Chapter Text
Someone was waiting for them when they landed.
“Steven!” Lapis cried as soon as he stepped out. She ran towards him, clutching him like she was afraid he’d disappear. “You’re okay! You’re okay! I was so worried…!”
After a moment’s surprise, Steven hugged her back and smiled. “I was worried about you, too. I’m glad you’re back.”
She pulled away from him suddenly, shaking her head and crying. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I-I wanted to come back, I wanted to help you, but by the time I finally did everyone said you were on Homeworld and I couldn’t…” She buried her face in her hands and choked out a sob.
“Lapis, it’s okay,” Steven said gently, patting her shoulder. “You had to work through it on your own time. It’s not your fault the diamonds came so suddenly. We were all surprised, too.” Lapis lowered her hands to look at him, and he smiled. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”
Steven heard sniffling beside him, and turned to see Peridot was tearing up.
“LAPIS!” she cried, charging forward to bury her face in Lapis’ shoulder. “You’re back, you’re back, you’re really back…!” She sobbed.
Lapis looked briefly surprised at Peridot’s new – or rather, old – height, but relaxed. “Peridot…” Lapis hugged her gently, and her face contorted with guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have stayed with you. I was so selfish –”
“No!” Peridot pulled back and shook her head fiercely. “I’m glad you weren’t there! It was awful! Yellow Diamond poofed me and it hurt, and White Diamond – she nearly shattered Steven and I couldn’t do anything…”
Lapis immediately snapped her head to Steven with a look of complete terror. “I’m okay now!” he said quickly, lifting his shirt to show his intact gem. “I got healed, it’s fine.”
Peridot flushed, and glanced away from Lapis. “What I mean is…” Lapis turned back to her. “I get it now. I didn’t understand before, but I get it now. If I had known then… maybe I’d have gone with you.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry.”
Lapis patted her shoulder, and let out an easy laugh. “Hey, how about we watch Camp Pining Hearts again? It’s not the same without you.”
Peridot brightened up immediately, her head shooting up like a brilliant sunflower. “Yeah!” she exclaimed, stars in her eyes. “And… I had a great idea for another meep-morp…!”
“Who was that?” Bismuth asked after they had walked away. There was something wrong with the way she said it, weak and hollow.
“Oh… sorry. I should have told you about her,” Steven apologized. “That’s Lapis Lazuli. She…” He paused to consider. “It’s a really long story, actually,” he concluded with an awkward laugh.
“A lapis lazuli,” Bismuth said in the same quiet voice, staring at Lapis’ retreating figure. “Right.”
“Okay, so, it started when I found this mirror in Pearl’s stuff…”
🌟
Steven settled into his folding chair, smiling contentedly. It was a lovely day on the beach, the breeze wafting in from the sea to keep everything pleasantly cool. Amethyst and Peridot rolled around in the sand, laughing, while Lapis twisted the seawater around them. Garnet stood next to Bismuth, watching inscrutably from behind her shades.
Bismuth, leaning on the great green hand that had nestled under the cliff for the past week, rapped her knuckles on the metal to call for attention. Lapis floated over to Peridot, and Amethyst pushed herself out of the sand pit she had dug for herself, crossing her legs and sitting with exaggerated poise.
“Thanks for coming, everyone,” Bismuth said. She pushed herself off the ship, standing up straight to look over each of them in turn. She took a breath, and spoke. “So. I know you’ve all been through a lot, but now that we’ve had a little time, I think we should talk about what to do next.” She swept her arms out. “The diamonds are gone. Homeworld’s gone. But there are still gems on planets all throughout the galaxy. They’re gonna be confused, and scared. We only have so much time before something gives, and someone tries to fill the vacuum the diamonds have left. We’ve got no guarantee that’s gonna be peaceful, or that it’ll be anything but the Diamond Authority all over again.”
Steven shifted. His chair no longer felt so comfortable. He didn’t say anything, but Pearl voiced his fear for him: “You think we should take control instead.”
Bismuth nodded. “We’re the best gems for the job.” Then she smiled. “I’ve been reading the books you gave me, Pearl. Humans have come up with so many ideas we’d never think of. I want to try their ‘democracy’ – give an equal voice to all gems! It’d be the total opposite of the Diamond Authority!” Her enthusiasm dimmed just a fraction. “But… I can’t do it on my own. I don’t want to do it on my own. The choices we make now will affect gems for eons to come. I need people who can see the things I don’t. I need people”–she looked Steven straight in the eye–“who can tell me when I’m wrong.”
Peridot snorted loudly, and Steven gratefully snapped his gaze over to her. “So what, you want us to do, like… zircon work?” She waved her hand dismissively. “That’s boring! Pass!”
From beside her, Lapis laughed humorlessly. “I’d shatter myself before I went back there.” Steven really hoped she was joking.
Bismuth looked nonplussed for an instant, but nodded. “Of course. I understand if you want to stay on Earth.” Then after that brief reprieve, her eyes locked on Steven again. He felt his heart beat faster. “Steven,” she intoned. He squirmed slightly. “I…”
Suddenly, she deflated. Her shoulders sagged, and her gaze fell to the ground. “I’ve been awful to you, haven’t I? I was so mad at Rose for keeping secrets, for trying to do things her own way, but… I did the same thing. I’m sorry.”
Steven blinked, speechless.
Bismuth looked up again with a fragile smile. “The war’s over, now. Really over. Now is the time for peace, and rebuilding. I’ve been fighting so long I’m… not sure if I remember how to do that anymore.” She took a few steps forward. Her arm stuttered, and after a moment’s hesitation, slowly extended towards him, palm up. “But you do. You know how to heal, and how to forgive. You… did that for me. You showed me where I was wrong, and you taught me how to be someone better. I want you…” Her face tightened with sadness. “No, I need you there. I need to hear you. More than anyone else, you deserve that.”
Steven stared up at her, aware his eyes must be as wide as dinner plates. She looked back at him, pleadingly.
The silence became uncomfortable, then unbearable, until finally he managed to say, “No.”
She leaned back like he had struck her. “Wh… wh…”
“It’s not you!” he said quickly. “I know you mean it, a-and I’m grateful, really, but Bismuth…” He shook his head sadly. “My whole life, people have been expecting me to do stuff like that. To know what to do, and where to go. To fill the space Mom left. To be something… I’m not.” He felt everyone’s gaze on him now. He focused on Bismuth with all his might, too scared to look at the other gems. “If you had asked me even a month ago, I’d probably already be on that ship. I really wanted to be a Crystal Gem. I wanted so badly to live up to what everyone wanted from me, to be the kind of person everyone said Mom was. But that was never the kind of person I was.” He looked down, into his clenched hands, and swallowed. “I don’t want to be in a situation like the diamonds ever again. I was wrong about things, too. I thought if I just kept trying harder I could solve everything, but I never admitted the risk I was taking, that… people could die if I messed up. And you were right, that would have been my fault. Things worked out in the end, but, when I think about it… it was really just luck that we survived.” He closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath. “I’ve made enough hard choices for a lifetime,” he said softly. “I think all I really want is… a normal life. For things to be simple again.”
Bismuth looked completely unmoored, staring back at him with gaping eyes and arm still outstretched. He smiled apologetically. “Maybe I’ll feel different when I’m older,” he offered. “But I… I mean, I did just emerge yesterday. I’m still a kid. I don’t think I’d be ready for this even if I wanted to be.”
Bismuth finally let her arm fall. She took a breath and looked like she wanted to say something, but instead nodded silently. She took a step back and looked between the others, a hint of desperation in the jerkiness of her movements. “Then… anyone else? Pearl? Amethyst?”
“You want me?” Amethyst pointed at herself with clear disbelief. Bismuth nodded. “What for? I don’t know anything about Homeworld.”
“That’s exactly why,” Bismuth said. “You’re the only gem who’s lived a life outside of the empire.”
“Nah.” Amethyst said it casually, but her face turned uncharacteristically serious. “Earth is the only home I’ve ever known. There’s no place I’d rather be.” Then she leaned back, looking playful again. “Steven’s ‘kick back and let other people deal with it’ plan sounds good to me.”
Bismuth’s eyes flicked to Pearl.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I couldn’t stay there. I loved Homeworld, but I love Earth too.” She rested a hand on Steven’s shoulder, and smiled at him.
Bismuth sighed, and Steven looked back at her. She stared down, running a hand through her rainbow locks. “I understand.” She turned her head to Garnet, and said, “I guess it’s just you and me, then.”
Steven leapt out of his chair. “What?!” he squeaked. “G-Garnet, you’re leaving?”
“Woah woah woah what?” Amethyst rose to her feet. “I didn’t hear anything about this!”
Garnet smiled apologetically. “I made my decision before we came back to Earth. Bismuth is right: she can’t do this on her own. The new authority will need someone to guide it, and to protect it from those who would claim power for themselves. That’s something I can do.”
Bismuth punched her playfully in the arm, grinning. “And you’ll be there to fight for the rights of all fusions! We have to show the whole galaxy where we stand, make sure no one ever tries to force a fusion apart again.”
Garnet smirked. “That too.”
Steven ran up and clutched her hand desperately. “But-but-but –” he warbled, tears pooling in his eyes. “How long will you be away? When will I get to see you again?”
Garnet laughed gently and patted his head. “This isn’t goodbye, Steven. A long time ago, the Galaxy Warp connected the whole gem empire across the stars. Once everything’s settled, it’ll be safe to use again. I’ll be only a few jumps away.”
Steven flushed. Now he just felt silly. “Oh.”
“Hmm…” Bismuth rubbed her chin. “I wonder how we’ll handle that, actually. What if the colony worlds want to stay independent? We’d have to add, like… security on all the warps, in case they don’t want people crossing over. We’d probably have to do that for Earth anyway, since gems could harm the native life here…” She looked distant for a second, then waved her hand with a sharp laugh. “Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it – we gotta get there, first!”
Garnet’s hand dropped to Steven’s shoulder. “Goodbye for now.”
Steven swallowed the lump in his throat. “Goodbye.”
She turned, and walked to the ship. Bismuth half-turned to her, but hesitated, still looking at Steven.
She shoved her hand out, stiffly. “Goodbye, Steven. I’ll… be seeing you.”
Steven looked at the offered hand, smiled, and charged forward to wrap her in a hug instead. “I love you, Bismuth.”
Bismuth gasped. Then she slowly wrapped her arms around him, as warm and solid as the earth. “You really mean that,” she breathed. “Even after everything I said… everything I did…”
“Of course I do.” He looked up, and saw that she was starting to cry. “I know you’re a good person, Bismuth. And I know you’ll do great. You say the gems need someone who knows how to love and heal, but they already do.” He smiled, and tapped his finger against her gem, over her heart. “You.”
Bismuth sobbed, and let the tears spill free from her eyes. But she was smiling, truly smiling, as radiant as the sun. She hugged him again and closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
She stood up, sniffed, wiped her eyes. Then with a final wave, she climbed into the ship. The door closed behind her and the ship hummed into life, rising slowly from the sand. It angled itself away, and gained speed until it was only a twinkle in the sky.
Steven wiped his eyes. He heard sniffling, and turned to see Amethyst gushing tears, visibly holding back sobs.
“Wh-wh-what’re you lookin’ at?” she warbled, lip trembling. “Ah’m fine! Everythin’s guh-guh-GREAT!” She rubbed her face furiously and looked away from them.
Pearl stared up into the sky, and wiped the tears from her eyes. “It will be fine,” she said. “We’ll see them again soon, I’m sure of it.”
There was a moment of quiet sniffling. Then Peridot jumped to her feet and planted her hands on her hips. “Okay! So what else are we doing today?”
🌟
Movement. Light.
Others hung back, let her go first. As it should be. Outside, the strange gem, the one who had hurt her and helped her and changed her but then she was thinking about the white hall and the diamond and she didn’t want to think about that so she didn’t. She saw a pearl and an amethyst too. Ones who attacked her before. She reared up. Ready to fight.
“Hey,” the ‘Steven’ said. The face shifted, the lines of the mouth curving down. “I… understand if you’re mad. I messed up really bad. I’m sorry.” Soft voice. Calming voice. She flattened herself against the ground, nonthreatening.
Mouth lines curved up again. “Here, I brought your favorite.” ‘Steven’ pulled something out and – RUSTLE NOISE GOOD WANT. She lunged for the flakes, trilling delight.
Touch on her hair, light. “Yeah. You still like Chaaps, huh?” Stroking paused. “That’s… good.” She looked up. Its mouth lines curved down again, and it took a breath. “If it’s okay with you, I want to try again. It’s just going to be me this time. No diamonds.”
She tensed. Diamonds. Diamonds were danger. Diamonds were here before. She twitched and hissed. Looked around. Diamonds where?
No. No diamonds. Just pearl, amethyst, and ‘Steven’. She let herself relax, but still watched the trees. ‘Steven’ had pulled away. Made her feel sad. “O-okay,” ‘Steven’ warbled. “It doesn’t have to be right now.”
She flattened herself again, and crooned. ‘Steven’ stroked her hair, and sang songs, and gave her more of the crunchy flakes. She saw the others watching from the shadow of the opening, and told them it was safe. They came, slowly at first, then more quickly when ‘Steven’ gave them the crunchy flakes too.
It was a good day.
‘Steven’ wrapped its arms around her before it left. Should have made her feel tense, restricted, but just made her happy. “I promise I won’t give up.”
🌟
“Okay, so.”
Connie took a sip of water, and looked back through the hole in space that was, according to Peridot, somehow communicating with a planet lightyears away without even a microsecond of delay. She’d have to learn more about that someday, but for now…
Connie looked out at her assembled audience. Bismuth was standing across from her, prominently displaying a sash with colorful, handwritten letters spelling out the words PRIME MINISTER. The diamonds’ former pearls sat on either side of her, Yellow inspecting her microphone and Blue as inscrutable as always. (No White Pearl, though; she had failed to reform after White Diamond’s shattering. Pearl said Steven was looking into it.) In the days since Bismuth had called for the convention, more gems had appeared to fill out the rest of the round table and the seats across the rest of the hall. Garnet leaned against a wall apart from them with forced casualness, watching the room carefully.
“There’s not just one way to do democracy!” Connie explained. “There are actually a ton of ways you can count votes and they all have their plusses and minuses. It’s really important to pick the right one, because these things are really hard to change once they’re established!”
“Mmhm,” Bismuth said, jotting notes on a datapad.
Connie began writing on the screen, watching as the image projected itself into the room for everyone to see. “So the simplest one is ‘first past the post’, where everyone votes for one candidate and whoever gets a majority wins. It’s easy to do, but it tends to collapse into a two-party system and has this thing called the ‘spoiler effect’ where if there are multiple candidates on only one side of the political spectrum, they’ll divide the votes and make their opponent win even if they don’t actually represent the majority opinion. Now, the most common alternative is ‘instant runoff’, which is kinda complicated so I’ll break it down…”
Several minutes later, she took a much-needed gulp from her water and said, “So what do you think?”
Bismuth scrolled through her notes. “Uh, hmm…” She leaned back. “Garnet, any insights? You know if any of these are gonna be a disaster?”
“I can’t see that far ahead,” Garnet said flatly. She looked at Connie, her shades betraying nothing. “I would like to know how the votes of fusions will be counted.”
“Oh.” Connie scratched her head. “Uh, I hadn’t thought of that. But that’s a really good question! Do you count as one person, or two? If you only get one vote you’d just unfuse so both your selves could vote and yeah that’s not really fair is it, but then if fusions get multiple votes would they be too powerful of a voting bloc?” She chewed at her stylus. “This is more complicated than I thought.”
“Um.” A distant morganite tapped a button, and her face appeared at the center of the assembly. “Your primeness, about fusions –”
Yellow Pearl lunged forward to tap her microphone, her own hologram manifesting to overshadow the morganite’s. “You are not to address her or anyone as ‘your primeness’! ‘Prime minister’ is not a caste!”
The morganite blanched and mumbled an apology. A zircon tapped in to ask, “So wait, are we voting on how to vote now?”
“Something like that.”
“Hmm.” Blue Pearl paused for a second, then tapped in to say, “I like approval voting.”
Bismuth drummed her fingers on the table, and scrolled through her notes. “I think I need more time to decide.” She pulled up another datascreen. “Maybe we should go back to the constitution for now. Connie said that’s going to set the foundations for everything else.” Bismuth grinned at her. “I like this ‘vote of no confidence’ thing. It lets people remove bad rulers just by voting! Even if we end up with someone like the diamonds again, we won’t need to start another war to get rid of them. How do we put that in, Connie? Tell me all about it.”
Connie took a deep breath. “Okay, from the top…”
🌟
Pearl looked up at the clear night sky, and smiled.
She could finally look at the stars without any guilt, or loss. The colony worlds had been liberated, the existing expansions halted. And she could visit them any time she wanted. It would be a while longer before things truly settled, but… the universe was safe.
She wished Rose was here to see it.
Pearl heard the temple door slide open, and whirled around. "Oh, Steven, you're still awake…"
She saw the bubble in his hands, and stopped.
It was nothing but a few flakes of crystal, as faint as distant stars. But she'd recognize White Diamond's shards from a mile away.
Steven looked down, swallowed, and looked up at her again, tears swelling in his eyes.
"Pearl, there's… something I need to tell you."
🌟
Connie ran her fingers over the corn stalks, picking at the seeds in an anxious, repetitive motion. She half-listened as, beside her, Peridot spoke into a viewscreen at a bismuth. Not the one she knew; this one had her gem at her throat.
“Yeah, the wiring in that place is still a mess,” Peridot was saying. “Probably for the best it got wrecked – you should just tear it all up and replace the whole thing!”
“Probably,” the bismuth replied with a laugh. “I’ve – oh, hi, Steven! You got bigger!”
Connie looked over.
Steven had, indeed, gotten bigger over the years, to Greg’s surprise (and, she suspected, relief). He was still shorter than her, even now, but he made up for it everywhere else. He looked big enough to hug the whole world, with arms like tree trunks and shoulders easily broad enough for two people. He had grown his hair out into what Connie could only describe as a mane, a cloud of black spiral curls that never seemed to get frizzy.
She wanted to say he looked like his father, but she couldn’t let go of the thought that he looked a lot more like the pictures she had seen of Rose Quartz.
Steven waved to the bismuth as Lapis landed next to Peridot. “Hi, Necky! What are you working on?”
“Pink Diamond’s old palace!” she chirped back. “I’ve built all the new rooms, but I still gotta connect up all the wiring, so I called Peridot for directions!”
Steven floundered for a second. “Wha… Pink Diamond’s palace? But I thought everything on Homeworld was destroyed!”
Necky shook her head. “Nah, a lot of the main structures are still pretty intact. We’re renovating them for new offices and stuff!”
Connie blinked. He didn’t know about that?
“Right, so what do you have so far?” Peridot asked. The bismuth turned back to her, and they resumed chatting about technical specs, quickly getting too fast for Connie to follow.
Steven stepped away, and locked eyes with her. She hesitated, and kicked herself for it, but fortunately Steven didn’t seem to notice. He walked closer, but stopped just a bit too early, leaving a distance between them just on the border of awkward. They both stared out to the horizon, not quite looking at each other.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said back.
After an awkward second, they both said, “Sorry I haven’t –” at the same time, and laughed.
“…Sorry I haven’t seen you in a while,” Connie finished with an apologetic smile.
Steven smiled back, though it was tight. “It’s okay. I know you’re busy with, like, the government and college and stuff…”
She laughed at that. “Actually, the Federation is practically running itself at this point. The first election went off without a hitch, and – hah, do you know what they’re voting on now?”
“No, what?”
“National anthems.” After a second, Steven laughed. “No, really – they only just decided on the anthem for the whole Federation, and now all the colonies are holding referendums for their own. Most of them are still in the submission stage, so that’ll probably be resolved in a few decades.” She laughed, then settled back into a relaxed smile. “I was a little nervous at first, but they’re taking to it really well. I don’t think they need me anymore.”
She paused, and gave Steven a careful look before offering, “And… college is actually way easier than high school. I was so stressed about getting in, but now I hardly know what to do with all my free time.”
“That’s good,” Steven said.
He looked down, and scuffed his feet in the dirt.
“So, uh, what about you?” Connie asked after it became clear he wasn’t going to volunteer. “I know you’ve been busy too, with the corrupted gems and everything.”
Steven looked up, and his smile seemed lighter this time. “Oh, yeah! I just healed Snowflake a little while ago. Pearl and Garnet were really happy to see her. And Nephrite’s been stable for over a year now. There’s still a lot more, but… one gem at a time, right?”
Connie smiled, but his eyes flicked away from her face. “You know, uh… It’s made me think a lot about what you said to me, um… back then.” Connie’s mouth quirked. He visibly swallowed. “Before, I’m not sure if I was really trying to heal the corrupted gems for them, or if… I was just trying to prove that I could. To make everything have a happy ending just because I wanted that. Like…” He went quiet. “…Like with the diamonds.”
For a moment, the only sound was the wind and Peridot’s distant chatter. Then Steven took a breath. “I think… that’s why I couldn’t heal them all the way before. Because you can’t see them like they’re problems, like things to be fixed to make you feel better. You have to listen to them, and let them go at their own pace. You have to do it for them.”
He finally looked back at her, expectantly. She stared back.
So they were playing more-sorry-than-thou, again. What was she supposed to say to that? You’re welcome?
What she managed was a tortured, “That’s… good.” She immediately groaned and slapped her face. “No, I mean… ugh.” She sighed. “Why are we even talking about this stuff? What are we, business partners? I’m just happy to see you again. I’ve missed… this. Just hanging out like this.”
“Me, too.”
His smile became distant, for a second, and then he extended his arm out to her. He ducked his head slightly – she wasn’t sure he was even aware he was doing it – and said, “Do you want to dance?”
She looked down, into his eyes. She took his hand, and said, “Yes.”
After, Stevonnie sat at the edge of the cornfields, staring into the beautiful sunset. They breathed in, their hands over their heart, and whispered, “I forgive you.”
🌟
Bismuth scrolled through the reports. Belenos III was holding another referendum for their anthem…
A chime sounded, and she opened the commlink to see a familiar face.
“Hello, Bismuth!” Steven grinned and waved enthusiastically, a gold band gleaming on one of his fingers. “I finally did it! I healed Jasper! She doesn’t want to stay here, unsurprisingly, but when I told her what happened to Homeworld, she, uh… didn’t take it well. Could you send an orientation group for her?”
Her gaze flicked up, to the gems bubbled behind him. Some she recognized, and some she didn’t, but the cloud was certainly smaller than the last time she saw it. A lot smaller. Her gaze lingered on the two gems farthest above, still cracked from the crumbling weight of their own tyranny. She had had her doubts, at first, that Steven would hold to his promise: that the diamonds wouldn’t be released until all their victims had been helped. But the bubbles still held, far away from the rest.
Bismuth smiled at him. “Yeah, alright! I’ll call some of the gems she knew before. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see her again.”
Even after she closed the call, it nagged at her. There weren’t many corrupted gems left now. She wondered what he would do when the diamonds were the only ones left. Did he still believe he could save them? That there was any way for them to atone for what they had done?
Who was she kidding, of course he did.
Well, when that day came… there was always the Breaking Point.
🌟
“…And I need you to know that every moment you love being yourself, that's me, loving you and loving being you. Because you're going to be something extraordinary. You're going to be a human being…”
“Uh, Steven? Is everything okay?”
Steven immediately flushed and whirled around to see Connie on the stairs. Pausing the video, he stammered, “C-Connie! S-sorry, I, uh, didn’t see you there –”
Connie smirked. “Chill, Steven. It’s just your mom’s video. You don’t have to act so embarrassed.”
He scratched at his neck, awkwardly. “…Yeah,” he agreed. “I just wanted to… hear her voice. I guess I was feeling nostalgic.”
“Hmm,” Connie said with a wry smile. “Well, things were certainly more complicated back then.”
Steven laughed heartily at that. “Yeah. Not gonna lie, I’m happy I don’t have to deal with stuff like that anymore.” He stretched, joints popping. “Man. How long has it been, now? Since the diamonds and all that.”
“Thirty years,” Connie answered.
Steven flopped back onto the couch with a heavy sigh. “Oh geez, really? Time flies.”
Connie settled in next to him, and laid her hand over his. “That’s a sign it was time well spent.”
Steven smiled at her, then looked forward again, into the glowing image of Rose on the screen. His eyes grew distant.
“Thirty years,” he murmured. “Took me that long, huh? I guess for someone with empathy powers, I’m pretty crap at listening.”
Connie’s mouth quirked. She politely chose not to comment.
Steven finally shut the screen off, and stared into the black.
“…I spent so long wondering what Mom wanted,” he said. “Even when I found out who she really was and what she really wanted, I still couldn’t… let go of her. She had to have some secret message, some secret plan, some secret purpose. Even when I gave up on that, it just meant I had to be better than her, more perfect, more selfless, more… impossible.” He grinned hollowly at Connie. “I still can’t believe you put up with that. I must have been insufferable.”
Connie laughed weakly. “Not exactly.” She frowned, and said more seriously, “It just… hurt. To see you hurting yourself like that.”
Steven nodded sadly. “I know. I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I just can’t believe that I couldn’t see what was in front of me the whole time. If I really wanted to do what Mom wanted… she told me from the very beginning.” He opened his eyes again, staring at some distant point past everything. “All she ever wanted was for me to be happy.”
Connie looked at him, and squeezed his hand. “And are you?”
He looked back at her, and his face slowly relaxed.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”