Depression

Chapter 15

Immediately after Blossom was admitted to the hospital, Brick walked into the waiting room, brushing aside medics' protests and insisting that he was fine. There, he found his brothers. Boomer was sitting in one of the seats, his elbows on his knees and his forehead rested on his clasped hands. Butch leaned against the wall, his foot braced against it and his arms crossed, his head angled downwards.

Then Butch turned to Brick and tried for a smirk. "Whoa, look at you. You look like you walked into a burning house."

"As a matter of fact, I did," Brick said, placing his hands on his hips. Boomer raised his eyes slightly to look at Brick. "I was saving a suicidal idiot from dying in a burning house that she set herself." He looked at Butch. "What about you?"

"I found Buttercup in Roseford Middle School," Butch said, his smirk fading from his face. "Found a canister of pills I didn't give to the doctors. Why don't you take a look? I'm damned if I know." He removed a small canister from his pocket and tossed it to Brick, who took a look at the label.

"It says it has diphenhydramine. These are sleeping pills. She was probably trying to OD." When he saw the confusion on Butch's face, he added, "Overdose. Happens if you take too many pills."

"Oh my God..." Butch ran his fingers through his hair and took the canister back, looking at the prescription. "It says it's thirty capsules." He took a deep breath and exhaled, covering his mouth and looking away. "She took it all." He turned to Boomer. "So how'd you and Bubbles go?"

"Well..." It was evident Boomer was simmering down from an anger tantrum judging by how he seemed to have drained from energy.

That and the two broken holes in the wall.

"Bubbles tried to slit her wrists. Caught her when she made the first cut."

"I still can't get over it," Brick sighed. "Suicide because of us."

"Can you believe what Dexter told us?" Butch asked his brothers. "We died a year ago and the girls had been in a downward spiral ever since." They remembered the conversation clear as day.

"Yes, I remember what I was thinking," Boomer sighed when Dexter asked the three of them if they remembered what they were thinking sacrificing themselves.

Dexter had specifically asked to talk to them alone, and they sat in Dexter's living room. "So what were you thinking?" Dexter asked. He seemed to speak with patience, as if he knew they'd be in a confused state when they wake up from death. And they were. After an argument about what happened, it was Dexter who got them to calm down by saying the Powerpuff Girls needed them.

"I was almost dead, just waiting to die. But when I saw Bubbles look so... lifeless in that thing's claws, I thought it'd be better me than her. I just hoped I could get her to realize people needed her." Boomer shook his head slowly. "More than they needed me. I didn't want her to be messed up because I died so I thought if I apologized, she'd know I wasn't holding her responsible. I guess I just made it worse."

Dexter then turned to Butch. "What about you?"

"Yeah, wouldn't you like to know?" Butch said, throwing an arm across the back of the sofa. "I was half-dead and still fighting. But when I saw Buttercup like that, I don't know what came over me. I just felt like I had to protect her from it, even if I died. I remember taking that shot to the chest and... and last thing I remember was telling Buttercup not to cry."

"And you, Brick?"

Brick just shrugged, apparently in no mood to call Dexter his usual nickname. "It's pretty simple. I saw Blossom and she looked... pretty helpless. She was about to die and I knew it. In fact, she was waiting for the blast. And, this'll sound really stupid, I realized I didn't want her to die. So I pushed her and took the hit. That's all I remember."