off her skirt with an elegant tone of exasperation, one her oldest sister was accustomed to using and could do the best. "Sometimes I even wonder why you can even stand a place like a school, even if you were desperate to annoy us."

Another twitch.

"I heard Blossom mention once that you guys had a plan, and were trying to—what was that word again? …Ah! Infiltrate through the inside. Trick us into letting our guard down and observe us while we're… oh, Blossom came up with a good one. What was it? Ooh, while we're vulnerable. But then she let it go when we saw how stuuupid you guys were getting along."

More twitching.

"We used to think Boomer was the dumbest of you guys," Bubbles said thoughtfully. She seemed to be speaking to herself now, gyrating a bit from Butch and looking up with a finger beneath her chin. "But golly, were we wrong." Her eyes then narrowed and she peered at Butch from the corner of her eye, a sweet but cynical pout on her lips. The innocence she was so known for seemed to shield her sight from the veins of annoyance bulging beneath Butch's sun kissed skin. "Well, now we know who the dumbest Rowdyruff really is."

Boom.

"ALRIGHT, LOOK 'ERE MISSY," he yelled, eyes bulging from their sockets. "YOU MUST BE THE DUMBEST ONE TO NOT SEE MY SMARTNESS!"

His cool demeanor was completely blown. "Eeeeww, say it, don't spray it!"

For one embarrassed moment he flushed and his hand flew up to his mouth, but he stopped himself. "I-I'LL SAY IT IN WHATEVER WAY I WANT!" was his pitifully constructed answer. His hand snatched up one of her pigtails, which now was half the length of Blossom's waist-length red locks.

"Ow, ow, ow, owww," Bubbles whined as Butch yanked her to him.

"Okay, you, I wanted to have a talk with you, and I intend to drill it through your little curly-haired yellow head," he said it through gritted teeth. Stoll, even with the word intend in his sentence, he still had a sort of twang in his pronunciation.

Bubbles was not impressed with his enhanced vocabulary, evidently. "You talk like a retard!"

"SHADDAP!"

"GO BACK TO PRESCHOOL! …Oh wait, you've never been there have you!"

"I'M SICK O' YOUR WHINING!"

They continued to bicker like this for a while. Brick was in the hall, leaning with his foot against the wall the behind the open door. He bowed his head over his crossed arms and closed his eyes. He could've joined Butch and perhaps brought a bit of order to the meeting, but he didn't quite feel like intruding at present, and not just because he was tired. Subconsciously, he felt good about there being a blonde to argue with about the place again.

Bubbles landed with a thud on the pavement, and her knees bucked with the force. She panted on their doorstep.

When she had finally escaped, she'd realized that it was a dark evening sky she'd hurtled upwards into. She flew back as fast as she could without disturbing the families in their homes, halfway past their supper and other preparing their children for bed. A hollow feeling formed itself in the pit of her stomach when she thought of her family and Boomer, who were probably waiting impatiently for her arrival.

Or was the feeling there just because she was hungry?

In any case, by the time she arrived there, she was struggling to regain her composure. She didn't want her outward appearance to contrast with the lie she would tell. But just as she was reaching for the doorknob, the door swung open and an angry-looking Blossom stood before her.

Bubbles fought to break their eye contact. "H-how did you..."

"I heard you land," was Blossom's curt reply. "And where have you been?"

"I…"

"Oh, save it," Blossom interrupted, holding up a hand to silence her. Then she turned in one swift movement and walked away as a signal for her youngest sister to follow her into the dining room, her long red hair swishing behind her.

Bubbles tugged off her low-heeled go-go boots, glaring at them as if they were the main source of her misfortune, and tossed them aside. But heaven knew the poison bubbling inside her was not because of her mistake in landing too hastily, but because she was intensely irate with her sister. Still, by the time she had stomped into the dining room in her socked feet, the frown was off her face like mud washed off by running water. Blossom, Buttercup, and the professor were all glaring at her. Boomer's awkward gaze moved uncertainly from his empty plate to the food, from which no heat emanated.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice, caressing the fingers of her left hand with the fingers of her right. "…I took my time coming home." Lie One.

"Why did you stay at school so long?" the professor questioned her.

"I just idled… then I lost track of time." Lie Two.

All three members of her family sighed in chorus. Bubbles felt like sighing too, because they believed her story, but instead she held her breath for what was to come.

"Bubbles," the professor said sternly, "this was very irresponsible. I hope that there will be none of this again in the future, as you have distressed us greatly and left supper cold.

Grooowwl. Buttercup sweat dropped, but was ignored.

Bubbles swallowed. "Yes, professor," she said in the same small voice.

This time the professor addressed all of his children. "Girls, you are no longer children, but I want an emphasized and relevant reason for every time you come home later than usual while you are still not of age." Then he looked across the table at his two older daughters. "And I want all of you to be responsible if ever one of you goes astray. Is that understood?"

Shamefacedly, they said, "Yes, professor."

The professor turned back to his youngest. "And you, Bubbles? Can you promise not to go astray?"

"Yes, professor." Lie Three.

"GAWD! Can we eat now!"

"For Pete's sake, Buttercup!"

"Yes, you may."

Buttercup immediately began to dig at her food, and Boomer, who began hesitantly, gradually followed suit. Blossom, who ate as civilly as her father, shook her head at Buttercup and continued to mutter.

Only Bubbles picked at her food before moving it hesitantly into her mouth. She winced at ever bite as the acid boiled in her stomach, only this time it wasn't for spite. It was because of guilt.

Annoying A/N: Sorry for the late update. I grabbed the opportunity to be obsessed with PPG again during Christmas break. Also, since Bubbles has been having the worst time throughout the fanfic, I decided to make her the main character in this chappie. Of course, you'll have your Blossom back in the next, and now that Boomer is aware of his feelings I'll be cooking up some Blossom/Boomer moments then =D.

The poll is up again. Please continue voting!

Really, I do think it's strange to have you peeps keep voting for PPLT when TWTK is nearing its end faster than this one. 0_o