Chapter 4 - "Sleep cures the weak."


from the moment that Zircon "moved in", Joey was eager to ask her more about Alien stuff, like where'd she come from, how does she understand English, and all that, but she couldn't answer most of them, because of her inability to speak.

Joey really wanted to do something with Zircon though, so he thought it would be a good idea to build a snowman.

he prepares with a bag full of materials, a couple of sticks, some carrots, and a bunch of rocks and pebbles.

"Okay!" Joey says, "now you may be wondering why I've brought the two of you here, Tim, Zircon."

"yes, why? it's pretty cold right now."

"well because I'm bored as crap, I want to build a snowman! Zircon, do you know what a snowman is?"

Zircon shrugs, "No?" she tries to say.

"Well, today is your lucky day!" Joey starts taking stuff out of the bag, "a snowman is like a man, but made out of snow!"

"it's just 2 giant snowballs with a small one on top." Tim adds, "here, we'll show you."

Tim and Joey start gathering up some snow and form it into a ball, Zircon tries to do the same.

"Okay, I feel like making a fat snowman today, what do you think?" Joey asks.

"Joey, it's rude to call people fat... and snowmen"

"and snow-woman?"

they both chuckled a little, "okay, let's get started."

they finish the first parts of making a snowman, the base, Zircon still doesn't quite get it.

"Now we add the sticks! do you know this is supposed to be?" Tim asks Zircon, she points to her arm, "yeah! it's supposed to be an arm."

"Okay, now the carrot." Joey places the carrot on the front of the top part of the snowman.

"this one is the nose." Tim says, "and um, we need eyes."

Joey sets two pebbles on the snowman, "there! I didn't bring anything that could be used as a hat though." Joey frowns.

Zircon looks through the bag and grabs a rock.

"Whatcha doing?" Joey asks.

Zircon places the rock on the snowman's chest, "Ooh, it's got a rock... gem like you do!"

Zircon smiles, "yea," she says, "it good?"

they could barely understand the last part, Joey and Tim nod.

"Woah." Joey says.

"what?" Tim questions, confused.

Joey and Tim walk a couple of steps back.

"you know how Zircon has an uh, a blue gem in her chest?"

"yeah?"

"it's like how you have a blue gem in your chest, and the yellow one in my chest."

"oh! and Zack having a white one on his head? or in his head." Joey continues, "and Steven having a pink one in his belly button!"

"yeah, the doctors said it's like a tumor or something."

"BUT! what if it's like Zircon's one? like we might be..." Joey gasps, "ALIENS?"

"..." Tim makes a very disappointed face, "I kind of get what you're saying, but that doesn't sound possible."

"aw, I wish it was true." Joey sighs heavily, "anyway, we should go back to making snowmen."

"Zircon, what have you been up to-"

Joey and Tim gasp in amusement, Zircon has completely reformed the snowman, making him look like an actual human if they were made out of snow.

"holy crap! you're too good at this!"

Zircon makes a big smirk and gives a thumbs up.

"Hi, guys!" Steven greets, "I've got cookie bears!"

"oh my gosh!" Steven gasps with excitement, "did Zircon make this?"

"yeah!" Joey says, "she's amazing, our ones are trash compared to her one!"

"congrats, Zir! you won a cookie bear!"

Steven hands a bear-shaped cookie to Zircon, "it's one of a kind!"

Zircon puts the whole thing in her mouth and starts munching it, "u-uh yay, she likes it!"

"Okay." Joey says, "what else can we do?"

"I know!" Zack rushes over to them, "sorry, I was helping Dad fix his laptop, he almost installed a virus... or something else."

"Zircon, I was thinking that, if you can understand English that means you can write in it, right?"

"Uh." Zircon shrugs.

"here." Zack gives Zircon a stick, "you can try to write on the snow."

Zircon attempts to write on the snow, she wrote "steven"

"oh! I didn't know she knew how to spell my name, that's so cool!"

Zircon nods then writes "zack" on the snow.

"wait, this means we can use a pen and paper for her to talk." Zack says, "or a phone, if Dad is fine with that."

"that's a great idea. come on, let's go!"

after coming back inside, Tim gives Zircon a pencil, "this should be better than the snow, write whatever you want!"

Zircon starts writing, but she takes quite some time.

"ah, okay." she tried to say.

"Okay." Steven says, "what did you write?"

the paper reads, "I am a crystal gem."

"really? that's so cool... what's a crystal gem?"

"uh." Zircon says, she starts writing again, but it's faster this time since she's getting the hang of it.

"gem rebels." she wrote.

"OH... what?" Steven says.

"wait, rebels, what are you rebelling against?" Joey asks.

Zircon starts writing, again.

"Homeworld"

"Ah. what is Homeworld?"

Zircon starts to get tired of doing explanations but continues writing.

"Homeworld is the home planet of the Gem race and capital of the Gems' intergalactic empire."

"uh..." is the reaction all of the brothers expect Zack could give.

"um, what's so bad about Homeworld?"

she starts writing again.

"I can't list them all."

"ah. okay then..." even Zack was getting confused.

"wait, how many more crystal gems are there?" Joey asks, "are they nice like you?"

Zircon smiles on the inside because of the last part. she continues writing.

"not much and yes."

"That sounds awesome!" Steven sits next to Zircon, "oh man, imagine if we could meet them."

that last bit was hard for Zircon to hear, she worries she won't see her friends ever again.

"remember that pink alien lady Dad talked about?" Tim asks, "is she a gem?"

"Rose quartz?" Zack replies, "I mean... probably, it's in her name."

"Yeah." Zircon says, nodding.

"Okay, we need to ask more uh, important questions." Zack sighs, "did you get separated from the crystal gems? if so, how?"

Zircon grabs a new sheet of paper and starts writing on it. Zack notices that her hands are shaking a little, and she has a slight frown.

she eventually wrote a lot of it, so Steven starts reading along as she's writing.

"We were on the battlefield, everything was heavily damaged, but most, if not, all enemies were defeated, we were sure we've won. Rose quartz, the leader, commanded us to find the rest of our crew."

"Woah, it was a war?" Steven was astonished, he continues reading.

"I was there collecting the gems of my friends, making sure they weren't cracked or anything, it was going fine until I heard the sounds of screaming, someone was yelling 'everyone! hide! there isn't much time-', it cut off at the end, I headed to the closest cave and hid, and then I see a giant white light and-"

Steven stops reading as he saw teardrops on the sheet of paper.

"uh, Zircon, wha-" he sees tears flooding through Zircon's eyes, she also made a frown across her face, he could hear her crying, her hands shaking all over the place.

"oh my god! are you okay?" Steven lands his hands on Zircon's shoulder.

"We just made her remember her war memories, of course not!" Joey replies, he sits next to her.

"so- so-" Zircon tries to say something, but she keeps stuttering, Steven wraps his arms around her, Tim and Joey join in, Zack too.

"I'm sorry for asking about this... it's okay, we're safe." Steven says softly, "want a cookie bear? I can bring some tea too."

Zircon couldn't do anything but nod, "Okay, I'll bring some."

"um, asking this wasn't the best idea." Joey whispers to Zack, "I agree." Zack tries to get up, but Zircon locked her arms around them, "I guess I'll stay here for a little while."

Steven goes into the kitchen, with a look of worry on his face, "Dad! can I make some tea?"

Greg stops looking at his newspaper (which has something about 'New York prison escape' on it), "um, of course, why are you asking?"

"well..." Steven rubs the back of his head, "I think I gave Zircon PTSD."

"e-excuse me?" Greg puts away the newspaper, "what do you mean?"

"I was asking her to write down how she got here and stuff, but it made her cry, I didn't mean to."

Steven takes a deep breath, "I'm sorry."

Greg sighs, then stands up, "You asked her about the war?"

"not really, but yeah."

"well then. let's get her some tea... or a lot"


"Okay!" Steven happily says, "I've got 2 mugs of black tea, is that enough?"

Zircon, wiping away her tears, nods.

"here you go!" Steven hands her the tea, "wait, I noticed something, your eyes look... different?"

Zircon tilts her slightly in confusion, but he was right, her eyes were a lighter shade of blue.

"huh, strange." Steven gives Zircon a cookie bear, "sorry about all that, it's just we... are a curious family."

Family, that was a word Zircon heard before, but still doesn't get the meaning behind it. she grabs the nearest sheet of paper, "Family?" she writes.

"um, yeah?" Steven is confused by the question, "like, we're a family, we live together and love each other." he pauses "at least that's what I think a family should be like."

that somehow made Zircon feel a lot better, combined with the tea, of course.

"oh, it's pretty late right now, like 10 PM, I should probably head to sleep." Steven says. he turns to Zircon, "speaking of which, Dad told me you didn't sleep last night."

Zircon nods, she's confused on why he would bring this up so suddenly.

"do you even know how to sleep?" He asks, rubbing his chin, "no?" Zircon says.

"I'll teach you!" He stands up, "First, you need to lie down in a comfortable position." He falls face-down on the ground,

"then you need to think of nothing, or everything." his voice sounded so muffled, she could barely hear it. "then you close your eyes and... an- and..." he falls asleep.

she was confused, but she got the idea, she tries to repeat everything he said.

it feels... nice, after all she has been through, it's good to finally have a rest, for the first time in her life.

they were both lying flat on the floor, the rest of the night was quiet and peaceful.


Steven yawns as he opens his eyes, he was at his bed. "what happened?"

"you slept on the floor last night." Zack responds, "what were you thinking?" he laughs.

"I was teaching Zircon how to sleep!" he gasps "DID SHE SLEEP?"

"I'm not sure, I haven't seen her today."

"well, let's go check up on her."

Steven & Zack rush to the kitchen since Zircon is always there drinking tea.

"I wanted to teach her how to sleep cause she said she doesn't know how." Steven says while running.

"Really? well, she can rest now, then."

"yeah! so she doesn't get tire-"

Steven bumps into his Dad and falls on his butt, "ow! sorry."

"Why the rush? do you want breakfast that bad?" Greg says, helping him back up.

"Sorry, I was looking for Zircon, how is she?"

"Well, I haven't seen her today, last night I told her that she shouldn't sleep on the floor."

"But I'll look for her." he adds, "Okay! can we come with you?" Steven asks, he's worried that she might have gone missing.

"of course, but you should brush your teeth and stuff after."

"I have a feeling she's in the bathroom." Zack says, "it's the only place I can think of."

they walk to the bathroom, they notice that Joey is waiting there, walking in circles.

"what's with the angry face, little man?" Greg asks Joey, "well, it's that I want to pee, but someone is in there!" Joey replies, "and it's not Tim, he's at the kitchen."

"Well, it's Zircon alright, didn't know she knew how to lock doors though."

Greg knocks on the door a couple of times, "Zircon, are you in there?" he shouts, "we need to use the bathroom more than you do! I'm sure..."

Zircon was sleeping on the ground in the bathroom, she slowly opens her eyes, "uh- okay..."

she stands up, but she feels... new, she looks at her arms in confusion, "what?" she thinks to herself, she turns to look at the mirror and freaks out, making her fall on the floor.

"aaAA! wha- what?" she covers her mouth with her hands, "I can speak." she thinks, she doesn't know why, but something strange is happening.

"I heard screaming, are you okay?" Greg sounds worried, "I really need to use the bathroom." Joey says.

"I'm coming!" was the first thing she was gonna say, but realized that they'd be freaked out if they heard her talk so normality. she unlocks the door and opens it.

"Okay! thank you-" Greg freezes when he sees her, she looks... less messed up, she has no fur her suit(?) anymore, her eyes were white and her pupils were light blue.

"huh?" is all Greg could say, "yeah, I noticed too." Zircon replies calmly.

"Woah!" Steven is dumbfounded, "you're so... different!"

"uh... Yeah!" Zircon responds, "I don't know what happened-"

"YOU CAN SPEAK?" Steven shouts, "um, sorry, you can speak?!"

Zircon doesn't know how to reply, "y-yeah! I can speak, uh." she steps out of the bathroom.

"so um, I don't what to say about this." Zircon says, everyone seems to agree, "but I could say, thank you, Steven."

"aw, you're welcome... for what?"

"f-for teaching me about sleep, I'm certain that it helped me a lot."

"oh! you're welcome!"

"Ahem." Greg interrupts, "look, I'm happy for you, but the kids need to go to school soon, so..."

"oh, right." Zircon sighs lightly, "well I hope you have a good time at school...?"

"Yeah! you kids go. Zircon, I wanna talk more in the kitchen if you don't mind..."

the brothers all prepare and go to school, "Bye! Zircon, I hope you and Dad have a good time!" Steven waves and heads off with his brothers.

"So, did sleeping actually help or...?" Greg starts off, "because if so, wow."

"I know it's probably weird for you humans to hear, but I didn't know anything about this." She sighs, "I didn't even know we were capable of sleeping, I did it anyway for Steven."

Greg smiles lightly, "but now that you're 'healed', you can leave!"

"leave off to where?" was all Zircon was thinking of, she knew Greg didn't want her to stay, but this is the only place she knows, the only place she can call home.

"where?" she asks nervously, "I don't have anywhere else to... live."

"Oh." Greg is disappointed, "well, I just thought you'd... I don't know." he sighs softly, "teleport to the crystal gems using the warp pad or something."

Zircon frowns, "well. I don't know where they are."

"it's okay." Greg tries to smile, "you just stay here, until we find them."

for something reason, that didn't really cheer her up, but it's better than nothing,

"thank you."

"I'm gonna go check on the laptop, it's not fully fixed." Greg walks off, "also, my name is Greg universe, I don't think I've told you."

"Oh." Zircon replies, "well uh, Greg, what is... school?"

"oh, here we go again." Greg thinks to himself, "teaching gems is nothing new to me."

it definitely isn't, he hopes she knows more than Rose Quartz did, at least.