CHAPTER FIVE

"A long, long time ago, I can still remember-"

Amethyst frowned and picked up the tablet. Then she dropped it with a groan. "Ugh, seriously P-dot? This song lasts forevvvvvver! And I'm sure it's already been on twice already."

Peridot, of course, did not respond, but that didn't stop Amethyst from talking to her. They said coma patients could hear when people talked to them, so maybe Peridot could hear her too. "I'm gonna take your playlist off of shuffle," she announced. "Because obviously it's just repeat- oh, it's already off shuffle and you do, in fact, have three copies of this boring, long-ass song on it. Well, seeing as the first two didn't snap you out of it, I'm just gonna skip on to the next one, 'kay?"

She looked hopefully down at the other gem. Absolutely nothing happened.

"OK, I'm not hearing any objections, so imma go ahead and play... ew, Nickleback!? Why are you such trash?" Still, it was Peridot's playlist, so she let the song play. "When this playlist is done, I'm gonna find some better music for you," she promised.

Hours passed. The music became a blur and still there was no change. Amethyst would never admit it out loud, but now she was beginning to get just a little bit worried. Because as Pearl and Garnet had pointed out, they hadn't managed to cure anybody, ever.

Then again, they hadn't exactly been trying lately. The last time anyone had tried doing something about corruption had been when Steven had busted out his healing spit on Centipeedle. Nobody had ever suggested going back to her ship to see if his new healing tears might do the trick. They'd just all got used to the way things were, she thought ruefully. In her case, things had never been any different. She'd never known the gems before they were corrupted – well, other than Jasper, of course, and nobody was in any real hurry to heal her.

How many of the gems in the Burning Room were friends of Garnet and Pearl though? Amethyst pictured the room in her mind, trying to remember just how many bubbles there were. Hundreds? Thousands? Some of them were probably Homeworld gems like Centipeedle, who hadn't made it off the planet in time, but the vast majority had to be Crystal Gems.

All gone.

The thought made her shiver. All those gems. And only a handful of survivors. Garnet and Pearl, saved by Rose and her shield. Herself, incubating in the Kindergarten. Lapis in the mirror. And Bismuth, bubbled by Rose and hidden. That was it-

No, not quite, she realized. There was one more. The Cluster. Just like her, it had been incubating when the Diamond's song had been unleashed.

Her thoughts began to swirl around her mind. Something was bothering her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Bismuth in her bubble. The Cluster, made of millions of gem shards. Bismuth, who had made Rose's sword. The sword that couldn't shatter a gem. As far as Amethyst knew, the only gem Rose had ever shattered was Pink Diamond, right at the end of the war.

Had anyone else on their side shattered gems? Amethyst frowned, trying to figure it out. Rose was the leader of the Crystal Gems, she could've ordered them all not to shatter anyone. But Peridot had said that Homeworld was scrambling to make more soldiers, that the Beta Kindergarten was a rush job.

So what had happened to the soldiers to make Homeworld need more? Had they all switched sides? Or-?

Amethyst suddenly jumped to her feet, tossed the tablet aside and marched over to the Temple door, which obligingly opened up for her. Once she was inside her room, she walked through her piles of garbage, making a beeline for the right puddle. Once she'd found it, she jumped straight in, landing gracefully in the Burning Room at Garnet's feet.

"Hello, Amethyst," Garnet said mildly. "Can I help you?"

"Actually, yeah." Amethyst straightened up and looked seriously up at the other gem. "I was wondering what you guys did with the Homeworld soldiers when you defeated them. I'm guessing Rose probably didn't let them get shattered, 'cause I'm betting if the Diamonds thought you guys were shattering all their gems, they would've used their song long before she got a chance to shatter Pink Diamond. But I'm also guessing you didn't just leave them all lying around the battlefield. Be a dumb idea to just let your enemy keep respawning, right?"

If Garnet was surprised by this line of inquiry, it didn't show. Instead she stared back at Amethyst in silence, and then nodded slowly. "You're right, we tried to avoid shattering them. Of course, sometimes casualties couldn't be avoided, it was war, after all. But for the most past, once we poofed them, we bubbled them and sent them back to our base." She smirked slightly. "It was always easier for Rose to get them to switch sides if they were in one piece."

Amethyst frowned, recalling the slavish devotion she'd seen in some of the gems she'd met in recent years. Peridot was really the only one they'd got to properly switch sides, and even then, it had been rejection from Yellow Diamond herself that had given her the final push. True, Rose probably had slighter better methods, such as not tying prisoners up and punching them in the face, but there were still bound to be a lot of Homeworld prisoners who stayed loyal. "What did you do with the ones who didn't switch?" she asked curiously.

Garnet shrugged. "We used some of them to negotiate the return of our own troops, but unfortunately, many of them didn't return in once piece," she said a little bitterly, and gestured towards a bubble of gem shards. "The rest we kept as prisoners of war."

Amethyst stared at her in rising disbelief. "Wait, let me get this straight," she said slowly. "You're saying there's a bunch of bubbled gems from the war here, who might not even be corrupted!?"

"That's not what I said," Garnet protested at once. "We don't for sure they're not corrupted-"

"Bismuth wasn't corrupted," Amethyst interrupted.

"Bismuth was hidden," Garnet shot back. "We don't know if she was saved because she was in a bubble, or if it was because she was in Rose's bubble, or even if it was because she was in that pocket dimension in Lion's mane. Just because she was saved, doesn't mean the others were.

"So let's unbubble one and find out!" Amethyst exclaimed.

"No!"

"Why the heck not!?"

"Because there's no point!" Garnet sighed, stepped back and dismissed her shades. "Look, Rose tried talking to all of them before, and they refused to listen. Why would they change sides now? Our forces are massively depleted, our leader is gone... joining us is hardly an attractive prospect," she finished gloomily. "So if they're not corrupted, we'd just have to fight them, and I don't want to risk that. Remember how much trouble Jasper gave us? And Lapis! Even with a cracked gem, she still kicked our butts! Heck, even Peridot managed to give us the runaround! And if they are corrupted, we'd just have to fight them anyway!"

Amethyst shook her head. "Things are different, it's been five thousand years-"

"Not for them," Garnet pointed out. "They don't know the war's over, or what the Diamonds did, they'd think it was a trick. There's only five of us - six if you count Lapis," she corrected herself. "And we kinda have a situation going on right now. This is not the time to be messing around with bubbled gems."

Amethyst scowled and looked away. Her gaze landed upon Bismuth's bubbled gem and she slumped. She hated to admit it, but Garnet had a point. They hadn't been able to work things out with Bismuth, and she'd been a Crystal Gem. What hope did they have of recruiting loyal Homeworld soldiers to their side when Rose had already tried and failed years before?

Still, Amethyst couldn't quite bring herself to give up on them entirely. "Fine. You're right, now isn't the best time. But when P-dot's cured, we're gonna talk about this some more. This isn't over." And with that, she turned around, marched out of the Temple and sat back down next to Peridot and the tablet that was playing 'American Pie' for the fifth time.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the front door and Amethyst glanced up to see Connie's blurred form on the other side. "Door's open, come on in," she called out.

Connie pushed the door open and stepped inside, a slightly nervous smile on her face. "Hey. Uh, is Steven awake yet?"

"Nah, he's still out cold." Amethyst grinned at her. "Those ambies really did the trick, huh?"

Connie's nervous smile got a little more wibbly. The pills were supposed to help you get a full eight hours sleep and Steven had been asleep for more than double that. This wasn't the pills work. "Um..." She took a deep breath and forced herself not to look away. "I have to tell you something."

xxx

Steven woke up slowly. His face was turned towards the sun, and the warm light bathed his skin, refusing to be ignored. Finally he opened his eyes and yawned and stretched, feeling his joints pop. He was pleased to find he felt well rested; that didn't usually happen after using his dream powers.

He kicked off the blankets, grabbed some clothes and began heading down the stairs to the bathroom to get dressed when he heard his mother call his name. "Sorry, what was that, Mom?"

Rose smiled and jerked her head towards the fridge. "I just wondered if you'd like me to fix you some breakfast, dear. Or brunch, actually. It's getting kind of late."

"Sure." Steven smiled at her. "That'd be nice."

He stepped into the bathroom and was halfway through unbuttoning his pajama shirt when the thought finally crossed his mind.

This isn't real.

He slumped in disappointment. Of course this wasn't real. He was never going to meet his mother. He was still dreaming-

He blinked and all of a sudden, he was back in bed, staring up at the ceiling. His limbs felt heavy, and it took all his strength to push off the blanket covering him. Standing up was too much effort, so he simply rolled out of bed instead, landing on the floor with a thump and a groan. "Uuuuugh."

"Stop being such a drama queen, Stee-man," Amethyst called from the lower level. "Come on down already, we've got stuff to do."

"Uuugh." He stared blearily at a dust bunny sitting a few inches from his nose, and then, with monumental effort, he hauled himself upright. "Gimme a minute."

"We don't have a minute," Pearl objected. "The Cluster could emerge at any moment!"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," Steven grumbled. He took a few steps down stairs and then paused. "Wait, emerge?"

"I believe Peridot said something about it destroying the Earth." Garnet pushed her shades up slightly. "So we should probably do something about that."

"But we already did," he said in confusion. "We bubbled it. I mean, yeah, we need to get it out before Yellow Diamond comes looking for it, but it's safe, it's contained."

The three gems stared blankly back at him, and a sudden feeling of dread washed over him. "This is still a dream, isn't it?"

He blinked and then once again, he was in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He tried to move, but he had no strength at all. It took all of his energy to move his head slightly so the sun wasn't entirely in his face. "Uuuuuuuuuuugh. This definitely has to be real now," he mumbled to himself. "I feel too gross to be dreaming."

"Steven, are you all right?" Peridot asked in concern.

"Just groggy." He closed his eyes again and tried to move his arms. "Ugh. Tired. I may need to stay in bed a bit longer."

"Oooh," she giggled. "Would you like company?"

His eyes snapped open again at once and with every last ounce of energy he possessed, he turned his face to look at her. "This isn't real. You're not real."

"Does it matter?" she asked serenely, and stroked his arm.

"Yes." He closed his eyes again. "It does."

He lay there a few minutes longer, eyes closed, trying to work up the nerve to open them again but now terribly afraid that he'd just wind up in another dream. But, he sternly told himself, the only way he was going to move on was by trying, so once again, he forced his eyes open.

This time, it was so much more difficult. He couldn't open them much more than a crack, and the light immediately tried to stab him in the brain. As he screwed up his eyes again in agony, he knew for sure this was really real, none of his other dreams had caused him actual pain. Which was progress, but damn, did it ever hurt.

He waited for the wave of pain and nausea to subside and then tried again. This time, he managed to open them a little wider for a few more seconds, but he didn't manage to see anything more than a few blurry spots before he was forced to close them again.

Come on, Steven! He screamed internally. He opened a mouth as dry as a desert and took a few deep breaths until he was ready, then tried one more time.

This time, he manged to force his eyes open completely, and grimly ignored the burst of pain until it subsided to a dull ache. For a split second, he thought he'd got it wrong, that he was in another dream, but he quickly realized this wasn't the set of Under The Knife, but an actual real hospital room. He opened his mouth to call out for somebody, but all that came out of his mouth was a faint and garbled "hgughh". Still, it must have done the trick, because a moment later, the door opened.

"Ah, you're awake then," Doctor Maheswaran said mildly. She shone a light into his eyes, much to his displeasure, and then started tapping buttons on a monitor by his bed. "Garnet said you would be."

"Guh?" he mumbled thickly. Then he swallowed, swiped his dry tongue around his mouth and tried again. ""Guhnt?"

Happily Doctor Maheswaran was experienced at deciphering the unintelligible mumblings of woozy patients and knew exactly what he was trying to say. "She's in the waiting room. She wanted to be here when you woke up, but I need to check your stats first." She then poked him with a variety of annoying medical instruments. "Normal. Well. I assume." She raised an eyebrow in his direction. "It's a little difficult to be sure in your case."

Steven tried to speak and failed. He swallowed hard and swiped his bone-dry tongue around the inside of his mouth again. "Wa-uh."

"I can give you some ice chips," she said absently as she jotted down a few notes. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

"Buh-"

It was too late. She'd already left. Steven groaned and slumped back against the pillows. As if he was going anywhere! He could barely move his head! Still, even as the thought crossed his mind, he could feel his strength returning. Even the ache in his head was fading fast. Unfortunately, the inside of his mouth still tasted like ass, and he was relieved when Doctor Maheswaran reappeared only a few short minutes later with a small cup of ice chips. He sucked them gratefully before trying to talk again. "Why am I here?" he croaked. "I was only sleeping."

"True," she said mildly. "But the gems got slightly concerned when you didn't wake up."

That sounded ominous. "How long was I asleep for?" he asked warily.

Doctor Maheswaran fixed him with her steely gaze. "You've been unconscious for around three days now."

xxx

A/N: And I'm back! Sorry for the little hiatus, I'll try and get back on schedule again now.