Templeschool

52. Finding The Trigger

AN: Part 2 of today's uploads!

Greg held his son a moment longer before pulling back and wiping his son's eyes. "Hey, while you guys were gone, Dr. Maheswaran arrived. Why don't you go say hi?" Steven looked at him in surprise. He had forgotten that she was coming in the chaos. The kid rubbed his eyes to mask the remaining tears. Sure enough, when he stood up and looked around, he could see the familiar sedan parked beside his dad's overturned van. "She only got here about half an hour ago. I explained the situation to her as best as I could, but I don't know everything that happened." Greg looked back up at the house with a look of worry. "I hope the others didn't disturb her phone call with Connie."

Steven's eyes widened in surprise. "Connie's not here?"

His father dusted the sand off of his shorts as he stood up. "Dr. Maheswaran said she didn't want her daughter to come since she didn't know how long the search would take. After I explained to her what happened after you called her, she was relieved that she didn't bring Connie along."

Garnet nodded to herself and headed for the stairs. "She's not going to be happy." Greg and Steven exchanged a concerned look before following. Hopefully, that wasn't a prediction that the mother would be angry. The last thing they wanted was another shouting match. They could already hear the worried mother's voice as they walked through the front door.

"-at something happened, which made him transform into a large creature? Greg actually used the word corrupted, which is something I didn't really understand." Priyanka asked Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot. She turned to face them when they walked into the house. Her eyes lit up when she saw Steven. "Steven! I'm so glad to see you're alright. I was worried when you called me." She nodded in greeting to Garnet and Greg as well before focusing on the kid again. "Your father did his best to explain, but I understand that he only knows part of the story as well. I'd like to know what's going on, but first, how are you doing?" She knelt in front of him with a concerned frown. "I know you deal with a lot of stressful situations on a normal basis, but that doesn't make it hurt any less when awful situations involve your family."

Steven blinked in surprise, and almost felt like crying again. Dr. Maheswaran was so nice to him. He knew she was worried about his brother too, but she still asked about his well-being. "I will be okay. Once we save Twoie." He gestured to the living couch. "We can explain everything, but it's a long story." The mother nodded and sat down at the couch. Steven sat beside her, Greg sat on the open end of the sleeper couch, and everyone else scattered around the kitchen counter.

The story was a long one, starting with Twoie's fight with Greg, which the gems were surprised to hear. Bismuth apologized when they reached her part of the story and explained that she had already learned from her mistakes. The part that was the most horrifying to Dr. Maheswaran was the explanation about corruption. Her face paled as Garnet explained the differences between Twoie's corruption and the corrupted gems.

When the whole discussion was over, Dr. Maheswaran had to take a deep breath to collect herself. "Why didn't he just talk to me? I would've dropped everything to check on him if he'd asked." Priyanka sighed and leaned back against the couch. "Well, I can't dwell on the past. Do you know what the trigger was for his transformation?" The others looked around in confusion.

"The trigger?" Bismuth asked her in concern. "Do you mean what caused Twoie to corrupt?"

Priyanka nodded and stood. She walked over to the shelf and grabbed one of Twoie's notebooks along with a pen before going back to her seat. "From what you all have told me, Twoie began corrupting due to high amounts of stress. The rest of what I'm about to tell you is normally classified due to doctor-patient confidentially. Still, I am allowed to break that oath if my patient is in danger, and that information is necessary to help them." She started jotting down several words in the notebook. "Twoie's stress was triggered by several things. The first was the loss of his support system. By coming to the past, most of the people he could talk to when he was upset were gone. He made a new support system here, which I believe consisted of Greg, Steven, and myself." Priyanka turned the notebook over so everyone could see. She had written down support group, distrust, self-worth, and Rose Quartz.

Greg's eyes widened at the mention of his love. "Wait, Rose caused stress for Twoie?" Steven looked away, guiltily at that. "Steven, you don't feel that way about your mom, right?" The older man turned to his son but realized that Steven was avoiding his gaze.

"Actually... I kinda don't know what to think of Mom." He rubbed his arm awkwardly. "I never really told you how I felt because you've always loved her and talked highly about her. And the gems compared me to her a lot and made me feel like I needed to be just like her. I even thought about dying my hair pink once. Funny, right?" Steven let out a nervous chuckle. He finally looked at his dad. The single father looked dismayed at the revelation.

"Steven... I've always wanted you to be able to talk to me about anything. If you don't know how to feel about Rose, then that's fine." He scooted over and pulled his son into a hug. "And I didn't know that the gems made you feel like that. It's not okay. You are Steven, not Rose."

Steven wetly laughed as he hugged his dad. "You sounded like Twoie at the end. The gems don't do it anymore, and Twoie helped me a lot with that." He wiped his eyes and looked at his dad. "I know he doesn't like being compared to Mom, partially because of the same reason that I have, but also because mom did a lot of bad things."

Greg brushed his hand through his son's hair with a sigh. "That'll be a conversation for another day. But thank you for telling me, Schtu-ball."

Throughout the father's and son's conversation, Priyanka had been scribbling something down in the notebook. Her eyes widened as she realized something. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think I have an idea of what happened." All eyes turned back to her. She gestured to her points again. "Twoie experienced a lot of distrust from being compared to Rose, who he felt betrayed him with her actions and lies, his fight with Greg, and the arguments with his guardians." She pointed to self-worth on the list. "Which affected his own sense of self-worth. He already thought his only purpose was to help others, and when the war with Homeworld ended in his time, he no longer had any sense of purpose. People drifted away from him, and it made him feel like he didn't matter anymore. This is exactly what started happening here as well. The fight with the gems, running away, not talking about his feelings with anyone, and his obsession with making things better in this time." She held out a finger to count each of her points.

There was a pause in the discussion as everyone thought about Priyanka's theory. Lapis sorrowfully looked away. She knew what it felt like to war with your feelings. She wished she was more aware of what Twoie had been going through. Instead, Twoie and Steven had helped her with her feelings. Bismuth and Peridot were feeling the same way. They wished they could've done more for the young halfling that had helped them.

Priyanka carried on after the momentary silence. "I believe that all of these issues affected his self-image. It got worse after Bismuth compared him to Rose and when Twoie yelled at the gems before running away. He wanted to be alone at that point. Not because it would make him happy, but because he thought drowning in loneliness was better than hurting those he loved. When he hurt Steven, that must've proved what he thought, and that's why he corrupted." Dr. Maheswaran sighed sadly as she set the notebook down on the coffee table. "He told me once that he hated himself because he kept hurting the people around him." Gasps sounded throughout the room. "I informed him that accidentally hurting someone wouldn't make him a monster..." She glowered at the notebook. "Now, I know that he didn't believe me." Silence reigned throughout the house.

It hurt, but it made sense. There were so many signs. Signs that had been missed or ignored because Twoie was just grown-up Steven, right? And Steven was sunshine incarnate. Thus, few really noticed the changes that Twoie was going through. They could've helped him before it got this bad. And that was what made it so much worse.

"What do we do now?" Bismuth quietly asked everyone.

Steven stood up, brows furrowed in determination. "When Twoie was chasing Lion and me, there were moments where it looked like Twoie recognized me." He looked around the room. Everyone here had been helped by Twoie in some way. And everyone cared about him. "If we can make Twoie realize that he's wrong about himself, then he'll uncorrupt!" Everyone else smiled. They could still save Twoie. Everyone matched Steven's determined gaze with their own as the kid continued speaking. "We need to go back to the Galaxy Warp and remind Twoie of all of the good things that he has done. We have to show Twoie how much we care about him."