(Author's note: I have written this chapter to the best of my ability, I am sorry for anything that may be inaccurate. If you have any feedback please make it constructive. I always read every comment and would be glad to improve.)
Steven discreetly wipes a tear from his eye as Jiro plays her part of their current song. This entire session reminded him of spending time with his family and he had been trying to keep from thinking about them and focus on his new life.
"Jiro? I heard you playing!" a male voice yells and her eyes widen.
"Shit dads home." She stands up quickly.
"Is that a bad thing?" Steven asks and Jiro nods.
"He's so embarrassing steven, and moms out of town so there's no one to reign him in." she groans hearing footsteps.
"I could hide?" he offers and she looks at him with hope in her eyes.
"Would you?"
"Sure." he bubbles his guitar, sending it away before jumping ,floating against the roof as the door is thrown open. A blond man rushing in.
"Did I miss the jam fest?!" he asks, seeing Jiro placing her guitar on the wall.
"Yea, sorry dad. Did you call mom?" Jiro asks and steven can feel his phone vibrate in his pocket.
"Did you hear that?"
"It's my phone dad, you're just being weird."
"Sorry sorry, can I use your phone? I shattered mine."
"Again?" she asks with a huff pulling her phone out of her pocket and handing it over, her dad pressing the home button and nothing happening.
"I think its dead." he says as Stevens phone vibrates again, Jiros dad turning towards it this time and looking up his mouth agape as he sees a BOY in his house along with his daughter his heartbeat picking up and sending a shockwave around the room as jiro grabs him and pulls him back.
"Steven, I think it's time for you to head home, me and my dad need to have a TALK." She says the last part through grit teeth and Steven drops.
"Nice to meet you mr jiro." he says leaving quickly, waving to Jiro as she yells at her dad for embarrassing her infront of one of her classmates. Steven pulls his phone from his pocket as he reaches the street, seeing two calls from miriko.
"It's probably about the internship." steven says as he rediles, miriko answering instantly.
"Are you fuckng ignoring me?"
"No, I was hiding. You gave me away." he explains and she hmms.
"I'll allow it, I'm just making sure you remember our deal."
"Of course, I am to accept a work study under you."
"Great, That rat better not try to screw me over. I'll see you in a few days." she says hanging up leaving steven to walk home in silence.
Steven walks through the school gates alone, The campus mostly empty with a few teachers and nedzu. He walks through the main doors, his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulls it out sliding it open and seeing a room number texted to him by an unknown number.
"Thanks nedzu." he says to the camera, shoving his phone into his pocket and walking towards the meeting room, knocking on the door.
"Come in" a kind voice calls and steven pushes the door open to find a kind looking woman, The first showing of age showing on her face and a few strands of grey in her tied back brown hair.
"You must be steven universe?"
"Yes ma'am, it's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too." she returns.
"Sit, sit.." steven sits down and she does the same in a chair across from him.
"So, why don't we begin with introductions. I'm Mei Shultz, And i am a therapist. I like to paint and ride my bike." she starts.
"Im steven universe, I'm a student and i like to sing and play instruments"
"It's nice to meet you steven Universe, "Sure." Steven says with a shrug.
"Great, now I've seen the recordings from the sports festival and from the waiting room so I have a pretty good idea of why I was called in, but I'd like you to tell me a bit about yourself first before we get to that."
"Well, I'm Steven Quartz universe. I like to play music."
"That's fun. Have you been playing a lot since you got here?" she asks and steven wonders how much of the story of his arrival she knows.
"I sang karaoke with Mina and her friends, And i bought a guitar and played with Jiro yesterday."
"That's good, Mina and Jiro are your classmates right."
"Yea, I was lucky to run into them outside of class."
"I'm glad to hear that you are making friends here. It can be stressful to suddenly lose a support system. Have you talked to anyone back home since you got here, nedzu was sparing with those details." She realizes that she has stepped into a painful subject when Steven's face falls.
"I can't really talk to them. They're gone. I'll never see them again '' Steven says, folding his arms and sitting back. The therapist writing something down.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Mei tells him.
"Thank you." he says.
"If you don't mind talking about it, could you tell me what happened during the sports festival?"
"Uhh sure… my powers affect plants and recently it's been making the plants reflect some of my negative thoughts. My plant cactus attacked the crystal gems." he says as an explanation. And she hmms.
"So it's your subconscious crying out.'' She writes another note.
"How long has your quirk been making you glow and grow?"
"Well.. For a few months now, I went to see Dr Maheswaran and she said that I was so used to being in mortal danger that my body responds to all danger as if my life is in danger." she sets down her clipboard.
"And growing up where you in danger alot?"
"Well their where the corrupted gems,Getting stuck on the bottom of the ocean in a bubble, When peridot and jasper kidnaped me, Falling from that cliff, the other cliff, The gems attacking the pod when i was with the cool kids, frybo." he shudders remembering him.
"Keven-" he says the name as if it's poison.
"-The time i turned myself into a bunch of sentient cats, Malachite, Transferring my mind into that watermelon, The cluster, The shard experiments, The pained cries of the cluster, Jasper attacking us at sea the few times pearl forgot i wasn't my mother, Jasper again, Bismuth, Finding out over and over again that my mother wasn't a great person, The rubies. Eyeball trying to stab me and getting trapped in another bubble, The gems keeping secrets and me having to go to korea with dad and then blue diamond kidnaps dad, Traveling to blues human zoo and having to rescue dad but losing the gems alone not knowing if i could do it alone, My friends getting kidnaped by aquamarine, Trading myself for them and having to pretend to be my mother, Meeting the diamonds with lars, Escaping with lars and lars dying, ant then connie not talking to me anymore. Getting stuck in that jungle Finding out my mother is actually pink diamond and had faked her death. Garnet split up for a while and then blue and yellow diamond attacked and we had to fight them. Going to homeworld and finding out how bad it really is and then white takes over the minds and bodies of all of my friends and family and almost convinces me that I'm actually my own mother pretending to be steven before ripping out my gem and almost killing me.
And then after all of that i spend the next two years on homeworld fixing things and making the diamonds change their ways before finally heading home and then spinel shows up wanting to kill me because my mother abandoned her and once again i have to fight for my life because of something she did. Then i got into another fight with jasper this pink thing starting aquamarine returns teamed up with ruby to form bluebird azurite who pretends to turn over another cheek before attacking my dad and trying to stab me, Then cactus steven starts to talk about the private thoughts i had before attacking the gems and my issue gets worse, my body growing and shrinking before i go to the doctors for the first time, At 17 how messed up is that, I have healed breaks on most of the bones in my body from so many people attacking me. And then I spend three days with Jasper, Because she'll understand, Jasper wouldn't treat me with kid gloves and hopefully I can get this under control and make things go back to normal but I take things too far." his skin starts to glow.
"Because I always do,Everything was fine but for some reason I couldn't handle it." he takes a few deep breaths hid head in his hands as he tries to calm down, The only noise is his breathing and the sound of writing.
"I'm sorry, I got carried away." steven apologizes.
"Never apologize steven, This stuff happened to you no one has the right to tell you to keep it bottled up." she tells him gently.
"I don't want to hurt anyone else, I need to find a way to get the power under control like all of the others, I almost hurt ibara during the sports festival. I don't want that to happen again."
"I watched that battle, Ibara wasn't hurt beyond a few scratches, I imagine she's had far worse during her own training,"
"I hope you're right." he says.
"You should talk to her, It could be good for you." she suggests. And he nods
"Maybe I should get her a card, or would that be too much?"
"I think an apology would be best." she says and he nods again.
"Yea a card would be too much." he agrees.
"Our times almost up universe." ms shultz tells steven who looks at the clock.
"Already?" he asks surprised and she nods.
"I've been told that you are going to be going on a work study for a few days so I'd like us to have an over the phone session on one of those that be ok?"
"Sure, do you need my number?" he asks and she shakes her head.
"It's in your file, I'll send you a message so you can save my number and not have to answer random numbers." she says standing up and steven does the same.
"Have a nice day mr universe."
"You too Ms shultz." he says walking towards the door and down the hall towards the exit, unsure of how to feel about walks out the front door, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the train schedule glad to have enough time to catch the next train.
