"Is he awake yet?!"
"I don't know! Are his eyes open?"
"...No."
"Then there's your answer! Now move back and let me finish my job! Pearl, if you could please hand me more of that...fountain water, this should be it."
"Yes, My Di...Yellow."
With a stiff hand, Yellow Pearl scooped up the bottle of fountain water and handed it to her former Diamond, who took it, nodded at her, and then carefully positioned above her target: Steven's Gemstone. Specifically, a small hole in it, which she would then place a Gem shard inside. The last Gem shard that they had managed to recover. Currently, it looked like there were no others, but they couldn't be sure. They had found him all by himself, and the person or people who had done this to him might have taken a few.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves again. Let us back it up a bit. Again. It was all after Yellow took Spinel to White. That had taken a little longer than anticipated, thanks to Spinel retelling everything that had happened to Yellow (and Yellow stopping to ask several questions), but eventually, she made it to the glowing Gem, and left to get back to Steven. But what she found was one of her worst nightmares come to life. After tracking him down due to him failing to answer her calls, Yellow found the hybrid in a heap, his Gem cracked, his skin deathly pale, the thing he had once called a "heartbeat" going at one per minute. With no time to lose, she picked him up and shot out the archives, her frantic footsteps causing dozens of cubes to fall off the shelves and shatter upon hitting the ground below. But she didn't care. She ran, and when she reached the platform she jumped straight through the air up into the opening, before sprinting out of the archives…
...Only to run smack into his family, which she narrowly avoided running over. She was just about to cross over the warp pad that was in front of the main palace when it activated, and when the beam disappeared Steven's family was standing there, looking up at her in surprise, then horror when they realized what he was holding, the Pearl was the first to scream when she saw Steven's limp and unmoving body in her hands, and then she screamed even louder after she demanded Yellow give Steven to her and saw the severely cracked Gem. She picked him up as carefully as possible, storing the leftover Gem shards Yellow had taken in her Gem, and was about to go back to Earth when Garnet stopped her, stepping in front of the pale Gem.
It clearly took every ounce of willpower Pearl had to not just push Garnet out of the way, and she managed to spit out a question, something about why Garnet was standing in her way. (It might have been something else. Yellow couldn't hear it very well, and the parts she did hear were almost so incomprehensible that one would assume Pearl's voice was corrupted). But after Pearl had finished her question, Garnet had answered that it would be better for everyone if he was healed here. She didn't go into any more detail than that, other than a comment on how they should probably hurry.
Everyone stared at her for a fraction of the second, before Yellow, having heard what Garnet said perfectly, picked Steven back out of Pearl's arms and continued walking towards the palace. Pearl looked like she was ready to whip out her spear and throw it in Yellow's eyes right then and there, before Garnet told her to go back to Earth and get as much fountain water as she could in the span of two minutes. It took Pearl a few seconds, but eventually, Bismuth offered to come with her, and without waiting the bulky Gem took Pearl in her arms and warped away. The remaining four Gems and one human (Greg) stood for another second, three of them looking at Garnet trying to figure out what the heck just happened, before they all remembered why that had happened in the first place. They all followed Yellow at top speed, Garnet eventually resorting to picking up Greg and trying to call him while he hyperventilated. He had been wailing almost as loud as Pearl after seeing Steven, but no one had noticed. Because that "almost" was actually a very big margin. Garnet was sure that if he had been standing any closer when it happened, he might have gone deaf.
And when Yellow saw them all trailing after her like a bunch of ants, she was...well, not happy, but grateful at the least that they were here. It would mean more help. She was already freaking out on the inside, and anyone that would be willing to assist here would be useful right now. And she had to admit, she was impressed at the fusion's restraint. Immediately jumping into action, giving orders, all while having a cool and collected face on, barely showing any emotion.
But then again, her palms had been trembling like crazy, so she might have been devoting all her emotions into those. But irrelevant nonetheless. She made it to the palace and burst into her chambers, the Gems following her in a minute later. She set Steven down on her desk, everyone else jumping up to make sure she didn't try anything (even with their newfound meetings, trust was an iffy thing. They all knew how much the Diamonds missed Pink. And how they might do anything to try and get her back.) Pulling out a pair of tweezers that she used to repair shattered Gems, Yellow was about to place the shards down to put them back in…
...only to realize that she no longer had them, as they were taken by Pearl. She let out a word that she had heard Steven mumble one time when they announced they were coming to Earth to visit, much to the shock of everyone present, and then turned to them.
"...I can't do anything right now."
"Can't do anything?! What do you mean?!" Greg wailed. "You have to do something! You can't just let him-"
"I can't." Yellow repeated. "Your Pearl took all the shards from his Gem. Without those, I can't do anything for him. I can only place the shards where they belong, but I can't will new ones into existence."
"That's bullshit!" Greg cursed, while Garnet held him back. "Steven was always talking about you and how you're apparently the most powerful beings in the universe! He's my son! And part of your family, if you consider him to be Pink! Are you seriously telling me you never had contingencies in place in case a Diamond was ever cracked? There's nothing you can do?!"
"Of course we don't have those contingencies!" Yellow said, getting up and kneeling down. "The idea of a Diamond being cracked has always been ludicrous to us! No Diamond has ever even had their form dissipated! The actual Gem being damaged was an impossibility to us! I'm still shocked that this even happened to Steven! He may not be Pink, but he has her Gemstone, I don't know what could have possibly-"
"That's enough, both of you!" Garnet shouted, stepping between them. "This will get us nowhere. Greg, Yellow is unable to do anything for Steven right now. That is a fact we must accept. Yellow, Greg is Steven's father and he is very important to him. He is just very concerned for him, and such levels of concern can cause people to act rashly."
"Rashly?" Greg said. "I'm not acting rashly! If you were me, you would be reacting the exact same way! Steven is up there, not moving, and I don't even know if he's dead or not!" He exclaimed, before pausing and looking back up at this son. "Is...is he? Is he-"
"He's not," Garnet said, before placing her hands on his shoulders. "And while freaking out may be an appropriate reaction, it's not what we need right now. I need you to stay calm, Greg. For Steven. We may be able to save him, as long as Bismuth and Pearl-"
"May?" Lapis interjected. "You mean there's actually a chance he's going to die? I knew that he was hurt and his Gem was cracked, but I didn't think that that was fatal! My Gem was cracked for years and I was fine! And I thought his human half was undamaged! I didn't see any of that...red stuff that Connie had on her head after the explosion! Shouldn't...one full half of him being fine be enough to save him?"
"No," Garnet said casually. "It isn't. Peridot, I believe you did a study on this. Would you care to explain?"
"..."
"Peridot?"
"Huh? What?" Peridot said, who was hunched over and clutching her head like she was having a mental breakdown. "Sorry, what did you say, Garnet?"
"Lapis is having trouble understanding why Steven is in danger," Garnet said. "You did a study on how his human and Gem halves function a few months ago. Do you mind explaining to her why-"
"Is any of that necessary?!" Greg interjected. "He's hurt, and he needs help right now! How would an explanation of why he's going to die if we don't get him some help?"
Suddenly all eyes were on Garnet, and she stood still for a moment, before sighing and looking at her hands.
"I hoped that trying to talk about something meaningless that wouldn't help anyone...might distract me. I feel like it's the only thing I can do…" She muttered. "To prevent myself from unfusing and breaking down like Pearl just did."
And after that, nobody questioned what she was doing.
Peridot gulped and then gave a half/hearted explanation to Lapis, while Garnet listened and tried to continue calming Greg down, who looked like he was about to start yelling at Yellow again. Yellow herself, meanwhile, sat back down in her chair and tapped her fingers against the desk, checking every so often to make sure that Steven was still alive. He was...but his heartbeat was still slowing down. Soon it was almost to once every two minutes, and Yellow was about to leave and go to Earth herself to get the Pearl and the Bismuth, when Blue and White suddenly burst in, spotted Steven lying on the desk, and the former unleashed a blue aura so powerful that even Greg fell to his knees, sobbing. (He already had been, but not it was even more intense.)
"Blue! White!" Yellow said, struggling to see through the tears. "What are you two doing here? I thought you were back to your rooms-"
"No…" Blue said, pushing past White. "I was hoping it wasn't true, but…" She looked at Steven again and let out another cry. "They were telling the truth. We're going to lose Steven...just like we lost Pink...and we-"
"What!" Yellow said, running over to her fellow Diamond. "Who told you that this was happening? Who else knows?"
"A few Gems came into our rooms.." White said, approaching Yellow and turning to one of the windows. "They told us that they saw you carrying Steven, and all the Gems following you looked so worried, so they assumed that something might be wrong with you. I didn't want to believe it, like Blue, but we had to check. And...it seems they were right." She explained, even her voice trembling, a great rarity.
"White...Blue…" Yellow said sympathetically, before sighing and blinking the tears away. "I'm sorry, but Blue, can you please leave? I still can't see as well as I need to with this. And if I don't put the pieces in correctly when Pearl and Bismuth get here, the Gem may reform wrong. And thus his form will."
"Wha-I'm not leaving!" Blue protested. "Not until he comes back to us. Not until I'm sure our Steven is alright. Not until-"
"No, Yellow is right," White said, wiping her eyes with her cape, knowing that Yellow was correct despite how much she hated leaving Steven like this. "Blue, if you could accompany me back to my quarters, that should be a large enough distance that your aura can't affect anyone in here. We all want to be with Steven right now, but this is what's best for him."
"I...I can't. We just got here! We can't leave." Blue said, falling to her knees and just narrowly missing squishing Peridot. "I can't leave him! What did I just say? I'm not going to lose Steven like we lost Pink! If something goes wrong, I need to be here. And if he wakes up, he's going to want my clouds so he can be happy and-"
"You're becoming rash," Yellow said, still waiting for White to lead Blue out. "Just like that annoying human from earlier."
"Hey! My name is Gre-"
"Not important," Yellow said. "Blue, I understand. We're all worried about Steven. But for the hundredth time, I can't help him if I can't see, and the reason I can't see is because of you! Just please go a little further away!"
"I…" Blue started, looking from Yellow, to Steven, to White, and then repeating that process. "I...very well." She said, her voice trembling greatly. "I will leave. But if...when he wakes up, you will send someone to fetch me immediately, so you understand? After such a horrible event, we need to be there for him! All of us, so-"
"Blue…" Yellow said, her tone of voice saying everything.
"Of course. Of course." Blue said, before turning around and slowly walking out of the room. She was followed by White, who quietly started to comfort her fellow Diamond, even though she looked like she wanted to stay as well. Yellow watched her in concern, noting how even the elder Diamond was struggling to keep it together. The willpower she must have had to volunteer to lead Blue back like this...it impressed her more than anything. But once the two were gone, the blue glow surrounding everything faded, and Yellow wiped away the last of her tears before she went back to Steven. It was, however, at this moment that Bismuth and Pearl entered the room, the former looking quote concerned as she kept her gaze glanced over her shoulder. They immediately had Yellow's attention, and she breathed an enormous sigh of relief when she saw that the Pearl was carrying the shards from Steven's Gem, along with some fountain water. Without even asking Yellow carefully plucked them both away before the Pearl could react, and turned to Steven to begin working. Pearl looked like she was about to react, but stopped when Bismuth put a hand on her shoulder.
"Oh hey," Amethyst said, without any semblance of emotion. "You two are back."
"Yeah, and more concerned than ever." Bismuth said. "I assume that the whole mess with White and Blue we passed was because of Steven." She stated, pointing a thumb behind her.
"You're right on the money," Amethyst said. "Yellow asked them to leave so she could work on Steven's Gemstone, and now that you're here...well, guess that can finally commence."
"Yes, and I'd like it if you could all remain quiet," Yellow stated. "I know you likely have a lot to discuss with each other, but I need you all to remain silent while I do this so I can concentrate. Then we'll talk."
Surprisingly, everyone obeyed this order without comment, shutting their mouths and shifting in place as Yellow worked, with Yellow Pearl assisting her. It was the longest five minutes that any of them had ever waited in their life, with the occasional clink or sloshing sound as the Diamond continued her work. But eventually, she let out another sigh, drawing their attention.
"Finally." She said, as she carefully prepared to insert the final shard. "I thought she was never going to leave. And I thought we had gotten over that whole crying aura of hers. This is the first time I've seen her use it in two years. Granted, hardly any time at all, but that's still a record." She sighed as she planted the shard in the Gem, which then sealed itself in with the already present fountain water. The stone slowly started returning to its lighter pink coloring, while Steven's skin got noticeably less pale, although still light enough to look like he had been kept in a dark room his entire life. Yellow carefully pressed a finger on his chest and sighed in relief when she heard his heart steadily return to its normal rate, although just like the skin, it was still a long way off.
"There." She announced, turning to the Gems, who had been waiting patiently (while constantly fidgeting and internally freaking out.) "The final shard is in. His Gem is fully repaired. And while I don't know much about how humans function...I think he's looking better. That odd thumping in his chest is returning to normal, which I assume is good, and his skin is...going back to how to how it was before." She explained, struggling to find the right words. "He's better. There. He's better."
"A-are you sure?" Greg and Pearl asked at the same time. "He's going to be okay?"
"I'd assume so," Yellow said. "I was hoping he would already be awake by now, although I guess that was too much to hope for-"
"Bring him here. Give him to us." Pearl demanded. "Please. We just...have to see him."
"Very well," Yellow said, before carefully taking Steven in her hand and then lowering him to the ground. He was instantly swarmed by everyone there, but eventually, Pearl and Greg pushed through the mess and got to him first, where they kneeled and looked down at him, now unsure as to what they were about to do. Spinel, who had arrived without any of them noticing, tried to push past them, but Garnet held her back, slowly shaking her head at the rubbery Gem.
"He...he looks okay." Greg gulped, before reaching over and running a hand through his son's hair in the most comforting way he could. He then moved his hand lower and placed it above his mouth, looking like he was about to start crying again at any second. A moment later, he did, but this time out of happiness, as on his hand he had felt Steven's breath. Faint, yes, but it meant he was alive. And that was enough for Greg to smile, let out a giant chuckle, and then pass out. Everyone looked at him in shock, until Garnet walked and carried him away to place him another part of the room, and then everyone went back to Steven.
And so it went. They all approached him, one at a time, making sure that he was alive. Like some sort of ritual. This was completely unnecessary, of course, as the fact that they all shed tears of happiness afterwards was proof enough that he was okay, but they still did it. Maybe they just wanted to check for themselves. To make sure, that no matter what, that Steven hadn't left them.
Although speaking of leaving…
A few minutes later, everyone was standing or sitting stonily, once again waiting for Steven to wake up. Pearl was sitting with her legs crossed, Steven placed carefully in her lap, her eyes on him like a hawk. At least, until she remembered something. Why they had come to Homeworld in the first place. It had slipped her mind during the...hullabaloo, but now that Steven was okay, she felt there was no better time to ask.
"Yellow." She asked, getting the attention of the giant Gem, who was watching Steven in the corner of her eye almost as carefully as she had. "Why was Steven here? Why did he come to Homeworld?"
"Hey...yeah!" Amethyst said. "We still don't know that. We tried to ask you earlier, but you told us to be quiet so you could concentrate. So...what gives? Why was he here? He's supposed to be at home! Like, not allowed to leave! Why was he here?"
"Not allowed to leave…" Spinel growled before Yellow could answer, giving everyone a death glare that could melt through steel. "You Gems are a real price of work, you know that?! Steven told me that you kept him locked in his house all day long like some sort of prisoner! He told me all the details! I don't know about you, but if you think me and the Diamonds are just going to-"
"Spinel, not now," Yellow interjected.
"But-"
"Spinel," Yellow said sternly. "I know how angry you are about that, but now is not the time. Understand?"
"...I understand." Spinel pouted, turning away and kicking at the air.
"Thank you," Yellow said dryly, before looking back at the Gems. And thus began the explanation. When she first saw him. What he had asked for. Where he had gone and how he had acted. The Gems and Greg remained silent for it all, even though they clearly wanted to ask questions at certain points. But they all knew those were better saved for the end, so they waited. Eventually Yellow got to the point of finding him in the archives, taking him to the palace...and they knew the rest. For a moment, no one spoke. They simply stared at nothing, as if contemplating everything he had read.
Then someone finally spoke up.
"Why didn't he tell us?" Peridot asked, to no one in particular. "If he came here to get help for Connie, then why didn't he wait until we got back and tell us about that? His plan to go to the archives was a decent one, assuming that was all it was. If he had explained that, I would have supported it. And you…" She looked at Yellow. "You would have let us in, right?"
"I would have," Yellow replied. "As long as it was okay with Steven. But he didn't mention why you weren't involved. Just that you weren't supposed to know he was there, and he'd like it if we kept it that way."
"And why did you?" Amethyst asked. "If you had called us and told us where he was, then none of this would have happened! You knew full well he was on house arrest! You knew why! So why did you let him stay here? What if he had another breakdown? Here, on Homeworld? Hundreds of Gems could have been shattered."
"I could have easily put them back together." Yellow boasted. "I've been doing that for over a year now, and I've gotten quite good at it."
"Fascinating, but that's not what my question was."
"Well, if you must know, it was because I cared about him, and I personally think that sticking him in a room all day long with no freedom to leave is a horrible thing to do!"
"Says the person who, to my knowledge, locked Pink up on the regular in that tower." Amethyst snapped. "If that's not an example of hypocrisy, then I don't know what is."
After that, the whole room fell deathly silent, nobody daring to speak. Amethyst and Yellow glared at each other for a few moments, before Yellow leaned back and sighed.
"Yes. I did do that." She hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "And there is nothing that can change that now. But don't you understand that that is exactly why I'm telling you that you shouldn't be locking him away? I don't want to treat him like I treated Pink, and you shouldn't treat him like that either! If you're condemning me for locking Pink away, then you're the hypocrites here for locking Steven away!"
"Give me a break," Lapis interjected, who was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "A prison in a tiny tower is hardly comparable to Steven's house. At least there he has some freedom." The blue Gem sighed and put on her signature "why am I here" look. "Now, I might not care about the stuff that happened back then as much as some of the others here so, but I know full well how it went down...so don't try to call us things without thinking about it first."
"You-!" Yellow said, her entire body erupting in sparks before she calmed herself. "No. I'm not doing that anymore. But...maybe you are right. Maybe it is not fair for me to accuse you of things based on my actions in the past. But the point is that I knew he had been stuck in that house for a while, and I think he needed some time away from it. Is that really so bad a thing to do?"
"Definitely, depending on the context," Amethyst said. "But just forget it for now. We've wasted enough time on this. Now, are you sure you didn't see who did this to him? Or even what did this to him? Because according to your story, these archives are extremely difficult to break into. What could have possibly gotten in there besides you? Or...is it possible something was already in there?"
"I don't think that is a likely option," Yellow said. "But again, I do not know. If I had known who had done this to him, I wouldn't be here right now. I would be out gathering every Gem on Homeworld, telling them what had happened, and ordering a mandatory search of the entire planet. I would then broadcast this message to all planets under Gem control, and those worlds would be searched as well."
"Sounds like you got it all covered." Bismuth said. "But then why haven't you already ordered a search? You may not know who they are, but this person has to at least look suspicious, right? Can't you do...something?"
"Unfortunately, no," Yellow said. "With no info on who they are, any search will become meaningless. Or at the very worst, chaotic. Gemkind may be in an era where everyone is smiling and saying hello to each other in the street, but that still doesn't mean everyone likes everyone. A Gem could take advantage of this. Point fingers. Accuse an innocent of being the one who stabbed Steven. And this innocent might be shattered before we can put a stop to it, and be in so many pieces that even I won't be able to put them together."
"Crowd mentality…" Greg mumbled, causing everyone to look at him. "If that's true, then I guess Gems are more like humans than you thought. Or maybe we adopted that mindset from you…"
Yellow looked like she was about to make a rude comment, possibly involving derogatory terms towards organics, but Garnet sensed what was coming and gave her her best, "Don't" glare, making the Diamond ignore Greg and move on.
"So you see." She stated. "Why I cannot order a search. It would be too dangerous."
"I still think this is ridiculous," Amethyst said. "The archives this happened in, you said they were super secret! No one was allowed in! Are you telling me that you didn't have security cameras or something in there? Motion sensors? Anything? Or...did you just chalk it up to another, "no ones getting in here, the design is too perfect"?"
"...We "chalked" it up to that," Yellow admitted. "But we had good reason to. Many Gems over the years had attempted to break in, and none succeeded. If you had a room that you kept secret, and it had remained that way for hundreds of thousands of years, wouldn't you think it was impenetrable?"
"Well, yeah, but that still doesn't justify it!" Amethyst said. "I just...oh forget it." She groaned, deciding not to argue about this any further. She then glanced over at Steven, who was still being held by Pearl and Greg. "Argh...why hasn't he woken up yet?! If he was here, then we wouldn't have to be arguing like this! Steven always had a way of making people calm down. If anything, that's what we need right now. To just stay calm."
"Funny you should mention that," Yellow said. "Because Blue actually adopted a new power recently. It allows her to create clouds out of her tears that are capable of instilling happiness in other Gems. I've seen them work wonders. If we had a few of those, then I can assure you that we'd all be laughing and in such a good mood that it would be like nothing bad had ever happened to any of us." She then sighed. "Unfortunately, Blue is definitely in no mood to make any of those clouds…"
"Clouds...that make you magically happy…?" Amethyst wondered aloud. "Well, I guess that's the Gem equivalent of a drug…"
"Of a what?"
"Nothing," Amethyst said. "An ill-timed joke. I guess I was hoping other people would laugh, but…" Her voice trailed away as she said this, and then silence once again fell over the room. Yellow turned to her desk and began picking at a pile of Gem shards no larger than grains of sand, Garnet stood and surveyed the room every once in a while, adjusting her visors periodically, Peridot sat and tapped on some screen she had brought with her, glowing with information that no one else could understand, Lapis brooded in the corner (as per usual), Bismuth paced endlessly, Amethyst tried to whisper jokes to make herself laugh, and Pearl and Greg...well, they were still with Steven.
And then five seconds after the sweet silence returned, White Diamond came stomping into the room, the ground moving up and down along with everything not directly attached to it. But everyone knew what this meant, and almost none of them so much as spared a glance in her direction as she came in, smiling as always, before moving to a frown when she sensed the rather sour atmosphere.
"I have taken Blue to her chambers." She announced, as if this was some magnanimous achievement. "She is well, although still crying. I have said that I will come get her when Steven awakes. So, all is well when it comes to that."
Nobody responded to this, most of them not even hearing what she said, causing White's frown to deepen.
"Excuse me, everyone." She said. "I said-"
"They all heard you, White," Yellow said. "But none of them are in a particular mood to talk. After the disaster that was our last conversation, I believe we all agreed to an unofficial moment of silence until Steven awakes. It's not you, White. It's just how things are right now."
"Well, we can't have that," White said. "Steven always told me to wear a smile, although he did make an odd specification to not make the, "creepy, unnerving, horror movie-esque" smile that I did all the time, whatever that means. But rather a friendly one. Even in a time like this, Steven wouldn't want to see us with our hopes down! His Gem has been repaired, if I see it correctly. Whatever this period of sleep is, it shall pass, he shall awaken, and-"
"It's not just that," Pearl said, who was getting tired of White's rambling. "We know he's probably going to be okay. But we're worried about what's going to happen after he wakes up. He left the house without permission and then got attacked. There is a very high chance he might go pink when he learns about what happened. And none of us are looking forward to that."
"If that is the case, then shouldn't you take him somewhere else?" White asked. "I heard that you added many additions to the house he lives in, making it secure in case he ever...goes pink, as you call it. If this happens, we should take him somewhere just as secure. If such a horrible event occurs right now, then the other Gems in the palace might be harmed and-"
"No. We're doing it here." Garnet interjected. "And while it may be foolhardy, we've all made an agreement. Before we came to Homeworld, in the warp stream, we discussed why he would run away. And we came to the conclusion that it was because he was right. He was right about the things he had been complaining about for weeks."
"And those were, exactly?" White asked.
"That this was the right way to do things," Pearl replied. "That keeping him in his room all day, forbidding contact with his friends, and taking away every single electronic thing he has except for an alarm clock...is not the correct way to handle this." She sighed and a look of regret crossed her face. "We just did what we thought we had to do. We did everything that would ensure the safety of the town and Little Homeworld. But I suppose that by the end of it, we realized too late that this wasn't safe for Steven. That we hadn't been thinking of his thoughts about this whole mess."
"If I remember correctly, you mentioned to us that he was okay with your method of "house arrest"," White said. "That he understood."
"It was a lie." Bismuth said. "I'm betting all of it was. He lied about being okay and we just ate it up. Just like we ate it up when he lied about being okay before the explosion. It was the exact same pattern, and we still didn't see it. We thought he was just sad because he was unable to leave...but it was more than that." She groaned, before facepalming. "So much more. Cutting contact off from his friends. Taking away the best sources of entertainment for him. Reminding him every five minutes that he can't leave like he was in a prison. I...what we were thinking, allowing it to happen? What possessed us back then to make us believe that this was okay?!"
"Pearl just said. We did what we thought we had to." Peridot mumbled. "This...it's my fault. I came up with all those plans. All those blueprints. I said we should take his devices away. I suggested that we turn the house into the most secure place on the planet. I suggested that we never allow him to leave!" She wailed. "This is all my fault."
"No, it's not your fault," Greg said. "None of you are to
blame here. This...this is because of me."
"You?" Amethyst said in surprise. "How are you at fault here? You haven't even seen Steven before that explosion for like a month."
"Exactly." Greg wailed. "I wanted to be patient. I wanted to let him come to me and hang out when he wanted to. But he never did. I never saw him walking down to the car wash like he had in the past. He barely even called. I should have done something back then. Asked him if he wanted to go get lunch together, play a game, have some father-son bonding! But I just sat in my van, day after day, never getting the hint! I'm his father! I know that some of you may have different thoughts, but I know him better than anyone! And I never figured out that he was having these thoughts and going through these kinds of things until it happened!" He then lowered his and stared back down at Steven. "It's me. If you want to find a scapegoat for this mess, it's me."
"Greg, just because you weren't hanging out with him, that doesn't mean you're to blame!" Pearl said. "None of us saw this coming. We're all in the same boat."
"Still. I'm his father." Greg repeated. "It should be my job to spot these kinds of things before it's too late. And now...it's too late ten times over."
"...You're wrong." Spinel interjected, causing everyone to look at her in mild shock. "This...all of this...before he even started going pink...it's because of me." She cried.
"You?!" Said about half the people in the room, which was quickly followed up by Lapis. "Alright. The other explanations made sense. But I can't think of a single thing that you're to blame for when it comes to this. Yellow told us everything. The only interaction you've had with him in almost a year is today, and apparently, you only annoyed him. How are you at fault?"
"What did I say?" Spinel asked rhetorically. "Before he even started going pink. I came to Earth with my injector, and I beat him up and punched him and almost dropped him off that injector! I almost destroyed his planet! I almost killed him numerous times!"
"We know. We were there." Amethyst said dryly. "Get to the point, Spins."
"My point is that it's because of what happened to me that he started going pink!" Spinel shouted. "When he learned about what Pink Diamond had done to me, I can't even imagine what that must have felt from his perspective. The person he spent his whole...childhood, I think it's called, idolizing, and then he finds out what a huge piece of garbage she is!"
"Excuse me?!" Pearl exclaimed. "Pink may have had her flaws, yes, but she also had her reasons. Calling her garbage is nothing short of unfa-"
"Quiet, Pearl," Lapis said, who didn't want to be stuck in the middle of another argument. "Can't believe I'm saying this, but keep going, Spinel."
"Thank you!" Spinel said, before shooting a death glare at Pearl. "As I mentioned, he finds out how horrible she is! And now he has to step into those shoes! The amount of stress he had must have been enormous! Should I be like her or my own person? Everyone wants me to be like her, but being like Pink means being the worst person in the universe!"
"Er, Spinel," Yellow said. "I know how you feel about our Pink, and how different your viewpoint is from ours, but please, do not speak ill of her while we're in the middle of-"
"Not done yet!" Spinel said. "That must have torn his mind apart! I imagine he was already having these problems before I arrived, but when I got there, and he learned one final horrible thing about her, it made him snap. He couldn't take it any longer. So he started going pink. He started all of this! Which eventually led to that meltdown as you called it at...Little Homeworld? Yeah, I'm sure that's what it's called. And that...had led us to this."
Spinel then dropped her arms to her sides and let out a long sigh, before looking back up with tears in her eyes. "So there. It's me. It's been me all along. I did this. And Yellow, you said I was annoying him. Maybe if I hadn't done that...maybe he would have come with me when I got my memory fixed after part of it was erased-"
"Wait, you had your memory erased?" Bismuth asked. "When was this?"
"Oh, just earlier." Steven sniffed. "Steven claimed he erased part of my memory by accident, but then I got taken to White by Yellow who helped restore it. The whole thing only served as a way for him to be alone. And as I was saying...maybe if I hadn't been so annoying, he may have come with me! He may have-"
"No, Spinel, you cannot blame yourself for being yourself," Yellow said. "Just because Steven may find you annoying, that doesn't mean you are. It's just his point of view, and you don't have to listen to it. Or believe in it."
"That's not the point. I'm just going to repeat what I've been trying to say this whole time. It was my-"
"You're all wrong!" Garnet suddenly interjected, and every eye in the room was on her. The fusion hadn't raised her voice in weeks, and usually didn't just in general, so to hear her do it at a time like this, one she had been acting shockingly calm throughout, came as quite a surprise. "You're wrong. All of you. This isn't Peridot's fault, or Greg's, or Spinel's. It's mine."
"How?" Just about every person in the room asked.
"My future vision," Garnet said, before gripping her arms. "Those weeks ago, I told everyone what would be the best thing to do. What would end with the best outcome. And you all listened to me without hesitation. You did exactly what I said, and this is what came of it."
"Okay, but that's not entirely your fault!" Amethyst claimed. "Your future vision has been wrong before. If it showed you something that turned out to be incorrect, that's not entirely your-"
"It is. Because I've been hiding something from you all." Garnet said, before turning away from them. "Those visions...I never had them in the first place. Everything I told you was a lie."
"WHAT?!" Said everybody this time, even White, whose voice made the entire palace shake. Pearl was the first to speak separately afterward, handing off Steven to Greg and standing up. "Garnet, what do you mean it was all a lie? Your visions...I thought…"
"Pearl, do you remember the conversation we had two weeks ago about Steven's future? After he and Connie talked to you about the Traitor?" Garnet asked.
"Vaguely," Pearl said. "But I don't see how that conversation-"
"Remember what I said when you asked me about Steven's future? About what I could see?"
"Well…" Pearl started, before her eyes became as big as dinner plates. "Oh my stars. You said-"
"I couldn't see anything beyond that day. I couldn't see anything beyond the day of the explosion. And I still can't." Garnet sighed. "I can look into all of your futures easily enough. But I don't see anything with Steven. Just a blank void devoid of any possibilities. It's like he's somehow been cut off from me. Which is something that had seldom happened in the past. It occurred only one other time, when Steven made so many decisions that I didn't see coming, and soon any predictions I made about him were irrelevant, so-"
"Excuse me…" Peridot interjected. "That's fascinating and all, but are you saying that the plan we've been riding his life and the lives of probably everyone in Beach City and Little Homeworld was a lie? Something you just made up on the spot?"
"It's not a lie in the way that I thought it was the best thing to do. But I did make it up on the spot." Garnet said. "When I couldn't see any path with my vision, I put together a plan that I thought would work. That I thought would go well. But in the end, again, this was the result. I tried to do things too fast. I should have told you back then, I should have…" She gripped her arms tighter as both her Gems began to glow. "I shouldn't have kept the truth from you."
"No kidding!" Amethyst said. "But why? Why did you make up a lie? Why didn't you tell us you weren't able to see his future?!"
"Because I didn't want you to lose hope!" Garnet said. "I might have not been able to see his future, but I could still see yours! And every future where I told you the truth, you lost hope. Some of you just walked away without saying a word. I couldn't have that. Even if I was going in blind, I needed to make you think I had a plan. And I was hoping that in the meantime, I could come up with a true way to fix all this. But I couldn't. I haven't. I haven't been able to figure out anything. Not with Mirror. Not with Steven. And not even with Aquamarine and Ruby. And what we did to them, what we forced them to see…" She shuddered. "For the greater good of Steven, that's what I said. I thought it was. It would be. But all we did was traumatize two Gems for the rest of their lives."
"You…" Peridot started, suddenly looking enraged. "That was a lie too? You made me take place in that horrible illusion. You made me torture those two for nothing but a hunch?! Are you kidding me?! You...you…"
"Okay, calm down!" Bismuth said, stepping in between Peridot and Garnet, the former of whom looked ready to start throwing punches. "Don't start fighting physically. It's going to get us nowhere."
"Oh, like a verbal fight is so much better!" Peridot spat. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you, Garnet. Following you for years, listening to you talk to me about fusion, about love, about the planet, about all those things! Did those even matter if this is what happened in the end? If you tricked me into torturing those two for no good reason?!"
"It wasn't for no good reason, it…" Garnet started, before stopping. "No. I'm not going to try and justify that act. But you have to understand, Peridot. Some of it was the truth. Just because I didn't see Steven's future didn't mean I didn't see yours. Or Lapis's. Or Bismuth's. Or any of you! When I told you those things in the past week when you were getting down, when you began to lose hope after those searches for Mirror turned up with nothing, none of that was a lie. Those were true visions. Those-"
"Don't make up excuses," Peridot said. "We're talking about Steven's future, and we're sticking with that. Don't try to change the subject."
"I wasn't," Garnet said softly. "But just know that I still did this all for you. I still did what I thought was best, even if I wasn't using my vision! I don't want to ask for your forgiveness. I just want to ask for your understanding."
"Oh, is that what you want?" Peridot said, before looking around. "Does anyone else here understand? Does anyone else here understand why we should have tortured two Gems on nothing more than a gut feeling?"
No one spoke. Everyone was either in too much shock at Garnet's reveal, or just didn't want to speak. Pearl was definitely one of the former, and the look she was giving Garnet was one that would haunt her for the rest of her days. It was almost the exact same look she had given Pearl after she had tricked her into fusing to become Sardonyx. Betrayal, shock, disbelief. But "almost exact" was not "exact". Because, unlike Garnet, there was no anger in her glare. No rage. She wasn't mad, just...surprised.
"I didn't think so," Peridot said. "I-"
"Now hold on." Bismuth said. "I think...I think Garnet may have been right in making that call."
"What?!" Peridot said. "Bismuth, are you seriously telling me that you condone that? That if you knew what you know now, you would still do it?"
'No.' Bismuth thought. 'But I need a way to try and get you to be made at something other than Garnet right now.'
"Yes." The bulky Gem said. "Like it or not, we had no other option in that situation. They would have never told us anything otherwise, and we needed information badly. Mirror could have struck at any time and killed dozens of humans and Gems. We still knew almost nothing about those nanobots or how their mind powers worked. We were practically flying blind. I'm not saying I enjoyed it. Heck, I hated myself for taking place in it. It's not the kind of thing any Gem, much less a Crystal Gem, should be doing. But it...as much as I hate it...was necessary. I couldn't think of any other way to-"
"That's nonsense!" Peridot said. "There has to be another way when it comes to that sort of stuff. There is always another way. My mind machine...my mind machine…" He repeated. "I've been making a lot of progress on that. If you had kept them in custody for just a little bit longer, I might have been able to finish it. I could have just gone inside their heads and fished around until I got the right memory!"
"But how long is a little bit longer?" Bismuth asked. "Mirror told Steven not to try and strike back directly at them. This would definitely fit those margins. What if they found out and retaliated? And even if you did infiltrate their minds, how would you know what to do? Finding memories? There are thousands of years of memories in their heads. How would you even know where...how to start?"
"I would figure it out," Peridot said. "And Steven claimed that time moves differently inside the mind. He spent hours inside his head while it was onto a few seconds in the real world. He claimed that the pink version of him looked at thousands of years' worth of memories over the course of just a few years. It...would work." She said, although she couldn't hide the tiniest hint of uncertainty in her voice. "It would have to work. Anything would be better than this, right?!" She asked, looking back at everyone again. "Is there anyone here who agrees with Bismuth?"
"...I do," Greg said, weakly raising his arm.
"Wha-you?!" Peridot gaped. "Why?! You're easily the most non-violent out of any of us! How could you possibly-"
"Because they hurt him," Greg said. "Mirror hurt Steven. He hurt all of us. He hurt the town. And he said that Steven's death would be beneficial to them. They're coming back. Even if they claim they won't, they're going to come back, and I am not going to let my son be hurt by this person any longer, no matter what has to happen. I already lost Rose. I'm not going to lose Steven. Not to something like this. Not ever. Not…not…" He mumbled, before sitting back down. "Just no. And if this is what has to happen, as horrible as it is...then so be it."
Greg then turned away from Peridot, tears visible in his eyes from what he just said. The green Gem could see the man trembling, but she didn't care. She just stared at him, unable to come up with a proper way to villainize his reasons.
"I…" She muttered. "Fine. Fine, you get a pass. That's a good enough reason for me. None of us want to lose Steven, I get it. But does anyone else-"
"Can you all just shut up?" Spinel groaned. "Whatever problems you're having with this future vision nonsense, can't it wait until after Steven wakes up?"
"I'd much rather take care of it now," Peridot said. "Because when Steven wakes up, we'll have a whole new slew of problems to deal with. Him waking up right now would be an absolute worst-case scenario-"
And this was as far as Peridot got before Steven gasped like his soul had forced itself into his body and he sprang to life, his eyes opening and every part of his body shaking. At that moment, the entire room turned to look at him and then froze, shocked into absolute silence. They had all been expecting it to happen soon or later, but now that it was actually occurring, none of them knew what to do next.
Well, except for Peridot, who sighed and kicked at the air.
"Oh, come on."