"Come on Steven, why ya waddlin' so slow?" Amethyst called, already on the edge of the sandy lot of the playground. Amethyst had been walking hand in hand with Steven down the boardwalk, to the little elementary school Beach City could barely afford.
Pearl didn't like it. Said it was 'dangerous' and 'unsafe'. She would drag them all down to some playground nearly forty minutes away by foot. Amethyst, didn't mind walking if it was like for a mission, but three times a week? When they had a playground right in their own town? Pearl was just being all weird. Their playground was just fine, a little rusty and creaky but mostly fine.
"Ame, les' play! Les play." Steven panted, stumbling up beside her.
"Whatya wanna play on first?" Amethyst chuckled, adjusting his flip-flops.
"Da swings." Steven gasped, jumping up and down excitedly. Amethyst picked him up, balancing him on her shoulders as she sauntered. His little fist gripped her hair and his tiny sandals rubbed up against her cheeks, leaving streaks of dirt on her skin.
The swings were pretty small, only three seats available since some accident broke the other set. Only one of the three were for babies - Steven wasn't allowed to go on the big kid swings yet (Pearl's rule). Amethyst had tried letting him on once but he had flipped over backwards and nearly busted his head in half (which is why Pearl's rule existed).
She sat him in it, his little overalls riding up as he began trying to push himself.
"Moo! Moov!" Steven cried, pouting when his little legs weren't strong enough to move his weight.
"I'm coming! I'm coming." Amethyst snickered. "Sheesh, little man."
Amethyst began to push, watching as Steven cried delightfully. He raised his tiny fist into the air and gave a squeak of a roar.
"What the heck was that buddy?" Amethyst laughed.
"Da monsters go 'way when Ganet do!" Steven explained, flexing his chubby arms in a similar manner to Garnet. "I fly like you guys!"
"Yeah, you're flying just like us." Amethyst giggled, jumping up on the sides of the worn rubber seat and began to swing with her entire body. The whining creak that had been present throughout Steven's swing ride increased exponentially when Amethyst joined him. More of a cantankerous screech now than ever, only Steven seemed disturbed to hear it.
Steven whimpered, just loud enough to stop Amethyst in her tracks. The creaking didn't stop, even when they were standing still, the metal pipe supporting the swings still shivered.
"Off, Ame. Tven want off now pease." Steven whimpered, tugging at her boot.
"What? Already?" Amethyst asked. "But you were so excited-."
"Off pease! No safe. No safe. We go get Pearl?" Steven whispered, remembering Pearl's constant warnings.
Pearl was always warning him, teaching him about wrong and right. He knew not to walk across the street without an adult, he knew not go anywhere near the stove, and he knew that if something you were playing on was making a scary noise; you got off of it immediately and Pearl would fix it.
"Fine! Uh, Pearl's making you all boring like her." Amethyst scoffed, hopping off the seat and setting Steven on the ground next to her. Steven waddled away as soon as he could, pulling at his overalls which had ridden up his diaper. He had gone a safe distance, stepping into the sand lot, ready to start playing on the slide. Pearl and Garnet were too tall to go down the tube slide, but Amethyst wasn't. Usually Amethyst would shapeshift and they would play on the slide for hours.
He was about to turn around to ask her to hurry up, when in seemingly slow motion, he watched as the little swing set gave a loud groan and collapsed on top of Amethyst. A humongous purple cloud enveloped the swing set and Steven watched in horror as Amethyst disappeared.
There were two beats of silence - Steven waited for Amethyst to appear. Waited for he to unbury herself from all the pipes, chains and rubber like nothing had happened at all. Like she always did. Steven had seen her do it a thousand times. She had fallen of the house more than twice, the fridge had fallen on her when she had tried searching under it for candy, and she had fallen out of bed and didn't even flinch. She was strong, really strong.
So why wasn't she getting up? Why wasn't she laughing and brushing off the dust and coming to give him a hug, like she always did.
"Ametys?" Steven whispered.
Amethyst didn't respond.
Steven slowly approached the pile of rubble. He didn't have the words to describe the weariness he felt. He knew something was amiss, but he just didn't know what. Why wasn't Amethyst popping up with a silly face? Maybe she was just taking her time or trying to surprise him is all? Amethyst was silly like that.
"Ametys. Is not funny." Steven shouted, edging forward until he was right at the edge of all the mess. He could just barely see a tiny glint of purple. "Ame come on. Why don' we go home now?"
He stuck out a hand, moving one of the heavy pipes with ease. He began to shift the pipes, lifting one after another until the glint of purple emerged and became a very familiar looking gem.
"Ametys?" Steven asked, looking for her body. Amethyst didn't go anywhere without her gem. So where was she? Steven picked it up gently and cradled it.
People's bodies didn't just disappear. Especially Amethyst or Pearl or Garnet's bodies. Their bodies were super strong; they could run super-fast, fly and be really strong.
They couldn't just disappear…right?
Steven had only just turned three and though he knew a lot about the world, there was still a lot for him to learn. Pearl and Dad told him it all the time. He had just learned yesterday about left and right - one of the most important things in the whole wide world. Perhaps it was that people, if they got really hurt blew up in a poof of smoke and then disappeared, leaving only one part of themselves behind.
Maybe it was like left and right. Just another universal truth about the world that Steven had been needing to learn for some time now and no one had thought to explain it to him yet. Dad forgot to explain lots of stuff. Like how delicious hot dogs were or that jumping off the porch to fly was a very bad idea. Usually Pearl explained these things, but perhaps she too had forgotten.
But Pearl would know. She would definitely know. Pearl knew everything.
Steven looked out the playground's fence with a shiver. He wasn't allowed to go anywhere without holding someone's hand. It was a rule. A rule that he had only once broken and had been severely punished for (no cookie cats for a whole week). But this was an emergency and Garnet said that rules could be broken during emergencies.
Steven really liked cookie cats, but saving Amethyst was much more important than the most delicious treat in the whole world.
He tentatively stepped toward the fence, looking out toward the familiar neighborhood.
Don't talk to suspicious strangers! Avoid white vans! Call for help! (All things Pearl and Dad had been repeating since he had first been outside)
Steven tucked Amethyst's gem into his front pocket in his overalls and waddled from the protected fence out onto the sidewalk. He took a wavering deep breath and began to run as fast as he could. If a car came rumbling down the street he ducked behind a bush or hid in someone's yard. He even avoided the people he knew - he looked mostly for his Dad, but he was nowhere to be found.
He started crying after the sixth car, he had fallen down right before reaching his Dad's carwash and had lost of one his sandals and cut his knee. He passed right by the carwash and the van, focused now on only finding Pearl so that she could bring Amethyst back. He climbed up the stairs, too little to walk up like a big boy. He winced as the wood scratched the cut on his knee and he began to wail as he got to the top of the stairs.
"Steven?" Pearl called from inside the house. "Steven is that you?"
"Peeeeeeeeeeaaaaarrrrrllll!" Steven sobbed, Amethyst's gem in hands. He fell down onto his tummy, his little legs exhausted from his long walk and his adrenaline.
"Oh my goodness!" Pearl gasped, picking him up and surveying his bloody leg. "T-t-t-too much….t-t-t-t-o-o-o much bl-bl-blood."
Steven briefly remembered Pearl panicking out of her mind, he couldn't stop crying because of the burning in his leg, but he handed her Amethyst's gem.
"Wh-what happened to the both of you?" She stuttered. Steven tried his best to explain, but he couldn't get a word past all his tears. He was about to try again, wiping his face with his arm when the warp pad activated and out stepped Garnet. She stepped forward in three, long easy steps and picked both of them up and jumped powerfully into the air.
They landed right as Greg had stepped out from the carwash.
"What the?"
"Fix him Greg." Garnet demanded, handing him Pearl and Steven - both who were still panicking - Steven in tears and Pearl close to it.
"What happened?" Greg asked, setting Pearl down and straightening her frozen legs and taking Steven from her. He was still crying, his hands still tightly gripping Amethyst's gemstone.
"Ametystgobyebye!" Steven moaned, clutching at Greg's shirt.
"I only saw Steven coming to the house crying." Garnet said, picking Pearl up as she began to slump to the ground. Pearl was still stuttering: 'Too much blood. Too much blood'.
"Oh, dang buddy. What happened?" Greg whispered, stretching Steven's leg to survey the wound. Greg broke out his first-aid kit and then grabbed a bag of old candy in his desk.
"Garnet or Pearl, someone needs to hold him while I put on the peroxide." Greg instructed, wiping Steven's face with a paper towel. "Daddy'll give you some candy once we're all done."
Garnet sat Pearl down in a chair and Greg placed Steven on her lap. Her pale face turned even paler and she looked as though she might faint (even if Greg knew that was biologically impossible, it sure looked as though she might).
"Are you sure she's gonna mind getting all messy?" Greg asked, hesitating before placing a sobbing Steven on her lap.
"I-It's fine." Pearl whispered, reaching out for Steven. "P-p-please."
Greg placed Steven on her lap and she began to kiss his forehead as she removed his overalls, precisely removing it so that it didn't dare touch his wound. Garnet took one of his tiny hands in hers, she didn't flinch as she got a line of hot drool all over her knuckles as he continued to cry.
"AME!" Steven hiccupped, looking at Garnet or Pearl to explain what was happening. Garnet only kissed him.
"Let's fix you up and it'll all be better." Garnet promised, sounding solid despite Pearl's fading trembling.
The peroxide hit his skin, but he didn't cry any harder, he only hiccupped and sniffled quietly. Greg quickly cleaned him up and then spread a pasty antibiotic across his cut and put the biggest bandage in the kit on him.
"Once it get more healed bud, we can break out the cookie-cat ones." Greg sighed, wiping Steven's brow.
Steven didn't really care about that right now, he was more concerned with Amethyst. He was about to try to explain again when the gem in his hand suddenly heated up. It flew from his hands up to the ceiling and he watched in confusion as a bright figure flashed forms before his eyes before landing on the ground as Amethyst.
"Man, that pole hit me right in the-." Amethyst didn't get to finish her sentence when Steven tackled her onto the ground. "Oh, hey buddy."
Steven shoved his face into her chest and began to cry once again, holding her as tightly as he could so that she wouldn't go anywhere.
"Uh…hey." Amethyst waved, realizing her new company.
"Amethyst! What happened, was there a monster?" Pearl asked, standing suddenly at Amethyst's head.
"A what?"
"A monster. Did you poof it?" Garnet reiterated.
"Wait, what the heck are you guys talking about? There wasn't a monster." Amethyst shouted. "And why are we in the car wash office?"
"There wasn't a monster? Then how did you get poofed?" Pearl asked. "Steven, stick your head up so you can acquire enough oxygen for function, please."
Steven did as he was asked, still crying. Amethyst rubbed his back while Pearl checked his airways for blockage.
"He can breathe just fine, Pearl." Garnet muttered, crossing her arms. "Amethyst, explain."
"W-well…I might have taken Steven to the playground."
"Which playground exactly?" Pearl interrupted.
"Maybe t-the one that we're not supposed to go to." Amethyst mumbled.
"AMETHYST!"
"Dude, they don't even let the kids play there anymore. They let them have inside recess or play at the beach!" Greg huffed, putting the bandages away in the kit. "It won't be fixed for another month or so."
"And I told you not to go there!" Pearl groaned, rubbing her temples. "What happened? Explain now, please."
"Swing fell! Swing fell!" Steven sobbed before pushing his head back into Amethyst's chest.
"Was Steven on the swing?" Pearl whispered frightfully.
"What? No, he's the one who told me he wanted to get off!" Amethyst muttered, slapping her forehead. "I thought he was just being a scaredy-cat but I guess he heard something I-I didn't-."
"Amethyst, if this poofed you, can you imagine what that could've done to Steven?" Pearl whispered, the tremor in her hands restarting. "He could've gotten seriously hurt."
"Or worse." Garnet mumbled, rubbing her own temples now with a heavy sigh. "We're lucky. This wasn't supposed to happen."
"But it did." Greg sighed. "And we all agreed, Amethyst that if Pearl or Garnet or I tell you to do something we're not doing this out of spite or to be bossy - but for yours and Steven's safety."
"I-I know." Amethyst whispered.
"You ignored Pearl, Amethyst. Judging by all the dirt on his hands I'm guessing he dug you out. That playground is three blocks from the carwash-he's three!" Greg grumbled.
"He's not allowed to cross the street by himself." Pearl murmured. "A-a-and the cars. He hates when the cars pass by and we're not holding him or his hand. It must've been-."
"Terrifying." Garnet groaned.
"I'm sorry!" Amethyst yelled. "I didn't know I was gonna get poofed. And I didn't know he was gonna try to walk back. A-a-and why weren't you looking? And he passed by this very carwash and you didn't see him? And why do you even trust me with him?"
"Amethyst, I-."
"No! You know I don't listen! Y-you know I'm not good at this stuff. I just wanted to make him happy! Since you were too busy with laundry and Garnet was too busy with missions and Greg's too busy napping when the work day's slow!" Amethyst yelled, holding Steven tight to her chest. "We said we were gonna make time, so I did! He gets lonely and he just wanted to play-and I-I'm sorry."
Steven's wails had quieted and even despite all the fuss, he had managed to doze off and then fall asleep. His quiet snores rose up in the silent office.
"Amethyst…y-y-you're right." Pearl said, rubbing her hands over her eyes. "W-we haven't been-been doing our absolute best - I should have come with you."
"And we trust you, Amethyst." Garnet said, approaching her.
"I-I didn't meant to make it sound like that-." Greg groaned.
"Whatever it's fine." Amethyst grunted.
"But it's not." Greg insisted. "You're right. I haven't been doing my part."
"Neither have I." Garnet sighed. "There are some missions that can't wait."
"I could've been doing the laundry while he was napping or late at night." Pearl said quietly, stroking Steven's hair. "He's been growing so fast."
"I know what you mean." Greg groaned. "When you told me to go donate that box of onsies and bibs the other day, ugh I just sat staring at them for hours. I must've been staring at them when he passed by."
"I gave them to you because I couldn't stand to look at them any longer." Pearl muttered. "I used to not even think about laundry, now all I can do is hold every little shirt and sock and wonder how fast he'll grow out of it."
"This morning, when I woke him up. He kissed me on the nose and told me he loved me and wished me a good mission." Garnet sighed. "Every time he does that it feels like I might just explode. I wanted to bring him back something cool - I guess I got a little too caught up."
"He-he didn't want to bother you guys." Amethyst whispered. "He didn't even want to bother me. I found him by the door just staring at it. When I told him we could go out - he wouldn't go unless I insisted."
They all watched Steven as he shifted on Amethyst's chest, his fingers still gripped her shirt and even when she tried lifting him to hand him to Pearl, he refused to let go.
"He's so perfect." Pearl whispered suddenly, breaking the silence. "We let him down."
"We're all just trying to do what we think is best." Garnet sighed. "But sometimes we get carried away. I can take off for missions."
"I-I need help with the laundry." Pearl admitted quietly, a quiet shame gracing her cheeks. "Even just a little-."
"I can help." Amethyst mumbled. "If it means we get to play with Steven more."
"It will." Pearl said, placing a hand on Amethyst's shoulder.
"Steven can come and play at the car wash if there's too much housework. We can eat lunch together or go to the beach or just watch TV together." Greg offered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Anything is better than just him sitting in that house."
"He'll like that." Garnet said confidently. "There's something else he'll like though." She reached past Greg and peels something from off the wall. It's a brightly lit flyer for a re-opening of FunLand.
"Oh, I totally forgot about this!" Greg exclaimed, shuffling next to Garnet to read it. "Mr. Smiley gave me a bunch since he's doing a grand re-opening this weekend."
"Wasn't it closed because a rollercoaster flew into the ocean?" Pearl asked, vaguely remembering having to go rescue some people.
"It wasn't Mr. Smiley's fault." Greg huffed, pointedly looking at Amethyst. "He told me he saw some giant purple flying bird the size of a car ram itself into the cart."
"Oh, huh…yeah I-I can explain." Amethyst chortled weakly.
"Well regardless," Garnet interrupted, her voice silencing the squawk Pearl was about to produce. "We can take him there this weekend. There shouldn't be anything that requires our immediate attention and Steven would enjoy himself."
"Are you sure it'll be safe?" Pearl asked, glaring at Amethyst. "That establishment has never been known for its safety regulations."
"It'll be fine." Garnet reassured her.
"Besides, even if it isn't, we'll all be there with him. How he's going to get hurt, if we're all there?" Amethyst added with a slight chuckle.
Pearl looked as though she had something snide to say, but opted to keep it inside. She released a heavy sigh and with a reluctant smile said, "As long as he'll be happy."
A/N: Failure of super awesome gem strength for the plot (sorry Amethyst). It's a bit rushed since I totally forgot that I was supposed to post before 2016 happened here in Texas.
Just a few more days till Steven Bomb 4! Happy New Years, hope your 2016 goes awesome!