CHAPTER THREE

Greg turned the flash drive over in his hands, marveling at how completely harmless it looked. It was a little difficult to believe that he was holding the Diamonds final weapon of war and not a collection of funny cat videos. "I feel like I'm holding the nuclear launch codes," he admitted. "Are you really sure you wanna give this to me?"

"We can't exactly listen to it ourselves," Garnet pointed out.

"Oh no, yeah, I get that," Greg said quickly. "I just meant like, maybe you should give this to scientists at NASA. The big brains, you know. I'm just a guy."

"You a guy who knows music," Connie reminded him.

"You were able to decode the message Lapis sent through the Wailing Stone," Garnet added.

"Yeah, but that was just a kind of space-Facetime," he protested. "This is a space weapon!"

"Please, Mr Universe!" Connie begged. "Steven and Peridot need your help!"

"We can't trust the government with this file." Garnet adjusted her shades and frowned. "They're not going to have the same priorities that we do. They'll be looking at how to make it a stronger weapon, not at how to undo the damage it's done. It won't matter to them that tampering with it could cause harm to the Crystal Gems – and to Steven," she added meaningfully. "He is, after all, half-gem..."

"All right, I get your point." Greg sighed and took another look at the flash drive before putting it in his pocket. "I'll take a look at it."

"Thank you," Garnet said with relief.

It was clearly a time-sensitive task he'd been set, so he began shutting down the car wash. "So what are you guys doing in the meantime?" he asked as he began winding up a hosepipe. "I mean... she's not bubbled, is she? Is that safe?"

Garnet shrugged. "Difficult to say. She could stay as she is for months before becoming fully corrupted. Maybe longer. We're not going to try and poof her until that happens though, so that gives us time to try..." She paused. "I dunno, something."

"They already tried taking her to Rose's fountain." Connie flicked over the sign on the office door. "And now Amethyst's got her tablet playing music."

"That's not a bad idea." Greg quickly switched off the power to the sign and locked the doors. "Music has been proven to affect mood, after all, and you said corruption's a mind-thing." He hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe I should come over and take a look at her playlist. I mean," he continued, "a song like 'Stan' probably isn't the best background music for a restful, healing environment, is it?"

xxx

Amethyst stepped through the slightly splintered door frame into Peridot's room and watched Pearl as she worked on the computer. "Find anything interesting?"

"Yes." Pearl kept her eyes glued upon the TV screen. "At least three thousand ebooks that I'm quite sure she hasn't paid for." She clicked the mouse and frowned. "And a lot of movies. This level of piracy is very concerning, I'm going to have to talk to her about it."

"So you think we can cure her then?" Amethyst said eagerly.

Pearl's shoulders slumped. "Honestly... I'm not too hopeful," she admitted in a hushed tone. "I know the method of transmission is different in this case, but she is still corrupted, and in over five thousand years, the only gem we've come close to curing is Centipeedle. And, well, you saw how that turned out."

"Ugh." Amethyst sighed heavily, and then gave her a sidelong glance. "Bet you wish you'd just kept quiet, huh?"

Pearl stared at her, trying to figure out if Amethyst meant what she thought she meant. "Excuse me?"

"Y'now, about those two," Amethyst continued, oblivious to the darkening look on the other gem's face. "And you not approving. After all that, all you needed to do was keep quiet and wait for Peridot to muck it all up by getting herself corrupted-" She finally caught sight of Pearl's face and trailed off. "Uh, I mean-"

"Do you honestly think-" Pearl said heatedly before catching sight of the door frame and its missing door. With considerable restraint, she stopped and lowered her voice. "You think I'm even remotely happy about any of this?" she hissed furiously.

"No, no-" Amethyst stammered.

"Several thousand years ago, I watched almost every single one of my friends and allies slowly turn into giant, murderous beasts that I was forced to battle," Pearl continued relentlessly. "And since then, we have cured no-one."

"Uh-"

"Hundreds of good gems, gems I trusted with my life, now little better than animals. It took me many years to accept that that my friends were gone for good. Do you really believe I ever wanted Steven to know how that feels?" Pearl ranted.

Amethyst swallowed hard and shook her head. "No, you're right P, that was cruel of me. I'm sorry. It was just supposed to be a dumb joke, lighten the mood, that's all."

"Why would you joke about something like that?" Pearl asked irritably. "This is serious, Amethyst!"

Amethyst opened her mouth and then closed it again. She had absolute faith that Steven would find some way to cure Peridot, but it was finally beginning to dawn on her that Pearl didn't share her confidence. "Steven'll fix her," she said quietly. "I know he will."

Pearl sighed and turned her attention back to the computer. "I wish I could believe that," she said softly. "I want to believe that." She briefly closed her eyes, fighting down the terrible fear that Amethyst's comment had sparked.

What if Steven thought she was happy about this?

So even though she didn't really believe it would help, even though her hopes had been raised and dashed too many times now for her to dare to hope again, she would look through every file on the computer for a clue. She would write her own decryption program to run alongside Peridot's. And soon, she would go back to the Kindergarten to look at the computer there too, just in case there was something they'd overlooked. She would not rest until she'd found something useful, even if it took another five thousand years.

Amethyst watched her work for a moment, feeling increasingly awkward and out of place. "Uh..." She waved vaguely towards the doorway. "I'm gonna just... see if I can help Steven with anything," she muttered, and quickly left.

"Uh huh," Pearl said absently to the empty room.

Back in the main room, Amethyst took one look at Steven and immediately remembered why she'd left in the first place. She looked around desperately for some distraction until her gaze settled upon the kettle. "Ah! Tea!" she announced to nobody in particular. It was supposed to be good for shock, and more importantly, it was something to do.

The kettle was just coming to the boil when Garnet returned with Connie and Greg in tow. "Any change?" Garnet asked brusquely.

"Uh..." Amethyst glanced at Steven, but there was no response from his end. "I don't think so. I'm making tea," she added, almost hopefully. "You want some?"

"I'm good. But Greg does."

Greg blinked in surprise. "Uh, yeah, I guess that would be nice," he admitted. Then as Amethyst began hunting for another cup, he sat down next to his son and patted his arm. "Hey. How are holding up, sport?"

Steven glanced up at him and forced his lips into a wobbly smile. "I've been better." The smile crumbled almost immediately and tears began to roll down his cheeks.

"Come here," Greg said kindly and pulled him into a hug.

"Here, tea," Amethyst announced, and thrust a cup at them. "I heard sweet tea's supposed to be good for shock so I put ten spoons of sugar in it."

"...Right." Greg took the cup and turned to his son. "Here-"

"Oh no, that one's for you," Amethyst interrupted. "Steven's has fifteen sugars."

"Right," Greg said again, and watched her head back to the kitchen. "Uh, maybe you should have this one, kiddo."

"Thanks." Steven took the cup and raised it to his lips, grimacing a little at the sickly sweet taste. But weirdly enough, he did feel a tiny bit better, and he sank back into the cushions with a sigh. "Did Connie give you the file?"

"Yeah." Greg glanced up at the girl, who gave him a timid smile in return. "I'm gonna take a look at it in the studio, see if there's anything there I can work with. I just wanted to see how you're doing first. And I thought I'd have a quick look at her playlist too," he added cheerfully, and picked up the tablet. "Y'know, keep some of the more fun, poppy songs playing- wow, that's a lot of Ed Sheeran." He scrolled down the list and his eyes widened. "How many versions of 'Perfect' are on here?" he muttered to himself, and began tapping furiously at the screen.

"Thanks." Steven glanced up at Connie. "You too."

"What are friends for?" Connie sighed. "I just wish there was something more I could do." She stared down at Peridot for a moment. "Is this normal for corruption? I thought... I dunno, I just always assumed it would be fast, like with Jasper. But other than the spots, she just looks like she's sleeping."

Steven blinked and turned to look at his girlfriend again. "She does, doesn't she?" he said slowly.

"Yeah, we asked about that too," Amethyst said, reappearing with another cup of tea. "But apparently this sort of thing happened before..."

As she went on to explain the new details of corruption Pearl and Garnet had shared earlier, Steven tuned out the sound of her voice and sipped his syrupy tea, deep in thought. Once he'd finished, he stood up and stretched. "I'm going to get some air," he said as casually as he could manage, giving Connie a meaningful look.

"I'll come with you," Connie said at once, and followed him outside and down the stairs.

Once they were on the sand, Steven spun around to face her. "I have an idea."

"Great!" Connie waved up at the house. "We should tell the others!"

"Ah, no." He shook his head. "I don't think they'd approve."

Connie's shoulders slumped and she sighed. "Yeah, I figured that when you brought us out here." But Steven was her best friend and he was hurting, so she took a deep breath and straightened up. "OK. What's the plan, and how can I help?"

"I'm going to have a nap," he began. "And I'm going to try and enter Peridot's mind and see if I can communicate with her."

"What!?" Connie quickly glanced around to make sure her shout hadn't caught anyone's attention before turning back to him. "Steven, that's really dangerous!" she hissed. "We have no idea what that would do to you! I mean, Jasper got corrupted just fusing her form with another corrupted gem and you wanna jump in Peridot's mind!?"

"I'll be fine," he said blithely. "It doesn't affect humans-"

"You're half gem," she argued at once.

"But I was exposed at the same time she was," he pointed out. "And I'm fine. So I think it's kinda like the destabilizers, and my human side stops my gem side from being hurt."

Connie opened her mouth and then shut it again, unable to think of a rebuttal to that. "OK, fine, you have a point there," she conceded grumpily. "Where do I come in?" Her eyes suddenly widened. "You're not literally planning to bring me into her mind too, are you!?"

"No, no," he hastily reassured her. "It's just, going into someone's dreams makes me really tired and I don't want the gems to panic if I'm still asleep tomorrow afternoon, so I need you to tell them what I'm doing. But not until after I've started doing it."

"Ugh. Fine. I'll tell them in the morning. And when we go back inside, I'll suggest you rest to get over the shock." Privately Connie thought plain old rest was a far better idea than attempting to enter Peridot's corrupted mindstate anyway. In fact... "I have some sleeping pills in my purse if you want," she suggested. "My mom gave me some before I went to college," she explained at his incredulous look. "For emergencies, like if I have trouble sleeping before a big test. A good night's sleep is very important, you know that. Anyway, you don't have to take them if you don't want, but they might help." And with any luck, medicated sleep would stop him from being able to use his dream powers, at least until she'd had a chance to tell the gems. She knew none of them could really stop him if he was determined to go through with this, but she would feel better if the people who actually knew and understood this magical stuff knew what he was planning to do.

"Sure," Steven said, much to her relief. "I guess I could use the help. Come on then."

They walked back up to the house, and Steven rubbed his eyes theatrically. Connie hesitated for just a second before slipping into her role. "Maybe you should get some rest, Steven," she said, trying to sound natural. "Take a nap or something."

"That's not a bad idea," Greg spoke up. He stood up and ruffled his son's hair. "You've had a pretty rough morning. Get some rest, and let us deal with this."

"OK Dad." Steven smiled sweetly up at his father. "You're the boss."

Connie frowned momentarily before remembering the other part of the plan. "Wait, I have some pills," she blurted out, and dove for her purse. "Sleeping pills, from mom." She rummaged through the contents, then gave up and tipped a surprisingly large amount of medical paraphernalia out onto the floor. "Midol, Percocet, Vicodin, Ventolin-oops-"

Greg reached down and grabbed the inhaler before it could roll under the sofa and handed it back to her. "You have asthma? I didn't know."

"Nah, I'm fine." Connie smiled and put the inhaler back in the bag. "Mom just thought I should keep one with me in case anyone else needed one. Same with the EpiPen and the adrenaline shot. Ah, here we go, Ambien!" She proudly waved the pill bottle aloft. "Here. Take two of these with some water or something." She tipped the pills into his hand and mouthed 'good luck' silently at him before sweeping the rest of her tiny pharmacy back into her purse. "I gotta go home now, call me and let me know if there's any change, OK?"

"I'd better head off too and get into the studio," Greg added and gave his son another hug. "Call me when you wake up."

"Sure thing, Dad." Steven waved them both goodbye and then popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with the second syrupy cup of tea, gagging a little at the intensely sweet taste. "See you guys later," he said to Garnet and Amethyst. Then he leaned down and gave Peridot a quick kiss on the forehead before climbing up the stairs to his room. He pulled on his pajamas, already beginning to feel a little sluggish, and climbed into bed.

Hang in there, Peridot, he thought to himself as he closed his eyes. I'm on my way.