Chapter Text

Steven heard crying coming from the fry stand.

Steven had been having a normal morning up until then. Everything seemed fine. But the moment he heard that, his heart sank.

He peeked into the service window.

“Peedee?” Steven asked.

There was no answer. It was dark inside, even though the sign said “Open.”

He heard another sob.

Steven felt his stomach sour. Something was clearly very wrong here.

Steven looked to the door that said “Employee’s Only.” He glanced down the boardwalk for only a moment before he opened it a crack.

There was another sob right before Steven heard Peedee’s voice.

“--I know, Jeff. I know,” Peedee whispered.

Steven’s eyes went wide as he pushed through the door.

In the darkness of the fry stand, Steven saw Jeff, a friend he met at Connie’s school, sitting in a folding chair by the fryer. His face was buried in his hands.

Peedee sat across from him in another chair, his hand gently resting on Jeff’s shoulder.

They hadn’t even noticed Steven was there.

“Jeff?” Steven said.

Peedee’s head whipped towards Steven. Jeff looked up, his eyes red and puffy.

“Oh ... Steven,” Jeff said, rubbing his eyes. His voice was hoarse. “W-what are you doing here?”



“I ... are you okay?” Steven asked.

Jeff didn’t answer, only stared back at Steven.

“Jeff, what’s wrong?” Steven whispered.

Jeff just shook his head. He sniffed, then stood up from the chair.

“I’m ... I need to go home,” Jeff said.

Peedee’s eyes were wide.

“Jeff, you don’t have to--”

“I know, just ...” Jeff’s voice sounded not just sad, but empty.

“Jeff ...” Peedee said.

He leaned in, but Jeff turned his head away, not looking directly at Peedee.

“I’m sorry just ... not right now,” Jeff said. “I’ll call you later.”

“O-okay ...” Peedee said, backing up. He looked as if he would say something else, but ultimately didn’t.

Jeff’s eyes were glued to the floor as he walked past Steven towards the exit.

Steven frowned. He felt like he had to say something.

“Hey, um ... Jeff?” Steven said.

Jeff turned his head back, but didn’t look Steven in the eye.

“I ... don’t know what’s going on, but I hope you feel better,” Steven said sweetly. “I’m sure tomorrow will be better.”

Jeff just gave Steven a sad look.

“Wanna bet?” Jeff said.

Steven cringed, feeling like he said the wrong thing. He wanted to apologize, but by then Jeff had left, shutting the doore behind him.

Once Jeff left, Steven heard a terrible clatter behind him.

He turned around to see Peedee had kicked over one of the chairs. His fists were clenched.

“Peedee ...” Steven said, but Peedee just kicked over the other chair.

“This is bullshit!” Peedee shouted, clutching at his hair. “I can’t believe it just ... GOD!”

Steven ran up to Peedee and placed his hand on his back.

“Hey, hey, come on,” Steven said. “Please, just tell me what’s wrong. Why was Jeff so upset?”

Peedee whipped around and grabbed Steven by the collar. Steven was so surprised he couldn’t even react. The look in his eyes ... Steven had never seen Peedee that angry.

“What do you think?!” Peedee shouted. “He’s upset about the news!”

“The ... huh?” Steven said.

“You know what I mean!”

Steven blinked and shook his head even as Peedee’s grip remained strong.

“N ... not really, no,” Steven said.

Peedee’s expression softened a bit. He gently lowered Steven to the floor.

“You ... you seriously don’t know?” Peedee said, astonished. “You don’t watch the news?”

“Well ... my TV’s been broken so many times, I can barely get it to display anything half the time!” Steven said, straightening his shirt.

Peedee shook his head, still reeling.

“So you don’t know about ...” Peedee trailed off.

“About what?” Steven asked. “Please, I just ... I want to know what’s wrong.”

Peedee was silent for a minute. He took a deep breath, then exhaled through his mouth. He rubbed his face.

“Okay ...” Peedee sat one of the folding chairs up. “Sit down.”

Over the course of the next hour, Steven listened patiently as Peedee explained a lot of recent events.

What the troubling news was.

And what that meant.

And what that might mean for Jeff and a lot of other people Steven cared about.

And all the things Jeff was worried might happen to him specifically.

When Peedee was finally finished, Steven stared at the floor, trying to process ... everything ...

“... that’s ... that’s a lot to be worried about,” Steven finally whispered.

“No. Kidding,” Peedee said, rubbing his forehead. “Jeff’s been like this off-and-on for days. Can’t really say I blame him.” Peedee paused for a minute, then said, “I ... I don’t even know what to tell him ...”

Steven rubbed his temple. He wasn’t even sure what to say. He wasn’t even sure how to feel, honestly. When he tried to imagine exactly how Jeff must be feeling, how it sounded like a lot of people were feeling, he felt sick to his stomach and his heart pounded in his chest. He felt dizzy, off-balance, like he had looked over the edge of a cliff and was about to fall. It didn’t seem real.

Steven shook his head.

“W-well,” Steven started, trying to find something to say, “I mean, m-maybe all that bad stuff won’t actually happen. Maybe everything will be alright.”

Peedee shot Steven a nasty look, but spoke in a restrained tone.

“I seriously doubt that,” Peedee said.

Steven stood up from the chair, managing a nervous smile.

“N-no, really, I mean ... maybe things will be fine,” Steven said.

“Steven,” Peedee said, his voice harsher. “Don’t--”

“No I mean, maybe we can just go to Jeff and tell him everything will be fine, that he shouldn’t worry and that things will work out and--”

“STEVEN!” Peedee shouted.

Steven cringed, surprised by the suddenness of Peedee’s outburst.

Peedee glared at Steven, his face flushing red, before he took another breath.

“Look,” Peedee said, his voice calmer but still shaky, “I get you’re trying to think of a way to make Jeff feel better and look on the bright side and ... whatever, I get all that. But the thing is whether you believe things will actually get as bad as Jeff thinks doesn’t matter. What matters is that it could and Jeff knows it could.” Peedee’s voice cracked more as he went on, speaking faster and faster. “And he's terrified and doesn't know what tomorrow is gonna bring, what the rest of his life is gonna be like and ... and telling someone it'll just be fine, like you're dismissing all those fears, like they don't even have a right to be afraid or sad, is not going to help them feel better!”

Steven stammered.

“I--I didn’t mean it like--”

“I know! Alright?!” Peedee shouted. “But still, I’m not gonna make Jeff feel like his feelings aren’t valid! It’s just ... God!” He started pacing back and forth, his fists still clenched. “I have so much anger and ... freaking disgust, I don’t even know what to do with it all! I just wanna hit something or-- I don’t even know--”

“Peedee--”

“I don’t know what to freaking do!” Peedee shouted.

Steven frowned. He’d never seen his friend so upset ... and just like Peedee, he wasn’t sure what to do.

Steven gulped.

“If ... if it’ll really make you feel better, you can hit me,” Steven said.

Peedee looked up at Steven.

“If-- if it’ll help at all,” Steven said.

Peedee stared for a second, mystified. He looked down at his fist and pulled it back.

Steven tightly shut his eyes and braced for impact, but it never came. A moment later, he opened one eye.

Peedee was turned away from Steven, looking at nothing.

“Just ...” Peedee muttered. “Just go, Steven. I ... I have to finish opening the shop.”

“Are you ... gonna be okay?” Steven asked.

“Just go home, Steven,” was all Peedee said.

Steven wanted to say more, but ... well, what even was there he could say?

He silently left the fry stand, but he couldn’t stop seeing Peedee and Jeff’s distraught faces in his mind.

Peedee was exactly right; just saying everything would be okay wouldn’t fix anything.

So Steven was determined to find exactly what could fix things ...

It didn’t take Steven long to find out it wasn’t that simple.

As soon as he got home, he rushed up to his room. Garnet was on a mission, Pearl and Amethyst were both out, so Steven had the house to himself.

He still had Connie’s laptop (which fortunately still worked even after Lion knocked it over the other week), so he immediately logged onto the internet.

Peedee’s explanation of why Jeff was upset seemed thorough, but Steven felt like he needed to know more. If he was going to try to help, he had to understand all of it.

So he read. And he read a lot. He read until he felt his heart pound thinking so much about it all. And then he read some more.

He read about all the issues, all the problems. Some of it went over his head, seemed too complicated; other parts of it seemed far less complicated than some people believed. He read stories from a lot of people who were scared, comments filled with people saying they were right and others saying they were completely wrong. He read about people who were angry, upset, numb, grasping just how troubled a lot of people were by everything that had happened ...

Steven read a lot.

None of what he read made him feel better.

And none of it gave Steven any idea of how to fix things. There wasn’t any single solution he could think of, no matter how much he tried.

Come on, he thought to himself, you’re the one with the magical destiny. There’s got to be something you can do!

But nothing came to him.

Steven leaned back from Connie’s laptop. He realized he had been staring at the screen aimlessly for a long time.

He felt like he should probably be hungry, but he didn’t feel like eating anything. He didn’t deserve to until he did something ...

Then, turning back to the laptop, he had an idea.

One of the things Steven loved to do most was make videos. He didn’t like to brag, but he had tens of subscribers on TubeTube. His unboxing and react videos were all well and good, but the video that was most popular was one where he sang a song about his feelings and urged people who were going through hard times to write a song too.

And it seemed to help people! He still got comments on that video. It seemed to make a difference in people’s lives ...

Maybe he could do that again.

Steven smiled as he reached into his nightstand and pulled out his camera. After a few minutes, he had his camera set up on his tripod, hooked into Connie’s laptop with the recording software running.

He sat down on the bed, looked into the camera, cleared his throat ...

And Steven opened his eyes, suddenly frowning.

His mind was a blank.

He couldn’t think of what to say that would make people feel better.

Steven shook his head.

T-that’s okay, Steven told himself. Making videos wasn’t always easy, especially ones that felt important. He just needed to focus and speak from the heart. That always worked.

He shut his eyes, took a breath, tried to focus ...

But all he could think of was Jeff and how upset he was this morning. When Steven tried to shake those thoughts out of his head, his mind then just drifted back to all the things he’d read, all the people saying how scared and uncertain they were ...

He opened his eyes.

He still had nothing.

Come on, think of something! Steven said, screaming at himself internally. If you can’t say something to make people feel happy, what is even the point of you?!

Steven felt a sob well in his throat, but he didn’t let it escape. He felt like he didn’t even deserve the relief that might come from crying.

After a few minutes, he sighed. He got up, turned off the recording software, and fell against the bed face-down. He didn’t even bother cleaning up his video stuff. It didn’t matter.

Nothing he did mattered.

He just laid there on the bed, unwilling to even move to a more comfortable position.

He had been lying for some time when he heard the screen door open and shut. He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, but he didn’t bother to look up.

He heard Pearl’s voice.

“Steven, I need your help,” Pearl said casually. “Sheena’s having a rough day and I’ve been trying for twenty minutes to figure out how you humans send those emotion-comm things on these phones, so could you--”

Pearl stopped. Steven could feel her eyes on him.

“Steven ...” Pearl said. Steven felt Pearl sit on the edge of his bed and brush his hand against the back of his head. “What’s wrong?”

He twisted his head up to see Pearl, her eyes wide with concern, her new cell phone placed gently in her lap.

Steven sighed and turned back over.

“What isn’t wrong?” Steven muttered.

“Um ...” Pearl cleared her throat. “Well, perhaps talking may help you feel better--”

Steven frowned.

“I would talk about it ... if I even knew what to say,” Steven said.

“I ...” There was a long pause. “I see.”

Steven waited for Pearl to say something else, but she didn’t. He felt her stand up from the bed. There were more footsteps then, from down the stairs, Steven could faintly hear Pearl dialing on her phone.

A moment later, he was just able to make out Pearl whispering, “Hello, Greg? It’s Pearl. Could ... could you do me a favor?”

Dad was over in minutes.

Steven hadn’t moved from the bed, but he heard the front door open and close. He spoke in hushed tones to Pearl, too quiet for Steven to make out.

He heard Dad come up the stairs. Steven twisted around on the bed to see his dad standing there, a nervous smile on his face.

“Hey, Stu-ball,” Dad said softly.

Steven couldn’t even muster up the energy to say anything. He felt ashamed Pearl was so worried she had to call Dad in the first place. Not only couldn’t he help other people, now he was inconveniencing others. Great.

Dad sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes still on Steven.

“So um ... Pearl says you’re pretty upset about something,” he said. “Wanna talk about it?”

Steven almost said no, but when he saw the sincere look in his Dad’s eyes, he couldn’t.

Steven groaned and sat up, his leg folded.

“I felt great today until I realized I have no control over the world,” Steven mumbled.

Dad blinked, then nodded.

“Oh,” he said. He frowned and scratched the back of his neck. “... this is about the news, isn’t it?”

“Yeah!” Steven said, speaking hurriedly in frustration. “I mean it’s not just that! It’s Jeff being upset and Peedee being upset and just--”

“Whoa whoa! Slow down.” Dad put his hands out. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

Steven took a breath and, as calmly as he could, explained everything that had happened that morning and everything he’d tried to do when he got home.

Dad didn’t speak much, just listened carefully. As bad as Steven felt, it did make him feel good that Dad actually listened.

When Steven finished, the first thing Dad said was, “I’m really sorry your friends are feeling so sad.”

“Yeah ... so am I ...” Steven said. He rubbed his forehead. “I’m a failure.”

Dad shook his head.

“What? No, Steven, you’re--”

“No, Dad, I am!” Steven said, shouting without meaning to, a scratchiness in his voice. “Things like this aren’t supposed to happen! It’s not okay! And I see Jeff and ... and so many other people upset and ...”

He found himself taking deep breaths, his eyes stinging.

“And I feel like there’s nothing I can do!” Steven said. “I don’t know what to say to make Jeff feel better or Peedee, even when I tried to make a video to get my feelings out I just didn’t know what to say! There’s nothing I can think of that helps!”

He clenched his fist, digging his fingernails into his palm.

“I feel helpless!” Steven said. “It’s not supposed to be this way! People shouldn’t have to be afraid like this! There has to be something I can do! There has to be some way I can fix this! I’m supposed to figure it out! I’m the one everyone says has a magical destiny, so there has to be something I can do, right?! There just has to be!”

“Steven, calm down,” Dad said gently. He reached out, but Steven skirted away from him.

“No! I have to fix this!” Steven felt tears in his eyes that wouldn’t stop. “I have to save everyone!”

Dad stared at Steven. Steven hung his head down.

“... I need to ...” Steven whispered.

Dad was silent. Finally, he sighed.

“You know, you sound a lot like your mom ...” Dad said.

Steven didn’t bother lifting his head up.

“I don’t feel like Mom. Mom actually made a difference,” Steven said.

Dad shook his head.

“She didn’t always see it that way,” Dad said. “Especially when she talked about the war and the corrupted Gems ...” He glanced down and gave a sad smile. “She wouldn’t always talk about it ... but sometimes she would say things like you just did. That she feels like she should be able to do more, that it was her responsibility to fix everything ...”

Steven glanced up at Dad.

“Really?” Steven said.

Dad nodded.

“Yeah ...” Dad rubbed the back of his head. “And I’m not a smart guy, I never quite knew what to say.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “I guess I felt like I should have been able to fix everything too. I just listened and let her know I’d be there for her and that I cared ...

“And one day she said how much she appreciated that I listened to her, when she got sad about that stuff. And I admitted I didn’t feel like I really did much because I didn’t, you know, magically make her not sad anymore.

“And your mom said, ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you tried. You did what you could to help. You let me know you were here. Even if that didn't solve the problem entirely, it still mattered to me.’

“And when she finished talking, her eyes went wide and she started laughing. And she said, ‘I suppose even after all this time I’m still awful at taking my own advice.’”

Steven listened, speechlessly, as Dad continued.

“So every time one of us felt sad about stuff like that," Dad said, "we’d remind ourselves of every little bit helps, that just doing everything you can to help makes a difference.”

Dad looked Steven in the eyes.

“These kind of things aren’t ‘all or nothing,’ kiddo,” Dad said. “Just because you can’t change everything you want to doesn’t mean what you do try to do doesn’t matter. Sometimes just showing you’re there for someone can mean the world to someone. Even if it doesn’t feel like enough to you, it’ll matter to them.”

Steven gave a sad smile and rubbed his eyes. He reached over and hugged his father.

“... thanks, Dad,” Steven said. “I think I know what to do now. That ... that really helped.”

“Hey, see what I mean?” Dad said, hugging his son back and ruffling his hair.

Steven gave a short laugh, the first time he had laughed all day.

He kept hugging his dad as his thoughts felt clear for the first time in what felt like forever.

He thought of all the things he could do.

And then he finally thought of something to say to people ...

Steven stared at the camera, the recording software running. He sat with construction paper face down on his bed. He smiled.

“Hi everyone,” Steven said as gently as he could. “I was just making cards for some of my friends. I have two right now who’ve been pretty upset lately and um ...”

Steven took a breath.

“A-and so have I. I--I think maybe some of you out there might there might be feeling sorta like that too. You know ...”

Steven rubbed his shoulder.

“... sad. Or ... scared.” Steven lowed his voice. “Or maybe just that you don’t know what to think ...” He cleared his throat. “Even if you don’t feel that way, I’m sure you know someone who does. Maybe you just ... don’t know what to say to them. Or maybe you don’t even understand why they feel the way they do. That’s okay. I ... didn’t understand why my friends felt the way they did at first. But I listened and I ... I understand better now.”

Steven straightened up.

“Listen ...” Steven said softly. “I know there are a lot of things to worry about right now. And I know how easy it is to feel hopeless ... to feel like there’s nothing to smile about anymore.” Steven gave a humorless chuckle. “Acting as cheery as I do isn’t ... i-it isn’t always as easy as I make it look. It can be hard to keep going, sometimes. But you have to.”

Steven leaned close to the camera.

“You have to remember there’s always something you can do to help yourself and the people you care about! Maybe you can’t change everything you want to ... but that doesn’t mean what you do isn’t important just because it feels ‘small’! The smallest things can make a difference in people’s lives! Something as simple as hearing someone say they love you and care about you, having someone stand up for you when it’d be easy for them not to, knowing there are people who will be at your side no matter what, seeing people stand up for what’s right ... those things mean a lot to people ...

“So ... if you’re feeling like anything you could do is too small to matter, just know that’s not true. Do everything you can to make the world just a little brighter. And never stop. Never give up, never trick yourself into thinking what you do doesn’t matter, even if it gets really hard.

“Because if you never give up, you can never really fail ...”

Steven exhaled. He felt his eyes sting.

“Let me show you all what I’m working on,” he said. He held up the construction paper to the camera. “This is for my friend Jeff. I made him a card.”

Steven chuckled and turned the paper to himself.

“I’m not sure how well it shows up on camera but I drew a picture of him, me, and my other friend Peedee holding hands.” Steven’s voice cracked for a minute. “And then next to it I wrote, ‘No matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you. I’ll do anything I can to help. You’re my friend ... and I love you.’”

Steven put the card back down on the bed.

“And I mean that, too,” Steven said. “I’m not just going to say it ... I’m going to get up every day and do whatever I can to show that. Maybe it won’t make him feel better right away ... but at least he’ll know he isn’t alone.”

Steven nodded.

“Well ... I have to make a card for Peedee now. I just ... really wanted to get some of that off my chest. I hope this video has helped some of you, even if it was just a little.” Steven gave a sweet smile. “Just ... go out and try to be the best person you can be and show people you care. I know you can do it. I think deep down you know it too.

“Thanks for listening. I love you.”

And with that, Steven stopped the recording.