"Where ya go'in?" Steven asked, his voice soft and hoarse with sleep. He's on the staircase, sliding down on his belly, ignorant of the effect his voice had had on his guardians.
"I thought you said he was asleep?" Amethyst whispered, hand still outstretched toward the temple's door. None of them had yet to turn around.
"He was!" Pearl groaned, gulping nervously. "You saw him! He was snoring."
Garnet didn't say anything. She released a long breath through her nose and briefly brought her fist to her lips – a posture usually indicative of contemplation, but one she adopted now in order to contain her exasperation.
She had been trying to get this mission done for hours now and Steven's being awake had just prolonged it's finish by several days.
They had only needed to return a relic to its rightful place in the coming days if they were to keep the remaining remnants of their race here on the earth. The premise was easy enough, but recovering the relic from Amethyst's room was proving to be more difficult than Garnet had foreseen.
Garnet had sent Steven to be with Greg while they searched and in that time, they still hadn't found it. When Steven had returned, she had been happy to see him snoring softly on Pearl's slim shoulder – with a watchful third eye they could still comb the temple and be back before Steven woke up and needed their attention.
But now all hopes of a productive afternoon had dissipated with Steven's tiny voice.
Steven stepped closer, not stepping into the cave but just toying with the divide between wood and stone with his fuzzy socked toes. He asked again. "Where ya going?"
Pearl popped up from her hunch, turning to Steven with her hands shaped in a steeple against her chest. "Oh...nowhere."
Amethyst joins the pale gem, on her belly rather on her feet. "Yeah, li'l dude – we're not going anywhere."
Steven frowned, for a moment the dark of his eyes resembling Rose's. The familiar gaze is uncanny – the spark of intuition isn't dampened by his drowsiness "You'we lying!" He accused.
"No." Pearl squeaked. Hands beginning to flutter. "We-uh… we-?"
"Lying is bad." Steven huffed, crossing his little arms across his chest – his expression a perfect imitation of Pearl's own trademarked disapproving gaze. "You hafta go timeout now p'ease."
Pearl flushed a soft cerulean blue, her eyes downcast. Amethyst didn't look too shamed at being caught lying, but did seem to be contemplating heading to the timeout corner anyway.
Garnet turned around finally, walking past her guilty teammates. She knelt before him. "Steven, we are going into the temple for a quick mission. You are supposed to be taking your nap." Garnet said simply, she scooped him up and headed toward the stairs before he could blink.
Steven frowned sleepily and clung tightly to Garnet's shoulder even as she tried to put him down in his crib. He whined as she gently removed his tiny fingers and began to cry when she stepped away.
"Gawnet! No! Come back, don' go!" Steven cried, shaking the bars of the crib harder and harder. Garnet could practically see the reinforced steel enhancements Pearl had added, weakening with every jerk.
"Steven." Garnet put her hands on her hips and looked sternly at him. "You are a big boy and it is nap time."
Steven paused, contemplating Garnet's 'no nonsense tone', before bursting back into tears. While he stopped shaking the bars, he began to stomp his little feet instead. "Gawnet! Don't leave! Don't lee' Tven. Peal! Ame! Come back!"
"UGH! Why does he keep doing this!" Amethyst groaned, finally relenting all hope of the mission and heading back into the living room. "He used to be fine when we left before, now it's like he can never see us leave without wiggin' out."
"I don't know." Pearl whispered, nervously wringing her fingers together. "S-should we pick him up or is it like bedtime and we let him cry it out."
"Can we just pick him up, he's so loud." Amethyst snapped, covering her ears when Steven managed to reach a whole new pitch.
"This isn't going to solve the problem." Garnet sighed, her hidden gaze focused on Steven's pink face. She placed her hands on the rail of the crib and Steven jumped to cling to her fingers. "But neither is anything else I can see us doing, really." She picked him up, starting to pat a slow, steady rhythm against his back, his cries quieting with each successive pat.
"This is the sixth time this has happened in as many days." Garnet huffed, walking down the stairs. "We can't keep tiptoeing around this – I don't like being weary of Steven whenever we have to leave. We have to do something – whatever this is, is not going away on its own."
"You're right…but how exactly do we do that?" Pearl asked, quickly coming to Garnet's side, handkerchief at the ready to wipe Steven's face.
"He can talk now, so he should just be able to tell us what's bothering him!" Amethyst hopped onto the coffee table.
"While I would agree," Pearl said. "Steven still doesn't know that many words. It might be difficult for him to explain himself with his current vocabulary – if only he would let me read him the dictionary at bedtime."
"Yeah, well it would definitely put him to sleep, P." Amethyst rolled her eyes. Pearl opened her mouth to retort, but Garnet raised a hand.
"Look, it's worth a shot." Garnet shrugged sitting down on the couch. "We don't exactly have a lot of options right now."
"Wha'da we got to lose?" Amethyst snorted. Garnet nodded, sitting a still whimpering Steven onto her lap.
"Pearl, you ask." Garnet nudged. Amethyst joining in with a "Yeah!".
Pearl rolled her eyes, sitting next to Garnet with her legs crossed. "Steven, sweetie, can you stop crying please? We need to ask you a question." Pearl enunciated slowly.
"Ndo!" Steven shouted, standing on shaky legs and attaching himself to Garnet's middle.
"Can you tell us why you're so upset?" Pearl cooed. "This isn't like you."
"Yeah dude, you're gonna cry so much, your face is gonna get stuck like that." Amethyst said.
"Don't tell him that!" Pearl scolded.
"What? Greg says that can happen to humans!" Amethyst huffed. "I thought it might help! Motivation and junk, dude."
"Well it didn't." Garnet noted, pointing at the now sobbing toddler wetting her chest. "I think you made it worse."
"You're gonna lee' 'Tven!" Steven sobbed. "No lee-ving 'Tven, I can come too!"
"You're still much too little, to come with us." Garnet whispered calmly. "Even inside the temple."
"Gawnet said that I'mma big boy now." Steven harrumphed, glaring at her visor with unexpected ferocity.
"I did say that. You are a big boy, but not that big." Garnet said. "At least not yet."
Steven groaned dramatically, crawling out of her lap and into Pearl's instead. Cheeks puffy with monumental toddler rage. Pearl lifted him onto her chest, patting his back.
"Steven, the temple is very dangerous for humans, especially for babies - not that you're a baby anymore of course. You're a big boy now." Pearl amended quickly, before Steven could protest. "We just don't want you to get hurt is all."
"Yeah little man, there was an avalanche in my room last week, would've wrecked your shhhhh-." Pearl's glare extinguishes the word before it could leave Amethyst's lips. "Stuff. I was gonna say wreck your shtuff."
"Tven is coming too." Steven insisted, snuffling as he clung to Pearl's neck.
"Ugh, Pearl isn't there some weird human parenting book thingy about babies that explains this junk?" Amethyst groaned, falling onto her back. "Cause he don't look like he evuh gonna let go."
Pearl paused, a hum lilting in the back of her throat.
"There is something, but…Steven's a little too old for it to be occurring." Pearl murmured, her head buried in Steven's curls as she processed.
"Can't hurt to try." Garnet shrugged. "We can't keep asking Greg to watch him when he blows up or keep leaving someone behind."
"Well," Pearl sat up. "I've read about this phenomenon that occurs typically between 6 months to as late as 18 months in the human-infant development. It's called separation anxiety. But seeing as it that's Steven is almost 32 months, it doesn't make sense that he would be dealing with this."
"The heck is separation anxiety?" Amethyst grumbled. "Sounds like baloney. Like that one time you read that we couldn't pick Steven up too much cause we'd spoil him and then his brain would shrink."
"No! No! Human infants after developing an understanding of object permanence will go through a perfectly normal emotional stage of development." Pearl explained. "As infants can't take care of themselves and lack the ability to comfort themselves, they depend on their caretakers to provide and protect them. So, it would make sense that when we leave, Steven would feel upset at our departure."
"But he knows we'll come back." Amethyst shrugged.
"Does he?" Pearl frowned. "Steven's concept of time is different than ours. An hour to us may seem like nothing, but to him it could very well seem like days."
"How do we stop it?" Garnet asked.
"We can't. This is something Steven has to deal with on his own." Pearl hummed. "I suppose it's irrational to us, but to Steven it's completely rational."
"So, there's literally nothing we can do?" Amethyst groaned. "What if this lasts forever?"
"It won't or… at least it shouldn't." Pearl assured her. "But there's no telling how long it will last. It doesn't typically occur this late in development."
"Greg said that Steven's development will be different than the normal human infant." Garnet sighed. "We'll wait for Steven to work this out on his own."
They end up leaving Pearl behind that afternoon. No amount of comfort, toys or even food (they offered hot dogs and cookie cats and pizza) can loosen his grip on Pearl. The search for the artifact is thankfully successful, but they have to wait until after Steven's asleep before they can begin the search for the constantly roaming temple it belongs in.
Three more incidents occur before Garnet decides that she can't take it anymore. None of the missions are really jeopardizing, but one day they will be. One day they won't be able to afford to leave someone behind. They can't just wait for Steven to grow out of it. She has to get to the bottom of this and thankfully an opportunity rises not too soon after she comes to this conclusion.
It's a minor mission – something that really doesn't even require all of them. When Garnet told Amethyst and Pearl, she watched them both deflate. While the missions they'd had the past week hadn't been taxing, dealing with Steven's tantrums had been entirely draining.
None of them had mentioned it yet, in fear that Steven's sensitive ear would catch the faintest hint of the word 'mission'. They wait until it's naptime – Garnet and Amethyst on the couch and Pearl upstairs tucking Steven in. Steven falls asleep easily and Pearl joins them on the couch to wait a customary thirty minutes.
Once the thirty-minute mark hits, they move quickly and quietly to the warp pad and for once it almost seems like they'll actually be able to leave without a hitch, but Garnet knows better. She sees the pink blur speeding across the room before Pearl or Amethyst do.
Steven catches Pearl before she could even cross the threshold between house and cave. He wrapped himself around her legs, wrists and ankles interlocked for maximum strength. Pearl falls, somehow managing to do that gracefully. Unfortunately, (for him), Pearl rights herself quickly and can still walk, mostly unaffected by his meager weight.
Steven figures that out about halfway back to the stairs, when Pearl bends down to disconnect him, he launched himself off her, sliding under the coffee table in a flash and began to wail down there instead. Pearl sighed heavily, her shoulders sharply tense. Garnet heard Amethyst groan behind her.
"Pearl, I'll stay this time." Garnet announced, bending down and untucking a squirming Steven from his hiding place. "You've stayed the last few times."
"What?!" Pearl and Amethyst say in perfect unison.
"Go, you'll be fine without me." Garnet gently nudged Pearl towards the warp pad. "You two take as much time as you need. You both deserve a break."
"O-okay." Pearl stuttered. "But will you two be alright?" She snuck a glance at the captured toddler with worry. "He's been quite difficult this week."
"We'll be fine." Garnet assured her, watching as the warp activated and in a flash, they were gone. Steven hiccupped woefully, waving 'bye-bye' with a pout. "We're going to finish your nap, little boy."
"You're gonna go bye-bye'?" Steven sniffled, fist already tightly clenched on the simulated fabric of her bodice. He wouldn't be letting go without a fight.
"No. We're going to take a nap together." Garnet released the hatch on the crib and gingerly settled into the cramp space.
"Yay!" Steven wiggled his blanket from under her and covered them both up, kissing her cheek before snuggling into her chest. "Do you haf a story for me?"
"Not today, but I did have something I wanted to ask you."
"Ooh!"
"Lay down and close your eyes. You'll need to concentrate." Garnet gently ordered. Steven obeyed squinting dramatically. "Okay, you know I love you right?"
"Yeeeeesssss, I wuv you too."
"So, if I leave to go on a mission do you think I'll stop loving you?" Garnet asked. She combed her fingers into the thicket of his curls.
"No, Gawnet luvs me fo-evuh." Steven mumbled, pressing his head into her jaw.
"But you cry every time we leave – pretty hard too. What's going on in that little 'ead of yours?" Garnet kissed his temples. "I'm curious."
Steven wiggled, snuggling further into their shared blanket. He pouted, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. "I get…scared. Cause if…wha' if Gawnet, Ame, and Peal nevuh come back? Daddy and me will be all alone forevuh and ev-uh."
Garnet hugged him a little tighter. "Have I ever not come back?"
Steven paused his nuzzling and brought a tiny finger to his lip in thought. After a moment, he shook his head. "No."
"Do you think I'm not strong?" Garnet urged.
"Wha? No Gawnet, you the most 'strongestest' evuh!" Steven jumped up on her chest, eyes blazing with stars. "When I 'gow' up, I am gonna be strong just like you, Ame, an' Peal."
Garnet laid him back down, tucking him back in. "If I'm strong, then I'll always come back, won't I?"
"But, sometime missions are sca-wy and hard." Steven pouted. "You said so an' sometimes you get hurted."
"But…"
Steven sighed. "Gawnet always comes back."
"I'll always come back. There's a little boy I have to get back to." Garnet kissed his nose gently, accepting his tiny kiss with a smile. "Is there something, I can do to remind you that I always come back no matter what? Just in case you forget?"
"Hmmmmm?" Steven touched one of his stubby fingers to his lips, a gleam in his big eyes.
…
"Okay, Steven we're going on a mission." Garnet stood confidently on the warp pad. "Aren't you two coming?"
Pearl and Amethyst are still frozen on the couch, looking beyond confused. Steven had just been put down for his nap – he hadn't even pretended to close his eyes yet. They were perfectly in plain sight and Garnet was loudly announcing their departure.
"Garnet." Pearl hissed. "What are you doing?!"
"Man, she's finally lost it." Amethyst sighed, shaking her head. "Whelp, I guess I can stay this time since last time it was Garnet."
"Nobody is staying behind." Garnet informed them with a grin. "Look and listen, gems."
Pearl and Amethyst looked up – confusion etched deep into their frowns. Steven's not whining, wailing or trying to escape his crib in any manner. He lifted himself up slightly, standing on his tiptoes and gave them a big wave with a giant smile.
"What da heck?" Amethyst gasped. "That's our baby, right? Someone didn't kidnap him or something?"
"Maybe he has a fever?" Pearl made to rush upstairs when Garnet cleared her throat loudly.
"That's our Steven and he's perfectly healthy."
"A-Are you sure, Garnet?" Pearl flapped her hands nervously. She hunched into herself and cupped her hand around her mouth and hissed. "He's smiling! And we're leaving."
"You're all right, right Steven?" Garnet asked, grabbing Amethyst and Pearl and dragging them back to the warp pad.
"Yep." Steven squeaked.
"Man, this is weird – I'm not asleep, right?" Amethyst mumbled. "This isn't all a dream?"
Pearl only shook her head, still staring at Steven incredulously.
"Well, Steven we're leaving." Garnet grinned, placing Amethyst and Pearl down. Steven popped up again, holding himself up on the crib's edge with his own wide grin.
He clumsily fashioned his hands into a little, lopsided heart. "I luuuuv you, Gawnet, Ame, an' Peal."
"We love you too, Steven." Garnet's heart was joined by a giant grin. The warp pad activated and the confounded look of Pearl and Amethyst were swept away in a curtain of bright light. Steven waited before sinking back down into his crib. He grabbed one of his teddy bears, pressing a quick kiss to its furry head.
"I go night-night now." Steven told the room, lying down. He only sat up when the warp pad activated again. He didn't even have time to stand up to see who it was when Garnet grabbed him out of his crib.
She hugged him hard against his chest, smothering his chubby cheeks in kisses. Steven giggled and Garnet snickered.
"Gawnet, you 'pose go on the mission." Steven teased, not minding in the slightest. He wrapped his little arms tight around her neck, not wanting her to go again just yet.
"I suppose I am." Garnet grinned. "Maybe I am a little worried about leaving you."
"I'll be okay." Steven assured her. "I'mma big boy now and you a big gem now." Steven gently patted her cheek.
"I know." Garnet sighed. "You know your dad will be here soon. So, some little boy better be asleep when he gets here. I'll know if you don't take your nap."
Steven giggled, letting Garnet tuck him in. He clumsily shaped his hands into a heart and Garnet followed suit. "I love you, Gawnet."
"I love you too, Steven."
A/N: Long time no see. Sorry for the long hiatus between posts. College kicked my butt - any time school is happening, I'm sorry to say that the posts will be sparse. But now that summer has begun I have more free time. I'm hopeful to post once a week this month (likely during the weekends), but I'm taking a Japanese class for the next six weeks, so if that doesn't happen - know my butt is getting kicked with tests and that I'll do my best to eventually post. This chapter was inspired by "When it Rains" Garnet's little heart thing was beyond adorable and I just had to write something about it.
Crystal Gem Academy will be updated halfway through this month. If you have any prompts you'd like to suggest, feel free to send me a pm or include it in review. If I can write it, I'll definitely post and credit you.
I hope you guys enjoyed the Wanted special as much as I did! I can't wait for the next episodes - whenever those happen am I right? I might post a few fics related to the special, so if you haven't see them yet for whatever reason - be warned for spoilers.
Thank you for your patience, your reviews and support. See you next weekend.