Pearl watched from her rocking chair in the loft, as Garnet carried in a chunky brown television, Amethyst trailing behind her with an armful of colorful wires. Greg was on the ground of the living room pressed up against the wall next to the fireplace, his rusty red toolbox next to him as he tinkered with the wiring inside of the walls. A tangled clump of needle thin wires spilled out, Greg occasionally snipping one or replacing another. She had been watching him since seven am this morning, curious but too proud to ask about his exact doings.
"Garnet do you mind putting the TV on the stand, please?" Greg asked, sitting up with a huff as he replaced the cover on the wall with a snap. Garnet did as she was asked, standing back with her hands on her hips. Amethyst was handing Greg each wire to plug into the new wall socket.
"Are you certain that this is safe Greg?" Pearl asked, nervously pressing a sleeping Steven closer to her chest. "Perhaps we should call back an actual technician?"
They had called in several humans while building the house, people with expertise in electricity, water and air conditioning. Pearl, when she hadn't been watching Steven, had been asking those who came plenty of questions. The electric technician had been a plump young woman, who had explained a lot of the components that made the lights turn on. The woman had explained that if not done properly, a bad job could cause fires and the leakage poisonous gas.
"It's fine, Pearl." Greg said with an easy grin. "I talked to Abby-she's an electrical engineer who visits the car wash sometimes and she walked me through it. And…there…we go. Outlet installed!"
Amethyst lazily punched the air with a quiet whoop. Garnet helped push the TV and the stand closer to the wall. Greg sat an antenna atop the little brown box and fiddled with it a bit. He pressed a button on the remote and they watched as the TV clicked on with a buzz. There was a muffled static and then a hazy commercial appeared with a loud burst of cheery song.
Steven flinched in Pearl's arms, panting as he was wrenched from his dream. He panted hard, looking left and right frantically before beginning to tear up with a whimper.
"Oh, Steven. Greg turn that thing down!" Pearl snapped, bouncing Steven lightly in her arms as he began to cry. Garnet calmly walked up to the loft and brushed Steven's hair with her fingers. He began to calm, hiccupping and sniffling as he woke up.
Greg quickly did so, but gasped as Amethyst crawled through his legs to press her face into the TV.
"Why do we even need that thing?" Pearl scoffed, handing a messy Steven to Garnet, while she went and fetched a baby wipes to clean his face.
"Kids love cartoons Pearl." Greg said simply. "He's three. He's gonna be the odd one out if he doesn't know anything about cartoons."
"I heard that cartoons make children less inclined toward academic success." Pearl mumbled, taking Steven from Garnet and gently wiping his tears and his runny nose.
"That's like a total myth!" Amethyst shouted, face still pressed against the screen. Strands of her hair were beginning to stick to the bubbled out screen, a few even escaping her wild nest of a head and sticking straight up toward the ceiling.
"How would you know?" Pearl growled. "You haven't read any of the journals or magazines I've been giving you."
Amethyst and Pearl began to bicker, Steven looked between them sleepily before reaching for Garnet. Garnet pried Steven away from Pearl's stiff grip and gave him a few 'good morning' kisses. Pearl walked down the stairs, hands on her hips still arguing with Amethyst now that she was free of Steven-Garnet following behind her. Greg watched before edging away and joining Garnet at the foot of the stairs.
"Hey bud. Sorry Daddy woke you." Greg whispered, tussling Steven's messy bed hair.
"Daddy, we gotsa TB?" Steven asked, rubbing his fist against his gritty eyes.
"Yep you do." Greg said with a grin. "Now you can watch cartoons and play some of my old videogames. And you can even watch 'educational programming'."
"Educational programming?" Pearl said, quickly turning from Amethyst. "You didn't tell me there was educational programming!"
"Uggh! That junk is boring are we gonna have to watch that stuff?" Amethyst groaned, crossing her arms. "I mean, they can't even hear me! So why do they look at me like that? Like just freakin' staring at me and then just agreeing with whatever I say! It's creepy."
"Yes, Pearl. There is programming specifically for little kids that teaches them the alphabet, counting and all sorts of stuff." Greg explained. Pearl's eyes lit up and she turned back toward the TV and grabbing the remote from the coffee table. She rapidly flipped through the channels, her eyes speculative.
"Interesting." Pearl sighed, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Homeworld used to employ educational programming before they perfected internal purpose encoding."
"What?" Greg and Amethyst asked.
"Internal Purpose Encoding. IPE. It's how we know what to do after birth. Humans are born with instincts, we have IPE. But thousands of years before my own birth, to teach new gems their purposes they used something similar to television." Pearl shrugged standing up. "I wasn't aware that humans had developed programming outside of reality TV and cartoons."
"Unnecessary history lesson P." Amethyst groaned. "Look, you're putting Steven to sleep."
Steven was in fact not falling asleep. He was currently playing peek-a-boo with Greg in Garnet's arms. He was chanting 'TB' over and over, doing a tiny wiggly jig.
"Whatever Amethyst." Pearl scoffed before heading into the kitchen. "Steven I'm making pancakes for breakfast. Wash your face and change out of that pull-up. Greg you may stay and eat with Steven and Amethyst if you wish."
"Pancake!" Steven cried, raising his fists to the air. Garnet quickly kissed both of them, eliciting a delighted giggle from Steven.
"Pancakes!" Amethyst roared, kicking her little legs while she rested on her back.
"Does this happen every morning?" Greg asked, watching as Steven waddled toward Amethyst after Garnet had put him down. They both were chanting 'pancakes'. Amethyst flipped Steven onto her feet and they began to play airplane-still loudly chanting.
"Pretty much." Garnet shrugged.
…
Pearl set the television to a nearly inaudible volume. She and Steven were currently the only ones in the house. Amethyst and Garnet had gone off on a mission, Pearl had stayed behind to watch Steven while Greg was down at the carwash.
Pearl had just settled Steven down for a nap and was preparing to do the laundry. Since Steven had become more energetic and more independent, he had become unfortunately messier. Last week, he had somehow managed to pour an entire bottle of syrup into his pants, a few days before that he had coated his entire scalp with ice cream-not to mention the many accidents that came with starting potty training.
Pearl had worked all morning, gathering every bit of soiled clothing Steven had produced in a week (which was surprisingly a lot for such a tiny human) and had washed every bit of it. She had laid it out in neatly in a giant pile in the middle of the house and had already begun her task when the television caught her attention. She turned the volume up some.
A small girl was waltzing through a summery day, hand in hand with what Pearl assumed was her mother. Many sunny, happy scenes flashed by before suddenly the girl was in a hospital. Her vibrant blush had been traded for a sickly pallor.
'Our lives flash by so quickly. Don't let your little one's life, flash by while sick in bed. Protect your children and loved ones from the flu virus. This is a paid message from…."
Pearl gasped, dropping the shirt she had been folding. The flu? Were they talking about the influenza virus? She had lived through many an epidemic and pandemic, watching through the ages as humans were better able to protect themselves from disease. She hadn't heard any big outbreaks from the influenza virus since…since perhaps 1918. She hadn't realized that these things were still active.
Pearl grabbed a pile of folded clothing and walked it upstairs and put it away. She tiptoed to Steven's crib and snuck a peek.
He was still fast asleep, oblivious to the rest of the world. She adjusted his blanket over his still form and began humming a quiet lullaby. She brushed his unruly curls and kissed his cool brow.
She had always made sure Steven was healthy and safe. She cleaned up after his many messes, made sure he didn't stick candy in his mouth he found on the ground (there had been a few close calls) and made sure to teach him the importance of washing his hands. Steven hadn't ever really been seriously sick before-sure there had a few minor sniffles and coughs and Steven had gotten a stomach bug when he was an infant. But nothing had ever required more than a few days of rest and care-but if Pearl was remembering right, the influenza killed people.
She couldn't remember though. Human disease hadn't been a topic of interest for her before Steven. She did know a place though that might know though.
A/N: Ugh...college is making me unhappily late. Due to all this influx of homework, I'm going to develop a schedule. So I'll be posting this week (hopefully everyday if I can finish some of these other stories) but then next week nothing! During that week of nothing I'll be putting more of my focus to developing story lines, editing and reviewing prompts to use. Then after the week of nothing, I'll be able to post a chapter every day-some days for this one, or Crystal Gem Academy (this ones gonna take some time), or Eternity With You or Pearl's Defect. So yeah...that's the plan and I'm going to try my hardest to stick to it.
Thanks for all the favorites and follows! Thanks especially for all the wonderful reviews, they truly make my day. Can't wait for Sadie's Song come Thursday!