~Steven comes back next week! *throws confetti*
So this is kind of short, and it'll probably be my last update for the year, so I apologize in advance for the conclusion. Just remember there are happy days yet to come. :) I want to take this time to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, and Blessed Anything-Else-I-Missed. ;) Love ya guys. ~
A soft, cozy breeze brushes tendrils of grass across your bare feet, yet you are no more connected to the feeling than you were inside Malachite there at the end.
Your imagination has already begun to illustrate the details of Steven's captivity on a Homeworld ship: an Aquamarine even now circling him on translucent, predatory wings; the gleam that must have come into her eyes when he revealed his gemstone, pink and perfect and incriminating; how frigid her little fingers must have been against the warm compliance of his skin. Your gemstone, sturdy yet tender, has become the softest thing about you. Everything else – your head, your body, the hollows of your insides, your powers, even the suggestion of your wings – is packed inside harder rock. You almost envy Peridot the tears that keep dripping off her chin. At least they are a form of release.
Behind you, she and Drakken scurry back and forth, clipping and attaching bits of metal and technology to one another, calling terms that mean about as much to you as "meepmorp" would to the average human. You don't know what they are building and suspect they are not laboring to save Steven as much as they are too frightened to hold still, be pulled apart by the gravity of their worry.
In that respect, their panic is the exact opposite of yours, which forbids you to move at all. You can only sit and stare at the sky and think thoughts you hate. You think of the Aquamarines you knew back on Homeworld, fluttering around and gossiping, their glances bright and assessing, energizing your anxiety that any moment they would deem you unworthy and ostracize you. You think of Homeworld's atmosphere, similar to Earth's but now dirtied with opaque white fog. You think of Steven lifting his shirt and surrendering to the type of people who unleashed Corruption toxins on half their population, in retaliation for a war they could not win, a friend they could not save. The body you wear is the definition of surface tension; one more droplet, and you will break in a way both embarrassing and hazardous.
Steven's name is everywhere in your mind. Every dried leaf that sweeps along the ground is the one he gave you, every bird's call the sound of him telling you that Earth can be your home now.
For a moment, when the jangle sounds, you are sure you are hearing his laugh.
Yet it is just the warp pad, delivering the remaining Crystal Gems as well as Greg and Connie. Separate in your numbness, you are unprepared for the sight of them.
The white parts of Pearl's eyes are too clean, too perfect, clearly shapeshifted from painful red no longer than a few Earth-minutes ago. Garnet is as unreadable as ever, though her usual placid air is gone from her. Amethyst keeps her head bowed, her bushy hair covering not only her face but her entire body like Blue Diamond's cloak.
Drakken and Peridot emerge from the barn at the sound of the warp pad, both wearing ridiculously large goggles, Drakken with a wrench behind his ear. Your lack of amusement stings faintly.
Peridot takes one look at Amethyst and runs to hug her, crying all over Amethyst's sleeveless white top, the product of her most recent regeneration. Amethyst doesn't stiffen as you expect her to. Instead, she gives Peridot's shoulder a pat and mutters, "It's okay, P-Dot."
Over Amethyst's head, you can see the grief frozen around Greg's mouth and the constriction of Connie's arms as she doubles her fists. They are in need of comfort you are unable to give them, and the kindest thing you can do is walk away.
You plod into the barn and are heading for your hammock when you hear footsteps behind you. They are light, but too agile to be Dr. Drakken's.
"Lapis?" a voice calls, also much too quiet and neat to be Dr. Drakken's.
You turn and see Connie standing there on the edge of the sunlight, right where night begins to shadow the barn, a clear demarcation between the lightness in which this day began and the darkness in which it now concludes. A wearable storage container – a backpack, you remember from Camp Pining Hearts – is strapped under her arms. The hilt of Rose's sword, the very weapon that divided your people into two warring groups, peeks almost shyly from the front pocket.
"Are you okay?" Connie says.
This time, there is no temptation to reply with "I'm fine." You are not fine. You are a sack of limp contradictions: sorrow without the ability to cry, fear without the capacity to scream, dread without the instinct to take your wings and fly away for safer parts.
"As okay as you are," you reply.
Connie lets out a short, harsh laugh, a sob's Corruption. "You're right. That was probably a stupid thing to ask."
You nod. "Nice. But stupid."
Connie's smile perches on her face for a second and then flutters away again. Peridot wanders in behind her, sniffling again, already sniveling, "I'm such a clod!"
"Well, obviously," you say, turning to her. "But come on, you were just following orders. That's what all of us did who didn't want to start a war."
You do not feel any of the things you expected to feel, not even the anger you feared would barricade the ground between you and Peridot. Peridot seems to be mad enough at herself for the both of you. Between her tears and her smallness, her loyalty and her fragility, it is hard to even think of her as the same cold Gem she was when she gave the list to Yellow Diamond, anyway.
Connie slides down the wall of the barn like a raindrop and pulls her knees up in front of her. "I can't believe he did this," she mutters.
"Really? You can't?" you say. You go and sit beside her, one arm slung across your legs. "I can."
Connie's face twists.
"He loves you, you know," you say softly, before Peridot can say it in some other, more ostentatious way. You have watched what passes between Connie and Steven nearly every time they see each other. If it is Injected into the ground and cooked under the right conditions, it may emerge as what you have with Drakken, or it might become something else entirely. For the sake of this conversation, it doesn't matter.
It also does not appear to soothe Connie any. Her cheeks darken, the strip of healing cloth taped to one standing out white. "If he loved me, he would have kept our deal."
"What is this 'deal' of which you speak?" Peridot asks, creeping closer.
"Last year, Steven and I agreed if one of us got into trouble, we would fight together. Always, no exceptions," Connie says, almost whispering the words. "It was a promise. And Steven's never broken a promise to me before."
The accusation looks wrong in her glistening eyes. You shake your head. "He's never had to before," you say. "To keep you safe."
"We were supposed to keep each other safe!" Connie no longer whispers. Her voice gushes forward , swollen with water, sharp in its turns. "We could have made it work!"
Though you can't feel your eyebrows rise, you know they do. "But he didn't know that. Take it from me: when people only have two seconds to save everyone they love, they tend to do really, really stupid things."
Quiet drapes the barn, even Peridot stricken.
"Oh," Connie says at last. She gazes at you thoughtfully, and you know she understands the moment she did not witness – the moment when a strong arm dipped you backward and hot light cast waves over everything and you tumbled, your soul impaled by Jasper's.
If anything should grant you the ability to cry, to scream, to run away, it should be the memory of that moment. Yet it is as if someone has carved out the interior of your gem, the outline left behind scarcely enough to maintain your physical form. There is something obvious you are missing, you know, and for a moment you hate the nothingness within you. It seems dishonorable somehow, self-preservation holding back all the pain you should experience for Steven.
To open that valve is destroy yourself, however. You have never in your life made a wise decision while in the grip of pain, and Steven needs you at your wisest, your strongest. Broken, you will be of no more use to him than any other Gem shard.
You notice the tightness in Connie's expression, a tightness that should never be directed at Steven. This is not something you feel; it is something you believe. "But we promised we'd never desert each other," Connie says.
"You think he deserted you?" It is all you can say, icy, numb, and incredulous.
Connie shakes her head, the motion miserable. "No!" she snaps. "I deserted him. He's up there in space, where he's in danger and can't possibly defend himself – and I'm down here, where I'm safe and I can't protect him! I deserted him, and it wasn't even my choice."
Peridot's eyes are giant green disks, alert with painful clarity. "When he comes back, are you going to yell at him?" she asks, her nasally, immature voice trembling.
Connie's body begins to move in rapid, rattling shakes. A sound comes out of her, joy fused with pain. "Peridot, thank you so much," she says, lowering her gaze to your little friend, who looks surprised, "for saying 'when he comes back.'"
Peridot grins in fake modesty.
Of course. There is something about Peridot – her spirit seems to slick away bad things the way an otter's fur slicks away water. You wish it was yours; you wish you could steal it. It is all too easy for you to remember all the Aquamarines you have ever met in your time on Homeworld: neat and small like the stone statues before which primitive humans once kneeled, and with the same air of expectation to be greeted with a bow. Some beckoned it with their elegance, others demanded it with their cruelty, and if Steven has been taken away by one of the harsh ones, he will fare badly before he ever reaches Homeworld.
It is as if you are watching an episode of Camp Pining Hearts: the characters are artificial, the conflict contrived to reach a preplanned lesson, the stakes so far removed from your reality that you can feel nothing more than a passing concern for them.
Yet there is still that tightness holding Connie back. The part of you that still believes cannot allow it.
"When I came back from…from what I did, if anyone had yelled at me…I'd have been pretty bummed out," you say.
Your words are without shape, without life. You are fairly certain that if you were to look at your own eyes in one of your meepmorp mirrors, they would also be without shape or life – perhaps erased entirely by the silver haze that forms when you are using your reflection powers.
An understanding, maybe even a remorse, seems to soften and blunt Connie as she blows out her next breath. "Right," she says, almost to herself, and then she reaches out and takes your hand. The toughened nodules on her palms make your grip feel brittle by comparison, though you know it could crush hers. You stare into Connie's face, one of the last faces Steven stared into before he was taken into the hull of a gleaming Homeworld ship, and fear hovers above you in a wave that never touches down.
When Connie stands up to go outside, you trail along behind her, like a water-balancer in the wake of a boat. There you find Pearl, pacing as you have seen Dr. Drakken do many times before, her head down and her hands knotted behind her back. That is when you realize what you have been missing, and it is so obvious that it almost provokes you to laughter.
Pearl's gaze saddens as it takes in your rod of a back and Peridot's soaked face. "Maybe we shouldn't have even told them…" she mutters.
You shake your head and stare straight at her. "No. If you had kept this from me, I would never be able to trust you guys again. So – what's the plan?" you say.
You direct the comment to Garnet's stoic figure, but it is Pearl who answers in a tone swimming in panic, barely managing to stay afloat. "Well, that's just what we were trying to figure out. It would have been a lot easier if this had happened when the Rubies' ship was still here. But there's still that ancient Gem ship, where the Centibeetles live – I'm sure they wouldn't mind if we borrowed it – would they?"
Not wishing to hear her deteriorate any further, you speak up with a wry twist: "Or I can fly up and get him, because I have wings."
A series of easy images comes to you. You see yourself flying back to Homeworld at double the speed of light, sneaking into whatever containment cell holds Steven, sliding him out the back door while evoking your status – your "Lapis-ness" as Dr. Drakken called it – on any clueless Gem who questions where you are taking the prisoner. You would be Elite again, act as though your Purpose never changed, for Steven's sake.
Pearl glances at Amethyst, and Amethyst back at her. They both grimace.
You take a step back. "You don't trust me," you say.
With this one moment, this one blow, the numbness encasing your gem finally thaws. From inside the mirror, you never felt the sensation of the Quartz's foot crack your gem, yet you experience it now. Over and over, Quartz after Quartz stampedes across your trapped essence, grinding you deeper into your prison, splintering you, shoving apart edges that were meant to remain together. It happens so quickly and so senselessly, you are sure there can be nothing but slivers left of you.
Pearl smiles, thin as thread, and it seems to deplete her supply of the universe's energy. "It's not that we don't trust you, Lapis," she says, her words tambourine bells – high, clear, and beautiful, being shaken frantically. "It's just that if you –" Pearl swallows nothing and works her mouth. "If something were to happen to you up there, we'd have no way of reaching either of you."
You glance up at Pearl's eyes and see the honesty in them. She is seeing the same images you are, you know, only hers are crowded with all you might have to face in the process: Ruby fusions, Quartz guards, swords and spears and Destabilizers – nothing you cannot handle, but coming in a never-ending line that you can never defeat. And at the end of that line lurk three shadowy figures who will forever hate Steven for that space where a fourth should be.
Amethyst steps forward, her hair still slouching forward to protect her. The only other parts of her you can see are a finger twisting a strand of the hair and a foot scraping against the ground. "There is a way we could all go together," she says in a hoarse whisper. "But we'd have to all go…together."
She carefully looks away from you, as do Pearl and Connie, yet the weight of being at the middle of their attention finds you anyway. You remember the hiss of debris burning beside you on the beach, the rough clutch at your cheeks, and the sight of two rows of pointed teeth, bared and gleaming, ready to devour you as swiftly as Drakken devours his sweet puffs of morning cereal, to turn you into a weapon.
You feel the tremor creeping up on your legs, and you harden them in the instant before it can reach them.
"Oh," you say. "You mean – fuse."
Your lips can barely hold the last syllable. You're not sure if you even spoke it, although the sudden discomfort surrounding you suggests that you dd. For the first time, your resolve to do anything to save Steven falters.
In a moment, you fall back in the abyss, into the darkness, crushed on all sides by the very substance that had always greeted you with an embrace or a lively perking before. Your powers became your power, a control you could never release. All that penetrated the darkness down there were luminescent creatures, predators chasing prey, and you were no longer sure which you were. The ocean was not the only one hiding dark, fierce places beneath its surface.
The Crystal Gems exchange a glance. Sounds from the past try to drift over you – "Show us the Galaxy Warp;" "Let's bubble it;" "Steven, it's a mirror. It can't 'want' anything." – but they run off of you, unable to find a grip. Limp, dreamlike memories take their place: of Amethyst catching you before you could join Jasper in the Earth, of Garnet cradling you close to her chest, of Pearl's pale, unwavering gaze that no longer seems an anomaly, because it belongs only to her. The thought of harming any of them pierces your back. Yet you must, or otherwise you would be swallowed; you would be absorbed.
While speaking is beyond you and you know a frozen expression sits on your face, Garnet appears to understand nevertheless. The hand she lowers to your shoulder is gentle, though you feel its impact like a meteor. "Lapis," she says, "no one is going to make you do this if you're not ready."
Concern and respect suffuse her every word. It is a cadence you would have trusted before the war. You can't look at the glass she wears over her eyes. The last thing you need to see right now is a reflective surface.
"No, of course not!" Pearl says, almost singing beside Garnet. "If that can't work, we'll find something else that can!"
It is almost painful to listen to.
Even now Steven is being pulled closer and closer to Homeworld, where he will have to answer for a crime of which he is not only innocent but incapable. Surely the only retribution the Diamonds will find fitting is his shattering. His end would not rest on Aquamarine, Peridot, or Blue Diamond – but on you. If you were even half as loyal as Steven thinks you are, your decision would be no decision at all. You would do whatever was necessary to rescue him.
Yet you thought you were doing what was necessary to rescue him last time as well, and instead you only amplified the threat against him.
You back up, knees nearly giving way. "I don't know," you say. "Can…can you give me a little while to think about it?"
All three of the Crystal Gems' nods come far too quickly.
"Absolutely!" Pearl says. "In the meantime, why don't we –"
Whatever else she says is a mystery. You turn and drudge back into the barn. Your wings are in pieces inside you.
All conversation in the barn stops when you enter. It is not Drakken nor Peridot who approaches you first, but Connie. You sidestep her. You cannot abide her touch, cannot tolerate feeling the knots of strength on her palms. You have no more strength than the sand castle you constructed with Drakken, caving under waves that have turned against you, waves of cowardice and shame.
"Hey, Lapis," Connie says. Much as she works to cloak it in compassion, you can still hear her disappointment.
It could turn her into an enemy at any time.
"You don't understand, okay?" you say. "You've never fused."
"Actually, I have," Connie says softly. "Only with Steven, though."
"Only with Steven?" Your voice is now shrill, no longer numbed, and your essence cringes at what is sure to follow its reawakening.
Connie flushes, but not with anger. "No. It was only about the most awesome thing that had ever happened to me in my life. I just meant – I know I wouldn't be able to fuse with any of the other Gems. It only works with Steven because he's half human."
She closes her eyes and smiles widely. Envy is too tame a description for what blankets your gem. Steven has long been your refuge, your safe port. Many times you have imagined how wonderful he would feel wrapped within you – warm and soft as the pretzels you have seen at the mall, pure and shining.
Compared to him, you are dirt. Of all the places you could offer him, Jasper has been inside each one of them first.
You feel Connie's body heat moving closer. "So I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be fused with someone who hates you," she says.
She places all the blame on Jasper, as though you did not return her loathing with equal intensity.
"It definitely wasn't the most awesome thing that ever happened to me," you mutter. You aim your eyes directly at the barn's wall; if you shut them, you will relive it again and again, the sensation of being breached.
"Yeah. I can totally understand why you're not that excited to fuse again," Connie says.
"It doesn't frustrate you?" you say.
"To be honest?"Connie huffs out air. "Yeah. It does. But I don't want it to."
You recognize that note in her voice, the one that yearns, strives, and searches for her own goodness. She is, you realize, no longer a danger to you.
Something else occurs to you, too.
"Was that your plan?" you say quietly. "To fuse?"
"Yeah. We'd agreed to fight together-together. As Stevonnie," Connie says, her cheeks bright again. "That's our fusion name."
That is not a Gem name, you know. It is the type of word that Peridot creates for the Camp Pining Hearts couples, swapping out parts of their names and stirring up the remaining parts, as though a pleasant name-fusion proves that they belong together.
Peridot speaks now, over every other noise in the barn. "Of course we need the thrusters to go there! Otherwise, how will the spaceship stay in the air?"
You turn for the first time to look at what she and Drakken have assembled. An enormous stick of a machine with a flat head and a pouched back – the kind Mama Lipsky swishes over her carpets to clean them – stands at the back of the barn. Glued to its sides are discarded pieces of Peridot's security drones, a few bristled rods and one with stringy tentacles, and one of those compact metal cases that houses flame, used for lighting bonfires in the autumn, you know now.
Although Drakken's back is facing you, you can imagine his blink. "What spaceship?"
"The spaceship which we are building right now!" Peridot screeches.
You edge in closer. It has been a long time since Peridot has thrown anything in her anger, but the knowledge that she has put Steven in danger has surely eroded her patience.
"Oh. We're building a spaceship?" Drakken says. A weak smile flickers across his face and he rubs the back of his neck. "I thought we were building something to neutralize Aquamarine's immobilizer ray!"
Your laughter is thin and rattling, the sound of glass buffeted by solar winds. Dr. Drakken's arm around your shoulders grants you permission to come apart, and it is worrying how easy it is not to give in.
"If Stevonnie were here," Connie says, and the chord of yearning you hear causes your gem to ache, for you will never know what it is like to yearn for fusion, "I bet she could've beaten Aquamarine and that other Gem."
You stand rigid, as if you have been hit with Aquamarine's immobilizing ray. A question forms in your mouth, but you know it will never be able to shake itself free.
Peridot, however, is not silenced. Her voice edges to a sharp peak as she says, "There was another Gem?"
Drakken contributes a faint whine.
"Well, I guess you'd say another Gem," Connie says. "Sometimes there were two. But they kept fusing, and when they fused there wasn't any, you know, mixture. It was like taking two small glasses of water and pouring them into one big glass."
Drakken's eyebrow cants upward, a movement of awe and curiosity that usually tows your own wonder to the surface. It doesn't this time.
"That's what happens when two Gems of the same type fuse," Peridot says. She sounds relieved to have uncovered a fact she can know for certain. "What color were they?"
"Yellow. But here's the weirdest part," Connie continues. The Lapis of six thousand years ago might have been insulted to have her people's customs called weird, yet that Lapis is a mere memory and scarcely even that. "One of them picked up and held me under her arm. And then when they fused – I was inside them. They were – she was – like a walking prison."
The terror of understanding steals over you. "A Topaz fusion," you say.
"Yellow Diamond actually sent a Topaz fusion to Earth?" Peridot yelps at the same time.
Connie's head comes up, her eyes as wide and startled as they should be. "What's a Topaz fusion?" she asks.
"Only the best and strongest of any of Yellow Diamond's warriors," you say. You hate how casual and sarcastic your words are, but it's the only way they can survive to be spoken at all.
Peridot nods. "Even more highly valued than a Quartz."
Though you don't disagree with her, it seems to you that valued is not the correct word for how Yellow Diamond treats any of her Gems.
Topazes frequented your people's arena battles before the war. You steered clear of those matches, as much as one of Blue Diamond's could, yet you remember from Elite gossip that a Topaz almost never lost a fight, and no competitor could hope to best a Topaz fusion. To pit her against a fusion who is three-quarters human would only lengthen and bruise Steven's path to surrendering himself.
"You could never beat a Topaz fusion," you say, and upon seeing Connie's wounded countenance, you add, "I'm sorry. I really am. But there's just no way."
"We beat Jasper!" Connie blurts, and then immediately buries her mouth in a guilty hand. "Sorry – I –"
"It's cool." Your shrug is harder to manipulate than was the entire ocean. "I'm over her. But she was just one Gem, and she got stupider the madder she got. Most Topazes are…calmer. Scarier."
Connie stares back at you, and for a moment she reminds you of Ruby, trying to burn away her fear with anger. Her shoulders slouch, needing an embrace, yet your arms are unable or unwilling to pull away from your sides. Connie swipes her own arm furiously across the skin beneath her eyes. You wonder what it was like to come out the front and back of a Topaz fusion.
You wonder how horror feels in a human heart.
Pearl appears in the barn doorway then, and Connie makes a loyal and desperate flight to her side. "Good news, everyone," she says waveringly. "Garnet says with the right equipment, there's a future where we can get that ancient Gem ship to fly!"
Peridot squirms, and you glare at Pearl. To Peridot, that time in her life is like Season Four of Camp Pining Hearts: so awful it should have never happened, and thus it didn't. The truth of its happening has already been driven into her enough today.
Pearl's attention, though, remains fixed on Connie. "We're going to warp back to the temple and see what kind of supplies we have there. Would you like to come along?" she asks Connie.
"Yes, ma'am," Connie replies. The way she stands, legs straight even as her ankles twitch, makes you think of a boat tossed by a storm yet safely anchored. She turns, glancing back at you and Peridot one more time, and smiles weakly. "We'll be back in a few minutes," she says.
Their footsteps fade away, the warp pad jangles, and only the three of you are left.
Dr. Drakken drapes a vine across your shoulders. You want to thank him, and yet your gratitude is addled by the same sensation that stiffens you in the first place. Your spirit is distant, as though it is still trapped inside the mirror. The Kindergarten sites flash in your mind: the land thrashed into submission, ravaged by Injectors, robbed of its nutrients to give life to your people, and now barren and expended. It is beyond pain, but nothing of goodness will ever grow there again.
It has been much more than a few minutes. This you know only because Drakken keeps checking his watch with the scattered numbers and the pointing stick-fingers, plucking petals from his neck while announcing it has been five minutes, and then another five, and then another five.
You notice that at every five-minute announcement, the longest stick-finger points at a higher number, and you are bending over the last number in the loop, just beginning to grasp how this timepiece works, when the warp pad at last rings again.
This time it is Amethyst, alone, hair even more tousled than before. "Hey, guys. Sorry it's been, like, a lot longer than we said it would be," she says, but her giant grin doesn't appear sorry at all. "We were gonna go back and get some supplies. . . but then when we warped back to the house, Steven was there."
You stare. You keep staring. She cannot be lying, she cannot be kidding, and it cannot be true.
Drakken's gasp swells to a deep place and then floats away like a feather. "No fooling?" he says.
"Nope."
You feel the glass in the mirror shatter; you feel your body regaining clarity. You are in pain, but it is the pain of a living being, not a shadow across glass.
A garbled sound comes out of Peridot, the kind produced by an ancient recording when someone plays it too fast, as Steven always does with his old cassettes to make you laugh. "How?" she blurts.
"Danged if I know." Amethyst shakes her head, water teetering on the tips of her eyelids. "He said something about crawling out of his lion's head, which makes pretty much zero sense to me, but, hey, I'm not complaining."
Steven has told you that he can crawl inside his pet lion's mane and enter another sub-dimension where his mother stored pieces of her past that were too important to be left lying around on Earth, but you had no idea he could somehow access that sub-dimension from space. You will leave the science, however, to the two people behind you, the ones Amethyst has happily dubbed "nerds."
You take a step closer to Amethyst, the grass suddenly smoother under your feet. "Is he okay?" you say. "And be honest."
"Well, honestly….he's got a couple of scrapes and bruises. Nothin' serious." Amethyst gives you a look softer than any she has given you before. "Pearl's patching him up right now. He's gonna be fine."
"Do you swear?" you say. You can barely hear yourself. Even the thought of a single bruise mottling Steven's tender flesh is a riptide that tugs you down.
"Dude, I swear."
Dr. Drakken glances up at the sky and booms out, "Thank you!" You get the feeling his thankfulness is not directed at Aquamarine for freeing Steven.
A moment later, he topples backward, and you catch him under the arms before he can crash into the wintry green ground.
"And thank you, Lapis," Drakken adds with a pink shade of embarrassment. His eyes begin to twinkle and a smile shoots across his mouth, and you realize how incomplete his face looked without it.
Gently, you lower Drakken to the ground and sit there yourself, legs crossed and back alive with relief. Faintly, you hear Amethyst explain how tired Steven is, how he needs to go to bed straightaway but will be happy to come see the three of you tomorrow. Peridot groans in disappointment, but there is nothing that can disappoint you now.
You did not destroy Steven by not fusing. He is safe now.
Connie, you are told, greeted Steven with a hug and a tiny shove and said, "Thank God you're okay. We need to talk. When's a good time for you?" You lift Drakken's hand from the scrubby grass and hold it between yours, feeling the warmth of organic life that beats within him.
Limp as a wet cloth, you focus on his open, gleeful expression, the one that says everything on Earth and above it has been put right. It offers a share of that sentiment to you too, and you find it and hold it close. For a moment uncharacteristic of you and too small to be measured by Drakken's watch, you accept that you have reached the happy conclusion of an episode – all is ended, and despite your lack of courage, all is well.
You are wrong.