CHAPTER SIX

"I- what- three- what-?" Steven stammered.

"Three days," Doctor Maheswaran said again and waited to see if the information would sink in this time.

It didn't. Steven stared mutely up at her for several seconds, and then screwed his eyes up again. "This is another dream, this isn't real," he muttered to himself.

"I assure you, this isn't a dream." She crossed her arms and scowled. "If it were, I'd be sitting on a beach in the Caribbean, not heading down to bowel surgery in half an hour."

Steven ignored her and kept his eyes closed, but when he opened them again, she was still stood there, looking down at him. "I don't understand... I was only sleeping."

Doctor Maheswaran rolled her eyes, clearly already bored of this argument. "Yes. For three days." Seeing that he still didn't seem to quite understand, she sighed and elaborated. "I'm not going to pretend I understand how your powers work, I don't know what's normal or abnormal for you. What I do know is that the gems expected you to wake up two days ago, and when you didn't, they concluded that something had gone wrong and brought you here." She gave him another stern look. "You may be half gem, but you seem to forget that you're also half human, and you need to look after that side of yourself as well. You need to eat and drink, and you can't do that if you put yourself in a coma while experimenting with your gem powers."

"I wasn't experimenting-" Steven began, hurt by the accusation, but Doctor Maheswaran wasn't interested and waved away his protests.

"For what it's worth, all of your stats are normal. I'd like to keep you in overnight, just for observation, but I don't imagine there will be a problem unless you decide to try doing... whatever is it you did again." She glanced at her watch again. "I really must head down to surgery now. Do you feel up to having visitors?"

He was deeply tempted to say 'no' so he wouldn't have to face anybody just yet, but he knew if he did that, he'd just worry the gems more. "Yeah, I guess so."

Doctor Maheswaran nodded and left, and less than ten seconds later, Garnet stepped into the room. "Hello, Steven. How are you feeling?"

"Um... much better," he said carefully, trying to sound both strong and healthy, so she wouldn't be worried, but also frail and delicate and in absolutely no condition to be scolded. "I'm sorry I worried you all."

Garnet exhaled loudly and sank into the chair beside his bed. "We weren't just worried, we were terrified. We thought... when you didn't wake up..." She paused to compose herself. "What you did was reckless and irresponsible. We don't know enough about corruption for you to take risks like that!"

"I know, I'm sorry," Steven said again, more to placate her than anything else. That done, he could no longer hold back. "It worked though, Garnet! I was able to contact Peridot and talk to her and help her!" And he quickly explained what had happened while he was sleeping.

"Hmm." Garnet leaned back in her chair and mulled over this new information. On the one hand, his stunt had given them more information about corruption than she'd ever expected, information they badly needed if they ever hoped to cure anyone.

But on the other hand... the brief hope that had flared up inside her began to whither as she realized she wasn't entirely sure how that information helped. So Peridot was quite literally trapped in a mental battle against her own fears. How were they supposed to help her from the outside? She rather suspected they couldn't. It was a battle that had to be fought from within...

Behind her shades, she narrowed her eyes at her foster son. She already knew what he wanted to do, and just the thought of it made her queasy with fear. He'd already admitted that he and Peridot hadn't been able to get any closer to the barn door, no matter how hard they tried, and she had a sneaking suspicion it would always remain just slightly out of reach. All he could offer was temporary respite from the battle with his bubble shield. And she suspected that if he went back and found Peridot struggling badly, it would take a while before he could bring himself to take that protection away again. It didn't help that time obviously worked differently in his dreamscape as well. If he could lose track of three days so easily, he could lose track of a week, a month, or more.

It was going to be very difficult to convince him not to go back there again. But for his sake, she had to try. Firstly, by getting him out of this place. The temptation to return would be much stronger now he knew he was in a place where his physical health was being monitored.

She stood up. "Doctor Maheswaran said all your vital signs were normal," she said neutrally. "So I'll ask a nurse to remove your drip and catheter and then we can go home." She spun around and tried to leave before he could stop her, but she hadn't even managed to take a single step before she heard him call her name. Her shoulders slumped and slowly, she turned back round to face him.

"Maybe- maybe I shouldn't go just yet. Doctor Maheswaran said she wanted to keep me in overnight," he said, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Steven..."

"I mean, sure, my vitals are normal now, but I did accidentally fall asleep for three days, so I kinda feel like maybe I should be supervised by doctors again tonight in case, you know, something were to happen. By accident, of course." His eyes flickered towards hers, hidden behind her shades, and immediately darted away again when he caught sight of his guilty reflection. "Totally by accident," he lied badly. "I mean, it's sleep, I can't control it-"

"Steven, please don't try and jump into Peridot's mind again," Garnet interrupted desperately. "It's far too dangerous-"

"I just need to let her know I'm OK!" he protested. "If it was Ruby or Sapphire, would you tell me not to go to back?" He clapped a hand over his mouth at once, appalled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I swear!"

Garnet was silent for a moment as she struggled to stay in sync. "I don't know what I'd do," she said quietly once she'd recovered. "But I hope that if anything happened to them, somebody would step in to stop me if it looked like I was going to hurt myself."

"I know... but it's just sleep," Steven argued. "Admittedly a little more sleep than I expected, but that's why I should try it again while I'm still here and connected to IV fluids and stuff."

"It's not just dehydration I'm worried about, Steven, it's corruption! I know," she added as he opened his mouth. "You said you're immune, but I'm not so sure any more. All that trouble you had waking up, what if it was another form of corruption, but instead of using your fears to trap you, it distracted you and offered you people you love to keep you there?"

Steven shook his head, but deep down, he had to admit she had a point. Still... "It could've just been a coincidence," he suggested. "Loads of people dream they've woken before they really have, it doesn't mean anything. Or," he continued, seeing that she didn't look convinced, "maybe it was the pills Connie gave me. It's their job to help me sleep, so maybe I had like, a bad reaction or something."

Garnet hesitated. It was actually something she'd also suspected, and sensing weakness, Steven pressed on. "Let me try again, just one more time, without the pills. And if it happens again, I won't go back. But I need to go back one more time, to let Peridot know what's happened."

"...Very well," Garnet reluctantly conceded. "But just this once, Steven," she continued sternly. "Have some lunch first. And in the meantime, I believe there's a few people who'd like to come and visit you."

xxx

"And that's the last track from 'Best of 1967'. 1968 coming up. That one was a great year, you're gonna love-" Amethyst broke off her monologue and peered over the edge of the loft as Garnet pushed open the door of the beach house and stepped inside. "Steven?"

"He's awake," Garnet confirmed. "Greg's with him now. If you go and fetch Pearl from the Kindergarten, you can both go and see him before visiting hours end."

"OK." Without any complaint whatsoever, Amethyst jumped to her feet, put Peridot's tablet down on the pillow next to her and ran down the stairs and over to the warp pad, where she vanished in a flash of light.

Garnet watched her leave, and then slowly trudged up the stairs to Steven's room where Peridot had been moved to. For several seconds, she simply stood beside the bed, staring down at the little green gem. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed, summoned her gauntlets and very gently put her hands around Peridot's waist.

It would be so easy to poof her right there and then, Garnet reflected. She'd done it once before, after all. One squeeze was all it would take. It would be quick and painless, and infinitely kinder than leaving her to become fully corrupted.

Plus, of course, Steven couldn't jump into her mind and put himself in a coma again if Peridot was in a bubble.

Her fingers tightened slightly, but when she felt the fragile bones beneath Peridot's skin, she froze. She forgotten that the other gem had last reformed with a human body structure, her innovative way of getting around her inability to shapeshift. She imagined how it would feel to break those bones, to hear them grind and snap. Perhaps it would not be so painless after all. Maybe instead of just poofing into nothing, she'd find herself with handfuls of blood and gore-

She shuddered violently and withdrew her hands. I can't do this.

We need to. For Steven's sake.

Because she knew perfectly well that it wouldn't be 'just one more time'. Sure, he'd try and stay away, at least for a few days, but when he saw that no progress being made out here, he'd jump back into Peridot's mind again and again, until one day, he wouldn't come back. It was inevitable. The only way to stop it was to poof Peridot.

Steven will never speak to us again, she reminded herself.

But he'll be conscious enough to make that decision, she then argued back internally.

Her fingers twitched, but she still couldn't quite bring herself to do it, even though a voice inside her was urgently warning her that if she was going to do this, she needed to do it now, before Amethyst and Pearl returned. Pearl would understand where Garnet was coming from, but she'd feel obligated to try and stop her, and Amethyst wouldn't understand at all. And Garnet really didn't want to have to fight either of them.

He'll survive.

And he'll be miserable.

Fragmented visions appeared before her. Steven in a hospital bed, trapped in endless sleep. Steven in tears before her, begging her to tell him where she'd hidden Peridot's gem. Greg, gray and wrinkled, sitting at his son's bedside, waiting day after day for his son to wake up. Amethyst shaking a fist at her before walking out, Pearl torn between them all. No matter how hard she looked, she couldn't see a happy ending for anyone.

What if it was one of us?

...I don't know.

She tried to imagine how she'd feel if Ruby or Sapphire were corrupted, but her mind instantly recoiled from the thought. She couldn't do it. They'd been Garnet for too long, the very thought of being without one another was too awful to contemplate.

Let's try something different. What do we want to happen next?

"I want..." Garnet took a deep breath and dismissed her gauntlets. "To try and help." She jumped to her feet, went back down the stairs and into Peridot's room and returned a moment later with a pair of headphones, which she then carefully placed on the other gem's head before plugging the jack into the tablet. "Enjoy your music, Peridot," she muttered, and turned up the volume.