Dovahkin795: Thank you!

ThePirateQueen367: Thank you so much! :)

Kraven the Hunter: I like to imagine that Greg is telling Steven the story of how he met Rose not out of nostalgia or love but because Steven asked him about the worst thing he's ever seen. And yeah, Greg has no idea that Rose is connecting with him in a different way than he is with her.

fatwhiteguy: Thank you! Your username made me laugh, btw.

The hatch finally gave way with one last, great tug of Opal's arms. Green sparks bounced against her arms. Opal tossed the hunk of alloy aside and peered into the pod.

Empty, but that didn't surprise her. Controls were still intact, not that she had any idea of how to use them. Nothing seemed out-of-the ordinary part for the swell inside where the impact hit.

Opal sighed and leaned back. "Nothing!"

Up at the top of the crater, Ruby sighed and dismissed her gauntlets. Sapphire had told them that Jasper wouldn't be in the pod, but there was a slight possibility of it exploding if Opal had opened it just so. How Ruby was going to solve that with punching, however, Steven couldn't tell. He was sure she would find a way.

"Great," Ruby groaned. "Don't know why I thought this was going to be easy."

Sapphire considered, for just a moment, reminding Ruby that she'd already told her Jasper wasn't going to be there. In the end, though, she just said, "It's something, at least."

"Hey, Sapphire?" Steven asked as they began the steep climb down. Ruby just curled herself into a ball and went rolling, while he and Sapphire treaded carefully. Sapphire bunched up a handful of his shirt to keep him steady. "How'd you know the pod would be here?"

"Lucky guess," Sapphire replied. She wrapped an arm around Steven's middle and lifted their feet off the ground. While they hovered down, she explained, "This is one of the few places on Earth Jasper would probably be familiar with."

Steven frowned and looked around them. The land around them was dry and spotted with scraggly grass. The ground was uneven, rising and falling and sometimes pitted, and formations of orange rock were everywhere. (Steven found one that looked like Ruby, and she thought that was just fantastic.) There really wasn't anything that screamed "Gem" to him. Not like the Strawberry Battlefield, where remnants had been overgrown over the centuries. Steven wasn't sure if anyone had walked here in centuries.

Sapphire set them back down once they made it to the pod. Ruby was running her fingers over the great dent on the shell.

"Not very tech-savvy, huh?" she asked.

"Not surprising," said Opal. There was one small crack in the interior, leaking a familiar green slime. She lapped it up with her finger. "Jasper is a Quartz, remember? She wouldn't bother with technology."

"Why not?" asked Steven.

"Quartzes are soldiers," explained Sapphire. "Their only job is to be strong fighters."

Opal reached inside and tried to reach the controls, but being as big as she was, she ended up with her cheek mushed against the pod as she clawed around blindly. Eventually she just sighed, went bright for just a second, and shapeshifted herself down. She was about Steven's height and really looked like someone had just squashed her down. Steven stifled his laughter. Ruby tried to do the same.

While Opal crawled inside the pod (with an audible popping sound), Steven asked, "Then why did Mom have so many powers?"

Sapphire considered this for a second. "Rose was a very special Quartz."

"Hey!" Steven frowned. "You're ALL special."

Ruby beamed. "Oh, Steven!" She squished his cheeks together, earning a giggle. "You so precious!"

"Hold on…I think I've got something!"

Ruby, Sapphire, and Steven all clustered around the opened hatch to see. It was a tight squeeze, but with one eye, Steven could see Opal's fingers moving across thin green holograms that flickered under her touch. Her eyes had taken on the same static that Ruby's had back on Peridot's ship, but she took it with a bit more grace.

"Jasper apparently got enough control to mark some coordinates," mumbled Opal. "Apparently, the Alpha Kindergarten wasn't the only place with one of those…hidden-dungeon-computer-place-thingy-ma-jingles."

"Well said," complimented Ruby.

Steven looked between the Gems on either side of him. As a result, his curls brushed against their shoulders. "Why would Jasper come down here, though?"

Opal drummed stubby fingers against her chin. "When we were sneaking around the ship, you and I overheard Jasper making a sort of progress log. She said something about a 'Cluster'…and considering Peridot was with her, I don't think we were their only priority."

Sapphire looked around the dusty, red land around them. "Jasper isn't around anymore. Whatever she came here for, she's done."

Opal crawled back out of the pod and shapeshifted back into her normal size. Ruby had to sidestep to give her some room.

"We can still look around," said Opal. "Any clues are better than none."

Ruby cracked her knuckles together. Steven just barely saw a faint outline of heat shimmer around her body. "When I get my hands on that overgrown tangerine, I'm going to…"

Her eyes caught Steven's.

"…give her a chance to surrender, and try to have a civil conversation that will hopefully result in her seeing the error of her ways and this whole debacle ending on a relatively peaceful note."

"Right," said Opal. She pointed out into the distance, where the ground stretched on and on until it was just a flat orange line separating the earth from the sky. "We head out that way, then."

Steven raised a hand in the air. "I have a question."

Opal leaned down in his direction. "I am listening."

"When are we going to go look for Lapis and Peridot?" Steven found his hands curling and uncurling despite his best efforts to be as unwavering as possible. He had to swallow when Ruby and Sapphire turned their eyes on him. "I mean, we've been looking for Jasper for a while now, but what about them?"

Opal pinched the bridge of her nose. "I knew I forgot about something."

"Jasper poses more of a threat than them," said Sapphire, but then she put a cool hand on Steven's shoulder and added, "But Lapis is Steven's friend. And she did save us from Peridot."

Steven was just about to smile and thank her, but Opal's "I disagree" had him turning to her wide-eyed and shocked. Ruby—who had turned back around to admire the rocks that resembled her—whipped her head around so fast she probably would have gotten whiplash if she was a human.

Opal had her fingers on her chin and her eyes to the distance, but when the silence went on, and she looked down to see them all staring, she paused. Her eyes went wide for a second, like she just rewound what she'd said, and then she was sputtering, "No, no! I mean—of course we're going to help. But her and Jasper might be equal trouble."

A crease appeared on Ruby's forehead. "Peridot and Lapis can't contact Homeworld. And I doubt Peridot has the courage to step on a leaf, let alone hurt any humans."

"No," agreed Opal, "but the two of them became a fusion that neither of them wanted. They're basically a ticking time bomb of hate and fury and…other not-good things."

Steven asked, "If they don't want to be fused, wouldn't they split up?"

Opal's lips twisted as if she'd tasted something sour. "Sometimes…When two Gems aren't on the same wavelength, but one or both of them want to stay fused, the fusion becomes a…prison. The Gems can't escape each other and they just hate each other more and more. But the fusion stays together."

This gave Steven pause. It felt like everything he thought he knew about fusion until this point was wrong. And looking at Opal…well, he had a lot of questions he felt he needed to ask. But in the moment, the only one he gave was, "Can it actually work like that?"

Opal shrugged in a somber way. "It's like trying to walk away from a fight, but then the person you're fighting with handcuffs you together. They have the key, but no matter how much you scream and kick, they won't use it."

Ruby's voice was the first to break the silence that followed. "This conversation got dark."

"Indeed, it did." Opal bent down and plucked Steven from the ground. Steven was left to dangle his feet in the air as she told Ruby and Sapphire, "Steven and I will keep looking here. Sapphire, you and Ruby see if you can figure out where Lapis and Peridot are. Let's regroup back home tonight."

Sapphire turned to Ruby. "I might be able to predict where they are."

Ruby looked left and right, perplexed, and slowly replied, "O…kay…? I didn't…ask…?"

"But you could have."

"Be careful," Opal told them. Then she took off with Steven in tow, her feet kicking up clouds of dust behind her.

But just as Ruby and Sapphire turned in the other direction, Opal came speeding back and skidded to a stop. She opened her mouth, paused, closed it, then just sighed, "Ah, I forgot what I was going to say…" So Ruby gave her a pat on the leg, and she took off again with her head hanging a little lower.

Steven wasn't sure how long Opal had been running. Maybe for ten minutes. Maybe an hour. Dust bit into his eyes, so he took to watching everything pass by over Opal's shoulder. Being carried by Opal was better than riding on Lion, Steven mused—with Lion, the constant up-and-down motion got his stomach upset at some point, but Opal moved with such balance and ease, it was almost like ziplining.

"Hey, Opal?" Steven cried over the wind. He tried not to shout right into Opal's ear, but Opal didn't have ears, so maybe that wasn't a problem.

"Hey, Steven!" she replied.

"I have questions," he told her.

"Me, too." Opal leaned to the right, and Steven watched a boulder shrink behind them. A tumbleweed got swept away in the breeze Opal left behind her. "What are your questions about?"

"Fusion. You. Amethyst and Pearl. What are your questions about?"

Opal paused. "I was wondering if orange is called orange because oranges are orange, or if oranges are called oranges because oranges are orange. But, uh—We can focus on your questions first. In a minute, though, because we have arrived at our destination."

She slowed and slowed and slowed until she was stopped, then set Steven back on the ground. Steven turned to look, and once he saw the drop just a mere foot in front of him, stumbled back against Opal's leg.

The two stood above a great, winding canyon of smooth orange stone, snaking through the earth at least a mile deep. Its path was never straight—Steven trailed it with his eyes, going left and right, shrinking where the walls almost came together, growing where the walls were far apart. In some places, the stone sprouted from one point in the wall to the other in a bridge. The rock was striped with burgundy, brown, and red, some colors in slashes, others in knots.

Seeing the familiarly-shaped holes in the wall, the hulking machines stiff with age but still clinging to the rock after so many centuries, Steven's immediate realization was, Kindergarten. The next was that it was very unlike the one he'd been to before, the one that he'd first seen Peridot in. There was the obvious, of course—that Kindergarten had been gray and gloomy, much larger than this one, not made of sandy stone.

But looking at the holes, Steven noted some chaos. The other Kindergarten's holes had all been near-uniform in size and shape, not exactly in rows, but with an equal amount of space between them. The holes in these walls shrunk and grew from one to another, some so close they almost melded together. Some sunk haphazardly into uneven stone, others were horizontal just for space. One or two actually had combined together, and Steven didn't know what those Gems could look like.

"I didn't know there was more than one Kindergarten," Steven said aloud.

"There's two. Well…" Opal paused, thinking. "Yeah, two. Homeworld made this one to pop out some more soldiers during the war. Kind of a rushed business, as you can see."

"You think Jasper came here?"

"If this place has a secret laboratory too, then maybe. Let's just hope it doesn't have some kind of communication device."

Steven looked up and followed the ribbon of the canyon until he couldn't see it anymore. But just before the horizon, something made him pause. The canyon, from what he could see, lost its otherwise smooth curves at a place far away. The sun was too bright for him to get a clear look, but it looked as though a gaping hole interrupted the canyon's path, like a bead on a string, before it continued as normal. He could only guess that it was quite a large anomaly from where they were.

"What's that?" he asked Opal, patting her leg.

Opal followed his gaze and didn't speak for a long moment. A hand rubbed against her mouth in thought, another's fingers twitched against her thigh.

"An accident," she told Steven. Her voice was not as sure as her words. "There were a lot of them, when they rushed it too much. But it doesn't matter. Let's go!"

She picked him up one more time for the descent. They were going up, then down, past the lips of the crevice and deeper still. At some point, the rock slanted down, and Opal's feet met the slide with such precision that Steven almost didn't notice. The great orange cloud that burst in her wake had him shielding his eyes against her shoulder once again.

Then they were at the bottom, so deep that Steven could hold the wide strip of blue sky between his palms. Opal stepped curiously to one of the holes, running a finger along the outline. It wasn't as crisply smooth as it should have been.

"We should keep our eyes extra-open," Steven told Opal. "This rock is orange and stripy. Jasper is also orange and stripy. This is a superb camouflage zone for her."

"Agreed." Opal summoned her bow into her hands, then slung it across her shoulders so that the bowstring crossed her chest and held the riser against her back. "This area is at high risk for ambushes and mild surprises."

Steven started walking, not sure of what else to do. Almost none of the holes were big enough for Jasper to hide in, so if they wanted to catch her, or find any sort of clues, they'd have to just keep exploring. Opal trailed him at a distance. Their steps sounded very loud together.

"So, uh…" Steven kicked a rock forward. "Those questions I had earlier?"

"What?" Opal asked, but then she said, "Oh," before Steven could explain. "Right. Fire away."

"Well, I don't want to bombard you, so…How about we play Twenty Questions? I'll ask something, then you'll ask something, repeat."

"Okay. Sounds good."

"Great. To answer your first question—orange is called orange because oranges are orange."

"Told you," Opal said to herself. Then she half-pouted at her own words.

"Question Two," continued Steven. "How long have you guys been fused?"

Opal blew a long raspberry before answering. "Little over a thousand years, give or take. I think the last time we split up before that train wreck on the ship was about fourteen, fifteen years ago. I stopped counting the minutes. Question Three: Why do human schools give grades as A, B, C, D, and F, but they don't have E grades?"

"They did use E grades a long time ago. But if you got an E, you failed, and 'failed' starts with F, so they changed it to F. Question Four: How did Amethyst and Pearl meet?"

Opal hummed, long and thoughtful. She kicked a rock forward, too, but it was about the size of Steven's head. "That is a very long story that I would be happy to tell you over a cup of hot chocolate with pepper, not so much out here. That sound good to you?"

"I prefer mine with marshmallows, but otherwise, a billion yeses."

"Excellent. Question Five: Why are eggplants called eggplants when they don't look like eggs?"

"Some kinds of eggplants actually do look like eggs. What makes eggplants purple is another matter entirely…Question Six: What part of you is Pearl and what part is Amethyst? I mean in personality. I understand now where your dazzling mane and good posture come from."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Opal replied, taking a minute to toss a length of her dazzling mane over her shoulder to accentuate the good posture in her neck. "Part of me comes from me—I mean, uh—Pearl, and some from Amethyst, but I'm not like a salad."

"Question Six-Point-Five: What?"

"I'm not a mixture of separate things in the same body; I'm a fusion. I'm…" Opal took a breath and let it out. "I'm not a bag of trail mix. You can't perfectly pick out which parts of me are Amethyst and which parts of me are Pearl."

Steven nodded along. He remembered what it was like to be Stevonnie—given, he was a fusion, not observing one, but looking back, he knew Opal was right. He thought Stevonnie had his energy and Connie's backbone, but some parts of Stevonnie were just Stevonnie. And neither Pearl, Amethyst, nor Sapphire had Moonstone's motherly exuberance or unexpected anger. He was sure the same was for Garnet and Alexandrite, though he had yet to know either of them very well.

"Question Seven," said Opal. "Why do car speedometers say that can go faster than they actually can?"

"I think it has to do with selling cars in other countries and other stuff...but it just looks cooler. Question Eight: When we were on the ship…" Steven paused. "Amethyst and Pearl seemed really happy to be back together."

Opal waited for him to continue. When he didn't, she replied, "Did I miss the question mark?" Then, "That wasn't my next question, by the way."

"What I meant was…Are Amethyst and Pearl together? Not together like you together—together like Mom and Dad were."

Opal's gaze was wide-eyed as she turned to him. Three of her hands remained resting at her sides, but one curled and uncurled its fingers. Steven couldn't tell if she was surprised, alarmed, or confused.

Finally, she let out a little chuckle. "Not quite, but I can see where you got that. Amethyst and Pearl are like…you and Connie!"

Steven didn't know how to take that. There was a little lace of hesitance in Opal's voice, not like she was lying, but like she wasn't sure of her own words. Whether it meant that Amethyst or Pearl weren't technically together but getting, if they used to be together…if one of them felt differently than the other—

"Question…" Opal paused. "Question Numeral: What question are we on again?"

"Nine. Question Ten: If Amethyst's weapon is a whip, what's Pearl's?"

Opal raised a hand to the Gem above her brows. Instead of having to reach in, a glowing handle slid out into her fingers. She pulled and pulled until she held a spear in her hand, which was honestly what Steven's first guess was. It looked to be made out of white glass that shone cyan where the sunlight hit it. The bladed end spiraled elegantly into a razor-sharp point.

"Fact," said Steven, "That is awesome."

"Fact: You are right." With a simple flick of her wrist, Opal shot the spear up and over her shoulder, where it disappeared in a blink of blue.

"Question…Eleven," Opal went on. "Are you upset that I'm a fusion?"

Steven almost stopped in his tracks. He'd been honing in on the rock he'd been kicking and hadn't noticed the worry that had clouded over Opal's bright blue eyes. Her lips were pressed into a line.

The only thing he could say was, "What?!" Which was quickly followed by, "That's not my next question."

Opal kicked her own (hunk of) rock. It went sailing and hit a stone wall in a puff of dust. Steven didn't know how far they'd been walking, but they were surrounded by different Gem-shaped holes now. An Injector overhead sent down a scarlet shadow that turned Opal a dusty pink color when she walked beneath it.

Opal's jaw worked side-to-side for a moment before she let out a quick breath. "We haven't really talked about it until now, and I was thinking that it made you uncomfortable."

Steven honestly hadn't thought about it. He guessed that they had kind of…dropped it. They'd been so focused on Jasper, Lapis, Peridot, and Homeworld's looming presence; he guessed his mind was too full to think of much else. Even though Opal being two people—two entirely new people that Steven had never met yet had known his whole life without knowing that he knew them—was kind of a big deal. Doubtless, if there was nothing else to be worried about, he would've been focusing on it for a while now.

Heck, if he was who he was a year ago, he'd probably be bouncing off the walls with the news. He was kind of glad he wasn't.

Opal was awaiting his response, but he had to reply, "Question Eleven-Point-Five: Why would I be uncomfortable?"

"I kept this from you for so long," she explained. "Every time you told me something, you were telling Amethyst and Pearl. Every one of your birthdays, all of our yoga sessions, that disaster with the mirror…It was all between three people. But—that is, I—I'm not bothered by that. Because I'm Amethyst and Pearl, and Amethyst and Pearl are me, so nothing that we've gone through is meaningless now, I just…Surely you don't look at me the same way you used to?"

That was a point. Not a good point, Steven thought, but a point. He took a moment to look back at those memories Opal mentioned. Helping him into his chair and wiping frosting from his face on his fifth birthday, watching the sunset after that terrible day she'd had in Beach City, running from Opal with Lapis Lazuli's mirror in his hand, feeling hands over his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch the reflection of the long-gone woman shatter beneath Opal's palm.

In his mind, he replaced Opal with Amethyst and Pearl—Amethyst, who seemed full of too much energy and faced Peridot with almost childish insults and taunts, and Pearl, as composed and elegant as a ballerina but held his hand like a comforting mother. It made for curious images. Especially since he couldn't tell when, in those moments, it was Amethyst or Pearl or just Opal who was talking to him.

Steven considered his words carefully. "It's not that I was avoiding talking to you; there's just been a lot going on and I guess I forgot, almost. And I know you're a fusion now, but that doesn't mean I've changed my mind about anything. It's like…I really like hot dogs, right? But then I found out all the gross things hot dogs are made of. But I still like hot dogs! You know?"

Opal blinked at him so slowly that her eyes were closed for about three seconds before sliding open once more. "You think Amethyst and Pearl are gross?"

"…That was the worst analogy. I mean that even though I know something new, it doesn't change much. You're still Opal. I still love you. Meeting Amethyst and Pearl wasn't a deal breaker. I just…Alright, Question Twelve: Why didn't you tell me before? I don't mind, I just…"

The corners of Opal's lips pulled down in a sheepish grimace. She fidgeted with the bowstring across her chest. "Ah…Well. We didn't think about it for a long time, I suppose. You became a fixture in my life so quickly; I forgot you weren't like Ruby and Sapphire. You didn't know me as three different people, I was just Opal to you. I just went along with it, until one day I was just looking at you and realized, 'Oh, man! He doesn't know!' It was…disconcerting. Because you were too young to fully understand, but old enough to maybe get upset, right?"

She sighed. "Anyway, I thought I'd waited too long. I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn't be able to understand, or you'd be angry. I asked Ruby and Sapphire to keep it under wraps until you were old enough. I thought about telling you after you completed the test we gave you, but I wanted it to be special."

"I'm okay with that." Steven smiled and walked over to her. When another rock came along, not as hulking as the last, Steven kicked it a little in front of Opal. She kicked it back, and they had a little game going. "Sorry you were scared to tell me. And sorry that it was ruined. But we can do something new for my birthday!"

Opal smiled back, a little relieved. "Like what?"

"Well…" Steven kicked the rock again. "Since you're two people, that means you owe me two presents from now on, right?"

"Oh, I see how it is." Opal reached down and ruffled his curls, another hand pulling on his ear. "Now I see your true colors. You slippery snake."

Steven laughed, but when he looked at the path ahead, he patted on Opal's calf and pointed. "I think you're going to have to boost me up."

Opal followed his finger and paused in her steps. An Injector had fallen off the canyon walls and landed in a heap of broken glass and dented metal on the ground. Its legs were pointed up at the sky like claws. They could have gone around it, if the walls didn't pinch together right where the machine had fallen.

Opal sighed and stepped closer. The ooze inside, whatever it was, had long since spilled and dried. All that remained was a rusty stain in the dust and some jelly-like residue in its insides. It probably looked like cogs and wheels to Opal, but all Steven saw was tubes and pipes that looked a little too much like organs for his comfort.

Opal reached inside and pulled out a tube. The congealed red goop dribbled out of one end, and the fusion immediately dropped it in disgust. "I'm surprised these things held up for this long. They've been here for thousands of years."

Steven looked upwards and shielded his eyes with his hand. The drill still remained on the other end, as sharp as ever, if not a bit worn from the elements. "How do these things work?"

"Well…" Opal tapped a finger on her chin. "These things were never really my department, but basically, it would drill deep into the earth, put in an empty Gem, pump in a little bit of…erm…blood, and let nature do its thing. Then…" Opal splayed out her fingers and poppedher lips.

Steven hummed. "It would be cool if we could get these things working, huh? Maybe then we could make some friends. Literally."

Opal let out a sad little huff of a laugh. "Would that I could. Ruby had that idea, too, once. We all went looking through as many of these we could find. Actually, it's funny, but that's how…" Opal's words trailed for a moment, and then she just laughed. "Well, I'll tell you over that cup of cocoa, huh?"

Steven walked forward and peered inside the Injector through a frame of shattered glass. He couldn't even begin to guess which parts were supposed to go where. It all looked so eerily organic, as if it were a carcass and not a broken machine. It didn't smell too pleasant, either.

Something near the drill-end of the Injector had him inching closer. "Hey, what do empty Gems look like?"

Opal blew another long raspberry. "Almost like any other Gem, but they're dull."

"What shape are they?"

"Depends on the Gem that's supposed to come from it. Rubies are round with square faces, Sapphires are round with triangular faces, Pearls are…Well, Pearls are like marbles. Except mine." Opal's nose wrinkled as she tapped on Pearl's Gem. "I cannot tell you how many times I've been called egghead 'cause of this."

Steven was only somewhat listening to Opal's rambling. His arm was reaching around blindly, his head raised to avoid slicing himself on glass. Several times, his fingers touch the congealed blood, and he shivered.

Finally, his fingers closed around something hard and cold to the touch, and he yanked it out.

"Uh…I guess you guys didn't check this one?"

Opal—who had been caught in a rant about how egghead was a very stupid insult for a very smart Gem, thank you very much—looked down at his hand and froze so still she could have been mistaken for a statue.

The Gem had a hexagonal facet, much like Amethyst's. Its colors were red and orange, but greyed down, muted. Looking closely, Steven could see how the colors went from clouds to veins to wisps until he could see the flesh of his palm on the other side. It was unbroken and lacking any cracks or fissures; perfect except for a bit of jelly that Steven rubbed away with his thumb.

Opal's hand appeared beside his, palm-up, and Steven placed the Gem inside. Opal held the thing with curiosity and wonder written all over her face. She rolled it between her four palms, as if to be sure that it was real, before she held it close to her face in a grip that was tight around its rim.

"You found one," Opal said at last. It seemed she didn't know what else to say.

"What kind is it?" Steven asked. Excitement was already bubbling in his chest, and he walked closer to Opal just to stare at the Gem while she held it.

Opal shook her head a bit, as if to shake her thoughts clear, and answered, "It's…probably a Carnelian. Another Quartz." Opal's eyes peeled off the empty Gem to look at the Injector once more. Her jaw worked from side to side. "I guess they just missed this one. Or something else happened before…" She didn't finish.

Opal's hands had lowered in her thinking, enough for Steven to be nose-to-nose with the Gem. It was odd to think that that the little thing was a potential person, a seed that had never been planted. "Can we, you know, make her? Maybe you can fix one of the Injectors."

"I've never worked on them before," she answered. But then she added, "But there's a first time for anything. But they're probably all drained. But maybe I can scrounge enough from all of them to put in one. But if we want her to come out as best as she can, it might take months or years. But it might be worth it. Rose would probably want us to…"

"I want us to," offered Steven.

"So do I." A smile teased at Opal's lips, but never fully formed, as Opal frowned and knit her brows together. "We're supposed to be focusing on Jasper, though. I don't want to plant this if she's still around. Not to mention how much time this would take regardless."

"Then we'll do it later. We can make another Crystal Gem, Opal!" Steven waved a hand through the air, not so much at the canyon itself, but…well, he hoped Opal got the idea. "She can live on Earth the way you guys wanted Gems to, right?"

Opal was already shapeshifting her tunic to make a little pocket on the front. She slid the empty Carnelian inside, and Steven noted with a little giggle that Opal had even added a little yellow 'C' on the pocket.

"There you go," Opal said, and patted the Gem with a finger. "We'll get to you later, Carn. We have some things to take care of first."

Opal pulled Steven to her and held him close to her chest with two arms. Steven's nose almost touched Carnelian, and he held her in place while Opal leaped above the Injector. While they were coming down to the other side, Steven asked, "So what do you think she'll be like?"

"Probably energetic," Opal replied. Once they'd landed on the other side, she let Steven seat himself on the bend of her arm while she walked on. "Most Carnelians are like that. She'll be a lot like Amethyst, I bet."

"She and Ruby would get along, huh?" When Opal nodded, Steven added, "Maybe they can share a room until we make her one in the Temple. We can make her one, right?"

"It'll take some work, but yes, eventually. We're going to have to help her train, too, with whatever weapon she has. Fingers crossed bow."

"Uh! Fingers crossed shield!"

"Watch her get knuckledusters."

"Sapphire's probably already called future-vision dibs."

Opal laughed aloud, but the sound slowly died. Her footsteps slowed until they had stopped, and her arm brought Steven a little closer to her. Another hand subconsciously inched in Carnelian's direction. "Hoo, boy, I forgot why we came here."

Up ahead, the dusty ground split open in a perfect square. The closer they came, the further Steven could see in, but the sunlight only pierced so far. He saw the shadows of glassy green veins slithering down into the depths, but everything else was darkness.

"She definitely went down there," said Steven. He sniffled. "There's a lingering aroma of hatred and vehemence in the air."

"I smell it." Opal readjusted all her arms around so that she held Steven behind her and her bow in her hands. She tapped Carnelian further into her pocket to be sure, then summoned a bright but thin arrow into her fingers. "Alright; let's do this."

She jumped, and they were plunged into darkness.

The descent lasted all of five seconds, but it felt longer to Steven. He saw green veins and broken stone fly past them, looked up and saw the blue square of sky shrink smaller and smaller. The temperature dropped the further they went; the air took on the metallic, sterile smell that Steven had long since associated with anything having to do with Homeworld.

The landing was so gentle that Steven almost didn't notice that they'd stopped moving. Opal turned left and right and left again, the arrow in her fingertips bright as sunlight until it disappeared in quick wisp. Then she knelt down and let Steven climb off of her shoulders.

"Well," said Steven. His footsteps echoed metallically off the walls. "This one is different."

The Control Room in the Prime Kindergarten—the Alpha Kindergarten—had not been very large at all, now that Steven looked back on it. It had a shaft that lowered down into it, just like the one the three of them had just gone through, a landing spot, then nothing but the small lab with the blank walls. Peridot's image on the holographic screen had somehow made the place feel bigger.

This Control Room, assuming it was to be called that, began with a diamond-shaped corridor that had a door for each of its walls. There was an insignia on the floor bearing three triangles that Steven could swear he'd seen before but could not place where. The green veins, filled with liquid that was no longer pumping, snaked through the ceiling and above each door. The whole place was dark save for an eerie greenish glow that couldn't be sourced.

The Gem in Opal's forehead cast out a lavender beam of light. Opal's brows were furrowed and her jaw was tight as she took in the place. "Where did they get the time to do all of this? It had to have been after they took over…I wonder if this is why they wanted this place so badly…"

Steven was only slightly listening. He had his shirt pulled up and his Gem exposed, trying and failing to get a beam out of it. "Come on…" He patted it. "Come on, belly beam…"

"Belly-beam later," Opal told him as she tugged the hem of his shirt back down. "We need to see if Jasper left behind any bootprints…She better not be hiding anywhere, the chicken." Opal's eyes then went wide, and she slapped a hand to her cheek. "Dang it, that's what I forgot to tell them! If they don't set out the chicken when they get home, it won't be thawed in time for dinner!"

Steven looked at each door in turn and pointed at one behind them. "I think she went in there."

"Why?"

"Because the panel looks like it was smashed in by a very impatient orange fist."

"So it does. Come, Steven. Come, Carnelian."

With the hand-shaped access panel too debris-shaped to work, Opal had to slide her fingers into the space between the doors and pry them apart. Strong as she was, it took little effort, though the shattered remains of the panel sparked in protest. Steven pulled back the drape of Opal's tunic to look inside.

The room was wide, circular, and empty. There were no control panels, no machinery, no Heart-Drives, nothing. All that occupied the space were the unmoving veins that snaked through the walls.

Steven hummed. "Wonder why Jasper was so antsy to get to a big old honkin' load of nothing."

"There had to be something in here, at some point," said Opal. "I'm thinking a ship. See the ceiling?"

The smooth green circle above them was sliced into four triangles. The lines were very hard to see in the dim light. "I see it."

"It was probably already gone." Opal slowly turned back for the corridor. "Hopefully."

They went to the two rooms that had their access panels untouched. Getting the doors open took some tinkering with buttons and serious prying on Opal's part. One held a room almost exactly like the Prime Kindergarten's Control Room, seven blank walls with nothing else, just in a bigger size. The other was identical to the first room—nothing but nothing. If Jasper had been inside any of them, she'd left no traces.

The final room also had its access panel destroyed, just with a little less obvious impatience. It was already half-open, and Opal just had to squeeze herself in a bit to get through. Steven followed with much more ease.

It felt too small compared to the other rooms. The ceiling was too low, the walls too close together—Opal had to bend her knees just to fit in. It was just as empty as the others. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of square panels of a greyish-green color. The only one that was any different was one larger panel centered in the wall right in front of them.

"That one is important," said Steven. "I can tell."

"Stay alert," Opal said. Two hands tightened their grips on her bow, another came on Steven's shoulder, and a fourth reached out to press against the large square panel.

Power still lingered in the mechanisms, which Steven honestly wasn't that surprised about. The many, many squares around them lit up in different hues of neon green. A few flickered as they came to life. Opal's hand left a lingering yellow light that faded away like steam on glass.

Three symbols came up on the screen, side-by-side, bright yellow—a Gem, an eye, and a diamond. Nothing else.

"You got any ideas?" asked Steven.

Opal shook her head. "I'm not used to Gem technology being so…hieroglyphic."

"Should we just eenie-meenie-miney-moe it?" Opal shrugged in unsure agreement. Steven pointed up a finger and sang out, "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a tiger by her toe, if she hollers, let her go, eenie, meenie, miney, moe. My mother told me to pick the very best one and you are it. Or so I thought, but you were not, so let's go back to tigers, and get one caught. We catch a tiger, bring it back to Mom, and she blows up like an atomic bomb. The tiger wakes up and sees Mom there, swings its claws, and gets her by the hair. Mom—"

"Steven, can we please just pick one? This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies."

"Gem. We landed on 'Gem'."

Steven went ahead and pressed it for them, and the Gem consumed the screen in yellow. Then the whole panel slid away and out of sight. Behind it was nothing but an empty cubic space. Steven was just about to comment on how tired he was getting of finding empty places, but before the first syllable could leave his lips, something came crawling out.

It was three shiny green rods connected in joints, a spider leg. On its end was a yellow orb that had a small light in its center. It looked between Steven and Opal, and then it blinked, two lids closing together from nowhere. Steven shivered and inched a little closer to Opal.

There was a sudden flash that left Steven's vision white. Opal let out a gasp and teetered back against the wall. Her blue eyes had turned an aqua-green hue. Steven had to blink away the purplish spots that clouded his vision.

Above the little cubic space, four squares seemed to melt together to display a single picture: Opal and Steven, nothing more than greenish silhouettes. Both of them had yellow circles on their persons—their Gems, two for Opal, one for Steven. Technically, Opal had three, but the third was red and rested a little below Amethyst's.

Opal noticed this too, and with a clenched jaw, raised a hand to hold Carnelian's Gem closer to her. But then the eerie yellow eye split open into claws, and those claws reached out, and when they met Opal's hand, Opal slapped at it.

That little light inside it, like the middlemost part of a flower, shot out a bolt of electric yellow power straight at Opal's hand. Steven had seen the same effect before, with the destabilizers on Peridot's ship, with a much more serious effect—now, Opal's arm lost its form at her wrist, and her hand became nothing more than flickering purple shapes.

Whether it hurt or stunned her or whatever else, Opal yelped and reeled her hand back out of instinct. It was a second enough, because in just a short moment, the claws had reached into her pocket and withdrew Carnelian's Gem.

Steven tried to swipe it back, but the arm moved at uncanny speed. It zipped back into the cubic space, and a clear pane separated Carnelian from the two Crystal Gems. Opal's fist shot out, but even though the sound of her knuckles striking the glass left Steven's ears ringing, nothing happened save for the tiniest of cracks.

The entire wall before them shifted away. What they stood in before was just a corridor. Now they stood before a room larger even than the ship bay.

Positioned in a perfect cross around the room were four huge tanks that Steven couldn't even begin to imagine the use of. They were all a sickly yellow-greenish color, the same as the pipes that went from them to the center of the room. There, it was nothing but a great circle of glass, and below that one another, and another and another until they couldn't be seen through anymore. There were two control panels on either side of it. The switches and buttons on them were few and large.

The mechanical green spider leg that had Carnelian trapped in her glass cage was pulling her closer and closer to the ceiling in the middle of the room, where it sprouted from. Opal tried to lunge for her, but as if the arm could see her coming, it just danced Carnelian out of her hands.

"Give her back," Opal snarled, and lunged again with the same result.

Steven looked left and right for some kind of solution. He had no idea what that thing had in mind for their could-be friend, but knowing Homeworld's reputation thus far, he knew it wasn't good. Though as for why Carnelian had been targeted and not Opal or Steven…

"Maybe one of these things can stop it," Steven said, and ran to the closest control panel.

Opal already had a white arrow summoned into her fingers, with the head targeted straight at the arm. But just as she let it fly, it and Carnelian disappeared into the ceiling. At most, Opal's arrow struck the little square they went into, and it did nothing but create a cloud of hot, shimmering dust.

"Try them," Opal cried.

Looking down, Steven saw that the closest switch to him had lit up yellow. So of course, simply figuring that it had done so because of Carnelian, he closed his hand around it and flipped it.

A great circle of the ceiling peeled away and left yet another pane of glass behind it. At the very least, Steven and Opal could see Carnelian again. She was being suspended without support somehow, just hovering out of reach. Yet again, Opal fired an arrow, this one shining bright and blue. Steven flinched at the explosion of dust and heat it left behind. The glass splintered, but did not break.

"Hold on, Carnelian," Steven called out even though he knew no one would answer to it. "We're going to get you!"

Four eyes appeared all around Carnelian in perfect formation. They were staring right at her, glowing bright. Steven did not know what else to do but keep pressing buttons. The tanks in the room lit up one-by-one. All but the first of the great yellow circles in the floor slid away, but below them, there seemed to be nothing but never-ending darkness. Dread and panic was crawling ever faster up Steven's spine and almost choked him.

Come on, he thought, come on, come on, come on!

Opal's third arrow, purple and larger than the others, flew. Glass and metal fell apart in a blast so great that Steven stumbled to the floor. The stench of smoke filled the room, and when Steven opened his eyes, he saw that Carnelian was still there, still suspended and the four eyes still staring, but nothing held her back now.

The eyes lit up white, too bright to look at. Opal dismissed her bow and crouched down to leap, calling out, "Hold on! I've got—!"

There was a flash, and Carnelian was shattered.

No, she's fine, thought Steven. She's fine.

We're going to wake her up. She's fine.

But no matter how many times he told himself, Carnelian's pieces were still caught in the gazes of those four white eyes and Opal's, too. She was still crouched, still ready to help. She was wide-eyed but unmoving.

This is something she does, Steven realized. When she just couldn't take what was going on, she froze up. When neither of her two minds could decide what to do, she couldn't move.

The final glass pane slid away almost without either Opal or Steven noticing. The eyes lost their light and pulled away, and in their absence, Carnelian dropped. One second she was above their heads, the next she was far below them. Opal reacted before Steven did, but all she did was start. Her hands reached out as if to catch the pieces, but her feet were locked in place.

Then there was silence, save for the hum from the tanks that Steven hadn't noticed before.

Steven walked away from the controls to Opal. She was gazing into the abyss below her. He put a hand on her shoulder, the same as she would do for him, but it seemed like nothing.

"She…" Steven sighed. "She wasn't alive. She was empty."

Opal didn't say anything.

"We should see what's going on here. I mean, I don't know why what happened…happened, but…Maybe Jasper—"

"Something's happening."

Steven blinked, then looked down below. In the deep, deep darkness just at his feet, he saw a flickering light. It was so far down and so small, he couldn't see what it was. It looked almost like a flickering lightbulb.

Opal suddenly stood to her feet. "You stay here."

And then she just dropped, and calling her name didn't stop her. The darkness swallowed her up in seconds flat, and just as "Opal!" came crawling up Steven's throat a second time, he heard a distant thud.

This isn't a good idea, thought Steven. This is an awful, terrible idea. Opal usually doesn't have awful, terrible ideas.

When a few too many moments of silence passed, Steven called out, "Opal? Say something if you're okay!"

Opal didn't say anything. The light kept flickering.

"Opal, please! If you don't say anything, I'm coming down there!"

Ten seconds passed, and then Steven was falling.

And maybe he was a hypocrite, because as wind rushed by him and the light came closer, Steven found himself thinking, THIS WAS AN AWFUL, TERRIBLE IDEA, over and over. He had thought that maybe, if Opal could make such a drop, then he could, too. But only now, as there was nothing under his feet but nothing, did he remember that he was made of soft flesh and breakable bones whereas Opal was light given solid form.

This is going to hurt, he thought then. This is going to really, really hurt.

It actually didn't.

Steven collided with something firm but not stone-hard as he was expecting. He didn't feel his bones splinter inside him. If anything, it was just a rough tumble. He hit it shoulder-first, which flipped him, and when his body finally did meet a solid ground, it was on his side. At most, he'd have some bruises tomorrow morning.

He'd closed his eyes on instinct, and when he opened them again, he was looking at a wall. Far up ahead was the room he was in before. The only light was behind him, flickering and obscured by a shadow.

He rolled over and saw that it was, of course, Opal. The light gave her a wavering outline. She was on her knees, looking at its source, which she obscured from Steven with her back. She must have been what Steven had landed on. But she hadn't reacted at all.

"Opal?" he asked, crawling closer. "Opal, what is it?"

Opal didn't reply, so Steven looked past her.

The only thing he saw, at first, was colors. Blue, red, yellow, green, orange…A mosaic of them, pieced together into something vaguely spherical. There was another eye, its gaze a hot white laser. The light bounced off the colors and sent a rainbow of reflections on the dark walls. As Steven watched, the eye stopped, moved left, and started again. It was trying to weld another piece into the puzzle.

Carnelian, Steven realized. It's Carnelian.

The clear pieces sat atop the others. The eye was working on fusing the smallest shard in.

Shard.

No, please, not again…

Steven hadn't realized that he wasn't breathing until air was shuddering into his lungs. His hands reached for Opal out of sheer instinct—a lifesaver—but she wouldn't even budge. Steven couldn't see her face.

"What is this?" he asked, because he didn't know what else to do. He looked at the shards beneath Carnelian, and it hurt. He saw red and thought, Ruby, blue and he thought, Sapphire, pink and he thought, Rose Quartz.

But it was worse than that; it hurt worse. Carnelian was just an idea, these were Gems that had lived. Carnelian would never burst out of the rock, see the sun for the first time, or see a smiling face to greet her, but the others had.

Maybe they knew Opal. Oh, please, PLEASE don't tell me Opal recognizes any of them. Please let them be strangers.

Overhead, Steven heard something humming, and he looked up. The panes of glass were sliding back into place, one after the other. Soon, it was a solid yellow ceiling above them. They would be trapped, if Opal were not there.

Steven took her arm and pulled, but it was like trying to fell a tree. "Opal, I think we need to go." Of course, she said nothing. "Opal, come on! I know this is freaking you out, but please!"

The eye finally stopped and faded into gray, but even after it slid into the smooth walls and out of sight, there was light. A small, eerie, growing light, coming from within the cluster.

Then the light was seeping through the cracks—white light oozing out bit by bit, spilling before Opal's knees. Steven knew the light, he'd seen it before, but he didn't want to believe it.

There was no way. There was just…no way that…

Then the drops started to shift and shrink until five trickles had become five fingers. They rested on Opal's knee and twisted into her leggings, as if trying to pull her forward. More light gushed out, first a foot, then another hand, this one going for the fusion's shoulder and shaking it.

Yellow lines began to creep up the walls, and a different kind of hum sounded. It was low at first, then crept higher, the sound of a computer coming to life. Steven looked up at the thick ceiling above, the walls all around them, the floor below them—which had five spokes that came together in a shape that was clearly intended to open—and Steven suddenly felt, very dreadfully, like they were trapped in a blender.

Something grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and Steven jumped back on instinct. The hand reeled back, hurt, and went to Opal instead. Another palm was pulling on one of her side-tails. Another was cupping her cheek.

"Opal," Steven cried again. His hands were scrambling up the walls for an escape that wasn't there. Opal's presence was the only thing giving him security at this point, but it was the same amount of security that a small boat gave a man who was hopelessly lost at sea.

The light had taken up half the chute and was bubbling higher and higher. The clump of Gem shards was swallowed inside of it. Steven's and Opal's shadow were dancing on the walls.

Steven grabbed Opal's shoulder and pulled. At most, the fusion just teetered back a bit and caught herself with one hand. Steven couldn't even describe the look on her face—when he expected horror and panic, he instead found an eerie calmness. She seemed at rest, and Steven would have thought so if her eyes did not tell him different. Perhaps they had always done this in these moments she had, but only now did Steven see that the bright blue of her eyes were taking in a deeper, indigo color.

"We've got to get out of here," said Opal in a hushed voice that never rose or fell or inflected on any sound. "We've got to help them. There's nothing we can do. We have to try. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

A hand clamped around Opal's throat and squeezed. At the same time, another took her hand and held it. Opal didn't seem to see anything, let alone the other hands that were not focusing on her, the ones that slithered up the walls and clawed at the air.

Steven had nowhere else to go. The emerging form of the shattered Gems was slipping past Opal, but creeping closer to Steven. When he slapped one hand away, another appeared. Fingers swiped for his ankles. The ones that reached for his Gem he batted away with a strength he couldn't help.

He reached out and grabbed the nearest thing—Opal's hair. "What do we do?!"

His hand was slapped away, but not by Opal. Fingers clawed for him, trying to snatch his wrist, and he stumbled until the wall was flat against his back. Then there was nothing else to do. The formless light was almost touching his toes.

Go away, Steven thought. Go away, get away from me, get back—!

There was a bright pink flash, and a shove that seemed to come out of him despite his arms not moving. Steven gasped when something pulled itself from his belly, painless but powerful.

His shield was projecting itself from his Gem in a steady pink ray. It was spinning around slowly, making its light pink spiral twist into the rose in its center. Despite its ever-elegant appearance, and the gentle sparkles in the air around it, the shattered Gems shrank back from it in fear. Slowly and warily they inched forward again.

At another time, Steven would be bouncing on his heels at seeing his shield again, and having it come with such little ease compared to last time. But as it were, Steven just reached out for it. The shield lacked any straps in its interior, but even still, it latched itself to Steven's arm at once. And he could feel it, even though it was really just hovering millimeters from his skin.

When the emerging form surged forward once again, Steven held a breath and shoved forward with as much strength as he could muster. He felt the reverberations running through his arm and grit his teeth against them. Once more the form shirked away from him, and this time, their return was not immediate. Several arms were raised up with their fingers curled towards him. They looked eerily like snakes poising to strike.

Now there was a river of bright white separating him from Opal, and Steven couldn't cross it. On her knees, Opal was submerged hip-deep and was being drowned quicker by the second. There were so many hands on her that Steven could not make out her lavender skin anymore. Even her hair was being tugged and tousled.

The fingers in her hair wrenched hard all at once and twisted her neck back. At last, a sound wrenched itself from Opal's throat, but it was a terrible, gurgling, pained sound. A necklace of electric purple light wrapped around Opal's throat, and before Steven could understand what was happening, Opal's head was pulled from her shoulders.

Though Steven did catch a gut-twisting glimpse of ultraviolet strings appearing between Opal's head and shoulders—pulling taut and snapping—it was just a moment. Then Opal was gone, and she, too, was nothing more than a mass of shifting light with no form or direction. The only thing that kept her from mixing with the shattered Gems' mass was an outline of lavender, and even still, that outline was turning cyan around Pearl's Gem and purple around Amethyst's.

Steven reached out for her. But of course, she was already gone.

"Opal," he cried anyway. His feet were kicked out beneath him, and he fell onto his shield. Though its hold on his arm released, the shield remained, and he scrambled into it with no idea of what else to do. He was stuck on a little pink boat in a sea of light, the many hands the waves, and Opal had fallen overboard. Still he reached for her, still he kept his eyes on the two Gems bobbing with the clump of others. Amethyst's had lost its pastel hues and had darkened to purples. "Opal, come on!"

Then those cyan and purple outlines faded away, and nothing separated Opal from the sea any longer. The waves had swallowed her.

Suddenly, everything dropped, and Steven yelled. Whatever was beneath him fell away, and he was freefalling. He grabbed onto his shield, but his other hand found no purchase.

His arm was caught tight and secure, but the rest of him dangled. Steven could hear nothing else but the blood rushing in his ears and his heavy breaths. His legs kicked underneath him with nowhere to go. His fingers on the shield were clammy.

The chute below—a tunnel, he guessed—was split into yellow rings in alloy walls. But the grooves in the walls, the heat that rolled from the depths, the ever-charging hum, the glass above that trapped them, and that deep, deep, deep darkness on the other side had Steven wheezing for air.

They were all locked and loaded. Once the trigger was pulled, they were gone forever.

He was being kept from freefalling by hands that had locked around his wrist and elbow and forearm. Whether this was Opal seeking him out, or the mass that had assimilated Opal into it trying to do the same to him, he didn't know. The shattered Gems had pressed themselves tight against the walls, palms sticking onto them in every direction to keep them anchored, but there was nowhere else to go.

With his other hand, he tossed his shield up just a bit and caught it on his arm with surprising skill or how terrified he was. When the arms pulled him up, he let them, and held his breath, and then he was swallowed.

He would never know what the inside of so many Gems constructing their bodies of physical light together, because it was too bright to keep his eyes open any longer. He could hardly feel a thing. It was the same sort of weightlessness he'd felt when Lapis Lazuli had him in a whirlpool, but the fact that he was not alone this time made this so much worse.

"Opal," he said once again, the hundredth time, "You have to pull yourselves together! You two have been together for so long, you can make it through this!"

Something wrapped around him, firm and gentle as a hug. His hands covered his Gem out of sheer fear. They can't take me in, he told himself. I'm not made of light, I won't disappear.

But Opal's voice, or Pearl's, or Amethyst's, did not respond to him. So he tried, and this would be his last attempt, because he knew nothing else to do after this. He was breaking through the surface for one last, deep gulp of air before he was drowned again.

"When Jasper got you, you said you were scared that you would never come back. What do you think is happening right now?"

The vice around him squeezed tighter, the light growing so bright that Steven had to squeeze his eyes into knots. And just when he was about to break, something cool and solid pressed against his cheek, a Gem in the chest that arms were holding him close to.

Steven didn't know what happened next, only knew that they were rising, rising, and rising, faster than light, faster than the fingers that grasped after them. Glass shattered again and again and again. The humming reached its final peak—a terrible, echoing screech that stabbed right into his eardrums. The heat gave way to coolness, but came back with a vengeance. Every inch of his skin ignited hotter than he could take, and he couldn't help but cry out, but the arms that held him carried him to safety, as they always did.

Sometimes, Steven would have bizarre dreams or terrifying nightmares that made him toss and turn in the night. Come morning, his head would be light as a feather and his skin would be damp. His thoughts were a nonstop stream of incoherency and delirium until he pulled himself back to his senses.

That was how it felt when Steven opened his eyes once again. The air was alive with static and filled with smoke. His limbs were tingling and his clothes were toasted.

He was looking up at the ceiling, and he saw black. The metal was charred in great dark stains. Shards of glass littered the floor, thin and sharp. He hadn't realized that things had gotten that hot—he'd never seen a glimpse of flame.

Steven rolled his head over. Opal was lying beside him in a heap of limbs and hair. Her body had a faint buzz around it; she was burning hot. She had her face to the floor, so Steven could not see it, but she was shaking all over. Her fingers were curled into her palms.

Steven's hand twitched to comfort her, but he didn't. Instead, he inched away from her. The trembling lessened bit by bit, but she still didn't rise. Steven thought she might combust if he so much as said a word to her.

The tanks in the room were buzzing with energy. The lines connecting them to the chute were too bright to look at. Steven crawled closer to the gaping hole framed in scorched glass frames until he was just close enough to look inside.

The smoke was so thick he had to hold his breath and not look for more than a second. The chute was glowing with heat. There was no clump of shattered Crystal Gems anymore, no Carnelian, no white hands grasping for a savior. Nothing but nothing.

Steven looked to the control boards—still functional. He left the empty chute and the unmoving Opal behind to inspect the closest one. His legs wobbled like jelly.

The buttons, switches, and screens were ready for use. The closest screen to him was blinking. Steven pressed a finger to it.

He heard a voice, calm and robotic.

"Cluster, Phase Four: One hundred percent completed."

Ruby's hands were bare when they grabbed the metal pan out of the oven. The red Gem didn't even so much as wince, she just set the pan on the stove. Golden brown strips of chicken sizzled inside. Despite himself, the sight and smell made Steven's stomach rumble.

"Looking back, I don't know what our plan was," Ruby said as she turned the oven off. "As if the two of us could search the entire ocean together. At least I got that shark to leave us alone." Ruby paused and turned to him with a guilty expression. "I'm not a bad person for punching a shark, am I?"

Steven chuckled, but it sounded weak to his own ears. "Nah, you're good."

The door opened, and Sapphire entered with a grocery bag in the bend of her arm. Ruby hurried to get the plates out of the cupboard.

"They didn't have our usual bread," Sapphire said as she went to the counter. From the bag, she withdrew a head of lettuce, a jar of mayonnaise, a bag of buns, and a few other staples. The last thing she pulled out was a orange box of candy that she held out to Ruby. "They had S'more Snacks at the register. I know they're you're favorite."

Ruby gasped as she took the box. The smile she gave Sapphire was tender. "You do care!"

Steven let out a little huff of a laugh. He was kicking his legs as he sat on one of the stools, had his chin propped in his hands.

"Hey, Steve," said Ruby, "this chicken strip looks like a foot. Come look!"

Without even looking at it, Sapphire added, "I agree that you need to see this."

Steven shook his head. "I believe you."

Ruby went to making his sandwich, but her movements were slow. She and Sapphire kept giving each other looks (which Steven had to assume on Sapphire's part.) When Ruby slid a plate over to him, she propped her arms on the counter and watched him. Sapphire walked around to sit beside him. Despite his empty belly, Steven did not immediately dig in, instead pinching at the bread absentmindedly.

"So," said Ruby, "You guys really didn't find anything?"

Steven's legs stopped kicking. There was so, so much to tell them. But he couldn't do it, not just yet.

He didn't have the stomach to point-blank tell Ruby and Sapphire what had become of their fallen friends. He couldn't look them in the eyes as they found out yet another detail of Homeworld's never-ending cruelty. That the Gems that had fought alongside them in battle thousands of years ago were still alive, but they were no longer themselves.

"I'll tell you later," he finally sighed.

Ruby and Sapphire shared yet another look, but the subject was dropped for the time being. When Ruby spoke up again she asked, "Is Opal still out there? She's usually not late for dinner."

Opal had walked out of the front door before Ruby and Sapphire had even returned home. that was about an hour ago. Steven had an idea of where she went, but had hesitated to follow her.

"Here," he said, grabbing his plate, "I'll go take it to her."

The cold season had turned the blossoms of the tree into thousands of pink buds that dotted its dark branches. The grass around the roots was soft with fallen petals, brown and orange—elsewhere, the grass was high and dry enough to tickle Steven's calves. From the distance, Steven could see the shape of Opal sitting at the base. He'd seen the image before.

He had to brace himself as he approached, but he still wasn't ready when he finally came to her. Opal was in a state he'd never seen her in before. Her feet, probably for the first time (that he'd noticed), were not en pointe. Her heels were flat on the ground. Her silver-white hair was free of any ties. Up and out of her face, her tresses were elegant, but now they looked nothing else but wild as they tumbled all down her back and shoulders.

Opal did not greet him, but Steven knew that she knew he was there. He stopped a few good feet away from her. Twilight was settling in, so instead of a sunset, Opal was watching the steadily-fading orange glow over the horizon of the ocean.

"Got you a chicken sandwich," said Steven. "I don't know how you like yours, so I just put in some peppermints."

"I'm good," Opal scoffed, not unkindly. She patted the roots beside her without looking at him. "C'mon. I know you didn't come out here for delivery."

Steven obeyed and sat close enough for her hair to brush against his arm. He set the plate down on his other side, and when he looked back at Opal, he was reminded that she had actually shrunk a little when she reformed on Peridot's ship. He didn't feel so dwarfed as they sat together.

"Well," Opal said in a very dry voice. "What a day, huh?"

"Yeah," sighed Steven. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really, but we should." Opal tipped her head back to rest against the trunk of the tree. Her fingers were twiddling with the pocket that still lingered on her tunic. "Remember when we had that really bad day at Funland and Fish Stew Pizza and we came out here just like we are now? I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have to do this again."

"Same," Steven sighed. "Remember when occasional bad days were all we had to worry about?"

"Yee-up."

"I know you're not okay, but I'm going to ask anyway. Are you okay?"

Opal crossed her arms over her chest and let out a long, slow breath. She didn't say anything for a very long moment, and the sky changed a dozen more colors.

"I haven't really known how far Homeworld could go," she eventually mumbled. "Me, I mean. I didn't know any of those Crystal Gems that were fused together like that. I've never lost anyone because of Homeworld. But I keep getting reminded, over and over. First it was Peridot, then it was Jasper, and now it's this."

Steven's fingers curled into the grass. "I know how that feels."

"Yeah, I guess you do, huh? It's just…" Opal ran a hand through her hair. "When I was a part of them, I could feel what they felt. I was scared, and I hurt. I've never felt like that before. It was awful. I-I wasn't even me anymore."

"I'm sorry," Steven whispered. "But…"

Opal looked down at him expectantly. Steven cleared his throat.

"Question Thirteen: How did you get out?" he asked. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes…We all did. I mean…I wasn't me anymore, but…Only I knew you. Does that make sense? It was like you were a lighthouse and I just—pulled myself together. I don't know. Question Fourteen: You weren't hurt, were you?"

Steven swallowed a lump in his throat. "No. I was just scared. Question Fourteen: What do you think the Cluster is?"

"Don't know, don't want to find out. But we will. Question Fifteen: You hungry?"

"Yeah. Question Sixteen: You're not perma-damaged from what happened, are you? I mean, are you going to have five arms instead of four from now on? More than two eyes?"

"No, I'll be fine. Question Seventeen: Do you want my sandwich? You can take off the peppermints. Or keep 'em."

"Thank you!" Steven picked it up and peeled the bun off. While picking up and dropping the ketchup-slathered peppermints onto the plate, he went on, "Question Eighteen: Do you mind if I ask another question about Amethyst and Pearl?"

"No, go ahead." Opal picked up a peppermint and popped it through her lips. It crackled between her teeth. "Question Nineteen: What's the question?"

"Question Twenty: Do you ever think you would unfuse and not…come back?"

The words left a terrible, bitter taste in his mouth as soon as he said them. But Opal's rightmost arms draped over him, another twiddling a peppermint between her fingers. The stars were beginning to peek out one by one.

"No," she said. "I don't."

That was enough.