Lapis had been attempting to walk into the medical wing when she found herself sitting on the floor.
"I'm so sorry!" She heard of young boy say. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
"It's fine." She said as she stood up from the ground. "I should've been paying attent-Steven? We've really gotta stop meeting each other like this."
"Lapis?" Steven smiled, now recognizing the blue-haired girl he had run into. "Hey, what're you doing here, you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just here to get my cast off." Lapis held up her right arm. "Why are you here?"
"My friend, Connie, is here to visit her mom so we came here after school together." Steven told her. "I'll walk in with you and introduce her to you."
Following Steven as he walked through the door, Lapis was met with the strong smell of disinfectant and fluorescent lights that reminded her of the hospital, no wonder Peridot didn't like it here. "Who's her mom?"
"Dr. Maheswaran, she's in charge of the medical wing." Steven said as he waved to a girl across the room that Lapis assumed was Connie. "Connie, I'm back. I want you to meet Lapis, she's one of the newer patients here."
Connie held her hand out to Lapis. "It's nice to meet you, Lapis."
Lapis shook Connie's outstretched hand. "Nice to meet you too. Is Dr. Maheswaran around?"
"She's just in her office, I'll let her know you're here." Connie said before heading to the back of the room where a door seperated an even smaller room from their view.
Lapis watched as Connie knocked on the door and spoke through it to her mother on the other side. Connie waited by the door for a moment until her mother came out of her small office before the two of them walked back to Lapis and Steven.
"Hi, Lapis." Dr. Maheswaran greeted. "Here to get your cast off?" She said as she flipped through papers on a clipboard.
"Yup, it's a bit of a relief but I've gotten used to having it on." Lapis told her, she was left-handed so having it on hadn't affected her ability to write or do much else, it was mostly just a bit annoying.
"Okay then, just let me get the everything I'll need out of my office."
oOoOo
"Lapis," Peridot called out when she saw the blue-haired girl walking towards her in through the hallway. "Why weren't you in Group?"
"I was in the medical wing. I got my cast taken off." Lapis held up her now cast-free arm proudly.
"That's great. I'm glad your arm is fully healed."
Lapis smiled, "Thanks, I honestly got used to having it. My arm feels weird without it on."
"But you should be glad it's off, it wasn't exactly related to a happy memory." Peridot pointed out.
Lapis cringed a bit at the mention of her suicide attempt, "I guess you're right. So, um, how was Group?" She asked in an attempt to change the subject.
If Peridot knew Lapis' intentions to change the subject, she didn't show it. "Surprisingly good, Amethyst's jokes almost make it bearable."
"Well if it was bearable then I'm sorry to say I missed it."
Peridot smirked, "Yeah, I'm sure you are."
Lapis gasped, "Are you calling me a liar, how rude of you to even hint at such a thing."
"You know," Peridot said thoughtfully, "it's probably a good thing that becoming an actor isn't a dream of yours."
"Lots of things aren't dreams of mine, that doesn't mean that I'm not good at them." Lapis pointed out.
"Damn Lazuli, I like this confidence. Where's it coming from 'cause I want in." Peridot smiled.
"I honestly don't know, maybe a nurse slipped some extra zoloft in my orange juice during breakfast. I might talk about it with Rose during my private session, see what she thinks." Lapis said.
Peridot hummed as she thought, "I'm pretty sure that giving a patient medicine without their knowledge is against the rules. Well not always, sometimes there are special cases that require them to do that, but only if it's necessary."
"Huh, you know a lot about this stuff."
Peridot shrugged, "Not really, but I've been here for a while and I like to know my rights as a patient." She explained.
"Sounds reasonable." Lapis agreed, "Do you think you could teach me some of this stuff sometime?"
Peridot perked up at the mention of getting to teach someone something. "Yeah, of course!" She said excitedly, "How does during free time tomorrow sound?"
Caught a bit off guard by how excited Peridot was, Lapis smiled, "Cool, I'm looking forward to it."
Peridot grinned at her and Lapis felt her heart lurch. "Me too."
oOoOo
Lapis walked through the lobby to Lily's desk in the middle, "Hey Lily, is Rose free right now, I didn't have a session with her to day and I want to talk to her."
Lily looked at a paper resting on her desk, what looked like a schedule, before answering. "Yup, she is. You can go see her."
Lapis smiled politely and said "Thank you." to Lily before walking the rest of the way to Rose's office.
She knocked on the door, greeted by Rose who had a confused expression on her face until she saw Lapis.
"Oh Lapis, it's you. I was wondering who would be knocking." She said as she let Lapis in. "What brings you down here?"
"Well, I was feeling really happy today and I'd like to know if there might be a specific reason why." Lapis explained.
"I'm sorry but can you elaborate, I'm not sure if I understand what you're asking me."
"Okay, so obviously I'm depressed. But I'm not constantly sad, I still find things funny, I like to joke around, you know, that type of stuff. But there's still that gloomy nagging feeling in the back of my mind, if you get what I mean. But earlier today, I was happy, like, really happy. The nagging feeling was gone for a little while." Lapis rambled. "I was wondering what the possible reasons for that might be."
"I get it now." Rose nodded. "I'll explain it as simply as I can. People just have their ups and downs. Some have more ups than others and some have more downs than others." She stopped for a moment before asking "Are you with me?" When Lapis nodded Rose continued with the explanation. "You just had a higher up than you normally do."
"That's it?" Lapis felt underwhelmed by Rose's answer. "I thought...I thought that it might mean that I was getting better." She stared at her hands, which were placed in her lap, rather than looking up at Rose.
"Well, here's the thing, I'm going to be blunt with you, getting better is a long process and some people never get completely better. It doesn't just go away because someone that was previously friendless now has friends. Or because someone has fallen in love. It's a long process that requires you to actually work on it if you want to see any change. Even after you're no longer suicidal you still can be depressed. People think that you can just give someone a zoloft every morning and that takes care of it, but it doesn't. But I'm not going to tell you that you haven't improved at all, that 'up' you had could be a sign that you're on the right track. But this is only the beginning, okay?"
Lapis forced herself to look up at Rose before nodding her head again.
"Good." Rose smiled. "I'm going to stop here. Go back up to your room, think about what we've just talked about and get some rest."
"Alright, I will." Lapis promised as she stood up to leave.
Before she walked out the door though, Rose said one last thing. "Congratulations on getting your cast off."