Steven toweled his hair dry as he entered his room. When he was done with it, he tossed the towel into the air, and it rippled down before the room poofed it away. Behind him, the temple door closed cutting the sizzle of Pearl's frying pan short. Being back in a routine was good. Peridot hadn't noticed him come in. She was hunkered down behind the workbench on the lab side of their room. One hand was providing leverage on what looked like a teal colored chest plate, while her other cranked a small wrench.

She worked with a diligence that he knew all too well. Her mind was with the machine so that it wouldn't have to be where she didn't want it to be. She had woken up this morning with the same face she wore now. That expression he knew well too. It was the one that had called Sadie out for excluding him from the band, the same that had accused Connie of abandoning him like the rest of his friends. The muscles in his face remembered what it felt like to make that expression too, as Tourmaline. The lips formed one hard line, deeply set, as if drawing a line in the sand that no one else would dare to cross. The brow lowered, the muscles around the eyes tightened, the jaw was set. That was the look that Tourmaline had given Garnet when she had refused to take them on the mission to capture Jasper, or when 8LG's destabilization had failed to pull him and Peridot apart. It was of grim determination to protect him. A face that one might make as they weathered a storm.

Steven had never met another Peridot until 8LG, and even then it wasn't a good comparison, but it seemed to him that his peridot was made different. It was as if some other kindergartner had slipped up and had given her the willfulness of a diamond. He knew that when Peridot's eyes had opened this morning, if that Lapis from his nightmare had been there waiting on them, she would have leapt across him if she had to and fought the creature tooth and nail. When Peridot had demanded that he see her memories, it only confirmed what he had suspected about her. She had always been a little different than most gems. That difference had allowed her to put herself on a ship that would eventually take her hurtling to Earth so that she could collide directly with him.

As Steven watched her work silently, he supposed that if she didn't find these distractions, that the peridot scanner in her head would scribble off reams of receipt like paper until you couldn't take one step in any direction without tripping over it and getting up looking like a mummy. What made him smile was that she was standing on a metal step that brought her level with the bench. She had made the bench according to Tourmaline's height, not her own. But instead of shrinking it down to her level, she had decided to solve the problem this way.

Steven came over and propped himself against the other side of the workbench. He leaned over. "Looks complicated."

Technically, he was interrupting her in a time when she needed a distraction, but what he loved about her was that when she looked up, there was no placating smile, no hint of suppressed irritation. Her eyes laid themselves on him with a twinkle as if he was a new, even better distraction. The best kind. That grimly determined face melted into a smile. Peridot leaned over, so that the two of them met in the middle, above the suit's chest piece. She pushed her fingers through the middle of his freshly showered hair. She was pleased, "Showers are just as time inefficient as sleeping, but something about them makes me think I might like them too."

Another perk of being a full gem, Steven thought. Nothing stuck to their forms of light for very long, if it did at all. He wasn't sure if there was some self-cleaning process that was involved. They had their own personal scents, but like everything else, it was controlled by the gem. He supposed that if she really wanted to, Peridot could mimic the smell of chocolate or cookies, but he did prefer her unique scent over anything artificial. It was becoming something that comforted him. If only she were able to leave it behind on things, it would be perfect.

"I was thinking of asking you to make an addition to the room so we could have our own bathroom," he said, as he scratched at the side of his head. "I found some hair in the drain this morning, and it wasn't mine." He frowned, "I think Connie's going to be here awhile, and I don't really like sharing my bathroom."

"You didn't mind me in there."

Steven chuckled, "Yeah, but you didn't actually use it. Besides, you're different."

Peridot leaned forward on the bench, propped on her elbows, while she twirled the small wrench in her hand. She gave him a teasing smirk, "Oh? How so?"

He smiled at her. He conjured up an image of how much he thought she might enjoy a shower taken with him and sent it through the aura link. The wrench clanged against the robonoid metal underneath her as it fell out of her hand. She had almost slipped off the metal step she was standing on. She caught herself on the edge of the bench. Her cheeks burned a dark green, and she held a hand up to her mouth, but the curled fingers couldn't hide the coy smile that was now peeking out from the edges.

"I'll—I'll add it soon," She said softly.

She watched Steven while he took his time coming to her side of the table. He was eyeing the chest piece. Peridot got down from her step and hugged him. His lips went to the gemstone that had let him sleep last night. With a kiss, it blinked a 'You're welcome' back to him.

"So what's this? Something I could help on?" he asked.

She turned her head toward it but kept the side of her face nestled to his chest. The peak of her blonde hair just made it to his nose. He blew at it, and it bristled back at him as if offended before standing back up on end with defiance. Peridot didn't seem to notice. She said, "Yes, I'd like your help. This is my Christmas present for Connie." She let go of him and frowned bringing a hand thoughtfully to her chin, "But only if I can finish it in time. It's a suit like 8LG's to protect her when we go on missions."

"Wow. You know how to make that?"

She shrugged and tilted her head against one shoulder, "Sort of. Jasper helped me recover 8LG's suit, and I'm working off of its design."

"Worried about her?"

"Not immediately, no. She seems capable, but she isn't a gem like me or…" She glanced at him hesitantly, "...Or you. The human form is very vulnerable."

Then, the thought struck him. She had said Christmas. "What day is it?" He asked looking out of one of the windows as if he could tell the date by the snow accumulating on the beach.

"The 23rd of December."

"Crap. That means tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I haven't even got anything for you or Connie yet."

"If you help me with this, we can give the suit to her together." Peridot walked over to one of the lab tables and retrieved her tablet. Her face was pointed down toward its screen, but her eyes were turned up at him with a smile. She knew she had left out what to do about her own present. That was all up to him. Protecting the Earth, finding this grove, and fighting Homeworld, those paled in comparison to this challenge. He was utterly lost at what he could get her. But he smiled back. He would think of something. He always did.

Steven went to his closet and pulled out his socks from one of the bottom drawers. He sat down on the edge of the bed and started to slip one on. Next to him, the mattress lowered. He smiled when he felt a pointy tip of blonde hair brush against his arm. With one sock on and the other in his hand, he turned to her. She had put the tablet down beside her and left it.

"You were gone for so long." Peridot's hand came to his chest, not over his diamond but over his heart. He wondered if she could feel it start to beat faster. It always did when she turned her attention to him like this, "I know you want to find the place in your nightmare, but…"

He put his hand over hers and held it waiting for her to speak again, hoping that she felt at least half the patience that she gave him.

"Steven, I think there is going to be so much ahead of us. Training, fighting, traveling. But I don't want it to get in the way of us just…"

"Being together?"

She let out a sigh of relief that he understood. "Yes. I don't want to fuse Tourmaline just so that we can be this Final Diamond. I want it to be about being with you...and you wanting to be..." Peridot turned her eyes away from him and added softly, "with...me."

Steven leaned over toward her. Peridot caught the movement from the corner of her eyes. She looked back to him with only the faintest outline of a smile. She was eying him suspiciously. He moved closer to her, and she turned her body to face him. When he came closer again, she scooted back farther on the bed, but her smile was growing. He followed, wearing only one sock, letting the other drop out of his hand. Each time he came closer she would dig her stocking covered toes into the mattress and scoot backward and giggle. He came closer. There was a scoot. A giggle. She was grinning now. She waited in anticipation every time she moved back, and he would always be there to meet her. They kept this little chase up until Steven saw the next scoot would take her clear off the bed. He moved forward. She giggled, and the moment she pushed back, her eyes went wide at the absence of anything underneath her. She tumbled backward, her arms flailing over her head as she tried to catch herself, but Steven had already grabbed her.

"EEEP—" She yelped but the world wasn't moving down, it was moving up. Her arms stopped when she realized Steven was lifting her. Her eyes locked with his. She was looking at him so seriously now as if their game had been a thorough back and forth discussion. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled herself into him fiercely. They kissed and this time, when it was him that would pull back for a breath, it was her that would rush forward to chase his lips with hers over and over.

"Mmmmm." Peridot smiled at him as if that had settled the matter entirely.

Steven lowered his head and nodded with a small smile, "Helping everyone. Stopping the Diamonds. It's all important. But we need to make some time for ourselves. To have fun like we did last night with everyone. Or like right now." He gazed up at her, his smile gone for a moment, "If we don't, I think maybe all of this stuff will get to us too much."

Peridot frowned, "I know...I can't stop thinking about your nightmare. About that Lapis." She looked over his shoulder, "What if…?"

"What if it's our Lapis?"

Peridot only nodded.

"I don't know. She wasn't corrupted when malachite was defeated. I don't understand corruption as much as I'd like to, but I've never seen a gem become corrupted that wasn't because a Diamond had done it. There must be other Lapis gems out there. It could be one we haven't seen before." Steven shrugged, "Or, it could have just been my imagination in the dream. She was saying things the real Lapis would never say. Couldn't know. Only Mom knew those things."

Peridot still didn't look convinced. "Lapis gems aren't rare, but on the other hand, they aren't common either. They are too powerful and require too many resources. It's doubtful there are two on this planet. Corrupted or not."

Peridot sunk into his embrace moodily. Not having the answer was bothering her. It bothered him too. She played with his hair idly, her eyes resting somewhere over his shoulder. Behind them, the Peridot scanner was going 100 mph. Her nose wrinkled ever so slightly at the cold but salty air of the sea as a breeze swept it in from the balcony. Then, she blinked and turned her eyes back to her favorite distraction, "I was thinking of staying up on Christmas eve so I can catch Santa. Amethyst told me he isn't aggressive. That he instead leaves gifts for people. But I have questions. Like where he gets the resources for these gifts or where he got one of Homeworld's time displacer hourglasses. He must have one. Delivering all those gifts in one night without it is impossible. Maybe he got it from one of the old spires."

Steven laughed, "I could use some answers too."

"Will you stay up with me?"

He smiled, "Of course I will."

She smiled triumphantly, an impish gleam in her eye. Just knowing that Steven would be her stakeout partner meant that the old jolly fat man was as good as hers. Then, without missing a beat, she said, "we should interrogate Pearl for the location of the grove. Pink in your dream said she has knowledge of it."

He raised an eyebrow, "I thought you wanted to just relax today?"

"I want us to be efficient in both work and fun," She said matter-of-factly, "No need to stop one or the other."

Steven grinned, "Alright. Interrogate Pearl it is," He looked around, "Where is my other sock?"

When Steven crossed the threshold of the temple door into the living room and felt that coolness in the air, he knew it was going to be a good day. The feeling was more than the impending Christmas day and the presents that would come along with it. It was the coolness. Some he supposed called it the Christmas spirit, but he had always thought of it as much more tangible than that. It wasn't a chill, that's what the cold did when it invaded your warm layers. That would make you shiver. The coolness was a layer that settled on top of your sweater or blankets. It's what made them feel warm and not sweaty. It's what spurred you out the door to go throw snowballs or sledding. It was the same coolness that allowed you to enjoy the warmth of a cocoa mug pressed to your lips. The fire was crackling in the stove trying to fight back the cold, and the cold was what you wanted it to fight and maybe beat, but the coolness? Never. That was winter. That was the truth of the season. It would seem now to the untrained eye, maybe to someone who wasn't a winter veteran as Peridot liked to put it, that the warmth bellowing out from the stove was keeping them all cozy in here. But really, it was the cold that drove them to come together, and the coolness that kept their spirits high when they were.

Pearl had laid out breakfast for him and Connie on the bar. Connie was already seated. She spun the seat in a half turn and gave them a wave from the bar smiling, "Good morning you two."

"Good morning," Peridot replied.

He said it back too, but he was looking down at Peridot at his side as he did. He hoped more than anything that by the end of winter she would understand the coolness. The same that drove them to snuggle together under blankets and hold each other. The same that made her alter her body temperature so she could be his heater. If she did, she would know more about being human than even some humans. Connie had turned back to her breakfast, but Peridot noticed him looking at her. She was smiling mischievously between him and Pearl, concentrating on their newest scheme together. He grinned at her. There was no one else he'd rather share the energy of the coolness with. The day laid itself ahead of them, and so he gladly took her hand.

Steven sat next to Connie, who was already starting on her eggs. Peridot sat next to him so that he was in the middle. She pretended to be fascinated with something on her tablet while he began to eat. He made it through most of the breakfast without a word, then casually, as he finished a strip of bacon, Steven asked, "Pearl? Do you know what the grove is?"

Pearl didn't look up from washing the frying pan. She squinted at it and scrubbed the pan harder as if it were in trouble and she was really running it under water for punishment, "Where did you hear that name?"

"I had a dream about it," He said poking his fork against the side of his plate.

"A dream?"

"Yeah...I uh just wanted to know if its a real place."

Connie looked up from a bite of toast. Pearl shut the faucet off and looked down for a moment watching nothing but the pan dripping idly in the sink, "The grove is a real place. I haven't been back there in a very long time." She searched for a towel and scrubbed the pan dry, but Steven could tell her thoughts were no longer with the pan or even with any of them, they were at the place he was seeking to go, a place that he hoped his mom awaited him in some form or another. He hoped that his mom was the only one waiting for him there.

"How long?" Peridot cut in. She sounded genuinely curious.

The lingering anxiety in Pearl's eyes fled. Now she just seemed irritated that Peridot had involved herself in the conversation of whatever this was becoming, or rather what it appeared now, that it wasn't. "A few years before Steven was born," was all she said.

"Will you take me?" Steven asked unable to hide the pleading tone of his voice.

The request looked as if it had hurt her. She stared at him wordlessly, her mouth slightly open. Steven had thought only of himself, but he realized now that if Pearl came with him, if she showed him the grove, that it would be more than just him that Pink would be waiting for.

"I…" Pearl started.

But that thought would have never crossed Peridot's path, she was still pushing forward with their mutual objective in the forefront of her mind, "Steven thinks there is something important there that could help him learn more about his powers. We have to know where it is."

Pearl rounded on the small green gem, "There's nothing there but some trees and a pond! There is absolutely nothing special about it. Maybe you could be fooled into thinking there was something special going on there, but if you went, you would realize that it's nothing!"

The room went quiet except for the awkward crunch of Connie cautiously finishing a bite of toast. Pearl patted nervously at her top as if her hands were still wet from the washing but they were completely dry. She gave a cheerless little laugh and looked to Connie, "I'm sorry. I just think it's…" She looked to Steven now with guilt, "uh silly. There's nothing out there. No gem structures. I can teach you plenty about your powers, Steven." She nodded now as her mind fumbled with the good excuse, "Yes, we have the cloud arena. I can set up some things there after Christmas and we can train." She straightened up and smoothed her wrinkled top from the mindless scrubbing she had given it, "For a couple thousand years I was amongst the Diamond's and their courts. I can teach you plenty of what I saw they were capable of."

"I have to go there, Pearl. At least once to see it for myself." Steven said," Will you just tell me where it is? I'll go by myself."

There was that absent stare again, then she said, "I'll take you in the spring." Steven knew that meant never. "This is not the season to be traipsing around there. All you will get there right now is a bunch of snow. The pond will be frozen over surely." She was waving her hand in the air as if the idea of them going today or even in this century was already moving far away, and she was shooing any other foolish notions that might be left behind.

Tablet balanced perfectly on her lap, Peridot leaned forward and set her clenched fists down on the bar. Steven swallowed. Connie was looking on nervously. "Well if there is nothing there then it should be a very quick visit. What facet is it in? I'll go with Steven."

At that moment, Pearl looked as if she could strangle Peridot. She put her hands firmly on the kitchen counter, "Maybe you have forgotten. Steven died last week and tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Greg will be back from the wash in a few hours, and when he gets back, I think a better use of our time would be to spend some quality time with Steven and shop for gifts, instead of dragging him around an empty clutter of trees in the cold."

Steven put a hand on Peridot's shoulder. Whatever hidden pain, — and Pearl had a lot of that bottled inside. When she got like this, it was impossible to persuade her — whatever awaited her in that grove, she was afraid Steven would sense it. She was right to fear that. His aura had only grown stronger since that day he had linked with her. Peridot ignored his gesture, she was doing this for him, and that dogged determination was set.

"I have already selected a suitable gift for Steven," she said, "He is a veteran of the winter trials. It will not take him long to do this shopping. I don't see why we should not have time for both today or even tomorrow."

When Peridot's sensor siren began to ring and drown all other sounds in the room out, Steven wasn't sure who of the two of them it had saved. Pearl hurried out of the kitchen to answer it. She eagerly stepped up to the warp pad and accessed the crystal panel. Connie was holding her hands up to her ears shouting something that Steven couldn't manage to make out even though he was sitting right next to her. He was giving Peridot a look instead, and she knew why, giving him a sheepish smile in return. She had already gotten him something? She had failed to mention that part when they were discussing gifts.

Pearl shut the siren off. Both Steven and Connie sighed together in relief. Pearl was reading Peridot's sensor report happily.

"What was that?" Connie asked. Steven assumed that's what she had shouted during the alert.

Pearl answered for him, "Peridot created sensors to help better detect corrupted or homeworld gems. We've placed them around the warp pads, not all of them, but hopefully one day."

Steven looked to Peridot with worry, but she had already turned to him with the same thought, the same face. Maybe they would learn what facet the grove was in after all because maybe the report said that the sensor had detected a Lapis gem.

"Ah, It's a corrupted quartz. Not too much of an issue."

Steven and Peridot relaxed. The temple door opened and Garnet stepped out. Amethyst wasn't too long after her.

"We heard the sensor go off," Garnet said.

"It's a corrupted quartz," Pearl echoed to them. She spun around pleasantly to Steven and Peridot with her hands clasped together in front of her, "We will go take care of the gem, Steven. When we get back, Greg should be back from the wash. We can go Christmas shopping together." She looked to Connie wearily, "Look after them. Make sure they don't get into too much trouble."

Connie smirked and gave her an informal salute, a two-fingered wave above her brow. Before the warp beam took her away, Pearl looked convinced she had given Connie an impossible task. She had.

The warp pad now stood empty, and Peridot growled. She hated losing and this definitely felt like a loss.

Connie hopped off the bar stool. She strolled over to the door and hiked up a leg so she could put a foot into one of her blue boots. Then, she repeated with the other foot. She was shouldering herself into her matching coat when she finally said, "So? We going to go find this grove or not?"

That's why Connie had been his best friend. Maybe he was still trying to feel out what it meant for her to be back, or what it meant for her to be a full-time Crystal gem, but deep down, he knew Connie always had his back. A grin spread itself across his face, "You bet," Steven replied.

"But that's the problem," Peridot groaned. Her brow was wrinkled in that calculating look that Steven thought was so cute but would never dare to tell her so. "We don't know where it is. All I know is that Steven said it's in some forest. There's a lot of trees on this planet. It could be anywhere. We could go through hundreds of warps and still…" She raised her head and looked down at her tablet, "Wait." The peridot scanner had latched onto something, and it was taking it under its arm and running off with it. One moment she was staring off into space as she read the results, then the next, she was typing something into the tablet. Gem language scrolled across in the reflection of her visor in waves.

"There aren't hundreds of warps on this planet. They never finished colonization," Peridot bit the side of her lip as her fingers glided over the screen, "It's a facet that has a warp pad, and Pearl said that there were no gem structures near it. It's a forest of specific trees which limit it further. Douglas fir. That narrows it down to…" She giggled and smiled proudly. She hadn't lost at all. She had won, unbeknownst to Pearl.

"Where?" Steven asked in excitement. Connie strapped her sword across her back and crossed her arms waiting to hear the same. She rolled her eyes with a smirk as Peridot grabbed Steven by the shirt and yanked him into a kiss that made their breakfast plates rattle.

Tourmaline snatched a piece of toast off of Steven's plate for the road. She answered with a full mouth while headed to the warp pad, "Fhawcet fiftwy fweh."

Connie gave Tourmaline a playful shove standing next to her on the pad. The beam took them. Next stop: the grove.

Before the beam cleared, Tourmaline knew one thing for certain, there was no coolness here. There was only the cold. The bitter, cursing, grasping cold. Her physical form could ignore its bite, but despite her ability to shift with the environment, it seemed to be able to reach her through that protection just enough to scrabble its encrusted fingertips across the outside of her warm core to remind her that it could get to her if it really wanted to.

The warp pad sat behind a thicket and was guarded by three tall evergreens. Connie brought her hood up over her head and she peeked at Tourmaline past the fur that lined it.

"Are you sure that the grove isn't somewhere warmer?"

Tourmaline frowned at a gap between two bushes ahead of them. The path, still buried under snow, began there. "I'm sure," She said.

Tourmaline went first, sliding between the opening and into an open path dotted with trees. The snow from the bushes touched her form but found no place to stick. After Connie followed, she had to brush the snow off the front of her coat.

"Yuck!" Connie shook her hand in the air trying to get something off. Across the front of her blue coat was a streak of black slime. Both of them turned to look back at the bushes. Where they had brushed past revealed the plant underneath with its leaves sticking to the twigs like black sap. The leaves looked as if they had melted like decomposing flesh that hung to a ragged skeleton. They turned their heads toward the other bushes, but neither of them made a move to check them. Tourmaline was afraid that if she did, that it would reveal that the plants around them were nothing but bodies buried haphazardly in the snow, that the thicket was nothing but a pile of corpses.

Connie stopped staring long enough to realize she still had come away with part of one on her hand and coat. She bent down, grabbed a handful of snow, and used it to clean her coat and hands.

"Must be something bad going around this patch," Connie said lightly when she was done. She breathed hot air into her hands, rubbed them together, and took out a pair of gloves from a pocket. She had slid each one on before realizing that there had been no answer. She found Tourmaline staring down at the ground. Where Connie had scooped up a pile of snow to clean herself with, was a hole in the snow's crust. Beneath the thin layer that remained was dark mushy soil like mud.

Tourmaline's eyes darted up to meet Connie's, "It's this way. Let's go."

Tourmaline lead them deeper into the forest following strictly to the path. The Douglas firs rose above them, but underneath their shrouds of white, some wore patches of orange and red needles. Some branches were completely bald, and the bark of their trunks was torn or peeled in places. In the dream, Steven had arrived on time as an honored guest, but to Tourmaline it felt like she had come too late. What could be awaiting her at the end of this path? Something that befitted all of what she saw on the way there. And what did she see? Decay. Death. Corruption.

Peridot had seen it all before, but not Steven. This was his first at seeing it for himself. It was more real than any memory she could give him. She held him closer inside Tourmaline, the warm place the cold couldn't touch. She wanted so much to take him away from all this, to ride the warp back and watch an episode of CPH with him under warm blankets while they waited on Greg to get back. But he needed her help.

There's no kindergarten here but…
It's dying, Peridot. It's dying. Everything.

I'm right here, Steven.

Tourmaline crossed her arms and held herself.

When the ring of Connie pulling Rose's sword came, it didn't surprise her. Tourmaline looked back over her shoulder but kept moving. Connie looked back at her.

"There's something wrong about this place. I don't think Pearl knows what happened to it." Connie followed closer, the sword ready at her side. "You said you had a dream about this place?"

"Yes. I think my mom is trying to communicate with me from inside my gem. She was using the dream to get to me. She said in the dream that this place is connected with her. She thinks that it will allow us to talk to each other, that she will able to teach me some things about my powers."

"I hope she's right," Connie said. She looked down at the sword in her hands, "I always wanted to meet her."

"Me too."

When Tourmaline was sure that the next bend would reveal the pond to them, the only thing that it presented them with was a fallen tree. The trunk was sprawled naked across the path, too big to receive the modesty of the snow as the rest had. The two of them approached it warily. Tourmaline followed along its length. She smelled the black stained bottom before she saw it. In her mind, Steven told her that the smell was like rotten eggs. Connie pinched her nose closed and blew out a large steam cloud into the air as if to stop the scent from taking root inside her nose.

The roots were slimy tendrils that hung from what was left of the wood. Underneath was a mushy black crater of soil where the tree had sat. It disturbed Tourmaline to think that underneath all of this bright, clean, white snow, laid a layer of that stuff. Everything here seemed to be hiding its true hideous nature under something else.

"Too much water." Connie said in a nasally tone, her fingers still pinching her nose. She pointed at the mushy hole. "That's what made it rot. Maybe that's what's happening to all these plants. Isn't that weird though? Most of the water should be frozen."

Tourmaline nodded slowly. Her mouth drew a hard line and her brow lowered, "...It should be." She looked around them. Not a tree stirred. There was no hint of the wind, only the breathless last gasp of fall that seemed to hang permanently in the air waiting for that great relief: that drawing in of breath. But unlike Steven, this place felt as if it would never receive it, doomed to ache like his lungs had, but silently, with no help coming. Amber eyes scanned the trees for ragged strips of blue fluttering in a windless breeze. Nothing. No one. Tourmaline turned back to Connie.

"We're almost there. Maybe my mom will have some answers."

Tourmaline climbed the fallen tree first. Then she helped Connie over it. Connie kept her sword close at hand and Tourmaline trudged ahead of them watching the trees. The path seemed to take longer than it had in Steven's dream. Maybe he had only received chopped pieces of the journey. Tourmaline was walking at a steady pace when she felt a tug at her hand. But it wasn't from Connie's direction. It was from right in front of her. She jerked forward and caught herself from falling.

"Come on! I have a gift for you! But I can only give it to you at the pond."

Tourmaline stopped dead. It was Pearl's voice. She sounded so giddy. Happy in a way that Steven had never heard before.

"What's so funny?" Connie asked now standing beside her. Connie was smiling at her strangely as if she wasn't sure she should laugh at a joke.

"What?" Tourmaline shook her head.

"You just laughed," Connie said.

"No I didn't."

"You totally did, but not like you usually do." Connie peered around for something that looked funny.

Over Connie's shoulder, was a Douglas fir, green and full needled. It wasn't covered in snow. Pearl stood in front of it, a ray of warm sun shining down on her. It made the green cloak she was wearing shimmer. The length of it ran down to her ankles. With one hand she parted half of it open and held her hip confidently. Her other hand came to draw the hood close around her face. She dipped her chin down posing seductively.

"What do you think of this, my Rose? I saw some of the humans wearing these."

Tourmaline said, "You're beautiful."

Connie blushed. And so did the Pearl standing behind her.

"What?" Connie sputtered, "Which one of you said that?"

Tourmaline blinked her eyes several times and rubbed at them with her knuckles. Pearl was gone. The tree she had stood in front of had been gone a long time too.

"I think I'm seeing my mom's memories. Maybe relieving them a little. They're strong here for some reason."

"Oh." Connie swallowed and put her sword away as if suddenly it was inappropriate to have it out.

Tourmaline rubbed her forehead and squeezed at the bridge of her nose. "It's probably going to get worse as we get closer. I'll be alright. I think it's a good sign. It means Pink was right."

The two of them continued down the path making their way ever closer to the pond. As they marched, the sensations continued: a hand to her shoulder, her arm, a hug wrapped to her chest, a kiss to her lips. Tourmaline frowned and scrubbed nervously at her own lips.

"Nyeh," She muttered.

Whispering through the evergreen trees came the sounds of Pearl and Rose's merry laughter. The rhythm of their unintelligible conversations sounded like Steven's and Peridot's. Heated and passionate and excited with lulls of quiet appreciation. The forest was alive now for the first time since they had arrived. It made Tourmaline smile. They did have something special here.

"Would you sing it for me?"

"Oh no, it's meant to be accompanied by a piano. I wouldn't do it justice."

"Pleeeeease? You don't need a piano. Sing. Sing."

"How could I deny you?"

Tourmaline felt a hot rush to her cheeks as Pearl began to sing in a language that Steven never knew she had known. Tourmaline couldn't recognize which one, but she didn't need to know the words. Pearl's voice soared through the air foreign and angelic. Its beauty was so moving that even the foggy mist about the trees seemed to thin and let in some of the sun's light and warmth. Tourmaline was strolling now down the path, the sound of a forest symphony all around her. All of a sudden, it felt as if she was returning home. Even Connie's steps were lighter as if she could hear it too.

The firs moved aside for them, and the clearing they provided for her was a small grove hidden away from the rest of the world. Pearl's song ended. The forest became shamefully silent again. The pond was there, but it was not a striking blue anymore. It was murky and grey like the mist that hung over the tops of the trees. The only source of vibrant color was a few bits of orange and red needle floating on the surface. The water was not frozen.

"This is it. Right?" Connie asked. She sounded disappointed.

"Yeah."

"Do you see her?"

"No. Everything just stopped when we got here."

Connie shifted uncomfortably. She gripped the strap of Rose's sword, "Maybe you should wait here to see if she shows up. I could check around us. Make sure it's safe."

"Don't go too far," Tourmaline said, "just the edges of the clearing."

Connie nodded and made her way around the pond along the edges of the grove. She was peering around each tree looking for Pink as if instead of a tea party this time it was a game of hide and seek. Tourmaline closed her eyes, still listening to the crunch of Connie's boots as she scouted. Minutes passed, there was only the faint sound of crunching. Then, the forest creaked as if to lean forward to listen. A voice spoke sweetly in front of her.

"When I look at your fusion, all I can see is love."

Tourmaline opened her eyes. She smiled.

"Mom."