In which Amethyst is Embarrassing Mom™ (but still Mom)

The humans took her to their camp, which was set up in an old, abandoned barn and the surrounding field. The humans, other than Sadie, were peering at her curiously, though they had mostly relaxed about her after they'd been told she was connected to Steven. Most of the short walk back had been dedicated to Sadie scolding Larry. Halfway back, the child had decided he wanted to ride on Amethyst's shoulders. She'd allowed him to climb up her, glad for the distraction of making sure he didn't fall off.

There were other humans in the camp who looked a bit startled by her presence, but they weren't nearly as startled as she'd expected them to be. They mostly calmed when they saw Larry happily riding on her shoulders and went back to their business. Amethyst peered around curiously, as they went deeper into the camp. The humans seemed to be getting along fine for living in a barn. Everyone was very active, cooking or working on some craft. There were a lot of weapons being worked on, Amethyst noted. With a start, she realized that this was the human resistance.

They didn't look like an army. There were children chasing each other around and people chatting amiably over their work. It was nothing like the cold, uniform Homeworld army. Maybe that was the point.

She thought she may have recognized a few faces, but it had been so long and humans changed so much with age that she couldn't be completely sure. Still, she searched the humans' features for something familiar as they walked until her eyes caught on one particular human.

He was half turned away from her, his hand on another human's shoulder, laughing at something that had just been said. Even if she hadn't gotten a horrifying sneak preview of what he would look like as he aged during The Birthday Fiasco, she would have still recognized him. He looked a lot like Greg when she'd first met him, but his hair, though shorter, curled much like his mother's. His face had lost some of its cute puffiness, but his smile was still the same: large and genuine.

Sadie called his name and his head turned towards them, his expression frozen for a few seconds while he took in her presence.

"A-amethyst?" he croaked.

"Steven." They barreled toward each other, meeting in the middle to embrace. He was saying something over and over, but she couldn't quite make it out through his sobs. She thought it might be her name. He lifted her up and… that was new. She was supposed to carry him. His face pressed into her hair and she suddenly realized why she'd kept it long like this all these years despite how it got in the way during fights.

"Steven! Steven! Steven!" and excited voice said from above her. Oh, right, Larry was still on her shoulders. Steven drew back a bit, but didn't put her down.

"Hey, Steven Junior," he said with a watery smile.

"That's not his name," Sadie said, exasperation in her voice. She gently untangled the boy in question from Amethyst's hair.

"Yes it is," Steven insisted, "Isn't that right, Steven Junior?"

"Steven Junior!" the boy happily agreed. Sadie groaned. The actual Steven laughed.

"I think Steven's a good name," Amethyst said. His arms tightened around her.

"See," he said.

"She's biased."

"Eh, that's fair," Amethyst agreed. Steven chuckled at that, spinning her around a bit. "Hey, hey, hey!" she exclaimed.

"What?" he asked pausing in his spinning.

"You're not supposed to be carrying me," she pouted.

He sighed and put her down on her feet. Before he could react, she picked him up and hoisted him over her head.

"Oh!" she heard from above her. After a moment, she felt him relax as he accepted it. "Ok."

She glanced at Sadie and Larry. Larry was laughing at the sight of a grown man more than twice her size lifted over her head. "Kids, huh?" she said. Sadie's eyes were sparkling. "Man you're heavier than you used to be."

"You could put me down," he said sullenly. Some of the humans standing nearby had stopped to gape at them, but she couldn't seem to care. Steven couldn't have cared too much as he wasn't even squirming yet.

You're not that heavy," she scoffed.

"Amethyyyst," he whined. Ah, there was the squirming.

Her laughter was cut short when she felt herself glitching again. She immediately put Steven down.

"Amethyst?" His eyes were confused and concerned.

"I'm fine. I just…" She flinched as another wave of wrong went through her and she could tell by the look in his eyes that her form must have distorted a bit.

"Amethyst, what's wrong?!" he asked alarmed.

"Don't worry," she tried to reassure him. "This happens sometimes. I-" her hand came up to clutch her gem. Trying to hold it together even though it wasn't actually breaking apart. His eyes followed the movement and then his palm was there, warm over her hand. He gently peeled her fingers away to study her gem. His eyes widened as he saw the hairline fractures through the center.

"Gee, Amethyst, how did that happen?" he asked. As he spoke, he reached up a hand and licked it. He gently massaged his thumb over her gem. The effect was instantaneous. Her gem glowed softly and there was a lick of pain as her healing gem met the resistance of the gunk Homeworld had used to glue her back together. Steven's healing power was too much for it. She felt her gem force the substance out as it knit back together.

"I almost forgot you could do that," she said feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

"Better?" he asked.

"Good as new," she told him. Her hand gripped his shoulder. "Thank you." Their eyes met and then there were tears in his eyes again.

"I thought you were dead," he choked out. She pulled him into another hug and he nuzzled his nose into her neck like he used to when he was a baby.

"I know. I know," she hushed him.

"Amethyst," he said putting so much feeling into her name that she felt like she could shatter right there.

"I know."

They hadn't let go of each other the entire day. It had been mid-morning when Amethyst had arrived in the human camp and now the sun was starting to set. Steven and Amethyst were sitting on a log that had been drug to this part of the field to serve as a bench.

"You sure you don't want anything to eat?" Steven asked from beside her, his own mouth full of food. Pearl would have scolded him for talking with his mouth full.

She laughed a bit. "Don't temp me. I haven't eaten anything in over a decade. I might eat everything in your camp. Tents and all."

"At least have a soup can," he said waving it in front of her.

"I'm just a garbage disposal to you, aren't I?" She asked mock offended. She took the can anyway and popped it into her mouth, shape-shifting her jaw so she could swallow the whole thing without chewing. Giggles sounded from near their feet. A group of children had gathered over the day, having heard the rumors about her arrival from the gossiping adults. Unlike their parents, they didn't see any reason not to swarm them.

The adults had been keeping their distance for the most part. A few she recognized came to greet her, but quickly left to give her and Steven some space.

Greg had stayed a bit longer than the others had. He'd given her a hug and she'd mocked his lack of hair. They'd kept it light around Steven, but she knew Rose had told him things about how Homeworld worked by the way he looked at her. They may not have always gotten along perfectly (mostly her fault, she'd known even then), but they were still friends. He still cared. They had a lot to talk about once she managed to let go of Steven's arm.

Steven's eyes were sparkling in mirth when she let her jaw return to normal. He'd allowed her to avoid talking about herself for most of the day, giving her a surface-level explanation of what he'd been doing since he left Beach City. He was leaving a lot out. She was leaving it all out. His questions wouldn't be contained forever, but she appreciated that he was giving her a bit of time to adjust before the serious discussion began.

"It's time to go to bed, Larry," a voice said. The child in question tilted his head back to look up at the man who spoke, Donut Boy, if she recalled correctly.

"No! No Larry. I'm Steven Junior and stevens don't have to go to bed," he said.

"What? Steven!" the man yelled.

"Oh, no, whoever could have taught him that?" Steven asked innocently, but Amethyst could feel his shoulders shaking a bit.

"Erg, you'll confuse him," he grabbed the child around the waist and lifted him up. Despite the child's protests, he yawned and cuddled into the man's embrace.

"Whatever you say, Laramie," Steven shot back.

The man mumbled something under his breath and carried the kid away. Larry waved at Amethyst over his shoulder.

After that, many of the other children were either gathered up by their parents or wandered away themselves. Soon it was just her and Steven. She could almost feel the question wedging itself between them. She sighed, turning to face him. Avoidance time was over.

"How aren't you dead?" he asked.

"I wasn't actually a part of the rebellion," she explained. "They decided to just crack me a bit and give me a chance to be loyal to Homeworld."

"Oh," he said, biting his lip. She steeled herself for the next logical question. "And the others?"

She took a deep breath. "I know Pearl is… alive," she said.

"But…?"

"There's so much we never told you." She clenched her fists. "We should have, but I guess we'd hoped you'd never need the information. It doesn't feel right for me to be the one to tell you." He bumped his head against her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Guess I don't really have a choice about it now." She closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. "On Homeworld, pearls aren't treated like other gems. They're made to be servant gems: docile, quiet, weak. Basically everything Pearl isn't," she smiled ruefully, but it faded quickly. "There's a process where 'malfunctioning' pearls can be reprogrammed: stripped of their memories and reset to their original settings. So, that's what they did, except… You know Pearl. She knew about the reprogramming process and had 1000s of years of freedom to think about it. I'm not sure how it's done or how she resisted it, but she did. She acted like it had worked for a bit. Had me fooled for a little while. I wasn't there the day it happened so I don't know exactly what went down, but I heard a lot of rumors. From what I understand, she pulled out her weapon in the middle of a meeting of a bunch of high-ranking gems. She poofed over half a dozen of them, shattered the one she was supposed to be serving, and put a spear through Yellow Diamond's leg before she was poofed herself. After that, well, shattering her would have been acknowledging her as a warrior gem, something Yellow Diamond refused to allow for a pearl. But, they knew they couldn't reset her, so, they cracked her, like what I had, but worse. A lot worse. She's in a lot of pain. Yellow Diamond keeps her with her all of the time as a warning." Amethyst rubbed at the little star design on the thigh of her pants. "She's still there though and still fighting," she told Steven. Pearl was poofed a lot. Amethyst wasn't sure if it was because Pearl kept trying to fight despite being hobbled or if Yellow Diamond just thought it was fun, but she was in a different outfit most of the times Amethyst saw her. Every one of her outfits still had a star somewhere on it. Amethyst had been poofed less often, but every one of hers had also had a star. Homeworld didn't understand the significance of it, but every time one saw the other had been poofed, their eyes lingered over it before going back to whatever they were supposed to be doing. It was a message. I'm still here. I'm still fighting. I know what we are fighting for. Amethyst's hand tightened on that reason.

Steven had tears in his eyes, but he was keeping it together fairly well. "And Garnet?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered, "but…" His eyes lit up just a bit at the last word. This was going to be a tough one to explain. She sighed. "I've gotta explain a few things to you first. Gee. I really don't want to be the one to tell you this. Garnet was going to tell you. She'd had this whole thing planned out for your 14th birthday and everything. She was so excited especially after you fused for the first time, but she wanted to wait for a special occasion," his eyes were watching her with rapt attention. It was best to just get to the point. "Anyway. Garnet was a fusion. Of two gems: Ruby and Sapphire. They fell in love back during the first war for Earth and they stayed fused pretty much all the time. She didn't want to confuse you as a baby, so we kept it a secret until we thought you'd be able to understand."

He nodded slowly, still processing it, but needing to know. "But what happened?"

"Like I said, I don't know for sure. It's possible both of them were shattered, but I've heard rumors lately that there is a Sapphire that Blue Diamond has been using to decide on things about the colony. See, sapphires are really rare and really valuable because they have future vision. That's where Garnet got it from. So, I don't know if The Diamonds would shatter Sapphire even though she was a main member of the Crystal Gems. Except our Sapphire would never help Homeworld. Unless…"

"They threatened Ruby," Steven finished for her.

Amethyst nodded. "She wouldn't tell them everything, but she'd tell them something if Ruby was in danger."

"So they might be alive," Steven stated.

"They might be. And if they are, Garnet is too."

Steven nodded. "That- that's more than I ever thought I'd get." He looked over at her and he was defiantly crying, but he was keeping it together pretty good considering this was the same kid that had been inconsolable when he'd found a dead fish on the beach when he was 12. "You're more than I'd ever thought I would get," he told her and, dang it, now she was crying.

They were interrupted by the sound of Steven's name being called from halfway across the camp. "Steven!" the voice said again, closer this time. Amethyst looked up to see a woman jogging in their direction. Now this was a human she could recognize, even if she was 12 years older now. When the woman's eyes found them huddled together, probably with tears still in their eyes, she hesitated. "Sorry," she said. "It's just, I just got back and I heard." Her feet carried her forward. "I'm so glad you're here, Amethyst!"

"Hey, Connie," Amethyst said. Connie smiled at the greeting and then Amethyst was getting her millionth hug of the day. She would never complain about being hugged again even if she was getting a mouthful of curly hair and being squeezed just a bit harder than usual. The girl was surprising strong.

"I can't believe you're okay!" She drew back, scrutinizing her. "Are you okay?" she asked meaningfully. And gee, that was a loaded question, one Amethyst couldn't answer at the moment. One she didn't want to answer.

"I'll be fine," she said instead. Connie nodded, a soft expression of sympathy in her eyes. Gosh, Amethyst had missed humans: soft, squishy, genuinely nice, humans.

Connie turned her head to say something to Steven. Amethyst saw the blood on her neck a second before Steven did.

"Connie! You're hurt!" Steven exclaimed. Connie's hand reached up to touch the sizable gash on the side of her neck.

"Oh, right," she said, "there was a vermarine we didn't see until it was too late. It was fine though."

The expression on Steven's face showed just how "fine" he thought it was. "Well let me heal it at least," he said.

Connie looked as though she were going to agree easily, but then she paused. Her eyes darted to Amethyst and then back to Steven. Steven blinked and then looked at Amethyst as well. Suddenly, he seemed uncomfortable.

"Um," he said, standing up, rocking on his toes a bit. "I'll just," he licked his hand.

Connie nodded. "Yeah, um, that's fine," she said. Her eyes drifted to Amethyst again. "Just do that."

Amethyst watched the interaction curiously, realization slowly dawning as she watched Steven carefully rub his healing spit into the wound. Her mouth curled up into a smirk. When he was done, Steven glanced back at her.

"What?" he asked cautiously, recognizing the look on her face even after all these years.

"You could have just kissed it better," she said amused. Both of them blushed hard.

"I don't know what you mean," Steven said defensively.

"Oh, come on, it's not like it's anything I didn't already know," she said. "I mean, you two were just kids last time I saw you, but Pearl had already planned your wedding down to the fine details and, the day you first fused into Stevonnie, Garnet walked to the public library so she could get ordained online."

Steven blushed a lot harder at that. Connie still looked a little embarrassed, but she laughed a bit too.

"Really?" Connie asked. Steven shot her a panicked look.

"Oh, yeah," Amethyst drawled. "We knew right away how Steven felt about you. Did we ever tell you how Steven acted the first day he met you?" Steven glared at her, but she ignored him.

"No," Connie replied.

"Well," Amethyst started.

"Amethyst…"

"We were walking back to the temple and Steven had his bike and we were all like 'why do you have a bike, we're on a beach. It's kinda impossible to ride a bike on the sand.'"

"Amethyst," the boy in questioned complained.

"Shh, I have 12 years' worth of embarrassing you to make up for," she waved him off. "So, we watched him trying to ride a bike across the beach over to where you were reading a book or something. And let me tell you, he was failing hard. We still didn't know what he was doing, but he kept looking over at you like he was trying to pretend he wasn't looking at you. He was trying to impress you with his "cool" bike you see, but you didn't even notice him. When you wouldn't look at him, he tried to get back on the bike, but immediately flopped onto his face. He ran back up to the temple screaming and crying."

"I didn't…"

"You did," she told him. "And then Garnet said he should go try to talk to you and he made us promise not to watch so we didn't 'throw off his funky flow,' (his words not mine). And, well, I guess you know everything that happened after he trapped you in his love bubble."

"It wasn't a 'love bubble,'" Steven grumbled.

"Yeah it was," Amethyst said.

"Yeah it was," Connie agreed. Despite himself, Steven's lips twitched a bit. "Don't worry. I think it's cute," she told him. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

"If you think that's cute, you should here about the time when he was 6 and learned what a crab was. The hard way."

"No, no, talk about something else!" Steven said flustered. "How'd the mission go?" he asked Connie. Amethyst and Connie giggled, but Connie allowed him to change the subject, leading him back to the makeshift bench so he sat between the two of them.

"Everything went fine other than the vermarine," Connie told them. "The peridots were easy enough to bubble and we got the Crisler bomb just before it was finished so I think our techs will be able to figure out how it's supposed to work and how to make sure no other ones they do finish can actually damage anything. The vermarine was able to raise the alarm before attacking, so, unfortunately, they know we have it already. I was hoping for a few more days before they realized anything was amiss, but they probably won't anticipate that we have the tools to figure out what it does anyway since we're humans. So, I guess it doesn't matter too much. The Diamond Guards had warped in as we finished up, but we managed to escape into the woods without them seeing and I got lion to make us a portal back to the base in Brazil."

Amethyst studied the girl as she made her report. The way she described the scene, was casual as though going up against quartz warriors to steel a weapon from The Diamonds was business as usual. The way Connie held herself now was much different than how she used to as a child. A lot more sturdy. Amethyst hadn't been paying attention when she'd approached, but she was wearing a type of armor. Amethyst wasn't quite sure what it was made out of and it was a lot thinner than what humans had worn to battle during most of the wars she'd observed, but it was defiantly designed to protect her. She wasn't wearing a helmet at the moment, but Amethyst could see where one would probably attach. There was a place at her hip where Amethyst imagined a sword would attach, and it looked like she still had some smaller weapons on her. There was a star on the breastplate.

"You're the leader of the resistance," Amethyst blurted. Everything she knew suddenly came together. The rumors that had made their way through the barracks said that the leader of the humans was a tall woman with hair even thicker than some jaspers'. She fought with a sword most of the time, but was also rumored to use other weapons. Sometimes, she'd arrive to battle days after she'd gotten what should have been a fatal blow, completely healed and ready to take down Homeworld soldiers. That was one of the main reasons Yellow Diamond thought she had to be a gem. Plus, she appeared all over the world as though she were traveling by warp pad, but no one could catch her using them. Amethyst had assumed it was actually multiple women and the gems spreading the rumors just couldn't tell humans apart. But if she was riding a lion that could make portals to anywhere in the world and hanging out with a man who could heal her with his spit… "Every gem who knows anything about you is terrified of you."

"Oh, uh, actually, it's more of a team effort really," Connie said a bit shyly. She gestured to Steven. "Steven's just better at the kissing babies and building morale aspect of leadership and…"

"And Connie's the muscle!" Amethyst pumped the air before reaching across Steven to give her a friendly punch to the shoulder.

"I was going to say I'm the strategist and troop mobilizer."

"Connie's the muscle," Steven confirmed ecstatic.

Connie rolled her eyes at him. "Gems are terrified of me?" she asked curiously.

Amethyst nodded. "Yeah. There are so many rumors flying around about you. The Diamonds are trying to keep the human resistance a secret, but it's sorta hard with all you've been doing. I'm pretty sure Yellow Diamond is, like, totally obsessed with you even if she pretends not to be. She thinks you have to be a gem warrior disguised as a human because of how good you are with a sword. Like, if she gets ahold of you and realizes you're actually a human being, she'll probably dissect you."

Connie seemed unsure if she should be proud or terrified at that statement. "I'll be sure to not get captured by her." She tilted her head at Amethyst. "What else do the gems say?"

"Oh, loads of stuff," Amethyst said, "Hmm… They say you are actually an army of robots that the humans made with old gem tech they found." Steven and Connie giggled a bit. "They say you paint your face with crushed up gems before going to battle." Connie looked disgusted at that. "They say you ride corrupted gems into battle."

"I don't ride corrupted gems into battle," Connie looked insulted. "That would be rude!"

Something about the way she'd phrased that gave Amethyst pause. Her eyes narrowed on the children next to her. "Wait. You don't use corrupted gems in battle at all, right?" she asked. There had been rumors that the humans had managed to train corrupted gems to fight for them, but Amethyst had discounted them. She'd fought corruptions for centuries; there wasn't much reasoning with them.

"Well, I wouldn't say we use them in battle," Connie said. "That makes it sound like we make them do it."

Amethyst looked at Steven for confirmation. He shrugged. "Homeworld apparently could never get into the temple because it was keyed to our specific gems. So, we went back one day…"

"And freed all of the monsters in the burning room that we'd spent centuries capturing?" Amethyst asked flabbergasted.

"No. We just freed one so Steven could see if he could heal it," Connie replied.

"And it worked?" she asked. The look that Connie and Steven shot each other was all the answer she needed.

"Sorta…" Steven said. Which meant no, but Steven, the bleeding heart that he was, refused to bubble it again anyway.

"He healed her partially," Connie explained. "Enough that we could communicate with her a bit. She ended up reverting, but she was able to keep her memories for the most part. She didn't attack us!"

"So, of course, you didn't bubble her again," Amethyst said, her mouth a thin line.

"Huh, that's the exact same look my mom gave us when we told her how we met Centi," Connie commented wryly.

"Is it?" Amethyst asked. At least they'd had one responsible adult in their lives over the past dozen years.

"I was right though," Steven defended himself. "Centipedle and the others have been getting better. Some of them are almost completely back in their gem form more than half of the time."

"Yeah," Connie cut in, "Centi only really reverts when she's fighting anymore. That's why Homeworld knows they're corrupted at all. Because they revert with stress."

It must have been clear on her face how very not comfortable Amethyst was with this because Connie plowed on. "We'll take you to meet them. Then you'll see," she said. Amethyst had to wonder if any of them would hold a grudge against her for strangling them with a whip. Of course, if the centipedle that they had mentioned was the one Amethyst did not doubt is was, then it apparently didn't hold any grudges against Steven for electrocuting it that one time.

"Yeah and then we can show you Connie's awesome sword fighting!" Steven added, enthusiastically. He hopped to his feet.

"Um, Steven. Maybe tomorrow," Connie suggested, amused.

"Oh, right, you're probably tired after your mission," Steven said. The sun was completely down now. Most of the adult humans seemed to have drifted away to their tents. Right. Humans slept. She'd almost forgotten.

"You should both probably get some sleep," Amethyst suggested. Steven looked at her as if he was going to argue, but she held up a hand. "I promise not to disappear during the night. You can tell me all about the dangerous stunts you've pulled during the last 12 years in the morning."

His eyes went a touch wide just like- Amethyst isn't really sure why Pearl is surprised when they come back to a very drowsy Steven when their mission runs far past his bedtime. It's not like he hasn't done it before. Pearl still makes a fuss over him, carrying him up to his loft despite his protests that he is not tired. He refuses to settle down until Garnet swears that they will tell him every detail about their adventure in the morning. She gives him a gentle kiss to his brow and he looks up at them with a serious expression.- "Promise?" he asked.

"Promise," she answered.