-1Author's Note: This story, I have to admit, is the result of a bet I made with myself recently; I wanted to see if I could or couldn't commit to and finish a multichapter tale. One-shots are nice, but I'm certain that it's a little lazy on my part to churn only those out while I'm here. If I can finish a full-length tale, then I've won a battle against my own perseverant streak, or lack thereof, that I've waged for many a year.
As to the story in question, yes it is going to eventually include femslash, the pairing of Buttercup and Princess Morbucks to be exact. If that isn't your cup of tea, turn back now; there's a mountain of other fics featuring each girl in het pairings (well, mostly Buttercup, but, you know.). If by chance you do enjoy this pairing, then I hope I don't mess this up.
Finally, I don't own the Powerpuff Girls, or any of the other characters here. If I did, I'd be rich, and I wouldn't even bother writing fanfiction, I'd be so very rich. Anyway, enjoy.
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Prologue: Awakening
"For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must hide it from yourself."
- From 1984
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If Blossom loved winter and Bubbles loved spring, then fall was Buttercup's season. She loved to watch the leaves on Townsville's trees change from their almost uniform shades of green to that wide spectrum of colors- here yellow, orange there, red over there and then to brown as they fell.
A soft breeze blew down, ruffling the green eyed girl's short, black hair as she lay across the front lawn. She smiled contentedly, shutting her eyes. That was another great thing about the fall- not too cold, not too hot. There was just the right amount of sun, and the wind was still gentle and kind, not harsh and cold like winter.
What did Blossom see in winter anyway? Oh, right: she was the Ice Princess. Of course she liked winter. Buttercup could care less. Snowball fights were still wildly entertaining to her at sixteen, the rest she could do without. Leave it to her older sister to go off yammering about snow and the thousandsomethingth poem written by some dead guy about its beauty- just give her fall.
A timid male voice brought her abruptly back down to Earth: "Buttercup? I thought we were still studying together."
She opened her eyes slowly, to be greeted with the sight of the skinny, fair haired, bespectacled boy staring down at her. He was quite distressed, judging by the way he kept pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Sorry, Elmer." Buttercup muttered, rising to her feet and brushing some of the dirt off her jeans. "Guess I spaced off there for a minute"
"Um...actually it was twenty minutes." Elmer Sglue said forlornly, staring at his wristwatch. "Buttercup, I thought you said it was only going to a five minute break."
Buttercup sighed and shrugged, accompanying Elmer on his walk up the lawn and back towards the home the green eyed girl shared with her sisters, her father, and Sandy Keane, their mother by marriage. Everyone was supposed to be inside hitting the books. That was what she hated about fall: the start of the school year. It was nothing but a lousy waster of time anyway.
"I was bored." she said, following Elmer inside. "I mean, what kind of teacher assigns a math test on the first week of school? And why am I supposed to care about how to solve the slope of a line?"
"I'm not exactly sure about that either." Elmer responded. "The thing is, we have to know it for now."
Buttercup groaned. "Yeah..."
The two teenagers made their way into the kitchen. Bubbles Utonium, the youngest member of the Powerpuff Girls, was sitting at the kitchen table "studying" alongside her closest friend, Robyn Snyder. Both girls wore identical sundresses, Bubbles' blue with daisy print, Robyn's red with apple print. Both girls almost always dressed alike, shared the same interests, and had the same favorite hobbies: giggling, boys, and giggling about boys. From the look of it, that's exactly what they had been doing.
"Hi, Buttercup." the two chorused.
"Hey." Buttercup said, before turning her attentions to Elmer. "Do you really wanna keep studying here in the kitchen? We could head to the living room."
"Or we could go in your room." the bespectacled boy said, retrieving his and Buttercup's algebra books from the kitchen counter. Despite the fact that Buttercup could easily carry them, he always insisted on doing it. "It'd be further away from any background noise since it's upstairs."
As Buttercup nodded in agreement, Robyn and Bubbles erupted into a fit of giggles. The green Puff glared at them. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing really." Bubbles chirped, before giggling again. She put a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter .
Robyn was fidgeting with her hands and blushing. "Oh...um...it's just...well."
"Mitch likes you." both said at the same time. They turned and looked at each other. "Did we both tell her out loud?" They broke into hysterics.
"Uh huh." Buttercup said. "That's nice." She began to leave, trying to ignore the fact that Elmer looked more than a little hurt by this statement. She hoped he wouldn't get depressed again. He was so sensitive and soft hearted for a boy.
"No, really, he does!" Bubbles called after her. "He called this house while you were outside!"
Buttercup wheeled around. "That doesn't mean anything, Bubbles. I just promised to meet him and the other guys for a quick round of soccer at the park." Since his parents don't think it's the end of the world if he doesn't obsess over school, she almost added.
"Oh yeah?" Robyn asked, fluttering her eyelashes suggestively. Buttercup felt heat rise into her cheeks at the sight. "Really? 'Cause he sounded really upset, like he couldn't live without you. I think he's totally into you."
"It's because I'm the best forward our team's got." Buttercup snapped, wondering why her face felt so hot. "I'm their star player. And for the millionth time, Mitch and I are just friends! Just friends, okay?!"
"Sory to bother you." the brown haired girl muttered, shaking her head forlornly. "Go ahead and be lonely the rest of your life." She leaned over to Bubbles and whispered in her ear. Buttercup heard every word of it. "You see her face? She's blushing. That means she likes him."
Bubbles didn't answer. She only giggled and looked over at her sister, who was averting her eyes. She was absolutely refusing to look at Bubbles or Robyn, especially not Robyn.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Elmer." the tomboy told her friend, who was a little red in the face himself. "Let's go."
It wasn't it at all, she repeated in her head as she and Elmer made their way upstairs to the bedroom she still shared with her sisters. She didn't know how to explain the way she felt...or the way she didn't feel about Mitch. Yeah, he did seem to like her a little, but she didn't feel the same way at all. She'd always felt like one of the guys when she hung out with him or any other boys and could never be anything else, didn't want to be anything else..
---
The Powerpuffs had long outgrown sharing the same bed, but the three sisters still shared the same bedroom. Each girl had a bed lying against a wall, and each had decorated the wall in a way that clearly spelled out who they were. Blossom, who was out shopping with the Professor and Ms. Keane, no doubt not needing to have studied at all, had plastered her wall with academic honors, certificates, a calendar marked with test dates, and the odd motivational poster. Bubbles had a large collection of posters, every single one of them sporting a celebrity she had a crush on, and a few photographs of her and Robyn standing by guys they had been "dating". Bubbles had drawn a heart around the boys in those photographs with a black marker along with "Me (Insert Boy Here) is Love." Buttercup's wall on the other hand, was a little sparse. She had a few posters of athletes, and the handful of medals she had won while on the track team tacked up on the wall, but that was it. She didn't see the point of putting anything else.
She laid out across her bed, while Elmer sat down in a plush chair near Blossom's side of the room. Both opened their algebra books. They paged through their texts silently for a span of time, Elmer reading about the point-slope formula, Buttercup only pretending to read.
Spiteful as it was, that was one reason she'd approached Elmer about being her study buddy: he couldn't multitask, therefore he concentrated on his studying instead of what Buttercup was doing...that, and he only occasionally asked her what she was learning or what she was having trouble with. It gave her the perfect excuse to space off.
"Buttercup?"
She looked up, glad to be relieved of staring mindlessly at page after page of math formulas. "Yeah?"
"Um...you did mean what you said about Mitch, right? About you guys just being friends?"
She shut her algebra book and regarded her friend, who had a deep frown creasing his face. Elmer was a little too sensitive sometimes. Mitch didn't beat him up or pick on him anymore, the two hardly talked to each other! Why did he still insist on fearing him?
"Elmer, Mitch is my friend. Just like you are. You're both great guys, I just..." She rolled over on her back and gazed up at the ceiling. "I...I don't know. I really don't wanna talk about it anyway. Can we study?"
Elmer sighed. It was obvious what he had been thinking about. "Alright, Buttercup. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to annoy you." He looked down at the ground.
"You're not annoying me." Buttercup informed the bespectacled boy. "Do you think I'd hang out with you if I thought you were annoying?"
"I guess not." Elmer said forlornly. "I'm sorr-"
"I said, you don't have to say you're sorry." she repeated, trying to hide her annoyance.
"Alright, Buttercup. Sorry."
The green Puff rolled back on her stomach and opened her algebra book back up. As much as she hated this stuffit looked like her only way out of an awkward situation.
"No sweat...again. Hey, Elmer, could you help me with this point-slope thing?"
That brightened her study buddy up instantly. Yes, Elmer Sglue was shy and overly sensitive (at least he no longer ate paste), but he was smart, and he loved to show it.
"Oh! Sure! See, the y1 value represents the second number. You're supposed to plug that in here..."
Buttercup sighed, letting Elmer's lesson on math fade out into dull background noise. She needed some time alone to herself. Something had occurred to her earlier on, though she wasn't quite sure what it was supposed to mean...or if she even wanted to explore the idea.
Robyn had been fluttering her long eyelashes right at Buttercup, almost flirtatiously. It gave her a chill to think about it. Then again, everything Robyn did with those beautiful, dark blue eyes and long lashes of hers made it look like she was flirting.
"Buttercup?"
There he went again. She must've let her eyes glaze over. Blossom said she did that fairly often, back when she'd been trying to tutor Buttercup.
"Yeah, I'm listening. So, I plug the second number where it says y1...x1 would be the first one, right?"
The two drifted off into a discussion about math formulas and numbers, variables and values, while the toughest fighter wondered if she had hit on something, something she had simultaneously considered and feared for a long time now. Her sisters had found a home in their hearts for the opposite sex. She had nothing.
Maybe...maybe she could have Robyn, a small voice at the back of her head told her.
No, that wasn't right. She'd heard every story in the book about what happened to girls like her...if that was her. The Professor would look down on her. Ms. Keane would be disgusted. Bubbles and Blossom would gloat, with a whispered "I told you so!" between them. Elmer would be devastated. And Robyn, sweet Robyn had a very active interest in boys, would run away from her.
She'd keep it to herself then. She'd hide it from herself She would know all the time it was there, but until it was needed she would never let it emerge into her conscious thoughts in any shape that could be given a name. No one could know.
--
And she would succeed for a long time after that. Any thoughts or secret feelings about Robyn would be kept silent. She learned to stop herself from blushing when Bubbles' best friend did something so insignificant as ask her for a spare pencil. She learned to keep herself from sounding too...involved when she'd toss the occasional compliment at the brown haired girl, even if she really wanted to stride up to Robyn, look into those blue orbs of hers, and let her know just how well that red dress brought out the russet undertones in her hair. She even made herself stop dreaming of Robyn, a Robyn who wasn't into boys and only boys, a Robyn who would accept her and love her back. If she ignored it all, perhaps these feelings would go away.
She would be proven wrong, soon enough. Soon they would return, try as she might to suppress them.
But she was right about one thing: it wouldn't be Robyn.
Little did she know, on another side of Townsville, another girl was having an awakening, if of a different sort, of her own.
It only stood for Fate to take its course now, wherever it might lead.