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Steven watched as Connie and Lion leaped through the portal. A twinge of guilt was quickly squashed by feelings of betrayal and hurt as he walked back to the beach house.
How could she not think that this was heroic of him to do? How could she possibly be hurt?
A part of him knew the answer. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe that what he did was wrong.
When he got inside, he brushed off the concerned questions of the Gems and Greg about the speed of him coming back. Amethyst and Pearl dropped the subject immediately, but he knew that Garnet could tell that something was wrong.
He struggled with falling asleep that night, expecting to hear the sound of Lion’s portal opening in the living room at any moment. Instead, he was greeted with silence.
He sat up in bed to rearrange himself, catching a glance at Connie’s picture on his headboard. A pang of grief went through his heart.
He turned the picture around and laid back down, hoping he could will himself to sleep.
~
When Connie arrived at home, she had already soaked a spot in Lion’s mane with her tears. She dismounted the giant cat and started towards her door.
A huff caught her attention and she turned around to see Lion staring at her.
“Thanks Lion. I … I don’t have any Lion Lickers, but I can try and get some for you later …” Connie sniffled, trying to hide her tears before she could head inside.
Lion padded over to her and pressed his head against hers.
“Thanks,” she said again. “ You should probably head back. Steven’s probably wondering where you are …”
Lion nudged Connie’s shoulder.
“It’s … It’s ok,” she sighed. “I just need to think, I guess. Go on home, Lion. I’ll … see you again sometime …”
Lion huffed and sat down. Connie turned to her door, feeling Lion’s gaze. She took a deep breath and opened her door, hoping she could be quiet enough to avoid any questions from her parents.
She couldn’t handle that right now. Not with everything else.
She climbed the stairs and crept into her bedroom. She had spent many a night since Steven left pacing the room, unable to sleep. She had hoped that if she ever saw him again, she would feel better.
Now, she only felt worse.
She laid back on her bed, hoping that she would be able to sleep tonight. She regretted sending Lion away now. Since Steven had gone, Lion would warp to her room to check on her. It had been comforting, having him with her for part of the night. With Steven back, she was alone.
Truly alone.
She couldn’t understand how he couldn’t see how she felt. She wondered if he even really cared.
“You know he does,” she chided herself. “He has to … He just …”
She felt a tear threaten to spill out and hastily wiped it away.
She had cried over him enough.
Tap.
Tap.
Connie looked over to see Lion in her window, pawing at the glass with a giant, clawed paw. She smiled weakly and opened the window for the big cat to squeeze through.
“You sure you want to spend the night over here? Doesn’t Steven need you?” Connie asked as Lion padded over to the bed.
Lion huffed and jumped onto the bed before flopping onto his stomach. Connie chuckled and climbed onto the bed, snuggling into Lion’s soft, pink fur.
~
Steven had watched as Lapis left, leaving Peridot behind to grieve. The guilt gnawed at him even more.
He pulled out his phone to call Connie. He listened as the phone rang once, twice, and then hung up.
He pocketed the phone and walked to the Warp Pad. He needed to get home and check to see if Lion was back. He turned back to look at Peridot who continued to stare at the sky.
“Do you want to come with me?” He asked.
“No … She’ll be back … She … she does this sometimes,” Peridot sighed.
Steven turned around and prepared to warp home. As he traveled through the warp stream, the guilt began to build up.
He wondered now if he truly had made the right decision.
~
Connie had been vague at breakfast, talking with her parents about Steven’s return. She knew that she was bad at hiding the pain she felt, but she had to stay focused. She needed to make some decisions now.
Was this all worth it?
Was she worth it?
Was anything that Steven had once told her true anymore?
The sound of her phone ringing sent her heart racing. The familiar tone they had once danced to - once fused to - rang through the air.
Connie pulled the phone out of her pocket and stared at it.
“It’s ok, sweetie. You can talk to him if you want,” her mom started.
Connie hung up the phone.
“No … It’s ok. I’m … I’ll talk to him later,” she lied.
She poked at her breakfast, feeling her parents eyes on her. She wanted to get out of the house, but she didn’t even know where she would go. Lion had left that morning, so there was no way she could take him anywhere.
The Barn and the Temple were out of the question. He could probably be there. She couldn’t face him right now. She didn’t know what she would even say to him.
She felt guilty, being so upset, but she couldn’t help it. He had brushed off her pain. He had done what he had told her not to do.
Did he even trust her?
She heard her parents speaking in hushed tones, but at this point she didn’t care.
She stared at her breakfast. Suddenly, she wasn’t hungry at all.
~
“I mean … He’s ok now! He’s just pink … and in space!” Steven had explained. “But … don’t worry! Once I find Lion, we’ll get him back!”
He felt his heart break as he watched Lar’s mother weep into her husband’s shoulder. It hit him just then that this was real. This was serious.
This is what the gems and his dad had gone through.
When he saw Sadie later that day as he tried to hang signs for his missing Lion, he felt the guilt intensify as she seemed to walk around the Big Donut on auto-pilot. She barely acknowledged him at first and eventually slumped onto the counter, her eyes red and puffy. He knew she had been crying before he had come in. He knew this was his fault. As he watched Sadie, more of the truth of what he did hit him.
He had put Connie through this. Suddenly, what she had said the night he returned made sense.
He had hurt her.
After trying to comfort Sadie, he left for the Beach House, trying once again to call Connie’s phone.
The phone rang once and Steven held his breath, hoping that Connie would answer this time.
“Hello. You have reached the voice mailbox of Connie Maheswaran. Please leave a message after the tone.”
Beep.
“Um … Hi Connie,” Steven started. “I … I wanted to call because … well … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t even realize … I just … Call me when you get this. Maybe we can meet up and talk?”
He reached the Temple and looked around. No trace of Lion.
“And … if you see Lion, tell him I’m looking for him … I …”
He thought back to what he had said before being taken away. He wondered if she had heard it.
“I’ll talk to you later … I’m sorry,” he stammered before hanging up. He stared at the phone, the screen returning to his home screen after a few seconds.
A picture of himself and Connie from happier times.
“I love you …”
~
He had left many messages on her phone over the past week, none of them being returned.
When her voicemail box was full, he decided to try to send her a text.
I’m sorry.
He pressed send and watched as it stayed in sent status.
He had really done it.
He had pushed away his Jam Bud.
He had hurt Sadie and Lars’ parents by not bringing Lars home.
He had hurt his family.
He had hurt everyone by not thinking. By just acting on impulse.
By hating himself.
He curled up on his bed and stared at his phone. The silence in the room weighed on him.
The warp pad activated but Steven didn’t look up. He just continued to stare at the phone, hoping that it would ring and Connie would forgive him.
He felt someone sit next to him and then felt a cool hand on his back. He looked up to see Garnet.
“I … I messed up,” Steven whispered. “I messed up big time …”
Garnet smiled sadly and pulled him into a hug.
“I hurt Sadie and I got Lars killed and I hurt you guys … and Connie …” he started. “I just … I thought I had to pay for what my mom did … I thought that it would fix everything .. I thought …”
“I know,” Garnet soothed.
“Connie hates me now,” he whimpered. “And I don’t blame her … I … I didn’t even listen to her. I didn’t let her help … She … She rode away on Lion and I don’t think I’ll ever see her again …”
Steven wept into Garnet’s shoulder as the gem peered into the future.
There was a chance, but it was so small now.
“Have you called her parents?” Garnet started. “Perhaps you can explain to them-?”
“They probably hate me too …” Steven gulped in between sobs. “I thought I was keeping her safe but instead I hurt her! I never wanted this to happen and now I’ve lost my best friend!”
Garnet held him close again.
“Have you been able to find Lion?”
“No,” Steven asked. “Last I saw, he was with Connie but he never came home. You don’t think he hates me too, do you?”
“Of course not,” Garnet started. “He will come back. That much is certain.”
Steven wiped away his tears.
“And Connie?”
Garnet stayed silent.
Steven swung his legs over the side of the bed and stared at his feet.
“I’m going to call her parents … maybe they’ve at least seen Lion … and maybe they can tell her I’m sorry …”
~
Connie listened as Doug spoke to someone on their home phone. She knew Steven had to be on the other line, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him. She had blocked his number, unable to handle the panic that coursed through her whenever he called. She couldn’t face him now. The shame was too great.
She had gone from being angry at him to being angry at herself.
She was only human. She couldn’t have done anything anyway. No wonder Steven didn’t want to fuse with her on the ship. They couldn’t have done anything. They would have both been taken.
Steven would never have forgiven himself for being responsible for two humans being hurt.
For two humans being killed.
That’s all she was anyway. Just a human. There wasn’t anything special about her. She had gone through the training, but that hadn’t been enough.
Stevonnie … It didn’t mean the same thing to him that it meant to her.
She had felt like she was actually a part of something, but now, she knew she wasn’t.
She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t continue being a burden when it was so obvious that she didn’t really.
When her dad hung up the phone, Connie stood up and walked to him.
“That was Steven. He was wondering if we had seen his Lion,” Doug started, pulling Connie in for a hug. “He said he’s sorry … What happened?”
Connie returned the hug, biting back a sob.
She knew what she had to do. She pulled back and looked down at her feet. Her heart ached as she prepared to give everything up.
“Maybe … you should take his mom’s sword back to him …” Connie began, her voice barely a whisper. “I … I couldn’t help him and I think he knows it.”
“Connie …” Doug started.
“It’s in my room. And, hey … I can go back to taking tennis again. I know you guys enjoyed going to my matches …” Connie continued, feigning a smile. “You guys didn’t really want me fighting monsters anyway … I can focus on my studies and get into medical school like mom wanted - ”
“Connie,” Doug started, placing a hand on her shoulder. “We just want you to be happy. What really happened when Steven came back? You know you can tell us anything.”
Connie felt the corner of her mouth quiver. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
When she opened her mouth to speak, all that escaped were sobs.
~
Steven’s feet were tired, but he knew he had to do this.
The messages he had sent had never been read. The voicemails were never returned.
He needed to go talk to her. He needed her to know that he was truly sorry.
He needed to know if they were still friends.
He found his way onto her street and he felt the ache in his heart once again. He didn’t want to believe that this was truly over. That his friendship with her was irreparably damaged.
That the first person he loved like this no longer trusted him.
He found her house and stared up at the darkened windows. He knew which one was hers, having helped sneak her into her house the night that they had raced down the hill as Stevonnie. He stared at the window, wondering if he should just turn back.
~
Connie stared at the sword in the corner of her room. She would try again in the morning, she had decided. They had told her to sleep on it, but she already knew that she couldn’t go back. Not if she wasn’t really valued.
She supposed she should have listened to Lapis and Peridot when she had helped watch Steven’s house when he went to rescue his dad … Another time that she had not been of any actual value to him.
She wasn’t a Crystal Gem.
She had to stop pretending that she was.
She rolled towards the window and stared out. The stars were barely visible through the street lights, but she knew that one of those stars had to be Homeworld.
There was a new emptiness in the pit of her stomach when she saw it now. She would never see the planet that the Gems called their former home.
Perhaps it was for the best.
She closed her eyes, hoping that she would be able to sleep.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Connie opened her eyes, expecting to see Lion outside her window. She had not seen him since the night Steven had returned, but she realized she would have like to say goodbye to him before she officially ended her involvement with all things Gem.
Instead, there was nothing.
She closed her eyes again.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Connie opened her eyes again. This time, she watched as a pebble hit the window.
Tap.
Another .
Tap.
Connie sat up in bed. She felt her heart rate quicken.
Against her better judgement she rose and walked to the window, seeing Steven below as he searched for another pebble.
The sound of the window opening alerted him.
Their eyes met in silence.