The wind outside was picking up, the warm air from the ocean battled with the chill front from the Great North. Before long it would be snowing in Delmarva. Thankfully the house was kept comfortably warm thanks to the in-floor heating Bismuth had installed when the house was rebuilt. And beyond that, the trio were curled up on the couch as well. Spinel was lounging incredibly casually, slumped down on the couch with her legs curled up in her casual wear- t-shirt and shorts and socks. She'd been trying to perfect the ultimate 'casual mode' with recommendations from Amethyst. Further down the couch Steven and Connie were leaning against each other shoulder to shoulder.

"So how have you been?" Connie asked.

"I'm fine." He paused for a moment, surprised. That wasn't wholly a lie, he did feel... better. He didn't feel great, more neutral- maybe just burned out. But he didn't feel bad either, especially compared to recently. It was like he had reached a point where everything just evened out. Which worked for him honestly, it was better than before.

He noticed Connie was watching him carefully, but she smiled. "That's good." And it was genuine. What he didn't notice was Spinel also watching him out the corner of her eyes. She knew what he had been like first hand these last months more than Connie and perhaps she saw more clearly because of it, because a small frown creased her face at his words.

"So, what have you been up to recently? Besides all the normal gem stuff."

"I've been driving a lot." His dad's advice hadn't been perfect the last time they spoke, but his words from the birthday party rang truer. "Spending time on the road and just. Seeing stuff. Clearing my head and all that." It really had helped, even if he couldn't quite get used to sleeping in a car seat again since he'd lived with the Gems for so long in a real house. "What about you, what have you been doing besides school?"

She sat up slightly, "Mostly staying at home. I don't really get out much besides coming to visit in Beach City." He felt a little pang of guilt hearing that, neither of them really had a large social circle. "I've been helping the school council plan some stupid dance they are having before winter break."

"A dance?"

"Yea, I'm just making the fliers for it, someone else designed these pamphlets already so I'm just making it fit that style, nothing interesting. At least I don't have to deal with the decorations or anything."

"Decorations?"

"Yea the streamers and stuff. And uhhg all the popular pop music, it's terrible. The only part I really like is the snackbar, they always get holiday-themed sugar cookies and soda and stuff..." She trailed off with a huff. Then she looked over to Steven, his eyes seemed like they were sparkling.

"It's just like the movies." he said breathily. She stared at him for a couple seconds, it was impossible to miss how awestruck he was at the whole thing.

"O-Oh yea, I mean but I don't mind all that too much, it's not horrible." she completely 180'ed "Like I said the snackbar is great and the music... it's not to my taste but it's alright. Heh..." She tilted her head, "Hold on let me..." She dug into her bag and pulled out a school folder, then pulled a sparkly blue and white pamphlet out of that and began flipping through. Steven leaned further to look over her shoulder. There were pictures inside of sparkly streamers hanging from the ceiling, and blue and white snowflake pattern lights, and a plastic snowman- It was amazing. Finally she got to what she had been looking for.

"Ok yea! So. Um." Her face went very faintly red as she spoke, "So as long as I talk to the people in the office, we are allowed to bring someone even if they ah. Don't go to our school. So we could... go together? If you want to." She swallowed, feeling like an idiot for getting flustered over this. It was just some school dance. But when she looked over at Steven.

He practically had stars in his eyes as he nodded with a quiet. "Yes."

Her snort turned into a giggle, "God you are a dork you know that right? An adorable dork."

He sat up, brow furrowed "Wuh! No I'm not, you're the dork!" He said with mock indignation.

Spinel finally spoke up from across the couch, cupping her hands together and mock speaking as if she was yelling from another room, "You're both dorks!"

He gasped dramatically and started to act offended but Connie interrupted. "Hold on let me write the information down for you..." She grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from her bag and started jotting down the address, date and time.

"Don't you need to get the schools permission first like you said..?"

"Steven. I'm in the top of my class for my grade and in cram school. I don't think they are going to say no."

"Oh, right true."

As she finished writing she looked back up and tilted her head just slightly. "Mmm."

"What?"

"Do you have dress clothes? I think you do don't you? We're supposed to dress nice they said."

"Oh um. I think I still have my suit from Garnet's wedding but I'm too big for it. Maybe I could shapeshift to fit..."

Connie laughed "Steven no. You can't show up to a highschool dance shapeshifted into a thirteen year old."

"Oh yea. Right. Well... my dad can probably buy me something to wear if I don't have a nice shirt somewhere. I'll figure something out-" he picked up the paper and read the date. Connie's handwriting was very clear even though it was cursive. "I've got a month, shouldn't take that long right?"

Three and a half weeks later...

The house looked like a train had run through it. Steven was bent over his old clothes chest digging frantically and throwing shirts out onto the floor, searching desperately for anything nice to wear that still fit him. He'd been combing over the house all morning since he got back from his Dad's. Pearl was going to have a stroke when she saw the state of things.

"Hey, is this formal?" he turned when Spinel called out, she was standing half in his closet on top of a pile of discarded t-shirts. She held up a black tie with a golden dollar sign on it- part of his old Tiger Millionaire getup.

"No." He shook his head with a groan and went back to digging.

"Why can't you just go in the clothes you normally wear?" Amethyst called over for where she was splayed out on the foot of his bed, not helping of course.

"It's not fancy enough."

"Tsh. Bruh it looks fine I don't get what you're on about."

Spinel popped out of the closet again with wide eyes and held up a pink button-up shirt. "Ooo! I like this one!"

He shook his head again and turned back to his own search. "It's too small for me."

He had a lot of shirts considering he only really wore a couple. He needed to give some of this stuff away to a shelter or something at some point, clear out some space.

"... Can I have it?"

"Ha- What the shirt? I guess sure?"

Spinel bounced with a little squeak and pulled the shirt on, leaving it open and unbuttoned so her gem could breath, it was only a little short for her.

"Lookin' good." Amethyst snorted, "Hey Steven, why don't you see if Greg has something. He used to wear all kinds of stuff when he was still performing."

"I already did! All his shirts are too big for me still!" This was getting exhausting and stressful. He'd been all over the house twice now, checked through his dad's storage unit and the boxes in the Car Wash office. He'd even checked the thrift store in town but they didn't have anything nice that came even close to fitting-

"What about this!" he sighed, turning and expecting to see another zebra print shirt or something. But Spinel held up a dark, faintly brown button up dress jacket that Steven didn't recognize.

"Woah where was that?" He stepped over and looked it over, Spinel held it up dramatically for him- it was a little big but almost perfect.

She pointed to a cardboard box, smushed and crumpled at the bottom of the closet half-buried under old clothes. "There's a box under all this with all kinds of nice clothes in it."

"Dang, where did I...?" he flipped one of the flaps over and written in black was 'Andie'. "Oh, huh. We must have moved it from the barn when we cleared it out for Peridot." He shook the jacket off and pulled it on. Not too scratchy, needed a wash though. "I'll have to give this all back eventually but... I doubt he'd mind me borrowing a shirt for a bit."

He turned and saw Spinel posing in front of his mirror in her new shirt and trying on a pair of sunglasses which instantly slid off due to her lack of ears. He couldn't help but chuckle quietly, his stress receding. It was fine. Everything was going to go perfectly, he had nothing to worry about it seemed.