Disclaimer: I do not own the Powerpuff Girls.

Heeeey, so I've been off travelling a while to Finland, but I'm back in Russia! :l So to show that I'm not dead, I wrote this at 0:22 in an aeroport lobby, and I'll get back to my Greens story shortly. I think I managed a romance and angst thing without using the words 'hate' or 'love', givin' myself a pat on the back if anyone likes it. Anywho, Brick's in psychosis, enjoy.

Her rough, dry gasps flowed into the colourless heavens.

Under her ivory breath she mumbled something about how she heard the dripping of stale water beyond the wall.

Cracked, rose lips mouthed; 'plip plip plip.'

I sat beside her, my hands latched securely against the folds of my knees - I couldn't touch her; the wilting rose. Her once-satin petals were weary, and at the lightest touch might lose even that dull, crimson tone they desperately hung onto.

"You look weak." She said.

I smiled at the irony, and shifted further away.

"So do you."

She laughed, a soundless word spilled from the depths of her young maid's lips, but rolled into a rasped, disgruntled cough towards it's end.

"Blossom, don't talk."

"Don't tell me what to do." She spat, her mood swinging in sinusoid, body not shifting from it's position on the white doctor's mattress; "Touch me."

On command, I walked over to her, placing an iced hand on her porcelain forehead, ignoring the bitter comment; "Do you hear the water, Blossom?"

Her ruby eyes drifted shut; the weak head drifted closer to my open palm, her pale skin begging for a chill.

"Plip plip plip."

"We might drown." I said, watching as her soft eyes rolled open, staring quietly into my own. The concentration there was weaning like a new-bourne moon.

There was no water.

"Brick."

"What?"

"Turn on the radio."

"We just turned it off."

"Then remind me what the news were."

"There was a robbery near Greensborough, a building fire in Northridge; that's it."

"There was something else." Blossom's brow knit together in concentration, her sickly hands fumbling against one another. I stared blankly, my hand still placed against the pale, damp skin of her forehead; "There was nothing, go to sleep."

"But the water…" Her voice was tiny, worried, winded. The smallest mouse against the large, white expanse of the hospital room. Blossom swallowed, another cough barrelled from her tender throat.

Almost inaudibly, I heard the slowing of her pulse on the monitor. My mouth drew into a tight line, fighting for the fragile moments of health she had left; "I'll protect you, sleep."

Blossom spoke no more; the auburn wisps of her hair rested against the broad crest of my shoulder as I settled against the edge of her dank hospital bed. From the rightmost large, open window blew the slightest breeze, throwing that despondent, sickly stench of medicine and doctors away from the body of the pretty rose heroine. I closed my eyes, thankful for the relief.

She didn't deserve to be here, in the same body of health as those frail, unearthed humans. She didn't deserve to bring her nose against the rank scent of death.

"Plip plip plip."

Blossom had not stirred, her Grecian nose was pressed against the flesh of my neck in a tranquil rest.

"Blossom."

The wind blew from the open window, the static of the heart monitor was steady. Blossom's lengthy, clipped locks blew in an auburn halo about her head, unnaturally animated in the stagnant air.

"Plip."

"Blossom, fly."

The oxygen was flowing from between the dying pearls of her lips, her eyes were kissed shut.

"Plip, plip."

The room flooded with azure wind, my eyes blew open.

Silent lights flashed across my spectrum of vision, a blinding array of silver, ivory, gold and aquamarine. A siren pierced the stillness of the air, voices whispered behind the flowing curtains like red devils.

I tried to inhale, but the wetness of the wind constricted the fragile tissues of my lungs. My clothes were a serpent, binding my to a stale plate that screamed against the expanse of my back.

A ghost wailed in the back of my mind.

Blossom.

My hands couldn't reach her, the tips of my fingers touch her. There was not a pale-rose cheek against my flesh. My arms darted from my body, sobs ripping at my muscles.

Water, water everywhere.

Rags, sticks and soft-tuned melody.

Plip plip plip.

"Brick."

Blossom was beyond the rubble, I'd find her. She fell in with me, she's swimming somewhere nearby.

"Brick, tell me what happened."

Where, where, where. I can't see her, where did she go.

"We were fighting the thing, and it hit her over the back. Broke her spine and threw her in the lake."

The policeman stood in unmoving, azure place before me; the sun above the water illuminated his well-groomed facial hair and concerned expression. The blue eyes stared into me from beyond the current.

"And you went in to get her."

I saw the bubbles of dying breath float like silver clouds and break the surface; I could touch it, I could breath.

But Blossom.

I couldn't leave her behind.

"Yeah, but I couldn't see where she went down. She drowned before I found her."

The oxygen rushed into my lungs.

The hospital bed smelled like stagnant ponds and the sickly, my heart monitor thudded steadily in the background.

The back of my hand rested lovingly against the side of my own shoulder, like the cheek of a rose-lipped maiden.

I blinked, clearing the netting of rest from my eyes. The well-suited, plump cop who sat before me tilted his head with routine concern.

"Nearly drowned yourself too. I'm sorry, son."

I shifted back against the over-washed pillow, dappled with blotches of water. Stared blankly out the window, no scent of reply echoing from behind my lips.

The aged police officer nodded curtly from behind, a sigh brushing out from under his moustache; I heard the trail of tamed wind whistle between the shiny leather of his ebon boots and he stood to exit the humid, unkind ward, seeing no further use in speaking with me.

I closed my eyes, ivory teeth biting down on my lip.

In that dank, wet darkness, her arms encircled me - her damp, healed visage smiled against my neck.

Plip, her warm breath caressed my ear as she whispered.

I opened my eyes to the water.

And swam with the current to meet Blossom at the lake bed.