A/N:

I'm still at college and I knew it was going to be hard but goddamn! Updates will be slower than usual so hang in here. In this chapter I will focus more on Kevin and his relationships with Greg and the Gems. Steven will still be in this chapter as it is 'Bubble Buddies' (If you couldn't tell, i'm writing the chapters corresponding to the episodes chronologically) but more focus will be on development today. I also have Greg younger about 35, leaving the prime of his life but still have vigor. Here's another one! As always don't forget to R/R. I appreciate feedback and constructive criticism.

Chapter 11

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

Other Stuff

Opening Song- 'Finish What the Jester Started' by Christopher Drake - Topic (start at the 40 sec.)

Kevin POV

"Alright that's a good warm up. Now do 50 laps around the wash!"

"100 sit ups!"

"20 burpees!"

"80 pull ups!"

"Did I say you could rest?!"

Greg sits down exhausted from the tiny bit of exercising I had him doing. "Are… you… trying… to… kill me?!" Greg pants.

I laugh "Greg, these are basic workout exercises. If you can't do this than you certainly won't be able to keep up with Steven and certainly not the gems." I look him in the eyes now. "You wanted me to train you and this is how I do it. If you don't like it than you can call it quits now and I won't ask any questions. However, you will always worry for Steven and wonder if he will come back from a mission safe. Eventually, they will allow him on more dangerous missions and one day, they might carry his broken body to you and tell you that they failed. Do you want to risk that when you could have been there to prevent that?"

A part of me thought that was cruel but that sliver of thought was overwhelmed by the rest that knew it was necessary. Eh, I won't lose sleep over it so what do I care?

This struck a chord with Greg (Music pun!) and filled him with determination.

"Ok." Greg said climbing to his feet. "let's do this."

Time Skip!

It's been 3 weeks and Greg is now keeping up fine. His large belly now gone replaced with hard muscle, his arms and legs now looked like tightened cords of bronze, and his tan has evened out. His hair had also grown back due to the diet I put him on since I figured out his premature aging was due to an unhealthy diet. He looked like a beach hunk now to put it quickly.

"Ok, time!" I yell. "That's a new record! You're down 30 seconds from your previous!"

Greg stops running and picks up my gem water and drinks it. Oh yeah, Greg knows about that. I accidentally left it out and Greg drank it. Fearing for his life, I ran over as fast as I could but he said he felt great and asked about it. I couldn't lie as I was caught so I told him.

I said it is regular water but with gem dust mixed in it. I remember Greg's horrified expression after I told him that but I quickly explained that they were gem monsters that I had destroyed and ground up. I also told him it was the reason I no longer needed to eat or drink as the excess energy from the dust gave me all I needed to survive now but I still occasionally ate and drank for nostalgia. He accepted it after that but I made him promise not to tell Steven or the gems or I would stop training him.

"Kevin, I gotta tell ya, this is the best shape i've ever been in in my entire life." Greg says as he finishes drinking.

"I think it also has to do with my gem water." I reply. "I think it has advanced healing powers that affect both gems and humans' bodies powering them up and healing weak points the their bodies."

"Well now that you are in shape, you need to keep yourself that way." I continue. "I've written down a routine that needs to be completed once a week for you to stay fit."

"Now that that's over with let's go see everyone." Greg says. "I feel like I should reintroduce myself to Steven and the gems since they haven't seen me in 3 weeks."

"Hmm. Yeah. That's not a bad idea. Lets run over there, I haven't gotten your top speed yet." I respond.

With that we both get down into running stances and take off to the house.

We both reach the beach house as I hit the timer. "So based on the time it took, i'd say your top speed is 35 mph." I say as we walk up the stairs to the house. "You probably the fastest human in history now Greg. Congrats."

Greg smiles and hugs me, lifting me off my feet. "This is your accomplishment to Kev! Be proud of yourself!"

I give a slight laugh "Ok, i'll take it. Now put me down we're here."

He puts me down rubbing the back of his head laughing sheepishly. We both knock and we hear Steven yell 'I'll get it!' He opens the door and greets us.

"Hey Kevin! How are ya!" Steven asks. "Who's your friend?"

I could see that last comment hurt Greg as he winces badly with the smile starting to fall. I pat him on the back and whisper to him 'Hey its ok, Steven will be ecstatic when he realizes it's you. Stay strong.'

Greg nods at me and his smile now finds a fixed place on his face. We both walk in as I tell Steven that 'its someone he knows.' We both take a seat on the couch as Steven gets the gems. As the gems come in and sit at the island with Steven I get up.

"Everyone I know you would all like to know why I have gathered you here today." I say. "Well I am pleased to reintroduce someone we all know very well. Please say hello to Greg Universe!"

Greg stands up and waves.

"Hi."

Steven gasps in shock and runs over yelling 'Dad!' Greg grabs Steven in a hug and twirls him around before setting him back down. "You look amazing!" Steven exclaims with stars in his eyes. "How did you get so buff?"

As the father and son duo catch up, I look at the gems and I can't say i'm not surprised at their reactions. All of them were stunned with their jaws dropped as far as they could go. Amethyst was the first to recover walking over and asking Greg the same questions that Steven was firing at him. Garnet recovered next walking over giving Greg a once over before saying 'good job'

"Uh, Kevin trained me!"

Everyone now had their eyes on me. Not being used to sudden attention, I tried to divert their attention back to Greg back it didn't work. I look back at the last gem still shocked but her expression told me that the impossible had happened combined with raising the dead and telling them to attack Steven.

I sighed "All I did was put Greg through a training schedule that I created for 3 weeks and presto, results."

Pearl, now recovering from her shock decided to put in her 2 cents.

"But that can't be Greg! Greg is fat and lazy!"

Everyone stops and looks at Pearl. Amethyst looks shocked that Pearl would say something like that while Garnet looked as stoic as ever as if this was planned. Steven however, looked like his world was broken in two. I start to walk over to Pearl but Greg stops me. "No." Greg tells me. "I'll take care of this."

I relax as Greg takes his hand off my shoulder. Pearl holds her ground as Greg calmly walks forward towards Pearl. Once he reaches her he crosses his arms and waits for Pearl to say something.

"I'm not wrong." Pearl sniffs. "You are -"

Greg holds up a hand and stops Pearl. This must have never happened before as Pearl looks like she swallowed a lemon.

Greg lowers his hand "I know why you don't like me and I know why but I won't deal with it today in front of everyone. I do want you to respect me for actually taking initiative and making changes."

Greg stops after that and turns to walk to me. "Are we still going to do weapon training?"

"Yes, but not for another 2 weeks." I respond to him. "I want to see if you can stick to the routine and keep up with it. I also will take you off the 'special diet' ok?"

Greg nods and walks out the door. We all look at Greg until we can no longer see him.

"Ok. Kevin, explain. Steven, you are not included for this." Garnet says.

"But Garne-"

"Kid, just do it." I say.

Steven sighs and leaves the house with a bike. Once he's out of range too, I turn to the gems.

"Everyone sit down, i'll tell you everything."

"So does everyone remember the cat finger incident?"

Everyone nods.

"Ok, well the next day, I get a call from Greg telling me to come down to the wash so I do." I explain. "So I get down there and I ask Greg what he needs and he asks me to train him."

Garnet and Amethyst look like they're fine with the answer given but Pearl, not so much.

"Why did you train him?!"

I sigh as I expected this to come up. "Because i'm a nice guy and he asked politely. I actually expected you to ask why Garnet."

"Hmm."

"Well I said ok but I needed his reasons why." I continue "He said that the cat incident scared him more than he thought and he wants to be able to protect Steven."

Pearl was about to protest but I shut her up.

"He does trust you three but he worries that you might slip up or turn away for a second and something terrible could happen to his son." I explain. "He wants to be able to go with Steven and protect him like you three. He also has severe xenophobia or fear of the unknown which stresses him out as he doesn't know what Steven is facing."

"If he is so scared of what we face, why doesn't he ask us about it?" Amethyst asks.

"Good question Amethyst." I reply. "But it's not that simple. Greg also has a large lack of self confidence when it comes to you three resulting in him keeping to himself and trusting you guys with the gem stuff. However, I have worked on that and he now has more confidence then he has had in recent times which we all just witnessed."

All the gems nod in acceptance including Pearl albi reluctantly.

"He wants to be included on missions so he can feel safer about Steven so he can sleep at night. Yet he doesn't want to be a burden so he will be trained by me to use a sword."

There is a long silence when "So, that it?"

"Yes Amethyst, that's it." I respond.

"Ok cool, i'm gonna go." Amethyst says as she stands up and goes into her room. Pearl also leaves for her room leaving just me and Garnet. She gets up and sits next to me on the couch.

"You didn't leave." I say to Garnet.

"No."

"Why?"

"I feel like you have some questions to ask me."

"I do, I felt tremors last night and I know Beach City doesn't sit on a fault line." I say.

"Correct. It's a corrupted gem." Garnet replies. "I don't know where it is currently but it's getting closer."

"Hmm."

"I see your starting to copy me." Garnet says smiling.

I blush and look away "It's just a habit I picked up."

"I think it suits you."

I blush deeper. "Errr."

Garnets expression cools back into a neutral state. "Why did you train Greg?"

"I told you, because he asked nicely."

"No. There is something else, isn't there?"

I look at Garnet before I give a deep sigh. "Alright you got me. I know you have an idea of of past right?"

Garnet studies me for a second before nodding.

"Well I didn't just do it for Greg, I did it for Steven." I pause before continuing. "My father if you can call him that, never cared for me or stood by me. He beat me and starved me for many reasons I don't want to go into. In a nutshell, I want Steven to have what I never did, a father standing by him, and now I have the power to make that happen. Having Greg want it to is just a plus for me."

Garnet looks at me as if she's trying to figure out my next move before she nods. "You are a good person for doing that. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Garnet then gets up and goes to her room leaving me feeling things I have never felt before. Happiness? Pride? Love? As confusing as these new emotions felt, I got up from the couch and went outside to finish the house extension.

Time Skip!

I hammered the last nail in place finishing the extension. I wipe my brow as I pick up the tools and bring them inside so I can knock down the wall by Steven's little staircase and the bathroom. But I figured that could be for tomorrow. In the meantime I fired up the Spartan (Amazon) app on my phone and ordered supplies for my new room. After I finished, I noticed everyone looking out the window so I joined them. I found out we were watching Steven. He soon notices us and tries to act casual.

"Whaddup?" Steven pants.

"Who were you talking to?" Pearl asks.

"Huh?" Steven says.

"That girl." Garnet states.

'Oh it's one of these things. I'll try and help but I have zero experience with this.' I thought.

"You saw?" Steven said as he starts to blush. "She's just a girl I know, except she doesn't know me. We never talked."

Amethyst gasps. "You like her!"

"Uhh... I like everyone…" Steven states as pushes Amethyst's arms aside.

"Let's set up a play-date!" Pearl says also gasping. "I'll write up an invitation and work out a schedule. Ohh! We'll have to find out her favorite kind of tea…"

"No." I state.

"Just talk to her." Both me and Garnet say together as I blush.

"Okay. But you guys can't watch this time! It'll mess up my funky flow." Steven tells us.

"Funky flow?" Pearl and Amethyst question.

"What?" I ask.

Garnet "We won't watch." Garnet tells him as she adjusts her shades.

"Alright!" Steven yells as he runs to the fridge and takes out a glowing bracelet.

"What's that?" I ask Steven.

"Nothing!" He yells back to me as he runs out the door.

"Ok, does it freak anyone else out when his eyes turn to stars?" I ask the gems.

"No."

"Nah."

"It's just what he does."

"I guess i'll try to get use to it then."

"We need to go look for the gem." Garnet tells us.

We all nod and split up to look around the city.

Time Skip!

After an hour of no results on my side of the city, I go to Funland to check to see if the gem is there.

*ROAR*

I turn to look at where the roar came from but all I saw was the kiddie rides with a pink bubble on the track with Steven and the girl he was talking about earlier. So nothing out of the ordinary her-

Wait a second...

I do a double take and yes my eyes do not deceive me.

"STEVEN!" I yell. "What the hell are you doing in a bubble?!"

Steven looks down a me and says something but I couldn't hear him. And that's when the carts hit them sending them flying off into the ocean.

I start running after the bubble with a single thought going through my mind. 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…'

I reach the edge of the pier as I see the bubble splash and sink to the bottom. 'Goddamnit. I wasn't planning on swimming today.' I thought.

I take off my jacket and dive after them. After the bubbles clear from my vision, I see them in the bubble but then I see a gem monster swim over them. 'I guess that's what we're looking for.' I thought. The monster then eats some bright seaweed before burrowing into the ground causing the bubble to sink down even further. I roll my eyes before swimming after them.

When I reached them the girl was sporting a little smile as Steven slipped the bracelet over her hand. 'Cute.' I thought.

I swim up to the bubble and knock on it scaring the two kids but Steven recognized me and shouted my name as I picked the bubble up and swam with it back to the surface.

Once we got there the bubble pops freeing the kids.

"Freedom!" Steven yells.

"Eh em."

"Oh, thanks Kevin!" Steven said. "Sorry about your clothes getting wet."

"Eh, it's not a big deal the jacket is what I care about and its up on the pier." I say pointing up towards the bottom of the boardwalk. " Now if you will excuse me, I have a monster to poof."

I walked back into the water drawing my sword and I dived. I saw the monster coming up towards me and I swung my sword as hard as I could. I sliced open its transparent body but my sword go stuck in it dragging me along. It must not have cared much since it kept going for the surface and then I realized what it was doing. 'Oh fu-'

SPLASH

"Steven!" I yelled with water dripping my hair and into my face. "Run! It's after the bracelet! It thinks it's food!"

I see Steven take back the bracelet from the girl and run under the pier. I reposition myself on top of the worm monster as it chased Steven between the pillars. I gave a little smirk as I figured out what Steven was doing. Soon the monster was tangled up in the pillars and unable to move.

"Endgame, bitch!" I yell as I stab down into the monster's head causing it to poof.

I drop down in a crouch and hold my right hand out to the side and let the gem fall into my hand. Steven must have grabbed my jacket as he had it in his hand as I stood up.

"Thanks Steven." I say as he tosses my jacket to me as bubble the gem and put my jacket on.

Soon the gems arrived and as usual Pearl demanded to know what happened.

"Steven, Kevin, what's going on?! What did you do?!"

"They were incredible!" The girl exclaimed.

I look to Garnet and she nods so I flick the bubble away to the room.

"Really? You mean it?" Steven asks as she nods. "Here's your bracelet... again."

"Thanks." She laughs.

"So, are you going to introduce us?" Amethyst asks as Steven blushes.

"Steven was so excited to meet you." Pearl says to the girl. "Right Steven?"

Garnet picks up Pearl and Amethyst "Hey! Don't mess with his funky flow."

"Funky... flow?" The girl asks.

"Don't question it." I reply.

"Uhh…" Steven groans.

"I never got your name." I say to the girl. "I'm Kevin, Kevin Terrence."

"Connie Maheswaran." The now named Connie replies. "Nice to meet you."

"Same. Well you two, try not to get trapped in anymore bubbles from now on. I need to go speak to Garnet."

I then move out from underneath the pier and jump to the house.

When I land I see Garnet waiting for me. I walk inside and we both sit down on the couch.

"Go ahead Kevin."

"So when I went to rescue Steven and Connie I swam down to them, picked up the bubble, and swam it to the surface while I BREATHED."

"I think that you have such control over your gem, you are able to cancel out certain functions of your body and use energy from your gem to power them without thought when the situation calls for it." Garnet replies.

"That makes sense since I am not as hungry as I used to be." I say. 'Even with my gem water strange enough.' I thought.

"Kevin."

"Hmm?"

"Remember what I said, 'You are a good person' i'm glad to have you on this team."

I blush and Garnet got up said good night and went to her room. What I didn't see was the matching blush on her face.

End Chapter!

A/N:

Feelings are starting to appear! I am trying to figure out if Kevin AND Pearl should train Connie or just one of them? Work in progress I guess. 3656 words in a single chapter! As always R/R and i'll catch you guys on the flipside!