When Rose arrived at the Crystal Temple, she immediately noticed a very major detail. The warp pad surrounding the Temple was no longer just conveniently placed outside the temple, but now had what looked like a human house built over it. The human house was composed of a single room, with a kitchen and a counter to Rose's left, a staircase and a much more personal space to her right, a door and a window in front of her, through which the night could still be seen, as emphasized by the fact that the lights were on, and a giant portrait painting of herself hanging over the door and the window. She almost mistook the painting for a mirror, but quickly realized that it was too high up to function as a mirror, and the background of the portrait did not match the actual door to the Crystal Temple behind her.

[Since this was a highly personal environment to Steven as well, he briefly came into focus. It was still too difficult to do anything in this state, though, and Steven passed away, jumping to the next moment.]

Rose continued to look, and almost immediately she noted that all her other teammates - the so-called "Crystal Gems" - were up to something in the human house. Pearl was (at least originally) cleaning the counter, and Rose noted that she now had a ribbon tied over her waist, as if her teammate had suffered a recent back stab. Amethyst was looking around the elevated area, likely messing around with either her own or Steven's belongings, and had one of her straps on her shoulder (the other one still hung weirdly), and looked bigger than she was before. Garnet was sitting by the small table right next to the elevated area, and had changed the least of them all: part of her glasses was now pointed, instead of round.

However, Rose could only assume that since the warp pad made a rather loud noise, all three Crystal Gems turned their attention to her. As Rose had been informed beforehand, Pearl was the most distraught by her mentor's sudden appearance, and shrieked in a voice that was clearly not her normal speaking voice: "Steven! What do you think you're doing?!"

Amethyst followed, enjoying the experience, rather than overreacting as Pearl. "Yo, Ste-man! Pretty dope shapeshifting, I must say! You really got P scared over there!" She laughed, while Pearl just looked across the counter and up to the elevated part: "Amethyst! That is not funny!" Amethyst then ran away from the elevated part to the barrier between the house and the warp pad, looking at Rose. Just as agile as I remember her, she mused to herself.

"Is this a bad time? I can leave..." Rose, worried that she might have messed up enough by simply appearing here, didn't want to cause any more trouble.

"Nah, but you might want to turn back to yourself, Steven. Like this." In front of Rose, Amethyst changed her form to resemble that of a preteen man with dark curls, a shirt with a star on it, shorts and sandals; Rose presumed that Steven looked like this, but obviously not purple. "Hey, Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet, it's me! Steven! You totally fell for my prank, didn't you? Now you get to be scared, just like I was during pretty much all missions we went to!" Amethyst laughed at her own impression of Steven, then returned to her original form. This only served to scare Pearl more, and she hid behind the counter, preferring not to see that which was right in front of them.

Rose, though, was confused by what the Crystal Gems - or at least Pearl and Amethyst - were insisting. "What do you mean? Why would I do that? I am not Steven. Why would I say that I am Steven? That would be lying."

"Yeah, but how can you prove it? I mean, you have his gem and all." Amethyst pointed to the cutout where the pink gemstone with a pentagonal facet was showing.

"You're a little confused. Don't you mean that he has my gem? I came first, you know." The more she talked to the others, the more Rose wished she wasn't here. Maybe it was better to just let the sleeping dogs lie. Maybe.

"Oh, sorry! I meant that you have her gem. Forgot that I was talking to Steven."

"What? I just said that I am not Steven." Rose didn't even consider the fact that the first part of her heartfelt reunion would be about her convincing everyone that she is not Steven. It was supposed to be about meeting the gems once again and tying all ends that might have come loose. And maybe seeing how Beach City had changed over the years.

[As Steven's name was called out each time, he turned his attention. He was still too weak to even speak via Rose's voice, so he returned to what felt like being inside Lion's mane, being unable to breathe and all, but much more permanent, as his body wasn't his anymore.]

"Yeah, right." Amethyst looked back to Pearl and Garnet and told them "Yo, can anyone help me fix Steven?" Unfortunately for her, Pearl was hiding in the bathroom, so Garnet was the only viable option. She walked over to the barrier between "worlds", standing next to Amethyst, and looked at Rose in an intimidating silence.

After what seemed like forever, Garnet finally spoke. "What would Rose Quartz know that Steven wouldn't know?"

"Hmm." While Steven was still the dominant personality in them, Rose couldn't particularly think of any of her memories very clearly, but now that she was in control, she thought about everything that she knew about herself, looking for parts that Steven was still too young to know about.

"Let's just shoot at random and see if it works. The thirteen hundreds! AD, of course." Amethyst declared.

"Well," Rose began, being given a direction to follow, "the Black Plague was spreading throughout Europe, and we had set up a shop. I, though, traveled around houses, healing as many people as I knew with healing tears, and got the title of-"

"The Rogue Healing Witch." Garnet finished the memory for Rose. "Good thing you were there, or else half of all Europeans would have died."

"Yeah, good thing that only a third of them died." Amethyst laughed.

In the bathroom, Pearl overheard the conversation. She was fairly confident that she had never told Steven that, and therefore this was at least part of the confirmation that it wasn't Steven who had appeared on the warp pad - or any corrupted gem, as the so-called "Black Plague" wasn't spread by corrupted gems. She thus walked back to the main part of the house and stepped on the barrier, taking the empty space to Amethyst's other side.

"Wow!" Pearl spoke. "Sorry I didn't believe you about-"

"I'm not done yet." Garnet held out her hand to Pearl, then put it down and remembered the other part of her test. "What would Steven know that Rose Quartz wouldn't know?"

"How did Steven first meet Connie?" Pearl asked, hoping to follow the ambiguous directions that Garnet gave.

"Wow. Well... I have no idea, but... if I were to guess, it would be..." Even when fully in control, Rose still didn't seem to have any of Steven's memories, or at least wasn't able to consciously access them.

"It's really her." Garnet concluded, and Rose stopped thinking about Steven. This far into being herself, she was still worried that Steven would randomly surface, but then again, she didn't remember surfacing during Steven's lifetime, so maybe it was okay.

"Heya, Rose! Sorry about the Steven part. You have to admit, though; it was still a good prank." Amethyst laughed to herself.

"Welcome back, Rose! Should I show you around the future?" Pearl offered.

"No, it's okay. Well, it's probably not okay since you kept being convinced that I was my shapeshifting son, and others would probably think the same, but at least I can take a walk in Beach City." Rose stepped forward, looking as only a purple shadow remained where Amethyst originally was. She then walked up to the door, but realized that it was rather low for herself, and with her... unique figure, she wouldn't be exiting the house anytime soon. (Unless, of course, she shapeshifted again, but she was still worried about the consequences of doing that in an organic body. She certainly didn't want cat heads growing on her body.)

"Or not." Garnet looked back at Rose, noting the same predicament that she was facing.

"Alright, Rose, we'll catch ya later! Don't mess anything up while we're on a mission." Amethyst waved to her.

"Don't you want to go on a mission as well?" Even when she was slowly getting used to the fact that Rose was here, Pearl still didn't know how to talk to her.

"Sorry, but no. I should still get used to being myself once again." Rose declined.

"It's good to see at least some of you again, Rose." Garnet said the Crystal Gems' last words as all three stepped on the warp pad and disappeared.

"Nice to see you too." Rose waved to her friends, smiling.

Once she was alone, Rose could give the house that was built in her absence a better look.

"Could", though, was the key word here. First, she had to get accustomed to all the perils of having an organic body. Even during the brief time that she had, she had noticed that when her fingers touched, it wasn't the same feeling of pure light that she was used to. Instead, the fingers just felt like meat, not unlike Greg's. She was also quick to notice that during the entire presence, her chest had been unconsciously lifting up and down, and air was alternating between entering her body and leaving it. She wondered what would happen if she had simply... stopped. She thus sat down by the table across the kitchen, firmly closed her mouth and her nostrils and waited.

About a minute later, she was desperately grasping for a breath, the flow of air getting heavier than before, and the surroundings suddenly felt more real, as if she was more awake. It seemed that this was actually a natural part of being a human, and it was better to just let it go.

Though, Rose couldn't help the notion of slight fatigue and wanting to be near water, which was distinctly not like the breathing thing.

"Where do humans typically store water?" She stood up, careful to not knock the table over, and looked at the kitchen. There was the typical assortment of spoons, forks, glasses, plates and other eating utensils that humans used, as well as what humans called "a fridge". Rose opened the fridge, but couldn't find anything even resembling water, so she closed the white wardrobe almost immediately. Then, though, she noticed a "tap" - a handle attached to the metal hose - and pulled the handle, thus filling the sink underneath the tap with water.

"Oh, right, the glass." Rose picked up a glass that was between the utensils, and held it to the tap. However, she noticed that she was holding the glass upside-down, and therefore water didn't want to stay in the glass. Sighing and realizing that there is still a lot to learn about humans, she turned the glass upside down, waited until the water completely filled it, then pulled the handle on the tap once again. She then held the glass to her mouth and began pouring water inside, as she had seen humans (and Amethyst) do so. She was careful to not have any of it drip on her clothes, since that was apparently one of the dangers of drinking water.

After emptying the glass and putting it back to its place, however, Rose had felt another sensation: that of the same water filling her abdomen and wanting to come out of between her legs.

She thought about how humans often said that they needed to go to "the bathroom". She was able to surmise that this was, in fact, the alternative to pouring water all over your clothes and the floor. Rose thus looked around, trying to find this mythical "bathroom" place, and eventually found herself facing another door, not unlike hers, that opened and revealed another strange white object inside it. It was still trouble actually getting inside, but Rose eventually learned that if she slightly crouched and went in sideways, she could just barely squeeze herself through.

Once Rose was inside the bathroom, she closed the door and opened a lid on the white appliance, revealing a small pool of water. "Water to water", she supposed and began lifting layers of her dress so she could sit on the appliance, but stopped just as she reached the last layer and could grab her crotch, remembering the "dangling thing" talk she had with Steven.

To her surprise, there was no dangling thing to be found between her legs.

Getting more confused, Rose sat down at the appliance, making sure her crotch was right above the small pool, and let the water inside her flow. The flow had a calming effect on her, making her yawn a bit and be overtaken by the same fatigue as before; just not related to water this time.

Once all the water got outside of her, she stood up and closed the appliance, but then noticed a button on it. Supposing that it doesn't hurt to try, she pushed the button, and suddenly the appliance itself started to generate its own water. She figured that it was simply the appliance's method of keeping itself clean, and having spent enough time in the bathroom, struggled to get outside the room in the same "sideways and crouching" fashion.

As she got back into the room, she noticed a human bed on the elevated part of the house. She climbed upwards using the stairs, and sat down on the bed. It felt really soft, and only served to remind her that she was still not feeling all that well and needed a rest. The nighttime sky, which she noted through another window on the wall where the elevated part was, also was another reminder.

Before she knew it, Rose placed both her head and her legs onto the bed, and eventually, stopped thinking about everything.

Rose was in the pink cloud environment that was all too familiar to her. It was the design of her own room within the Crystal Temple, in which objects were forming out of clouds when and only when she wanted to. However, there was another, humanoid shape that didn't look like a cloud, standing across her. Rose walked forward, hoping to meet the figure.

It turned out to be practically identical to the form Amethyst made, imitating Steven, but in color. This time, his shirt was red, the star was orange, the shorts were blue, the sandals were a dark pink and the skin was peach, not unlike that of her own, as well as of humans. Rose concluded that this was indeed Steven, standing across her on the room. He spoke: "Oh, hey, Mom. I mean, I'm kind of getting used to Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl taking care of me, but you're the real mom who had to give up her physical form, after all."

"It's good to see you, Steven." Rose smiled at the actual sight of his son, and the sensation of not being trapped in the same body as him. "I just have one question. What is this place?"

"This place? I suppose it is where people go in dreams. They make up various stuff that doesn't really exist - or make sense, for that matter..."

"Dreams?" It was another of those human things, wasn't it?

"Yeah? It's a thing you do when you go to sleep. I don't think gems go to sleep, though..."

"Occasionally, they do. I've seen Amethyst sleep at least a couple of times." Rose remembered.

"Yeah, she indulges in a lot of human stuff. Maybe she's trying to make me feel more like a gem?"

"It is possible." Remembering the conversation with Amethyst, Pearl and Garnet, Rose inquired. "Um, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes?" Steven smiled.

"How did you meet Connie?"

"Oh, it was pretty fun. I opened my bubble for the first time, and it protected Connie from falling debris of the temple. But then we got stuck in the bubble, and pretty much had to make friends to get out, and then there was this gem monster that I cleverly spun around the boardwalk so it made it collapse, and then Connie was excited at seeing me, and..."

Rose giggled. "Your voice is so beautiful."

Steven shrugged. "Yeah, Pearl said I sounded like you. Anyway, I'm pretty used to human stuff, so if there is anything that troubles you, you can just ask. Have you talked to Pearl yet?"

Rose blushed. "Not really? Well, not about the amends. Just a conversation where she was horrified, thinking you were actually shapeshifting."

"Yeah, that sounds like Pearl."

"You really are my favorite son." Rose held her hands out for Steven.

"And you're my favorite mom." Steven took the hands, and before they knew it, both were in a hug. They both were very happy to actually see each other, (sort of) in person, for the first time.

Author's idiotisms: I've been writing 3K word chapters every day already. Where was this when I actually needed it during Camp NaNoWriMo?

Tune in next time for the Steven Universe equivalent of all the Portal fanfics that talk about Wheatley becoming a human.

Update #1: see chapter 1.