"No, Bubbles, in the belly, not on the side!"
Bubbles looked as if she was about to scream in frustration—and Buttercup didn't blame her. The monster they were fighting had six tentacles for arms, and all six were lightning fast, ready to swap a girl out the air in milliseconds.
"Focus your eye beams on the belly!" Blossom was shouting. "That's his weak spot!"
"This—OW—creature doesn't have a weak side!" Buttercup hollered, having failed to properly duck from a swing of the tentacle.
"Yes it does! Its belly is unprotected! We fought a monster like this four years ago, remember?" cried Blossom.
"Hell no!" screamed Buttercup. "All the monsters I've ever fought have blurred together in my mind!"
"How did we defeat it last time?" wailed Bubbles, dodging just in time from another intended whack.
"BY ALL OF US FOCUSING OUR EYE BEAMS ON ITS BELLY!" shrieked Blossom. "Are you listening to me or not?"
"Yes! I am!" cried Bubbles. "It's just too hard to pay—aaah!—attention when there's something trying to destroy you!"
"On the count of three, fire your eye beams!" yelled Blossom. "One! Two! Three!"
Upon Blossom's order, the sisters fired their eye beams simultaneously. The monster, roaring in pain, instinctively moved a tentacle to stop the blasts—and the tentacle sizzled off and fell to the ground with a thud.
"Keep it coming!" cried Blossom.
The girls' eye beams were still growing strong, and the monster, being not exactly the brightest crayon in the box, flung another tentacle in front of his exposed stomach to protect himself. Predictably, the limb burned off—but this time went flying, straight towards the girls.
"Holy—!" shrieked Buttercup.
The tentacle came smashing down, and Blossom was caught between it and the ground. She yelled out a pained word in another language—Buttercup had no clue what word it was or even what language she was speaking, but she would bet her bass guitar that it was a curse word, especially judging by Bubbles's shocked gasp.
"Blossom!" Buttercup cried. "Are you alright? Can you get free?"
"Don't mind me!" groaned Blossom desperately. "Just finish off that monster before he destroys even more of the town!"
"Eye beams again, Bubbles!" cried Buttercup. Bubbles nodded frantically. The remaining two puffs repeated their last technique, firing a laser at the monster's smooth flesh. The monster flailed in pain again, but it seemed to have learned its lesson. Its remaining four tentacles, instead of vainly protecting its belly, were flung out to the sides.
"He's figured it out!" cried Bubbles. "What do we do, Buttercup?"
"Uh…" Buttercup stammered. Throughout her ten years of life, Buttercup had realized that, how badly she may have wanted to be the leader, she simply could not make the lightning-fast decisions that Blossom made. And in times like this, where Blossom was out of the running and the monster was still threatening, every second counted.
"Just aim for the tentacles now!" shrieked Blossom, still trapped under the monster's limb. "Fry them off—but don't split up, both of you work on the same one! Just one of you won't be able to do it yourself!"
"You heard her," said Buttercup fiercely to Bubbles. "Aim for his lower left one first! On three! One, two, three!"
Two sets of eye beams shot towards the monster's tentacle. The monster roared in pain again, flinging his arm out of the line of fire.
"He's moving!" wailed Bubbles.
"Well, follow it!" cried Buttercup, sounding ready to scream with rage. With a swift movement of her head, she redirected her eye beams. Bubbles quickly followed suit. The monster roared, and finally, the tentacle fell off.
"Hooray!" cried Bubbles.
"We're only halfway done—Blossom!"
Buttercup and Bubbles gasped as the newest burned off tentacle fell right where the second one had—which was right on top of Blossom. Blossom was unable to cry out any words this time. It was simply a garbled yell of pain.
"Screw this strategy!" cried Buttercup. "We need to punch this mother-fucker in the gut! C'mon, Bubbles!"
The remaining two puffs zoomed up to the monster, without any formation or plan. Bubbles was obviously following Buttercup's lead, and Buttercup was following nothing but her rage.
POW!
Buttercup and Bubbles hit the monster at exactly the same time, and with the well-aimed blows, the monster's soft belly exploded open in a shower of guts and gore. Both girls covered their faces as the monster crashed, lifeless, to the ground.
Buttercup had never minded so much getting filthy from her superhero duties, but still, even she was a bit disgusted as blood and bits of flesh clung to her hair. She looked at Bubbles, who was fiercely keeping her mouth and eyes closed. Still, Buttercup knew exactly what she was thinking, and she could hear it quite plainly inside her own mind—"Eeew eeew eeew eeeeeeeewwwwww!"
When their shower was finished, Bubbles took one hand and wiped the guts off her face. Once her mouth was free, she finally let herself shout out—
"Grooooooooooosssssssssssss!"
"Don't worry about your hair now!" cried Buttercup. "Help me free Blossom!"
Buttercup dashed over to the two tentacles, and flung the top one off with ease. Bubbles did likewise with the second. Blossom shakily pulled herself up to her feet.
"That must have really hurt you, Blossom!" said Bubbles.
"Yeah, it's not like these are very heavy," said Buttercup.
Blossom was still trembling, but she managed to give her sisters a slight smile. "Maybe not to you, but I've never had the strength that either of you do."
Buttercup harrumphed to herself as grateful onlookers crowded around the girls, as usual demanding a few words. Blossom was right, of course… for some reason, she had never had quite the level of physical abilities as Bubbles and Buttercup had.
However, Buttercup, unlike Blossom, could act as though she'd never noticed before. She could lie and say that she didn't remember.
"Powerpuff Girls!" cried a civilian. "Give us a speech!"
"Yes! Speech!" a throng of other citizens cried in agreement.
Blossom shrugged. "What is there to say? As always, it was my leadership and strategy that saved the day."
Buttercup glared at her sister. "Look, sister, if it weren't for my idea to just finish the creep off in one blow, we'd still be fighting that thing!"
"But if I hadn't come up with the idea to burn off its tentacles, it wouldn't have been weakened enough to you to be able to give him that blow!"
"What are you talking about? Its weak spot was its belly, not its tentacles! We were wasting time by just zapping off its limbs one by one until I had the gall to attack it head on!"
"If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have even known that its belly was its weak spot!"
"You and your stinkin' memory! You think that it automatically makes you a better leader, but it doesn't!"
"STOP IT!" Bubbles screeched.
Blossom and Buttercup took a step away from each other, for during their argument they had gotten right in each others' faces. Buttercup wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead.
In all honesty, she had always respected Blossom's authority. As today's incident had plainly shown—for the umpteenth time—Buttercup simply did not have Blossom's decision-making ability… and when she ever did make a decision, it was often the wrong one. What irked Buttercup was that Blossom was so quick to take all the glory for herself!
When neither Blossom nor Buttercup made any further comments to the crowd, Bubbles reluctantly stepped up. "Uh, it was our pleasure to keep the town a safe and beautiful place… well, try to, although this monster did destroy some things before we got to it… and cleaning up all these tentacles could take some work… but, uh…"
Blossom sighed. "Let's just go home, girls."
O.o.O
Bubbles got the shower first. Blossom, having been shielded from the spray of guts thanks to the two tentacles, was not as dirty as her sisters. Buttercup was just as filthy as Bubbles, but she was far more willing to wait to clean up.
"I wonder why that is?" Buttercup mused, wiping grime off of her face with a rag. She and Blossom were waiting in the kitchen, eating some Christmas cookies that the Professor had just baked the other day.
Blossom looked up from her Christmas tree-shaped cookie, confused. "You wonder why what is?"
"What you said, you know, that you're not as strong as me and Bubbles. Why do you suppose that's the case?"
Blossom shrugged. "We all have different physical powers anyway. I've got ice breath, you can roll your tongue… so why should even the powers all three of us share be exactly alike?"
"No, why shouldn't they?" Buttercup insisted. "We were all created at the same time, in the same way, from the same experiment. Why are we all so different?"
"I don't know," admitted Blossom. "How can anyone know? How were we even born in the first place? If you throw sugar, spice, and various nice things in a bowl, nothing's going to happen."
"Well then, what are we doing here?" Buttercup asked. "I mean, it obviously worked, didn't it?"
"Yes… I think it was the addition of Chemical X to the components that caused our existence."
"So… we're not really sugar, spice, and everything nice, we're Chemical X?" Buttercup clarified.
"Oh, I don't know!" cried Blossom, putting her hands to her head. "I don't know! We were created by a freak accident—who knows how or why it happened?"
"Well, haven't you ever asked the Professor about it, little Miss-Investigator?" asked Buttercup, her speech slightly slurred due to the rather large bite of cookie in her mouth.
"No," admitted Blossom.
"Why not?"
Blossom hesitated. "I guess I'm afraid to find out," she finally murmured.
Buttercup gave Blossom a questioning look. "What are you afraid of finding, Blossom?"
Blossom gulped but said nothing.
"Okay, I'm done!" Bubbles flitted her way into the kitchen, her hair still wet. "Who's next?"
Blossom smiled softly at Buttercup. "Don't use up all the hot water, Buttercup."
O.o.O
The next day of school was the last before Christmas break, so the girls all had final exams the entire day. By the end of the day, Bubbles was ready to crawl into a little hole and faint. Spending all of Christmas break in a coma? That sounded just fine.
"How do you think you did on that biology exam?" Bubbles's locker partner and good friend, Gillian, asked her at the end of the day as they grabbed their coats out of their locker.
"There were a lot of questions that I didn't know," admitted Bubbles. "I'm kinda worried…"
"I know what you mean," sighed Gillian. "I studied for that test two hours last night, but when I went in to take that test, my mind just totally blanked."
"I didn't study at all," said Bubbles, blushing. "We had to fight that monster, then I took a shower, and then all I wanted to do was watch Christmas movies with the Professor."
"I saw you and your sisters fighting that monster on the news last night. But how come your dad let you watch movies without you studying?"
"I told him I studied already," sighed Bubbles. "When we get our grades, he's gonna know I lied to him…"
Gillian made a face that was half sympathetic, half "sucks-to-be-you". "Well, try not to let that hamper your Christmas break, okay? See you next year!"
"Yeah… next year…" Bubbles said meekly, waving to Gillian as she made a beeline to the door. Bubbles sadly shut her locker and floated her way to the door, much less energetically than Gillian had.
It wasn't fair.
Blossom was going to get an A plus on every single one of her tests, and she didn't have to study—she never did. Buttercup usually didn't study either, but she still usually got surprisingly decent grades—and even when she didn't, she didn't really care.
Bubbles did care, though—and she had to work her butt off to be half as good as Blossom.
She trudged her way to where her sisters were waiting for her outside, feeling nothing but jealousyOh sure, Bubbles knew that she really shouldn't be complaining, but growing up for her had decimated her role in the Powerpuff Girls. Blossom could grow up and still be the smart one, and Buttercup could grow up and still be the tough one. But it was hard, very hard, for Bubbles to retain her cuteness.
But that wasn't stopping her from trying.
"Christmas break finally!" cried Bubbles, smiling at her sisters. "More Christmas specials and presents and spending time with the family and—"
"Shh." Buttercup put up a hand to silence Bubbles. "I can hear a rather amusing conversation over by the drinking fountain."
The drinking fountain was, in fact, about a hundred feet away, but when the girls "turned on" their ultra-sonic hearing, the conversation of the boy and the girl was as clear as if they were speaking directly to the girls.
"You heard me," the girl was saying. "Which of the Powerpuff Girls do you think will get laid first?"
"Do they mean—" Bubbles whispered, finding herself blushing.
"Not these conversations again," sighed Blossom. "Do you know how many people like to place bets on which Powerpuff Girl will lose her virginity first?"
"It's amazing how stupid some people are that they actually care about something like that!" said Buttercup, although she was grinning, as if she took delight in other people's stupidity.
"Well, I think it'll be Bubbles," said the boy. "She's the hottest."
This time Bubbles's blush was a deep, deep red. Blossom and Buttercup just rolled their eyes at each other, however. Saying that one Powerpuff was hotter than another was only indicating what hair and eye color you liked best, as all the girls had the exact same body size and shape. Unless, of course, in the case of Bubbles you thought that girls in cheerleading outfits were hot, which many guys seemed to think.
"Yeah right," snorted the girl. "Bubbles is so innocent, she'll still be a virgin after she's been married for ten years! It'll be Buttercup. In fact, I bet Buttercup's already done it. With a girl."
"Oh no, they're not saying that you're a…" Bubbles trailed off.
Buttercup just snorted. "Amusing simple-minded idiots. I'm glad they're bringing that up! The 'Buttercup's-a-lesbian' thing has been nearly dead for awhile."
Blossom and Bubbles gave each other exasperated looks. Buttercup wasn't a lesbian, and she never added any fuel to the rumor mill, but she still almost enjoyed those rumors about her, perhaps because they kept boys away, perhaps because they gave her attention, perhaps both.
"Yeah, you're probably right there," the boy was laughing. "Blossom's probably a lesbo too."
Blossom blinked. "Wow, that's new."
"Blossom and Buttercup have probably done it with each other," said the girl mischievously.
Buttercup's glee immediately vanished. "Alright, the stupidity has gone on far enough," she mumbled, pushing her way towards the "offenders".
"Say, pals," she said, in a mockingly cheerful tone of voice, "even though school's over until January doesn't mean you can turn off your brains until then."
"Aw, fuck you, dyke!" said the boy dismissively.
"You first," grinned Buttercup.
The boy and girl both snorted at Buttercup, but were either unable or unwilling to come up with a comeback, and so simply turned around and walked away.
Blossom grinned at Buttercup when she came back. "Gosh, Buttercup, it seemed to me that you were enjoying that conversation up until that point."
"Look, you know I don't care if everyone thinks I'm a lesbian," said Buttercup. "But incest? And besides, even if I let them call me homosexual, that doesn't mean I'll let them do that to you!"
Blossom shrugged. "I guess I could see why someone would think I'm a lesbian… I mean, I've never shown interest in guys before."
"You did once," reminded Bubbles softly.
Blossom glared at Bubbles.
"You can't pretend like you don't remember," said Buttercup, in an almost snippety manner.
Blossom trembled, but it seemed to be more of a tremble of fear than a tremble of rage. Without another word, she took to the skies, blazing her way back home.
Bubbles stared at Buttercup, feeling irritated at her cold statement. Buttercup, sometimes you can be so tactless! she thought to herself.
Buttercup took to the air as well, but somehow, strangely, Bubbles could hear Buttercup's voice in her head, as if she was answering her.
I know.
O.o.O
Blossom sat by the Christmas tree, watching prisms of light reflect off of a glass pink ballerina ornament. It had been a Christmas gift from the Professor, back when the girls were seven years old. Blossom's was pink, Bubbles's was blue, Buttercup's was green.
Oh, how Blossom wished she could forget. Not only how she once felt—and thus, due to her memory, still felt—for Mojo, but also her feelings for the other boy. The one that Bubbles and Buttercup knew about. Chris.
It had been two years ago, in eighth grade. Blossom was thirteen years old. Chris was an eighth-grader too, but he was fourteen, and very mature and well-read for his age. He was also extremely intelligent, he had a slight mischievous streak that only added to his charm… and he was very cute. Very cute.
Blossom hadn't been the only girl in school with a crush on him. Bubbles, for one, had a slight crush on him—of course. So did about half the girls in school. But Blossom never had any intention of attempting to take her relationship with him to the next level—in fact, she was trying to deny to herself that she even felt anything for him at all.
Which is why she was shocked when, one day, Bubbles said to Blossom at lunch, "You know, Blossom, Chris really likes you."
Blossom nearly choked on her pea casserole. "You must be mistaken," she finally managed to say.
"No I'm not. He told me so." Surprisingly Bubbles didn't seem all that jealous that Blossom was the object of Chris's desire rather than herself.
"Well—I—I can't date him!" Blossom stuttered.
"Oh, sure you can!" laughed Bubbles. "He's going to talk to you! I told him that you feel the same way about him!"
"You WHAT?" cried Blossom.
"Well, I didn't say that until after he told me that he liked you!" giggled Bubbles. "What are you so worried about? You like him, he likes you! Perfect!"
"No—this can't—it doesn't work like that!" whispered Blossom, terrified.
"Why not?" asked Bubbles innocently. "Man, if he told me that I'm the girl he likes, I'd say yes to him in a second! Ooh, here he comes! Come on, Blossom! Talk to him!" Bubbles was now pulling Blossom up from her chair, for Chris was indeed approaching their table.
"Hi, Blossom," he said, rubbing his arm behind his back in a typical bashful manner. "Um… can we talk?"
Blossom gulped. "Uh… yeah, sure." She led Chris over to a relatively empty corner of the cafeteria for privacy, even though she knew that Bubbles would use her ultra-sonic hearing to eavesdrop. It seemed that Blossom rarely got much privacy.
But if there was any time in her life she would have wanted privacy, it was now, if only for the reason that she felt as though she were about to blow chunks. Wasn't finding out that a guy liked you—especially a hot guy that you liked in return—supposed to make you feel good? She certainly wasn't feeling well at all. In fact, she wished he would just say, "Ha, it's a joke, you fell for it!" and leave.
Don't think that, Blossom, she thought to herself. Give him a chance. Not everyone who treats you nice is out to get you.
How do I know that for sure?
Let yourself trust him! Give him a chance! Don't screw up your chances with him because of what someone else did to you!
"So, uh, Blossom, your sister told me that you… well… like me," began Chris.
"…a lot of girls like you," said Blossom uneasily.
"Yeah, but, well, you're not like other girls!" he said. "You're special! You're responsible and smart…"
He reached out and touched her hand.
Blossom flinched and shot her hand back. The gag reflex was so great, it was a wonder she hadn't hurled all over him right then and there. No, it was obvious, it was so obvious: her mind would never, ever let her accept someone reaching out to her. Never again. She knew what had happened last time, when she was five years old.
"No, Chris," she said, as gently and calmly as she could, although her voice was shaking. "I'm sorry. But this can't work out."
"Why not?" asked Chris, trying to hide his confusion and hurt at Blossom's words.
Blossom's stomach churned again. Oh, God. She was going to… well, if not break his heart, then certainly hurt him. And she knew full well what a broken heart was like. She had been living with one for eight years.
"A long time ago, I trusted someone, but that someone broke my trust," said Blossom, finding it harder and harder to keep a calm demeanor. "Now, I know you might say that I can trust you, and I would like to think that. But I can't, and I will never be able to trust you."
There was a pained, long silence.
"There's lots of intelligent and responsible girls in this school who like you, Chris, and most of them are far less messed up than me," said Blossom sadly. "You'll be far happier with her, whoever you might choose."
She turned and walked away, not wanting to hear his answer. She made no response to Bubbles, who had indeed been eavesdropping and stared at Blossom with a shocked, horrified expression.
Blossom went to the nurse's office the next period. Said she was sick. The nurse called the Professor at the university, where he taught, and told him that Blossom felt sick to her stomach and wanted to go home. Blossom insisted to him that he didn't need to leave work early to take care of her, that she'd be fine, and even flew away from school by herself.
But she did not go home. She flew to Alaska, welcoming the biting cold on her body, welcoming the pain it was bringing her. She stood on the peak of a mountain, staring over the ice-capped wilderness, cursing herself for not being able to forget. Cursing herself for throwing away a chance at happiness, although knowing full well that she could never be happy, even with him.
However, Blossom knew that her pain was only half her fault.
With no one but the wild animals to hear her rage, Blossom shrieked into the mountains what she had longed to cry out for years.
"God damn you, Mojo Jojo! GOD DAMN YOU!"
O.o.O
Blossom's eyes shut tightly as she sat underneath the Christmas tree, in a vain attempt to block out that particular memory.
Vain was right. Why, oh why would her brain not allow her to trust anyone, after just one experience? Just one?
Wait. It hadn't been just one.
Their first day of kindergarten, Blossom had trusted Ms. Keane. She had been kind, gentle, supportive, and had made every effort to include the three new girls into the activities. And Blossom, as any five-year-old would be, was filled with instant adoration. But that was before the girls had accidentally destroyed the town. Before everyone in the city had turned on them.
Blossom's memory of watching all those TV screens, each one shouting terrible things about the "bug-eyed freaks", was hitting her as clearly as it were happening at that very moment.
Nobody loved her.
Nobody at all.
It made perfect sense, then, that Blossom was unable to trust anyone anymore, unable to give anyone a second chance… because it would, in fact, be a third chance. Jojo had been her second chance. And she could never, ever get close to anyone again after what he did to her… because she had fallen so hard for him…
She remembered the complexity, the genius of his plans for the volcano-top observatory. Bubbles and Buttercup simply didn't understand what a plan Jojo had concocted! Blossom could hardly understand it herself, but she did know one thing—it was genius. He was a genius.
And he took such good care of the girls! He always had snacks for them while they—all four of them—were hard at work. He talked to them, asked them questions, treated them as individuals, each with individual personalities. And he spoke nothing but encouraging words to them.
It wasn't long at all before Blossom had fallen in love with him.
It was the kind of love that a five-year-old feels, innocent and pure, and all encompassing. Yet Blossom felt like much more than a five-year-old girl when he looked at her, spoke to her, praised her, called her intelligent.
She knew full well that it was wrong—she was only five, she shouldn't be feeling this way for anyone, much less a monkey—but she didn't care. It didn't matter what age she was, what species he was—he had shown her that people could care. That people did care about her and her sisters.
But then, just like everyone else, he broke her trust… and the rest, as they say, was history.
Blossom hated herself for being so emo about it. After all, it wasn't like she was the only person to have lived through the nightmares she had. Bubbles and Buttercup had too. But there was a clear difference with them—namely, Bubbles and Buttercup had the wonderful, wonderful ability to forget.
They had been talking about that particular episode on their last birthday, trying to recall the exact details. "It's hard to remember that far back," Buttercup had finally admitted. "What I do remember from that whole time was kind of vague."
"Yeah, it's like my mind blocked out everything from that sad point in my life," Bubbles had said.
"Wish my mind would do the same," Blossom had sighed.
Bubbles and Buttercup had pressed the matter, but Blossom refused to speak of it, as she usually did. And her sisters would let it go, figuring she had a good reason.
Blossom stared at her sad, old-looking reflection in the glass ballerina.
She wished she could forget too.
Damn, did she wish she could forget.
The door opened, and Blossom's head quickly spun around. It was the Professor. He smiled at Blossom.
"Well, Blossom, school's out until January, huh?"
Blossom returned the smile. "That's right."
"Try and hide your disappointment."
Blossom smiled again at the sarcasm. "It's not really school that I hate… I just hate the fact that there's nobody on earth who can teach me something I don't know."
"Now, Blossom, don't think that way." The Professor sat down next to Blossom and put his arm around her shoulders encouragingly. "The human race has only just begun to dip into all the knowledge the world has to offer. As of right now at least, there is no limit at all to what someone would theoretically learn. And if someone can't teach it to you, you can find out for yourself. I know you can. Your intelligence at times astounds me."
Blossom leaned over and gave the Professor a hug. "Thanks, Professor," she said. People praised her intelligence so often that she often grew sick of hearing it, but the Professor's words of encouragement had brightened her spirits. She could figure things out for herself.
The front door opened, and Bubbles and Buttercup floated in. Both Blossom and the Professor stood up.
"Hi, girls! How were your tests?"
Buttercup shrugged. "Well, they're over now, so who cares?"
Bubbles elbowed Buttercup. "Buttercup, remember what you said you'd do?"
"Yeah, yeah," sighed Buttercup. She hovered over to Blossom. "Blossom, I'm sorry for not being very considerate of your feelings…"
"That's okay," said Blossom. "I'm sorry for being such a depressed emo-kid all the time."
Buttercup smirked. "Yeah, you'd think that that would be me."
"Hey, girls," said Bubbles brightly, "why don't we jam out to some Christmas songs… so we'd all… feel better?"
"Oh yeah!" Buttercup said, grinning. "A jam session on my bass is just what I need after all those stupid tests!"
"That would really bring up my spirits as well," said Blossom. "Good idea, Bubbles!"
"Just don't play too loudly, girls," said the Professor. "I don't want you to go deaf!"
"Don't worry! We won't!" the girls all called in unison, shooting off to the corner of the lab where their instruments were.
O.o.O
Come Christmas morning, Blossom had not allowed herself to get her hopes up too much for her presents. She was accustomed to getting mostly clothes as gifts. Not that she minded clothes, but what she really wanted was a gift that could help her learn something that she didn't already know…
So when she picked up one of her presents from the Professor and shook it, and heard something that sounded distinctly like a book, she fought down the sudden surge of hope. The Professor meant well, but he would often buy Blossom a book that she had already read, which was, of course, pointless.
The Professor looked a bit anxious. "I'm pretty sure that you don't have any books like this one, Blossom…"
Blossom pulled off the wrapping paper and gasped at the book—Learn Danish.
"You don't speak Danish, do you?" asked the Professor nervously.
"No… I don't… Professor, where did you get this?" Blossom breathed.
"I ordered it online… do you like it?"
"I love it! Thank you so much, Professor!" Blossom leapt up and gave the Professor a hug, feeling the double-beat of her heart clearly.
"You're very welcome, Blossom!"
Blossom held on a little too long to the Professor, feeling her heart "murmur", and she felt a painful sorrow take hold of her. Her irregular heartbeat was a scary reminder that she, most likely, would not be alive much longer…
Dear Lord, this might be her last Christmas ever.
She finally let go, and the Professor seemed to brush off the prolonged hug, probably attributing it to her joy at getting a book that she actually hadn't read. Bubbles and Buttercup didn't take much notice to the sudden show of affection either, for they were now both tearing open presents of their own.
Blossom gulped and clutched her book tightly.
She was the leader, after all.
She shouldn't show emotion…
…especially not fear of death.