So lovely she may have been carved from stone, Pearl materialized across the smooth face of the warp pad as the essence of poise. The billowing air, roused by the false rush of light and matter from the deactivating pad, caused the tail end of her tunic to rustle mystically.

Steven couldn't decide if he should be thrilled or worried to see her again, knowing the conversations he needed to have next.

"Hello Danburite, oh - oh, hello, Steven. You're awake." Pearl gasped at the sight of him standing beside his bed, though it should have been clear from her vantage point that Danburite sat on the mattress and he stood nearby, both faced in her direction.

Danburite offered Pearl a nod of hello, and Steven waved with a small smile.

"Hiya, Pearl." He started down the stairs as the lithe gem moved from the pad to the living room proper. "I was just wondering if you and Garnet and I could, um, talk. I have some… thoughts about Homeworld."

Her expression became alarmed and Pearl sported a frown, looking between Danburite and Steven as he came to stand before her. Something weighed at the corners of his eyes, Pearl noted, but he looked mildly less ill from some proper sleep.

After a quick glance at the clock, Pearl shrugged dramatically and lifted Steven under his arms, holding him like a parent might a toddler.

"Well, that sounds nice, Steven, but I'm afraid I can't right now. Some… things have come up, you see."

At this, Danburite crept off the mattress and looked down into the living room from Steven's raised bedroom. Her face was unreadable, but she hissed out a few words.

"Is it the police?"

Pearl blinked in her direction for a moment, justifiably baffled, but she eventually smirked and turned back to the warp pad.

"No, not the police. Not tonight, anyways. Something's come up at the barn. You can come, if you'd like."

Steven leaned back from her embrace, eyeing Pearl in confusion. "At the barn? Is that where Peridot took Connie?"

At the same time, Danburite deftly leapt from the second-floor and landed in stride besides Pearl. He half-directed the question at Dani, but she didn't seem to notice his inflection. Pearl made a face like she had just smelled something unpleasant, but offered no other response.

Weird…

"Well… can I at least walk on my own? I'm not a baby, Pearl."

A glimmer of guilt flashed across her face, but she ultimately mustered a strained smile and placed him down on the surface of the warp pad before stepping up herself. Dani followed a moment later, and with a rush of imbued magic, light burst forth from the pad and covered them all in the bioluminescent byproduct of travel by warp pad.

As quickly as the air escaped his lungs, Steven breathed in the countryside. It wasn't be any standards a good aroma, especially considering Peridot and Lapis had taken to using manure on their crops, but the land had a familiarity about it that Steven still admired.

Nothing on Homeworld smelled like Earth, or much of anything - sterile and futuristic and streamlined, that's all there was to it.

Things weren't clean here, and they were even less predictable; that's what was going to make saying goodbye so hard.

Well, that and the fact that his whole life was here, but his life was one small variable in a lengthy algorithm in keeping people safe - and in order for that function to operate, he had somewhere else he had to be.

Pearl cleared her throat loudly once they stepped off the pad, eyes glued to the hills that separate them from the barn. She looked thoughtful and, if Steven didn't know any better, sort of afraid.

As if reading his thoughts, her focus snapped down over him and she gave him an overly-toothy grin.

"Steven, why don't you go on ahead. I need to have a word with Danburite here."

He gave her a curious look, mouth pressed thin in a line of worry.

"Um, sure… is everything okay?"

The white gem nodded her head furiously and gave him a firm pat-pat between the shoulder blades.

"Y-yep! I am just fine. Yep, good. Good. Go ahead, we'll catch up."

Steven shot a glance at Dani, but her reaction was a moot as ever - she hadn't even descended the warp pad, just watching the exchange with muted disinterest.

"Okay," Steven responded with a shrug, walking off in the other direction.

After a brief trek, passing under dark skies speckled by stars and planets and galaxies, Steven crested the final hill that separated him from the modest barnhouse. Upon the last few steps before breaking the surface, Steven began to rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't still sleeping.

"Wahhh…" he mumbled to no one, captivated by the image ahead. Piles of glittering snow decorated the landscape, like a series of wintery mortars had gone off with the barn acting as the epicenter. Icicles adorned the shingles of the old roof in an icy arrangement of delicate glass, accented by frosted wood and snow bespeckled barrels of hay. Oddly, all of the crops were unaffected by the unseasonable precipitation, utterly aloof to the wonderland around and about their simple earthen existence.

Steven's mouth hung open as he took a crunchy step forward, the compression of snow beneath his sandals creating a concerto of wonder as he advanced forward cross the valley.

"What the…" Steven glanced back over his shoulder, abundantly curious as to what might be happening. Had Peridot conducted some sort of experiment-gone-wrong, freezing the water in the area? Was Garnet split up, and Sapphire having some sort of moment?

The latter thought was disquieting, so he lurched forward and passed the shining surface of the tiny lake outside the barn, peering into the barn doors with bated breath.

There was a soft rustling sound, like someone adjusting their weight, but no one he could see. "Hello…?" Steven called carefully, eyeing each corner with heightened suspicion.

"Oh," answered a voice from above, beckoning his attention to the second floor. "Steven! Up here!"

The saccharine sounds surprised him, and when a pink head poked out over the side with a broad grin, the relief that came was automatic.

"Connie?" He reacted reflexively, voice a song of confusion punctured by quarter rests of excitement and crescendos of nerves.

Steven cleared his throat and tried again, a rush of confidence rising when she smiled down at him. "Connie! What's going on? Where'd all this snow," he paused to kick a little ball into the shed with his toes. "Come from?"

She stood up and leapt down to a stack of bales, creating an uneven and scratchy looking stairway up to the second floor. Steven knew the spot above well; it was Peridot's favorite place for late-night binge sessions of Camp Pining Hearts.

A playful smile danced across the girl's face as she descended the rest of the way down to the ground floor, finally landing with a crunch as the snow bore her weight. Steven felt his face grow a little warm, but chalked it up to his poor health leaving him prone to feverish chills.

"Well, that's definitely a fair question. Let me think… okay, so," she closed the distance between them and offered her arm, crooked at the elbow. He smiled and hooked his own through, studying the mischief of his best friend's face with a confused grin of his own.

"You remember summer? How you never had summer vacation before, and when you learned about it, you felt so free and life felt so full all the sudden?" Connie sighed at her own memories of summer vacation, nostalgic for simpler times.

"Of course," he replied with a small laugh, letting her lead him back to the hay-stairs. "That's when I became Beach-Summer-Fun-Buddies with Lapis… annnd around the time when she tried to drown us and she stole the ocean, but, still. They were mostly good times."

"Well," Connie nodded along, gesturing up the stairs. "We also have this thing called snow days. My school district is pretty strict about it, so they don't come around often, but basically they're singular little summer vacations in the middle of winter. They're usually really nice because you don't see them coming, and it always feels like you get one right when you need a break most of all."

He blinked a few times, face grown puzzled. "But it's not winter."

"Right, right," she responded, trying not to laugh at his obvious observation as they approached the top of their rustic ladder.

" You need a break, and since it's not winter..." she released her hold on his arm and bowed dramatically, showing off the display beyond the precipice with grandeur.

"I had Lapis help bring winter to you. What do you think?"

She peaked up through her eyelashes at him, still bent at the waist to measure his reaction. A small grin of pride quickly spread across her lips.

Steven's jaw went slack as he studied the cozy scene, eyes examining every surface with great detail as he meandering forward towards the private nook. Two or three huge, plush blankets were splayed out along the couch, set opposite to the T.V and some other new additions to the corner. Most noticeably was a microwave Steven recognized from Amethyst's room, one of many from her impressive collection. Stacked neatly on top of the metal rectangle was an assortment of snacks - popcorn, soda, marshmallows, water bottles, saltine crackers, and all the makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Connie moved to his side when he said nothing, shyly adding, "I couldn't find season five of Under the Knife on such short notice, so we're stuck with just one through four." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind one of her ears and glanced over at him.

"And you don't have to eat and drink all the sugary stuff," she started to rub her hands together, nerves building as Steven continued to stare blankly at the scene. She wondered if he was being gripped by something again - a vision or nightmare that he couldn't resurface from.

"I, um… right, Pearl said that was probably a bad idea, but I wanted you to have the option. I know your stomach is probably sensitive, and after you tried to eat pizza the other day, I thought…"

Steven interrupted her explanation, turning on his heel and wrapping her in a tight hug. She froze like the piles of ice surrounding the barn, but his warmth thawed her a moment later. Gently, she raised her own arms and nuzzled into his shoulder, happy to be holding him properly after all this time.

"You snuck out for this? Won't your parents, like, freak out?" Steven whispered after a sustained, comfortable silence. Connie pulled back and blushed hot pink.

"W-well, yeah. After fighting off alien overlords and sneaking through Homeworld districts, it feels like 'being grounded' doesn't bare the same weight, you know? I just wanted to have a night with just us - no Gem stuff. Come here," she grabbed his hand and led him to the couch, and Steven continued to study the scene with a building pressure in his chest. It was almost too nice, and like everything with Connie, so perfectly thought-out.

She squeezed his fingers to regain his attention, so Steven shifted slightly and faced her properly. Connie looked in her lap, suddenly very preoccupied with the texture of her striped t-shirt.

"Steven, listen. For us to have a Gem-free night, we need to break the first rule of Gem Club. We need to talk about Gem Club." Her face was dead serious, and Steven frowned at the strange inflection.

"Wait, is that a reference?"

"Nevermind," she said, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "Serious-Connie. I've been thinking… well, I've been thinking a lot about what happened on Homeworld. To the Gems, to us, and you, and me," she paused and lifted her forearm between them, her pale pink hairs a pastel etching across her skin. Involuntarily, a lump rose in this throat, charged by hard guilt and worse images.

"And I thought about what you said the first night. When you woke up - how things aren't going to be the same anymore. That it's all not okay… and, you're right. My parents have been unbelievable everyday since we've been back, and I'm sure that's nothing compared to how the Gems and your dad have acted. They're weird around me, and I'm not the one who was trapped on Homeworld for a month." She gave him a weak smile, which he returned briefly.

"To be fair, you did die."

Connie laughed wryly. "Spoken like a true fourteen year old!"

The joke wasn't well received, however, and Steven bit his lip. "That's… exactly it though. You're thirteen and I… I just feel like it's my fault. I shouldn't have let White Diamond do that to you."

Connie reached both her hands to his face and spread her fingers taut across his cheeks, stretching to his hairline and forcing him to look right at her. The touch made Steven's face turn warm.

"That. That's why I wanted to talk tonight, Steven. White Diamond and Homeworld, H-Holly Blue Agate," she said through gritted teeth. His knee-jerk reaction was to flinch away, but her hold was firm. All he managed was to rub the side of one cheek further into her calloused hands, and it almost tickled.

"You did the best you could. The rest of us had weeks to prepare to go to Homeworld after you, and we had each other almost every step of the way. The only person who was ever really alone was you, Steven. No one… no one acted perfectly. Garnet and Amethyst formed Sugilite and literallydestroyed the entire docking area. Sugilite almost killed me. Pearl just about shut down and gave up, like, four times. Lapis and Peridot almost fell-out over everything, and Lapis and Pearl actually fought. Like, physically fought. Lion has been missing on and off since this all started. I'm not telling you all this to make you feel worse," she rubbed her thumb across his cheek, wiping away some budding moisture that threatened to spill over.

"It's because what matters is perspective, Steven. It's easy for the others to want to focus on the win's, because it makes us feel better, but we all screwed up. It's not any one person's fault that things went wrong, and it's not any one person's 'win' that made it so we could be back on Earth together again. What matters is we all did what we thought was right at the time, even if it's wrong in the end."

When Steven looked like he was about to protest again, Connie leaned forward and kissed him fiercely, the palms of her hands softening to cup his face rather that force his attention forward. Steven completely froze, somewhere between stunned and dazed, and just when his brain kicked into gear again - kiss her back, you idiot! - it was over.

"W-wow." Steven said, eyes practically glued open. He couldn't stop staring at her.

Red-faced, Connie released an airy little laugh and touched her forehead against his own.

"Even if it's only tonight. Even if it's only temporary. I'm just glad we can be together, for whatever time we have. Okay? So stop beating yourself up over this and let's have a nice night, together."

Steven blinked a few times, studying the intensity of her dark eyes with an entanglement of emotions he would never be able to decipher for. There was joy and love and happiness, woven together by fibers of confusion and trust and instinct and fear. The frames through which he studied her were tinted rose, colored unnaturally by some ephemeral thing he couldn't describe. Really, she was just too good to be true.

"Okay?" Connie repeated her question - really, it was more of a request - and leaned back. Steven's focus shifted from her face to the couch, and eventually turned to their private little cave above a snow-covered world.

"...Okay."

Her beaming smile would have been enough to convince him, but after the kiss he would have probably agreed to jump off a mountain if she asked (with or without floating powers).

Bounding to her feet, Connie stretched her arms over her head and turned away - partially so he couldn't still see the burning red still plastered across her face.

Steven stood up too, grabbing her hand as she turned to start their evening proper. About halfway towards the microwave, she was surprised when his fingers found her own and had no complaints when he hugged her a second time, this time with newfound warmth.

"C-Connie, by… by the way," he started to say, clearing his throat twice. Connie pulled back and looked confused, prepared to offer him a glass of water or something to ease his throat.

"I, um, there's just one… one more Gem thing. I meant what I said on Homeworld, and you don't have to say anything back or if you don't feel the same way, it's okay, but… I do love you. I really do."

She began hugging him again in earnest, if only to hide her shaking hands.

"I love you too, Steven. Now," she pulled back with a flushed grin across her cheeks, turning back to the T.V. and snacks.

"Let's get our UTK (Under the Knife) on."

For about two hours, the pair sat comfortably in near silence - if you don't count the staged yelling of surgeons and the wail of ambulances, of course. Face's burned blue by the glow of the T.V., Connie sat crossed-legged on one cushion while Steven pulled his knees up and hugged them, close beside her. Occasionally they shifted, but they were primarily bound to brushing arms and bumping elbows, followed by an embarrassed giggle, while the dramatic show played out.

Aside from a passing comment between episodes, neither of them spoke very much. When they did, no fears or worries or cares in the world we're given about Homeworld.

Around midnight, Steven's eyes began to grow heavy, so they agreed to split another bowl of popcorn and then call it a night. And though the half-human was exhausted, he felt like he could stay there forever, watching T.V. and eating snacks and enjoying the warmth of his best friend beside him.

Incidentially, any of lulls in the show did not bore Steven tonight. He was much more preoccupied replaying his favorite scene in his head, of pink skin and dark eyes leaning forward, kissing him silent, sweet and warm. She smelled like strawberries, and her lips were so soft he could absolutely forget about Homeworld in an instant if he tried to remember the sensation.

"Steven? Are you still awake?"

"Mmm…" he nodded lazily, eyes fully closed as his hand reached blindly for another handful of popcorn.

Connie laughed as he groped uselessly around him, so he peaked open his lids to see she had snatched the bowl away and held it above her head.

"Aw, c'mon, it's not my fault I'm exhausted. I haven't exactly had the most restful time lately, you could say." He raised a brow and chewed on his bottom lip when Connie just stared blankly.

With a weak chuckle, he added, "Too soon?"

Connie lowered the bowl and smiled, picking up a fistful of popcorn. "No, I'm just glad you're… you just seem so you ." Privately, she wondered if the Gems were crazy - this was Steven. She was certain of it.

Before he could counter or ask her to elaborate, Connie pelted the scoop of popcorn at him and he raised his arms defensively. "Hey!"

"My Mom said this thing once," Connie ignored his pouting at being popcorn-brutalized. "It was like, after some big police raid or something. Dad was having a hard time getting over losing someone that was a part of the company with him - it was before I moved here, so I can't say I remember a lot. And my Mom was like, doing the most ridiculous things she could. Dancing and singing, trying to juggle, anything."

Steven nodded. "That really doesn't sound like your Mom."

"Tell me about it," she replied knowingly. "It was so, so weird. But it eventually made him start laughing. And once he was able to laugh again, things got better. She knew it would - doctor and all, she said it had something to do with the release of endorphins in his brain, which activates the… nevermind," she paused when she noticed Steven's eyes start to droop closed again. "Laughter is the second best medicine, to real medicine. I think that's how she put it."

Steven couldn't help the joke that came to him. "Now that sounds like your Mom."

After sharing a brief laugh, still sitting close together on the couch, Steven snatched some popcorn and hurled it at her.

"H-hey!" She stood up indignantly, but Steven simply giggled and grabbed more.

"I thought laughter was the moral of the story!" He said, ducking behind the arm of the couch for cover from returning fire.

"Wh- no ! There wasn't a moral, I was just thinking out loud!"

"Well then," Steven snickered and ducked behind the back of the couch as popcorn rained across the cushions. "Then I have learned nothing!"

Sufficiently wasting the last of their snacks (or ammunition, depending on your perspective), Connie doubled-over in laughter standing besides the ledge as Steven hopped back over the couch. His movement jostled the floorboards below, however, and in a flash of pink, Connie was thrown off balance and teetered over the edge.

Automatically, Steven launched himself from the couch, meep morps be damned, and flung his arms out to catch her. With the ease of floating powers, he managed to moderate their velocity and their landing, while lacking grace, left them both unscathed.

"Oookay, not my smartest, oh… Steven? Are you okay?"

"Hmm?" Steven was sort of cradling Connie in his arms like one might a child, but he landed on his bottom so she sat across his lap. Glancing down, they both focused on the hem of his t-shirt, which glowed faintly pink underneath.

"Oh," he responded numbly, flinching at the discovery and all but tossing Connie away from him. He realized his transgression a moment later, but the girl crunched in the snow and brushed her pale pink hair with her fingers.

"Don't worry about it. We… we hadn't talked about Stevonnie. I figured you'd want to wait awhile before…"

"Yeah…" was all the response he could manage, more preoccupied with the sudden claustrophobic rush that seemed to grow from the walls themselves.

Pulling himself to standing, Steven patted the snow from his backside and adjusted his t-shirt, making sure his gemstone was sufficiently tucked beneath the cotton barrier and tried not to meet Connie's eyes.

"I'm…"

"It's okay." Connie interrupted and stood close beside him, but her voice sounded discernibly not okay.

"I just… I don't think I'm… I'm not ready." Steven felt compelled to say it anyways, holding his scarred arm in front of him and resting his fingers against the false veins.

"Steven, I mean it. It's okay. We don't have to talk about it until you're ready."

With some slow, deliberate breaths, Steven managed to smile and nod in agreement, but he still hastily exited the barn to be at the mercy of open air once again.

Outside, Steven walked forward towards the smooth surface of the frozen lake for a second time. There was something about the sight that was mystifying and captivating, like he could sink his toes into the inky blackness and come out the otherside.

Just like the dream…

Steven lowered himself to his hands and knees, edging forward to the surface. He placed a hand against it and pushed, imagined that same strange weightlessness that had carried him into the clouded rainbow of light he had dreamt about only hours ago, but he did not phase through.

Connie followed his motions until putting her hands against the black glass, instead using this chance to study their reflections together, studying up and down at the same time

Looking down, seeing up, the world was inverted. It was warm, but there was a chill along their legs as they knelt in the snow. For once in what felt like a long time, Steven wasn't completely exhausted, and the bags beneath his eyes felt less permanent. He could spot a twinkle across the universe that didn't look like a threat, but a delicate arrangement of constellations that framed his face against the ice below. Shapes and symbols he didn't know glowed from a million years away, beheld by mysteries but alight with good intentions, Steven felt a strange bit of curiosity twist within his stomach. He wanted to know them all, their names and stories and myths and legends. He wanted to memorize their patterns, to ask questions and be given answers, to be guided and led and not be left to himself ever again.

Behind him, looking into the smooth reflection, the stars looked like the specks of Rose Quartz he had been guilty of shattering, or the chips of his own gemstone along pale floors of White Diamond's throne room, or the falling pebbles from a collapsing Kindergarten. They looked like bubbles, questions, flickers of comprehension lost in the black sea of reality.

And then there was the image beside him, kind and comforting and more beautiful than all the stars around them.

"Connie?" He whispered, turning towards her. She glanced over at him in the reflection, rather than lifting her head

"Yeah?"

Before the thoughts could find their form across his tongue, Steven's eyes focused on a flickering beneath them - or, more accurately, far above their heads. A combusting star, twinkling in and out of sight as the light traveled to Earth to meet them, he looked up to watch it sputter and shine.

"In space, on Blue Diamond's ship, there was a night that looked like this. It was... really pretty. It was after Opalite," he said, face turned to an automatic frown, but did not break his pace. "The floor turned to a big plane of glass, and it was like standing on top of... everything ."

She didn't say anything, half-hoping he would continue, half-shocked that he was opening up about this. The look on his face made it clear it couldn't have been easy to talk about, but he felt compelled to speak on it now.

With a slow exhale, Steven looked up, at the true sky once again. "This was nice. Really, really, nice. Thank you, Connie."

"I feel a 'but' coming…" she said with a low voice. Steven smiled sadly, eyes beholden to the stars.

"Yep. I'm glad we got this chance to be alone, just the two of us. Cause in the morning I need to talk to Pearl and Garnet alone, too. Something's changed… and, I want you to know about it. But," he paused on the word, looking down at his knees. "I want you to know first that I'm sorry."

Quietly, Connie shifted her weight so her knees were no longer pressed into the hard snow, favoring instead a posture that reminded Steven of when they used to meditate together. She was examining her hands in her lap and said nothing, so he took that as an invitation to continue.

"I'm going back to Homeworld."

The girl tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, wordless. Steven watched her reflection in the icy lake, noticing the way her dark eyes looked down, narrowed and hurt.

"I had another dream about her. White Diamond. It wasn't…" he hesitated, watching her expression change to one of fear, but pressed on. "It wasn't exactly about her as it was like, being in her head, or her being in my head again. I can't even tell anymore. It was really, really bad, Connie. I don't know how she does it, or why she's doing this… although, I have a theory it's just to punish me."

Her face flickered with alarm when Steven laughed, though it was a mirthless chuckle at best. "I've thought about this a lot, if you can't tell. That's all I did while you guys went on that mission - that's all I've done since I've been back, period. Just thinking. Thinking. Thinking. And I keep coming up with the same answer, no matter how much I try to figure out some other way around it. She's said she'll come after the Earth if I don't go back soon, and that's putting a lot of lives besides my own in danger. That'd mean Dad, and the Gems, and you - and I know you all will say that's the wrong thing to do, or it'll be like Dani keeps telling me, like I'm trying to do some weird sort of heroism. And okay, maybe I am." Steven was surprised when his voice began to rise, but the words were now coming unfiltered, spilling out with hot tears to match.

"I just… I just wanted to save everyone. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, and at the end of the day, it was my life or everyone else. It would be selfish of me not to do that, even if it's unfair. It's like what Blue Diamond said to me that day…" his voice trailed off, and for a moment, he was back in that grand blue room. Vast and empty, he sat there in the middle with Blue Pearl, Heliodor, and Blue Diamond. One had become friend, another a foe, and the other was dead. The thought made him shudder.

"She said someone has to pay for what the Crystal Gems did. And now to make it all worse, White Diamond wants me to stay and use my healing powers and so much other stuff I don't understand. She wants Pink Diamond's shards, and for me to go back to Homeworld. That's the deal, Connie, and if I fail… she'll target you, and the Earth, and everybody else, and then she'll still get what she wants. So what's the point of fighting her?"

The next words to be spoken were frightening, but not because they were harsh, or sad, or angry, or afraid. These words caused both of them to jump, because the speaker stood behind them.

"But Steven, that's why you have to fight her."

It was Lapis.