"Garnet!" Steven shouted, stumbling down the staircase with Connie in tow, frantically waving a mobile phone. "Quick - you have to pretend to be my mom to Connie's mom!"

Uh, sure?

Wait, Ruby, let me handle it-

Garnet took the proffered phone. "Hello. This... is Mom Universe." I said let me handle it! Relax, I got this. Evidently not. She adjusted her visor., her voice remaining steady. "Yes, the children are playing swords." Oops. I can fix it, I can fix it! "Sorry - playing with swords. They're bleeding. Oh no, they are dead." Gah, she's asking follow-up questions! Of course she is! Let's just end this. "Don't call here again."

She hung up the phone, calmly ignoring Dr Maheswaran's budding outburst. Steven stood beside her, white in the face. Connie looked slightly nauseous. "Sorry, I panicked."

The children hesitated, clearly expecting a further explanation. When none came, Connie sighed, taking the phone from Steven. He followed her as she hurried outside, tapping in her mother's number as she went. Once the door was closed, Garnet shuddered; in a flash of white light, she separated. For a moment, neither gem spoke, staring blankly in front of them. Sapphire folded her legs beneath her carefully, while Ruby nervously tapped the back of the couch.

Finally, the red gem spoke. "So... that went well."

Sapphire let her head fall into her hands. "We're horrible mothers."

"No, no!" Ruby wrapped an arm around her lover. "We're not horrible mothers, just horrible liars!"

"I suppose." The blue gem leaned into the embrace. "After all, we both love Steven."

"Exactly! We love him, and we look out for him. That's what really matters in a mom." Ruby nodded in self-satisfaction, reclining against the couch. A second later, her face pinched again. "Connie's mom'll be cool about it, right?"

"You told her the children bled to death."

"Because you brought up the sword thing!" Waving her arms in the air, Ruby huffed in frustration. "What was I supposed to do?"

Despite her level voice, Sapphire was also beginning to fidget. "Not get involved, because we know full well that you're awful under pressure?"

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are."

"Okay I am, but you weren't any better!" By this point, the ridiculousness of the situation was dawning on Ruby, and she felt laughter bubble in her abdomen. She threw herself back against the couch, slumping into Sapphire's shoulder. "'Don't call here again' was really helpful, by the way."

"I had to get her off the phone before you made it any worse," Sapphire giggled, "Mom Universe."

"What? It's not like I could say she was called Rose Qua- Oh, wait." Ruby stiffened, then sighed. "Rose could probably be a human name too, couldn't it?"

"It could." Brushing her hair aside, Sapphire shifted closer. "Though I suppose playing tag would have been less alarming than playing swords."

Snorting, Ruby tugged the blue gem into her lap. "I guess this is gonna come back and bite us, huh?"

Sapphire nodded into her shoulder. "I don't think we'd need future vision for that... We shouldn't have taken that phone call."

Yet again, the room was enveloped in a bright light, erasing everything else from view. When it faded, Garnet was whole, positioned on the couch exactly as she had been prior. She chuckled to herself in the silence, and summoned her visor again. "To be fair, maybe they just shouldn't have lied in the first place." She began to rise, intending to check on the bubbled gems in the Burning Room, when a strange future made itself known to her. Two faces. Six arms. Rollercoasters and apple farms. A lot of breadsticks. Something involving a bus.

She groaned. "I should have come up with a better excuse."

Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe. Also, the inspiration from this came from a Tumblr post; if you google 'sorry i panicked garnet', you should see the one I mean. Now all I can think about is Ruby and Sapphire reacting to things Garnet's said... I wish they would make some internet shorts on that. Seeing how bad a lair Ruby is just makes some of Garnet's lines so much better.

Thank you for reading!