This is it, Steven thought to himself. This is how I die.

Jasper's arms, which were wrapped around Steven's body, tightened. Any other gem would have retreated back into their gemstone by now, but not Steven. No, he had the privilege of being fully conscious as the air was squeezed out of his lungs.

"Can't breathe," he wheezed out.

"Might want to put Steven down, Boulder Brains," Bismuth cut in, amused. She—along with Peridot, Lapis, and Jasper—had been the first one to greet Steven as he warped into Little Homeworld.

Jasper gave him one final squeeze, nearly popping his eyes out of their socket, before setting him down. A strange fondness washed over his being when Jasper patted his hair.

He should have been tense around her, ready to fight at a moment's notice. This was Jasper, after all. Short-tempered, power obsessed, violent Jasper. She didn't give affectionate pats on the head or concerned looks that made Steven want to tell her everything.

A pair of arms wrapped around Steven, followed by another, and another, until most of the Crystal Gems present were hugging him. It was nice, if a bit suffocating.

"Don't ever disappear on us like that again," Bismuth admonished, but it was clear by the way she squeezed him that she wasn't too upset with him.

"You had us worried sick," Lapis added.

Steven did his best to hug them back.

"I'm sorry, guys," he mumbled into Bismuth's chest. "I never meant to be gone for so long."

"Where did you go?" Peridot asked once they had all pulled away.

The gems, along with Dad, perked up at the question. Steven had been vague when talking about his time in the past, and they had mostly respected that, but it was clear they were curious.

It made sense, of course. He'd been gone for months. It was only natural they'd want to know where he'd been, but he didn't want to talk about it. They were there with him, weren't they? Even if they were suspicious of him at first.

"I was in the past," he eventually said. "And now… now I'm back."

It was a vague enough answer that he didn't have to relive any unpleasant memories, but sufficient enough for Peridot to connect the dots. She stepped forward, her intense gaze scanning his face in search of something. After a pause, she spoke.

"...Twoie?"

Bismuth grimaced, Lapis turned away, and Jasper frowned. Even the gems and Dad, who knew more of what had happened, looked pained. For them it must have been years since Twoie left, but clearly they hadn't gotten over it. Not that he could blame them. It had been abrupt; scary.

"Kind of? My memories are… well, I have two sets of them now."

One set as Steven, scared and desperate to find a way to save what was essentially his older brother. Another as Twoie, doing his best to stay strong in the face of what he firmly believed was certain death. Both were unpleasant.

Along with those memories, came a huge rush of emotions. For some, like Dad or the gems, his feelings were virtually unchanged. For others, however, his new set of feelings were at odds with one another. A part of him screamed to be on guard around Jasper while another felt safe and comforted by her presence.

When Steven looked at Jasper, he was reminded of the scent of pine and fresh air, of nights huddled together around a campfire taking in the view, of a cave in the forest surrounded by lush flowers and a thriving ecosystem—not the barren dirt land that served as a fortress of solitude. She was different from the Jasper Twoie had known.

"Stevie!"

Abruptly, a blur of pink and white crashed into him and snapped Steven out of his musings. He stumbled backwards, but a pair of stretched out arms prevented him from falling. When Spinel's grinning face finally came into view, a barrage of memories and emotions assaulted him.

The smell of harsh chemicals and death. A feeling of dread and hopelessness. The taunting voice of Spinel as she dangled him above the sea of pink poison.

It didn't stop there. Other moments, pleasant ones, played in his mind like a movie. Spinel keeping him company while the gems went out on missions without him, laughter as they ran away from a fuming Jasper who was unfortunate enough to get caught up in one of their pranks, and—

"Stevie?" Spinel's voice came out more hesitantly.

Steven blinked, chasing away the flood of memories. He must have been zoned out for a while, because everyone had stopped talking and were now looking at him with concern.

"You never used the injector," he muttered, and that had only earned him more confused looks. Even if some of them did know what an injector was, nobody would associate such a destructive tool with the carefree Spinel in front of him.

Spinel even looked different. The long teary streaks of mascara that used to be a permanent fixture on her face were gone. In their place were two small stars that dotted either side of her cheeks. The classic symbol of a Crystal Gem.

It was new and familiar at the same time, just like everything else. He tucked the memories away and decided to sort through them later.

"Never mind," he said, shaking his head. He did his best to wipe the confusion from his face and smile at Spinel. "It's good to see you again."

That's all it took for the questions to come pouring out. Where had he been? Why didn't he ever try to contact them? Was he hurt? Spinel spat out questions faster than Steven could answer them, and it wasn't until Jasper put a hand on her shoulder did Spinel quiet down.

"Something happened," Jasper began, glancing over at him. "It's not bad, just… weird."

Weird was an understatement for how Steven was feeling right now. Seeing Jasper get along with any gem—let alone one as excitable as Spinel—was surreal on its own, but compounding to the strangeness of everything was the odd sense of normalcy he got when he looked over at them.

Jasper gave Spinel a swift pat on the head and in turn, Spinel gave a half-annoyed, half-amused eye roll as she went about fixing her hair. Twoie never would have imagined those two, not only tolerating each other, but actively getting along. Steven, on the other hand, had no shortage of memories of the three of them spending time together.

After Twoie had left, Jasper was practically glued to Steven's side, only leaving for the occasional mission or to patrol the beach. Spinel also did her best to make him laugh during those first few months, and at some point Jasper had found herself more amused than annoyed by Spinel's antics.

"But Steven is okay, right?" Spinel asked after Jasper failed to elaborate.

It was Peridot who answered, jabbing a finger in his direction.

"Technically, he isn't Steven." At Spinel's worried frown she added, "But, he's also not not Steven."

"...What?"

Lapis sighed and held up a hand to stop Peridot's incoming convoluted explanation.

"What Peridot is trying to say is that—" She gestured to him with a tilt of her head. "—he has all of our Steven's memories and all of Twoie's memories."

Spinel's lips parted, but no words came out. Instead, her gaze bored into his skull as she pondered what Lapis had told her.

"We're all a little overwhelmed," Bismuth said sympathetically. "The important thing is that we found Steven unharmed."

"... He has Twoie's memories," Spinel muttered to herself. "Then all those months we spent searching for Steven…"

"I was in the past being Twoie," Steven clarified. "I just got back last night.

"That's… good, I think?" Spinel said. "Definitely not bad, just…"

"Weird," Jasper reiterated.

Spinel nodded. "Really weird."

Amethyst broke the contemplative and slightly awkward silence with an exaggerated yawn. She did a few stretches as she spoke.

"Don't know about you guys, but I'm getting bored of just standing around here. There's a party full of people waiting for us."

"That is, if you're still feeling up for it Steven," Pearl kindly added. "If this is too much too soon, then we can reschedule the celebration for another day."

It was a tempting offer. Steven really wanted to sort through the jumble of memories that only seemed to grow with every interaction, but the gems must have worked hard to plan a party on such short notice. He would feel guilty if he didn't go.

"I'll be okay," he said, doing his best to put some enthusiasm in his voice.

And so, they headed toward the sounds of distant chatter, near the center of Little Homeworld where balloons and colorful banners decorated everything in sight.

Connie was making her way through the crowd of party goers when Steven locked eyes with her. His heartbeat threatened to punch a hole through his chest with how fast it started beating. Connie moved quickly to close the distance between them and pulled Steven into an embrace.

"You're okay," she muttered, burying her face in his chest.

An explanation of where he'd been caught in his throat as his mind went into overdrive. Days spent on the beach together, the short songs they would perform together, all the times they would listen to each other vent; Connie about her strict mom and Steven about the gems who refused to let him go on missions.

There were even a few memories of pecks on the cheek that had warmth rushing to his face. Steven hid less from Connie than Twoie did, and their relationship was stronger because of it. However, that also meant Connie was eerily good at reading him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, pulling back to stare at him with concern.

"I… I just missed you is all," he eventually said, pulling her in for another hug.

As Twoie he would go weeks without talking to Connie. For all its technological advancements, Homeworld had horrible cell reception. It didn't help that he was constantly traveling colony to colony, spreading his message of peace while keeping the Diamonds in line.

"I missed you too," Connie said, burying her face in his chest.

"...there he is! Hey, Steven!"

A group of gems approached them, relieved smiles on their faces. Some, like Topaz and Nephrite, he recognized from Twoie's memories. Others, like an Agate and an Emerald, were from Steven's memories of his adventures in Little Homeworld.

Steven pulled away from Connie, but kept their hands linked together as he caught up with the gems. They would occasionally reference something or make an inside joke, and Steven would be left floundering for a moment as he searched for an answer among the disorganized piles of memories in his mind. Thankfully, no one but Connie seemed to notice his small gaps in memory.

The group of gems chatted with him a while longer before taking their leave. More gems immediately came to take their place. Some were friends, others acquaintances, and even more still were just curious about the latest gossip.

Apparently, there were several theories of what had happened to him floating around. A bear ate him while he was out walking in the forest, a group of old Homeworld elites assassinated him and hid the body, a fight between himself and the Crystal Gems had broken out and he had run away in anger.

Of course, none of those theories were true, but that didn't stop Connie from looking up at him everytime he was presented with another over the top conspiracy. He always avoided her gaze.

Amethyst had dragged Steven away at some point, leaving Connie to catch up with Pearl. She sent him a worried look as he was leaving, but he pretended not to notice.

"We need to talk," Amethyst said, uncharacteristically serious. They were walking along around the edge of Little Homeworld, far away from the ongoing celebration.

"Oh," he answered, nervous. "About what?

He wanted it to be a friendly conversation, something light-hearted, but Amethyst wouldn't have brought him all the way out there if that were the case. Steven tensed, all the "talks" he'd had with the past Crystal Gems never ended well.

"About what happened," Amethyst answered. "You were gone for a really long time. You freaked everybody out."

Steven grimaced. He had put off finding a way back home with no regard to how his family would react to his absence. What's worse, if he could go back and do it again, he wouldn't change that. Although things hadn't gone according to plan, he didn't regret the positive changes he was able to make.

"I'm sorry."

"What? Don't apologize! That's not—ugh, I'm the one who should be apologizing to you!"

That caught him off guard.

"...for what?"

"What do you mean for what? For everything! You were working so hard to make sure our future would be a good one." She gestured broadly in the direction of Little Homeworld. "And you did, everything's amazing now!"

She almost sounded upset, like she'd rather have the future be a miserable disaster. It only confused him more.

Amethyst continued, "I don't know what your original future, what Twoie's original future was like, but I'm guessing it wasn't as good as this."

"No," he said quietly. "No, it wasn't."

For the most part, everything had worked out in the end for Twoie's timeline, but every victory was an uphill battle. It took years of work to convince the Diamond's he wasn't Pink Diamond. For Steven, it had all happened before his fifteenth birthday.

"We—I treated you like garbage. It took me forever to trust you, I followed you around all day like a creep—"

"Wait, what?"

"—and you never once got back at me for it! So, go ahead and yell at me. I know you hate me!"

"Amethyst…" she looked so guilty, standing there and frowning at the dirt as she waited for Steven to snap at her. He reached out to palace a hand on her shoulder, but, at the last second, decided it wasn't enough and went in for a hug instead.

"I could never hate you, Amethyst," he began gently. "We're family"

"But the way I—"

"Amethyst," he said, and she immediately stopped talking. "The way you guys treated me was… not good, but I knew what I was getting into when I decided to change the past. I never, for a second, believed it was going to be easy."

"But we never should have been another obstacle you had to overcome! We should have trusted you."

"I already forgave you as Twoie, but I'll do it again as Steven. I get why you were suspicious of me, and I'm not mad at you for anything you did, understand?"

Amethyst squeezed him.

"Yeah… I understand."

With that out of the way, Amethyst returned to being her usual laid back self. They caught up in the past few years, and even though he had most of Steven's memories, there were still some things he hadn't remembered yet. Luckily, Amethyst was glad to fill the gaps in his memory.

But as much as Steven enjoyed the peaceful quiet of the countryside, he had to return to the party at some point. So slowly, Steven alongside Amethyst made their way back toward the throng of gems.

The rest of the party went off without a hitch. Steven kept an eye to the sky half-expecting the Diamonds to show up at a moment's notice, but he didn't so much as catch a glimpse of their ship. He suspected the gems informed them of his condition and asked them to give him some space which was fine by him. He would deal with his feelings about them later.

At some point during the celebration, every one of the main Crystal Gems pulled him aside to give Steven a similar speech to the one Amethyst had given him. Even Jasper, Spinel, and Lapis, who had generally been on Twoie's side, came to check up on him. By the end of it all, Steven felt like most of the tension around him and his family had disappeared.

With the sun setting and the party finally winding down, Steven was able to find a quiet spot away from most of the excitement. Leaned against a large tree, he found his breaths coming out deeper and slower. He would have dozed off if Connie hadn't found him.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked, startling Steven back into consciousness.

He wordlessly gestured for her to take a seat and continued to look up at the darkening sky. Some stars were becoming visible.

"So…" Connie began, but trailed off into silence. She gnawed on her bottom lip.

"So?" he echoed, trying to prompt her into talking.

His heart fluttered when he looked at her, and he had to make a conscious effort to not be caught staring. If Twoie had a crush on Connie (which he most certainly did), then Steven was absolutely enamored by her. After all, without all his Diamondly duties, he spent most of his free time with her.

"You were gone for a really long time."

Ah, of course she was wondering about that. Steven never did explain it to her, did he?

"I saw your messages," he said, and there had been a lot of them. He got messages from everyone, but—aside from Pearl—Connie had sent him the most.

"I thought you were…" Connie shook her head. "I was worried about you. We all were."

Steven opened his mouth to explain, but his voice caught in his throat as a sudden fear assaulted him. Would Connie not see him as Steven anymore? He had all his memories, sure, but the same was true about Twoie. In truth, he wasn't simply one or the other person anymore—at least, not completely.

"Steven?" Connie said, and he flinched, because could he really use that name anymore? Would it be more truthful to go by Twoie, or maybe another name entirely? It was hard to tell.

"I'm not Steven," he eventually said, much to Connie's confusion. Since the guilt eating away at him lessened somewhat, he continued, "I really messed things up. I grabbed the artifact without thinking, and I got stuck in the past. I tried to stay out of things, did my best to maintain the flow of time, but… I couldn't do it."

Slowly, realization flashed across the surface of Connie's eyes as they widened.

"I couldn't just watch as everything got worse while I had the knowledge to stop it."

"Then... all those years ago, that was you?"

He shook his head.

"I'm not Twoie either. I have all of Steven's memories. Well, most of them. I still keep getting flashbacks." he sighed. "I don't know who I am," he finally admitted.

Similar to when White Diamond had pulled Twoie's gem out of his body, he felt the pain of being an unstable fusion. Except, instead of his human and gem half, it was Steven and Twoie that were struggling to come together.

"You're you," Connie said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You may have more memories than before, but you're still Steven—or Twoie if that's what you'd rather be called."

And just like that, all the unease and uncertainty around his identity vanished, and all it took was the reassuring words of Connie. She always did have a way with words.

Steven smiled at her, and Connie smiled back.

They were close to each other. Connie's hand would occasionally brush against his and cause the butterflies in his stomach to go wild. Twoie never had the time to tell Connie how he felt, and Steven could never gather up the nerve.

But maybe he could…

He took a hold of her hand, and Connie immediately threaded their fingers together. His heart thudded against his chest, but for once it didn't bother him to think about himself. He was happy, she was happy.

He leaned down so their faces were level, and Connie's face flushed a beautiful crimson.

"I really like you!" she blurted out, and he laughed, because of course she had beaten him to it. "As more than friends, I mean."

In response, he pressed his lips onto hers, and she kissed him back with the same force. It was a long time before they broke apart, and they were still holding hands when they did.

"I really like you too," Steven said.

"So… this is going to be a thing, then?" Connie asked shyly.

"I hope so," Steven said, and he kissed her again.