"I sure hope so," Connie grunted, trying to push herself upright.

The hospital was so quiet this early that she almost didn't recognize it. As she raised her palms to rub at her eyes, Connie felt the rubber IV drip moving around in her wrist. Steven jumped up and adjusted the stand, gently moving the tubes so they wouldn't get torn out.

She looked around the empty room, then at Steven. If he had any injuries himself, they had already healed up. His eyes, though, betrayed the exhaustion that he tried to hide with his smile.

"Your mom and dad are in the on-call room, and one of the other doctors let my dad stay there too," Steven continued. "The Gems are helping to do some heavy cleanup in the town. Things got really bad there for a bit."

"Steven…how long was I out?"

The boy's face faltered, and he bit his lip as he turned towards the foot of the bed. His voice was almost a whisper.

"Almost two days. On and off."

Connie's stomach twitched. The static had just begun to fade enough for her to feel panicked about her predicament. The battle had been won, of course, but she had been unconscious, genuinely knocked out, for the first time in her life, and all the reactions in her brain made her surge upright. Immediately, her body reacted with a burning pain through her ribcage. As she fell back against the pillow with her teeth clenched, the soreness resonated to all her limbs to highlight the extent of her injury.

Steven sprang upright with a gasp, hands outstretched over her. "Oh gosh, oh no - Connie, I'll get a doctor, I can have them bring you some more - "

"Hrrrng. No, no, Steven, I'm fine."

Both of them knew she was lying. Still, after a few seconds of catching her breath Connie was able to open her eyes and figure out where exactly she was injured. The bandaged wrapped around her ribcage were the first to be found. When she stretched her leg, Connie could feel the cast encasing her left leg as well. Steven continued to stare as Connie then brought her right hand to her head and traced the long line of sticky stitches trailing from the back of her neck to top of her ear. Her fingertips gently brushed the shaved chunk of skin, gentle bristles in a patch on her skull.

"Wow."

"The Gems got you here right away," Steven said. "I tried to tell the doctors that I could heal you but they wouldn't let me because they had to, um, stabilize you."

"What did you say? 'Here, let me spit on your patient?'"

That got a laugh. Connie chuckled quietly with Steven as he gripped the frame of her bed. She looked down and realized that she was closer to the floor, lowered much more than her bed should have been. She also realized that Steven probably had access to the height controls. Her smile faded as she saw the finger-thick dents in the metal where Steven had held on to the bed before.

He was exhausted. Connie sighed and reached with an outstretched left hand, pulling the IV bag gently. When Steven took it, she could feel the familiar softness of his palms, constantly warm even in the dead of winter.

"You don't have to stay here," she murmured. "You need to sleep eventually, or you'll just end up hurting yourself."

"I-I know, I just wanted to be here when you woke up."

"I'm awake. I'm okay. Don't worry about…"

It was always a losing prospect when Steven tried not to cry. Connie held on as her best friend wiped his face, rubbing tears across the dark bags beneath his eyes. She knew that she didn't even have to ask what was wrong. He would tell her, because he knew she wanted to know.

"I couldn't save you," he whispered after a minute.

Connie didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth, but Steven's stifled sob made her pause.

"I promised I'd be there and we'd be together and when you needed me I couldn't save you. I'm sorry, Connie, I'm sorry…"

Steven took Connie's hand and held it up to his face, teeth gritted together as he shook with shame. No, not just shame - Connie saw that he was afraid. All the power in the world, all the strength in his body, and the person he cared about the most had almost died. After what had happened after Aquamarine and Homeworld, they had made a kind of vow, and Connie was pressed under the weight of his guilt. What would it take to save her?

She didn't need saving right now. She was safe, she was here, he was here. Connie curled her finger around Steven's hand and pulled. He looked down at her blindly, out of breath.

"Come here."

"W-what?"

"C'mon."

She pulled his hand towards her chest, nodding her head to her left. Steven's confusion softened, then he held a button underneath the bedframe. The lift whirred softly as it sunk towards the floor. When it was low enough, Steven climbed on, then pressed the button again to whir them back up to their normal height.

He moved himself so gingerly around Connie as she pushed herself over, making a space for the boy on her cot. Steven accepted her motions and followed as much as he could, until finally he was lying on his side, still sniffling a bit as Connie held him with his head tucked by her neck. Cautiously, he stretched his hand over the girl's body, letting the weight rest without squeezing so as not to further hurt her broken ribs.

Steven stiffened as Connie began to run her right hand through his hair. As he relaxed, she relaxed with him, staring at the ceiling lit only by the desklamp Steven had turned on as soon as she had begun stirring.

He wasn't ready yet. She wasn't, either, but Steven especially would always be bound by his empathy. Connie couldn't blame him for wanting to save her; that part would always be in his nature. But you can't save everyone. Loss was inevitable, and unfair, and terrifying, as terrifying as the reunion was joyous. They didn't have to talk about this now. Connie needed to recover, and Steven needed to rest.

As Connie looked down to ask if this was okay, she heard the gentle grunt of a snore. She didn't care if her parents came in and saw this. The warmth of Steven's body helped her eyes to close in turn, and she drifted off with her warrior by her side. They had won, and they were together again, exhausted into dreamlessness.