They spent the first half of the next day cleaning up wheatever they couldn't yesterday, having been robbed of the time by their need to sleep. Once those who needed to went to bed, Pearl and Garnet tried cleaning up a little more, but Pearl eventually found it awkward and started going between hiding in her room, weighing the pros and cons of calling Steven and Connie at this hour, and helping Spinel not feel so confused as she tried to fall asleep. Garnet stayed until the crack of dawn, but everyone knew from the start that this mess was beyond one or two people.
November 21, however, was a different story. Connie mentioned to Steven that the Omnitransmitter was quickly filling up with missions, but Steven repeated to her how they were all optional. He then got out his laptop and started to type.
"Steven! You can't just spend your time going on the Internet and-"
"It's different, Connie. Look."
Connie took the time to look, the moonbeams stretching over her eyes the same way he noticed when they were playing together as pre-teens.
He was typing a speech.

He tried the easiest level that evening, mainly as a rudimentary start. To see if he was reaching his audience with the content of the speech, to see if his voice was clear enough, blah blah blah. But more than that was the reactions the Homeworld Gems, ever more becoming secluded from the small concentration of the Crystal Gems, to him saying this.
"Are you CRAZY?!" exclaimed Peridot, ignoring the way she was jumping a little. "Engaging the humans like this?! Man, have you got a death wish. Unless you take along adequate security with you."
"A death wish?" replied Lapis. "I wouldn't say that. Actually, what you're proposing isn't half a bad idea. So long as you take along adequate security with you."
He bit his tongue. Jasper, despite the fact that she was still a hopeless case of introversion even with all the work Steven had been doing with her these past 2 years, would be the definition of adequate security. She looked the part, would do the part, and would most of all feel the part.
"A few Rubies would sound nice, I guess" was all Steven said.
Now, all that was left was to work out the scheduling, which would be one of the hardest issues. He'd not only have to find a way to fit an audience of a hundred or more...he'd also have to get it past whoever hed 'd have to ask, or, better yet, find an open, public space. And, considering he'd be doing this all the way from Beach City to the capitol out west, along with more cities across the country if he had the time and things didn't turn from bad to worse until then, he had more to do.
All in all, it was the day before Thanksgiving, with Connie joking relentlessly how it was "Thanksgiving Eve", by the time the first speech came. Steven decided to take it slow again and present in the space occupied by humans closest to the Gem settlement. He didn't have much experience with speeches, but he had to. If he was going to be himself, if he was going to be half-human and half-Gem, then he was going to have to have some sort of political significance, even without all the tensions rising. And if he was going to be at least a marginally important local political figure, he was going to have to master the art of speaking loudly and clearly, channeling all the emotions he wanted to channel, all while surveying the crowd and making sure to improvise, or surge ahead, depending on their reactions.
All of this he failed miserably at during his first time, but it was for the better than the worse. He doubled back when he should have gone full speed ahead, gone quiet when the crowd would've roared in applause for him if only he'd put one more emphasis on one more word.
But that didn't stop most everyone except for Connie, who was in the process of running her own political significance through her head, from cheering Steven on, even one in the upper middle class telling him of his "forensic prowess".
But by the time he went to sleep, calling his family one more time before they did, he wasn't running through "forensic prowess", or even what his political significance would mean should this become an international issue instead of something beyond the capitol and the eastern area of Maryland. Even beyond tristate. It was a panic for him. He'd been exposed to intergalactic affairs, but never something entangling the whole of his own planet.
Even that he wasn't running through.
He was running through why he was made like this. How he maybe wanted a different lot in life, and why couldn't he be something different, and why he couldn't be a teenager who'd just graduated high school and was starting his freshman year in college.
This was why he loved Connie. The more you spent time with her, the more she grew on you with her understanding.

Thanksgiving came and went, but it didn't go as completely quiet. For the first half of the gathering, Steven hid from his more Gem-hating relatives and started planning one of his speeches, only coming out when a discussion upchucked to an argument between one of the relatives and the Gems.
Uncle Andy, pilot hat and all, although a little frustrated at him not being able to land at the local airport because of the recent protests, had started from asking a question to having one of his brothers take up the question and somehow regurgitate it as something the Gems were doing that were inferior to humans.
Religion. They'd had the overwhelming sense to switch to religion first.
"And what, Christianity doesn't matter?! WE don't matter?! Just because we believe in one God?!"
"No, no, that's not what we said at all!" Amethyst cried out. "All we said was that we think having more than one god is more believable than just having one! That's all! I swear-"
Garnet interfered a little too late. "Amethyst. Let me handle this." She threw a glance at Steven; Steven nodded, a signal to him that whatever came out of Garnet's mouth would've come out of his. "We aren't saying that any belief is any more or any less true or important than the other. We were trying to educate Andy. That's all."
"What're you trying to say now?!" exclaimed Andy's brother. Andy looked at him, eyes wider than the length of his plane's propeller. "You trying to say that Christianity isn't any more important than whatever strange thing you believe in? You're the one that fell away from us! You can't treat us like this!" Andy dragged a finger across his throat, even looked back at the rest of them and offered to take his brother out.
"Take me out?!"
Steven had to get in the way of his pounce, but couldn't stop Andy's brother from knocking off Andy's hat. Steven felt a few bruises come up on him, and he winced before summoning his shield. He knew all he had to do was absorb the blows. Each and every one. Eventually, Steven knew he'd tire himself out.
Eight or so minutes later, Andy and his brother both eased themselves out the door. Steven slammed it, panted a little before locking it. Spinel sat, eyes wide and body a bit curled in on the couch cushion, although she couldn't decide whether it was out of terror or fascination at something new.
"I…"
It was Pearl who stepped up first to him. Everyone else seemed to be taken over by the quiet. The waves made their crashes near the back of their house, tried to convince anyone to say something before doubling back and starting it all again.
"I'm sorry, Steven."
He took a breath. Another. The weight of two worlds crashed on his forehead. But it was invisible; as long as that constant was there, no one else would have to know.
"I am, too."
The rest of the night was spent putting away the food and organizing a plan. Steven wouldn't have to go alone to his speeches, or stuck with a few Rubies or Quartzes he barely knew. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl offered to go with him, and they'd be what they were before, just four friends on a journey together, all trying to get the same thing done, and what a beautiful, golden journey it was going to be.

The 26th, however, was much better than Thanksgiving. They all decided that they'd had enough of the protesting and wanted to go out as a family. By the time breakfast was done and over with, they'd come to a sort of consensus that they'd visit a mall. Not something small, somewhere where they could be easily targeted. Somewhere that took a considerable, but still a not-too-far drive. Somewhere like Charm City, whose mall was a town of its own and extended six some-odd miles. Somewhere where they could easily dart somewhere else if their plans suddenly changed. Something that was silly, even stupid at the heart of it, but a kind of stupid that was somehow above all the stupidity going on around them.
An hour later, they were there, with lunchtime a little around the corner. None of them were used to the amount of cars crowding every single nook and cranny, the amount of people, so many people, walking here and there. None of them were used to the different types of people or the fact that none of these different types of people reacted to them any more than they'd react to themselves. And none of them, none of them, in all the different kinds of foods and languages and celebrations and layers of people and cars and buildings, would have pounced on Uncle Andy.
They decided that the best thing to do, as even Garnet's head swam with the amount of crowds rippling here and there, an ocean of all its own, was to stay together, at least for the moment. They looked at the brochure, while Greg stuttered over which place looked good and which place didn't. Spinel was practically screaming at just how new and bright and strong everything was, which didn't help those trying to plan. Eventually, they decided that the girls would head to the spa, secluded at the top level where the least amount of people were, while the boys would go and find the shoes to replace their falling-apart ones. Maybe they could find ones with a halfway marine design on it so they could blend in later…
The top would be almost immaculately spaced-out, they imagined. But the trip up was nothing short of hell. The one elevator that existed for the whole mall could fit maybe ten out of the entire hundred-something-odd people that stretched down the hallway, waiting, blocking stores. Pearl and Spinel got the brunt of this when people tried to enter the store they were blocking, with Steven and Greg having the sense to step back.
Once they were finally in the elevator, the roar mulled down to complete silence. It took everything in Spinel to keep her curiosity from exploding, and it was Pearl and Greg that kept a constant eye on her and kept her from doing that.
When they were at the top, the pressure finally stopped on their heads, and they could finally sigh in relief.
"You okay?" Steven asked Pearl, who looked as if her eyes were about to pop out of her head.
"Y...yeah." She looked down at Spinel, who looked at her with eyes wide as always, then Connie, then the rest of them. "C'mon, obiety." The universal Gem word for "citizens" or "all of you", better translated into "women". The word stirred up memories of war speeches, of Rose rallying squadron after squadron, and a weight went off of Pearl when him and Greg walked to the shoe store.
An hour later, the girls were outside and in hysterics at how Connie had tripped, knocked over a trashcan, and had the trash spill onto her, negating the work done in the entire hour. They'd taken a picture of Connie with the trash on her for prosperity. She'd never escape.
Greg had finished talking to his son on the amount of responsibilities he was taken and just how his pride...his pride spread to the coast, and he was so joyous, and how did he ever deserve him….
As Greg made his drive back to the Bay Bridge and back out into Delmarva, as the van occasionally groaned and creaked the way it usually did when it was full, as the members of the van turned the creaking into a funny little song, Steven could think of one thing and one thing only.
Not the song. Not while his eyes were closed, not while he swayed to his own rhythym, not while Pearl took Spinel close to her and told her where things were and where we're good places to go if she were ever lost.
It was the pictures in his pocket.

November 27, there was no creaking in Steven's bed as he woke up, kissed his still-sleeping wife on the cheek. For a few moments, he just sat there and realized, on a level he didn't acknowledge before, just how beautiful she was. The way her hair was swept, albeit messy, the way the film of sleep was still on her eyes, the way her torso rose and fell, a violin being played. He didn't deserve this, any of this…
He made another speech with Connie, this time to a more hostile region of Beach City, albeit "hostile" meant "neutral" at this point. Connie had volunteered to go over into more genuinely hostile parts of town, scope it out for later. Some received him with applause, some noticed him flush when he walk off. He wasn't loud enough. He wasn't...captivating enough. In a sense, he wasn't what he was supposed to be.
His mind took a glance back to his home. Surely, everyone back home would be watching the speech. Greg and Spinel would be cheering on him no matter what the technicalities of the speech were. As for the ones that were with him, Pearl would take Greg and Spinel's route. Amethyst wouldn't notice the technicalities, while Garnet would be keeping her comments silent. If there were small, but ever so mountainous flaws, he wouldn't be able to know. He wouldn't be competent. He wouldn't be what he was supposed to be.
He'd better be soon enough.

November 28th was when he made the speech in the hostile region of Beach City.
It was hell. He recognized the people who'd protested his childhood home practically to the ground. He recognized the ringleader, with creamy skin and hair like dirt mixed in with chocolate mousse. But no one was hurt.
That was all.

November 29th, the rest of the group heard about Steven's escapade in the more hateful part of Beach City. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, who before now had been trying to fend off the crowds whenever Steven would do his speeches, looked as if they were prepared for anything. But Steven knew what preyed just behind their eyes. He knew they were screaming for it to stop, knew that if it weren't for Steven being Steven, if it weren't for Steven's cause being Steven's cause, they'd run along home.
Almost as if Greg and Spinel heard them screaming, they came.
They came. Amethyst couldn't help but laugh aloud and give them a hug; Pearl and Spinel pooled their talents and made a midnight-snack dish for the full moon, the yanko bugini, that night, best translating into human languages as "the goddess' eye." They taught Spinel a yanko bugini dance that Steven had known since he was practically a baby and Greg learned in his mid twenties, where Steven would get in the middle of the crowd and spin while having the Gems jump and circle around him, with Steven touching each Gem's hand in an intricate pattern. Sometimes, Greg took Steven's place in the middle of the circle. All the while, the Gems would sing a pounding, leaping, rhyming Gem song about how the moon goddess helped them and how she always would, with Spinel stuttering through the newer Gem dialogue that had evolved while she was in the Garden.
Amethyst gave him a noogie. He was the one to laugh this time; he looked up at the moon, wondered if it truly cared about him.
And why it was letting him stay in this political tangle of twine.

From then, things picked up. The 29th, he made a speech slightly west, in Germanland, before a surprise visit from his family the next day, half-purposefully running into them during the grocery store. When the month turned, he let himself go onto Steaktown, in central Delmarva. The second day of the month, he thought it would be best for him to try to leave Delmarva, only doing one more speech in Eastown, the town at the very edge of the Bay Bridge. Lars, Bismuth, Peridot, Sadie, and her spouse Sheph, who'd been married to her a year now, paid him a visit before he was shipped out, with Peridot, the flower girl as always, tossing him a bouquet of roses for good luck.
It was when he left Delmarva on the third that month that the trouble started.
He made the hasty decision of settling down in DC. From here, it'd been a little over a month since the gunwoman had made her attack on them, and nobody, Gem or human, had forgotten. Choosing to stay in a hotel near the Gem neighborhood was a double-edged sword- they had a connection to all these Gems, but in order to get into any major, necessary building, they had to trudge through some of the most Gem-hating people they could possibly met. Steven would often physically grit his teeth. The day the Gems wouldn't have to face this was the day Steven could rest.
The fourth of December was probably the best of all- he'd gotten his computer hooked up so he could videocall his family.
The fifth to the eighth of December was when he made his slew of speeches. The first was greeted with cheers and screams of glee back at home from his family, it being right next to the Gem neighborhood. The second had a mix of cheers and jeers, while the third…
The third had no jeers to speak of, but something happened.
Something happened that made Steven call the venue in Charm City, tell them the speech was cancelled.
His heart tightened.
His body went into tumbles
The world crumpled.
Because he noticed a group of picketers in the corner, and one of them had a single word on it.
"Biesmerchy."
"Death."
Not only death, but death that was unnegotiable. There was nothing Steven could do. No peace talks, no speeches, no compromises. The battle cry Gems would often say if they were distressed enough.
"Biesmerchy" was what he repeated to himself, over and over in his head, until he began mouthing it in the middle of the night. "Biesmerchy." "Biesmerchy. "Biesmerchy."