"Are you sure you'll be okay with the children, Rose?" asked Pearl as she put on her scarf. Pearl and her husband Onyx were heading out on a date together and so were the other gems in their group of friends. Jasper was coming by to drop off her children, Lapis and Peridot, while Amethyst and her husband Dr. Soren were coming to leave behind their child Sunny.
"I'll be fine, Pearl." smiled the taller gem. "You know I love children. Besides I've had practice with caring for your daughter and Steven."
"I know but I don't know. You're caring for 6 children and things might get out of hand." said Pearl. She didn't want to over-whelm her leader.
"She'll be fine, Pearl." said Onyx placing an arm around his wife. "She's your leader and lead multiple assaults on the homeworld. She can handle a few kids."
"You're right. I just don't want you to overwork yourself." said Pearl. "Alright, well call us if you need anything."
"Have a great time you two!" said Rose waving at the two as left.
Rose went into the living room and watched her wards playing together. Steven was piling up pillows on top of each other while Pearl's daughter was making a fort of pillows with the pillows Steven was piling up. Rose smiled at the pair of them. "What are you two doing?"
"Making a pillow fort." said Steven coming over to his mother. "We're gonna play in it!"
"It looks really nice."
"It's gonna be bigger." said Steven spreading out his arms. "Like this big, but bigger, like the size of daddy's van!"
"Oh that's really big!" said Rose. "Does that mean it's big enough for Lapis, Peridot, and Sunny?"
"They're coming over too?" Steven's eyes widened at this. "Wait, why is Sunny coming?"
"Her mommy and daddy are going out to spend some time together." said Rose. Steven frowned at this. Sunny and Steven had never gotten along with each other. Usually a confrontation between the two ended in either tears or the two fighting each other. Rose and Amethyst had wanted the two children to be friends, but due to Sunny's aggressive nature and her unknown reason for her her hate of Steven, the two were like cat and dogs despite the fact that Steven had tried making peace with her.
"Sunny's always mean to me." said Steven pouting.
"She's going to help me make cookies with me." said Rose.
"Can I help too?" said the little boy forgetting about the child once cookies were mentioned.
"Hm, I've got a better idea. How about I leave you to be in charge of the other children?" asked Rose smiling at her child. "They're probably going to miss their parents a lot, so you can make sure they feel at home when they get here. If you do a good enough job, you can lick the mix out the bowl."
"Ok!" Steven went back over to the pillow fort.
When the doorbell rang, Rose went over to the door. Jasper was at the door with her mate, Calcite, and had her two children with her as well as their baby, Pietersite. Lapis was behind Jasper, clinging onto her mother's leg. Peridot ran up to the large gem in front of her. "Auntie Rose!"
"Hello there, Peridot." Rose squeezed the little gem. "Is it just me or have you gotten bigger since I've last seen you?"
"I grew two inches last night." Peridot said proudly.
"Steven's in the living room, why don't you go in there and play with them for a bit?" Peridot nodded and ran into the living room. A few minutes later she came back and went over to her parents, gave them kisses, said her good-byes, and ran back into the living room.
"Mama, I don't wanna go!" said the little blue gem to her mother.
"Lapis, come on, we've talk about this." said Jasper sounding a bit irritated with her child.
"I don't wanna go!" Lapis cried wiping her eyes. "Why can't I go with you and daddy?"
"We need some time alone together." said Calcite gently stroking his daughter's hair. "We'll be right back. It's only few a few hours, dear. We'll call you whenever we can."
"But what if you forget?"
"Then call us."
"You won't mind?"
"I promise. Now go on and play. Steven's home."
"S-steven?" Lapis turned a pink.
The little gem had a crush on Rose's son and it was defiantly no secret although little Steven seemed oblivious to it. Lapis was a shy girl, but around Steven she seemed to act a little differently when closely observed. She was slowly but surely starting to get a bit more brave, although she was still pretty shy. She liked Steven's confidence and friendly nature. Before she met Steven, she was afraid of just able everything and stuck around closer to her mother not wanting to be around children her own age. After meeting him, she was a bit more outspoken and spoke to other more than she used to. Jasper would often joke with Rose that the two of them would probably in-laws in the distant future.
Lapis quickly said good-bye to her parents, gave them kisses, and scooted off. Jasper smiled. "Now that this situation is over, we should go. Maybe with Steven around, we won't have our date interrupted. Thank heaven for your boy, Rose."
"She really does like him. He tends to bring out the best in people." said Rose.
"We'd better go. Thank you for taking care of the children." said Calcite handing over their sleeping son and his bag full of his and his sister's things. "We'll try not to stay out too long."
"No, no. Take as much time as you would like." said the pink haired gem waving her hand in dismissal. "Have fun."
After placing up the children's thing, the doorbell rang. It was Amethyst. "Sorry we're late. Soren had to go back to his lab and drop off some papers. I had to take my own car here and you know that thing takes forever to start."
"You're not late." said Rose looking at her watch that Greg had given her for their anniversary. "This is the time you said you'd be here.
"What? For real?" the younger gem looked surprised. "That's weird. Well here's Sunny. Now remember what you promised, Sunny. No biting, no kicking, no fighting..."
"Yeah, yeah I know." the half-gem rolled her cold blue eyes at her mother.
"Don't talk to me like that! You're going to end up making me act like Pearl and lecture you for an hour!" said the purple gem. Sunny just puffed up her cheeks at her mother. "Are you sure you won't mind looking after her?"
"I'm sure. Besides, I've got something fun planned for the two of us." said Rose smiling down at the little girl.
"Two? I don't have to play with Steven?"
"Nope. We're making cookies together!"
"I love cookies!" said the little girl bouncing up and down. "Let's go!"
"Well have fun." said Amethyst. She hopped back into her car and headed down the road rather quickly.
Rose set up the baby in Steven's old crib and placed down the baby monitor before heading downstairs with Sunny ahead of her. Hopefully the night would go peacefully. With the children playing in the living room and Sunny with her, perhaps the night wouldn't go as badly as Pearl thought it would. Rose knew she could handle this. Since things were going well so far, hopefully it would stay that way until their parents got back.
