Camp Universe

At about nine in the morning, Greg Universe came into his son's house with a paper bag. The bag contained two plain donuts and one jelly donut in case the first wasn't enough. In his head, he hoped that Steven might still be asleep, adjusting to a new bed and a new home. Watching his child rest peacefully was one of the many little gifts he hadn't anticipated when he became a parent.

"Steven?"

The man's voice was gentle, tempered. Excitement tingled around his call, but he had to restrain himself just in case his son was indeed dreaming. He brushed crumbs and sugar from the cuff of his sweater. The house was quiet without any of the Gems around, and Steven was being quieter himself. Greg couldn't even hear his breathing.

Greg took to the stairs and padded upwards, his smile turning into a curious little frown as he saw the empty bed. A few possibilities bubbled up and dissipated quickly with the clues that the boy had left behind. At first, he thought Steven had gone down to the beach, but there was the case of the little bank left on the boy's nightstand. Steven's spare change was vanished, the cork uncorked and the porcelain pig on its side. In a case like this Greg might have thought his son would have been at the Big Donut, but he had just been there and Steven was nowhere to be found. The boy had been told, presumably, and mornings with dad almost always meant donuts when Greg could scrape up a couple bucks for it.

His child was gone, and his child's money was gone. Greg forced himself to breathe as the worst-case scenarios played out. The same active imagination that helped him plan for Steven's future was the same one now helping him see Steven tied up in the back of a windowless van headed for a back-alley surgeon's office. No, that was too extreme, too horrific to be realistic. Realism was keeping him grounded. Detective skills had to be put in place of parenting ones to see where the boy had gone.

By the time Greg decided to look in the closet and the kitchen for clues, Steven had crossed his first state line.

The closet door was ajar. There were heaps of spare clothing and winter belongings, boots and boxes and all manner of toys the boy no longer played with. Greg saw his old snowshoeing clothes from two decades ago, but not the bag that they had been stored in. One large duffel, gone – so Steven had packed. Or at least, he had used a bag for a purpose his father couldn't quite place yet.

Each jar had been put away, but Greg could see on the edge of the kitchen sink where a peanut-butter covered knife rested as well as the napkin where Steven had wiped off the jelly. One was much easier to clean off utensils than the other. There were no plates.

It was paranoid to admit it, but Greg had to presume that Steven had run away. The reasons were unimportant and the end result of today was the same. His child was no longer in the house, his guardians were away on some ambiguous adventure, and there were signs that would lead a more suspicious man to already be making posters and calling the police.

Greg didn't even stop as he ran out the door to get back to the van. How far had Steven gone, and where was he going? The man was certain that not a single person in this town would help his son hitchhike, and he smart enough not to get into a car with strangers.

Think. Greg slammed the vehicle onto the side-street as he tried to remember where the police station was. Security footage, or some stranger's report, or some incidental happenstance – there had to be a means of getting information regarding Steven's whereabouts. It was on his way down towards the metropolitan area that he saw the bus stop. Immediately, he pulled over and jumped out of his van.

The schedules and the maps were several years old, but the routes were updated as much as they needed to be, and if everything went according to how buses should run, all the stops were still in use. There was no telling what could happen if there was even a slight alteration. Wherever Steven ended up, Greg could call in some rangers, some rescuers, some kind of help to get his son back into his arms. There were routes that ran out of state, even out of the time zone. The fees were fairly expensive, though, and it would have cost Steven all his spare change to get to the end of the line. Running away usually meant getting as far as possible from your home, right? Greg had no idea.

He had to start at the source. Whoever was running the line to the farthest destination would have noticed a young boy getting on by himself. So, that was the plan – get to the bus depot, find out who was driving, and see if they had seen Steven. But what if they were still going? Greg realized that it was going to be impossible to contact the driver while they were driving. He should have gotten Steven a cell phone so he could call the boy in emergencies like this. But then again, he would have left it at home if he was running away.

When Greg went to open the door back to his van, he couldn't get a grip. His fingers were shaking from stress and the exhaustion forced upon him. The man collapsed against the side of his home, sliding to the gravel and cigarette butts below.

His only son was missing. His only child had run away from home. All he could do was put his face in his hands and wish that this was a horrible dream. The weight of possibilities forced tears from his eyes and down his palms, collecting on the edge of his sweater and staining the yarn. Every voice in his head screamed for him to get up and do something, but at the mere thought of moving, his body vibrated and shook and hissed in retaliation against wasting precious energy. Warring reactions twisted his stomach, a sea of nausea rising in his gullet. It took several harrowing minutes for the man to let his hands slump down, glistening with exertion. Greg's head rang with echoes, but the tumult of adrenaline had somewhat muted itself, torn asunder by its own energy.

He didn't realize he was driving until after he had pulled up to the police station. His parking was decent, and he didn't bother to lock the van or fix his appearance. The world had been a haze of sorrow and uncertainty, and it had propelled him forward as only life could. Greg felt the passage of several years in a matter of a half-hour. He pushed open the door with both hands.

At the time of his arrival to the police, Steven was approximately one hour away from the last stop.

"Sir?"

Greg was the only civilian inside the station. The man came up to the desk quietly as the receptionist paused his notes.

"Sir, can I help you?"

"My… It's my son. He's…"

He put his fist up to his mouth, choking back the renegade emotions that threatened his words. He forced himself to breathe, and he forced himself to finish the sentence. Both eyes remained shut; his nerves were too shot to make human contact quite yet.

"My son ran away from home, and I think he took a bus out of state. He's eight years old. His name is Steven."

The receptionist pulled a notepad out and began to write. He looked up to the crying man and swallowed, pretending to ignore the tears running into his goatee.

"Your name, sir?" he asked.

"Greg Universe."

"And your son, Steven – "

"Also Universe."

The next moments were uncomfortably silent as the other man scribbled information down before typing something on his computer. Bureaucratic intricacies numbed Greg's ears as he waited for any kind of response to what he had just relayed. After an excruciating few seconds, the receptionist took a breath.

"I send a relay to our local branch, with the possibility of contacting Delmarva SAR, and we're getting one of our northern connections ready in case of an…incident," he finished carefully. "All our officers are out of the building but we should be having one come in in a matter of minutes."

Both men paused as the ticking of the wall clock overtook the atmosphere. The receptionist paused as he waited for some kind of response from Greg.

"Would you like some tea?"

Five minutes later, both of them were sitting side-by-side in the silence of the office building with ceramic mugs of black tea. The receptionist's mug was black with a 90's pop-art sun and moon colliding and the name of a local theatre production in scribbled red and yellow. Greg's mug was plain white with a scratched and faded photograph of a seahorse. Greg finally looked over from his tea to his companion. He was in his early thirties and clean-shaven, with a slicked-down business haircut and the remnants of a summer tan. His lanyard said his name was Noah.

Noah tapped his boots on the ground and hunched forwards. It was evident that he didn't know how to deal with situations quite like this. Greg wished that he had never had to. Numbers, schedules, redirection – those things were easy. People were hard. Greg knew he was being hard. He didn't have a choice.

Greg opened his mouth to start a chain of small talk to get their minds off the silence. As soon as his lips parted, the doors slid open and a man in a hat came through. He was a tall, black, and seemed just as exhausted as Greg was. Dusty tennis shoes and his lean profile betrayed his pastime as a runner. His hat was tan, with a cross-stitched pine tree whose roots spread into the shape of an arrowhead with the letters D.S.R.A. in bright red. White stubble accented his taut cheekbones. A navy windbreaker ruffled as he turned to Greg.

"Mr. Universe," he said, terse but affirmative. "My name is James Glenn, and I'm from a local nonprofit search and rescue team. Can we step into the conference room?"

The conference room seated three people comfortably. James and Greg sat across from one another in plastic chairs, with Greg's tea and James' paperwork on the foldout table. The neutral tans and dark greens of the dusty room fit a wilderness aesthetic not dissimilar to the one Steven was starting to pass into on his ride. James had brought along officially stamped notices and some maps, a schedule, pages of tiny font that Greg couldn't decipher if he had all the time in the world. Each second that passed reminded him that he didn't have that time. His son didn't have that time. James cleared his throat.

"Mr. Universe – Greg – in this instance, there are a couple options that we can consider to help locate your child. Considering the nature of his location and travel, our closest option would be to ask for the assistance of the NTWC, or maybe – "

"Wait, sorry," Greg mumbled. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple. "The who?"

"Northern Tristate Wilderness Club. They're our neighbors to the north, helping out with much of the inland search and rescue as well as hiking maintenance for southern Keystone and parts of western Delmarva."

Search and rescue. That was a phrase Greg had never thought he'd have to hear in his lifetime, at least not concerning his child. He suspected that there were a few more names with which he would be familiar before the day was done. Both his hands forced their way around the warm mug, gripping gently.

"The NTWC is one option," James continued. "However, Noah mentioned that you said your son might be out of state. Do you happen to know where he might have gone?"

Only a series of numbers and map markers brushed against Greg's memory; he didn't know where the bus was actually headed. From his expression, James nodded and brought out his phone. Each staccato tap on the screen seemed to vanish into the air, sounds so meager and unnecessary that the room ate them up. Still, everything seemed to ring in Greg's ears. His mind was still catching up to reality.

"Okay." James pushed his phone across to the man who pretended to read it. "The schedule and route drops our farthest point here, past Manchester via Candia, before the bus loops around Nottingham. A year ago and we would be looking at a detour to North Hampton, but apparently it just goes south on 93 now that there's coastal infrastructure."

"You got all that from one search?"

James rolled his tongue around his lower lip before he spoke, reaching over to take his phone back.

"Greg, we have to keep in the running with some of the problems outside of our jurisdiction. Northeastern search and rescue is a highly divisive and politicized area of work. Your son isn't the first child to cross state lines, and there have been cases where we've had to look up routes like this before for trains, for taxis, for damn private aircrafts. And if there happen to be problems between law enforcement and the National Park Service, or Fish and Game, or whoever, then it will take longer for them to find someone ten miles away than it would for us to drive up five hours. Does that make sense?"

It absolutely did not make sense. When there were lives at stake, did these people just sit around and snap at each other until someone filed paperwork? The numbness around Greg's mind started to fade into rage at the thought that his child might die because of internal politics. His knuckles cracked around the mug as he forced a neutral expression and nodded.

"Good."

James rifled around his paperwork for a moment.

"Fortunately, I've got family in the White Mountains," he began, "an in-law working with the outdoor council. Used to teach camping safety to tourists. We keep contact so as to avoid those conflicts – not that there was much between Delmarva and them anyway. I'll give them a call with the details we have so far."

He turned the paper over and pulled a pen from the inside of his jacket pocket.

"What physical characteristics can you tell us about your child? Do you know what he might have been wearing at the time he left?"

Of course he knew. He knew everything about Steven, every detail, every smile and every star that had shone in his eyes. Greg forced some tea inside his mouth, letting the undissolved sugar slip onto his tongue from the bottom before he swallowed and spoke.

"He's…Steven's about four-ten, sixty pounds, pretty stocky. He's got black, curly hair and dark brown eyes. He always wears a red t-shirt, bright red with a big yellow star on the front, and his blue jeans rolled up just a bit and those red sandals – "

"Okay, good, good…"

James clicked the pen shut and began to stand. Greg cleared his throat and finished his tea in one gulp, raising a hand to stop him. The ranger paused and started to reach for his pen.

"I want to search with them."

"That's almost an eight-hour drive, are you – "

But he didn't even have to finish his sentence to know that Greg was sure. Instead, he nodded and found another paper, tearing off the bottom edge and scribbling down names and numbers before handing it back over.

"This is the number for Ricky, Ricky Paul, with the council. I'll tell him you're coming and you can call if you need as well. In the meantime, I'll see if I can arrange for him to get people together. It's training season, so hopefully they're coming out of the woodwork and off the Appalachian. What's a good number to reach you at?"

"I don't have a mobile phone, sir."

"You understand that's going to make rendezvous a little difficult."

"I understand. Sorry."

"No, it's just – something good to have when you're travelling. I assume you can use a map or the routes themselves."

"I know bus lines. I've traveled."

"Alright, good."

James paused and looked down at Greg one more time. All the words of sympathy couldn't push past his lips. Nothing he could say could penetrate Greg's silent, frustrated stare. The lengths of his hair were tangled and dry. Wrinkles crossed underneath his eyes and worked their way into the tired corners of his mouth. Salt and dead skin speckled the edges of his beard. Even when he stood, he appeared much older than he was, weighed down by the world that had been made for him.

Steven was the only thing on his mind. As he walked out of the conference room with James leading the way, he could only think of Steven. When James and Noah started to discuss the possibilities of scheduling conflicts and the officers who might change shifts in the coming day, he could only think of Steven. While James offered low words of support and sympathy as he walked Greg out to his van, while the ranger sincerely wished for the best, while he spoke of loss and love and survival, Greg turned the statements to a blur and he thought of Steven.

He had filled up the gas tank before the day had begun. If he knew the van, he could make it up with one more stop, assuming there was nothing impeding him between this place and his child. Greg pulled out of the police station with James behind him on his cell phone, leaning against his own car as he watched the Universe van pull onto the main road.

At the moment Greg passed the bus stop where Steven had first gotten on, the child was taking his first step into the wilderness.

Delmarva was flatter once the drive ebbed out of the coast and into the mainland. The sea air still clung inside the van, but outside the city limits the air was dryer and replaced with the vaguely oilslick scent of industry. The highway stretched along for hundreds of miles before Greg, joined by fast cars and slow trucks, each of their own variety of shiny and broken, like insects trapped in a windowsill blown by the autumn winds. The highways were beset on all sides by grass upwards of three feet tall, dying and bent from the breezes of vehicles, choking on the smog. Above them, Delmarva was spotted with stray clouds, each one unsure of its time to block out the sun.

Greg passed through the tunnels and over the cracks of the eastern bay area. Breaks in the untamed trees and wilds brought about a landscape beset by monolithic concrete. Buildings were emblazed with names still profitable and those lost and ready to be demolished, their markers no longer of any use to the world. Under an impartial sun, Greg drove on. The twisted metal grates told no stories, merely showing the dents and garbage cluttering their snakelike paths alongside the road. Bird corpses and fast food boxes each made sudden, violent twists with each passing axel, blown around until they joined the infinite flatness of the blacktop.

The silence was horrible, and there was no other choice. After about an hour and a half, Greg crossed over Delmarva state lines. The buildings grew larger and more ostentatious, a bump in the civilized world and an increase in traffic. Any music that he reached for reminded him that he was listening alone. The sounds of the eighteen-wheelers blowing by were hollow and terrifying. Greg forced himself to breathe as the panic of his isolation set it.

Steven was out there, alone. He had always been fine with his independence, but he had always had a place to come back to. There was nothing now. There, another piece to this puzzle, another misshapen, razor-lined piece that sliced up his fingers as it slid into place. If Steven were to come back, then he would have no place to be. He could hang around until the Gems came back, but even then none of them would know where Greg had gone. The man had vanished onto the highway without telling anyone where he was going.

Decisions pulled on his lungs and forced the air out. He could go back, but if Steven was still alone there, then he wouldn't have his father or any help when he was rescued. But Greg actually didn't know if Steven needed rescuing at all. He could be in the city, at a diner, eating a hamburger and making jokes with the cashier for all he knew. The bus stop, though, the bus stop wasn't anywhere near a city. Was it? Did he remember?

Two hours in, Greg forced himself off the highway into a rest stop parking lot on the outskirts of a borough he couldn't pronounce. There was one sedan, an abandoned German car with the hood open, and him. As he pulled into the far parking lot, he screamed.

He screamed his frustration out in harsh, hoarse cuss words he hadn't repeated for over a decade. He screamed animal noises of rage and sorrow, hatred at his own plan and his own idiocy. He screamed for his own physical release as the tension left his body, pulsing up the length of his neck until he felt the muscles twist and the blood rush to his cheeks. He screamed for his son, for somebody, for the sake of screaming because all the power he had had in his life had been taken out by one child, and it sickened him to his core. He screamed out of the fear that the one human he loved more than any creature in reality was injured, sick, or lost, and he was so far away from reaching out and healing all the pain that Steven was living through in the man's head.

Keep going.

Greg forced his door open and stumbled out of the van with the bile already rising. He practically spat the vomit over the sidewalk, choking on his tongue. The man retched and released a slew of pale brown sickness, falling to his knees as the nausea took hold. Stress had not just invaded his muscles, but had begun to wring out his stomach. He choked and spat and forced himself alive again. He was on his hands and knees, shaking on the ground, with a puddle of his sick in front of him dripping into the grass.

Dad?

No, it wasn't real. He wasn't far gone enough to mistake his memories for reality. Still, his child's voice rang truer than his panting, louder than the engines roaring on the highway. The numbness in Greg's ears had once been his thoughts and his panic in a cyclonic cancel. Now, the silence was punctuated by Steven's sighing, by his little hands on his father's shoulders, by the genuine concern and love that graced the boy's every word.

Please, dad…

Pale, shaken, Greg started to feel the seconds. Each minutia of the day was plucked from his skin and taken into the sky. He stumbled to his feet, grabbing onto his van, forcing his way back to his feet. This world would not take away his paternity. There was nothing on heaven or earth that would stop him from being a father. As long as he was breathing, Greg would do anything for his son. For Steven. When he drove back, he would have a child in the front seat with him, sleeping and humming along to the songs they had played over and over again on the cassette deck.

The ghosts stopped as he climbed back into the front seat and closed the door. Greg grabbed a bundle of paper napkins from the glove compartment and wiped his face and his beard. He popped the center console and took out a lukewarm bottle of water, drinking slowly as he mapped out his plot in his head.

Keystone was close. After that, there was the median in Jersey and the trek through the middle of Empire, and then up into Havenbrook, through to New Plymouth, and then to the White Mountain tristate region. Light from the northern sun was fading in his mind's eye; even now, it was lowering and the coastal wind was beginning to freeze the eastern seaboard. He needed exactly twelve dollars and fifty cents in tolls. Chipper robins and the occasional seagull rang in the dullness of the rest stop, accompanying the man's thoughts with the rumble of commuters.

There, on the road again. Greg did not know when he had pulled back onto the highway or when he had shifted into gear. All he knew was that he was driving and the world was quiet.

Keystone highways gripped the hills and furrowed the passageways, intrusive paths through the wetland swaths and forests. The hands of an ancient giant seemed to have pulled the routes around like yawn, to weave a tract of asphalt through what had once been a living world. Plaster and pine emerged from the suburban wasteland in graying pastel. Only the myrmidion cycles of cars and bicycles showed that anything human moved through these spaces. Streetlamp ribcages stretched from the eye to the horizon. The hordes of squeaking, honking, panicked men and women scurried underneath their curves. Gripped by the florescent and glass shadows, they passed from exit to exit like albino mice, eternally devoured by the great and long-dead snake that had stretched from the swamplands in the southernmost state up to the bitter frost of the White Mountains. In all that they had made, the human beings had created a story that a child could tell, where there were once great beings that had tromped and devoured and harvested the land, and it was now their corpses that housed and sheltered all that the tiny hands could infest. For when any being felt the grip of death in the places they called home, then they knew the truth – not as reality or history had dictated, but the truth that explained the inexplicable, the truth that sated the call for an answer shortly before they bowed before it, crushed and thankful for their insignificance.

Solace brought Greg comfort – not that he was alone, but that he knew he would no longer be alone when his time here was done. Anticipation pushed his foot onto the gas pedal and steered him into the far lane. Before he knew it, Empire began to loom ahead of him, a cradle of modernity surrounded by the swiftly graying American wasteland. Once he got out of the city, Greg knew he was halfway done with his trip. It was a matter of time.

At the time Greg was refueling the van and using the restroom, Steven was finishing the last touches on his lean-to wall before leaving it to dry.

Havenbrook began to show the signs of greenery that the northwest was desperately keeping alive. The passage through Empire and up the bay area showed Greg towns and times that were crystalized by salt, lost to him and useless to his journey. All of this was useless, with the exception of the signs and tolls draining his wallet and keeping him on the right path. Havenbrook was different, though. There was a change of atmosphere from the states where the suburbs reigned.

It was the beginning of nature that called to him. It had called to Steven in the same way, and in his heart, Greg knew that this was where his child had gone. Nature's allure was the last swath of wildflowers separating the two silver stripes of asphalt in the middle of what was once woodland. The trees were not casualties or besieged citizens, but curious purveyors, eyeless spectators to the cars below. Above Empire and Jersey, the land breathed. Belabored, invisible, it breathed.

As the hours passed and Greg moved into the state of New Plymouth, even the budding architecture felt different. Death and life had no bearing. The man forced himself to let go of the wheel as the philosophical atmosphere encroached upon him. But he shook it off and made himself focus on the road. Whatever liminal feelings were trying to attach themselves to him could never overtake the feelings he had about rescuing Steven.

New Plymouth showed the beginnings of the mountains, the bottom of the White Mountain region that gave this part of the world its name. The southernmost highways were nearly indistinguishable from Havenbrook or even Delmarva at a glance. Driving north showed the dips in the roadway, the places where ice had cracked and crumbled the blacktop and tar, the hairpin turns that took cars through the valleys and past untouched lakes. Greg drove on. His backside was aching with ten thousand needles and his legs were nearly numb. He had not eaten yet as the sun began to fall behind the clouds, threatening to collapse into the earth.

The moment that Greg crossed over the New Plymouth border into the tristate area, the light instantly began to disappear. In part, it was the trees and their immense height, pines that had sprung out of nowhere and had refused to move from the highway's side. They stretched upwards of one hundred and fifty feet tall, and all around their feet were families of silent birch and oak to turn the forest into an impenetrable maze of bramble and logs. The horizon no longer existed. Signs of the ocean were long gone. All the light that could have been warming the highway was trapped in the evergreen canopy.

Even in the van with the heat on, Greg was cold. If Steven had not found shelter, then he would be miserable, or – The van roared to life as its driver pushed into the north. Steven would not be without a father tonight, and Greg would not be without a son. It was less than an hour until the end of the line. But as Greg looked up at the sky, he knew that by the time he pulled up to the bus stop, it would already be dark.

Highways turned into city roads. Those roads turned into single-lane routes. So on and so forth, the tracks Greg followed were smaller and smaller as he traveled, like veins and capillaries against the skin. The man did not remember when he had turned his headlights on, but he was still tracing the bumpy roads with the beams, flashing past an army of gnarled saplings and hunks of scattered granite.

Steven had seen all of this in the daylight. Steven had probably slept on the bus, and awoken to a whole new world. As the road curved into the last town and the bus station came into view, Greg wondered how his son had felt seeing all this for the same time. It would have been the first time that Steven had been this far north. The man wished he could have held his child's hand and watched the wonder fill his face.

Across the road from the bus station were two police cars and a handful of other vehicles, a mix of state-emblazoned offroad types and civilian cars, with people milling outside by the county store. Greg pulled into the parking area with them, shutting off the van for what felt like the first time in forever. It coughed appreciation as the headlights faded.

Greg had not taken five steps away from his vehicle when a man came jogging up to him, one flashlight in each hand. His head was completely shaved, and his face was mostly covered in a black, curly beard. "R. Paul" was stitched into the patch of his ranger's jacket. He reached forwards and grabbed Greg's hand, shaking it firmly while maintaining perfect, solid eye contact. He let go and left the flashlight he had been holding with Greg.

"You – "

Greg coughed. It had been several hours since he had used his voice, and he cleared his throat and tried again.

"You must be Ricky," he started.

"And you must be Mister Universe?"

"Yes, I – "

But Ricky had clapped a hand on Greg's shoulder already, pointing with his flashlight towards the rest of the cars.

"James gave me all the details," he said. "And we're going to do our best with the time we have. I've got my first team working their way around the south end of the lake towards the actual Pawtuckaway campgrounds. There isn't anyone actually camping there at this time, but it's the most populated area during the day and if your Steven's around then that's where he's most likely to be."

Greg nodded and rubbed his sore throat. This was a lot of information to process, and Ricky knew it, but time was running out. The ranger was serious, concerned, and out of patience for any more impediments to this mission.

"So Greg, you'll be going with one of the K-9 units around the other side of the lake. Straight behind the bus stop, about a half-hour forwards, and you'll get on the other side from where our team is. Good?"

"G-good."

Greg was not as good as he needed to be. Even as he joined up with the police and their German Shepherds on the other side of the road, he felt like he had been thrown into the action without the preparation he needed. But this was never going to be as easy as walking in and picking Steven up. He knew this. And yet, the search-and-rescue experience flew at breakneck speeds without a moment to call for his child.

But he could hear them. The team had not moved so far away that Greg could not hear the shouts of the other men and women as they tromped down the road and into the woods.

"Steven!"

"Steven?"

"Steeee-ven!"

He mouthed the name before he turned towards the trees. Greg clicked on his flashlight and pointed it into the overgrowth of browns and greens. When he shouted, even the dogs turned in surprise.

"STEVEN!"

At once, the party began to move further down into the woods. There were traces of trails that they could follow, but nature had claimed most of the paths. All the greenery that would have been so vibrant in the sunlight was muted and immobile. Greg crunched over the twigs and through the bushes in his sandals. Thorns tore up the top layer of his skin, leaving tiny red welts on top of his feet. He couldn't feel his toes any more.

A branch snapped, and Greg whirled his flashlight around to the sound. He only saw the back end of the deer as it vanished into the woods. Young bucks weren't going to stick around with all this activity, and the dogs were already being calmed as they turned their attention towards the animal. It was a ghost, a figment, and Greg cursed the deer under his breath as he continued on.

The sound of water caught his attention. He had no idea how long he had been out here in the woods. The only other noises he paid attention to were the occasional shouts of the other party members. Wind through the trees forced its way against his ears, stifling even those sounds. Greg diverted down towards the water, in some vague hope of finding landmarks or signs of life.

Greg broke through the treeline and stepped onto the edge of the lake, silt sinking underneath his weight. The lake was nearly invisible in the low light. Clouds obscured the moon in waves and lumps, casting only the hint of yellow shadows on the waves. In the middle, however, the man could see the outline of a small island with a lone pine sticking out of the rocks. Could Steven have swum out there? No, he had better survival skills than that.

One could hope, anyway. Greg sighed and shone his flashlight down on the rocks, making sure not to miss his step as he walked along the shore. Thin layers of ice had started to form on some of the rocks, hints of the early fall in the north. Winter was far off, at least.

The dogs bounded and sniffed up further in the woods, and Greg stuck to the shoreline for the moment. His flashlight cast a steady beam on the sand, traveling forwards until Greg's legs froze in place.

A massive granite cliff loomed ahead of him, but on the ground, there were places where the clay had been dug out, as if scooped to make a sand castle. Sandal prints made a trail going back and forth from the woods to the lake. Along the rock face, the silver and white stone was smeared with brown and hints of dark red, and there was a darker streak in the sand. Greg shone the flashlight up towards where the hill began to rise.

And he heard it. Above the wind's whisper and the lake's folding waves, he heard it.

Greg rushed uphill faster than he had moved in his life. It had to have been real, it was not possible to mistake that sound, not to a parent – and when Steven cried, he always knew why, and he knew how to help him. His lungs heaved as he scrabbled his way to the top of the cliffside, the flashlight waving erratically as he ran. Leaves slid out from underneath his sandals and drifted behind him as he bolted towards the sound of Steven. He heard his son.

In the little clearing near the top of the rock, amidst the stones and silence, Greg's light shone on the quivering body of a pale, naked, eight-year-old boy.

Steven had a hand raised in fear, curling away from the intruder. In the darkness, all he could have seen was a light flashing accompanied by animal pants and crushed foliage. As soon as he recognized his father's face, the child opened his mouth in a silent gasp, unsure if he was imagining he rescuer.

But it was real. Steven leaned over, unashamed and exhausted, reaching with both hands for his dad. His face twisted into a strangled sob, overcome with relief.

Greg dove to hug his boy, covering Steven in warmth, wrapping his arms around the child's body as gently as he could. He shook as he held Steven, kneeling besides the little rock that the boy had been using as a resting place. Other flashlights came into view, other shouts and calls over the radio, with the rescue dogs barking their discovery in their own tongue.

Everything existed in a momentary bubble. As the other rescuers came near, Steven still clung to his father. The two Universe boys let the camp be dissolved around them.

One of the other rangers tenderly raised Steven's broken leg, checking for the extent of the damage and the necessary treatment. Another gathered the child's discarded clothing and supplies, packing it all unceremoniously into the backpack that had brought it here. The shirt that had served as a flag was shaken, wadded up, and tossed in with the rest of the materials. A blanket was draped over Steven's shoulders, big enough to cover him completely.

It was Greg who pulled away, hands still shaking as he wrapped Steven's nudity in the blanket, swaddling his upper body like an infant. He let the injured leg hang as he scooped the boy up into his arms, holding his son against his chest. Steven pressed his head against his dad, wiping tears and spittle against the man's sweater.

"Dad…"

"I love you, Steven."

What else could he say? What else was there?

The other rangers stuck close as the group trekked back to the highway. Greg Universe moved his body in perfect motion, ensuring no part of his child would become scratched or scraped by the nature enveloping them. By the time the party had stepped back onto the road, an ambulance was already at the bus stop, lights flashing and painting the trees in temporary reds and whites. Ricky was already on the phone with Delmarva, staring at the pair with solemn satisfaction.

Steven and Greg stayed together on the whole ride to the hospital. For the first time in several hours, the child was smiling; it was weak and exhausted, but it was a smile. Greg could only smile back. The ambulance curved and sped and the paramedics took numbers and dabbed with the surgical sponges. Steven and Greg held hands as they rested their hearts.

The conversation had been a week coming, but it needed to happen. Greg and the Crystal Gems sat in terse silence on the couch below. Above them, Steven leaned against the bed. Two pillows had been dragged down to elevate his leg. The white cast had all the signatures and doodles that the Gems could fit, with Beach City's populace filling out all the space in between. Bleeps and button presses echoed down to the grown-ups.

Greg cleared his throat.

"I need your assurance," he began, "that this can never happen again."

Pearl held her teacup carefully, trying not to show her stress. She had been the most shaken by the events, and even upon their return had needed time to recover from the news. Even her assurances had seemed to fall on deaf ears. When she had first approached the injured child, he turned away from her, holding even tighter onto Greg's hand. Now, she was at a loss for words. Garnet spoke up, her hands clasped together.

"I wish we could give that, Greg, but you know as well as we do that this was not a foreseeable event. Even to me. There are challenges that cannot be predicted."

"Not foreseeable? You – "

"I know."

Greg didn't even bother to hide his frustration. Amethyst sat uncomfortably, glancing up to where Steven played his games. Each time one of the others spoke, she shifted in her seat, looking up towards the child's bedroom.

"Steven didn't tell us anything, Greg. We had no way to know that he would…even think about this!" Pearl said.

"Really? No reason at all?" Greg took a sip, glaring over at Pearl with a look that could shatter glass. "Because that's not what Steven told me."

The silence was broken by an electronic voice declaring a super combo. Garnet and Amethyst looked at Greg expectantly. Pearl looked as though she might faint.

"'Steven will never be a Crystal Gem.' Your words, Pearl."

"What? No! No, I would – I would never! Garnet?"

Garnet stood up and began to walk away from them. Three sets of eyes followed her up the stairs. The sounds paused, and Garnet reappeared with Steven in her arms, his broken leg sticking out straight. He held on sullenly, not looking at anyone as the Gem sat back down on the couch.

"Is that what you heard, Steven?" Garnet asked.

The boy held still for a minute, then nodded. Pearl leaned back, opening her mouth before she closed it again, stifling whatever denial or tears were to come.

"Is that all that you heard, Steven?"

Steven looked up at Garnet, his brow knit in confusion. Once again, he nodded, but slower, less certain.

"Because I was there too, Steven," Garnet said. "And I know what Pearl said. She was saying that unless we help you, unless we're here for you, then you would never be a Crystal Gem. And that's what she meant."

For the first time in days, Steven raised his eyes to Pearl, studying her as if to determine the validity of Garnet's statement. Pearl was already crying.

"That's why we're here, Steven!" Amethyst chimed in. "'cause you're gonna be great, right? But we're the only Gems you got!"

"I know…"

Steven let himself huff in laughter, holding on to Garnet as he slid to the ground. Greg and Pearl both reached forwards as Steven stood, but he balanced on the coffee table, holding up a hand to show his safety. Slowly, he hobbled over to Pearl and sat down in front of her on top of the table. Greg watched them carefully, as if he was ready to grab Steven and leave right then and there.

The boy didn't have to ask. He opened his mouth, but Pearl's shame and silence mirrored him. Steven put both his hands around hers, around the tea.

"I'm sorry."

For running away. For not waiting. For not asking. All the little things that Steven had done had added up to this, but before he could even think of blaming himself, Pearl had put the tea aside and had raised her hands to his face.

In the moment, everyone saw Pearl's eyes. And Steven saw what had been missing in the deer. He had thought that Pearl didn't care, that she was being recklessly dismissive. But it was a misunderstanding, all of it. Human error, Gem error, it didn't matter. In her eyes, Steven saw Pearl's true concern, care for someone outside of her own. There was nothing animal or wild about her caress, nothing self-serving or static about her soul. All the callousness of nature was washed away here. The beauty of the home and the beauty of the wilds were once again separated.

Greg wiped his face with the back of his hand. So much needed to be said between them, but for now, he could be content with this. Pearl was being honest. Garnet mediated them back from the silly confrontation. His son was safe. Concerns were lifted for now, and all the problems of the future rested there, far away from him.

He looked back to Garnet thankfully. Amethyst leaned towards them, grinning as Steven and Pearl hugged out all the things they couldn't say yet.

"So," she said, "what do we do now?"

Garnet offered a thankful, knowing smile.

"We start over," she said.