Blossom was soaking wet by the time she and Mitch finally made it to Mitch's police car. She yanked the door open and jumped in, and then slammed the door shut again. Apparently, it had started raining again since she entered the hospital; it was strange, really, given the crystal clear skies Blossom could have sworn she saw on the way there. The business attire she was wearing was soaked through and through, and her shoes were a soggy mess.

"It's really raining cats and dogs, isn't it?" She said to Mitch in an effort to warm up a hopefully informative conversation between the two.

"Sure is. Should I turn on the radio?" Mitch turned his head to see his passenger. "It'll help relieve some stress."

"No, it's fine." Blossom didn't want to let the time in the car go to waste; after being teased about some troubling situation with Buttercup, Blossom really just wanted to get to the point. "So, about Buttercup…"

Mitch sighed. "Blossom, please, can it wait until the coffee shop? It's not that I don't want to tell you…" His voice cracked a little before he continued, "It's just hard for me to say aloud. I need to brace myself, and I imagine you would need to brace yourself as well." Were his eyes getting watery?

"Okay, okay." Either Mitch cared more about Buttercup than Blossom could have ever imagined, or the news was really that bad. Maybe Mitch shouldn't be maneuvering two tons of metal moving at forty miles per hour when he finally has to spill the beans. He wasn't a calm as he made Blossom feel. The rain pattered blankly for a while before Blossom heard another word from Mitch.

"So, Blossom… how's it been so far, being Mrs. Bellum's secretary and all?"

"Hmm?" Blossom's eyes focused suddenly; the white noise of the rain had put her in a bit of a haze for a while. "Oh, it's fine. I wouldn't really know, though, because I had to leave barely a few hours into the day to come to the hospital…" Blossom set Mitch up to talk about Buttercup without even noticing it.

Mitch was incredibly relieved when an embarrassing gurgle sounded from Blossom's stomach. He wouldn't have to continue on about Buttercup just yet.

"Jesus! Excuse me!" Blossom blushed and covered her stomach with her hands. She turned a sheepish glance at Mitch. "Sorry, Mitch. I just realized… I haven't eaten lunch or breakfast today. I guess I haven't gotten the time to stop and decide whether or not I'm hungry."

Mitch laughed. "We'll get food at the coffee shop, don't you worry. Do you know the place? It's really good. Jenkins Coffee – do you remember Suzie Jenkins?"

"I can't say that I do." Should she? Jenkins…

Mitch smiled. "Yeah, neither do I, but she claims that we went to kindergarten together. Like I'm supposed to remember someone from that long ago."

"We remembered each other," Blossom pointed out.

Mitch raised an eyebrow. "Well, you've got me there. But I think that being chased by a giant radioactive hamster has a way of engraving in your mind the person who set it on you."

Blossom couldn't help but feel a sense of giddy nostalgia. "I remember that. Sorry, but you deserved it."

"You bet I did. Blossom?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Be honest… I was a complete dick as a five year old, wasn't I?"

Blossom almost snorted spit, she laughed so jerkily. She just wasn't expecting it, that's all. From the impression Mitch had made earlier that morning, he had a sort of kind, gentle charm, with manners and a voice that would impress a Southerner. 'Dick' just seemed to be out of his vocabulary. "Complete doesn't even get close," Blossom played along.

"Yeah, I know, I was an asshole," Mitch laughed. "Hell, for all I know, I'm still like that."

"You're not," Blossom found herself saying sincerely. "I wouldn't have even recognized you if it weren't for your nametag." She paused a bit. "In a good way."

Mitch got the gist of it. "Anyways, Susie Jenkins – the person who started Jenkin's Coffee – says she was in our kindergarten class. I've never really known whether or not to believe her."

Blossom was so close to suggesting to Mitch that he ask Mrs. Keane about it. If it weren't for her practice restraining her speech during the elections, she might have actually said it. But of course, Mrs. Keane was no longer… alive.

"So, you had to leave early on the first day?" Mitch startled when he spoke again; she hadn't noticed how much time had passed in silence. "From work, I mean."

"Yeah." Blossom cleared her head of fluff. "Not only that, I took tomorrow off for a couple of appointments."

"Doctor's appointments?"

"One of them is… but not for me. I'm meeting with Buttercup's psychiatrist in the morning, and with a lawyer to go through the Professor's will in the afternoon." Somehow, Blossom didn't feel any need to hold back or euphemize the truth, even after saying it.

"Oh." It made Mitch a little uncomfortable, though.

"It's not the best first impression, I know, but it's not a first impression anyways. Mrs. Bellum's an old friend, I like to think."

"Even after you ran against her to be Mayor?"

"Even after that. You know, I never really felt like running against Mrs. Bellum. I just wanted to be mayor, but I'll admit that she probably does a better job than I ever could." Blossom laughed sarcastically. "I probably gave her more votes by running for Mayor, I was so unpopular."

Mitch kept his eyes on the road. "Well, I guess if you save the city from imminent doom on a regular basis, you end up on good terms with elected officials."

Of course this applied to Blossom and her sisters twenty years ago, Blossom thought, but was he referring to himself too? "How well do you know her?"

"If you don't count the occasional handshake at a meeting of some sort, not much at all. We've practically never spoken. I guess she's fine in person, but I wouldn't really know. She's one heck of a mayor, though."

"Tell me about it. Big shoes to fill, you know?" Blossom sat back in her seat a little.

"Not really. I've never had someone older than me whom I wanted to be like. Never had a role model." He said the last thing softly and extra deep, as if to deemphasize it.

"What about Mrs. Keane?" Blossom really couldn't think of anyone else close to Mitch besides his grandmother, but Mitch would have mentioned her if he wanted to.

Mitch scratched his beard with one hand. "I suppose she would have been, if she had shown up in my life at the right time. But I didn't give a rat's ass about 'role models' in kindergarten, or the ten years after that, for that matter. But other than my useless sack of shit grandmother, I never had someone to look up to my whole life."

Blossom jumped in shock. What did he just call his grandmother? Holy crap, Blossom thought, Mitch had more stress pent up inside of him then he had let her see the first time they met that day. She couldn't figure out what was up with the sudden reveal. "Your… what about your grandmother?"

The car was stopped at a red light, so Mitch could look Blossom in the eyes momentarily. The rain was still exploding on the windshield almost faster than the wipers could squeakily remove it. "I meant what I said, Blossom. She was the one who let me get away with anything. I would literally drink and smoke and throw parties in the living room with her there, and she wouldn't do a damn thing about it so long as she could see the T.V. screen. It wasn't like she could expect Mom or Dad to ever be home; she knew damn well that they were off drinking or selling their bodies or whatever. She knew when Mom died in a bar fight, and she knew when Dad committed suicide. But did my grandmother take a single fucking shred of responsibility? Hell no! She just sat there the whole time. She died of a stroke when I was sixteen, and I didn't even notice for four days because she never fucking moved in the first place. You know how I found out she was dead?"

Blossom turned her eyes away. She hadn't meant to set him off like that; it should have been terrifying, having a gigantic policeman suddenly raving about his family life to a girl in the next seat over, but it was more disheartening than anything else. He felt like an old friend, and Blossom felt sorry for him. "How'd you find out?"

"The smell." Mitch didn't go on, because the light had turned green. Besides, it wasn't like he needed to.

"I'm sorry, Mitch," Blossom said after a while. "I had no idea."

"Ahh, don't worry about it." Mitch dismissed half an emotional breakdown with five words, and Blossom found herself accepting it. "Besides, were here." Mitch pulled the car over.

Through the rain streaked window, Blossom could see swashes of blurred neon that could barely be made out as 'Jenkins Coffee' next to another patch of light that appeared to be a coffee cup. Before she knew it, Mitch was opening the car door for her, and seconds later the door to the coffee shop.

It was then that Blossom realized that, remarkably, Mitch's rant about his grandmother actually helped her manage her own stress. When he talked about her, he always stuck to happy topics, and steered clear of anything relating to Buttercup or the Incident. When he talked about himself… it was like, with the flip of a switch, he was suddenly emotional, passionate, and rather sour. You would think this would be off putting, but instead Blossom found that it made him relatable. She wasn't the only one with problems. Mitch knew what it was like to be in pain, and focusing on his stress relieved some of the pressure on Blossom's.

Blossom had first thought that morning that Mitch had transformed into a crisp and clean gentleman, and a dapper man of the law. As he revealed his opinions and, more recently, his family life, Blossom almost saw him revert to the old Mitch, the one she knew as a child. But he didn't. He was actually relieving her anxiety about Buttercup and work and the Professor in such a paradoxical way that Blossom was forced to reconsider Mitch.

He was – in a single day, it should be noted – more aware of Blossom's emotional workings that Blossom was herself.