The threat in front of them quaked under their gaze. The gem had the nerve to threaten Little Homeworld, had the nerve to condemn Steven's efforts to eradicate the Diamond Authority, and she had the nerve to kidnap humans and gems alike to make a point.

She never stood a chance against Obsidian. They pulled their weapons from their gems and fused them into their broadsword. The blue gem—Kyanite, she'd called herself—braced herself for the challenge.

Like Spinel, she'd brought her own ship with some sort of… device. Maybe some sort of bomb? Obsidian pulled it from the ground with ease and flung it into the ocean. When it hit the water, it emitted some sort of blue mist and dissolved. Hopefully, that wouldn't come back to bite them later.

Kyanite growled in fury. "You'll pay for that!"

She threw the gem she'd taken hostage aside and propelled herself onto Obsidian's knee. It only took one kick to shake Kyanite off, sending her straight to the ground. They must've had a draw of luck because she poofed on impact. Obsidian let their broadsword vanish and gingerly crouched down to bubble the defeated gem.

It was a shame that it'd come to this. If only Steven had persuaded her not to fight… if only he'd convinced her that fighting wasn't the answer.

If only they could go back in time.

But they couldn't. What happened had happened and Steven didn't need to feel like this was his fault. Right?

Obsidian's gems all pulsed with something… new. It was deep and exhilarating, and suddenly the world dissolved into light before their eyes. They threw their arms up to shield themselves from the light and felt the air vacuum from their lungs (well, Steven's lungs). After a moment or so, the sensation and the light behind their eyes faded. The world stilled and Obsidian ceased to be.

The first thing that Steven registered after he unfused was that Amethyst was on top of him. It wasn't their most graceful break, that was for sure. He wasn't even sure what had happened to make them unfuse, even with Sapphire's future-vision. Whatever this was none of them had seen it coming.

Amethyst rolled off of him and Steven sat up to face the rest of the gems. Pearl was facedown in the grass and Garnet was sitting to Steven's left.

"You good, P?" Amethyst asked.

Pearl picked herself up and nodded. "What was that?"

"We defeated Kyanite and then... I can't remember. There was light."

"Yeah!" Amethyst agreed. "And before that our gems felt really weird, didn't they?"

"It felt like a new power or something," Steven pointed out.

"Obsidian can't have any new powers, can she? When we formed Obsidian with Rose, we only could breathe fire and summon the broadsword."

"We still haven't spent much time as Obsidian," Garnet reasoned. "Between the five of our gems, there's no telling what powers they have."

"Especially with Steven," Amethyst teased. When he didn't respond, she poked him in the arm. "Yo, Steven! What's up with you?"

He hardly heard her. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, out towards the Temple. They were still on Brooding Hill, but he had a feeling they were somewhere else. Because their home looked as it did before the Diamonds attacked, before they'd rebuilt.

Two years ago.

"Guys…" he breathed. "Look."

They turned and seemed to reach the same conclusion.

"No."

"This… this can't be real."

"This is the past."

"Garnet, we don't know for sure—"

"Then what else is this? Do you have another explanation, Pearl?"

Steven pulled his knees to his chest. He'd wanted to go back, but he hadn't meant this. It was all his fault that they were here.

"We should fuse again," Garnet suggested. "We were able to time travel as Obsidian once, we could do it again."

"We don't even know how that happened, though!" Amethyst protested. "It was on accident!"

"We have to try," Pearl pointed out. "Or do you want to be stuck in the past?"

"I don't know, might be fun."

"No fighting, you two. We need to focus."

Steven pulled himself to his feet. Garnet was right, they needed Obsidian.

"Let's fuse and go home before this turns into one of those bad time travel movies."

"You mean before we completely derail the timeline and jeopardize all the progress we've made over the years?" Pearl deadpanned.

"That's what typically happens in bad time travel movies, yeah."

Garnet straightened her glasses. "Well, it's now or never."

The four of them stood in a square and danced in practiced synchronization. Amethyst and Steven linked arms, carefully raising Garnet into the air. Lastly, Pearl gracefully leaped into Garnet's embrace and they all melded. In a matter of seconds, four became one.

They were Obsidian.

As much as they hated to admit, they still didn't know how to undo what they had done in the first place. They shouldn't panic, really… stop panicking, but how were they even supposed to time travel in the first place? They tried honing in on their gems and thinking about home, imagining Little Homeworld and the Temple and all their friends. Yet, they couldn't feel anything. No light, no sensation. Their power just wouldn't… work.

Frustrated, they shifted gears. They called upon future-vision for a directive, which threw Obsidian for a loop. Sapphire couldn't see! She was blind, oh stars, they were blind. Why couldn't she—they—see? Maybe it was because they were in the past, maybe it was because they had no future? That notion was terrifying in itself.

They didn't know what to do—nothing indicated a clear way out of this predicament. They didn't even have Steven's intuition.

They couldn't do it.

With that realization, Obsidian split.

This time, Steven at least had the hindsight to float to the ground rather than crash. Unfortunately, the others didn't have the same advantage.

"Are you guys alright?"

"We couldn't do it, what do you think?" Amethyst grumbled, pulling her knees into her chest.

Steven winced. "Standard question."

"What do we do, now?" Pearl voiced. "We can't go home and—and we're stars knows how many years in the past!"

Garnet, still shaken that she couldn't use her sight, took charge. "We can't go to the Temple. As tempting as it is, we can't let our past selves know that we are here or that we even exist. As Steven said earlier, any deviation from the timeline could have catastrophic consequences."

"Where will we go then? Do you expect us to just waltz around the planet, looking for some magical solution? If anything, our best bet is in the Temple! I'm sure there's some old artifact that can fix this somehow," Amethyst rambled.

"There's always Empire City? Or—or the barn! We can go live at the barn!" Steven suggested.

"What if Lapis and Peridot are already living there? We can't let them know about us either."

"Oh, right." He looked down at the ground. "I really messed up big time, didn't I?"

The gems froze.

"This wasn't your fault, Steven," Garnet assured.

"Yeah, man. We were all kinda feeling like we wanted to uh, go back. All of us made that call, not just you. That's why we're here in the first place. It was our power, not only yours."

Amethyst was just saying that to make him feel better. They all knew the truth, that Steven had a stupid guilt complex when it came to fighting gems. That he had a stupid complex for anything having to do with the past… and now it had finally fucked them over. Good job, Steven Universe. Really, excellent work!

"I know, you don't have to tell me."

She really didn't have to. It wouldn't matter either way.

"... told you I saw that lady! The lady from the temple was up here!"

Steven's blood chilled. That was his voice. That was him from the past and he was coming up on Brooding Hill, looking for Obsidian. Oh stars, how had they been so stupid to fuse in plain sight?

"We have to hide," Garnet hissed.

Where? They were on a hill that overlooked a cliff. Even if they jumped, their past selves could just follow (well, maybe not Past-Steven).

"There's nowhere to go!" Amethyst stated the obvious.

There wasn't an out, not without being seen by their counterparts. So long for trying to keep a low profile… their past selves were in for a rude awakening.

Past-Pearl was the first to reach the peak.

"See, Steven, there's no one up he—what in the stars?"

For a good moment or so, they exchanged horror-struck expressions. It wasn't long before the rest of the Crystal Gems joined Pearl. Past-Steven was the only person that seemed relatively unfazed.

"Oh my gosh, you guys look just like us! That's so cool!"

Steven suddenly felt like there was wet toilet paper in his mouth. He was so young… maybe thirteen? Fourteen? Sure, he was only seventeen now but four years had changed so much. So many gems, conspiracies, and dismantled empires...

"Stay away from them, Steven," Past-Pearl growled. "They could be dangerous."

It took Steven a moment to realize that the past gems had already drawn their weapons. Not good.

"Wait!" he raised his hands. "We're from the future! We're you, you can't hurt us!"

"Steven," Garnet warned.

"From the future?" Past-Amethyst raised a brow. "Isn't that like a bad time travel movie?"

"Exactly. As Obsidian we kind of unlocked a new power and now we're stuck."

Past-Garnet's lips curled downwards. "As Obsidian? We… we can still make Obsidian?"

"Who's Obsidian?" Past-Steven asked. "I thought she was the Temple lady."

"She is," Amethyst answered. "But she's—they're—also the fusion all of us make."

Past-Steven's eyes lit up. "I can fuse? With all of you? Oh my gosh, this is awesome!"

Steven shook his head. "This isn't awesome because now we're stuck here with no way back to our own time."

"Why's that so bad? We can all hang out together and Future-Me can tell me stories about the future! How old are you, anyway? Also, where'd you get that jacket because it's super cool! Are we still friends with Connie? Is Dogcopter 4 as good as Dogcopter 3? What about—"

Past-Garnet put her hand on his shoulder. "It's best we know as little as possible about the future."

"That's rich coming from you," Past-Amethyst snorted.

Past-Pearl looked like she was about to snap. "Garnet's right, Amethyst. This isn't something we should just take lightly!"

"Jeez, relax. What's the worst that can happen anyway? Steven literally time traveled the other day and he's fine."

"There were hundreds of him! That wasn't fine!"

"Come on, Stevo, back me up. Tell Pearl she's being a stick in the mud."

"I mean, uh, the thing with the glass of time was pretty bad," Past-Steven mumbled. "So many Stevens…"

"Look," Pearl interjected, "I think that we can all agree that while we are here, it's in all of our best interests to keep the future as confidential as possible. If it's alright with our past selves, which I'm sure it will be, we'll stay at the Temple until we can find a way back to our own time."

"Sounds good to me," Steven nodded.

"I couldn't have said it better," Past-Pearl seconded.

"She's literally you," Past-Amethyst scoffed.

"This has got to be the coolest day ever," Past-Steven decided. "Not only do I get to meet my future self, but we get to live together! Wait, you never did say how old you are."

"Uh, seventeen?" Steven flustered. Should he have said that?

Past-Amethyst gaped. "What! No way, I thought you were like forty!"

"How old are you now, Steven?" Garnet asked the younger boy.

"Oh, I'm thirteen! I'll turn fourteen in a few months, though!"

Steven shared a look with his gems. They were four years in the past, likely before Peridot and Jasper arrived. Possibly even before Lapis was freed from the mirror. This was also a time before Steven knew much about the gems' past; had he even known they were from space? He was pretty sure he hadn't known about the Kindergarten or that the Crystal Gems had fought in a war for Earth. He certainly hadn't known that Rose Quartz had shattered Pink Diamond, or that Pink Diamond hadn't been shattered at all.

They couldn't say anything.

It would be difficult not to slip up considering everything that had happened but they had to bite their tongues if they wanted to preserve the timeline. Knowledge was dangerous. They'd learned that the hard way.

"Steven's been growing up so fast," Past-Pearl doted. "It's hard to believe that in just four years you'll be so tall!"

"Tell me about it," Amethyst grumbled. "You outgrew the shorty squad. That was our thing."

Steven rolled his eyes. "We have other things."

"We'll always be in the quartz squad together!" Past-Steven declared.

Steven froze before regaining his composure. "Yeah… quartz squad! That's us."

Past-Steven laughed and high-fived his Amethyst, oblivious to Steven's much too pink blush. He shook away the telltale color and prayed that neither Past-Pearl or Past-Garnet had noticed his little slip-up.

They hadn't, but someone else had. Amethyst stared at him, lips tracing small words as if she was trying to figure out what to say. Rather than buckling under her gaze, he ignored her. He didn't need her concern. He didn't need her to tell him that he needed to get his act together.

"How about we go back to the Temple now?" he suggested. "I'm kinda getting hungry."

"Oh, me too! Pearl, can we order pizza?" Past-Steven asked.

"Of course. Should we order one or…?"

"One's good! We can share! One pepperoni with mushrooms!"

"Can we do half-and-half? I don't eat meat now."

Past-Steven gaped. "What?"

Steven shrugged. "I just lost my taste for it." That was one way to put it. As he aged, his healing powers started… leaking into his food. After a few traumatic experiences, he'd sworn off meat altogether. Personally, he didn't mind that much after he did some research on the meat industry.

Past-Steven was still scandalized. "But meat tastes good!"

Past-Pearl sighed. "Steven—Future-Steven, I mean, what would you like on your half of the pizza?"

"Veggies if that's okay."

"Who are you?" Past-Steven stared.

"Well, I can say with confidence that I'm you," Steven reached out to ruffle his younger self's hair. "Now, how about getting back to the Temple?"