(Note: Season Six finale; Season Seven starts at the next chapter.)

After what must have been ten once-overs to see if there were any leftover guards from Beach City that had trickled over into Bethany Beach, the area in the middle of Beach City and Rehoboth. While Bethany Beach was, by all means, out-of-state, both Greg and Steven thought it was a good idea to buy themselves a little distance to throw off some of the guards. While Greg called his friend, Steven watched as slowly, each Gem unpoofed. Sapphire was one of the first to. Steven told her that Ruby'd unpoofed early, but didn't have the heart to tell her the details. But Sapphire seemed to catch on; she screamed a little before she clutched the ruby to her chest and kissed it before wrapping it halfway in the folds of her dress.
Afterwards, Amethyst unpoofed, clutched her head. "When Garnet comes out, I'm going to give her what-for, I swear." She looked at Sapphire holding Ruby, said nothing else.
Pearl then jumped out, tapped a little at her pearl, testing it by running the same basic analysis she'd done for the past thousands of years since she was first poofed. Some of the only Gem Steven knew, and it meant, "Identification: Pearl-E7314, hailing from Cancri-55E. May the Great Diamond Authority live forever."
Ruby was still resting in Sapphire's arms and dress by the time Greg said, "It's time to head out. Saph, I'm putting you in the backseat with Ruby, alright?"
She nodded. "Please don't call me Saph."
In a matter of a few minutes, they were at his friend's house. It was foreign; that was all Steven wanted to know. It didn't smack of home at the slightest.
He rang the doorbell. Sapphire was the one to keep a lookout before the ruby in her dress popped back to life. Ruby looked at Sapphire, looked at each hand, disconcerted. But Ruby and Sapphire still ran somewhere where no one could see them before, after moments of indescribable tenderness, Garnet walked back to the front porch.
As Steven stepped inside, he realized how familiar Randy was. When he was a kid, he thought, he first saw him. He was Irish, undeniably. Red hair. Short. Everything. But he also looked like he went to the gym. He realized- and the world ever so slightly crumbled on him- that this was the reason that his dad blushed when he went near him. Steven remembered Greg telling him how he really felt around both most women and some men, although that seemed so long ago...
"Nice to see you, Randy." Greg was about to step closer to him, but looked at Pearl; Steven could detect a little nervousness in it. "Thanks for sharing."
"Anytime. They're dangerous, most of them. But like I said, any friend of Greg's is a friend of mine."

Connie didn't waste any time heading over to Rehoboth from her parents' house. In order to keep themselves from crowding Randy's house any more than it was already, both Steven and Connie thought it was best to take up their nomadic life again.
They had to do speeches now. They couldn't afford not to.
So the Omnitransmitter was, as always, tossed away. Spinel looked on with a little hatred as Steven and Connie left, but took it in like a punch to the stomach and went back to the door. Except this time, Steven made a real, verbal, tangible promise that he would come back. Like he always would.
There couldn't be any time wasted. And so, without any trace of doubt, him and Connie set out on the road, this time trying to find a way back to the Capitol without going into Maryland. At least for now. But after awhile, Connie piped up with her idea of boarding a plane instead, but to her dismay, all of the airports were in Maryland. So they painfully found a way to snake to the Capitol, taking a few days to weave their way around by heading all the way up to the top of Delaware and to the tip of southern Pennsylvania. They then snuck their way west until they hit West Virginia. After heading down to about Elkins, it was a straight shot east across I-66 in Virginia until they found their way, finally, in the Capitol. It was the middle of January by then, and him and Connie figured that the speeches would last all the way until the end of the month. Then, hopefully, things should have died down about this law.
The first speech was met by rousing applause. More than that, even. There was even cries of, "Jarilo! Jarilo! Jarilo!" by some of the Quartzes.
War. One of the few words in Gem he was ever taught.
Rather than shouting for quiet, he put up his hand. It took a half a minute, but soon, all was quiet. He had to wait until all was quiet; otherwise, whatever he said would be lost in conversation after conversation, and possibly, if he waited too soon, a few more "Jarilo"s.
When the silence finally swept over the Capitol, a wave over Steven's chilled back when he was taken there as a baby.
Three. Two. One.
Liftoff.
All improv from here.
"Gems. Gems of all types. Obiety. Women.
No matter what role you served in Homeworld, we have one role now. And that role is to protect this world for the interest of both species; when one species dies, we all die. I see humans' souls die every day with this new law. And I tell you that when your soul dies, when your soul is separated, it is worth as much as a physical death, as a physical separation. And no matter if you understand every word I say or if you must use a translator because you are still in the process of learning this human language, we all speak one language. We all know this language. It lives deep inside all of us.
And that language says that conflict is not the way. I condone self-defense, by all means. But I am as much human as I am Gem. I am as much them as I am you. By attacking them, you are attacking me. But by defending yourselves, you are defending me. By defending yourselves, you defend your species. By defending your species, you defend both species.
Defend yourself. Defend all of us. But any more will cause harm. Keep the faith. But keep action."
But as the speech ended, he still felt a creeping sense come up to him. He didn't know what it composed of. Maybe it was the way the van's walls walked towards him with their two bodies. They took their feet and shuffled a little higher up his shoulders with every move the second hand on his always-rose-quartz watch made until Connie came, laughing, almost tackling him in the hallway.
"And all impromptu? Man, I should not be as hard with you with your computer use!"
And for a moment, everything was alright. He exhaled, and a torrent of stress left him. He knew that it was a wave by the salt he tasted in his mouth, only knowing by Connie wiping it away that it was a year. Neither of them were quite sure whether it was out of relief or out of stress.
In any event, Connie laughed as she finished arranging a safety plan should there be an active threat during one of the speeches, human or Gem. "I had a cut on my hand. Thank you for healing it."

Steven, even with everything his head went through, didn't think he'd ever forget what happened during the second speech.
By then, it was January 29th. Ruby and Sapphire had unfused in order to renew their wedding vows before fusing again. Spinel had started to notice that her tear marks were shorter, although that came and went with whatever mood her brain decided she'd feel that moment. And Pearl and Greg had gone "alone together to do some things", although almost everyone else saw through it for what it really was. But none of it mattered now that all the other Gems were living under segregation. Segregation. He'd thought he'd never hear the word again, at least not in the country he was in at the moment. The last time he heard that, he was being homeschooled and learning about a time not even his dad could remember.
He'd decided to do it on the other side of the city, where the highest concentration of humans were. The end farthest from Maryland, with Alexandria right next to it. Heh. Confidence seemed to push the envelope a little too much. Enough for the letter to burst out from underneath.
And it was more than letters that Steven received once he got there. It was purely volatile, a word that Peridot had taught him before he graduated the middle school level of online courses at home. He could see the signs calling him the same "mutt from Mars" that was etched all over the human buildings near where the remaining Gems were now segregated to along with every other Gem in Maryland.
But he spoke. And when he spoke, he kept it short. Kept it silent. He suppressed every part in him that was Gem. So it made sense that the speech was half as long as what it should be.
There was a short hush over the crowd. Steven looked to the left and to the right for immediate danger, pretending to be solemn about it in order to look decent.
Connie was already waiting for him, and before anyone could react, they'd driven away to the hotel.

Steven realized he had trouble breathing that day. It wasn't because of asthma- him running around on at least over a dozen planets had shaved off a lot of his baby fat, and with that, a lot of his asthma. And it wasn't because of any accidental falls on his chest as he came down the stairs, which is what Connie and him joked about initially.
He realized it was the same thing that made him shed a tear earlier.
It was also the same thing that caused him to look out the back window- it was arranged almost exactly the way it was back in their old condo across town- and out the front door almost over and over again. Connie didn't ask him what was wrong with him; she only pulled him into her lap and sighed before stroking the hair she'd always lose her fingers in.
"What if they come, Connie? What if it'll be just, like, before, and…"
"Shhh. And we were alright before, weren't we?"
She took a strand and toyed with it a little before settling her hands down.
"Yeah, but that doesn't, stop me from…"
"I know." She took the little area tshirt in between his exposed back and his hoodie, started kneading it.
Her hands stopped, settled again. The hotel was quiet other than the occasional sound of someone walking their dog outside; the air arond them seemed to hold itself in a breath. It exhaled when the heater kicked in, and the breath exhaled. Steven took another breath, a proper breath, and started to speak.
"You ever heard of Elvis?"
"Who hasn't?"
"I mean, you ever heard of Elvis' story?"
"Not...I mean…"
"He loved his mom so much. More than anything-" Tears came. "Sorry, I… you know what he did next?"
"No."
"He spent his entire life trying to find a girl to fall in love with him and be like a mom to him at the same tiime. A girl near his age. And he never got it, because no girl wanted somebody who wanted that. And then- then he started drinking, and then he moved on to dugs, and he was a mess, and he ruined his life, and he wanted to die, and I don't wanna be like him. I don't ever wanna be like him, Connie…"
"Steven…"
It was the weight of the world that Steven let soak into not only Connie, but anything who wasn't him, slowly.
And it was the weight of the world that slowly lead him to sleep.

It was the weight of the world that pushed him onward.
Steven had realized how far he'd gone and decided he'd destress by going to a cooking class with Connie to learn how to cook some of the food she so loved. Oddly specific, but something the Capitol wouldn't be lacking. Since it featured much of Connie's culture, she thought it was best for her to help organize the event. Which is why after a quick peck on the cheek and a quick reaffirmation for the other from both of them, Steven was walking by himself out of the condo towards the building right down the street corner where everything was going on.
He didn't know the rules. He didn't know you weren't supposed to walk in groups of less than at least five when walking on the sidewalk here, even when going somewhere close. He'd didn't know. He'd been homeschooled in rural Delmarva all his life.
But he was about halfway there, in the little area on the sidewalk in between a bank and a bakery, when he saw them.
They'd been toeing his family's property for awhile now. His dad had even pretended to be a tourist in order to see what was going on with them. The leader had red hair, curly just like Randy's. He knew he was the leader because of the way he manipulated himself, used boxes, high places on sidewalks, anywhere in order to make himself appear the tallest. There were others with him, kids that looked a little older than Steven, mentally if not physically. Most had snow-pale skin. And Steven's skin turned pale itself when he saw the shirt that the leader wore.
"Keep Beach City Mutt-Free."
Before he knew it, the leader had pinned him down to the floor, was tugging at his navel before Steven could do anything. Muffled by the lack of people and by the leader shoving his face into his own jacket, he screamed in ten seconds of excruciating agony as the piece of diamond was pulled out, tossed to the end of the sidewalk and into one of the sewer grates nearby as his entire core felt like it was lit on fire.
"No, my...my-"
Exhaustion gripped him. He felt as if a train were crushing him; he coughed under the weight of it.
The leader took out a knife, not-so-deftly cut the lef sleeve off of Steven's own hoodie, tied it around Steven's mouth and the back of his neck. Steven clenched his bleeding arm and tried his best to take advantage of the pain-fueled tears. Before he could, the leader took the arm, pinned it back until Steven heard a quiet crack. The tears flooded from his eyes this time, unabridged and unbound, but not falling anywhere they needed to.
He tried kicking a little despite all the exhaustion, but two others held his legs down. His right arm flailed, now unable to summon any weapons. He shook his head as his body started to shut down.
In a few seconds, it was all he could do to breathe normally, and he found it too exhausting to struggle.
"There you are. Human just like the rest of us, aren'tcha?"
It was all Steven could do to get a better look at him. He prayed that it was a sudden bout of rain that caused his eyes to be blurry this time. The only thing the tears were doing for him now was embarrassing him.
There were freckles on the leader. Undeniably. He looked like a twisted version of Lars. But those around him were of all different shapes and sizes. They were all wearing some shade of black and had some shade of faded text. They were each fetching something out of their pockets.
The exhaustion crushed Steven's head, and he winced and dropped his head slowly on the alley floor.
"Y'know, Steven, December happened a long time ago."
Steven felt his body slowly fill with a fourth a gallon of waste products that should've been taken out a long time ago, all poisoning him from the inside out, the gem not taking out or putting in what it had to.
So whatever his human body had to offer tried to fill in the gem's role. His back burned, and so did the top of his stomach. He tried to vomit, found he was too exhausted to.
He felt his lungs as they tired out. His eyelids fluttered shut over his now jasper-yellow eyes. The amount of venom in the leader's voice only made it worse.
"But I was at Mass then. And the Gospel the day after Christmas gave me an idea. The person in there had the same name as you. Stephen. Something happened to him there."
He heard quiet rumble-rattles, tossing sounds from the others. Undoubtedly whatever was in their pockets.
Rocks.
He was past confusion. The breath caught in his throat, and he tried as best as he could to move himself towards the sewer grate, but all his body could allow him to do was to make a glorified flinch.
"And you'd like to live up to your namesake, wouldn't you?"
And for every day and nightmare afterwards, if Steven was asked if he knew what it was like to be dipped in Hell for those nexxt minutes, he couldn't answer no.
He didn't know what it was like to be stoned. No one did he knew of. Stoning was something done in the Bible his father read when he was younger. All he knew is that he tried to scream to his shutting-down body to run, run, run, and that was before the first stone.
The leader had the honor of throwing the first one. Of all places, it hit his chest. He made a horrible noise in between a yelp and a scream, a mixture of both. A mixture. It was what he was. It was a stabbing punch, if he could describe it any better. All the bravado was gone; the tears were squeezed out as if he were a fish being choked of all its water.
"That feel good? Huh? That's what you've been doing to us. Taking our jobs! Making us poor! Firing my dad and making me poor! Sending more aliens to come down and threaten us! That feel good?"
No, no, that's not what we're trying to-
His head was murky with pain. He closed his eyes under the murky sky.
And that was when the rest of the stones hit.
His body was lit on fire with these stabbing punches, and he jerked in a terrible dance. The world closed in on him and pierced his human skin with needles, and it was all he could to protect his head.
The side of his leg unlocked blood it shouldn't have before it was quickly splintered into a million pieces. His collarbone was the next to go. Shattered completely, blood spewing initially. Then his lower back howled as it was bruised. Then his foot, his back again, his stomach, chest...no more words….no more, no more….
Everything that was human howled at him in mutiny.
The screaming. The screaming.
All muffled by the jacket.
Screaming.
Screaming.
Whimpering.
Gasping.
Silence.
Was he dead? He didn't know. Was he not breathing? He wasn't paying attention. But either way, he could feel the blood in his veins as it poured itself into the ground. He could feel his lungs twisting. Filling. What were they filled with? He didn't know. He could hear himself gasping into the sleeve tied around his mouth.
Both legs broken, his left arm still pinned to his back and breaking with them. Stomach quickly swelling and leaking blood. Chest seizing. His hands and back almost compromised, and one of the youngest ones almost stopped and threw up at the sight of exposed muscle on his hand. The bruises he couldn't count. The cuts, he-
Connie. I love you so much.
Dad, I didn't tell you that enough.
Pearl. Thank you.
Spinel. Sweetheart, you've come so far.
Amethyst. I've never seen you as anyone less.
Garnet. The both of you are unstoppable.
I never tell any of you any of this enough.
I never….
He lay there, dead. Lifeless to the world until, after a few more stones dropped on him for good measure, they shuffled out one by one. And then he heard running before the ringing in his ears started kicking in.
The ringing. His Gem gone.
White Diamond, don't- don't- I need-
He needed it.
His eyes shot open, coated with yellow. No one was right arm. He knew it wasn't damaged.
He took a long breath, filled with agony.
He needed it.
Without the Gem, the brains he had left were murky.
He had to… the sewer grate….
He stretched out his arm, felt like it was being stepped on as he moved it. He let himself yelp before he started dragging himself and his body exploded, some of his leg bones scraping on the sidewalk. His lungs crumpled in on themselves, and within 2 drags, he was exhausted. Whatever progress he made was dampened by his coughing, which only sent his body into more fits of pain. He repeated this process again. One more time. And when he was too exhausted, he tried positioning his right limb under his streaming eyes.
Each cut was gone.
The sewer grate lay in front of him, flowing with liquid. There was a trail going in from where he'd dragged himself. There was a puddle a little in the grate, tiny. He could tell that much, although it was getting dark now and he couldn't see what it was. Had his Gem fallen in there? He swiped at it with his hand; it was small enough to where he could hold almost the entire thing in it. He felt something a little heavier than water in his hand. He smiled a little.
He brought it to where it was close enough for him to see. It was red. Blurry, but red.
The entire trail was red.
And there was nothing else he could see in the grate.
He had to close his eyes. Had to….no, he had to get the Gem, he had to get out of here…
His eyelids were so heavy…
I love all of you...
I never tell any of you any of this enough….
He let his eyelids fall.