(Amedot AU) How to Fit Your Heart in a Petri Dish

Act One - Scene Ten: Alone Together / Jenny

In the mind of a child in an unhealthy situation, there are two main times of life: a normal schedule, which is living in harmony and at least overall nonconflict with their host family; or Events. Peridot called them Events, at least. An Event could be anything from a fight to a power shift to an economic recession — a negative happening that disrupted the scheduled order of things and threatened her relationship with the people involved.

In Family One, there had been a couple Events that were never big save the last, when the patron and matron had divorced through no acclaimed fault of Peridot's own, but due to money struggles which may have tied back to her. Family Two had an ominous lack of Events but there was always something in the other children's wide, docile eyes that suggested the fear of what might be. On the contrast, Family Three had too many, and she had spent many a night curled in bed with stinging skin and wet eyes; Family Four had a similar amount but in milder consequence,and spread among their other seven children. She had learned by then to not get involved. Family Five had taken her as a charity case and there were few Events except the last, a fight so taxing on the parents that Peridot and the other children of the family had once been left at school for five hours after it ended because the parents refused to communicate with each other and assumed the other had taken the children home. Family Six only ever had small Events, mostly between Yellowtail and Sour Cream, and none involving her.

Peridot always hoped she could hide an Event in the days that followed, putting all her work into making sure that no one would ask why she looked worse than usual, into an emotionless face and a colder disposition. She almost never could. Well, for one, she was a terrible actor; for two, Events had always taken place within the host family and sometimes had a "don't you ever dare tell no one about this, little brat" tacked on; for three, she had never had this many acquaintances or observant people in her life.

When she had come home from Amethyst's, Vidalia instantly knew something was wrong and brought a mug of hot cocoa up to Peridot's bedroom, asked, "You wanna talk about it?" and nodded in understanding when Peridot shook her head. At dinner, she barely noticed that she wasn't eating until Onion put a napkin on her hair and patted her shoulder twice — an unconventional gesture, but the message was understood. Most effective was Sour Cream's offer, passed across the kitchen table the next morning in the form of black stereo headphones.

"I dunno what's going on, man," he said, "but these always help me. They've got killer bass."

They did have killer bass.

She wore them from her first step outside the house to the second she entered the girls' locker room for first hour P.E., because doing so meant she had to pass by Coach Jasper's office and nearly collided with the giant woman as she walked out reading something on a clipboard. "S — sorry," Peridot said automatically and tried to keep going to her gym locker, but then Jasper said something that filtered enough past her headphones to make her push them back and turn around.

"I know that look," Jasper Dominguez-Lazuli frowned in understanding. "You've either just lost a lottery ticket or a boyfriend. Girlfriend. Er. However you swing."

Peridot was too tired to care — she had stayed up until ten P.M. studying and wasted three more hours on YouTube watching Game Theory and Let's Read Homestuck. A stupid move, and she had known it at the time too, but she had been too frustrated with everything to care. All she'd wanted was to drown herself by that point, be it in real water or the mindless depths of the Internet. Instead of engaging Jasper's well-meant comment, she shook her head mutely and went to her locker. Later in the cardio room, she glanced up from the elliptical to see the coach watching her, a concerned look on her face, and then realized that she had been barely moving her legs at all.