The Girls Are All Grown Up

Ch.44

Sorry the last chapter was shorter, I find that once a chapter has said all it's needed to even if it is shorter or longer then you shouldn't add to it or take away but just start the next chapter and say what you need to in that one.

Does that make sense to anyone but me at all??

I feel like I'm rambling again, sorry lol

********************

Blossom cried.

Tiny little hiccup sobs that made her sound like a mouse somehow.

She couldn't hold it in, not after Bubbles had given her a real hug after so many years of her being a terrible sister to her. Of her not being able to even look at Bubbles because of what she'd done that night all those years ago, because of the guilt that ate at her insides every day.

She was why her sisters had had such a hard life for so long and why they'd all had to go their own seperate ways.

And here her sister was, hugging her and exclaiming how happy she was that Blossom was safe.

God, if that hadn't stabbed her heart to pieces, she wasn't sure what else would.

''Did you find out about the rules?" she heard Boomer ask Brick in a quiet voice as if to not disturb them.

''Yeah, an old acquaintance of Bloss' helped figure it out, but we found out about why they ran too.'' Brick nodded, his eyes not leaving Blossom. ''The chick that lead you guys here was her crime partner for a bit in a gang.''

''Seriously?'' Boomer gawked at him, ''Blossom was part of a gang?''

''Apparently one of the best thieves in the country too.''

''How the hell.... she's got quite the job resume then, because she was a maid at the mansion before we bought it for a bit too,'' Boomer reminded him.

''Really? That's what you're thinking right now?" Brick scoffed. ''Not how the hell we hadn't found out about this amazing thief in our own City and hired her?"

Boomer deadpanned at him. ''Don't judge what I thought, if you don't want me to judge your thoughts man.''

Blossom and Bubbles for their part, had finished hugging a bit ago and were much calmer now. They watched the boys start to bicker and then looked to each other before promptly bursting into giggles.

''What about Buttercup and Butch?" Bubbles asked.

Boomer and Brick exchanged a glance.

Brick raised his eyebrows as if to say, You didn't cover that with her?

Boomer gave a scowl back as if to say, When did you want me to cover that dipshit?

''Buttercup was taken, we haven't been able to find her yet and we were trying to find clues... but that's kinda hard to do and all when we didn't even know what we were going up against.'' Boomer finally said aloud, not looking at either girl's face as he spoke.

''I know,'' Bubbles admitted quietly.  ''I received their threats and messages, they were going after us one at a time to threaten us. They want us together to pit us against each other, all of us together and when we didn't do what they wanted... they tried to convince us in other ways. I-I thought Buttercup would've gotten away or that she'd get out too when she saw their messages. Nothing good has ever come from staying around when their messages come.... I thought at the very least you'd have a better chance of getting to her if she needed it while I was gone and they had to get me too.''

''You were trying to split their attention and get them to come after you so Buttercup could have more time to get free,'' Brick stared at her as if he'd never seen her. ''Bubbles you've gone a little...hardcore over the years.''

She laughed with an edge to it, ''So has Boomer apparently. But does that mean they still have her and they got Butch too? Is that why neither of them are here?"

Blossom placed a comforting hand on her sister's shoulder, ''We don't know yet, Bubbles. Brick and I left Butch with the Professor today and none of us have heard from Buttercup at all. If she did get away... she's too afraid or hurt to try and get a message to us.''

''Butch hasn't been responding to us though,'' Brick added quietly.

It was silent for a moment, until Bubbles broke it with a deep breath.

''There's something I wanted to tell you and Buttercup, Blossom. I-I did something,'' Bubbles looked at her with a worried expression.

Blossom was already terrified of what could be happening to Buttercup and Butch, and maybe even the Professor now. She was not ready to hear Bubbles say that, because now all her mind could do was race through all the worst possible scenarios of what Bubbles could have done.

''What did you do?" She forced herself to ask.

''I may or may not have... spent the past few years doing some investigating. I didn't 'break' the rules but I did, erm, bend them just a little.'' Bubbles nervously grinned. ''But the more I found out the more they came, so I had to constantly move and when they caught me in Romania I realized I was on the right track about--''

''They caught you?!" Blossom shouted.

''Well, only for a hot minute but I was able to get away again.'' Bubbles looked at her sister for a long, hard moment. ''Blossom, I never blamed you for that night. For any of it. But you'd never be free from blaming yourself for it, and Buttercup wouldn't forgive you for making us promise to stick to the rules and separate for safety.''

Blossom bit her lip but said nothing, just let Bubbles continue.

''They'd taken everything from us, they took you from us. So I went looking, I investigated and found out everything I could about them and what they'd done to you and how to-- how to stop what they did to us, from happening again.''

Bubbles' eyes weren't full of tears as she spoke, Blossom realized, her sister's eyes were full of blazing fire.

Bubbles had spent the past few years not just running and hiding like Buttercup and she had done, but finding out how to save her sisters. How to beat the monsters that tormented her and had made her do things she could never forget.

It was that second, right when she realized what her bubbly sister had lived through and done and why, that she saw her sister as the grown up she'd become.

She saw Bubbles for who she was now, and not the little sister with stuffed animals in her arms and pigtails that she used to be, the one Blossom still saw in her mind.

And she'd fought for her sisters, for her family, even after the rest of them had given up. On themselves and each other.

''Bubbles... thank you,'' Blossom whispered, a tear falling down her cheek as she smiled at her sister. ''You're the most brave out of all of us, you know that?"

Thank you for not giving up on me, she thought as she cried just a little harder.

''Then does that mean you know how to stop the mind-control if they do it again?" Boomer asked quietly. 

''It means while I was gone, before I bumped into Boomer, I found out the final piece. How to stop the mind control, why they've been chasing us for so long to play this game and didn't just kill us all that night, and... who they used to be.'' Bubbles swallowed. ''Do you remember that old colleague of the Professor's?"

''The one with the logs of weird experiments dad didn't agree with and cut off contact with?" Blossom sniffled as she asked.

''It started with him,'' Bubbles told her.