Blossom never spent too much time in the bathroom in the morning before school, getting ready. There was very little she needed to do to herself to make her stand out—as if she wanted to. Her eyes were huge and pink, and her hair was a bright orange that had been known to blind innocent onlookers when the light caught it right. Plus, she was a Powerpuff Girl. She got a lot of stares just by being who she was. Why bother to bring about any more than what she already got? When she was in school, she just wanted to be known as a student, nothing more.

She had her hair wrapped in a bun that day. Sighing to herself, she reached for the hairspray and clippies. She really did take pride in her hair, but lately it just tended to be something that distracted others from school. And the last thing she wanted was to snatch away her fellow students' attention from learning… God knew that they needed all the education they could get.

Satisfied with her appearance, she opened the door to the bathroom. Buttercup, still half-asleep, floated in like a zombie.

"Where's Bubbles?" Blossom asked. Bubbles always wanted the bathroom first, and if she didn't beat Blossom to it, she always beat Buttercup.

"Mumph," mumbled Buttercup, yanking a brush through her dark, tangled hair.

"No, really, I know I got here before she did—I didn't have to pick out any blonde hairs from the sink." Blossom left Buttercup alone to tug at her sleep-crusted eyes and floated up the stairs to the Girls' room.

"Bubbles?" she asked, knocking at the door.

"C-come in," came her gentle voice.

Blossom slowly opened the door and stared.

Although the girls were sisters and had about the same body shape and size, they rarely shared clothing, due to their differing styles. Which was why seeing Bubbles wearing Buttercup's football jersey, baggy black jeans, and baseball cap shocked Blossom into speechlessness.

"Is there something you wanted?" Bubbles asked, sloppily pushing her hair up underneath the hat.

"Why are you wearing Buttercup's clothes?" Blossom asked.

Bubbles hesitated for a moment. "I, uh… I don't want to look like a girl."

Blossom sighed. "Bubbles, did something happen at the prison yesterday?"

"Nothing happened," Bubbles huffed, "they all just… well…"

"They all harped on the fact that you've got breasts, is that it?"

Bubbles flopped down on her bed helplessly. "They all hate me for coming, but they all keep staring at my chest, and… it makes me feel so uncomfortable! The Rowdyruff Boys were making passes at me the entire time I was there—and they were really vulgar about it!"

Blossom put a sympathetic arm around Bubbles' shoulders. "Maybe… maybe you shouldn't go back there today, Bubbles."

"No!" cried Bubbles angrily, glaring at Blossom. "I have to go! I have to change! I'm not scared of boys. If they try anything, I'll beat them up."

Blossom laughed. "It doesn't sound like you need to change at all."

"I can be tough with you, and even Buttercup," Bubbles admitted, "but with all the guys in the prison I just freeze and can't say anything. I don't want to yell at them." Her eyes narrowed. "But if they keep staring at my breasts as if that's the only part of my body that matters, then I might have to!"

"They didn't try anything, though?" asked Blossom with concern.

"No, I haven't been molested, if that's what you're asking," said Bubbles. "And I'm going back there today, whether you like it or not! It was your idea, anyway."

"Yes, it was," sighed Blossom. She bit her tongue to keep herself from saying anymore. Her sister's well-being aside, the possibility that she may have made a mistake settled poorly in her stomach, as if she had swallowed a sea-urchin. And it was certainly not something she cared to admit.

For Bubbles was smiling innocently at her, confident not as much in herself as she was in her leader sister's judgment. Blossom didn't have the heart to shatter that.

No… the job of breaking Bubbles' trust belonged to the thugs in jail.

Not to her.

O.o.O

Bubbles went into prison that day with a brash confidence, highlighted to an obnoxious extent by Buttercup's clothes that she was still wearing. The clothes, however, only emphasized the confidence—they were not the source.

She was going to make a difference in these felons' lives, and she was going to start NOW.

Of course, it was going to be tough to redeem anyone. Bubbles knew that no crook in jail was going to reform simply because she gave him a sympathetic smile—she wasn't THAT naïve. But it wasn't a lost cause either. She could see real potential in some of them.

Boomer of the Rowdyruff Boys seemed as good a place to start as any.

"So," said Bubbles sweetly, "why are you so evil and nasty all the time? Do you really want to be that way, or are you simply suffering from a need for acceptance?"

Boomer blinked.

"…say what?" he finally cried.

"I know that your brothers are always the ringleaders of your pranks—Brick especially. But what if you were on your own, Boomer? Would you still be mean? Or would you want to help people?"

Boomer continued to stare at her in a completely baffled manner. "Jeez, Bubbles, you have a really weird way of flirting."

"I'm not flirting!" cried Bubbles. "I'm just trying to help you."

"If I say I've reformed, will you have sex with me?"

"WHAT?! That's not what we're talking about!"

"Why else would you want to reform me?"

"I want to you to be a better person and contribute positively to society! I'm not looking for that!"

"Yeah, Boomer, you heard her!" Butch yelled at his brother, having been listening to their conversation. "Now back off so I can have a chance with her!"

"Hell no!" cried Boomer. "If you didn't notice, genius, I'm the one that looks like her! So that means I'm the one who's supposed to end up with her!"

"You moron! That doesn't make any difference!" Butch smiled as he slid his way towards Bubbles. "But I think blue and green go well together, don't you think?"

"No—go away!" cried Bubbles, aghast. "That's not what I'm here for!"

"You losers!" Brick rudely pushed both his brothers out of his way, giving him an unobstructed view of Bubbles. "Can't you tell she doesn't want you? Look at how far she went out of her way to make herself unattractive for you! She's waiting for someone to see… through that." He reached forward to grab the bottom of her jersey.

Bubbles slapped his hand and Brick pulled it away with a yelp, seeing as Bubbles had not been gentle.

"You're nothing but… but big, fat, perverts! All three of you!" cried Bubbles, her voice high-pitched with anger and fear. "I don't want to have sex with any of you, so LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The three boys looked at each other for a moment without saying anything.

"She's totally in denial," Boomer finally said.

"Duh," said Butch. "It's obvious she's got the hots for me."

"Back off dude, I saw her first!"

"She obviously doesn't want you!"

"She obviously doesn't want you! You're supposed to be with Buttercup, genius!"

"I can't stand Buttercup, genius! She's probably a lesbo anyway! But Bubbles is sweet enough and I bet she'd be great in bed!"

"She'd never go to bed with you! You're too tough for her!"

"You're terrible," Bubbles whispered. "I can't believe you guys. All three of you. You're… you're terrible."

She flew away from them, not wanting to hear any more.

Well then? she thought to herself. Was that it? Did that do it—have I matured yet?

She was angry, yes, but not crushed, not betrayed. She might have said that she couldn't believe what she was hearing, but the boys actually hadn't surprised her—she had been expecting that from them.

Well, that must mean that I'm used to them being bad! I know that the world's a bad place then!

Except she felt no different.

She turned and looked at the boys again. Boomer and Butch were still arguing, and it looked like Butch was winning, judging by the growing disparity of Boomer's facial expressions. Finally, Butch ended the argument by punching Boomer in the eye.

Bubbles gulped.

She still felt sorry for them—all three of them. They only acted the way they did because they didn't know any better. If someone could teach them, show them how to be nice, then surely they would be! There had to be something good in those boys… didn't there?

"You are wasting your time on those miscreants."

The smell of burning tobacco accompanied these words, and Bubbles didn't have to turn around to identify the speaker as Mojo. "No one's a waste of time," Bubbles said firmly, still not looking at him, although wondering when it was that he had taken up smoking.

"They have only known a life of foolishness, larceny, and troublemaking," said Mojo in a condescending tone. "With such a lifestyle and never knowing any other lifestyles, there is no hope or possibility that they will ever come to know anything otherwise."

Bubbles turned to look Mojo in the eye. "Yes there is. I just need to help them, and then they'll change."

"You are an optimistic, naïve, and foolish child," scorned Mojo. "Twelve years of being scorned and treated as an outcast have consequences that are irreversible. We are criminals, outcasts, villains, the scum of the earth! Even if we could be reformed, no one cares to, for we are what the rest of the world compares themselves to. We exist so that people like you have someone to hate."

"I don't hate you," said Bubbles, shaking her head sadly. "And I believe that there's good in everyone. In Boomer, in Butch, in Brick, in Fuzzy… and even in you."

Mojo took a rather prolonged drag from his cigarette, apparently trying to hide how ridiculous he was finding Bubbles' answers to be.

"And I'm not going to give up on them," Bubbles continued, beaming with confidence. "I'm going to make their lives better. They're going to be happy and nice. You'll see. I can change them. I know I can."

Maybe then I'M not the one who needs changing, she thought to herself as Mojo continued to look at her with disdain. Maybe I'm the one who can change everyone else!

But if you keep on crying at every little bad thing, that's not good either…

Bubbles bit her lip in confusion.

Who needed change more—she, or the criminals?

Mojo couldn't have known what thoughts were taking away her confidence, but he smirked at her as her composure faltered, taking another puff from his cigarette.

O.o.O

Bubbles always stayed at the jail until dinner, as she had planned from the start, but it was difficult that day, seeing as none of the inmates she tried to talk to her were at all receptive to her. She got one of two reactions from every inmate there was—either scorn at her because she was part of the reason he was in jail, or a lustful look at where they assumed her breasts were—Bubbles realized that just because she was wearing clothes that deemphasized her size didn't mean that men forgot that they were there.

By suppertime she was feeling frustrated and ready to go home. No progress had been made, and she was beginning to feel that, even if they needed the change more than she did, it might be she who succumbed first.

"Hey, Bubbly," said Boomer, jumping in line next to her. "Mind if I join you?"

"I suppose not…" Bubbles began. She frowned as Boomer stuck his tongue out in victory to his brothers.

"As long as you drop that expectation that I'm going to have sex with you!"

Boomer's face fell, and Bubbles sighed inwardly.

"Oh, no, that's not what I want from you at all, babe—I mean, Bubbles!" he said quickly, trying to cover his mistake. "I just—uh—I just wanna be friends. I mean, you just wanna help me, and I think that's great!" He craned his neck around her. "So what slop are they feeding us today?"

"I dunno," shrugged Bubbles. "It looks like some sort of pasta."

"Mmm," smiled Boomer. "I hope it's tortellini. That's my favorite. What about you, Bubbly? Do you like tortellini?"

"It's okay," said Bubbles, trying to hide how ill at ease she was feeling. Despite Boomer's complete 180-degree change in attitude—or perhaps because of it—she wasn't believing that all he wanted was to simply "be friends".

"Step aside, kid," a voice growled.

Both Bubbles and Boomer turned to look up… way up. The voice came from a huge man who was probably twice as tall as them, and he looked like he meant business.

"I'll be the one treating this little lady here to dinner."

Boomer gulped in terror.

"Excuse me?" Bubbles asked, trying to sound polite in an attempt to cover her anger, which in turn was an attempt to cover her own fear of this giant. "What do you mean, treat? We're not paying for this. We're just standing in a cafeteria line. You can't treat me to anything."

"I'm going to treat you with myself."

"No you won't!" cried Bubbles, her hand flying over her chest again.

"Yeah, b-b-back off!" stammered Boomer. "I saw her first…"

"That means nothing," growled the giant—and without warning, he suddenly grabbed Boomer by the collar of his shirt and held him up in the air. Boomer squeaked in horror.

"Put him down!" shrieked Bubbles.

The whole room grew quiet.

"No one's treating me to anything—food, or sex, or whatever! I'm not going to let people get into a fight over me—so put him down!" she continued, trying to find the right balance between Blossom's authority, Buttercup's fierceness, and her own understanding nature.

"What are you going to do about it, blondie?" said the giant.

"I'm a Powerpuff Girl," Bubbles said, her eyes narrowing. "And just 'cuz my sisters aren't here doesn't mean I still can't beat you up. I don't want to do it, but if you're going to start beating up other people for no reason, then I have no choice. So put him down. Because even if you do win over him, I still won't have sex with you. Ever. So put. Him. DOWN."

The man finally did release Boomer with a rather uncaring drop (Boomer let out a cry of pain as he hit the hard floor), although Bubbles couldn't be sure it was just because he was wary of her, or because the jail security had filed into the room right at that moment.

Bubbles reached out her hand to help Boomer up. "Are you okay?"

"Sure I am!" he scoffed, brushing himself off as if it had been no big deal. Bubbles made no attempt to hide from him her exasperated sigh. As if she was going to believe that he hadn't actually been scared—even if her memory was really that shot, he was still shaking like a leaf.

"And see," he was saying, "I'm not like that guy, I wouldn't expect you to have sex with me just like that!"

Except you do, thought Bubbles sadly. She felt silly for, after all that had happened in that short amount of time, what hurt her the most was that Boomer hadn't even thanked her.

She sighed and looked away from Boomer and behind her in line, where the inmates were still gaping at the scene that had just taken place. Brick and Butch were looking at each other, laughing uneasily at their brother's misfortune, but Bubbles paid no notice to them.

Instead, she couldn't help but give a gratifying smile at Mojo's facial expression—Mojo, who had been telling her that there was nothing redeemable in anyone. He looked absolutely dumbstruck.

I told you, Mojo, Bubbles thought, still smiling, I'm not giving up!

O.o.O

(AN: I'm not going to lie to you—I'm really starting to hate this story. (And I'm only on the second chapter—Lord help me, I AM in trouble.) This could be partially because I find Bubbles extremely, EXTREMELY hard to write for, or it could just be because I've finally phased out of the PPG fandom (about gall-dang time) and am just not feeling this story anymore. This whole plot is feeling silly and inconsistent to me now.

So, on that note, I'm going to be taking a break from this story for awhile. I've been writing a Darkwing Duck story, and I don't want to start it and then have my inspiration for it just fizzle away, as it has on this one.

For those of you who actually like this story, though, don't you worry. I don't intend for this hiatus to be permanent. Once I finish the Darkwing story, I'll tackle this one again. I don't want to leave it unfinished, so no, I'm not abandoning this. I'm sorry if this distresses anyone, but hey, I'm constantly shifting fandoms.

I don't know when chapter three will be, but I promise there WILL be one, and whenever that is, I will hopefully see you there again! Take care!)