Central Europe, 5257 years ago:

Late the next morning:
"Ugh... my mouth tastes horrible..." Connie moaned as she rolled over.
Pearl entered the roundhouse, a small bowl in each hand. "Ah, good. You're finally awake. Here, eat this." she held out a bowl to her, and Connie saw that there were five small boiled eggs, already peeled. "It'll help." Pearl said, moving over to nudge Steven awake.
Connie started eating slowly, but quickly gulped down the food as she became more coherent.
Steven hazily shoved two whole eggs into his mouth, eyes blinking slowly as his cheeks bulged outwards, chewing slowly.
"Hey... These are pretty small eggs..." Connie mused sleepily. "What kind of bird did they come from?"
Pearl shrugged. "No idea. Some sort of wild bird. These people are almost hunter-gatherers. They forage for the majority of their food whilst they wait for their small crop to grow." She paused to take a bottle of water and two plastic cups from her gem, pouring it out. "But, eggs are eggs. And eggs are apparently good for humans who have had far too much alcohol. As is proper hydration. Drink."
She held out the cups, and they quickly gulped them down.
Pearl allowed them each one more cupful before she stored the items again. "We have to preserve as much water as possible, in case of dire emergencies. We have no idea how long it's going to take to return to our proper time. If we get stranded at any point, away from safe water sources, what I have can be stretched for... maybe a week, at the most."

Connie leaned back against the wall. "Okay... so... What are our options here? How are we going to get back? Or... go forwards, I guess..."
Pearl sighed deeply. "I'm been thinking about that since I saw myself yesterday. I've only been able to come up with two options."
The group perked up. Amethyst grinned. "Ha! I knew this genius could figure this out!"
Pearl blushed. "I wouldn't go that far... These are really only possible solutions, neither of which have no real guarantee of success. One is very likely to fail, the other... maybe only a twenty-seven percent chance of dying horribly." she grimaced.
Amethyst shrugged. "Eh. We've faced worse odds. What about that time with the giant scorpion?"
Pearl rolled her eyes. "That was easy compared to that disgusting venomous slug... brrr..." she shivered at the memory.
"Oh yeah... that thing was messed up! So gross!" Amethyst nodded, disgust clear on her face. "And coming from me, that's saying a lot."

"So, options?" Connie prompted.
Pearl paused and glanced over. "Uh, right. So, option one: I put you into my gem. Things don't age or decomposed when in storage, so if I put you in there, you'll essentially be ageless. I could easily survive another five thousand years, going deep underground to avoid the corruption of course, and take you out in our correct time. The hard part will be avoiding affecting any historical events, causing something to happen that wasn't supposed to, or worse, preventing a necessary event from occurring."
Amethyst raised her hand. "By you, ya mean us, right?" she pointed between them.
Pearl glanced at her and nodded. "Oh, yes. Pearl's don't do too well alone, so without anyone to keep me company, I'd probably go completely insane and forget the kids are in there. So yes, the two of us will have to avoid the corruption and running into ourselves during the next five thousa... Oh no... no..."

The group watched as Pearl stood and started pacing, muttering to herself.
"Uh... is everything okay, Pearl." Steven reached out and lightly touched her sash.
Pearl stopped and shook her head. "That's not going to work... I forgot about entropic cascade failure..."
"What the heck is that?" Amethyst groaned, sensing one of Pearl's lectures, and moving to get comfortable.
"Entropic cascade failure." Pearl sat down in front of them. "You see..." Pearl reached out and gathered some dust from the floor, shaping it into two small Pearls. One was wearing her usual sash, the other was wearing the outfit they had seen the younger Pearl wearing the previous day. "...The same person cannot exist in the same place and time period as another version of themselves, younger or older. The time stream is quite fluid, and self-repairing. If an anomaly is detected, measures are taken to... fix the problem. After an... unknown, amount of time, the extraneous copy, the one who doesn't belong in that time and place, is..." she sighed, and twitched her fingers. The small version of herself doubled over briefly before falling to the ground and exploding back into dust. "...deleted. Painfully."

"Geez..." Amethyst breathed. "This is bad... You're gonna..."
Pearl shrugged and sighed. "The only one of us who is truly safe, is Connie."
The group glanced over at her. "M-me?" Connie stammered.
Pearl nodded. "No version of you will exist for another five thousand years. Although, spending the rest of your life stranded in the past is definitely not the preferred option. However,..." Pearl flexed her fingers again, and the dust reformed into a small Steven and Rose. "Steven... might be in trouble. Uh... I'm not entirely certain what's going to happen with him. He is an entirely different entity than his mother, yes, but he has her gem, which does exist here."
Pearl twitched her fingers in a seemingly random pattern, and they watched as the dust figure of Steven doubled over, and the gem disappeared from his stomach.
"If entropic cascade failure affects him, his gem, the second version of his mother, could disappear forever, leaving only his human half behind. But..." she paused and sighed sadly, as the small dust-Steven dropped to the ground and stayed. "...we don't know what will happen to Steven without his gem. Removal in any way would most likely be fatal to him."

Steven gulped nervously as Connie placed a hand on his arm and Amethyst wrapped him in a hug. "W-what about Amethyst?" Steven asked, causing the purple gem to look over at Pearl.
Pearl shrugged and relaxed her fingers, the dust falling back to the floor. "Honestly, I have no idea. Technically, she currently both does and does not exist. Amethyst won't emerge from her hole for at least another few hundred years, yes, but she has already been seeded and is developing as we speak. Her gem already exists, she just hasn't gained sentience yet. So, she may be on borrowed time like Steven and myself, or she may be fine for a few hundred years until her original emergence. So, to put it all as simply as I can: We can't just wait out the five thousand years because we only have a limited amount of time here before entropy starts to affect us."

The group fell silent. Finally, Steven sighed. "So... what was the other option?"
Pearl grimaced. "You mean the one that's very likely to fail? We try to get back to our own time, before entropic cascade failure starts to affect us."
Amethyst nodded. "A'ight. How we do that?"
Pearl created a hologram in front of them. They saw small pieces moving around, and what looked similar to a circuit board. "Hmm... I'm already working on that... I'll have to create some sort of device to detect similar anomalies to the one that brought us here. And do so with enough lead time for us to reach it."
"Why is this the most likely to fail?" Connie asked.
Pearl sighed. "Well, for starters, it'll definitely take multiple attempts to find another anomaly that will return us to our own time period, either a short time after we left or close enough to it to avoid entropic cascade failure. Also..." she sighed and stopped the hologram. "We trapped more than five thousand years in the past. Human technology at this point consists of various kinds of sharpened rocks! Honestly, they only comparatively recently figured out the wheel!" she groaned as she laid down and place an arm over her eyes. "Which leads us to our biggest problem." she muttered.
"Which is?" Amethyst prompted.
Pearl sat up. "There's only one place I could possibly get the parts I need to build this thing..." she rubbed her temples in frustration. "...Homeworld."

Steven shuddered. "Uh, the first time I was there, I was put on trial, Lars died and I had to bring him back to life... and then White Diamond held me prisoner, and we all almost died..."
"That's rough, buddy." Amethyst placed a hand on his shoulder. "But maybe things were different during the war..."
"Well, not by much, to be honest." Pearl sighed sadly. "Homeworld was... horrible... Especially for a pearl..." she groaned and laid back again. "And we have to figure out how to get there, and back, without being caught, and fast enough that entropy does not affect us. At least the Galaxy Warp is still working at this point in time. We just need a valid reason to travel."

After a brief moment of silence, Connie spoke up. "Maybe... Steven and I could be human prisoners?"
Pearl shook her head. "No. For starters, it's far too risky. Besides, it would be rather suspicious. Human prisoners would be taken to the Zoo, via a transport ship. So, there'd be no reason to use the Galaxy Warp to access Homeworld. The Gems guarding the Galaxy Warp would know that and ask questions."
"Oh..." Connie sighed. "Yeah, good point."
"What about Stevonnie?" Steven asked. "We could fuse, and..."
"No."

Pearl sat up. "No. Even though Stevonnie doesn't look like a conventional fusion, having only one gem, that gem is very noticeable. All it would take is one Gem recognising what appears to be a Rose Quartz, and you'd likely be attacked. All the Rose Quartzes are currently bubbled at the Zoo. The only one known to be active at this point of the war, was your mother. Well, as far as Homeworld knew, anyway..." she rolled her eyes. "Honestly, the only viable way to get you both safely there and back is to store the pair of you in my gem."
Steven and Connie both groaned. "Aww! No fair!"
"I wanted to see what Homeworld looked like during the war..." Connie sighed.
Pearl smiled. "Well, if I find a chance to safely bring you back out, without getting caught, I can do so." she smiled as the girl's eyes lit up. "But I make no promises. Of course, that still leaves the question of how to get there in the first place. Even if it's just me..."

"Hey, question..." Amethyst paused at they all looked at her. "If Sapphire was, like, a high classed gem, was she the kind that would... ya know... own a pearl?"
Pearl shrugged. "Of course. She was an aristocratic Gem, so naturally, she would have owned a pearl. Actually, I'm surprised that she didn't bring one of us with her. I'm... going to have to ask her about that when we get back..." she mused before shaking her head. "Why did you ask?"
Amethyst shrugged. "Well, I was thinking... What if I shapeshift into a sapphire? If anyone asks why I want to go to Homeworld, I can just be like... 'it was fated'... ya know, all mysterious and stuff?"
Pearl stared at her. "Amethyst, that's... actually a really good idea!"
Amethyst looked surprised. "Wha... really?!" she blushed.
"Yes!" Pearl nodded enthusiastically. "I mean, purple sapphires are rare, but that usually means more important. It's very unlikely that anyone would question a sapphire wishing to travel. Of course, you'd have to have a different gem placement than our sapphire, and cover up your own gem... Oh! And you'll need to give yourself a Diamond insignia. Either blue or yellow would be good choices... Actually, yellow might be best. Homeworld might be a bit suspicious of a Blue Diamond sapphire leaving Earth, considering what happened to the last one that came here..." she smirked. "Also, you could claim to have had an important vision about the rebels that needs to be shared with your Diamond, immediately. That should get us rushed through the Galaxy Warp quickly, regardless of anyone else who wants to travel."

Amethyst stood up. "Okay, just give me a moment, see what I can do." she held still for a moment before her form started to glow and reshape itself. After a moment, a purple sapphire stood before them in a dark purple ruffled dress, her long bangs covering her eye, and a bright yellow diamond on her chest. She pointed at the triangular faceted gem high on her forehead. "This a good spot? If you need to pretend to belong to me, I figured we should be in roughly the same spot..."
"Yes! That is perfect!" Pearl stood and circled around Amethyst, checking her shapeshifted form. "Even Sapphire would be confused..." she clapped happily. "This is a really great idea, Amethyst! Well done!"
Amethyst blushed deeply. "Awww... stop... you're embarrassing me..."
Steven grinned. "Amethyst! That's really cool! How does it feel to only have one eye?"
Amethyst shrugged. "Meh. I usually have one covered anyway, so it's not really an issue."

"Okay, you can go back to normal now. Just remember that form for later though."
Amethyst nodded and stopped shapeshifting with a sigh. "At least me and Sapphy are roughly the same size. I won't need to work too hard to hold her form, like I did with Jasper. So I should be able to keep it going for a few hours, at least."
"Well, you are one of the most skilled shapeshifters I've ever met, so if anyone can do this, it's you." Pearl nodded, patting Amethyst's shoulder.
Amethyst blushed and moved her hair to partially cover her burning face. "Ah, geez... Ya getting mushy on me..."
"Now, I'll need to go over a few things with you, about Homeworld, and how you need to behave. For starters..."
Amethyst grunted at Pearls lecturing tone. "Ugh! Pearl, it'll be fine! I know how to act like Sapphire."
Pearl glared at her.

"No! No, you don't! You have no idea what Homeworld is really like, because you've never had to try to fit in there! I have! It's a place where someone acts even slightly out of what considered 'normal', they're reported as defective. As a sapphire, if you seem to have no idea what's going to happen at any point, if you show shock, or amazement, or any kind of emotion other than 'I knew this would happen', it'll attract attention. If we get caught, we risk being shattered, Amethyst. Do you know what happens to the things a pearl has stored when she's shattered, huh? They cease to exist. Steven and Connie will die with me." she pointed at them.
Amethyst glanced at the two suddenly nervous teens with fear.
"It is vitally important that you act exactly like a sapphire." Pearl continued, pacing in front of her anxiously. "Not our Sapphire; she's learned to behave the way she does during the last 5000 years... You need to be emotionless, clinical, like nothing can surprise you because you know exactly what going to happen at any given moment..."
Amethyst grabbed Pearl by the hands, holding her in place. "Okay! Okay, I get it! I'll listen. Just... tell me how to not screw this up."