Disclaimer: All Steven Universe characters, names, and settings are property of the creator herself, Rebbeca Sugar, and of Cartoon Network. I make no money off of these stories although sometimes I wish I could.

Chapter 3: Odd Cases

Palmyra, City Hall

January 5, 2045

The city of Palmyra, Beach City's closest neighbor, and brethren city had grown exponentially. It too was formerly a quiet little town but now resembled a dark bleak dystopian city that was saturated with too many neon lights and holo advertisements of products and movies. Though, on particularly rainy nights, the darkness chased away by the brilliance of the city had a magic to it that beckoned people to it and kept them there.

Connie Maheswaran has served her city as its mayor for 14 years, truly the longest-serving term in her city's history. She was at her desk signing papers and taking calls and rejecting calls non stop. She called her secretary outside her office.

"Jennifer"

"Yes, madam mayor?"

"Please hold off all calls for me. I don't want to keep answering calls when I only have thirty minutes left before I go home."

"Yes, madam mayor."

Connie slouched back on her seat and turned to face her large arched window. Her view overlooked central square where there was a small park, although it was empty now. Lights from holo advertisements lit up the surrounding buildings and caused shadows to dance around wildly with life. Her eyes went from looking at the self-traveling holo advertisements to the night sky. Using her powers, her vision reached up past the clouds and upper atmosphere until she was staring at the stars themselves.

"I am going to miss this job though," Connie said as she thought about her last day serving as mayor.

"You still miss him, don't you Connie" Commander Smoky chimed in from the recesses of her subconsciousness.

"Yes I do. But he's living his life somewhere else, with someone who loves him as much as I did. God, the stories he must have to share with us if he ever returns, will be enough to write several books."

Connie's phone chimed with a text message from her husband, Thomas. After Steven visited everyone for the first and last time, Thomas joined the force and made it up the ranks to become a decorated detective. He asked her to meet him at their favorite late-night diner so they could talk.

[Thomas is a detective and is 46 years old.]

The Midnight Cat

It was late at night and the midnight cat, a late-night diner that had a large black cat model on top lit with a neon blue light behind it and behind its eyes. Thomas's car pulled up to the sidewalk. He exited his car and locked it and walked inside of the diner. He looked around and found his wife already sitting in their usual booth. By the look of it she was just drinking a coffee and nothing else. He went over to her and gave her a kiss.

"Shall we order something now darling? I hope I wasn't late" Thomas said.

"Actually I got here only three minutes ago, so you're really early. Sure, lets order."

While the waitress waited to bring out The mayor and her husband's order from the kitchen, Thomas began to talk to her about a series of odd phenomena and cases that started about the same time the new year began.

"I don't know what to tell you. When you use the word "odd" you have to remember darling that we live in a world where humanity lives alongside another alien species. So they brought with them not just themselves but also their culture and influence."

Thomas did not look remotely pleased or convinced by his wife's explaining and pulled out an envelope from his suitcase and slid it across the table to her. She gave him an odd look and touched the thick envelope.

"Are you sure you should be showing me this? You know that I'm not the mayor anymore, right?"

"So what, you're still Connie, one of the trio that saved the earth. I think its fine."

Connie sighed and opened up the envelope. The first case had a photo of a gem hybrid, a dark-skinned man who somehow had turned to stone. Another was of a gem, an emerald that had a mental breakdown in a mall and shattered herself. The more she looked at before and after photos, and read descriptions of each case, the more she had memories of what had happened in the past. But her eyes were glued to the cases. One gem hybrid self-combusted, another swam into the ocean to drown and die on purpose.

But perhaps the strangest case was of a gem hybrid burying herself and turning into a tree. In the case file it said that she began hearing voices coming from her gemstone. She was born to a Sapphire mother and inherited her stone that was located on her stomach. The voices appeared to be warning her of something unstoppable coming. She closed the envelope and pushed it back towards her husband.

"I admit, these sound strange and a little scary. But I think the cases with the gem hybrids, I think they are having hard times accepting their mixed lineages."

"Bullshit," Thomas told her, "I'm sorry babe but I don't accept that explanation. You, Steven and even Carlos are all gem hybrids and never had a problem with both of your lineages."

"I'm not a true hybrid though love, I'm a human who can use gem abilities and powers. Steven and Carlos were the only two known true born hybrids that I knew personally."

"I'm just saying that none of these people had any history of mental illnesses. Besides, I thought having a gem, born with or surgically embedded into you was supposed to remove all human problems, mental illnesses being one of them."

"I suppose we will find out what's happening in due time."

The couple ate after their food came. Thomas couldn't help himself when he noticed that his beloved wife had not aged once since he married her. He stared at the reflection on his spoon and saw that his skin was looking older. His eyes looked more tired, due in part to his job and the stress it caused him. His hair was beginning to show the first signs of grey hairs.

"It's not fair..." he whispered softly.

"Why?" Connie answered. "Let me guess, you're worried about your age again aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am. Every year I get older and look more like an old man. When I look at you I feel like im dating a 20-year-old, when in fact you're 44."

"Darling, I spoke to you about this before. I don't care how old you get or how you look. My love will never change. I have never stopped loving you once."

"Will you still desire me even if I look like a grandfather? Would you be able to muster having sex with men at the ripe age of 90?"

Connie looked hurt.

"I hate when you talk like this."

"Because you know I'm right. And I know what you're going to say-"

"Why don't you (I) consider having the procedure done on you (me)."

The procedure was having any of the fallen gem's gemstones embedded into a still-living human to greatly extend their health and benefit from secondary magical effects on their bodies and mind.

"So why don't you consider having it done then? You're still alive. It wont work on a dead man."

"I have thought about it, a lot. But if I did, I would feel like I would be throwing away my humanity. Like my humanity, no matter how beautiful it is, will always fall in short to another life. A life that lives almost forever. I think about the benefits of seeing my children live, but I would also outlive them. I would be able to last longer and work a thousand different jobs. I would be able to go with you places prohibited to me. But humanity, my humanity to me means being able to enjoy all that I had, have and will have and be glad for the memories after I breathe my last and smile happily at the day or night sky for the last time."

Connie, tearing up, moved from her side of the booth to join her husband so she could hug him and kiss him. Thomas hugged her and kissed her passionately. She rested her head on his shoulder and asked him softly.

"Do you think...he has a family already."

"I can't say. But its like you said, we will have to wait in due time to find out."