Steven pulled the steaming, reheated tea out of the microwave and brought it over to the couch, placing the cups in front of Connie's parents. Connie's mother took the cup from the coffee table with shaking hands, wincing at the clatter her mug made. Her father didn't seem to register the cup, or the couch, or anyone in the room. His attention wandered somewhere distant from the beach house, his eyes faraway and his features heavy.

Connie squirmed on the couch cushion between her parents, waiting for one of them to speak. The adrenaline had left her body in the last hour, but the jitters remained. Live wires buzzed where her veins used to be. With no enemy in sight, and her sword sheathed and leaning in the far corner, she felt like she was stuck in a fight that didn't exist. Words hadn't been needed in the moments after the battle when she needed to know that her parents were safe. But now that they were safe, she desperately needed them to say something. Anything.

"So," Pearl said to Steven, breaking the silence. Her expression was calm, but the way she tapped her foot on the sand-scratched floorboards betrayed the worry Connie could see she still felt. "You're certain that's everything they said before we made it back to the Kindergarten?"

Steven glanced at Connie, and she nodded. Then he said, "I'm pretty sure. There was a lot of stuff about Earth, and gravel, but I guess that's everything."

Amethyst lay curled up on the floor next to the couch. Having been deprived of the shoe she'd found in the Kindergarten—which was once more on its proper foot—she'd contented herself with stealing one of Steven's sandals and flipping it idly against her nose. "So those bums aren't the only ones on the planet? Maybe they can go get their little buddies to help them find their stones the next time we—"

"Amethyst, please!" Pearl admonished her, scandalized. "We have guests!"

"It's happening again, isn't it?" Steven murmured, drawing all eyes in the room to him. His hands wove together, fingers twisting and knotting. "Like when Jasper and Peridot came here."

"Maybe." Garnet stood at the front window, staring out at the night. The ocean was blue-black as it lapped against the beach, its waters dwindling into the sky where the two met in a starless expanse at the horizon.

Steven's row furrowed. "Maybe?" he said, his voice tightening in a way that made Connie's heart ache. "What does that mean?"

Garnet didn't flinch at his tone. Her voice came back like the beat of a metronome. "It means 'maybe.'"

The answer made Steven scowl. Without warning, he stomped his bare foot back into the sandal Amethyst held, and then marched up to Garnet's back, his fists curled at his sides. "You guys can't do this again. You have to tell me," he said.

"Steven…" Pearl tried to start.

"No!" Steven snapped. "You can't not tell me things anymore because you're afraid. First there were two Gems running around, and now there are more of them somewhere on Earth. They tried to hurt Lapis and Peridot! They tried to hurt Connie and her family!"

His words, as if conjuring the memory from thin air, slammed through Connie's parents. She saw her father clench his hand until his knuckles turned white. Her mother jolted hard enough to tip a long, blotchy stain of tea down the front of her lab coat.

It pained Connie to see her parents so afraid of anything when, for so long, they had been the ones to protect her. She looked to the Gems for some kind of reassurance from Steven's accusation, but she saw something else instead. She saw Amethyst frowning down at her empty hands, lost without any sandal to distract her anymore. She saw Pearl weaving her fingers together just as Steven had with his. She saw Garnet turn her head a fraction of a degree away from Steven, which may as well have been a hair-pulling scream coming from the inscrutable Gem.

When they didn't answer him, Steven shouted, "Guys, please! Tell me!"

"They don't know, Steven," Connie said, startling the room. Now everyone looked to her, and their fear and surprise piled onto her own, making her shake. "These Gems aren't from Homeworld, are they? You really don't know who they are, or why they're here, or what they're doing."

Pearl froze in mid-fidget. Slowly, her lithe body sagged, her hands falling to her sides. "No," she admitted.

"You don't know who or what Shard is?" Connie asked the Gems in the room, but she tried to focus just as much of the question into her chest, trying to imagine the words pouring into the gemstone beneath her shirt.

Amethyst scoffed. "She's a real freak from the sound of it. A Gem calling herself 'Shard' would be like a human calling herself 'torn-off dead arm.' Eugh."

"Maybe this Shard person is working for the Diamonds?" Steven suggested.

With a humorless smile, Pearl said, "Amethyst is right. No sane Gem would call themselves that, and Diamonds have no patience for insane Gems."

Snorting, Amethyst said, "Uh, what about Peridot?"

"I'm pretty sure Earth made Peridot crazy," Garnet retorted, turning at last. Her shades tilted down at Steven, and her lips tugged upwards. "With a little help."

Pearl began to pace the floor, grasping her chin in thought. "Their actions so far make sense if they weren't sent from Homeworld. Yellow Diamond wants Earth destroyed. She wouldn't bother taking stock of planetary resources, and I doubt the other Diamonds would care enough to interfere with her plans." She stopped in mid-step, scowling. "Unfortunately, that only tells us what they aren't doing. Not terribly helpful…"

"We're being invaded."

Connie jumped at the sound of her mother's voice. Looking up, she stammered, "Mom?"

The mug of tea rattled back onto the coffee table, and then her mother leaned forward to grasp the edge of the couch cushion, steadying her hands. "They're space invaders. Actual, real-life space invaders. And just like us, you don't know why they're here or what they want," she said, looking to the Gems. A tiny laugh rattled through her, and she wiped at her eyes. "You're as lost as we are."

Garnet nodded. "Basically."

Her mother laughed harder at that, burying her face in her palms. Shoulders shaking, she laughed softly, her cheeks growing wet beneath her hands. "And you're the only ones who can do anything about it," she added, laughter whistling through her nose.

Connie bit her lip, realizing that when her mother had said the last part, it had included Connie.

Steven stood on the other side of the coffee table, holding his hands up in a calming gesture. "We won't let them do whatever it is they're here to do," he promised. "We'll find a way. I know you think we're dangerous and weird, and…well, I guess we are sometimes."

"Stop," Connie's father said, interrupting Steven. Her father's clenched fists shook in his lap as he fixed Steven with a piercing look. "All of this, the sheer scope of this… It terrifies us. We're afraid. And being afraid makes us angry."

"Dad," Connie started to protest, watching Steven's expression collapse.

He ignored her, continuing in a firm, even tone. "But that fear? That's not because of you. And that's not because of your family. Steven, you've been a good friend to our daughter, aside from an occasional lapse in phone etiquette. Maybe even because of it." A tiny smirk cracked his stern features. "We aren't blind to how much you and Connie care about each other. Believe me, we know."

Lowering her hands, Connie's mother smiled weakly through her tears. "You're a wonderful kid, Steven. And that didn't happen by accident." Her features palling, she looked across the room to the other Gems, and said, "I was wrong earlier. And unkind. And out of line. What I said to you was inexcusable, and worse, it couldn't have been further from the truth. And I knew it. I'm sorry."

Her tone was proud and clear, and it made the older Gems glance amongst themselves. It was Amethyst who answered for them, rising back to her feet to shrug one shoulder and say, "Eh. S'cool."

If the stakes had been a tiny bit lower, Connie might have enjoyed the look of bafflement on her mother's face. "Beg pardon?" she squeaked.

"Don't worry about it," Amethyst said easily, earning firm nods from Pearl and Garnet. "If anyone ever threatened Steven, we'd break them into a million pieces, then mash all the pieces back together the wrong way, then break them again, mush whatever's left into a ball, and shoot the ball into the sun. You were just looking out for Connie. She's worth looking out for," she added, and grinned.

Connie grinned back, but then sobered as she felt her father wrap his arm around her shoulder. "Thank you for protecting us today. And for helping us understand what it is you do. And for everything you've done for our daughter," he told the Gems.

Heavy dread sank in Connie's stomach as she heard the impending but in her father's tone.

"…but," he said, and looked across Connie to catch her mother's eye, "I think we can all agree that it would be best if Connie not continue her studies with you—"

"Dad!" Connie exclaimed, lurching in her seat.

"…right now," her father continued firmly. He looked down at her, his eyes glistening, as he said, "Connie, you're sick. None of us know exactly what's happening to you. You have someth…'someone' else inside of you. If you can't trust your own body in a fight, you shouldn't be fighting. And if I'm smart enough to know that, then I know you must have figured it out ages ago."

"We still want Connie to see you all," her mother added quickly. Balking, she said more softly, "That is, as long as she's still welcome—"

"She is!" Steven cried.

Resting a hand atop Steven's hair, Pearl smiled and affirmed, "She is."

Sounding relieved, her mother said, "We want Connie to see her friends. And we're proud of her for wanting to do good in the world. We'd probably be more comfortable with some kind of after-school volunteering, but…what you're all doing is important. We know that." Fixing Connie with a sorrowful look, she said, "But as long as Jade is inside Connie, she can't fight."

Connie opened her mouth to protest, lifting her fists to slam against her knees in a decisive and mature gesture that wouldn't in any way resemble a tantrum. But then she saw the spots in her skin. The little dark lesions covered every inch of her, even ringing one of her eyes like a shiner. It wasn't that long ago that Jade's corruption had turned them into something dangerous and out of control. Whatever had happened, it hadn't completely left her yet. Maybe it would get worse.

"Okay. You're right," Connie admitted, sagging back against the couch. "No more fighting until Jade is free."

Grimacing, her father said, "About that. There's one more thing, and I don't really…" He frowned, struggling for the right words. "We haven't heard from Jade about any of this. Not since the hospital. Now that we know about her, we should… I don't even know, really. But she deserves to be heard. Is she saying anything?"

Connie opened her mouth to explain Jade's silence when her passenger spoke up at last. "Just tell the traitors to say it already and be done, human," Jade uttered.

"Hang on," Connie told the room. "Jade?"

The Gem explained it to her in short, clipped sentences, and as Connie listened, she felt the blood drain from her face. All eyes fell upon her as Jade finished.

For a moment, just a moment, Connie felt tempted to soften Jade's words. She was the Crystal Gems' ambassador to Jade, after all. But somewhere along the way, Connie realized, she had become Jade's ambassador as well, not just her passenger's mouthpiece. "Jade wants you…all of you," Connie said, looking to Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet, "to say 'I told you so.' About the corruption. She wants you to admit that you were right all along."

The Gems glanced among each other, looking to Steven as well, as they carried on a silent conversation. One by one, their collective gaze fell past the warp pad to rest on the temple door.

"Come with us," Garnet said, motioning for Connie and her parents to follow. "There's one last thing you all need to see."

For the second time that day, Connie was speechless. Again she had thought that Steven's tales would prepared her, and again, she was wrong. The Burning Room was so much more than his stories could make it.

The light in the room came from the ornate lava pool and the channels of liquid heat that ran through the floor, and the throbbing veins of light lining the walls, pulsing in a way that made the room feel alive. Their orange-red glow reminded her of the catacombs of the Underworld as she had imagined them from the pages of The Spirit Morph Saga, an ancient place with secrets that were older than entire civilizations. Some corner of Connie's mind understood that being able to see lava with her naked eye meant that she should have been cooked already, which in turn meant that something in the room was making the principle of convection stand with its nose in the corner. For the moment, though, she was overwhelmed by the menagerie that loomed above them.

Dozens and dozens of basketball-sized bubbles floated overhead. The bubbles came in a variety of shades to match their originators, and each bubble held within its center a motionless gemstone. Connie tried counting the bubbles first individually, and then in rough batches, but there were too many to estimate. They blotted out the ceiling with their number.

Standing behind Connie, her parents gaped up at the sea of bubbles above them. "They're beautiful," her father whispered.

Pearl glanced to either side, trading looks with Amethyst and Garnet. Connie saw a flash of an old, old pain in her teacher. "They are," Pearl agreed, her voice carefully measured. "But that's not why they're here. These are all of the Gems we've encountered since the end of the war."

A moment of distress twisted Steven's features. Connie followed his gaze up to a pink bubble that was nearer to the floor than most of the others. The gemstone inside the bubble was a large one, squared and stepped like a miniature ziggurat.

"You had to fight each of these? Like the creature you chased earlier in that canyon?" Connie heard her mother say.

Shrugging, Amethyst said, "Not all at once. But we've had a lot of good scraps collecting these guys."

"We keep them in here so they don't accidentally harm any humans," Garnet said, her shades reflecting the colors of the ceiling. "We keep them in the bubbles so they don't suffer."

As she looked up at the Gems' millennia worth of work, Connie felt a disconnected ache in her thoughts. "So this is where the rebels have buried the dead." Jade intoned, her voice dull in Connie's mind. "What is the human term for it? A mausoleum?"

Connie drew a breath to repeat the thought aloud, but then held it. Garnet was looking directly at her, the psychedelic colors of the room reflected in her gaze. The fusion adjusted her shades, and then nodded solemnly.

Had Garnet guessed at Jade's reaction, or did she already see a future where the question had been answered? Connie wasn't sure she had the words to say what Jade needed to hear. Evidently, though, Garnet was sure. And that was good enough for Connie.

"They aren't dead, Jade," Connie said, her voice hushed by the room. "They're still alive in there. Homeworld Gems and Crystal Gems, all waiting for the day when we figure out how to reverse the corruption. And when we do, they'll all be free. They can stay on Earth, or they can go home, whichever they choose. We won't give up until we find a way to save all of them."

Her thoughts stilled for a long moment as she stared across the sea of colors. Then Jade murmured, "It is a nice dream, human. I'm sure that you and the rebels even believe it. But it amounts to nothing."

Connie glanced at Steven, and the cold misery seeping outward in her chest warmed just a little. "It's not enough," Connie admitted. "But it's not nothing."

Garnet nodded firmly. "She's right. We won't stop doing everything we can to help them." A smirk tilted in the fusion's lips, and she added, "But she was wrong earlier, in the arena. We do need Connie's help."

"Yo, I would be glitter stuck to the bottom of Jasper's feet if she and Steven hadn't gotten their Stevonnie on and saved my butt," Amethyst agreed.

"She's the finest human swordswoman I've seen in centuries," Pearl said. "You should both be very proud."

A gentle touch fell upon Connie's shoulders. She looked up and saw her mother looming above her. "We already are," her mother said.

The expression on her mother's face could easily have been mistaken for a smile. But it didn't touch her mother's eyes, which glimmered darkly. It was the same expression her mother had worn every time her father had announced a new move that would uproot their lives. It was a show of support that masked a deep uncertainty. When those dark eyes met Connie's, her mother squeezed Connie's shoulder and tried to smile harder.

Connie tried to smile back, and was just as successful. Her parents' understanding of why Connie had to help the Gems, why it meant so much to her, had cost them their peace of mind, maybe forever. And deep in her chest, she could feel the distant sense of misery that was Jade's renewed silence. Garnet had been right when she'd spoken in the arena: knowing the full scope of the truth hadn't given anyone any measure of peace. She knew it was the price for giving Jade and her parents the whole truth they all deserved. She just wished she could pay that price for them.

"Hang on," her father said, frowning. "What's a 'Stevonnie?'"

Her stomach plummeted as Connie suddenly remembered that she might have forgotten to reveal one or two pieces of the whole truth in her confessions. As she watched Steven's face grow cherry red, feeling her own face heat in response, she felt a little solace in realizing that she too had her own price to pay for the new honesty they all shared.

"Um," she stammered, "don't be mad..."