Throughout the next day, Connie drifts in and out of consciousness, her body fighting the fever. She's vaguely aware that her parents are there in the house too—that they must have taken off of work to be with her. Someone sits her up and gives her water. Someone presses a cool compress to her head and the back of her neck. Someone gives her a cup of something that tastes like chemicals with a hint of cherry. Every now and then she opens her eyes and sees the outline of someone leaning over her.

She can feel Lion by her side, his presence a constant, comforting one. He's positioned himself on her bed so that she can weakly run her fingers through his fur. At some point, one of her parents put on the TV, but with it being the middle of a weekday, there's not much on. As the day wears on, she finds it a little easier to open her eyes and watch some of it, but mostly she just listens to it with her eyes closed. Eventually, the languor of the fever winds down and she begins to dream again—and the sounds on the TV mix with her dreams. She sees big-haired talk show hosts talking to irate, scantily-dressed women who call each other "skanks" and "hoes." She sees people dressed as plugs and sockets hit buzzers and jump up and down and spin enormous, glittering wheels. She sees a pudgy, good-natured fellow rave about the virtues of using the Insta-pan.

"I MAKE RIBS, I MAKE CHICKEN, I MAKE BURGERS IN THIS THING, CONNIE!" the pudgy man shouts at her from the screen. "I JUST THROW IN MY FAVORITE SAUCE, ONIONS, GARLIC, OIIIIILLLLL, DUMP IN ALLLLLL THE MEAT—RAW!—AND THEN—"

Connie wakes with a start, rolls over to the side of the bed, and heaves violently into the garbage bin her mother left for her. "I ain't a ho, bitch! You's a ho! You's a fat-ass ho!" Connie hears a woman scream from the TV.

She's done—she hopes. Groaning, Connie lies back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. She hasn't been sick like this in a long time. Steven could probably heal her, if she asked. She won't, though.

It's not just because she doesn't know what to say to him, or if she actually wants to talk to him yet; it's because it's a point of pride for her. She's not going to go running for a quick fix because she feels bad. Even before, when everything was fine between them, she'd finish training with Pearl and her whole body would be screaming in agony. It was to be expected: in order to gain and tone muscle, your muscles had to tear. She wanted to be strong, and for her, that meant being able to deal with pain. So she wouldn't tell him about it. Connie reasoned that a time would come when she'd be in much more pain, that she'd be injured on the battlefield by an opponent who was far less merciful than Pearl. And perhaps Steven wouldn't be there to heal her. She had to toughen herself against pain and suffering, so that she could be a better warrior.

She remembers now, when she was captured by Aquamarine and the Topazes. The fusion of their bodies had kept her trapped, and it had been painful. Her muscles had cramped from the pressure forced on her body, but she refused to give in to it. All of her training had led to this. She focused on her breathing, on redirecting her thoughts from the pain and to harnessing her energy. Connie couldn't move, but she knew Steven and the gems would find them soon, and she had to be ready to fight.

She was ready to fight.

A sob catches in her throat. She feels Lion rub his head against her shoulder, and she allows her tears to fall onto his fur. She appreciates his presence, but it doesn't stop it from hurting. Once again, she feels her disappointment and hurt turn to anger again. How could Steven not understand what he'd taken from her? Didn't he realize what she'd put her body and mind through, just so she could stand by his side? Didn't it mean anything to him?

It had all been in vain, she sees now. The next time a big bad came along, he'd probably just leave her out of it again.

Connie struggles to push herself back under the covers. She should rinse out her mouth and wash her face, but she can't find the motivation to do so. She closes her eyes, sleep taking her over so slowly she doesn't even realize it.

The first thing she notices is the sound of a bell ringing in the distance. Then she's walking along a tree-lined path in a park; she recognizes this park. It's from a little New England town her parents had moved her to when she was 6. They didn't stay very long, but she remembers that it was on the cusp of fall, and all the leaves on the trees were a brilliant mix of reds, yellows, oranges, and purples. It was very much like now, and Connie felt like she was walking through a painting.

The path winds a bit, and then she's approaching a small pedestrian bridge, built over a babbling brook. There's someone sitting on the bridge, bare legs dangling over the side. Their back is to Connie, so she's not sure who it is, but they have long, thick, dark hair—very much like hers. As she gets close, she hears the person singing. And the voice stops her in her tracks. Connie knows that voice as well as her own. Sweet, sincere, and slightly deeper than hers.

"What are you waiting for? You never seem to make it through the door." The person tosses a stray stone into the water as they sing the next line. "And who are you hiding from? It ain't no life to live like you're on the run."

Connie's now gotten close enough to practically reach out and touch them. So she takes a deep breath, and before they can sing the next line, Connie sings, "Have I ever asked for much? The only thing that I want is your love."

Stevonnie chuckles. "She's found me, at last." They turn around and smile. "Hi there, Connie."

Connie gapes for a moment. She realizes that this is all a dream (she's been so delirious with a fever, all she could do for a while was sleep), but even so, this isn't something she had ever imagined happening. She just assumed that if Stevonnie ever popped up in one of her dreams, it would be her, dreaming herself as Stevonnie. And yet, here they were: two very separate people.

When Connie doesn't answer, Stevonnie says, "What's the matter? Lion got your tongue?"

"I-I-uh…sorry. I just…wasn't expecting to ever see you…like this." Connie hears her stammering answer, and groans inwardly.

They shrug. "I'm sorry. I wish I had all the answers." Stevonnie thinks for a moment. "Here. You wanna sit down?" They pat a space on the wooden planks next to them.

"Sure." Connie carefully squats down and dangles her legs off the bridge and as well. She's reminded of how it felt the first time she fused with Steven. Connie was amazed at how big they'd grown. Now, sitting next to Stevonnie, she's aware of how small she is by comparison. Stevonnie's even bigger than her father.

Once again she hears a bell ringing somewhere far away.

For a while they don't talk. Connie doesn't really know what to say, and Stevonnie seems perfectly content watching the water beneath them: seeing the leaves from the nearby trees discharge their leaves into the rippling brook, watching their reflections from up above. But at last, Stevonnie says, "I know things are rough right now between you and Steven. I'm sorry about that."

Connie shrugs. "Not your fault."

Stevonnie laughs at this. "Uh, yeah, it kinda is. I'm Steven too, remember?"

"But—but—it's not the same thing. You're not totally him, and he's not….totally you. I think." Connie covers her face and groans. "I just wish one thing in my life could make sense!"

"What are you talking about? Lots of things make sense. Your sense of honor and devotion to doing the right thing. Your ambition. Your affection for your family and friends…and Steven. You're a great person, Connie. I'm proud of the person I am because of you."

Connie blushes and smiles. "Thank you. But…I guess you won't be coming around much anymore, will you?"

The fusion tips their head to one side, considering this. "I couldn't say for sure—I don't have Garnet's powers, after all—but it doesn't look too good right now. As long as you and Steven are so far away from each other like this…I can't exist. Not physically, at least."

"That's not my fault, you know!" Connie bursts out. "I wanted to become you to fight the Homeworld gems, but Steven decided to just give up! He never even gave us a try, he just…betrayed us."

With that, Stevonnie takes their sire's hand in theirs. Connie is amazed at the feel of it—of their skin pressed together like this. In some ways, it feels familiar, like the feel of touching her own skin, and in others, it feels like touching a completely different person. "Connie. You know Steven would never deliberately hurt you. But please understand: there's going to come a time when he's going to have to fight battles and face down demons all by himself. And no one—not you, not me, not Dad, not even the gems—will be able to help him. There are places he's going to have to go that no one else can follow."

Connie sniffles, and realizes she'd begun to cry. "How do you know this? You said you couldn't see the future."

Stevonnie looks off into the trees. The sound of the bell rings in the air again. "It's the part of me that's Rose Quartz that senses this," they finally admit. "I don't fully understand it, but there are things that have happened—and will happen—that will change everything. You may have noticed, that one of the disadvantages Steven has is that he doesn't always know what he knows. If you know what I mean."

"But I don't want to just let go. Stevonnie, I don't want this to end! I don't want what we have to end!"

Stevonnie takes Connie's face in her hands. "Garnet told me that I wasn't a person. I was an experience. And thanks to you and Steven, I was a good experience. And if you get to experience something wonderful, does it really matter how long it lasted? What matters is, that it happened."

Before Connie can respond, Stevonnie leans forward and kisses her. And it's wonderful: warm and tender and deep. It's the way she always wanted to be kissed; the way she'd hoped Steven might kiss her someday. When Stevonnie pulls away, Connie notices for just barely a nanosecond, that their pupils appear diamond-shaped. She can hear the ringing of a bell once again.

Stevonnie smiles. "The bell tolls for thee," they say.

The air is the sort of dark blue-gray color that makes it difficult to make out where you are and what time it is. She's wrapped in sheets that are too heavy and too thick, and she pushes them aside. "Where are you?" she calls out. "Are you still here?"

"I'm here, Connie," a voice replies. A few seconds later, she can hear footsteps and discern the outline of someone approaching. The light by her bedside is turned on, and after blinking a few times to get her eyes to adjust to the light, Connie can see that it's her mother, still dressed in her lab coat from work.

Priyanka's face is grim. She takes Connie's temperature and her pulse, and determines both are normal. "It looks like your fever has finally broken. Good." She sits down on the edge of the bed.

"What time is it?" Connie asks her.

"One-thirty."

"In the afternoon?"

Priyanka blinks. "No. In the morning. You slept the whole day and most of the evening."

Connie groans. "Ugh. Was it the chicken I ate? Did Dad get sick too?"

"I don't think it was anything you ate. Dad didn't get sick. I had some of the chicken earlier, and I feel fine. If I had to guess, I'd say it was from being submerged in water the other night. That water by the harbor is filthy. And with the stress you were under, the lack of sleep and proper nutrition…I think it lowered your immunity and made you vulnerable to infection."

"Oh. Well, it took a while to kick in, didn't it?"

"You were probably incubating the infection for a while. But with Steven being missing and your being occupied with your emotions, your body was coursing with adrenaline. You probably didn't notice you were getting sick until you finally had a chance to come down from it."

"Oh. Makes sense."

"How do you feel, Connie?"

She draws her knees to her chest. "I feel fine, I guess. Kinda sticky and sweaty from the fever. The nausea's gone, but I still don't feel like eating anything."

"Sounds normal. But…um…how do you feel…otherwise?"

Connie shakes her head. "The truth? Confused. Still just…confused. Angry. Hurt. Lonely."

Priyanka pats her daughter's knee. "What Steven did…you know that he didn't do it to hurt you, honey."

Connie nods glumly. "But there had to have been another way. There just had to be!"

Priyanka looks up at the ceiling, shaking her head. "Can I tell you a story? A few years after I earned my medical degree, I was an ER doctor. It can be incredibly rewarding work, but it can burn you out quickly. Sometimes you sit around with nothing to do, no one hardly comes in. And other times you're so overwhelmed you think you're going to break. You have to move fast, think fast—everything fast. There was one night, right after Christmas, where I was the only doctor in the ER. Lots of people had taken off for the holiday; there had been a nasty virus that had swept through the town we were in, and lots of us had called out sick. So it was just me, and the team of nurses and aides and techs. It was quiet for a while that night, and most of us were praying that it would stay that way for the next several hours until our shift was over and we could finally go.

"Then a man came in, mid-forties, complaining of shortness of breath and pain in his chest. No history of smoking, lung cancer, heart disease—either personally or in his family. He gets signed in, I examine him. His wife and son are there, and as I'm taking his information, they're talking about the dinner they'd just had: heavy cream sauces, deep fried meats, rich desserts. The patient is talking about how he'd had a rich meal the week before and had felt like this—much to his wife's dismay, by the way, because she was trying to get him to eat better for quite a while. I ask him if he feels nauseous, and yes, he admits that he does, and that the pain seems to be radiating into his shoulder blades. He tells me that he threw up last week, and he'd felt better afterwards. I'm hearing all this, and I know right away what it is: gall stones! His ducts are clogged and giving him attacks when he eats food that's too rich to digest. I explain what I think it is, and the family is so relieved!

And just then…I get word that a child—no more than six—was struck by a car and is being wheeled in right then and there and is barely clinging to life. I'm the only doctor on-call, I have to do this. The family understands, and I'm off. It's a little girl, her name is Emmie. She's still wearing the blue sparkly dress her mother had dressed her in to go to Midnight Mass…" Priyanka voice is trembling, and Connie takes her mother's hand in hers and presses it to her heart.

Connie's mother clears her throat and continues. "Multiple lacerations, broken ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen…and I'm doing everything I can to keep this child alive. Because who wants to go to two terrified people and tell them their baby is gone? While I'm working, fortunately, mercifully, one of the ER doctors who'd called out earlier came in, leapt into action, and helped me on the table. We save the girl, she's going to live. I walked out of that operating room, Emmie's blood on my hands and clothes…but I was able to tell her mother that she lived."

"Oh Mom, that's awesome!" Connie exclaims, but her smile fades when she sees the look on Priyanka's face. "But…"

"But…in all the time it took to save that little girl, my other patient, the older man, died of a heart attack. It wasn't gall stones at all. Three arteries were blocked, and he went into cardiac arrest. So I had to turn right around and tell another scared family that their husband and father wasn't coming back."

"Oh…Mom," Connie cries. "I'm so sorry! That must have been awful, but…there was nothing you could do! You had to save that little girl, and you couldn't be in two places at once! You were just doing what you thought was right. You had to make a choice!"

Priyanka nods. "Yes, I had to make a choice. I didn't have the luxury of time to weigh all my options, I didn't have anyone else to sit down and confer with. I had a few seconds to make up my mind, and I made it. If I had to go back and do it all over again? I'd probably do what I did in the first place. But that night still haunts me. That man never got to see another birthday, never got to celebrate another anniversary with his wife, never got to see his son get married. And I can't help but feel like some of that is my fault. I don't know if I'll ever fully be at peace with the choice I made."

Connie doesn't respond to this. Priyanka sighs and gently releases her hand from her daughter's and stands up. "I would understand if you didn't feel like sleeping anymore, but you should still take it easy for the rest of the night. Would you like the TV on?"

"No thank you," Connie murmurs. "Maybe I'll just shower and read for a bit."

"That's a good idea, honey. I went ahead and did your laundry. You should change the sheets on your bed; there are fresh ones in the closet." Priyanka starts to leave, then stops and turns back. "Oh, by the way, I found your phone at the bottom of your hamper; not sure how it got there. Anyway, the battery was low, so it's charging right now. I'm surprised the ringing didn't wake you up."

"Ringing?" Connie asks.

"Yes, the ringing. It rang several times. I think it was probably Steven. Who else calls you anyway, right?"

Connie smiles mirthlessly. "Right. Good night, Mom."

"Good night, Connie."

After Priyanka leaves, Connie strips her bed and replaces her sheets, and gets ready to shower. As she does these things, she tries to remember the dream she just had. She feels like something very important happened, but she simply can't remember. She thinks she spoke to someone, maybe about Steven…maybe about things he'll have to do soon. She just can't picture exactly what it was. She just remembers how it makes her feel now: sentimental; sad; a little remorseful.

After she's showered and dressed, she finds her phone charging on her dresser where her mother must have left it. Connie checks her call history to see that yes, indeed, Steven called her at least eight times over the course of the evening, but left no voicemails.

Something feels familiar. A bell ringing in the distance…fall leaves…a babbling brook…a bridge…eyes like diamonds…a kiss.

"The bell tolled for me," Connie murmurs, as she shuts her phone off.