They were still on the road.

For once, it was quite calm in the van, nobody really speaking or anything. Not even Amethyst had prank up her sleeve.

They soon passed a sign saying: Sea Town.

Greg shone up. "Holy moly, we're in Sea Town?" He blurted,

"You know this place, dad?" Steven asked, leaning over from the back-seat.

"Yeah! Me and my cousin used to be here every summer." Greg explained.

"You have a cousin?" Steven asked him surprised.

"Sure do." Greg smiled. "Andy, he..." He trailed off for a second. "He and I were best friends when we were younger."

"At the summers we used to visit our old' grandpa at his barn and had the time of our lives." He smiled. "He was the only father-figure we ever known."

"I never knew that." Steven smiled intrigued. "You never talk about your family."

Greg shrugged. "Meh, there's really not much to tell. When I decided to become a musician and went on the road with my manager, Marty, the family kind of just... separated."

"Why?" Steven asked.

"Nothing lasts forever, Stu-ball. Someday, the leaves most leave the tree, you know." Greg shrugged.

Steven tried to smile, but it became upside-down.

They had stopped by a gas-station to get gas and stretch their legs.

Greg was filling the tank while the gems went inside the gas-station to get snacks.

It all ended with Amethyst walking outside with a mountain of chips-bags and Pearl holding a simple sponge in her hand.

"You guys got what we needed?" Greg asked as they approached him.

"Yup!" Amethyst shouted, throwing the mountain of chips-bags into the back-seat. "Got snacks to last a life-time."

"In your case, a butterfly's lifetime." Pearl muttered. "And I found this delightful sponge! I thought I'd give it to Steven because he loved to play with them so much when he was little." She sighed dreamily.

"Greaat." Amethyst muttered.

The next thing they knew, they sat inside the van and were about to drive off.

Greg started to slowly drive forward.

Pearl and Bismuth had a conversation back in the back-seat. Garnet sat in the front-seat as always and Bismuth in the luggage.

Amethyst grabbed e few packages of chips, put them between her hands and smashed them, making a loud exploding sound.

Greg immediately turned around by reflex, forgot about the road for four seconds before they heard a crashing sound.

He had driven right into the back of the car before him.

The door opened.

"Hey!" Someone shouted up front.

"Oh boy..." Greg muttered as he un-buckled his seat-belt.

There was a man, maybe in his late-forties or early fifties, standing at the end of his grey pickup-truck.

He wore a brown fur-jacket and a pilot's hat. He stood at the back of his truck, looking hysteric.

"Gahh! Who was the idiot who drove into me like that?!" He shouted angrily.

Greg opened his door and stepped outside. "Uh, are you okay? I'm really sorry." He said.

The man turned around, looking chocked. "Greg?"

Greg raised an eyebrow. "Andy?"

"They know each-other?" Pearl asked, looking at them through the back-seating.

"You were the one who drove into me?!" Andy asked angrily.

"I'm sorry, I got distracted and-." Greg tried to calm him down.

"Dad? Who's this?" Steven asked as he stepped out of the car on his side of the car.

"Dad?" Andy asked wide-eyed as Steven walked over to his father. "You mean- no way."

"Andy. This is Steven." Greg rest a hand on Steven's back. "He's my son."

Steven smiled widely and immediately walked forward. "Wow it's really nice to meet you!" He walked forward to the completely chocked man.

"It's okay, guys. There's someone I want you to meet!" Greg told the gems in the car.

"Yes boss!" Amethyst saluted him.

One after one they walked out of the van. Gems in different colors and sizes coming from the same van.

Andy just watched in confusion. "It's like a circus act..." He mumbled.

"Andy, these are the gems." Greg gestured towards the gems.

"Everyone. This is Andy." He said as he gestured his hands towards the man. "He's my cousin."

The reactions were different. It was mainly a mix of wonder and boredom.

"Ah, now I understand." Andy nodded and crossed his arms. "You drove off with a bunch of hippies. Guess I owe aunt Deb a hundred bucks." He muttered.

"Hippies?" Pearl hummed.

"Well!" Greg cut in, laughing nervously to slip away from the conversation. "What brings you here, Andy?"

"I live here." The older man said bitterly.

"Oh, so you-." Greg began.

"Yeah, I took over the barn." Andy answered before he managed to ask. "Somebody needs to keep the memories alive." He crossed his arms bitterly.

Greg was starting to feel the awkwardness. The gems too.

"Look, about the truck-." He began.

"Nah, don't worry about it. This ol' thing has gone through worse." Andy shrugged, patting the wreckage. "Listen..." He then began uncomfortably, rubbing his neck. "I do have the ol' family dining table at my place, if you would like to... you know."

Immediately, Greg started rubbing the back of his head un-comfortably. "Oh! That would be great, but we're kind of, you know-."

"Okay." Garnet suddenly spoke out of nowhere.

"What/huh?" The group looked at her in surprise.

Garnet crossed her arms. "I am NOT gonna stay one more night at this place. Greg snores." She continued, not noticing the cringing face of Greg before she walked over to the van, sat in the front-seat and shut the door behind her.

"Well then..." Greg said unsure. "I guess we'll go to Andy's place..."

"Yay! Family trip!" Steven cheered, arms up in the air and stars in his eyes.

Soon, they were on the road. Again.

Greg drove as always, with Garnet beside him. Steven, Pearl and Amethyst were in the back-seat and Bismuth sat at the back of the van.

Andy drove ahead of him, showing the way.

He looked uncomfortable, everyone and then looking at the car behind in his mirror. He looked almost as uncomfortable as Greg, who tapped his fingers against the wheel.

They drove down a quite short avenue until they reached a gravel farm.

Greg parked behind Andy as he stopped.

"Whoa!" Steven gasped in awe as he and Greg stepped out of the car.

There was a house, a really big house. It was not really a mansion, but it could easily be mistaken for one.

It was white with black roof tiles and it had a huge back-yard filled with beautiful flower-beds.

At the opposite side of the gravel-farm stood a big barn.

It was big, and red and was in pretty good shape, considering the fact that it looked like no one had been in there for years.

The place was so confusing. It wasn't disrepaired, but it wasn't well taken care of either.

It was more... a proper mess.

Andy stepped out of his truck. "Well. This is it." He shrugged.

"It looks exactly like I remembered it!" Greg said in complete awe.

Andy chuckled. "Yeah, I tried to save the feeling of the place. I think I did a pretty good job." He shrugged.

"Have you been here before, dad?" Steven asked as he walked up next to him.

The gems started making their way out of the van.

"Steven! This was ol' grandpa's place!" Greg wrapped an arm around Steven and gestured towards the house.

Steven gasped. "Is this the place you and Uncle Andy used to hang out during the summers?" He asked in excitement.

"You bet! We used to come here every summer, have a good time, getting into trouble." Greg explained to him. "And dear ol' grandpa had such a hard time keeping the cops away." He dried a laugh-tear from the corner of his eye

"Yeah, until he flew the coop." Andy muttered bitterly. "And that was the end of the daring DeMayo brothers." He shrugged.

"What's a DeMayo?" Steven asked in confusion.

Andy looked down at him in chock. "Andy DeMayo. Greg DeMayo. Steven DeMayo. We're the DeMayos!" He explained.

"Uh..." Greg stuttered. "We're kind of... the Universes now..." He smiled nervously.

Something snapped inside Andy. "Wh-wha- you changed the family name?!" He shouted.

"Are you saying... that Universe is not a real last name?!" Steven gasped in chock.

"It is too!" Greg told him.

Meanwhile, the gems watched them back by the van.

"Should we do something?" Pearl whispered.

Amethyst just giggled. "It's looks like Greg's fighting an older mirror." She laughed, munching on a bag of chips. "I kind of like it."

"Shh." Garnet hushed them, leaned against the van.

"Hey, Andy. Must we do this now?" Greg tried to turn the situation around, referring to the boy beside him. "How about we get some dinner started?"

Andy frowned. "Yeah, why not." He shrugged and gave a skeptical glance towards the funny-colored gems. "I better go get some vegetables." He muttered and turned to walk inside his house. "Darn hippies..." He shut the doors behind him.

The gems walked up to the two humans and stared at the house.

"Well, that went pretty well, right dad?" Steven asked happily.

Greg gave him a skeptical glance.

The next thing they knew, Andy was standing by the sink, pealing potatoes.

His house was rather cozy. It was mainly wooden, with wooden walls and wooden furnitures. There were some pictures here and there and miniature figures of old planes on the shelves.

Steven and Greg helped cutting the vegetables on the table in the kitchen.

"Hey, dude. Where are we supposed to put the table?" Amethyst suddenly asked as she walked inside the kitchen.

"Uh, you can go ahead and put it in the porch." Andy answered her question, looking quite confused actually.

"Hey G! The porch!" Amethyst shouted and walked into the other room.

Andy dried his hans off on his pants and walked to the door-way to the next room.

Garnet grabbed the huge mahogany table and lifted it above her her head with a soft grunt, carrying like it was nothing out the glass-door.

"Uh... your aunt... she's pretty strong, eh?" Andy stuttered.

"She works out." Steven smiled.

"Yeah, I bet." Andy said, fearing his life for the glass-door to the outside.

In the next scene, they were sitting around the table on the porch, table decorated with all kinds of food.

Andy looked at the gems oddly as he ate. "Aren't you ladies gonna eat? You don't like potatoes?" He asked, mouth-full.

"Gems really don't need to eat." Steven explained. "Except for Amethyst."

As if one cue, Amethyst pushed a whole corn into her mouth, widening her cheeks.

Steven hummed in pleasure as he put the fork into his mouth. "This is amazing!"

Andy chuckled. "Yeah, me and aunt Deb used to be put on dinner-duty when the family got together. I am practically qualified as a chef." He smiled and put a piece of potato in his mouth.

"Wow, what's aunt Deb doing these days?" Greg asked curiously.

"What? You suddenly care about aunt Deb?" Andy snapped.

Steven shrank down a bit, feeling the tension.

Andy then cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "So, what are you supposed to be? In-laws or something?" He asked the gems.

"What?" Pearl asked.

"They're kind of close friends to Steven's mother." Greg explained.

"Oh. Where is the wife anyway? I gotta give her my condolences." Andy laughed.

Everybody tensed and looked at each-other uncomfortably.

"Rose..." Greg cleared his throat. "Is no longer with us."

"Oh..." Andy sighed, feeling guilty. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Greg continued eating, until he caught a glimpse of one of the miniature planes in the other room. "Hey, do you still have the old Leaf?" He asked.

"What's the old Leaf?" Steven asked.

The next thing they knew, Andy opened the doors to the barn.

Inside, stood an old plane, all covered in spider-web and dust.

"Whoa! You're a pilot?!" Steven exclaimed.

"Eh, once maybe." Andy shrugged. "This ol' think hasn't been used for a LONG time. Not since..." He trailed off and cleared his throat. "Yeah, ol' grandpa taught me all I know."

"Woow!" Steven gasped in awe.

"Yeah, I think I still I have some old pictures. Come on, I'll show you." He waved for them to come along she he walked up the stairs up to a loft.

The loft carried lots of boxes and he bend down to open one, picking up a picture and showed it to Steven. "This was the day of my first flying-lesson."

"Aww, you're so cute!" Steven awwed.

"Wow, you got everything here?" Greg asked, going down to his knees and opened a box. He rooted around in the box with a smile on his face.

"Who's that?" Steven asked, pointing to a picture in the box of an elderly man.

"That's old grandpa." Greg smiled and picked the picture up. "Back when we were about your age, me and cousin Andy always enjoyed having fun with that old guy. There was that one time when we had crept inside the barn and crawled onboard the plane-."

He started laughing, shaking his head. "Man, the others were at rage when they found us crashing into the woods and almost set it on fire. But grandpa was the one who carried us out. We thought he would throw us in the lake or something, but he just laughed and pat us on the head." He then turned to his cousin. "Hey Andy! Do you remember any of this?"

Andy just glared at him, arms crossed. "No." He muttered beneath his breath. And then he walked up to his cousin and snatched the photograph out of his grip. "Now give me that!"

"Hey, what's with the attitude?!" Greg stood up and asked him irritated. "Ever since we got here, you've been biting on my neck! What's the big idea?"

"Because it's you, that's the problem!" Andy burst out.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Greg exclaimed.

Meanwhile, the gems watched them from the lower floor.

"Uh... are we supposed to do something?" Bismuth asked, rubbing the back of her head.

"Don't feed the fire." Garnet told her.

"You left! That's what I mean!" Andy shouted. "Grandpa was the only one who ever cared for us, and when he left you did too!" He was starting to get all red in the face from anger and he started to rip the picture into pieces. "He was only an old man who treated us all like a piece of paper he smashed and threw in the trash!" He yelled out in anger, as the paper pieces fell to the ground.

You could really see how the anger grew in Greg's face and how the tears almost escaped the corner of his eyes.

"Stop that!" He yelled, louder than anyone ever heard him yell and pushed Andy away, making him fall to the ground.

Steven gasped.

The gems gasped.

Greg gasped.

Greg reached a hand for him. "Andy-."

"No." Andy held out a hand and stood up, dusting himself off. "I think I need a moment." Andy rubbed his temples. "I can't deal with this this right now." He then stormed off.

"Uncle Andy! Wait!" Steven called, started running after him but stopped outside the barn.

Greg sighed and leaned down to pick up the teared pieces of paper, when he suddenly noticed something.

A loose wooden plate.

He frowned and lifted it up, putting it to the side.

There was a hidden hole beneath the floor, and inside the hole stood an old shoe-box.

"Huh?" He went down to his knees and lifted up the box.

He opened the lid and picked up a piece of paper.

He frowned.

It was sundown and Andy was sitting on the grass, watching the field and the sunset in the horizon.

He heard footsteps behind him and he turned around.

It was Greg, holding a shoe-box for some reason.

"Hey." He said.

"Hey." Andy greeted as well as Greg sat down beside him.

They just stared out the horizon for a long moment, the soft winds blowing in their hair.

"I found this earlier." Greg handed him the box.

Andy frowned, grabbing it. "What is it?" He asked, opening it and picked out a paper.

Greg shrugged. "Don't ask me." Andy frowned again, and Greg smiled and rest his arm around his shoulder. "Why don't we read it together?"

Andy shared him a smile and then slowly opened the paper.

It was a text, gracefully written in cursive letters.

The letter said:

Dear Greg and Andy.

If you're reading this, your old grandpa has left for the sky permanently in his airplane. And if you read this, I hope that you both are still together as the two troublemakers you are. I never wanted anything else.

But now you are all grown up, and hopefully I have lots of great-grandkids for aunt Deb to squeeze their cheeks. But now, I think it's time for you to know the truth.

Andy, I know I spend a lot more time with Greg than you and I could see the pain you felt back all those years ago. But I never favourised any of you. I loved you too much for that.

And I can't do more than to explain myself. I saw potential. I knew Greg would grow up to be something special. But you Andy, you never searched to be better than you already were. Cause you already knew where you belonged. And that makes me so proud of you. Even though it felt like no one ever cared you never bailed on them. Not that I could say that for myself.

"The reason I left is for me to know. All I can say is that I did some bad things in the past. Things I'm not proud of.

I hope that you found your own way. And I hope that you know that all roads always meet somewhere. Leaves falls from the trees but always meet at the ground.

Take care of yourself.

Old' grandpa.

Andy dried a tear away

Greg smiled an then turned to grab a ukulele from out of nowhere.

"Found this guy earlier at the loft. You wanna give a try and do the honors?" He asked, offering him the ukelele.

"Me? Nah. You're the one with the talent, boy." Andy chuckled, waving his hands in refusal..

"Suit yourself." Greg smiled as he held the ukelele himself. He strummed a couple strings until they slowly grew into a jolly melody.

And he started singing:

"It was a sunny day

Not the best of ones, i swear it didn't work my way

I was walking home from the store

It was almost a quarter to four

So do you know what I did?-

I sat down by the chore

That day my pot had let go of some steam

If it sounds familiar, you'll know what I mean

Life isn't funny if you're life's a fifth wheel.

So I grabbed the small ol' uke

and the thoughts just fled

And I started thinking about what ol' grandpa said:

Andy grinned.

A ukelele can't make all tunes

Without all it's strings

A choir can't be heard

if nobody sings

And hot sauce wouldn't have a job

-if there were no chicken wings

So if you're feeling kind of blue

Remember that commiting can bring a whole new point of view

And if you're feeling kind of scared

That's okay, it's just another feeling to be chared

And if you are alone

It's just a fact that you're just a lonely soul, yet to be known

So if you feel like your hope's at rest

When it's hard, and yuck, and life is just a test

Don't get stressed

Just remember what grandpa adressed:

The ol' ukelele knows best."

He strummed the ending tunes on the strings and Andy clapped his his hands and laughed.

"What do you know. You do have talent. I was just trying to be nice." He laughed and nudged him in the arm with his elbow.

"Come here you!" Greg laughed and pulled him in beneath his arm, rubbing the top of his head

At the way back to the barn, Greg had filled Andy in on what happened the last thirteen years.

"... so know we're kind of on the road." Greg shrugged as he ended his callback.

"Whoa. You really weren't kidding. I just thought the wife kicked you out." Andy chuckled and then nervously stopped and rubbed the back of his head.

"You know... you could stay here... you know... if you want to..." He stuttered.

Greg looked taken aback. "Really? You mean it?"

"Well, I never use that ol' barn for anything anyway. If we maybe, I don't know, clean it up, get some beds and stuff like that it can at least almost feel like home." He scratched the back of his neck nervously and then shrugged. "You know, if you're up to it. I-."

Greg rest a hand on his shoulder, smiling. "It'd be great."

The gems were standing inside the barn, not doing anything specific.

When Andy and Greg walked inside.

"Hey, guys!" Greg called, earning everyone's attention. "I filled him in on what's been going on the past few weeks, and Ol' Andy here has offered us the barn! Isn't that neat?" He announced, happily wrapping an arm around his cousin, who looked quite smushed.

Andy just chuckled embarrasedly and pushed him away jokingly, adjusting his jacket.

"Yeah, I thought that you guys could use a place to stay. Plus, why don't you do for family?" He chuckled with a sheepish grin.

His speach earned the smiles from the others and a soft chuckle from Bismuth.

Steven's eyes had become happy puppy-eyes.

"Now." Andy took off his hat and held it beneath his arm and turned to the gems of the group. "Which of you ladies is the one expecting? I have to give her my congratulations." Greg stiffened as a stick.

And so did the rest in the group. Except Bismuth who looked confused.

Andy looked confused. "What? I have to guess here? It's you, right?" He pointed towards Garnet. "Don't think I don't recognise a little bump when I see one."

The moment he pointed his finger at her, Garnet tensed and looked away. She saw their boy look at her in confused distrust.

Garnet felt so helpless at that moment. "Steven..." She took off her visor and showed how helpless she actually felt.

Andy looked as confused as ever. "What is this? Have I missed something?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm with you buddy." Bismuth looked around, confused as well.

Greg sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "Steven... doesn't know yet." He said lowly.

Andy immediately regret his words. "Oh, sorry..." He muttered. "I didn't know."

The last few moments of this chapter consisted with everyone just staring, loss of words and loss of action.

Until Andy ended with: "The tall one got three eyes... is... is she supposed to have that?"