"Steven…"

"U-Uh… H-Huh…? No… N-No… Not again… Please, l-leave me alone… I… I d-don't want to…"

"Steven… It's okay. It's over…"

As he opened his eyes, Steven Universe found himself once again in the comfort of his bed. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were standing across the room, greeting the young boy with warm, inviting smiles. Steven smiled and waved at them back with his good hand, but noticed something strange with the one Lapis Lazuli crushed. He unraveled the bloodied bandage covering it, and to his surprise, his hand was completely healed. Steven jumped out his bed and dashed out his room, and also to his surprise, his house was in pristine condition; there wasn't any puddles of water or floorboards scattered around, the furniture was unscathed, the windows were spotless, and the warp pad was untarnished. It was as if nothing ever happened. The three Gems come out the bedroom after him, and comforted him with a series of hugs and reassurance that everything is alright.

"She's in the temple," Garnet said. "She wanted us to shatter her… but we decided to take a page from your book this time."

"But how did you fix the warp pad, the house, and my hand so fast?" Steven asked.

"We didn't," Pearl said. "The warp pad just started working again once we bubbled her away. I guess the same could be said for whatever happened to the house and your hand, too; once she disappeared, everything she did just… undid itself."

Steven groaned in confusion.

"You're not alone here, dude," Amethyst said, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm just as lost as you."

"But what we do understand is that none of this was actually Lapis's doing," Garnet said, patting the young boy's head. "Homeworld did something to her. Something horrifying."

"What did they do?" Steven asked.

"That's what's horrifying about it," Garnet said. "We don't know. Not even Lapis herself seemed to know…"

Steven stared at the warp pad, then back at Garnet; she knew what Steven wanted to do by the bold look on his face alone. The Gem gave the young boy another warm smile.

"Alright," Garnet said, taking ahold of Steven's hand and leading him to the warp pad. "You can see her."

Pearl and Amethyst went on top of the warp pad, as well, and in a sudden flash of light, Steven and the Crystal Gems had vanished. The quartet appeared in a small, circular room that resonated with a strong, pink light. There were protrusions akin to tree branches jutting out the ceiling and sewn about the walls of the room, and floating all around were pink bubbles of various shapes and sizes, each one holding a Gem inside it. Some of them were small, some of them were colossal. Some of them were in pristine condition, some of them were a broken mess. But Steven didn't care about any of that right now. Steven knew what he came to this room for, and he pinpointed it immediately: It was Lapis Lazuli. A pink bubble was wrapped around a small, blue, teardrop-shaped gem, and within it there was Lapis's entire being. Steven squinted to see if there were any crack or other such abnormalities, but there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. It was just a normal-looking gem with nothing strange about it at all…

"Will she ever get better?" Steven asked.

"No idea," Garnet said, adjusting her visor. "There doesn't seem to be a single future where Lapis is out of the bubble and back to normal."

"That, and it depends on what the exact scale of damage or… whatever's been done to her is," Pearl said. "It could take weeks, months… even years for her to come back."

Steven looked down at the ground in disappointment, but quickly lifted his head up, the look on his face ever bolder than before.

"Then I'll wait for her," Steven said. "I don't care how long it takes. I'll wait for her, and then I'll show her what Earth's really like."

"Steven, I told you before," Pearl said, rubbing her temples. "You can't be friends with everybody—not everybody is going to like you for who you are, especially when it comes to somebody like Lapis, who knows nothing about this world!"

"I don't care," Steven said sternly. "Not this time. When she was fighting against the thing inside her, do you know what she said? 'This is my world now.'"

"Okay… And?" Amethyst asked, shrugging her shoulders. "She blurted out something random while freaking out. So what?"

"So it means that she wants to give us a chance this time!" Steven exclaimed. "Don't doubt me on this one, guys! Please!"

"Steven, I'm sorry, but no," Pearl said sternly. "Even if she had returned but without destroying the house and attacking us, she already has one huge, glaring mark against her: She stole the entire Earth's ocean. Imagine what this world and its people would turn out if we didn't stop her that day!"

"But that was the past, Pearl!" Steven exclaimed again, tears beginning to well up in his eyes.

"A past that's still relevant," Pearl said. "Besides, you're still a child… You should be having a say in these matters, anyway… So, for the last time, the answer is—"

"Yes," Garnet said, kneeling down to Steven and wiping tears away from her cheeks.

"What!?" Pearl exclaimed.

"We'll wait for her, all of us," Garnet said. "No matter how long it takes, we'll help bring her back to normal."

"But you just got done saying you couldn't see a future where she gets better," Amethyst said.

Garnet adjusted her visor, and smirked.

"I do now," she said.

Steven leaped into Garnet's arms and embraced the Gem.

"Thank you…," the young boy said.

And with that, he went and stood atop the warp pad.

"Where are you going?" Pearl asked.

"Connie's house,' Steven said. "There's… something I need to check. Bye…"

And the young boy disappeared in a column of light. Pearl looked and sneered at Lapis's gem, still inside the pink bubble, floating in the air, just short of hitting the ceiling.

"Are you sure you see a future where she comes back… and isn't on some sort of rampage?" Pearl asked.

"I'll admit, it's faint and very vague," Garnet said. "But it's there…"

"So, what exactly was that thing inside her, anyway?" Amethyst asked. "You said it made you un-fuse and it was controlling me… and that you couldn't see it with your future vision… What kind of monster has the power to do stuff like that?"

"There are a lot of monsters out there, Amethyst," Garnet said. "Lapis by herself was one of the most formidable opponents I've ever faced, but this… if this is what Homeworld's up to now, I've a feeling this is only the beginning of something… terrifying."

The Crystal Gems gave each other concerned looks, then looked once again at Lapis's gem, trapped in a bubble and suspended in midair.

"This must be absolutely harrowing for her," Pearl said, walking atop the warp pad, her two comrades following suit. "First she was stuck in a mirror, and now she's stuck in a bubble, with that… that thing."

"I can't imagine it," Garnet said. "But at least she isn't fighting along this time…. Come on, we've done all we can for her now. Let's leave her be."

A column of blinding light appeared out of the pillar, and the Crystal Gems were whisked away, and vanished in an instant. And there was Lapis Lazuli, once a terrifying foe who was just misunderstood, now poofed, and trapped inside a bubble as a diminutive, insignificant gem, left suspended in midair for what could possibly be forever. Nobody was there to talk to her, nobody was there to help her… In her attempt to escape a prison, she found herself in yet another prison. Homeworld's meddling has done something to her, but not even she knows what it can be, and now she's trapped with it. But maybe Lapis is inside that little gem, doing her best to fight it off, doing her best to make sure it never takes her over and hurts anyone again…

Or maybe it already has taken her over, and can't wait to escape the bubble so it can resume its tirade on the Crystal Gems and their home? Like Garnet said, there is one future where this doesn't happen, but that's only one out of dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions. But that's no excuse to not give it a shot is there? Maybe that's what Steven was thinking when he decided to watch over her… Maybe there is a chance for Lapis, after all. But for now, there she was, in a bubble, amongst many other Gems, awaiting the day they can finally exist among the ones they love again…