Steven awoke to a pounding headache. Forcing his eyes open he found himself adrift in an empty darkness with nothing in sight for as far as he could see.

"Ah! I've gone blind." He screamed.

It wasn't until he groped around at the darkness in front of him that he realized he could actually see his hands. They were giving off a faint pinkish glow that hovered just above the skin illuminating them against the pitch black background. Was this another gem power?

He shrugged. "So, not blind just lost in a void then? Hm, fair enough."

Stranger still he didn't seem to be standing on anything solid and yet he was neither falling nor rising. He just floated, weightless in the middle of the void with no idea how he had gotten there. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to force the memories to come back to him. All he got in return was a throbbing pain in his left temple and fragments of things that may or may not have happened. He had had stomach pains, but had gone on a mission with the gems anyways. A beam of pink energy burst from his gem and then… what? He had been hit in the head by a falling rock, but there was something else tearing at the edges of his memory. Pearl? Yeah, Pearl had been badly hurt by…him? Steven's eyes shot open at the sudden remembrance.

"Pearl!? Pearl, oh man I am so, so sorry. I didn't mean to…to…" He could feel tears welling up in his eyes hot and stingy.

"Hey now, don't cry it'll be alright. I'm alright."

"Pearl!?" There was no one else in the void with him, but that voice. Her voice sounded so far away but it was so warm and gentle that it had to be her, there was no one else.

*heh heh* "That's right Steven. You don't have to worry about me I'm okay but there's something I need you to do for me."

"What is it Pearl? I'll do anything . Please, just tell me."

"Okay…wake up."

"What?"

"WAKE UP Steven!"

"I-I don't know what you're talking about Pearl. I'm right here, I am awake."

"I said: WAKE UP!"

Steven's eyes shot open.

He had no idea how long he had been staring at his bedroom's wooden ceiling. Had he been sleeping with his eyes wide open? Had he just zoned out? He didn't know, but his eyes screamed of dryness as he crushed them shut. Reveling in the bittersweet stinging sensation he felt as he rubbed them raw. He tried to recall how he had gotten to his bedroom. It was a lot easier to make up a story for that then it was the dark void.

"Come on Steven" he chided himself. "You just gotta wake up and get yourself moving."

Someone had taken the liberty of laying him on his bed. Sitting up Steven threw one leg over the side then the other. Trying to stand up he was immediately brought back down to the mattress as the room began to spin and his wobbly legs buckled beneath him. Frustrated, Steven sat on the edge of his bed trying to concentrate on his surroundings as Garnet had taught him to. It was raining outside; the pitter patter of raindrops fell audibly against the wooden roof. It wasn't raining when they had entered the cave. Also, someone had laid him out on his bed to rest. And this meant what exactly?

"Hm, we must have won the battle in the relay room but I've been unconscious for a while."

He tried harder. The room was dimly lit. Maybe the gems weren't expecting me to wake up for a long time? He thought. His hand was brushing back his hair when he felt it. His fingers closed around a soft, fleshy lump just above his left temple. "Ah! Oh no, my beautiful face is ruined!" He inadvertently tugged at the lump and to his surprise it came away in his hand. Tentatively opening his fist he examined the thing that that had been stuck to his forehead. "What the? What is this stuff?" He looked at it for a long time before he realized the thing he was holding was a mass of bloody gauze and medical tape.

"Okay, so I was hurt really bad at the relay tower and someone brought me back here to fix me up. Wait, so did I dream all that stuff with Pearl then?"

Suddenly he was pulled from his thoughts as he became aware of the faint crackling sound in the room. *Sniff, sniff* "I-is that bacon I'm smelling?"

"Well hey there stu-ball I wasn't expecting to see you awake for a while."

Steven jumped off the bed nearly having a heart attack in the process. He hadn't expected to find anyone else in the room with him. "D-dad?!"

"Uh, yeah kiddo the gems kinda let me move in here while we waited for you to recover." Greg said as he gave Steven a hand in helping him down from the lofted bed.

Steven stared up at his dad in amazement. "Y-you look different."

Greg had always been a staunch advocate of the hard rock life style never once caring about what other people thought of his appearance. Even after his career got rag dolled and his hair fell out he was still rocking the plain white t-shirt and jean shorts that barely fit around his gut. But the Greg that stood before Steven looked very different, older, maybe a little more mature. He wore black dress pants that actually reached his feet and a long sleeved shirt that didn't leave his stomach bulging out. More surprising still was the fact that his father had cut the long shaggy remains of his hair close cropped to his head. As he came in for a hug Steven flinched away at the stench of stale cologne.

"D-dad you, uh, you look….nice. What's the occasion?" He finished lamely not knowing what else to say.

Greg rubbed the back of his neck. "Um, thanks Steven. Honestly it's been a long time since I've worn this thing, like not since your mother and I had our wedding. Heh, I can't believe it still fits."

Steven was staring up at him expectantly. Was he looking for a story about his mother? Greg took his hand away from his neck, this was getting awkward.

"Uh, listen Steven I made breakfast why don't you settle down at the table over there. I-I've got somethings I need to talk to you about."

000

They sat eating in silence for a long time. Steven, having just woken up, was starving and quickly gulped down anything and everything he could lay his hands on. Greg poked and prodded at the soupy eggs before deciding he wasn't hungry and pushed them away. The rest of his time was spent focusing on the fridge, the ceiling, a small pile of dirt gathering in the corner, anything that wasn't Steven.

"Uh, dad are you going to eat the rest of that?"

Greg looked down at his son. He hadn't even noticed that Steven had started eating.

"Come on it would be wasteful if we didn't eat it all. Bacon me please."

Greg could never resist that face no matter what others might say. He quietly slid the plate of eggs and bacon across the table to Steven. Suddenly he could feel tears welling up corner of his eyes. Whatever he was, Steven was innocent of any wrong doing that much Greg knew.

"Uh, what's the matter dad you look awfully …sad? D-did I do something wrong? I mean, did you want the bacon? Here take it. It's pretty good."

Steven was looking up at him with a worried expression. This was it, this was the reason Greg had been both dreading and praying for Steven to wake up. Well, no going back now.

*sigh* "Steven, buddy, do you remember when I had that dog? Come on you remember it was that shaggy mutt that used to follow me around everywhere till I finally just gave in and adopted it? You and the gems used to joke that it looked just like me with that bald patch it had between its eyes."

Steven could feel a cold sweat staring to creep down his back. This story didn't have a happy ending. Why was his dad telling him this and where was-

"Dad, where's Pearl?"

Greg's eyes shifted away from Steven's for an uncomfortable moment before he soldiered on with his story. "S-so anyways one day I was tossing the Frisbee around with him by the car wash and BAM! That car came out of nowhere and-"

"Dad! What happened to Pearl? What's the matter? Is she taking a long time to recover?"

"S-so I-I took him to the vet to see if there was anything they could do-"

"DAD!"

Greg almost leapt out of his skin at the sudden outburst. *sigh* "I-I'm sorry Steven I'm not good at this sort of stuff. I know that, you know that, the gems know that. Gah, why did they make me the one to tell you this? They'd be a lot better at it then me."

"Dad?"

"Uh, look kiddo I just got the cliff notes version of it, I mean it's not like anyone stopped to explain anything to me, but…Pearl. She, uh, she didn't make it back from your last mission. I-I'm sorry buddy."

Steven could feel a small breath of relief creep into him. "S-so, Pearl's okay then? W-we just have to go back to the relay tower and get her, right?"

Greg cringed. This was going to be harder than he thought. "Um, no Steven no. Pearl is…Gah, how do I put this? Pearl isn't here anymore she's…she's with your mother, you know, wherever gems go when they…when they die."

Steven nearly fell out of his chair. It wasn't right, the air in the room wasn't right. He couldn't breathe; it was the relay tower all over again only a hundred times worse. Was this what they called a panic attack? Pearl was…and he had been the one to…

"No!" Steven Shouted "That's not right! I-I saw her get hurt sh-she went back into her gem l-like last time so she could heal herself. She was going to be fine. I was going to tell her how sorry I was and everything was going to be f-" He couldn't finish the sentence through the tears streaming down his cheeks or his cracking voice. He could feel the snot bubbling out of his nose as he blubbered on.

"Ah, geez, Steven come here." Greg said opening his arms wide for a hug. "I'm sorry that you had to-" He was cut off by a sudden beeping emanating from his wristwatch. "Oh man the interview! Look Steven, I'm really, really sorry about this but I've gotta catch a bus across town or else I'm going to be late for my interview."

"W-what?" All of a sudden things were moving too quickly. Steven felt as if he were still dreaming.

"Look, Steven I was kinda hoping we'd have more time to discuss this but frankly this whole incident has shown me just how dangerous you time with the gems has been. I can't let you go on these missions anymore if there's a chance that that they could end with one less son for me. I-I care about you too much for that."

Greg had stood up from the table by this point and was hastily tugging his arm through the sleeve of his jacket as he back stepped towards the door.

"So starting immediately I'm going to be a more responsible parent." He tripped over himself as he tried to slide on one of his shoes. "No more mystical gem stuff, no more car wash, and no more living in separate homes. I'm getting a respectable job, selling the van, and then we're going to find a nice quite place to call home together. But right now I've gotta split so we'll talk more about this at dinner alright sport?"

Before Steven could process what Greg had said his father was already out the door and gone. The sound of the van's rickety tires squealing against the pavement could be heard in the distance leaving Steven standing in the middle of the room feeling as if he were going to throw up.

Maybe it was an information overload, maybe reality had finally become too much and he was going crazy but standing there in his room within the temple Steven he swore could hear Pearl's voice whispering faintly.

"Steven, wake up. Please wake up."