"Hey, Dad! I think I found something!"
Greg came over to see what Steven found. "What is it?"
His son held up a box full of cassette tapes. "I think it's a bunch of tapes. We are looking for a tape, right?"
"Yeah, we are, but these aren't exactly the kind of tapes I have in mind."
Steven put the box down with a "Hmph," and walked around the crowded storage unit before tripping over a cat carrier.
"Are you okay, Steven?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Steven stood up to dust himself off. "When did you ever have a cat?"
"I don't know. What I do know is that it'd be a lot easier to find that tape if my storage unit weren't so cluttered."
"Maybe I could get the Gems to help clean up."
"The Gems? I dunno, Schtu-Ball, the Gems and I don't really get along too well these days."
"What do you mean? You guys got along fine when we went to stop Lapis from stealing the ocean a couple months back."
Greg rubbed the back of his head. "Well, yeah, but... that was during one of your missions."
"Cleaning up this storage unit could also be a mission. Just not a super dangerous one. Besides, it'll be a lot easier with four extra pairs of hands. Sapphire could even use her future vision to see what stuff is worth keeping."
"Well... Alright."
Pearl stared at the cluttered mass of junk in the storage unit like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle. "Oh, my goodness, look at this mess! How did you let it get so bad?"
"I think it looks fine," Amethyst said. "We just gotta come up with a system, like what I've got for my room in the Temple."
"Good idea! Wait right there!" Steven ran into the storage unit to grab something. Greg and the Gems heard some shuffling and clanking before the young half-Gem came back out with three large plastic storage bins and a black marker.
"What's that?" Ruby asked.
Steven started writing on the containers with the marker he had. "These are some storage bins that we're gonna be putting things in to organize them. One bin is where we'll put things we wanna keep, one is where we'll put things we wanna sell, and the last one is where we'll put things we should probably burn. You're pretty good at that, Ruby."
Ruby gulped before rubbing the back of her neck and laughing nervously. "Yeah, sure, I guess..."
"Well, I don't know if we'll have to burn anything," Greg said.
"C'mon, Greg," Amethyst said. "What's wrong with a little fire?"
"Uh, it spreads?"
"Alright, Gems, let's get this shed cleaned up!"
Ruby ran into the storage unit as Greg exclaimed, "Careful, Ruby! There's a lot of-"
There was the sound of glass shattering on solid concrete.
"...fragile stuff in there."
"Noted!"
The rest of them went to sort through Greg's massive collection of belongings.
Amethyst grabbed a plastic flamingo and tossed it into the "KEEP" bin.
"Amethyst!" Pearl scolded. "Don't just throw things into the bins so haphazardly! You should look at the item to be sure whether it should be kept, sold, or burned."
"But there's a lot of really good junk in here!" She grabbed a broken tennis racket from a cardboard box. "I mean, look at this cool flyswatter thing I found!"
"That's a tennis racket," Greg said. "And it looks pretty beat up. It should probably be thrown out."
"You can give it to me! I've got plenty of room!" She swung it around, causing it to break apart further.
Then Ruby came out holding some items in her arms. "So, what should we do with all of this? Keep it? Sell it? Burn it?"
"Hold on," Greg told her as he walked up to her. "Let me take a look at it first." He took a pair of dumbbells from her and looked at them. "Well, I don't think I'll need these. I haven't worked out in years." And he placed them in the "SELL" bin.
"Hey, come on now, Greg!" Ruby said as she put down what she was holding to take the dumbbells out of the SELL bin. "Don't you still wanna keep them around for old times' sake? You remember when we used to work out on the beach together, right?"
"Heh. Yeah. I remember. And I remember when you and Sapphire would play volleyball against me and Amethyst. You two always managed to beat us!"
"Of course, I was always accurate with my shots," Sapphire remarked with a smile.
"That's 'cause you kept using your future vision to cheat!" Amethyst pouted as she crossed her arms.
"To be fair, you cheated a lot."
"Yeah, I guess that's fair."
"I didn't know you guys played volleyball," Steven said.
"We played all the time when your mom was still around," Greg told him as he kept sorting through the junk that Ruby brought out. He picked up a partially deflated white volleyball and looked at it fondly. "She mostly just sat and watched because she always struck the ball too hard."
"I mean, if she did play, she'd totally wipe the floor with all of us!" Amethyst said as she nudged Pearl in the hip. "Right, Pearl?"
Pearl, who wasn't paying attention to the conversation due to being preoccupied with cleaning up, just said, "Maybe."
"We should all play volleyball together on the beach someday," Steven suggested as he took the volleyball and tossed it into the KEEP bin.
"I dunno," Greg replied. "It's been years since the last time we've had a game. I'm pretty rusty."
"What's this?" Pearl took out a box set of VHS tapes.
"Aw man!" Amethyst snatched the tapes from her. "It's the complete box set of Li'l Butler! Greg and me used to watch this all the time back in the day!"
"And they would get so wrapped up in that ridiculous program that they would completely forget everything else," Pearl added, annoyed.
"Those should go in the burn box," Ruby stated flatly.
"Now, Ruby!" Greg chimed in. "We don't wanna burn perfectly good tapes. Maybe we could watch a few episodes after we get done cleaning up around here."
"You can. I don't want anything to do with that dumb show."
"Hey! There's a lot you can learn from Li'l B! Like how it is indeed possible to have too much money. What was his catchphrase?"
"'You people have too much money!'" he and Amethyst said in unison before bursting out laughing.
Steven couldn't help but smile as he watched his father and the Gems' dialogue unfold. It was then he had realized just how small their interactions with one another had really been, and here they were, chatting and reminiscing as if they were lifetime friends. What Steven wondered was what could have happened to make them stop talking in the first place?
"I can't believe you guys used to be the best of friends!"
"Well, I don't know about the best of friends," Greg chuckled bashfully.
"We've had... arguments from time to time," Pearl added as she fiddled with her tie. "Especially me, concerning Rose..." She then perked up as she clapped her hands together. "But we can't keep dwelling on the past! Let's keep tidying up here."
Steven looked through a cardboard box full of fiction books. "Hey, Sapphire, what should we do with these books?"
The blue Gem came over to the boy and looked in the box he was holding. "I believe we should sell them. They'll just sit collecting dust otherwise."
"I dunno. These look pretty rad. I might want them."
"Well, I suppose you could go and ask your father if you can have them."
"Hey, Dad!" Steven ran up to him with the box. "Can I have some of these books?"
"Let me take a look at 'em first." Greg took one of the books from the box and inspected it front to back, then he did the same with another book, then another. "We should probably save a few of these for when you're a little older." He looked into the box and took out another book as he put the rest of the books he had back. "Wait. Is this...?"
"What is it?"
"It's a scrapbook that me and Rose put together." He opened it up to reveal a couple of pages of old photographs, taken in the 80's and 90's judging by how faded they were. They were of Greg and the Gems, including Rose Diamond. Greg looked thinner, paler, and still had all the hair on his head while lacking any hair on his face. The Gems, meanwhile, still looked virtually the same as they do now, with only slight variations to their hair and clothes. They were all smiling and posing on the beach, completely relaxed around each other. Pearl only appeared in one photo, and it was of her and Greg, who had one arm wrapped around her shoulder and the other holding up a peace sign. Pearl looked like she didn't want to be there at all; her arms were crossed and she was shooting Greg a half-lidded stare, like he did something to offend her somehow.
"Pearl doesn't look too happy in this one."
"Yeah, well, she was still jealous of me at the time."
"I wasn't jealous!" Pearl objected. "Well, maybe a little. But only a little!"
Amethyst rubbed her arm up and down. "I was kinda jealous too if I'm being honest."
"Rose Diamond meant a lot to all of us," Sapphire said. "While Ruby and I never fought Greg over her, Pearl did have quite the competitive streak."
"Of course, I was fine with all of the humans Rose courted throughout the ages. I just... never thought that I would end up losing to one of them. Let alone that she would end up conceiving a child with one of them." Pearl's voice took on a bitter tone, as if the words she spoke tasted like poison. She then turned to face Greg. "What gave you the right to take her from me?! After we've known each other for thousands of years! You didn't even know her for that long, and she chose you." Her eyes welled up with tears. "And now... she's gone."
"Pearl, I..."
But the thin Gem ran out of the storage unit before Greg could get a word in.
"Guys?"
The rest of the Gems left as well, leaving him and his son the only ones left in the storage unit.
"Dad, is everything okay?"
"I don't know, Steven. It looks like the Gems still aren't over what happened with me and your mom. Can't say that I blame them, especially on the anniversary of her death. Some things time can't fix."
Steven's heart couldn't help but sink. "Is it my fault?"
"No! No, Steven, what happened could never be your fault. Look, how 'bout you just help me finish cleaning up and maybe we can find that tape, huh?"
The half-Gem boy walked over to some boxes and took out a framed photo of Rose and Greg. "Dad... I think you should talk to the Gems."
"I don't know if they'd wanna talk to me. Especially not Pearl."
"Well... maybe I could go talk to them, and hopefully I can convince them to try to talk to you."
"Well, you can try," Greg replied as he put an old lamp in the SELL bin. "I'm not gonna stop you."
Steven nodded and ran out of the storage unit.
The Gems were all sitting at the edge of the cliff that the Crystal Temple was carved into.
"It's been thirteen years, and I still can't bring myself to move on," Pearl sighed. "What would Rose say if she saw me now?"
"What would Rose say if she saw all of us now?" Amethyst asked. "We're falling apart without her around."
"It doesn't matter what she would say," Ruby snapped to both of them. "She's gone now." The red Gem heaved a heavy sigh as she sat down. "There's nothing we can do about it."
"At least we still have each other," Sapphire assured them all as she put a comforting hand on Ruby's shoulder. "And now we also have Steven. What we should do is try to carry on as best as we can. We've done fine so far, haven't we?"
"Well, we've managed to last this long without killing each other," Amethyst snorted. "I guess that's something."
They then heard Steven's voice calling out to them, "Guys? Are you here?"
"We're up here, Steven!" Pearl called back, and Steven ran up the cliff to meet with the four Gems.
"Hey, guys, I think we should talk about what happened with you guys and Dad."
"Why?"
"Well... I just think it would be good to talk about it. Maybe if you talked about it with Dad, you guys can all be friends again."
"You might be right about that," Sapphire told him.
"So... what happened?"
"Well..." Pearl started. "You know how much I loved Rose when she was around."
The boy nodded.
"And, well, now you know how Greg and I haven't exactly... gotten along very well in the past. Of course, things only got worse between us after you were born. I don't blame you at all, certainly not! I don't even blame Greg. In fact... I mostly blame myself, for having been so possessive of her in the first place."
"I think all of us fought with Greg at some point," Amethyst said. "Except Sapphire, but she never fights with anyone. Anyway, me and Greg fought about a bunch of stupid stuff like TV, I tried to keep him away from his job at the car wash, and then we stopped hanging out after all that."
Ruby didn't say anything, just sitting there looking at the ground below.
Steven walked up to her. "Ruby?"
Ruby growled before letting out a sigh. "Okay, so I might have lost my temper with him and accidentally set one of his towels on fire. It wouldn't have been so bad, except it was a present from Rose. We haven't talked much since. I still feel like a huge jerk about it."
Pearl then stood to her feet. "Come on, everyone. Let's go." And the Gems all set off back to the storage unit.
Greg, meanwhile, was cleaning out another one of the many cardboard boxes in the storage unit.
"Hey, Dad?"
Greg didn't look up from his work. "Yeah, Steven?"
"The Gems wanna talk to you. About what happened between all of you."
Steven's dad turned around to face them.
"Hello, Greg," Pearl uneasily greeted.
"Look, guys. I'm sorry if you all hate me after... well, everything that happened. If I were you guys, I'd hate me too."
After a long stretch of silence, Sapphire finally spoke: "None of us hate you, Greg."
"Even I don't hate you," Pearl admitted. "How could I? Rose loved you as much as you and I both loved her, and it was selfish of me to try and keep you from her."
"And it was selfish of me to try keeping you to myself when you had other stuff to take care of," Amethyst said. "I also had my own stuff to take care of with missions and junk, so call me a hypocrite."
"And, Greg," Ruby began. "I know we never talked about it, but I'm really sorry about the towel incident."
"Hey. It's all water under the bridge." Greg went back to the box he was searching through, and took out a VHS tape that was wrapped in a white cloth. He, Steven, and the Gems all looked at it for a bit before the fully human man slowly removed the cloth to reveal the words "For Steven" written on the tape in black permanent marker.
"Well, here it is. Kept safe and sound for all these years. Let's go watch it."
"Hold on!" Steven piped up before running off. "Let me go get my birthday king outfit."
Everyone was seated on the couch (with Steven dressed in his plastic crown and fur-lined cape birthday ensemble) as Greg set up the TV and the VCR. "You guys ready?"
"Yes." "Yeah!" "Mm-hm!" "Yup!"
"Okay! Here goes." Greg put the VHS in the VCR and pressed the play button. He went to the couch to sit down, and the TV played a video showing a slightly younger Greg, who had a beard, but still had more hair on his head than he does now, holding a guitar on the beach.
"Go on, Greg!" a soft, gentle, familiar voice said.
"Is that...?" Steven asked.
"Rose's voice," Pearl tearfully answered. "I never thought that I would hear it again!"
"Sorry. I guess I got a little stage fright here." Greg cleared his throat before strumming his guitar. "Hey there, kiddo! Everyone knows me as Mr. Universe, but you're gonna know me as Dad! Get ready, 'cause you're gonna have the coolest pop this side of the cosmos!" And he played a fast, energetic riff.
"Isn't it wonderful, Steven? This planet is full of so many possibilities. Everything is so complicated, and yet so simple! The humans of Earth get to make the choice of who they want to be, and what they want to do with their lives here." Rose turned the camcorder around so it was pointed at her bright, smiling face. "I can't wait for you to join them one day, and I can't wait to see the person you become. Steven, you're going to be something truly extraordinary. You're going to be a human being! Take care of them, Steven. We're all going to love you." And the video ended as she shut the camera off.
"A human being..." Steven quietly repeated to himself while clutching his Gemstone, a tear running down his cheek.
What exactly did Rose mean when she said that? The young half-Gem boy would know the answer to that question in time. That was certain.
