Disclaimer: Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar/Cartoon Network. Thanks to Rinney for proof-reading and crystal-gays on Tumblr for the inspiration.
By the next morning, Amethyst had decided that the only thing worse than hospital food was hospital TV. No cable, basic channels only, and not even a remote. And since she was in no way inclined to get up given how she'd nearly popped a stitch in her side last time she was stuck watching soap opera reruns until she was discharged.
Amethyst had vague memories of arriving at the hospital and people fussing around her but by then the painkiller had taken effect and she had found herself watching with hazy interest as her wounds were cleaned and stitched. She couldn't see much of the one in her shoulder, but the one in her side had looked like a wide, bleeding mouth and she remembered thinking it was gross. Then she'd been given more painkillers and the next thing she knew she'd woken up in the hospital room where she was now.
The nurse who'd brought her breakfast – plain cornflakes, weak coffee and toast that tasted like cardboard – hadn't been able to tell her anything about Pearl. She'd said that she'd ask, but that had been several episodes of The Brave and the Bold ago now. Amethyst didn't want to think too hard about what that meant – maybe the nurse just hadn't had time. It didn't mean that the dancer was dead.
"…should've asked for my coat back…" Amethyst muttered to herself, one hand absently moving to scratch at her side. Thankfully this time she remembered to stop when she felt the bandages, but it still itched abominably.
Then there was a knock at the door, and as Amethyst looked up her face split into a wide grin. "Rose!"
"You just can't keep out of trouble, can you Amethyst?" the older woman chuckled as she stepped into the room and moved to sit in the chair beside the bed, setting a grocery bag down beside it. Rose Kalani-Universe was a statuesque Hawaiian woman whose most striking feature was her mane of bright pink curls. At least until she spoke anyway; her voice was rich and musical even when she wasn't singing on stage. Despite her casual tone, Amethyst could see the concern in Rose's warm amber eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"Eh, I'm fine, just got stabbed a couple times. No biggie," the girl replied with a dismissive shrug which she immediately regretted. "Ow! Freakin' stitches… Well, apart from those I'm fine. Those and the food here anyway."
"I thought that might be the case." Lifting the grocery bag, Rose placed it on the bed next to Amethyst. "Steven picked out the donuts. He wanted to come and see you too but I didn't think that would be a good idea right now."
The grocery bag was stuffed with bottles of grape soda, several bags of chips, Amethyst's favourite peanut butter pretzels, and a large box of donuts. "Awesome!" Popping the box open, Amethyst immediately grabbed a maple bacon donut – clearly Steven's choice but she wasn't complaining – and stuffed it into her mouth. "T'anks Rose, 's great!" she mumbled through a mouthful of dough and frosting.
"You're welcome," the older woman replied, but her smile was shadowed with concern. "What on earth happened? I got a call from the theatre this morning saying you and Pearl were attacked when you left work last night. Were you mugged?"
Swallowing the rest of the donut, Amethyst shook her head. "Pearl got attacked," she corrected. "I saved her ass is all. I mean, she is alive, right?" the girl added as an afterthought. Seeing Rose's expression darken, Amethyst's tone lost some of its bravado. "Right?" she repeated nervously.
"She's alive, but she's still in intensive care," Rose's face was uncharacteristically grim. Amethyst immediately decided that she didn't like it, the last traces of her own smile vanishing as the older woman continued. "She lost a lot of blood and she still hasn't stabilised. The doctor told me that if someone hadn't been there to put pressure on the wound, she'd have died."
"There was a lot of blood," Amethyst said softly, wishing that she hadn't eaten that donut so fast now that her stomach was clenching. "They don't know if she'll be okay?"
"They did say she's doing okay for the moment," Rose replied. "She was in surgery a few hours ago, and once she's stabilised then her chances are good. But just now they were saying it's fifty-fifty either way." There was a long moment of silence, which Rose then broke. "You still didn't tell me what happened."
Exhaling heavily, Amethyst leaned back against her pillows and twisted the cap off one of the grape soda bottles. "I only know what I saw," she began, taking a long swig from the bottle. "Pearl was still there when I was getting ready to leave; I was on my way downstairs when she went by so I decided to check the trash cans in the changing rooms before I went in case she'd put anything in them after I'd emptied them." The girl's mouth twisted into a wry grin as she continued. "I was totally going to bitch her out if she had, but they were all empty so I needn't have bothered. If I'd just gone down at the same time as her, she might not have been attacked…"
"You couldn't possibly have known what would happen," Rose said firmly. "It wasn't your fault."
"I guess," Amethyst muttered, her tone unconvinced. "But yeah, there was nothing in the trash cans, which was kinda disappointing, so I went down to the stage door to throw the other ones out while I was leaving. And when I went out into the alley, I saw Pearl lying at the far end. I didn't see the person who'd attacked her at first because they were in all black like a freakin' ninja."
"Or a stage hand," Rose interjected. "I know Pearl's not exactly endeared herself to the stage crew… could it have been one of them?"
Amethyst shook her head in response. "Couldn't see the face because they were wearing one of those pain-in-the-ass hoods without eye holes, you know, the ones you're supposed to be able to see through. But the build was all wrong for one of the crew, all tall and skinny. Yeah, we've got some tall folks, but none of them are thin. Besides," she continued, starting to frown. "There weren't any shows on last night, just rehearsals, so none of the crew would have been in their blacks anyway. Maybe it was just a disguise," Amethyst gave a one-sided shrug. "You wanna jump someone in an alley; you'd wear all black to hide."
"But that only works in the alley," Rose sounded doubtful. "People are going to notice someone wearing all-black on the street. I guess it was late though."
"They can't have run far wearing that hood," Amethyst added. "Or they'd have ended up running into a wall or something, you can barely see through them at the best of times. Anyway, I didn't realise they had a knife until they pulled it out of Pearl." The girl flinched at the memory of the sound it had made. "Then they waved it at me like they were trying to scare me off, so I tackled the jackass instead."
"You could have been killed," Rose said softly, clearly torn between congratulating Amethyst's actions and condemning them. It was hard to tell the girl that she should have been more careful when a more cautious approach might have ended with Pearl bleeding out in the alley.
Amethyst made a dismissive gesture with one hand as she snorted disdainfully. "Eh, they weren't even that tough. They couldn't even stab me properly; the doc who patched me up said that if they'd angled the knife better on the first swing then it would have gone through my ribs instead of bouncing off my shoulder blade." The look on Rose's face at those words suggested that she didn't find that prospect as easy to dismiss as Amethyst did. Feeling a little guilty, the girl cleared her throat awkwardly before continuing. "I gave them a good crack in the face once they were down," and despite herself Amethyst couldn't help her brash grin. "Then they tried to stab me again and sliced my side, so I got up and booted them one in the ribs. That must've knocked the fight outta them because then they got up and ran off, but I stayed with Pearl and called 911."
"And there's nothing you remember that could identify them?" From the tone of Rose's voice it was clear that she already knew the answer. "Nothing at all?"
"Well, they'll have a busted face and bruised ribs," Amethyst replied. "But besides that, no. They were tall and thin like Pearl, but so's like, every ballerina. I never saw their face, but I think they were a woman because of the sound they made when I punched them. Could have been a girly-sounding guy though, I've hit ones that sounded like that before."
"It's strange that they didn't try to rob you," Rose commented, frowning. "Do you remember if they took anything from Pearl?"
"They took her phone, but not her purse," the girl responded. "I know that because the cops mentioned it when they tried to question me last night. I was kinda out of it because of the painkillers but I remember that part because I said it was weird that they'd take Pearl's phone over her purse. You know, because she's still got that ancient cellphone that's not even a smartphone."
"Because she only uses it for phone calls and texts, yes," Rose finished for her. "That is strange. Why take her phone when it's not valuable… unless they wanted to stop her calling 911."
Amethyst's eyes narrowed as she considered the woman's words. "Jeez, when you put it that way it sounds like the asshole that attacked her targeted her specifically. Maybe they really didn't want the ballet to open next week or something."
"No, that can't be it," Rose said, shaking her head. "That's what understudies are for; the ballet will open next week regardless."
Amethyst almost choked on her soda at that. "Seriously? The boss ballerina-"
"Prima ballerina," Rose corrected her.
"Whatever," the girl said dismissively. "Pearl gets stabbed right outside the theatre, but they just replace her? It's not like learning a part with words and junk - she's like, really, really good at dancing. Not that I've watched her," Amethyst added quickly. "Well, I kind of have to watch her when I'm working the lights; anyway, she's the best dancer. Even I can see that."
Rose's response was a humourless chuckle. "Amethyst, how long have you worked in the theatre? You know what they say, 'the show must go on'. Pearl might have had the lead role but there'll be at least five others in the company who've studied it just as hard and would be more than happy to replace her until she…" Realising what she was saying, Rose's expression twisted bitterly. "More than happy to replace her," she amended quietly.
"Man, I never knew ballet was so brutal," Amethyst muttered. Shifting uncomfortably as another thought crossed her mind, Amethyst winced as the movement sent a jolt of pain across her side. "The knife hit her spine, didn't it?" she asked darkly, remembering how the dancer's legs had barely moved while her upper body struggled in the bloody slush.
"It didn't sever it," Rose replied, looking down at her hands folded in her lap. "But… yes, her spine was damaged. That's why Pearl's been in and out of surgery since she got here. The surgeons are trying to repair the damage as much as they can, but they think she'll be partially paralyzed. At least."
Unconsciously hugging the soda bottle to herself at the thought of being paralyzed, Amethyst sighed deeply. "That…that really sucks," she said eventually. "What'll she do now? If she gets better I mean," the girl added quickly, mentally kicking herself as she saw Rose's expression twist in pain. "She totally will get better," she finished lamely.
"I don't know what she'll do," Rose answered, also with a heavy sigh. "But the important thing is that she gets better… and that the police catch the bastard who did this to her."
Amethyst flinched at the curse, she was no stranger to bad language but she had never, never heard Rose swear before now. As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and a nurse looked in.
"The police are here to see you Ms Ramirez," she said to Amethyst. "They want to take a statement from you about what happened last night; do you feel up to seeing them?"
"Absolutely," Amethyst replied, straightening up in the bed then hissing through gritted teeth in pain as her side throbbed. "If I don't stay awake this time they can just poke me in the shoulder," she joked, though the look on Rose's face suggested that the pink-haired woman found that prospect anything but funny.
"Do you want me to stay?" Rose asked, taking one of Amethyst's hands and squeezing it reassuringly.
"Eh, I'm good," Amethyst replied with bravado she didn't quite feel. "You should go check on Pearl, it's not like they're going to try and pin the attack on me or anything, right?" Although she'd meant the last part to be rhetorical, Amethyst couldn't keep a hint of unease from her voice. Her previous experiences with the police as a 'delinquent' youth hadn't exactly been positive.
"Well, it would have been difficult for you to cut yourself across the shoulder blade," Rose responded comfortingly. "And if you'd been the attacker, why on earth would you have saved Pearl's life?"
"Heh, yeah," The chuckle was somewhat forced, but Amethyst felt less nervous all the same. "Go see Pearl," she added as she saw the indecision on Rose's face. "I'll be fine, honest. And she might have woken up or something."
"Okay then." Getting to her feet, Rose retrieved the bag of snacks from Amethyst's bed before they could spill all over it, placing them on the nightstand within easy reach of the girl's good arm. "I'll be back in an hour or two."
Watching her leave, Amethyst's smile vanished as two police officers stepped into the room in Rose's place. This was going to be tedious.