Construction continued on the drill more smoothly than it had before, Peridot not only had the parts she'd needed from the kindergarten she had become far more likely to ask for assitance when it was needed, and as a result they were ahead of schedule. Steven continued his excursions into the odd space he had found himself when exploring others' memories and became quite adept at navigating through it. He steered well wide of the assembled memories of the cluster lest he be drawn in and swallowed by the enormous gravity of them. Garnet showed him the story of Ruby and Sapphire as they remembered it, Amethyst took him to memories of his mother, while Peridot and Lapis showed him homeworld, both as it was now, and how Lapis remembered it. Neither was willing to show him much about the diamonds however, but rather than pushing he was grateful for what they did offer him.
Still though Rose's memories remained closed off to him completely, and when he finally asked her why her eyes grew distant and almost hollow in their sadness. "I did a lot of things I wasn't proud of in the war Steven, I don't want you to see me like that." He accepted that, the knowledge of her shattering of pink diamond still twisted up his stomach when he thought of it, if he saw it, he might not ever be able to look at her again. When he asked how she shielded herself her smile returned. She explained that there were gems from homeworld who could do what he did and share memories, so she'd taught herself to shut them out, after all you couldn't have the enemy peaking into her head. After that she began to teach him how to erect walls in your mind, to keep out anyone he didn't want in there. These lessons became one of the many routines that he had built up for himself, so taken with sparring with Connie and Amethyst, working on the drill and lessons on gem technology with Peridot, meditation with Garnet and Lapis, and jam sessions with his dad both Steven's nights and days became full , and it was a struggle just to find a few hours to veg out in front of the TV, or read a book, which when he did made them all the more enjoyable.
Things with Connie progressed as well, when he was becoming too fatigued, or mired in a rut it was she who pulled him out of it, demanding he drop whatever he had planned for a picnic or a trip to the movies to see dogcopter, they held hands, talked for hours on end (when not in the theater of course) and on one or two occasion stole a kiss from one another. Despite the fact the world was at jeopardy and things with Rose were still strange, things felt right for the first time in a long time for Steven, though as the drill got closer and closer to completion he got the feeling it would soon come to an end.