~Whooo. . . I'm back! Still floating on Cloud 9 from. . . *cough* a certain Cartoon Network promo leak. That's all I'm gonna say for those of you who don't want spoilers. :D

At the time I wrote this, the most recent episode was Too Far (although I've edited a few details that were clarified in Stevenbomb 4).~

In the days that follow, you feel lighter, as if you have been transformed from a dull, heavy dodo into one of the sleeker birds that dive for fish in your ocean, though you haven't shapeshifted for millennia. You find your walk becoming quicker and airier to keep up with Dr. Drakken's energetic strides on his short legs.

With the plethora of what he has already shown you, you are amazed that he continues to discover new excursions. Today's was to a clothing store – another novelty for you, since your simple top and skirt have served you well for over seven thousand years. Apparently, human clothing is a tangible, physical construct: it can dirty; it can discolor; it can come unraveled or be eaten by insects, if a human is unlucky enough. Therefore, more than one outfit is usually necessary.

The clothes on display match the ones you have spotted the residents of Beach City wearing – pressed blue slacks called "jeans," open-toed sandals, garishly printed shirts. What freezes you in your tracks, despite the warm weather, are the startling half-human creatures modeling them. Scrawny and pure white, they pose with their bony hips jutted forward and their white, unpainted eyes as dead as Gem shards. They remind you of Pearls that have not yet been activated.

You did not panic. You simply stopped and stared and pointed a finger that was only trembling slightly. "Dr. Drakken?" you asked, and your pitch became shrill again in that way you hate. "What are those things? Why do some of them not have heads?"

Dr. Drakken plants the palm of his hand directly in the center of his forehead with an audible clap. "Oh, bother!" he says. "Yes, those can give you the willies, can't they?"

It sounds like a question-without-answer, which you are gathering is not a sign of pulling rank among the human hierarchy. You nod anyway.

"They're mannequins," Drakken explains. "Plastic. Not real people. I don't know why they don't bother making heads for some of them or coloring their eyes in or anything – a nice brown would do nicely; that's the predominant eye color in humans – anything so as not to tap into our pathological fear of…"

His words swirl and some are lost when abrupt new music begins tapping out of the speakers above your heads. Nevertheless, listening to them bobbing on their currents, you are once again safe.

"See?" Drakken goes up to one of the "mannequins" and pokes their long, plaster-colored arm. "They're not really people. They don't even feel this."

Yes, well, that is what you were told about Pearls, too, and then one of them stored you inside her head…

Dr. Drakken must sense you are still ill at ease, though, and he redirects the course so that the two of you travel down to the beach, the closest place to a sanctuary you have on this planet. A boat, one throwing out much louder noises than you remember boats making, slices by, splitting the water on either side into two perfect, clean halves. The feel of the water lapping between your bare toes has the same press, the same soothe, as Steven's healing poultice against your back.

When you glance up at Dr. Drakken to include him in a calmed sigh, you see he is thumbing at a small, vaguely black contraption that is shaped like a rectangle with rounded-off edges. The device is low-tech enough to inspire curiosity rather than wariness.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

"Huh?" Drakken looks up, pupils centering on his tiny nose. "Oh! I was just texting Shego."

"Text…ing?" Text is a word you understand, but you have never heard it function as a verb before.

"Yup," Drakken says. "It's like giving someone a phone call, only instead of saying things out loud, you type them with a keyboard, and then they get it on their phone."

"Oh. I see." Your chin hovers just above his elbow as you examine the screen of what is apparently now a human phone. "Gems can communicate like that, but we don't call it texting." You shrug. "It's a different term now than it used to be…"

Nostalgia sweeps over you.

"Hey, hey." Dr. Drakken flails his small hands, nearing helplessness. "Don't be sad, Lapis. Please? I have a friend – well, an old-enemy friend, but we're definitely a lot closer than I am with the rocket scientist guy! He's a child genius and is almost as smart as I am and better with electronics, and I bet he could find a way to amp up my cell phone so you can call home if you want to."

The kindness of it washes you like the waves, but you shake your head anyway. "No. I – I appreciate it?" Is that what you're supposed to say? "But there's no one for me to call anymore."

You vividly recall, hard as you are trying not to, the jostles you received from hundreds of Gems following a path that wasn't there last time, faces sequestered behind informational screens – also new; the muttered insults of those few who spared the time to note your presence. Saved from being trampled only by taking to the sky.

"Oh, come on." Drakken folds his "phone" and places it in one deep pocket. "Surely someone must miss you back on Homeland."

You bristle, as if a sharp feather has been trailed between your shoulder blades. "Homeworld," you correct him.

"Yes, of course. Sorry." His apology is immediate and offhand, as if he doesn't comprehend the gravity of his error. "Seriously, though – didn't you have, say, a family at some point?"

Family. The word is hollowly familiar, but you cannot make out the muted images your mental reflections produce. All you know is it leaves a strange ache somewhere in the spot where humans have a stomach.

"What's a family?" you ask.

Drakken's hand goes to his mouth. "Do you have parents?"

You are confused – he has answered a question with another question, and you have no choice but to respond in kind. "What are parents?"

Drakken's face crumbles like fine, dry soil. "You don't have a mother?" he croaks. "That's the saddest thing I ever heard!"

He sounds so stricken with sorrow that for an instant you feel sadness for yourself, too.

"What's a mother?" Whatever it is clearly has great value to him.

It takes several moments for Dr. Drakken to collect himself from the edge of tears and fall back into his Teaching role. "A mother…is like the planet that you grow inside of. Only she's a person."

You ponder that for several more moments. "So – a person grows inside of another person?"

"Yes! And when you're ready to emerge, your mother does something called 'giving birth,' which…" Drakken's cheeks pop with pink spots again. "…if you ever need more information on that, you can ask my mother, and she'll tell you more than you'd ever want to know. Eh-heh."

You trust his word on this. "And she's special because she gave you life," you conclude.

"Oh, that and so much more," Drakken says, eyes gleaming again. "You see, humans are born really weak and vulnerable and won't survive if someone doesn't take care of them."

Of course. That is why the Crystal Gems have taken in Steven. In some backdoor corner of your mind, you are grateful to them for the first time ever.

"And usually – not always – that's what a mother does best," Drakken continues. "She feeds you and then teaches you how to feed yourself. She carries you around until you learn how to walk. She cleans up your – uh – your disposals when you're too young to control them." The pink begins to leach across his nose to meet itself.

You try to envision it – being a creature just emerged, with no strength or skills, a creature who does not even know intuitively where they can go to find the nearest Teacher. In need of help with functions you have not yet mastered. Not knowing, even, how to walk. How do they learn?

"That – that sounds like a very important job," you say.

Drakken nods, the bramble-hair tied at his nape bobbing along. "Very, very important. Once you grow up – which is about eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, generally – you move out and take care of yourself, but your mother never, never stops taking care of you. Never. No matter how much you tell her you're a grown man and you don't need her babying you…"

He is no longer speaking about you. You will never be "a grown man."

"What does she do?" you ask. There is no shrillness this time. You are almost whispering.

"She'll come over when you're sick. She'll tuck you in bed. She'll wipe your eyes when you cry – and brush your hair out of your face – and say she still loves you, even if you did try to take over the world…"

Here Drakken's voice becomes unsteady. You feel your legs wobble slightly, too, when you imagine – just for a second – tender hands brushing your hair back from your face.

A touch you have never had.

Drakken's hand reaches into his coat-of-lab's storage space and returns holding a dilapidated blue square that unfolds into what he refers to as his wallet. It opens now, displaying the small photographed portrait of a woman. "This is my mother," he says with more than a touch of pride.

You gaze long and hard at the woman, struck by her voluminous hair. It's a gentle, muted red, pink almost, nearly the hue of Drakken's embarrassment. Her features are hung with the care and tenderness Drakken has ascribed to her.

And with familiarity.

"She looks like you!" you cry, dimly aware that you are smiling more widely than you have in days. "The – chin. Yours is just like hers."

You touch the slight point of your own chin, so different from the robust roundness of Drakken's.

Drakken grins in return, bordering on bashful. "Yes. That's because she gave me some of her DNA," he says, and then his head tilts to the left. "Do you know what that is?"

You nod. You remember it being Taught to you as an example of how backward humans are – that they rely on such a crude genetics system, where even the slightest of fractures in the helix results in a human who will constantly struggle to function. Somehow, you never applied it to a mother passing on a charming chin to her – to her –

"What are you to her?" you ask.

"I'm her son," Drakken says. You scarcely catch the words before they clog together. "A girl is – you would be – a daughter."

Sudden warmth suffuses your gem. It is the same momentary awakening before your wings unfold, only this lingers.

Dr. Drakken flops onto the sand beside you. It's rare to see such awkwardness and such ease coexist in one creature. "Do you have a father?" he asks.

Brows knit at him, you shake your head.

Drakken winces, the semicircles beneath his eyes making a pained, knowing crawl. "Me neither. I used to have one, but…he left," he says, his voice breaking like waves meeting a rocky coastline.

You stare at him, uncomprehending. "But I thought humans mated for life," you say.

Drakken emits a harsh, bitter noise, sharp as the snapping of a twig someone accidentally tread on. Perhaps it is a form of laughter, yet you strongly prefer his hearty chuckle. "Yes. Me too."

The anguish now is layers deeper than any he has shown you before, farther down than the Homeworld Gems were able to reach into the Earth before the Crystal Gems rebelled.

You feel powerless. You could call in the ocean, douse Drakken with it at your command, but it would be no help at all. What would Steven do, if he were here, to comfort him?

In tiny increments, you close the gap between you and lay a tentative hand on Drakken's shoulder.

It wobbles under your palm. "I guess he must have been nice at some point," Drakken says, "or my mother never would've married him" –

Married. You add that to your Earth-related vocabulary.

" – but then, he had this job," Drakken continues, his nose wrinkling as if it has encountered the smell of decaying seaweed.

"I understand," you cut in, daring to interrupt in order to not prolong the shared pain. How well you understand. How many perfectly nice Gems you have watched become cold and snappish within mere months of their Assignments.

The smile that appears on Drakken's face is fragile, but it is genuine, and he found it for you. "Not all fathers are like that, though. I have a friend who's a really, really good father. Well, he actually used to spoil his son a lot – which means he would give the kid everything he ever wanted and never say no to him, not that he would leave him to rot – but that was because the kid's mother was dead and my friend was really lonely –"

Drakken takes a large, desperately-needed breath. "Anyway, but now he's teaching the kid how to do things, but he'll still do anything he can to protect him. That's what good fathers are like. That's what they do. And he spends tons of time with him and talks to him about wise things… and his voice is like the sound of rustling leaves, to wax poetic..."

You try to recall that sound, but. . . it's been so long.

The soothing rhythm of his words persists, but your mind veers elsewhere. You can see a van charging gracelessly at you, intent on doing whatever is necessary to protect Steven; the face, determined albeit terrified, that you glimpsed through the windshield for an instant as you instinctively lashed back with a wall of water. The round eyes, the small nose with the slits for nostrils –

And you finally know what Greg is to Steven.

"I actually met this guy back when we were both supervillains," Dr. Drakken is saying when you come back around to listening. "Us and a whole lot of other evildoers." Though the wiggle of his eyebrow contains only mischief, you accept his pronouncement. "They were – in a way – the family I never had."

"So – you can create your own family?" You think back to the Crystal Gems, gathered lovingly around Steven, and something knots inside you.

Drakken tips his head over to the right. "Well – sort of. You can legally adopt people who aren't biologically related to you. Or you can just hang around with people and think of them as your family."

Your bare feet dig absently at the sand. The sound of it is as refreshing as a sea breeze. "Who was in your villain family?" you ask. "Do you still talk to them?"

Dr. Drakken stiffens himself, as you have seen many Gems do upon leaving the battlefield, bracing for when the next skirmish will hit. "Well, let's see. There was a man who had monkey hands and feet – and a lot of issues. There was a guy who used exploding golf balls…golf is a sport, and it's usually pretty boring, unless the balls start exploding. There was a biogeneticist who specialized in combining animals. Another mad scientist like me, only much crueler and with far better luck – though lacking my underdog appeal, may I say – and Shego. The two friends I mentioned. My cousin. A professional villain sponsor. And – oh, yes, towards the end, there was this strange gal who could shapeshift.

"I hate shapeshifting." He appears to quiver inside his own skin, rearing back away from the idea. "It's so…sneaky. She could be sitting right next to you at any given moment, disguised as your best friend or your poodle or anything!"

Anxiety licks between your shoulders. Homeworld would not deem a full disclosure necessary at this point for any reason – except that Dr. Drakken has been nothing but open with you, and you cannot degrade his offering by returning it with anything less.

You take a deep whiff of the air you don't need, since it appears to have a calming effect on this planet's life-forms. "I can shapeshift," you confess.

"Oh." Drakken does not sound angry, although his tone is lacking its usual perk. "Really?"

"Yes. All of us can. It's…it's part of being a Gem."

Drakken's eyes flick slightly to the right. "Do you?" And you can sense it in him – he distrusts this shapeshifting girl – and you do not want him transferring that wariness to you, even though you understand. Your people are always easily identifiable by their colors and their gem locations, but humans rarely have such distinguishing features. To sit beside a person, an animal even, not knowing whether they were actually the disguise of an entirely different being…a dishonorable one, by the sounds of it –

"No," you answer truthfully. Many stars have collapsed since you last shapeshifted. "Not very often. And if I ever do, I'll let you know it's me, okay?"

Drakken appears to settle somewhat. He smiles at you, tentatively but with a glow brighter than any that's ever sprung from a non-magical origin. "All right, then. Thank you," he says.

You dip your chin at him to motion him on.

"As for your question…yes, sometimes I still see some of them. Mostly the ones who reformed like I did after the alie – after the Lorwardians invaded," Drakken continues, hands further animating the rise and fall of his voice. "Quite a few did, too. Not to brag, but I really started something. The ones who stayed evil – I try to avoid them. Not because I hate them or anything…well, maybe I hate a few of them. But mostly it's just awkward because we want such different things now; it couldn't work."

You nod again, reactions squirming in each others' grasps like an unstable fusion. You are happy because you want no negative influences in Dr. Drakken's life. Yet shattered friendships have gouged ever-deepening cracks into your planet's society, and you don't wish that friction on anyone. You gentle your fingers to lay them on his arm.

He doesn't pull away.

Elsewhere down the beach, you spot a unit – a family, Drakken called them, and that word does seem to better capture a sense of closeness; of unity; of finding comfort in each other's nearby warmth. There is a man – father – and a woman – mother – and two young boys – sons – tumbling and wrestling in the sand until it's ensnared in their hair and coating their sandals.

Also with them is someone else you can't put a word to. An old woman – and it feels strange to refer to her as "old," when she is probably a hundredth of your age, but she is stooped, seamed like tree bark, and white-haired. A momentary sadness for how quickly humans deteriorate is tempered by what a kindly appearance it gives her.

"Dr. Drakken?" You pinch at the fabric above his elbow and point with your other hand toward the family. "The old woman – what's she?"

"We-eeellll." Drakken purses his lips thoughtfully. "I don't know her, but I'm guessing she's a grandparent. A parent of a parent. She's a grandmother, to be precise."

"How does being from an earlier generation make her grand?" you ask.

Drakken shrugs. "Just something people say, I guess."

You nod to let him know humans' strange speech patterns aren't his fault, and you continue to watch the family as they spread out a cloth and place a wooden basket on it. The basket opens at the top, and from it they produce wedges and lines and spheres of food. The mother is insisting her sons cleanse their hands with some sort of liquid potion before eating, despite their protests. The grandmother chuckles to herself as she pulls out paper – plates, you remember from your visit to the pizza shop.

The word daughter ripples through your identity like a rock dropped in water.

You turn your attention to Dr. Drakken, squinting as the sun's rays are at their most blinding right above his black head of near-curls. "Tell me more about your mother," you say.

"My mother." Drakken coughs his throat clear, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. His words still creak like a rusty old hinge when he says, "My mother was always there for me after my father left. She went out and got a job, and back then there weren't a lot of jobs for ladies!"

Despite his outrage, you are unable to fathom this. You have never known a job run by anyone but "ladies."

"She calls me once a week during the winter to make sure I'm wearing long underwear. That's – that's – eerrrgh –" the pink patches again spurt across Drakken's cheeks – "underwear's what you wear under your clothes and over your skin. She always makes my favorite foods when I come home for the weekend. She…every time I hurt myself, she still offers to kiss it and make it better!"

You feel yourself coming to attention. "Does she have healing saliva, too? Like Steven?"

"Whaa – no. It's some strange irrational mother urge," Drakken responds, blinking. "She hugs me and squeezes me far too tightly, so I've developed this little move to kind of squirt out of her arms and climb over her head."

You laugh aloud.

"Oh, you think it's funny?" Dr. Drakken scowls at you – playfully, you believe. "And the cheek-pinching! It never stops!"

Your eyes fasten once again on the intriguing flaw on his cheek. "Does that – does that hurt your…your cut there?" It is a silly question – from everything he has told you of this woman, she would never allow herself to harm her son – but you need to be certain.

"My cut?" Drakken repeats. He touches his cheeks gingerly, as though expecting to find a fresh, oozing wound there. "Oh – this?" His fingers swing across the sweeping, jagged shape. "No, that's a scar. It healed weird, so it's permanent, but it doesn't hurt anymore. Doesn't feel anything anymore, actually."

"So…you can touch it and nothing happens?" You press your own fingers, vibrating with curiosity, to your sides until you receive an answer:

"Nope. I mean, yes, I can touch it; and no, nothing happens. It just feels all weird and scabby and rough. It hurt a lot when I first got it, though."

You look at the scar, etched deep and dark against his sunny, sky-colored skin and a deep shudder rolls through you, imagining how a slice that devastating must have felt, without even a gem to retreat into from the pain. "How did you get it?" you say.

Dr. Drakken's grin is shamefaced, matching the returning pink. "Well…actually, I was working on a machine of mine, using a blade and then my cheek itched, so I scratched it – with the hand that was holding the blade – that I forgot I was using – so….yes."

You plaster a hand to your mouth. "That's terrible! How did you recover?"

"Shego was there, thank goodness. She keeps a clear head – which means she stays calm, not that her skull's transparent. She took me to the hospital, which is where humans go when they get extremely sick or really hurt –" Drakken pops his fingers wide for emphasis – "and they stitched me up."

"Like a quilt?" you ask. The image of a primitive Earth sewing needle closing his wound puts a bitter coat on your tongue.

"Sort of. They're special medical stitches, though. They give you a shot beforehand, so it doesn't hurt when they sew you up. And that makes it stop bleeding and then you don't die," Drakken ends cheerily, half-standing with one knee caving into a miniature sand dune.

"Does this happen to other people?" you say. You are not sure why you pose this question; you are not ready to grasp the enormity of humans' pain.

"Oh, yes." Drakken's hair-tail bobs at you. "All the time – well, not all the time, but it's rare for a person to get through their life without ever needing stitches."

You try to shift your attention away from the black mark on his cheek where his skin was once torn. "Do they all have scars?"

"A lot of them," Drakken says. "But most of them are pink or tannish…harder to see, at any rate. My skin doesn't do anything the way it's supposed to anymore." It seems a grim pronouncement, but he says it with what could be mistaken for fondness. "So, you know, coming so soon after turning blue, I was really self-conscious about my scar for awhile."

"I like it," you murmur, suddenly shy. You are not accustomed to tolerating human imperfections, less still about embracing them. You examine your fingerprints for proof that you are the same Lapis with whom Drakken shared his ice cream last week.

Dr. Drakken's kind eyes steer down toward his toes, yet you are fairly certain the, "Oh. That's good," he tosses out is meant for you. "I didn't at first. Then I told myself it made me look tough…but I didn't fully get over it until my mother made me a teddy bear that had a scar just like mine."

He recoils, hand slapped over mouth as if he has just released some grand secret. Your instincts rise, along with the droplets of wings toward the surface of your gem and the fine downy hairs tickling just above, between your shoulder blades – you have flashes of Homeworld and its clandestine battle tactics that must never be revealed to an outsider. And what you have seen of bears depict them as frightful creatures.

But Dr. Drakken, fiery as he is, is not a warrior type; you have seen that.

And so you still your fear, push it back down inside you. It has been so long since you suppressed dread that you are amazed you can still recall how.

"What's a teddy bear?" you say. Your feet stay planted in the sand, toes curled under for its coolness, not churning in preparation of an escape.

Drakken kneads the back of his neck. "I'll tell you – but only if you promise not to laugh."

You frown for a moment before remembering how some humans – the brutes who have apparently not died out with the dinosaurs and the dodo birds – use laughter as a spear to the throat. Sinking back into a sit and crossing your legs before you, you say, "Is it funny?"

"I don't think so," Drakken grumbles.

You tilt your head at him. "Then I won't laugh."

Your word seems to seal it, a fresh wax stamp locking into place around a contract not to be broken. Drakken's face fills with light – as though he's keeping his own supply of it somewhere in that delicate humanity – and he begins again:

"A teddy bear is a small stuffed animal. Not a real animal filled with stuffing – though some people do that, too, and it's a little weird, if you ask me. But, oh, I'm getting off topic! A teddy bear is a small toy made of fabric and stuffed with cotton – from plants – and sewn up so that it all stays together. They sort of...sort of help you feel safe."

Envisioning the bears you have seen in Homeworld records, fangs too long and deadly to belong to anything uncorrupted, you cannot absorb the words. They float in your head, foggy, ends frayed and denying connection. "But – why would a toy bear make you feel safe? Aren't humans and bears usually in conflict? Can't bears hurt a human child?" you ask.

Drakken nods thoughtfully, lips tucking and pursing like he is savoring another lollipop. "Yes, but have you ever seen a bear cub? A baby?"

"No," you have to say.

"Well, they're adorable. And mother bears are really good mothers. They look after the cubs all day and at night, they cuddle up to keep them warm and they all go to sleep. I think that's why teddy bears are made to cuddle." Drakken twiddles his fingers together, excitement clearly rising with each tap. "Ooh! And, actually, they came about because one of our presidents saw a baby bear when he was out hunting and thought it was just too cute to shoot."

You grab one thread of that. "What's a president?"

"A leader. In this case, he's in charge of the United States of America, which is the very country we're in right now." Dr. Drakken wiggles his eyebrow at you. "His name was Teddy Roosevelt, and people were so inspired by the story – tough guy didn't shoot an easy kill – that they made teddy bears."

Silence reigns for a moment. So, a president can be the equivalent of a Commander. Maybe even the equivalent of a Diamond, depending on how large a country is on a planetary scale.

And a human…a human had forfeited a chance to destroy something meager, useless to him; something that could grow up to be an enemy. The rest of the humans found it – inspiring?

"Steven has a teddy bear," you say. You somehow realize you are smiling – you always smile when you speak of Steven. "I never saw what he did with it, though. Do you – do you take it with you when you…" the word hides in the back of your mind for a moment, "…sleep?"

Another concept you know so little of. How can a human willingly place themselves in such an intensely vulnerable position? Where do their thoughts go when they achieve unconsciousness, or do they switch off entirely? Somehow, their organs – decoration on a Gem, vital for their kind – receive commands to keep functioning….but how?

"Usually," Drakken says. "I mean, you can do whatever you want with one. Some kids carry them around all day." His voice drops to a hoarse grunt. "Teddy bears are mostly for children. That's why I was afraid you'd laugh."

Forty-two still sounds incredibly young to you. You shrug. "Do they help the children?"

Drakken chuckles. "I know they help me. You can wake up from a bad dream – any bad dream, the worst dream in the GALAXY – and then you reach for them, and they're there. Just touching them instantly reminds you you're not in a cell." His eyelashes squint. "Or a mirror?" he ventures.

You have never experienced dreams, bad or good, so you cannot pretend you understand all of what he says. But if they bring you up short of breath, arms wrapped around legs, body rocking to ease the deep pit of terror, wings expanding and folding back just to prove you can summon them, you are undamaged, you are fine –

Then, yes, you know why a person would need to reach for a fake baby bear.

Especially one handmade by a mother.

"I want one," you say. It is you – your high pitch, your slight quiver between syllables, your touch of firmness – but you almost do not believe you have said it.

Drakken's head tilts again, to the other side this time. "A teddy bear?"

That is one possible meaning, and it is a true one. "Yes."

His eyes are so soft as he looks down at you, much as this president Teddy's must have been when he stared down the barrel of a weapon and was moved to hold his fire. If they were hands, they would be a touch too gentle to frighten you.

Why are the only kind eyes who have looked upon you recently human eyes?

You close yours, straining for the memory of lighter Gem eyes that were once bright with compassion toward their own. But the reflection is murky, as if streaked with the tears you were never able to cry, dominated by the flat indifference you saw hidden away behind flashing screens and streamlined visors.

A Gem's greatest fear – worse than being cracked, worse than being shattered – is being corrupted. Homeworld's anti-corruption tech is well-funded and has surely only become more advanced while you were away. And yet, though the technology would undoubtedly pronounce the new generation of Gems clean…they appear to have been corrupted from some other source.

Steven, however, is the least corrupt person you have ever met of either race. If he has something to hold in the night, it becomes vital for you to have one as well.

"I think I might even need one," you say.

Dr. Drakken dusts his small hands together. The dry sand showers from them; the wet remains, clinging to the lines on his palms. You were Taught that these helped humans to grasp and lift objects. Now you wonder if they, too, are unique. "Ah, yes, I suspect as much. Here, we'll see."

He reaches into the folds of his coat and returns with what you identify as a miniature version of a human temperature gauge. When he pokes it toward your mouth, you retreat, abruptly, instinctively, before the wounded look in his eyes reminds you he is nothing like those who all but trampled you into the surface of what was once your home. You muster what courage you have and allow him in to rest the gauge beneath your tongue. The tip is cool, but the chill goes no deeper than your skin.

The strange device beeps a few times, each beep louder and more pressing than the last, before making a popping sound and sending up a stream of tiny clouds.

The barest stirrings of fear whisper inside you. You hope this wasn't an important test – or an instrument he was too fond of.

Drakken guides the gauge back out of your mouth, gives it several shakes, and then squints at the display screen. "Hmmm," he says. "Hmmm. Well, either it's worse than I thought, or this thermometer just doesn't do Gems." He flashes you a smile. "Probably the latter."

His cheeks are so scrunched, it almost demands you laugh, even while still lapping the taste of cold metal from under your tongue. Thermometer. You make a note of it.

"In either case" – Drakken grimly tucks the thermometer back into his fabric folds – "you, Miss Lazuli, are in dire need of a teddy bear."

Reflections of various mounds of plush at the toy store swarm you. Boxes boasting of their Advantages, summoned with a squeeze of the stomach or a press of a hand, drawn from round, flat objects contracting under your fingers. They are too pliable to be gemstones, but it is all you can picture having that shape, that power.

The note of firmness in your voice surprises even you when you say, "None of those that repeat what you say or light up and flash." They remind you too much of Homeworld, taking everything that was once soft and glass-fronting it, stocking it with advanced weaponry.

Drakken nods as if he has been tracking your thoughts. "No, no, definitely not." He lays one hand across your forehead. His fingers are warm and sticky, dappled with sand, fragile bones inside. "Case this serious, you need one homemade. Preferably by my mother."

You gasp. A human commissioning a gift for you from a relation of his? You cannot guess the meaning, did not know humans had DNA bonds until just today, but anyone can tell the magnitude of it.

"She won't mind?" you ask. It seems odd, nearly wrong, to ask a favor from a species to whom you have never given anything, unless you include relinquishing the ocean you had stolen to begin with. It is hard enough to request favors from other Gems anymore.

"Mind?" Drakken's grin morphs into a body-shaking laugh. "She'd be delighted! She's been after me for so long to make friends, bring them home, let her mother them, too…"

He wipes his eyes as if happiness has been leaking from the same corners you once watched squeeze tears. "Oh, Lapis, she'd love to make a teddy bear for you."

And Drakken's words are so uncharacteristically low, comfortably soaked with a new breed of softness, that trust cradles your body like a warm wave.

"Steven's had a name," you say. "I think." You fixate your gaze on a dune above Drakken's left shoulder and examine the memory. He addressed the bear as something – it was so brief, all you can truly recall is recognizing that this was a child who would talk to anything on the chance that it could reply. The first hope you had experienced in thousands of years crowded your already-cramped quarters. "Should mine have a name?"

"The experts recommend it, yes," Drakken says. He strokes his chin in thought, jerky little movements that you enjoy. "But you should probably see it first before you name it. Like a pet."

Why? Every Gem is named according to their kind. You could never be called anything other than Lapis Lazuli. Why would you?

And yet there is no gem called Steven. Or Dr. Drakken, for that matter. How do humans choose which words to name their – their children? Sons and daughters? Some must be repeated, and how will they keep track? Rubies share names, but they also share appearances, voices, and practically every other facet of identity. Pearls vary in appearance, but they are all still, save for the one who stored you in her head, virtually interchangeable With such a wide variety of humans, you could meet multiple people with the same names and nothing else in common….

Is there someone else out there named Steven?

You grab one question from that swirl and focus on it: "What's your bear's name?"

Drakken gnaws on his lower lip, as though he can pry the answer loose with his teeth. "Sir Fuzzymuffin," he mumbles.

"I like it," you say.

It is soft. It is safe. Like his wiggling, squirmy, sandy presence.

"Do humans name themselves?" you say. "Or can they not do that either right after they…emerge?"

"Bingo to the second!" Drakken rocks up and down, finger pulsing in your direction. "Babies can't even talk for months and months after they're born. Their parents name them."

"And do they wait to see them before they give them a name?"

"Sometimes," Drakken says, shrugging. "A lot of times, they just pick out a name for a boy and one for a girl and wait to see which one it is. You can't always go by first impressions, anyway, especially of a newborn. When they first – uh – come out – they're not very pretty. Usually all red and wrinkly and screaming and goopy and just ugh!" He shivers all the way down the unwieldy length of his arms. "You've gotta wait a couple hours for them to get cute."

"Oh." You had envisioned them with a glossy shine, eyes bright and invigorated, even in the helplessness you cannot picture. Gems are wobbly and ignorant when they emerge, needing instruction, but far from helpless.

Less helpless than you probably are right now, standing there without any idea of how his species begins and develops. You hesitate, take the hem on your top between your fingertips and twist it slightly. "Do I – do I sound stupid when I ask all these questions?" you ask.

Dr. Drakken tilts his head, sending his hair into an utterly honest swing. "Sometimes a little," he says, "but I know you're not." He kicks some clumps of sand from the bottoms of his sandals. "I mean, I'd probably sound even stupider if I ever went to Homeworld."

You smile. He remembered this time.