Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Outskirts of Dover, Delaware. 1947.

Early July. Approximately 10 AM.

Pearl considered herself a lot of things - she was meticulously organized, an unparalleled fencer, and someone who could never say no to another strong cup of coffee, if she were to name a few.

Right now, she considered herself frustrated. The next cubicle over, John’s radio was turned up far beyond a reasonable level to be in a shared space.

“...overrode President Truman’s veto vote today, and voted the Taft-Hartley Labor Bill into law. The vote was 68 to 25. The new law provides the federal government the power to halt all emergency strikes for at least 80 days. Additionally, this Taft-Hartley law bans closed shops, and amends existing laws further restrict union activities…”

Much to Pearl’s chagrin, she knew there were only two options. Let it continue and turn into an inevitable headache, or ask him to turn it down and have him roll his eyes, maybe apologize for hurting her delicate ears.

She grit her teeth, wishing she had her foil right about now. He might not be so keen to call her delicate-anything if he were standing on the other end of her sword.

Pearl had been told more than a few times to go back to domestic life now that the war ended. She wasn’t needed to do a man’s job anymore. In order to placate her desire to violently throttle anyone who said such things to her, Pearl opted for silent protests. As such, she made small efforts to remind those around her that she was anything but fragile. Subtle things, like her unassuming clothes - pants, always pants - and her standard black car. Her minimalistic display of belongings on her desk, or her barely-styled hair. She remembered exactly what she told her stylist.

Something that says... Go away, I’m not available. I’m married to my job.

It was true enough. Pearl hadn’t “gone out” in almost six years, and if she kept things up, hopefully it would stay that way.

Ever since her C.O. passed away, Pearl did little else but work. Sometimes, Amethyst would warn her that she was going to give herself an ulcer, but Pearl dismissed the joke for what it was - laughable. She owed her whole life up to that point to Rose; it didn’t matter if she was alive or not, Pearl would not stop working towards her goal.

Advancements in technology means advancements in peace.

It was Rose’s belief, and now, it was Pearl’s, too.

On a day-to-day basis, that equated to sitting at a desk on the 12th floor of a massive engineering firm, a few miles outside Dover, usually helping to design robotics requested by various sources, depending on from where the grant funding was coming. The project she’d been working on for the past four years happened to be a licensed product of the U.S. government, and being a reservist herself, Pearl felt a particular twinge of pride to work for the firm.

Her engineering degree sat proudly in the box beneath her desk, where she rested her feet during the 10- or 12-hour work days; she didn’t have room for such unnecessary trophies on her desk. The cubicle was modest, and so she used every square inch of surface to the most efficacious means she could. A calendar; a cup containing pencils, a ruler, a protractor and a compass; her laminated name tag; stapler; a large grid workbook with two smaller scaled versions to match. Additionally ,she had three separate stacks of papers occupying the remaining surfaces, and she had just enough room left over in front of her to eat her lunch or sign for a delivery.

On that day in particular, Pearl was doodling, but she was also already feeling that headache coming on. She’d never been much of one for calling off work, tempted though she was - like she needed another reason for her colleagues to look down their noses at her. Needless to say, her department was almost entirely male, with the exception of herself and the other quiet woman, stationed at the end of the row of cubicles. Pearl liked her well enough - she was short, with rather striking blonde hair, and she seemed to only have a wardrobe consisting of plain green jumpers that she wore, summer or winter, and unassuming black pants. Peridot was a few years younger than everyone else on the staff, but her talent was inarguable; she just understood robotics unlike anyone Pearl had ever met.

Just as Pearl had started to formulate the perfect telling-off for John so she could peacefully return to work, a voice nearly frightened her out of her skin.

“Hey, P!”

Pearl grabbed at her heart, thundering in her chest as she swiveled in her chair.

“Amethyst, I told you not to sneak up on me like that. Ever. Please.”

Her friend merely cackled, tucking her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. Pearl tried not to notice how flattering it looked on her.

“Geez, lighten up. I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just wondering if you’re ready to go?”

A blank expression spread on her face, and Pearl blinked down at her calendar.

Amethyst leaned forward slightly when she did not answer. “...Or, maybe I should say, I came here to see if you remembered what we’re doing today?”

Pearl chewed her bottom lip. While she certainly did not appreciate Amethyst’s smug expression, she clearly had not written anything down for the day.

“Of course I remember,” Pearl answered evenly, pointing her chin. “Although, I wouldn’t say no to a reminder…”

At that, Amethyst rolled her eyes and hopped backwards onto Pearl’s desk, turning her perfect stacks of papers into a mountain of disorder. The engineer fumed silently, straightening them instead of yelling at her friend like she wanted to - best not draw extra attention at the moment.

“Remember? C’mon. You agreed to come help Rubes and Sapphire on this ‘facility check’ if they got really swamped?”

“Oh… oh no,” Pearl smacked her palm to her forehead, dragging it down over her eyes. “I didn’t - they thought I was serious? I was just… I was joking!”

A dubious eyebrow challenged her claim. “But... jokes are supposed to be funny.”

“W-well! I didn’t even plan, I didn’t ask my boss… I can’t, Amethyst. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no skin off my nose,” she replied with a dismissive wave. “It’s Rubes and Saph that said these things always go faster if they’ve got more reps from the company on their side. It’ll be easy. All you gotta do is go in, poke a few machines, say everything is up and in running order, and we’ll be done!”

Pearl deadpanned. “You have no idea what I do for a living, do you?”

“Not even a little bit. But hey. It’ll be fun, a day out of the office. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Pearl tapped her fingers along the desk anxiously. “Oh, I don’t know… I don’t care for spontaneity.” She wrinkled her nose, like she’d spoken a distasteful word.

“Maybe… maybe you could just tell them I’m sorry and that I can’t go?” Pearl asked, sounding hopeful.

The facility worker pursed her lips. “Hey, I’m not a messenger - you can get Jamie to do that.”

Pearl allowed a tiny groan to escape her. “He’s the postal worker, Amethyst, not an errand boy.”

“Same difference.”

“No,” Pearl let out a dry laugh. “It’s really not. But, that’s not important, is it? If they’re waiting, I’d better go find Doug and see if he’ll let me take this afternoon.”

Standing from her seat, Pearl adjusted her button-down to make sure it hadn’t wrinkled from her sitting position. She glanced over the “walls” of the cubicles, which were really more pathetically like baby gates, and spotted her boss towards the end of the next row, speaking to someone. She took a deep breath and crossed the length of the office in just a few paces.

“Excuse me, Mr. Maheswaran?” Pearl began politely.

The man smiled warmly and nodded. “Oh, hello, Pearl. Everything alright?”

Seated at the actual desk, her colleague Marty pulled a sneer as she approached. Pearl made sure to return the gesture.

Turning her attention to her supervisor, she gave Doug a warm smile. She was glad he was her immediate supervisor, because he was the most tolerable of all them. His faults really had more to do with his scatterbrained and generally impressionable nature than anything morally or ethically ambiguous.

“Um, yes, all’s well. I just wanted to check with you - so sorry I didn’t ask sooner - but I realized I committed to helping H.E.H down on 5 with a facility check today. It was sort of a misunderstanding - I offered to help casually. I didn’t really expect them to take me up on the offer, but now it seems they’re expecting someone in our department to help…”

He cocked his head to one side, considering Pearl’s story. “Hmm. Well… how are your deadlines coming on the new channeling system? Think you’ll still be ready to present next week?”

“Absolutely.”

The man shrugged. “Then I have no problem with it. Plus, it’s a pretty beautiful day - not a bad one to do some out-and-about work, right?”

“Right,” Pearl agreed with a appreciative nod.

She already started to turn away when Marty’s voice cut into her like rusty knives. “Hey, why don’t you take ‘Dot with you? You can make it a girl’s day.”

“I don’t think she would like you calling her that,” Pearl replied quietly. “It’s sort of a family nickname, I think.”

“Ah, now, Marty’s got the team spirit thing corporate is going on about!”

“We are corporate, sir,” Pearl reminded him.

He didn’t seem phased by that, instead gesturing excitedly. “Sure, sure. But go ahead - take Peridot with you. It’ll be a good team building activity for you both, plus it’ll help her get acquainted with the H.E.H folks.”

As if on cue, a blonde head of pointed hair popped up above the walls. “Did someone say my name?”

“Uh, thank you, sir.” Pearl said briskly, turning away. She caught eyes with Peridot as she went back towards her desk, motioning for the young engineer to follow.

“Peri!” Amethyst beamed as soon as they returned, jumping off the desk to give her a hug. Pearl frowned; she didn’t know the two were that close. “Sup, dude?”

“Hello, Amethyst,” she greeted, giving her a firm pat-pat before stepping into the now-cramped confines of Pearl’s cubicle. She straightened her glasses owlishly. “Nothing is up. Although I’ve almost finished my new model for the TS1-E350 Ion Stabilizer. Oh, I’m so excited to test it!”

Pearl pursed her lips, half a mind ready to ask how the heck she designed something like that so quickly, but thought better of it. Peridot had the raw talent that Pearl lacked, but she made up for it in effort and experience.

At least, she liked to think so.

“Whatever that means,” Amethyst said with a shrug. “So, will you be ready to go in like, 15 minutes? I think Rubes is getting their car now.”

Pearl pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ugh. Just how long is this going to take?”

Amethyst pulled out a notebook from inside her breast pocket and flicked it open. “Uh, Saph’s wrote something down… Leaving the station at 11:30 - don’t be late, there won’t be another ‘til late afternoon. Guess we’re taking the train. Hmm.”

Peridot practically squealed, and Pearl had to shush her when some of the men began to look their way.

“I love trains!” She said, bouncing on her toes. “That’s why I got into engineering in the first place. Oh, stars, this is going to be so exciting!”

“I’ll bring my lunch with me then…” Pearl stood back up and motioned to the stairs. “I’ll meet you all in the parking lot in a few minutes.”

Peridot and Amethyst quickly set off in the opposite direction, and Pearl felt herself scowl immediately as she walked to the break room. At least she wouldn’t have to listen to John’s blaring radio any longer - that was something, right? She snatched her egg salad sandwich from the shelves and pocketed an apple, debating on whether or not she should bring her hat. It was something Rose had left for her, and she loved to wear it on special days. The fact that she’d brought it along at all was a miracle in itself, as she hadn’t even worn it in that day. It was just sitting in the passenger seat of her car.

Well, if it was going to be a girl’s day, she might as well play the part.

Pearl set a quick pace to the stairwell, only to find a person on the other side of the door. He stepped a foot in front of her, blocking the path.

“Yes, Martin?” She made no effort to hide her distaste, and using his full name was something that never failed to get a rise from the man.

“Mart-y, sweetheart,” he reminded her, brows drawing together momentarily in annoyance. It was replaced rather quickly with what Pearl thought looked to be nausea, but was probably intended to be suave. “But hey, listen, Pearly. if you need a hand out there, don’t hesitate to call us back here at the office. I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of.”

“Oh, you will?” She rested a hand against her chest, feigning flattery. “I’m so glad.”

She punctuated her statement by promptly stomping her shoe against his toes with all the force she could muster, making him yelp and double-over.

“I’ll be sure to do that, Martin.”

The trip to the station was short and uneventful - they were meeting Sapphire and Ruby there, so Pearl volunteered to drive since she wanted to get her hat from the car anyways. It was warm, summer proper slipping away but still gracing Delaware with some lovely days. A light breeze swept the exposed tracks, and Pearl held the corner of her cap to keep it from being blown off.

“The trains are running late,” Sapphire said by way of greeting. She and Ruby had approached them from behind, and Pearl gave them both swift hugs.

“It’s nice to see you both,” she said honestly. “This is Peridot, she works on 12th with me. She was volunteered to be brought along for a girl’s day.”

Ruby stomped a foot, mostly in jest. “Ugh, that is so typical for your floor. Sorry ‘bout that, Peridot. Did you get the low-down on what we’re doing today?”

“More or less, I think.” She tapped her chin before answering. “As I understand it, you’re the psychologist dispatched to check the health of the patients, and you’re the risk assessment representative that’s supposed to make sure the ‘wigs aren’t investing in things that aren’t worth the liability… right?”

“Yes.” Sapphire offered her a small smile. “And I really appreciate you and Pearl coming to help with this. It’ll be a quick visit, I promise. I’ve been checking this hospital for years, and it’s always just about perfect.”

“Oh, it’s a hospital?” Amethyst asked, and they all paused as the slight whistle of the train began to denote its approach.

Ruby rubbed her neck. “Yeah… sorry about that. I know you’re not a fan of them, Amethyst. But you don’t even have to come inside, we’ll take care of that part. If you guys just hang around outside the building, say you’re looking at ‘wiring’ and all that, we’ll take care of the hard part.”

Pearl frowned down at her ticket, realizing her palms hand become sweaty. She was nervous. Why… why was she nervous?

“I’m glad we can help,” she said abruptly, trying to snap herself out of it. She’d never had a problem with hospitals, this was just a routine check. “I honestly didn’t even know the company managed outside medical facilities.”

“You’d be surprised how much reach Diamond Industries has…” Ruby commented thoughtfully. “Incidentally, I don’t think they have any holdings on any sort of gemstones in the market.”

That earned a laugh out of all of them, and Pearl was sure to grasp both the ticket and her hat firmly against the train as it bellowed into the station.

“Dibs on the window seat!” Amethyst called, running forward and practically leaping over the tracks when the train grinded to a halt. No one was fighting her on it, but there was a shared sense of her enthusiasm. Maybe today could be fun -- she liked these people, and she was working, and Doug was right -- it was beautiful outside.

For all the beauty Delaware’s capital city had been, this small town… what was it, Beach City? With a quick glance at her ticket, Pearl verified that it was - yes - Beach City. Not a very imaginative name, but she couldn’t complain. The landscape was beautiful, and the state hospital occupied the opposite side of the town from the shore. The view from the higher floors must have been breathtaking, as even at midday from the ground level, Pearl found the horizon stunning. Soft blue skies against heavy dark seas, swaying endlessly in the coastal air. It was so fresh here. Everything felt so alive, and any lingering regrets she’d had for coming along immediately vanished.

The town was a simple settlement, but clearly, not one designed for tourism. They had to stop a few miles short of the actual city, as the nearest stop only passed through Ocean Town. For the obvious reason of convenience, that made the latter a much more popular destination spot for those visiting the coast.

If anything, that only made the short trip in a cramped car all the more worth it. The city was quiet but for crying gulls, the low thrum of noise that was the ocean, playing softly beneath a crisp overture brought by the wind and the hum of the hospital.

According to the map Ruby had shared with them during the trip, the city was essentially laid out as a paved rectangle, with beach and ocean from coast to coast. A large, pretty hill sectioned off the eastern part of the town, and it was equipped with decommissioned lighthouse that seemed to pierce the clouds. The hospital grounds occupied the central part of the city, taking up several blocks. There were a few modest homes along the western edge, from which they arrived, and Sapphire informed her that’s where most of the medical staff lived. But other than that, it was just the large hospital and surrounding grounds.

What a small life, out here. Just you, your patients and the sea.

Pearl made a mental note to speak to someone when she got back about how to start saving for retirement.

Their cab delivered them to the front gates of the institution, accessorized with a wrought iron sign: Delaware State Hospital.

They stood there awkwardly for a moment, but Sapphire assured them that someone would always meet her at the gate.

“Let’s just give them a minute - we’re actually running a bit early.”

A mumbled agreement came from the group, and Pearl took the opportunity to study the pathway up to what must be the main facility. It was cobblestoned and decently maintained, and the grass appeared to be recently mowed, albeit a bit unevenly. These people were doctors, not landscapers.

“Ugh, these places just weird me out. It’s like death just sticks to the place.”

With a bite to her tone, Peridot replied, “Great, now that’s all I can think about. Thank you, Amethyst.”

“Misery loves company,” she said with a weak chuckle.

“Color me surprised, Ames,” Ruby said, crossing her arms.“For a facilities gal, you’re not as tough as I would’ve guessed.”

“Hey,” she snapped back, “getting into crawl spaces and collecting mold samples for you nerds and checking electrical wiring is all stuff I can handle. I just happen to hate hospitals, okay? Can’t I just have this one thing?”

Sapphire calmly intervened before the situation could escalate further. “Now, now, that’s enough. Ruby didn’t mean to be offensive. You don’t have to come inside the facility, Amethyst. I’ll go in with Ruby, and we’ll need at least Pearl or Peridot to come with us. One of you can stay here with her. ”

Slyly, just as she finished speaking, Ruby snapped up her thin wrist and planted kisses all over her fingers.

Sapphire blushed so severely she practically seemed blue in the face, and Pearl felt embarrassed on her behalf.

“R-Ruby! Not here! We said never while working!” She brusquely fixed her hair and tried to keep her eyes down, refusing to look towards the others.

Sending a wink towards the onlookers, Ruby danced a few fingers on her shoulder. “Sorry Sapphy,” she whispered. “Sometimes I forget myself around you.”

“Ruby!” She covered her face with her hands, and Pearl had to let slip a quick chuckle. If not for Sapphire’s embarrassment, then certainly for Peridot’s. She’d only just met the two today, and this? It wasn’t exactly a well kept secret that Ruby and Sapphire were partners, in more ways than one, but it was still rather rare to see public displays of affection like that.

Unconsciously, her hand moved to her hat again, running her finger along the edge.

“H-Hello? Sapphire, is that you?”

A voice beyond the gates startled them, and a bumbly-looking man in a white coat was puttering their way.

“Hello, Dr. Straumburg! Wonderful to see you, as always.”

“Ah, Sapphire. Always a pleasure, of course. And greetings to you too, Ruby. Now these are all faces I haven’t seen before.” He gestured towards Pearl and the others.

Pearl felt her hand twitch towards a military salute, but thankfully, she’d been able to break that habit.

“Very nice to meet you, doctor. My name is Pearl, and this is Peridot. We’re engineers with D.I.” She extended a hand, which he accepted with a polite nod.

“Hey, Amethyst here. Facilities. Sooo… a little bit of everything.”

Straumburg laughed at that, peeling the gates open the rest of the way and beckoning them inside. “Oh, my brother works in facilities at another ward like this one. Always keeps him busy.”

“Mhmm, definitely.” Amethyst answered off-handedly. She made easy conversation with the man all the way up to the front of the building, which presented Pearl with the perfect opportunity to inspect what exactly she was getting herself into.

In truth, there wasn’t much to it. Their arrival was anticlimactic. It sort of reminded Pearl of an overly large lecture hall from her time as a University student. The building was red brick from grass to roof, with pale shingles that were weather-worn, but otherwise well-maintained. Several of the windows were open, though, she couldn’t really pick up on anything over Amethyst and Dr. Straumberg’s chatter.

They stopped at a stone stoop that led up to the front doors. “Welp, Doc, it’s been nice. Your brother sounds like a treat. But I’m good out here.”

He frowned, glancing at Sapphire before responding. “Oh. I thought  - did you not want to inspect the facilities? I assumed that’s why you were here...”

Ruby made a face that Pearl almost laughed at. She could practically hear the unspoken words - say something you dingbat!

To Amethyst’s apparent relief, Peridot cleared her throat. “Yes, uh, actually. Amethyst you mentioned wanting to check the… the wiring around the grounds! Yes, that was it - you wanted to, uh…”

She shot Pearl a beseeching look, evidently running thin on her lie.

“Up to code,” Pearl blurted. “Amethyst was going to check that things were up to code. I’ll stay out here and give her hand, why don’t you all go on ahead?”

That seemed to ease Dr. Straumberg’s doubts, and he buried his hands in the front of his white coat.

“Oh, great, sounds like we’ll just do a quick divide-and-conquer then. Sapphire, Ruby, and - Peridot, yes? Why don’t you come with me. I’ll show you the indoor facilities. And then you both are welcome to come inside whenever you’re finished out here. The grounds run from the front gate to the perimeter walls - it’s a whole safety thing with the patients, you know. But feel free to look around, and the main power comes from the smaller building in the Northeast corner, so that might be the best place to start.”

Sapphire had already taken the steps leading up to the front door, smiling back to the doctor, apparently eager to get to work.

Pearl watched the others slide through the double-doors, catching a glimpse of plain checkered tiles and nondescript blue painted walls. Truthfully, the whole place seemed painfully boring - she really did not blame Ruby or Sapphire for asking to bring them along to speed things up.

Now midday proper, the heat was starting to feel a bit more intense, but the ocean breeze helped to keep her cool as she and Amethyst wandered their way towards the designated spot to start their made-up inspection.

Letting out a low exhale, Pearl decided that she really wasn’t in any rush, and Amethyst seemed to be in just as relaxed a mood - now that her friend seemed certain she wouldn’t have to go inside the hospital, she’d calmed down considerably. Just one of those irrational fears, Pearl supposed - everyone had them.

After idly standing around the whirring generators, labouring away inside the structure, Pearl and Amethyst stepped back out into the courtyard. Amethyst at least had experience in this sort of thing, and she was certain it wouldn’t take longer than an hour to actually inspect the wiring.

(For good measure, her friend noted that she did do a cursory level-check since they were there; everything appeared to be just fine).

“I guess let’s just… walk around the outside of the building, look for wires or whatever.” The facility worker said with a shrug. “We can split up or stick together. Honestly, this place seems right as a ninepence though.”

“Alright,” Pearl said in wistful agreement, feeling about the same. She could already tell she would not find anything wrong here, and as a result felt rather unmotivated to continue looking. A tiny, selfish part of her wished she had brought her sketchbook. The circus clouds and pitched blue skies would make for a wonderful picture. Maybe not great for work, but it would be something stimulating to do.

Frowning, she patted around in her pockets, and an excited thrill ran through her. Oh, by the luck of the stars, she did have something. It was only a pocket-sized notebook she used to jot down ideas that came to her at odd-times, and she usually just left it at her desk, but some swift brush of good fortune had compelled her to tuck it in her pocket before leaving. She hadn’t even remembered doing so.

Without wanting to abandon her responsibilities entirely, fabricated though they were, Pearl decided to set a leisurely pace and drift towards the front gate -- it had the only unobstructed view of the ocean from the ground -- and continue to look around for any out-of-place wires or exposed electrical outlets… that was a thing, right?

She stopped just short of running into the brass, and rested a hand on the metal. It was warm under the sun’s influence, but not so hot that it burned - Pearl found the feeling surprisingly therapeutic.

After several seconds, by the time the metal began to chill in her hand, she tapped her breast pocket and pulled out her pen. The sight before her was striking, one she seldom had the opportunity to appreciate with how heavily she threw herself into her work. She tried to absorb the memory, something she could revisit when John played his radio too loud or Marty acted in his usual disgusting way.

Her mind must have wandered too far, as she began twirling her pen absently, to the point where she lost her grip and dropped it. Muttering to herself, she bent at the waist to retrieve it, and the ocean breeze tickled her neck.

Well, it was more like a gust, really. Her hat flew off in the sudden rush of wind, slipping right through the bars in the gate.

“No!” Pearl cried, feeling the color drain from her face. She clawed through the gates, watching her hat be carried down by the sands. “N-No! That was Ros-- ugh!”

She stopped struggling like a fool and wrenched the gate open, running out after it. If it got swept up in the sea, it could be gone forever.

Breathing raggedly, she stopped at the edge of the coast, ignoring the gritty feeling of sand sticking to her legs. Her eyes scanned the waters, imagining the worst, hoping not to spot the last memory she had of Rose be doused in the unforgiving waters of the sea. “Oh, oh, please, where did it - please… no, no, no! It can’t be gone!”

She grabbed her head with both hands, not caring for the moment how absolutely crazy she probably looked, feeling the panic rise in her chest. It was crushing her lungs, making it impossible to breathe properly, and the sand made moving her legs unnecessarily difficult, and god, where did it go?!

After a few minutes of fruitless searching, Pearl sank to her knees and held her face in her hands. She cursed herself for being so stupid - why did she bring the hat with her anyways? To spite some stupid men she worked with, one of her acts of defiance that they would never see anyways?

That hat was priceless, precious, and now, it was gone.

Crying would do her no good, and she didn’t have the sorrow in her right now anyways. She just sat there, listless and disappointed, crushed by guilt and memories.

“Umm… s’cuse me,” a small voice said behind her. “Is this… um…?”

A small, pitiful glimmer of hope seized her heart and she turned around, and there, unbelievably, was her hat. It hadn’t been lost, it had been found.

“Oh - oh, yes! Yes, that’s mine, thank you, thank you,” she took it from the hands of whoever had found it and hugged it tightly to her chest, breathing in shuddering sighs of relief.

Pearl took several moments to regain her bearings, eyes closed and clutching desperately to the gift, she eventually refocused on who had saved her.

She assumed the voice was small because it was just someone soft-spoken, like her. Naturally, Pearl was shocked to find a child, open-mouthed staring at her, wearing a dress and a concerned frown. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was a boy or a girl, as the dress and faded pink color suggested the latter, but their face and overall grime indicated the former.

“T-Thank you, little, uh, child. This is a very special thing and I thought I lost it. Thank you for returning it.”

After several seconds, Pearl’s words seemed to register and the tiny face broke into a shy smile.

“Welcome!”

Brushing herself off, Pearl stood up to full height and smiled kindly to the child. She looked around their immediate area and didn’t see any adults.

“What’s your name? I don’t see your parents around here.”

The child bit their lip, tucking their arms up into their dress. “Umm… w-well,” they looked at Pearl’s feet anxiously, and she had a weird sense of guilt bubble in her stomach that she couldn’t explain.

“Well… um, not… not ‘pposed to talk to strangers. Sorry… I should go, bye!” They waved enthusiastically before turning away, setting a quick pace towards the eastern end of the beach.

She reached a hand out to stop the child, but hesitated. It wasn’t really Pearl’s affair, where his or her parents might be. She’d gotten her hat back, and the child was certainly right; she was a stranger. Clearly, someone was teaching them basic social safety skills, and it wouldn’t really be right for her to challenge that.

So why, Pearl asked herself, did she have a sinking feeling, deep in her chest? Why did it feel like her lungs ached to yell for them to stop, to come back? What was it about the quiet seaside that made her hairs stand on end, that her time in the military and her many long years of fencing - her instincts - were telling her something about this wasn’t right.

“Stop it,” she shook her head, putting the hat back on her head, firmly this time. “That’s all over. This is just a silly facility check - don’t get spooked out now.”

The self-declared reassurances helped her to refocus - surely, Amethyst’s own fears were starting to give her the same skepticism towards hospitals. She too was feeling rather anxious to leave.

By the time she stepped foot back on solid pavement, Pearl felt herself release a content exhale. The child was probably back with his parents right now, and she would be with Amethyst again, who would tell her some sort of inappropriate joke, probably.

“W-wait! Lady!”

She spun around so suddenly, Pearl made herself dizzy. When had her nerves become drawn that tight?

An uneven plodding of footsteps trailed up to her from the sand, and she stared blankly down at the child.

“I-I’m sorry! I promise, I didn’t mean it, but I just forgot… this fell out of your thing…” They were panting by the time they stopped, and they clutched a small piece of paper above their head.

Pearl reddened upon recognizing the note. It was the other part of the present Rose had left her, tucked in the lining inside. She’d been so confused and relieved by the child returning her hat she hadn’t even thought to make sure it was there.

“Oh, oh my. Thank you. Now you’ve helped me not just once, but twice! You’re a hero, you know.” She smiled and bent down slightly, trying to seem approachable, but frankly she had no idea how to relate to anyone younger than twenty.

The child stared at her quizzically but did not respond, head tilted to one side.

“Um, I still didn’t get your name, my little hero. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want, but I’m Pearl.” She paused. “Talking to some strangers can be really bad and dangerous. But we’re not strangers now that you know who I am, right?”

At that, the child seemed to grow puzzled. An overly-intense scowl appeared on their features as they considered Pearl’s explanation, which must have been deemed acceptable.

With a smile so pure it reminded her of sunshine, the child waved wildly with one hand.

“Okay… Yeah!” They bounced up and down on their heels. “Hi Pearl! I’m Steven!”

Pearl felt her own face crack into a grin. “Oh, Steven? That’s a good name.”

The compliment seemed to suit him just fine, because his cheeks turned pink and he sort of swiveled in place, almost bashfully.

“I like it,” he admitted, before scrunching his nose and adding, “But a lot of people just call me Pink. I don’t like that as much.”

Frowning, Pearl looked over the dress he was wearing, assuming that’s where the name originated. Another moments inspection and she realized - oh, it wasn't a dress at all. Just a massive t-shirt.

“Well, pink is a very pretty color. One of my favorites, in fact,” she mused. “I’ll stick to calling you Steven, if it’s all the same to you.”

He crossed his arms, grinning in earnest. “‘Kay! I’ll stick to calling you Pearl, too.”

Chapter Text

Pearl couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm, and she found herself glad to have this second chance to talk with Steven. If nothing else, she could remember him fondly as Steven, not as that random child on the beach.

“Well it’s very nice to meet you, Steven,” she replied, offering her hand to shake. He wrapped his whole hand around two of her outstretched fingers and bobbed her arm up-and-down. “And how old is my hero?”

Proudly, he puffed out his chest. “I am almost five. August 15th is my birthday!”

“Oh, well,” Pearl grinned at his display. “Then happy almost birthday! That’s only a few weeks away, isn’t it?”

“Yep! And then, I’m gonna grow big and strong like Jasper.”

She pretended like this was the most interesting news in the world. “And who’s Jasper? Your brother?”

As she said the words, Pearl glanced around again for any sign of the child’s caretakers. Seeing no such parents - or anyone, for that matter - she opted to move back further onto the pavement; maybe she could find a bench for them to sit down?

Steven frowned, taking a single step onto the pavement before stopping again. “Mmm… no, she’s like, I guess a big, big sister. Her mom and dad aren’t my mom and dad though.”

“Oh, I see. A friend, then?”

At that, his face spread into that infectious grin again, and Pearl felt herself mirroring the expression. “Yep! Jasper’s definitely a good friend!”

“That’s wonderful,” Pearl hummed. “Do you want to sit and talk somewhere? We don’t have to stand here.”

The moment she suggested it, Pearl could tell it was a mistake. His eyes began to dart all over the place, and what was once a smile turned to a fearful grimace. Steven immediately took three steps backwards, safely into the sand once more.

Kneeling beside him, Pearl tried to ignore the feeling of sand and dirt clinging to her nice dress-pants. “Steven, are you alright? Is something wrong?”

He didn’t seem to hear her, looking over her shoulder towards the gates of the hospital. Pearl glanced in that direction and pursed her lips.

“Are you afraid of hospitals?” asked Pearl in a notably gentle tone. “My friend is, too. That’s okay. We don’t have to go in there.”

Wide eyes, shining and troubled, looked up to meet hers. “Um… do you p-promise? I can’t - I’m not ‘pposed to go. I can’t go.”

“That’s okay,” Pearl reassured him by gently placing a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have to go that way. Is there somewhere around here we talk that you would be more comfortable?”

He wrinkled his nose, the image of thoughtfulness. After several seconds, Steven grabbed her hand and yanked her back towards the beach, starting off towards the Eastern edge again.

“W-Whoa, slow down, there! Where are we going?” Pearl tugged at her arm, but the boy’s grip was surprisingly strong.

“Where I live, duh,” Steven said, dragging her along like she wasn’t a going-on-thirty year old adult at least three times his height. “The blue people said we can’t go in there, but you can come out here!”

Pearl’s brow furrowed. “Blue people? Who are they?”

Almost dismissively, Steven began to reply. “Oh, just the angry ladies, those ones are always there at meal time. And sometimes, I - o-oh, but uh, I’m sorry!” He stopped walking abruptly, no longer forcing Pearl along, but he didn’t let go of her hand. They were nearing the curve of the beach anyways, so Pearl decided to just let him continue to grip his sweaty fingers around her’s, assuming the contact provided some sort of comfort to him.

“I’m not… I’m not supposed to say things like... I-I’m sorry! Pearl, I didn’t mean it - I’m sorry!”

“Hey, hey, easy now.” She squeezed his fingers, and he sniffled, looking up towards her. “That’s okay, Steven. You didn’t say anything, er, upsetting. Were you being honest just now? About the, er, blue people…?”

He tensed and stared at his bare feet, effectively avoiding her own measured gaze. Pearl prayed to the stars he wasn’t about to start crying; she didn’t know if she could handle a weeping four-year old on her own.

“Those ladies who work in the hospital - that uh, big building, behind the gate…” Pearl began in what she hoped was a soothing tone. In truth, it was more strained than she intended, but she kept talking. “Are those the blue people? Or the doctors? The men in the white coats, do you know them?”

It took Steven a second to respond, but when he did, he furiously shook his head from side-to-side.

“N-no, ma’am. I was just misbehaving.”

That didn’t sit well with Pearl at all.

“You don’t have to call me ma’am, Steven. Pearl is just fine.”

He raised his chin ever so slightly, and Pearl found his eyes to be emotional and shockingly dark. “Yes, ma- um, Pearl.”

“...Steven, you said you live around here, is that right?”

She received a mumbled sounding ‘yes, ma’am,’ and he fell silent again.

Pearl sucked her teeth. That same, horrible sense of dread had crept up to her again, and this time, it wasn’t dispelled just by seeing him and hearing him speak again. This was thicker, angrier; a black and murky bitterness stung the salty air, and breathing in was beginning to make her lungs feel weak.

“Hey, Steven, listen…” She said, doing her best to turn her voice into sounding overly conspiratorial. His expression didn’t change, so she pushed on. “I was wondering if you wanted to play a game. Do you like games?”

That must have struck a chord, because he released a small gasp and his eyes shined. Hurriedly, as if the opportunity might slip away, he bobbed his head up and down.

“Excellent! I like games, too. So… this game is like a… uh, a store - or a market. Pretend shopping. Do you know this game?”

Some part of her imagined all children knew that game, the game that doesn’t really have a name, but someone pretends to be the clerk and the other the customer. So when he shook his head ‘no’, she blinked pointedly with surprise.

This might be a little harder than I thought…

“Oh, uh, that’s okay!” She put her hands up, not wanting to lose his attention now that she’d found it again. “Um, how about - how about this. Do you like pictures, Steven? Drawing?”

Pearl felt a bit of her stress melt away when he grinned, and she chuckled when his hands flew to his cheeks, cupping them in anticipation.

Evidently, now that coloring was on the table, Pearl had him hanging on her every word.

“Okay, then. That’s great, I love drawing, too. I get paid to do it all day! Let’s see, I have a little notebook here…” She pulled it out of her back pocket, along with the pen that had started all this mess earlier. “I can draw you pictures, or you can draw in this as much as you want. But I want to ask you a few questions while we draw, is that okay?”

“Umm…” he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, evidently unsure. “I guess that’s okay... but maybe we can go, umm, back down to the beach?”

Pearl did not miss the bob in his throat when he looked behind her again, towards the hospital.

“Of course - anything you want.” She turned him around gently and began to walk further into the sand. “Do you want to draw first, or do you want me to draw something for you?”

“Hmmmm…” he rubbed his chin dramatically before flopping down onto his knees, and slowly lowering his torso into the sand. “I think I want… can I draw first? If that’s okay?”

Smiling, Pearl reached out and offered him the pen and notepad. Steven’s eyes widened, and he tentatively accepted the tools into his small hands.

“Wow,” he breathed lightly, already flipping open to the first blank page he could find and scribbling wildly. It took no small amount of self-control for Pearl not to groan or laugh, but she managed to swallow the instinct.

She cleared her throat. “So, Steven, have you lived here for a long time?”

He looked up from drawing momentarily to shrug, immediately going back to his scribbles.

“I guess so. I don’t remember stuff from before that much.”

“Oh.” She stated dumbly. Why was her mind blanking now, when she really needed it?

Her eyes were drawn to the pages being ravaged by his… heavy-handed technique, and she simply watched him for a minute or so, trying to think of how to get back to the subject of the ‘blue people.’ Clearly, he didn’t seem thrilled to talk about it.

Trying to keep the edge from her tone, Pearl tried again. “So, uh, you know... I haven’t really seen anyone else around since I’ve come to town. You don’t live here all by yourself, do you?”

At that, Steven surprised her by suddenly peeling with laughter, and he halted his scrawling momentarily to glance her way.

“Pfft, no. I live over there,” he gestured over their heads, in the same direction he had tried to lead her earlier. “And I live with, like, a bajillion people!”

Steven paused and stuck his tongue out in concentration, looking down at the notebook. “Like there’s Jasper, and Viddy and Jeff, uhh… oh, and Lapis sometimes comes by to see me! We’re Beach Summer Fun Buddies, and uh, mmm...  I hope she comes to visit soon.”

Pearl watched him flip to a new page and start doodling again, this time with a bit more intention… Maybe. It was hard to tell, to be honest.

Shaking her head, Pearl refocused on the conversation at hand. “O-oh! Well I’m glad you have so many people to look after you. Why aren’t any of them out here with you?”

At first, Pearl wasn’t sure if Steven heard her, as he continued just drawing in the notepad for a long time. She didn’t want to push him too far, but the comment and the deep sense of fear he’d had for the ‘blue people’ before had her deeply concerned.

She opened her mouth, ready to repeat herself, when he responded.

“Welll… can you keep secrets, Pearl?”

A response like that did little to ease her fears, but she had to play along for his sake.

“I’m an expert secret-keeper,” she assured him.

He had his face drawn together into a severe (if not painfully cute) scowl, and he stopped drawing to face her. “Okay, well… I’m actually not supposed to be outside! Don’t tell though, I could get in really, really big trouble, okay? Promise?”

Blinking, Pearl did not expect that to be the secret, but she agreed. “Well… of course, I won’t tell anyone. Our little secret, okay?”

“Hm!” He nodded once and returned to his drawing.

A pit had begun to form in her stomach, and Pearl found herself starting to feel uncomfortable on the sunny shore. Not because it was unpleasant - quite the opposite. The beach and the ocean were both perfect, but, she could not deny a horrible knot that had begun to twist inside her. A deep, primordial sense started to make the hairs on the back of her neck tingle, like… like you felt when you were being watched.

“Do you have to keep a lot of secrets, Steven?”

“Mmm…” he twisted his mouth back and forth but ultimately just shrugged. Pearl suspected the answer was probably yes.

 She exhaled through her nose before posing another question, but it never made it off her lips.

“Pearl!  There you are! I thought you ditched me and went -- oh, who’s this?”

Amethyst was slowly coming their way, breathing a little heavy from her jog down into the sands. Pearl was clutching her chest, trying to keep her jackhammer heart from breaking her ribs before she realized Amethyst had asked her a question.

“Oh, Steven,” she said with a raspy exhale. She gestured to the now-empty spot in the sand where he’d been laying. “This is Steven.”

Even more visibly afraid than Pearl, Steven had launched himself towards her when Amethyst had yelled to them. He was standing behind her torso, clutching her arm with shaky hands and watching Amethyst fearfully. Pearl could see his nose in her periphery, just barely peeking over her shoulder.

“Hey, Steven, you’re okay. There’s no need to be afraid - this is my friend I told you about. She’s also afraid of hospitals.”

“H-Hey! There’s a lot more to me than that!” Amethyst fumed, cheeks darkening a few degrees, but her anger vanished when she noticed Steven retract even further behind Pearl.

Turning slowly, Pearl did her best to face Steven without startling him. “Can you say hi to Amethyst? If you do, then she won’t be a stranger anymore, and I can promise you she’s very nice… well, when she wants to be.”

Pearl felt her lip twitch when Amethyst rolled her eyes, and it spread to a full smile when Steven waved a hand over her shoulder.

“H-Hi…” he mumbled, barely audible. “‘M ‘tven…”

Pearl gave Amethyst a guarded look when she began to walk closer, a wordless warning for her to be careful. Thankfully, her friend’s instincts were always rather impressive, and she seemed to pick up on what was going on pretty quickly.

“Hey there, Steven. Cool shirt - I like that color.”

He glanced down, pulling it out slightly from his chest to inspect it himself. With a shy nod, he replied. “T-thank you… I do too. Um, Pearl?

She turned back to him. “Yes, Steven?”

“Umm…” he bounced from foot to foot for a second, eventually bringing his face to her ear. “Can I draw again?”

Deliberately, she turned to whisper in his own ear.

“Yes.”

They leaned apart, Pearl wearing a small, if not mischievous, smile. He all but dived back into the sand and resumed his earlier picture as if nothing had ever happened.

“Steven?” Pearl said gently, meeting eyes with Amethyst. “I’m going to just walk over here for a second and talk to Amethyst. I’ll be right back, okay?”

He nodded with as much vigor as his hand flew over the pages - which is to say, furiously.

Amethyst watched him carefully while Pearl approached, patting as much sand off her as she could.

“So…” she said awkwardly, clearing her throat.

Amethyst glanced up at her, getting right to the point. “Where’d the kid come from?”

“He said he lives here, er - over there, behind the cliff I guess.” Pearl pointed in the direct he had indicated earlier, and Amethyst raised a brow before looking back at him hunched over in the sand.

She licked her lips. “Is he… a patient?”

“I’m not sure,” Pearl admitted. “I think he might be? But he seems genuinely afraid of the place. He, er, froze up earlier when I tried to move out of the sand.”

Her friend pulled a face. “Ugh. Something about this gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Me too,” Pearl said, casting a glance in the direction of the hospital. “He’s only four - well, about to be five. And he mentioned several people by name and said they were his… friends. They might be patients. And that he didn’t like the blue people. Do the nurses here wear blue?”

“Beats me,” Amethyst answered quietly. Her arms were crossed, and she seemed to be debating something in her head. “All I saw was that Dr. Stromboni or whatever. There’s like, no one here, anywhere. I just thought everyone was inside.”

Pearl felt her lips thin. She didn’t like this, and what’s worse, she didn’t know exactly why she didn’t like it. Steven certainly seemed happy, if only a little jumpy.

After a tense silence, she caught Amethyst looking back towards the eastern edge of the beach.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Pearl commented, not needing an explanation. “Should one of us let Sapphire and Ruby know?”

“Eh,” Amethyst scratched her chin. “Nah. They’re still inspecting and junk. It’s probably nothing, you know? Don’t want to get everyone all riled up.” She tried to laugh, but they both knew the sound had a hollow ring to it.

Letting out a bit of her tension, Pearl breathed in a single deep breath and blew the air out of her nose.

“Hey, Steven!” She called in a breezy tone, walking back to where she’d been sitting beside him. “Listen, I have an idea.”

He continued scribbling, but he nodded. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking, you’re such a good artist, I want you to keep my notebook, and in --”

“Wait, really?!” Steven all but shouted, and she saw stars appear in his eyes. “But...! I could… but oh… oh, Pearl, thank you!”

He crawled to his knees and wrapped his arms around her legs, and they were just long enough to make it all the way around her calves.

Taken aback, Pearl felt a little flush by the sudden affection. “O-oh, ah, d-don’t mention it… if it’s going to be your’s, uh, could I come see where you’ll be keeping it? Maybe I’ll visit you and see your drawings, like your friend Lapis does?”

Steven, arms still wrapped around her, looked up and pressed his chin into her knees. He was, apparently, conflicted - his attention kept flickering from up towards her and back in the cliff, and then back to her, and the cliff again.

Pearl did her best wink, which was probably more of a facial twitch than anything, and whispered. “So what do you say? Want to be a tour guide?”

Tongue stuck out in thought, Steven rocked his chin back and forth for several seconds before finally letting out a little squeal.

“Mmmmmm! Yeah, okay! Tour Guide Steven – activate! Oh, wait” he halted his ‘superhero’ position and turned his head to the side. “We can keep it a secret, right?”

“Absolutely,” Pearl said, sending a little nod in Amethyst’s direction. “Can my friend come too? She’s an even better liar - er, secret keeper than I am.”

“Better than an expert?” He questioned in disbelief. “Well… if you say so. She can come.”

The wrap around the cliff was not what Pearl expected it to be. In truth, she didn’t know what she was expecting - but it certainly wasn’t this.

It took them coming almost to a perfect 90° around the bend to even really start to see the rest of the peninsula come into view, and it was…

“Crazy.” Amethyst said, barely pitched above a whisper. “This is insane.”

The beach around the eastern edge, expanding and wrapping down around the southern stretch of beach that was blocked off from the city itself was pavement, again. The land had been raised slightly, and they had to step up to walk into the “compound,” if that’s what one could really call it.

The gray slab of cement was populated by at least a dozen buildings, all three or four stories high. Pearl could tell they were made of shoddy materials, and the lack of upkeep was apparent even before they reached the buildings themselves. Crumbling bricks and what appeared to be vinyl rooftops, in varying states of disrepair, were hidden just out-of-sight of the rest of the hospital - indeed, looking back, Pearl could no longer see the part of the beach on which she’d previously found Steven.

The boy did not bother commenting on the buildings as they approached, and the step up to the compound was so tall he had to prop himself up one foot at a time.

“W-wait, I can help you,” Pearl started to reach for him, but he was already up by the time she’d realized what he was doing.

Amethyst wore a grimace as they followed him up the step.

Steven marched through the narrow space that separated the buildings - Pearl supposed it was an alley, but a very narrow one - with purpose. He clearly seemed to know his way around, and took two lefts before walking through an open doorway into one of the buildings. There were hinges, Pearl noted, but no door.

“This is my house!” Steven declared proudly, one hand on his hip and the other above his head. “My room is... Pearl?”

She hardly heard him; they hadn’t even stepped through the doorway before Pearl had to stop, bile rising in her throat. A hand automatically clamped over her mouth and nose.

The place was disgusting.

And she did not mean in the sense of it was messy, or it was dirty.

No, this place was foul.

Pearl could only see so well with the only light streaming in the door behind her, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see more than was necessary.

Stains spotted the floors and walls, all in varying degrees of permanency. The repulsive smell of sickness clung to the air, and it burned her nostrils like fire. Curdles of paint peeled from the walls, webs of spiders decorating the spaces left behind. A sound, an inhuman sound, echoed around the many open doors surrounding Steven, and Pearl felt her heart get lodged in her throat.

It was a clicking, a chattering sound. Clip clip clip, a scurry. She knew that sound.

Rats.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you… don’t you want to see my room?” Steven asked, his face turned pouty.

Amethyst turned away, disappearing around the corner, and Pearl could immediately hear the sound of gagging.

Swallowing down her own urge to vomit, Pearl covered her nose so she could speak.

“Um… I… s-s-ure we do. Sorry, it’s just er, my eyes need a moment to adjust…”

Steven rubbed his midsection, crinkling his pink shirt a bit in doing so, seemingly satisfied with that answer. “Oh. That makes sense.”

In a rushed whisper, Pearl demanded Amethyst pull herself together and come on.

Her friend copied plugging her nose, shooting her a whisper. “This is… messed up.”

As they slowly followed Steven down the hall, their only source of light slowly receding behind them, Pearl felt the knot in her stomach intensify. She’d never been afraid of the dark, but that offending tapping of tiny claws on tile was buzzing in her brain.

“Is your room… very far?” She asked, not sure she could handle his answer.

“Oh, no, just up the stairs here. I’m on floor two.” He hopped around a corner, and the building mercifully lightened again. There was a window at the next floor up, Pearl saw by craning her neck. Well, to call it a window was generous. It was maybe four-feet tall and wide, and there was no glass - just bars. With a strange mix of relief to and horror in seeing this, she started up the steps after him.

Dilapidated though the staircase was, Steven seemed to have a specific pattern he followed to avoid the worst of the holes and crumbling ceiling. Pearl couldn’t decide which was more horrifying: the fact that he was maneuver through the place like it was second nature, or the fact that he was doing it barefoot.

At some point, Pearl realized Amethyst had started to hold her hand. She couldn’t say she minded, and she squeezed her friend’s fingers in quiet support as they reached the second level.

Much like the first, this extended into a black hallway, lit only by the light to their back. Squinting, Pearl was able to make out some corners at the edge of her vision that roughly resembled the path they’d come the floor down, so she had to imagine all the floors were more-or-less laid out the same. A “+” shaped hallway, with a window at some of the ends.

“This way!” Steven waved his hand eagerly about 10-feet into the hall, standing at a doorway.

She felt Amethyst’s hold on her hand tighten, and Pearl returned the pressure readily.

They walked after Steven slowly, watching him push open a flimsy door that opened to a rectangular space that reminded Pearl of the barracks.

Thankfully, there was another “window” on the opposite wall, high above their heads that supplied a warm stream of light so they weren’t walking in blind. Though, maybe, Pearl wished they had.

The state of the room was outright horrifying. Oily stains marked two rows on the tile floor, some parts pockmarked by blood splatter and large clumps of hair. She could tell it was tile only by the sound her shoes made compared to the concrete, for the level of grime coating every surface made it all appear grayish brown. On either side of the ‘rows’ were piles of garbage, hay and rags and bandages piled up in odd arrays. Some were just distinct by the outline of human that remained in the tiles, from what Pearl hoped was only extended periods of laying, a product of secretions things she did not want to even begin to imagine. The air here was even more rancid than the open halls, heavy with human waste, sweat, and chemicals.

“This way,” Steven bobbed down the left side and stopped about halfway down the row. Pearl and Amethyst fell in step behind him, completely silent. She tried to remind herself that he seemed to find this all incredibly normal, and did her best to keep from seeming too disturbed.

He led them to an empty spot on the floor, occupied only by soiled bandages.

Pearl gasped in horror when Steven plopped right down into the mess, spread out like a child making a snow angel. She was ready to peel him away from it, but never got that far.

“And hereeeeeeee’s my bed!” He sang, and the child tucked the notebook and pen right beside a faded newspaper beside his head. “And I’ll keep all my pictures here with the others. Oh, wanna see? I’ve got lots -”

“Steven?” A voice interrupted, and Pearl jumped about a mile into the air. A head had poked in from the door. “Hey, there’s my guy! O - oh, who’s this?”

The boy bounced excitedly on his backside, waving his arms in greeting. “Hi, Mr. Smiley!”

The man entered the room with a scowl on his face, looking from Steven to Amethyst and Pearl. Once he was completely in view, Pearl’s face immediately flushed bright crimson in shame. Dark-skinned and tall, the man was completely naked, and he walked towards them as if there was nothing unusual about exposing himself to two women and a child.

Amethyst, probably prepared to tell him off, growled and stepped forward. Pearl tried to at least maintain some illusion of composure.

“Who are you?”

“Uh, I could ask you the same thing… wait a minute.” His eyes narrowed, and he looked pointedly towards the boy on the floor. “Steven, please tell me you didn’t go outside?”

Almost immediately, he scurried to his knees and threw himself into hiding behind Pearl’s leg. “Oooh, well… maybe?”

The older man seemed annoyed, but unsurprised, by this news. His hair was completely gone and his body seemed too thin for someone his age, the first of his ribs just tracing the edges of his torso.

He sighed and pushed a hand to his forehead. “Figures. Apologies for the boy. Sorry, can I help you?”

Pearl cleared her throat, looking firmly at the space above “Mr. Smiley’s” head. “Er, yes, my name is Pearl, and this is Amethyst. We were actually sent here for an inspection of the hospital, for…” she trailed off, not sure how to end that statement. Faulty wiring? Outdated fire detectors? They certainly hadn’t been inspecting it for something like this.

Amethyst, apparently, didn’t feel tact was necessary at this point. (And given the fact that they were both already entirely embarrassed by the situation, maybe tactless was the way to go).

“Are you a patient?”

“Okay, okay, hold on,” The man lowered his voice and gestured to Steven with a quick nod. “Let’s talk in the hall, if you don’t mind.”

Steven folded his arms petulantly and stood up, stepping out from behind Pearl’s shadow. “Hey! I’m trying to show them my room!”

Pearl had almost forgotten he was there, and she tried to dismiss his complaint. “Well, uh, we adults just want to talk for a second… why don’t you pick out some of your favorite pictures to show us when we’re done?”

Tugging at Pearl’s pant leg, he let out a tiny groan of disappointment. “But what if you don’t come back?”

Pearl’s lips thinned. She met eyes with Amethyst, who merely shrugged.

Tentatively, she reached out a hand and patted his hair. “Hey, now. I’m, er, not going anywhere far, okay? Just outside the door here.”

Her only answer was that same whine of disapproval.

Sighing, Pearl put a hand on her hip. “Here, let me make a deal with you.”

This seemed to pique his interest, and his small brows furrowed up towards her.

Deliberately, she removed her hat, taking the note from the lining and tucking it in her pocket. She then lowered the hat onto Steven’s head, smirking at its comically disproportional size for his small frame.

“You know how important that hat is to me. I would only let someone I really trust borrow it. So you can keep it until I’m done talking to your, uh, friend Mr. Smiley. Okay?”

Steven giggled and pushed the hat over his eyes, only for it to fall back down again.

“Heh, okay, fine. You’ll look at all my drawings when you get back?”

Pearl had to resist the urge to laugh. “As many as you want.”

A piston ready to fire, Steven spun and dived back into the stained pile of ragged gauze, and Pearl followed Amethyst and this new person out into the hall.

As soon as they were in the muted light of the hall again, Mr. Smiley let out a huge breath. Any sense of warmth he’d had before vanished like smoke, replaced by a face carved from stone and scorn. Up close, Pearl noticed how exhausted he appeared. Dark bags hung over wrinkled skin, and his body practically caved in with poor posture, shoulders bowed and vacant eyes.

His tone seemed much the same. “Thanks, I just didn’t want him to overhear this.”

Amethyst was shaking - from fury or fear, Pearl did not know.

“What the heck is happening here?”

His jaw clenched, and Pearl thought a strange look of guilt flashed on his face.

“That’s a loaded question, Miss. Let me just... start over. Name’s Harold. Harold Smiley. And no, the irony is not lost on me.”

Her friend repeated her question from before. “So you are patients, right?”

“Yeah,” he rubbed both his arms, as if chilled. “We’re all patients here.”

Pearl began to tap her foot, and Amethyst continued to ask the man questions.

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but why aren’t you guys allowed outside?”

“Er, well, we’re really never supposed to go outside, except for meals. Especially not during the day.”

“But this is a hospital,” she insisted. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly a fan of them or anything, but how does that even work?”

Harold raised a brow. “Oh, you don’t… Well, the place has a lot of names. Delaware State Hospital is only the one at the gates. On paper, this is the Delaware Colony for the Feeble Minded. But - but don’t get the wrong idea. Steven’s a good kid! And me, I’ve been here for, oh, just over twenty-five years, and --”

“You WHAT?” Amethyst almost fell backwards. “That - what?!”

The man grimaced. “That’s a... long story, but I was dropped here when I was sixteen.”

Pearl’s jaw had dropped. “Mr. Smiley, why--”

“Harold’s fine,” he interrupted.

“Harold, then,” she started a second time. “Forgive me, but… why are you here? You don’t seem… feeble minded.”

A shameful look crossed his face, and raising the his arm, Pearl noticed a silver bracelet there for the first time. #425. AGE: 41. CHRONIC: HOMOSEXUAL.

Pearl blinked and leaned away. She felt her face turn hot, and that similar sensation of someone watching her crept up her spine once again.

Rather abruptly, she asked, “Was Steven wearing one of these?”

Harold’s answer was a shrug, and the man took back his arm. “Eh, probably not. He says it makes him itchy, and his arms are small enough that it slips right off. I can’t believe he went outside without it, though... “ he sighed.

Barely a whisper, Amethyst murmured, “Why haven’t you just left?”

“Not like I haven’t thought about it. Came close a few times…” Harold paused, frowning and looking over his shoulder. “There’s not really anywhere for me to go. I have no family who would take someone with a disease, and I can’t work.” He waved the bracelet around again. “But, honestly? That’s just my excuse. I can’t leave the kids here. Me, Andy, Ron... we’ve been around for awhile. We try to look after them. Bis’ does her best with the girls, but that’s a tougher fight.”

“There’s others?” Her friend sounded like she was on the verge of tears, which alarmed Pearl more than she cared to admit. “Other kids, not just Steven?”

“A few,” Harold replied quietly. “A lot of them… don’t last for very long. The treatments are too intense. Jeff and Steven are the only real little ones who sur - who live in this ward. Any of the others are older -- Buck, Kevin, Sour Cream, uh, Lars. Ron's kid. They’re all teenagers by now. Some girls in the other wards, but that’s mostly it.”

Curiosity - and maybe a tiny bit of hope - got her betters, and Pearl asked, “Someone’s child is in here? You don’t… happen to know anything about Steven’s family, do you?”

He shook his head, but wore a wistful smile. “No, I’m sorry, I really don’t know anything about about his family, to be honest. He’s been here for two years, and he’s only four --”

“About to be five,” Pearl and Amethyst corrected in unison, sharing a look.

Harold blinked, and continued. “Five… so it’s not like he’s old enough to really remember.”

“Oh,” Pearl said, surprised by the sting of disappointment.

In truth, she felt like she would probably faint if the floors weren’t so vile. This was unbelievable. Maybe Harold was actually insane? There’s no way he could be institutionalized for almost twenty years for -- for being gay? She was gay! But that tag was clearly engraved, and there was a small part  of her that already knew. The pangs in her stomach, the tugs on her heartstrings. The anxious sensation when Steven entered the house, and the sense of dread since he first ran away from her on the beach. This place was twisted. This place was wrong, and even worse, this place was real.

Twenty-five years. Harold Smiley had been here for twenty-five years. That’s more than half of her own life. What would it be like, to be stuck in a cage for so long? To have her pride, her identity torn away from her? Any memories she had of family, any hopes for freedom, shattered? These people were cast aside here, forgotten, left behind by humanity. Did she even want to reconcile what was being done here as something another human being was capable of? Could there really be other adults out there, willingly locking up adults and children alike, forcing them to live in their own filth and without any hope of escape? Treating them like animals? Casting a fear of god into a four-year old just by the sight of the building that controlled the whole operation?

After a tense silence, a voice broke Pearl from her reprieve.

“Pearrrrrrrrrrl,” it cried. “Are you almost done?”

“Uh,” she coughed. “Y-Yes, almost, Steven. Just another minute, please.”

Just as she said the words, he was already walking through the doorway, wearing an expression that was likely an attempt at something fierce, like a lion. With his pink shirt and Pearl’s pink hat to match, he more closely resembled an angry kitten.

“Pleeeeease, c’mon,” he leaned his face on the wall, and she heard Amethyst inhale sharply beside her when he pulled back. Part of his cheek turned black from the contact.

“Steven,” her friend said abruptly. “Do you have one of these shiny wrist things? Like Mr. Smiley does?”

The boy blinked a few times, craning his neck to get a better look at what she was pointing at. Then he groaned again.

“I have one,” he grumbled. “It makes my arms feel weird, though.”

Pearl wasn’t sure why, but knowing that he had one, she needed to see it.

“Can you show me? Please?”

A dubious look crossed his face, but Steven shrugged and walked back into the room.

Refocusing her attention back to Harold, she was surprised to see a look of concentration deepening his brow.

Once Steven was certainly back to his “bed,” the man began to speak in a rapid-fire whisper. “Listen, please. We’ve never had this chance before… I don’t think we’ll get it again. Please. I understand you’ve got a lot on your hands right now - but, if you can do anything to help get Steven and Jeff out of here, and maybe the other kids, just give them a chance on the outside, I --”

Pearl heard him speaking, but something else began to fill her mind. It was an image, a toddler of two, and then an an adolescent of seven, and a teenager, and an adult. Steven, so small, with a smile like a star through black night, growing and living here for the rest of his life. She saw the life leave his eyes. She saw him turning into Harold, or these other adults. She watched as Steven tried to protect the kids that were once just like him, that were locked away because they had something wrong with them.

And she saw herself, in the present. On a train, headed back to Dover. Amethyst laughing next to her, and Sapphire and Ruby dozing in the aisle across from them. Peridot might work on one of her designs, or join in the conversation. The train entered the station, and she got off, and went back to work the next day.

No.

Pearl’s mouth had turned dry, but she tried to find her voice. She interrupted whatever Harold had been saying.

“What will you do after?”

A confused look crossed his face. “P-Pardon?”

Taking a steadying inhale (through her mouth, not her nose), she spoke again. “What will you do after this place is closed down?”

“I-” he began with that same unsure scowl, but the expression was replaced by a dawning realization. His eyes widened, and Pearl could actually see a tiny flash of life return to them. A smile she hadn’t expected appeared on his lips, and he breathed a two short words in response.

“You mean...?”

She held his gaze. “I will have this place closed down. Not just for Steven or Jeff. You, and everyone else here, are going to be free.”

Tears welled in his eyes and spilled over almost immediately, lining his cheeks with a river of disbelief.

“Found it,” Steven reappeared, almost hitting the wall when Pearl’s hat fell over his eyes. “Stupid thing.”

He froze, spotting the grown man opening sobbing in the hallway, face in his hands.

Amethyst gingerly grabbed the bracelet from him, squinting at the words, and she held it up for Pearl to see.

Her friend’s hand had begun to shake - in anger, it seemed - and it made it difficult for Pearl to read the words inscribed in the face of the silver.

#2191. AGE: 4 UNKNOWN.

Chapter Text

Pearl could not stress this enough: she hated everything about this.

Crouching, but careful not to touch the floor with anything but her shoes, she nodded patiently along as Steven showed her the “art gallery.” In reality, they were drawings, smeared by filth, that had been tucked in the margins of a newspaper he kept beside his… cot. Pearl refused to call the tatters of medical tape and gauze a bed.“I made a few weeks ago for Lars’ birthday,” Steven informed her. “But I thought he might not like it, so I started over.”

“I tried to draw him in a big rocket, ‘cause he said he wanted to go to space someday, but his head was too big. And plus, I put a lot more stars in the one I gave him!”

He turned towards her with the proudest grin on his face, and Pearl smiled politely and nodded, keeping her lips sealed.

Again, let the record show: Pearl really, really hated this.

She hated the way Steven acted like this was all so normal. She hated thinking that he had never known anything else—so this was no act. To him, this was normal. She hated that Steven's kind spirit was trapped within these wretched walls. She hated the fact that, even after being in here for perhaps a half-hour, she could not shake the stomach-churning sense of sickness in the air, or that the sound of skittering feet over tiles as the occasional rat would creep by. It reverberated in her ears like nails on a chalkboard. And there was another sound - the sound of Mr. Smiley crying openly in the hallway, and Amethyst trying to console him; she hated that too. She hated that the hospital had done this to them.

Pearl was a Tommy¹. She knew it, and her past with Rose had been some of the happiest memories in her entire life. Men were rough; all sharp-edges and cold glares—that was okay, just, not for her. To Pearl, there was nothing more beautiful than the soft curves of a woman’s body, all the warmth and affection she could dream of wrapped up in a single form. It was simple and inviting. Love had lifted her up, given her a purpose, a career, and memories she would cherish forever.

Harold Smiley’s own affliction had given him a life of servility, guilt, and self-loathing. If she and Rose hadn’t been more careful, either, or both of them, could have ended up just like this.

How could anyone live like this?

“Oh and look, look at this one! I like this one ‘cause Lapis helped me draw it—see, this is us,” he pointed to a two blobs, one smaller and one larger, that were connected around the middle. She guessed they were holding hands.

Surprised with herself, Pearl felt wetness spring to her eyes, and she had to fight to keep the tears from betraying her strong demonstration of confidence before. Steven seemed so normal, if not too happy for his own good. Why was he here? The words on his wrist band taunted her: unknown. Was there even a reason? If you asked her an hour ago, she would have assured that only people with real conditions end up institutionalized; now, she felt like she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Almost every child loves to draw, and Steven was no different, and that was reflected by his scratchy little creations. Now his mad-scribbling earlier made sense - many of the drawings were faint, scratched rather than inked onto the pages. Beside the spot where Steven laid his head were all manners of pens, dried and likely already well-beyond their use by the time they made it to him.

His drawings were the happiest thing in this place, and even those had been tarnished by the hospital’s willful negligence.

“Steven?” Pearl said, voice gravely. She cleared her throat when dark eyes looked up at her, wide and unassuming. He was sprawled out on his stomach, like he’d been on the beach when he started to draw, supporting his upper body weight with his elbows.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He propped himself up a little more, setting the newspaper down. “Sure!”

“You seem… happy.” Pearl started slowly, and Steven giggled as if to emphasize the point.

“Uh-huh.”

Her lip twitched, but she couldn’t smile. “I wanted to know… I suppose, if you were to ever leave the ward here… would you want that?”

Steven’s brow furrowed, and he turned his attention to the paper in front of him again.

“Leave? But we aren’t allowed to leave.” He thought for another moment. “I mean, sometimes I sneak outside and play in the ocean, but I get in trouble if I get caught.”

In her most unaffected voice, Pearl replied, “Well, that’s true. But just pretending. Would you want that, if you could?”

His scowl deepened, and his sudden honesty both surprised and deeply troubled her.

“I don’t know. It’s sorta scary to think about.”

Pearl promised herself at that moment to show some restraint when she visited the doctors; she was about one heartbreaking comment away from strangling each and every one of them.

The clipped note of shoes on tile told her Amethyst was approaching from behind her, and Pearl glanced over her shoulder to see a world-weary expression settle on her friend’s face.

“It’s alright to be scared sometimes, ya know,” Amethyst said, apparently having overheard their conversation. “It gives us the opportunity to try to overcome it, and that’s pretty cool.”

Pearl raised a brow. “Has this venture turned you philosophical?”

“No, that’s Sapphire’s job,” she said with her usual snark.

“Sapphire’s not a—you know what?” Pearl pushed herself up using her thighs as leverage. “Nevermind. Did Harold…?”

Amethyst looked at the ceiling, appearing thoughtful. “He said he would come with, but I actually think his idea is better. He said to let him go ahead and get people out of most of the rooms, just in case.” She leaned forward slightly, dropping her voice. “Doesn’t want to get people’s hopes up just yet, I imagine.”

A grimace found its way to Pearl’s face. “No, I can’t say I blame him… Okay. Steven... I have a big favor to ask of you.”

He turned his head slightly, looking between her and Amethyst. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” she gave a weak chuckle. “You were such a wonderful tour guide, showing us through the ward here and your room. And so many pictures!” She gestured at the papers, and his cheeks pinked. “What I would really love is a full tour, though. What do you say? Can you show us around the rest of the building?”

He practically leapt up. “Really?! You wanna see more?”

Amethyst laughed openly, and it didn’t sound as forced as Pearl’s own congeniality.

“Uh, duh! You live here, so the rest of this place must be hep.²”

Pearl could have sworn he was about ready to start running down the halls in his haste to show them around, but once he was fully upright, Pearl and Amethyst gasped.

Steven’s legs gave out beneath him, and he went sprawling into another pile of… another patient’s cot.

“Ugghh,” he whined immediately, pushing up with his arms. “Not now.”

Pearl was already on the ground beside him, germs be damned. “Steven, Steven are you okay?! What happened?”

He frowned down his torso, trying and failing to pick himself up. Pearl realized his cheeks were fiery red.

“What’s going on?” Amethyst demanded, her own panic clear in her tone. “Should I get someone?”

“N-no,” Steven sighed, flopping back onto the floor. “‘M fine…”

Pearl narrowed her eyes, but Amethyst beat her to it. “You’re sprawled on the floor. You sure about that?”

Steven turned his head away from them, and feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her, Pearl realized he was trying not to cry.

“‘M fine! Just… won’t move… right now.” Sniffling, he said in a small voice, “Just happens somedays. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Pearl repeated, deadpanned. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

“But the tour!” He cried, turning back to face her with red eyes to match his complexion. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t m-mean to…”

“Shh, hey now, that’s okay.” Pearl placed a hand on his forearm, and she was relieved to see his shoulders relax slightly. “It’s… not your fault. We’ll just get, uh, maybe Mr.—” she was looking to Amethyst, eyes hopefully portraying help me I have no idea what I’m doing!

She seemed to get the message. Well, a message, just not quite the right one.

“Pearl will carry you! You can just point us where to go!” She blurted , and in a fluid movement, the zone leader had scooped him off the ground and shoved him into Pearl’s arms. Both she and Steven seemed so surprised by the change that neither of them said anything for several moments, but Pearl just shrugged and tried to smile to assure him that it was fine.

He wiped his nose on his stained, spotted pink t-shirt. “I’m s-sorry…”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” she said, ironically shooting a glare in her friends’ direction. “If you’re still up for showing us around, I’d love to see the rest of your home.”

“O-okay. Yeah. The hallway, and then go that way,” he pointed to the right, a bit of the color in his cheeks faded to pale skin. Pearl watched as he cracked a small smile.

“Then let’s go,” she tried to sound chipper, rather than horrified, to be embarking on this journey. A silly part of her brain tried to find a silver-lining, or bothered to be hopeful—maybe just the living quarters were bad? Maybe the other rooms were better? Maybe Steven and Harold happened to share a particularly terrible room, and the other ones were world-better?

Oh, was she going to be disappointed.

Halfway through the “tour,” which had turned into more of a waking nightmare in Pearl’s mind, she decided to stop look for silver-linings. She could really only tolerate so much.

One of the first rooms Steven led them to was another sleeping quarters for the men’s ward, and this one appeared to be in much the same condition. There was one person here, a teenager, but he was in the corner speaking only to himself.

“Hi, Sour Cream,” Steven waved from Pearl’s arms, but the sickly-thin boy merely glanced up with frantic, unseeing eyes, before looking away again. Nothing he was saying sounded intelligible, though Amethyst mentioned quietly it sounded like he was asking for his mother.

They left that room rather quickly; Pearl felt like she was somehow invading on the patients space just by standing there while he barely held himself together. Steven commented on his behavior as they were pointed to the next room.

“Mus’ be one of his bad days,” he said sadly. “Some days are better.”

Amethyst sped up their pace after that.

Steven showed them the children’s play room, where a few broken or ripped things were strewn about a small room. In the corner, a child’s toy-chest had been turned into a wooden cage, uneven bars lining the sides. Their guide remarked on how he “hated that box,” and explained that the metal shackles inside also made his arms itch.

Pearl had to keep Amethyst from destroying it outright when Steven said that, though she was half-tempted to do so herself.

The first two floors seemed to be the more “recreational” of the wards, designed to rather house or entertain the patients. When they reached the third floor - the fourth floor was never apparently built, though it appeared to have been planned, judging by a staircase that led to nothing - Steven was much less enthusiastic about showing them around.

“Um, these are… where the tear-apay a stuff is…” His eyes lowered, and Pearl felt him grip her shirt with tiny fists. “Pearl…?”

She craned her neck to look down at him.

“I don’ wanna play anymore,” he said with a small voice. “Can we go back… oh, maybe, draw again?”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, that was consequently starting to choke her, Pearl forced another smile.

“Let’s just go for a little longer, okay? You’re doing so great - and Amethyst and I will be here with you the whole time.”

Steven’s hands tightened even more on her shirt, but he nodded and said, “O-okay, then, um, go through the doors over there. They’re mostly the same so we can skip a few…”

Pearl did as he bid, entering the first door on the right side of the hallway. There were four or five more similar doors that extended into the blackness along the wall, but seeing as the only light followed after them from the floor below, she was eager to opt for the one closest to the light source.

Upon entering, Pearl’s brow furrowed; she didn’t quite know what she was looking at. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she at least figured it would be… bigger.

There was a small window on the right wall, allowing enough light for her to make sense of the space. Amethyst fumbled around for a moment and found a light, but flicking the switch did nothing.

“We don’t have power on inspection days,” Steven commented matter-of-factly, but his voice had an edge to it that Pearl did not care for.

The room was surprisingly cramped, probably no more than 250 square feet, with a large work table with an array of gadgets sprawled across the surface occupying about half the space alone. Beside the table was the first real-and-proper bed Pearl had seen in the entire building, though the sheets - which were probably once crisp white - had yellowed, with large splotches of orange in odd places. It was narrow-wooden frame, probably just tall enough for Amethyst; Pearl’s own legs would have dangled laughably over the end.

The engineer in her guided her steps towards the table, sweeping an investigative eye over all the bizarre tools.

In an attempt to get Steven to stop shaking, she sort of ‘fluffed him’ in her arms and prodded gently, “So, what is this room used for, Steven?”

He played with the collar of his shirt, and his voice was almost inaudible.

“Umm, the doctors usually stand over here,” Steven said, sort of waving around where he and Pearl now stood. “And I get in the bed, and the b-blue people put this warm goo on my head and give me a thingy to bite down on. It tastes like cardboard, I hate it.”

Pearl could tell Steven was glaring over her shoulder now, and she half-expected someone to come bursting in the room to do just as he described. Subconsciously, she held him a little tighter.

“I-I’m not sure what it is but there’s this really loud buzzing, like whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, that starts up and it gets louder, and, umm, and when it’s, um, really really loud, it ummm, the doctor… h-he brings over these sticks and…”

Steven began breathing more heavily, and a horrible knot twisted in Pearl’s stomach; maybe she and Amethyst were pushing him too hard. Maybe this was a bad idea.

She never had the opportunity to stop him before the next part spilled out, a panicked jumble of words and dry heaving.

“A-a-and the doctors always… they always say ‘t-this will hurt just a little bit’ and they t-tell me it’s okay and that it w-wi-will be quick but it feels like I have to wait forever and I just get really… s-sick. Everything is just… dark and I can’t remember stuff. But it gives me a really bad headache a-and the blue peo-people are always there after and it scares me a lot ‘cause I don’t even k-know where I am after it’s over and it’s -- it’s --”

“O-okay, bud, that’s okay, you don’t have to explain anymore,” Amethyst said hurriedly, coming up to them and waving her hands. Steven had begun to suck in air so quickly, it sounded like he was beginning to choke; Pearl hadn’t the first clue how to help besides just continue to hold him, trying to make her grip both soft and firm at the same time.

“I-I’m sorry,” he cried in earnest, burying his head into Pearl’s shoulder. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry!”

“Shhh, hey, hey now, that’s okay,” Pearl said, and Amethyst jerked her thumb towards the door so she all but sprinted back into the hallway. “It’s better now, see? We’re not in there anymore. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Amethyst was only a step behind them, and she shut the door to the therapy room with a sharp snap.

“Well… that could’ve gone better,” she stated plainly, reclaiming her spot beside Pearl and trying to judge Steven’s condition. “But you did a great job, Ste-man. Can I call you that?”

The nickname must’ve caught his attention, because the crying halted momentarily and he blinked a few times slowly. A river of snot was clinging from his face (and, much to Pearl’s chagrin, to her nice button-down shirt), but he seemed to calm down slightly.

“S-Ste-man?” He repeated.

“Yeah,” Amethyst put her hands behind her head, acting the perfect amount of casual that Pearl could not even try to emulate. “You know, since you’re the man of this place, showin’ us around and junk. Figured the name suited you.”

Steven sniffled and wiped a hand on his face, only to transfer the snot to his oversized shirt. “I-I guess… yeah, you can call me that.”

Pearl thought she detected just the hint of a smile in his tone, but it was hard to tell from the way he was angled in her arms.

“So what’s Ste-man think about finishing our tour? There’s probably only a couple more rooms, right?”

“Mmm…” he considered the offer quietly. A slight limpness fell into the cradle of her shoulder, and she realized Steven was started to relax. It was sort of nice, holding him - she was glad she wasn’t being completely useless when it came to his mood.

“Okay. There’s other stuff but inside my house there’s just really the bath rooms.”

“Er,” Amethyst scratched her chin. “I mean, I think we can skip the bathroom, I don’t have to go - are there other places on this --”

“No,” Steven interrupted. “Bath room. Not bathroom. This is way bigger, and um, ” He pointed around the left wall, where Pearl could just see a curve in the hallway. “It’s got like special tubs and stuff.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” she said, unconcerned with the details. If it was a room they could visit to sooner get out of this place, Pearl had no issue speeding things up.

Without waiting for a response, she began to follow the path to the left, swallowing her fears and trying desperately to block out the scurrying sound of unwelcome life that rattled along the walls.

After a moment’s fumbling, as this part of the ward was pitched entirely in darkness, Amethyst managed to find the door to the so-called “bath room.” Naturally, a room for bathing was held within, but it was much darker than Pearl had expected - and that was saying something, given that the only light she’d encountered so far in the building had filtered between iron bars that lined the sparse windows.

There were no windows here.

She dropped her voice to a hush out of instinct, unsure what to make of the vast black room - a few crescents of shapes and silhouettes managed their way to her vision, but even so, she could only just make out the outline of Amethyst beside her.

“Steven, what is this place?”

“I told you,” he whispered back. “The bath room. I think we might be the only ones here.”

“Oh!” Amethyst chirped suddenly, and Pearl was, for the first time, glad the lights were out; she flinched so violently she nearly dropped Steven.

“I almost forgot - hah! Ding!”

A brilliant stream of yellow light poured into the darkness, a droplet of sunshine breaking through the bleakness. Amethyst’s face illuminated at odd angles, and Pearl followed the trail with her eyes to see a handheld flashlight, tucked beneath her friend’s chin.

“Brought my flashlight from the office. Boom. Talk about being on the stick³, am I right?”

“Oh,” Pearl breathed, needing a few moments for her eyes to adjust. Steven’s own head was only a few inches away, and she watched him blink through the sudden light.

He glowered towards one half of the room, separated by a thin sheet that hung from the ceiling. From the years of use, it was almost peeling off the rings that secured it, but it managed to hold.

“Over there’s the t-tubs, and these are for the… uh, blankets. I guess they call ‘em packs but I always heard Mr. Smiley call ‘em blankets so that’s what I call it.” Steven pointed towards a set of four beds, in two rows of two.

Pearl tried to catch Amethyst’s eye, but she was looking around with the flashlight, inspecting documents and tools strewn around two tables on the opposite wall.

Cracking a weak smile, Pearl strolled casually towards the beds. “So what are the blankets like?”

His head lowered, apparently finding her shoes very interesting at the moment.

“They’re sticky. I don’t like them. First they wrap you up really really tight and it’s f-freezing -” he paused, shivering, and Pearl wondered what memory had come back to haunt him. “A-and they’re wet so you feel like sucked down into the bed, you know? And, and then you get really hot after a long time, like stepping on the sand when it’s really sunny, but then it just gets hotter and I hate that part the most. Cause I can’t tell… if I’m sweaty and that’s why I’m sticky or if it’s just the stupid blankets… And they don’t even let you get up to go pee! I-I peed the packs once,” Steven admitted with a haunting tone, and Pearl thought she could see his cheeks pink in the low-lighting.

“They got r-real mad at me, so they made me sit there for a really, really long time. Sometimes, sometimes it’s not so bad, but I get put in the b-blankets and tubs more than Jeff, and it’s not fair.”

Pearl was quiet for several seconds, unsure how to respond to this information. Steven had started shaking again, but he was managing not to cry and for that she was deeply thankful. The irony was sitting there, like a six bullets waiting to be loaded into the chamber of a revolver, asking her to acknowledge it, to test it’s truth. A child was her only beacon of strength right now, and if he started to fall apart, she was sure she wouldn’t be far behind. If Amethyst hadn’t pulled him out of his crying earlier, Pearl wasn’t sure what would have happened.

Just in time with the thought crossing her mind, Amethyst cleared her throat gently behind them. “Well… thanks for the info, Ste-man. Good thing there’s no, uh, stuff like that going on right now. Right? There’s a-a good reason I hate hospitals, haha… hah.”

Pearl turned and watched the color drain her friend’s face; whatever expression she had been wearing must’ve been concerning.

A voice nearby croaked, and Pearl was startled to realize it was her own. “So… Why don’t you tell us about the tubs? Then we can get out of here, doesn’t that sound nice, Steven?”

Nodding, Steven said, “Umm, okay… they’re behind that thing.” He pointed towards the sheet that had caught Pearl’s eye earlier, so she and Amethyst began to slowly approach. The curtain was tattered and visibly deteriorating in some spots, and Amethyst was careful when she drew it back.

A mirror to the other side of the room, there were two rows of two clawfoot bathtubs. Each of these had a small chair beside the far ends, presumably where patients would lie their heads. The outside of the tubs were, much like everything else in this building, worn and in need of a deep clean (though honestly, Pearl considered burning the place down to be a better option than actually subjecting some poor cleaning crew to scrubbing the impressive layer of grime that covered every surface). Inside, however, they were in fairly okay condition, and given that they were vessels designed to hold water, she had to assume that kept them at least moderately clean.

“Here’s where we get burned,” Steven said simply.

“The water is always super hot, like really hot. And they make me wear that weird thingy,” he pointed towards a previously unnoticed pseudo-turnequit-turned-jacket that had been tossed aside in a heap. “And they tell me to try not to be loud cause it’ll wake up Mr. Smiley or Ron or whoever but I usually c-can’t help it. I try but I can’t not cause it hurts so b-bad.”

“You can’t not… stay quiet?” Amethyst repeated with a scowl, sounding confused. “Just, like, you tell them that it’s too hot…?”

Timidly, Steven shook his head and receded back slightly into Pearl’s grip. “N-no, I… I mean like… I s-scream e-even though I know they tell me not to… cause I always misbehave. That’s what the b-blue people say, and then Mr. Smiley and Uncle Andy tell me it won’t be as bad if I just listen to them but I can’t and I h-hate it! And -  and Lapis got in trouble once for getting me out and they were so mean to her for that and it’s just not fair!”

Just barely, Steven managed to choke down the sob by sucking in a few frantic breaths, but the message was clear. Within these walls, there was no treatment and no therapy.

Within these walls, there was torture.

A crushing sense of undeniability began to flood the room, and Pearl felt like she’d been the one swaddled in wet rags. Something about the familiar turned sinister, something about a child’s blanket being turned into a restraint, something about Steven’s tiny, shaking hands… There was something about this room that was like water rushing in her lungs, or a buzzing that filled her brain, blotting out reason and hope.

Unexpectedly, almost grumpily, Steven tagged on, “They started putting me in the sleep rooms more since I can’t stay quiet... and those aren’t as bad, but I never know what we’re gonna do each day.”

Amethyst’s voice had a strained quality to it. “A sleep room? Like your bedroom?”

“Nuh-uh,” he said with a little squirm, and Pearl realized he was trying to face her. “Pearl, can we um, go back outside now? W-we are done with the tour in here, right?”

She stared blankly for several seconds, eventually nudged back into awareness by Amethyst.

“R-Right! And you did a great job, such a great job. I’m very proud of you.”

As soon as she said the words, Pearl flushed with embarrassment; that was such an inappropriate remark, but she was simply grabbing at whatever words she could muster that didn’t sound like curses or threats of violence to the owners of this establishment.

Steven took the compliment in stride though, and he straightened slightly. “R-Really? It was good?”

“Uh, yeah.” Her friend clicked her tongue. “It was awesome. Way to go, Ste-man!”

They had re-entered the hallway at this point, and slowly, Pearl trailed behind Amethyst as she led them back towards the lit part of the third floor. She felt like she’d aged about ten-years since they ascended the staircase, and with a grim reminder of the afternoon sun streaming up from the floor below, Pearl remembered that this day was only just getting started.

Glancing to her left, however, Pearl realized Steven was sporting a huge smile once again. Apparently, her and Amethyst’s praise had more of an effect that she realized, and it took a bit of the edge off to see his eyes twinkle.

“Steven, where are the sleeping rooms you mentioned? They aren’t on this floor, are they?”

He frowned, before trying to snap his fingers (his coordination wasn’t quite there yet, so his fingers just clumsily slipped past each other).

“Oh. Well… um, maybe we can’t go there… It’s in the big building, the one around the cliff, you know? I’m not supposed to go outside,” he reminded them nervously.

Pearl pursed her lips, sharing a look with Amethyst.

“Oh no, I think now is the perfect time to go to that building, Steven. I want to have a word with some of the doctors there.” Despite herself, Pearl felt herself grin at the stunned look on his face.

“Don’t worry, they won’t hurt - just like here, Amethyst and I will stay by your side every second, okay? ...And, we have some other friends there who I think would be very interested to hear what you’ve told us. They’d be even happier to have a tour, I think.”

Stars popped into his eyes, and excitement seemed to chase away his fears for the moment.

“Really?! More friends?” He sang, and Amethyst already began to descend the steps.

“Oh yes,” Pearl nodded astutely. “We have three friends there - well, two friends and an acquaintance, I suppose, but I think you’ll like them.”

“Ah-quan-tance?” He tried to say, but ending only furrowing his brow in frustration.

“Ah,” Pearl said.

Steven repeated her. “Ah.”

“Quian.”

“Cuquain?” It sounded like he was trying to say crane, but with a hopelessly cute lisp. Pearl sighed.

“Qua-ean,” she said with emphasis.

“Qua-en.”

“Good. Ah - quain - tance.”

“Ah - cuqain - tence.”

“Mmm… very close. Well done, Steven.”

At that, he giggled, the sound chasing away any reminders of scalding bath water or freezing towels or rats or tears.

They’d returned to the first floor, and it seemed so much less offensive the second time around. Amethyst shot her a look over her shoulder - a brow-raised, knowing-smirk kind of look - and Pearl didn’t know what to make of it. She jotted down a mental note to ask her when they eventually parted ways with Steven.

Hmm. She switched the arms holding him, propping him on her right hip this time. Pearl figured it would be a while longer until they had to say goodbye.

Chapter Text

Sunlight. Warm, naturally soft rays of the heavens touched her skin, and Pearl had never missed it so. Just being inside the men’s ward had drained her enough for a month, and it was only two in the afternoon. Stars, this day seemed like it might never end.

Holding Steven wasn’t necessarily a difficult task, though it’d been almost thirty minutes of nonstop carrying; her back had begun to ache as they crossed the sands. She tried to shove the growing discomfort aside, reminding herself that it’s not like Steven had asked to be carried.

Actually, come to think of it…

“Steven, can I ask you something?” Pearl quipped, keeping her voice light in an attempt to sound casual.

He turned and nestled his head against her shoulder, sounding almost sleepy beneath the midday sun. “Mmm?”

“Do you, uh, well - I just want you to know I do not mind carrying you. It’s not any trouble at all. If you do want down, though, just let me know? I’m not sure about your… uh, ability to stand. So just tell me if you want down.”

“Oh, umm,” he shifted a bit. “Sometimes lasts all day, sometimes not…”

“Right,” Pearl agreed, having no idea what he meant. She couldn’t think of anything that would make a child’s motor functionality turn off sporadically, but then, the grounds of this hospital were filled with unpleasant surprises. It would come as no surprise that there was some twisted history there, too.

She felt like the sand had heated to glass beneath her, each shard sharply wedging against her heels and toes - walking on eggshells did not do her discomfort justice.  “And… do you know why that is? Why sometimes you can’t… uh stand?”

Steven was quiet for a solid minute before he eventually answered. “I dunno… usually after we do the tear-apy with t-the goo rods, itsalot harder to stand. Sometimes its my arms, but usually my legs. A lot of the time it happens when I wake up, so…”

An uninterested-sounding Amethyst, walking with arms behind her head, weighed in.

“Well that ain’t so bad, right? Works most of the time.”

He lifted his head, smiling down at her, but had nothing to add.

She and Amethyst did their best to keep the conversation light after that as they walked the length of the shore, not wanting to press him too far, and Steven made the task easy. Though tired, he seemed eager to talk about anything and everything they saw outside. Nature seemed to utterly captivate him. A boat horn in the distance; the decommissioned lighthouse at the top of the hill; his favorite place to collect shells; that one time he and Jasper tried to catch crabs - their backdrop provided easy fodder for his brimming imagination, and all Pearl had to do was nod and listen. Above, the beating sun was unforgiving but refreshingly sterile; it felt like the squalor of that musty, crumbling structure was being washed away, driven out to sea by the ocean breeze. She now understood why Steven couldn’t resist sneaking out, to soak up this world, to experience this planet and all it had to offer.

It wasn’t until they passed through the front gates again that Steven quieted noticeably, and Pearl felt herself grow more anxious with each step. A hundred doubts bubbled beneath the surface, and Pearl felt herself having trouble swallowing them down. If she opened her mouth to speak, she was certain they would all spill over. It was impossible to know what would come of this confrontation, but Pearl knew it had to happen, and it had to happen now.

Biting her lip, she glanced at Steven out of the corner of her eye and flinched back in surprise - he was watching her. Large, dark eyes blinked, free from any trace of judgement and skepticism, and he was totally unconcerned to have been caught staring. They reflected the light brightly, and Pearl’s reactionary grimace quickly softened. There were so much trust, so much compassion and understanding and untapped, uncorrupted life in those eyes - it was hard to believe he’d spent two years of his life here already.

Pearl could not fail. She would not fail. Steven wouldn’t turn five inside that ward, fear of tubs and blankets and whatever that room with the the rods and the table had been - he would breathe fresh air and bask in the sunshine like they were right then and there. He would draw and play and be unafraid when he turned five years old; Pearl would accept nothing less.

“A-alright, here we go,” Amethyst coughed, trying not to sound terrified as they hovered in front of the stoop. She was clearly distressed, and Pearl could tell her friend was barely keeping herself together. Adding an existing fear of hospitals atop the horrors they’d just unveiled… it was rather noble to consider Amethyst’s mask of bravery.

Pearl held her breath and trudged up the steps, not breaking her stride as she approached the doors. She entered the building, eyes forward, ears alert.

It was... entirely underwhelming.

There was no one to greet them, but the floors were clean - not too clean, but the right amount. It looked “lived in,” with a few scuffs, but no stains, and certainly no rat droppings. Bright, buzzing electrical lighting sang overhead, a chorus of modernity that seemed luxurious by the earlier standards set by the men’s ward. The walls were painted the most unoffending blue color Pearl could imagine, with nice, plush chairs lining the main corridor for patients and staff to sit and rest their feet. She wondered if the padding was made from Mr. Smiley’s pride or Sour Cream’s peace of mind; she wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

A series of rooms lined the halls, most with closed doors but nice little windows on the door to reveal what happened inside.

She wanted to be angry, witnessing how nice the facade turned out to be - to rage at how effectively the hospital’s ruse fooled inspectors like Sapphire and Ruby. A bitter part of her wanted to feel that satisfying sense anger… but a greater, more horrible part of her was just relieved. She was relieved to not be stepping into another house of horrors, and it made her feel sick. This place was exactly what-you-expected and comfortable without even trying; it was no wonder the hospital passed its annual inspection for so long. It appeared perfect, and even Pearl’s emotions were tricked by the convincing illusion.

How much she wished all she had seen earlier had been a dream, but the quivering boy hugging her shirt was the pink elephant in the room that reminded her all too clearly of the reality of this place.

At the end of the hall, a light echo of voices carried, so Pearl shot a glance towards Amethyst.

“Let’s go.”

It only took a few moments of passing through the maze to find the source of the sound, and it made her stomach flip.

Dr. Straumberg was laughing.

“Oh don’t even get me started on that Roswell business,” he said between chuckles. “All a bunch of conspiracy nuts, I say.”

Ruby and Sapphire could be heard a bit more quietly, laughing along. Pearl grit her teeth, and she walked a bit faster.

“T-that’s t-them.” Steven breathed, almost more to himself than anything. “The blue people…”

Pearl could tell his small chest began rising and falling more frantically. His clammy fists gripped her shirt with such force Pearl was almost surprised he didn’t rip the fabric.

Two male attendants stood at the door, looking uncannily like security personnel rather than orderlies. Physically speaking, the men were broad-shoulders and reminded Pearl of every other thick-skulled BTO she met at basic training. Their simple blue button-down shirts were tucked into standard navy slacks, but the colors practically screamed the word danger at her.

“Hello,” one of them said with a tight smile. “You must be partners from the  --”

Comically in unison, both men noticed Steven quivering in Pearl’s arms, and their eyes narrowed.

The same speaker continued after a beat as if nothing had happened. “... from the DI for the inspection. The others are in the observation room with Dr. Straumberg, just through here.”

Placing a hand on the door handle, he adopted a pose that suggested he was about to open it for them, but Pearl noticed him catch the other man’s eye. This one stepped between the door and their group with a beaming smile.

“Oh, ma’am! Did this patient wander away from their room? Let me take the little guy, I am so sorry, here--”

With some difficulty due to Steven’s squirming, Pearl turned her body away from them.

“No,” she said coldly. “This patient did not wander away, and you certainly will not be taking him.”

Flabbergasted, the attendant reaching for Steven blinked a few times and let his hands drop to his sides.

“Well, of course ma’am, if you’d like to hold him - but do be careful. We see some patients with unpredictable behavior here… it’s best if a professional supervises to make sure they don’t endanger you, or worse, themself. I would strongly recommend we take the patient back to his room.”

Steven, endangering them? If she wasn’t so furious, she might have laughed. But the boy in her arms had started to sniffle feebly again, fighting tears by the sound of it, and Pearl was far too incensed for humor at the moment.

Without an ounce of sympathy, she said, “I think we will be just fine, thank you.”

The one standing with his hand on the door stepped forward as well. “Ma’am, please, we really must --”

“Get out of our way,” Amethyst growled, her voice so enraged it sounded totally unlike her. “Now.”

Message received, they both moved back to their “posts” flanking the door, their earlier pretense of politeness having vanished. They did not bother to hold open the doors for them, so Amethyst kicked their way through with a surprising amount of force. The hinges whined in protest, and Steven gasped at the sudden noise.

Pearl walked in to spot a confused Sapphire and Ruby, turning towards their loud introduction. They found themselves in some sort of bizarre observation room. Sapphire had a small notebook in her hand with a pen, much like the one Pearl had given to Steven, and Dr. Straumberg was standing in front of a large window that overlooked a spotless hospital room, lined with beds with several occupied by patients. A few attendants and nurses were walking about beyond the glass, chattering and showing each other papers, and Peridot was taking notes near one of the hospital beds.

“Oh!” Sapphire exclaimed, her surprised giving way to excitement. “You all are just in time, we’ve almost finished.”

Thank the stars, we’re not too late.

Ruby grinned and waved towards the room with the beds. “Thank goodness they sound-proofed that room, you guys were loud enough to wake the dead.”

Neither Amethyst nor Pearl found that very funny, and Steven had resorted to crying silently in Pearl’s arms.

“Hey, Doctor!” Amethyst spat, her voice practically seething. She marched the length of the room, leaving Pearl to stand back nearer the doors. “You got quite the operation goin’ on here.”

Frowning, Sapphire stepped forward between the confused man and her fellow employee. “Amethyst?”

Ruby cocked her head to one side as she spotted Pearl, hovering a few feet back. She had angled her body so Steven was more-or-less hidden from their view, but it appeared Ruby noticed him anyways.

“Who is…?”

“C’mon,” Amethyst said quietly, grabbing Sapphire’s wrist and jerking her head in Pearl’s direction. She sent a beseeching look in Ruby’s direction. “We need to talk... Privately.”

Sapphire and Ruby met eyes for a moment, apparently confused and trying to consult one another on how to proceed. Before they had the opportunity, however, a chipper tone sounded off, so sharp it made Pearl and Steven both wince.

Dr. Straumberg, wearing a smile so wide it appeared painful, quirked a brow, his smile growing.

“Oh ho, Pink! Is that you?” The doctor clapped his hands together and walked right up to Pearl, his eyes fixed on Steven’s face. “And what are you doing here, out of the ward? Oh, I hope you weren’t telling all your little stories again.”

The room felt smaller with the man standing in front of him, and there was an air to his demeanour Pearl hadn’t noticed before. It was assertive and Pearl could have sworn her throat began to close up, a special sort of suffocation. It was evil, this feeling, and any lingering sets of doubt ignited like an inferno, burning her into a blind rage; Pearl hated this man.

Meanwhile, the doctor’s appearance had clearly set Steven into a panic. His lungs were rising and falling concerningly fast, and he looked feverish. “N-n-no...” he managed shakily, his eyes glued to the floor.

The doctor reached forward to muss Steven’s hair, but a flare of protectiveness sparked in her chest, and Pearl hugged Steven tightly, turning away.

“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, making no attempt to hide her scorn. “Don’t you dare touch him.”

“Pearl!” Sapphire gasped. “T-That is not necessary! Dr. Straumberg is a professional.”

Pearl hardly heard her. She was watching the man with a hawk-like stare, unblinking as his hand paused a few inches short of Steven’s hair. The blue depths of his eyes were calculating, and it made her horribly uncomfortable.

“Oh, Miss,” he began, speaking with the most well-designed condescension Pearl could imagine. “I’m terribly sorry - perhaps there’s been a misunderstanding? I hate to think you may have taken any of Pink’s little fictions to be true - he has quite the active imagination, this one. And prone to trouble, isn’t that right, Pink? Be honest, now.”

The doctor sleuthed even closer, with a smarmy smile fixed to his face. His attention had moved to Steven, whose trembling redoubled.

Timidly, the child answered an incoherent response. He was crying again, the same sort of ragged sobs that had bubbled up when they’d gone into the first therapy room in the men’s ward.

“A-ah, umm, y-y-ye… ah, m’s-sorry. I-I w-won’t be b-bad again. s-s...’m s-sorry.”

“There, there, Steven. That’s alright…” He sighed and straightened his posture, looking back to Sapphire and Ruby. “It is unfortunate, how some of our younger patients struggle with their conditions. It’s very difficult to treat when they haven’t even a firm grip of reality without their illness.”

That was the last straw for Amethyst, who wasn’t already exactly a model of patience. “Oh I cannot believe this. Sapphire, don’t listen to this guy - he’s a fucking monster!”

Ruby balked, and a hand flew to Sapphire’s lips in surprise. Any of the staff who had been nearby froze, eyes widening.

“A-Amethyst! Language.” Ruby’s cheeks were burning, clearly disappointed for their colleague to act so disrespectful. Honestly, Pearl was rather disappointed too, but only because she felt an insult like monster did not begin to convey the man that stood in front of her.

“Well,” Pearl shook off the thoughts, returning her attention to the Doctor. “You are right, Dr. Straumberg. It is unfortunate, how the younger patients have to live.”

The man’s expression hardened, his smile vanishing like a light switch had been flipped off.

“Is that so?” He mused, burying his hands in his pockets. The frozen nurses in the room began to eye each other, visibly distressed.

Unable to keep a bit of the gloating sense of victory from her voice, Pearl remarked, “Yes. It is. And I don’t think DI - or the police, for that matter - will be very happy to hear about it.”

Ruby and Sapphire both just seemed completely, if not comically, lost. Amethyst was grinning, sharing in their tiny moment of victory, the subtle, unsaid you’re finished pumping adrenaline through both of their veins.

Amused, the doctor scratched his chin. He even laughed. “It’s sweet, how you think you understand, miss, but there are things going on here that would be impossible for you to understand. Pink is quite the storyteller. But you see, the hospital here is in pristine condition.”

Venom dripping from her words, Pearl shot back, “And the outer wards? What about those?”

“Those?” He seemed to think for a moment. “Those are none of your concern.”

“Okay, enough,” Ruby declared sharply. “Pearl, Amethyst, this is totally inappropriate. Come on.”

She began to march towards the doors they’d entered from, and a stricken-looking Sapphire jumped after her.

Amethyst nudged Pearl as she walked by, urging her to follow their colleagues, but she and Dr. Straumberg had not yet broken their glares. Her lip-curled in disgust with this man puppeteering as a medical professional.

“I know what you are, doctor. I know what you do to these patients.”

“And I know that you don’t, miss. What I do, and what you think I do, are not the same. What I do, I do for a greater good. I suppose I couldn’t expect a woman to understand.”

When Pearl finally turned to follow Amethyst out the doors, it took her no small amount of self-control not to spit in his face.

When they entered the hall, Ruby hastily took a sharp left and poked her head into the room with the sleeping patients and the nurses, beckoning Peridot to come with them. While the engineer seemed confused, she was at least perceptive enough to recognize the urgency in Ruby’s tone and came along quickly.

Once they zigged and zagged a few times through the halls, a far enough distance away that Pearl thought they could speak without being overheard, Amethyst stopped.

“Rubes, seriously, you have to believe us - Steven isn’t lying, and we aren’t either!”

“Uh, is this Steven?” Peridot asked, bending slightly the waist to examine Steven more closely. His eyes were red and his cheeks puffy from crying silently, and he clutched to Pearl tightly.

“Yes,” Pearl tried to sound calm, bouncing him slightly to reassure him. “This is Steven. He lives in... one of the outer wards. Can you say hello, Steven?”

A shy voice mumbled from Pearl’s shoulder, and his earlier fear was still thick in his tone.

“H-hello…”

Peridot’s eyes narrowed momentarily, almost distrustful, but her expression softened when Steven sniffled and waved.

“Hello,” the engineer replied with a curious bit of warmth Pearl had never heard from her before. How is it that everyone else had this soft side she never knew of? Where was the switch to activate her own?

Ruby snapped at them, unconcerned with the child at the moment. “Please tell me I misread the situation in there.”

Beside her, Sapphire crossed her arms. “What? What was there to misread? Amethyst was clearly acting like a child and harassing the Doctor.”

Gently, Ruby took one of Sapphire’s hands and patted it. “That’s not what I meant… I mean, from an inspection stand-point - what’s happened? Did you find something?”

Amethyst snorted. “You could say that. We found a lot of something.”

“Um, maybe… maybe it would be best if one of us tells the story, and someone else takes a little walk with Steven?” With an edge to her voice, Pearl tried to gaze deliberately at each of them, hoping to convey her silent plea.

He shouldn’t have to heard this.

“Peridot, do you mind?” Sapphire eventually asked. “While your help has been appreciated, I think this conversation only requires, ah, essential personnel.”

The young woman grimaced and straightened her glasses.

“Wow, thanks.”

Sarcasm aside, she took Steven with little complaint - though Pearl considered complaining for how poorly she held him, hands beneath the elbows, straight out from her body.

“Now Steven, this is Peridot. She works with me, we both share the same job. So... we both draw a lot.”

His eyes widened, nodding. A spark of excitement flickered at the mention of more art.

“Actually, we technically have different titles and -- ow.” Peridot began to comment, but she received a sharp nudge from Amethyst to shut the heck up.

“...And Peridot here is going to be watching you for just a little while. She’s an acquaintance now, right?”

Concentrating, Steven gave a single firm nod and said, “Ah-quaen-tence.”

Amethyst rolled her eyes good-naturedly and started shoving Peridot down a different hallway. “Yeah, yeah, just don’t let Peri or Pearl nerd you up too much, kid. We’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay!” He waved over Peridot’s shoulder. “But we’re still gonna finish playing riiiight?”

Pearl smiled and returned the wave, but acted as if she didn’t hear him.

“Alright, uh…” Amethyst’s shoulders fell immediately once they rounded the corner. She looked to Pearl. “Not even sure where to start, to be honest…”

Pearl took a deep breath in, held it for just long enough to remind herself that this was not a very terrible dream, and exhaled again.

“I’m afraid Dr. Straumberg has been… deceiving you.”

The retelling from there did not take very long, Amethyst occasionally weighing in to add her two-cents. While it was difficult to watch the look of nausea and horror grow on her colleague’s' faces, Pearl spared no detail. The infestation of rats. The lack of working lavatories. The fluids, stains, and various marks of decay that riddled walls, floors and ceilings alike. Patients sleeping on rags, or hay, or just cold cement. The cage in the children’s playroom. The bath room, Steven’s unexplained immobility, and the unnamed therapy room with the rods.

To their surprise, the “rod room” seemed to be something that struck a chord with Sapphire.

“Were there… was there a box of some sort, almost like a large radio on the table?” She asked urgently, and Pearl tried to remember.

“I think so, though it was pretty dark. Why?”

The psychologist rubbed her forehead, distraught. “The other room was certainly hydrotherapy, though I’ve never heard it being administered like...  s-sorry, anyways, I think the other might have been an ECT room.” She frowned, glancing towards her partner. “Electroconvulsive therapy.”

Amethyst’s mouth hung open. “E-electro… what?”

Sapphire’s lips thinned, as it was now her turn to explain.

By the time the discussion was over, Pearl had grinded her teeth so painfully her jaw had begun to hurt. She had tried to imagine the worst things possible, but even that had not prepared her for Sapphire’s explanation.

Therapies of that nature, Sapphire claimed, were not uncommon, but doctors were usually highly selective in choosing patients deemed fit enough to undergo the strain of ECT on the body. It was cleared for some extreme cases of schizophrenia in adults, but Sapphire reportedly had never heard it having ever been used on children. Administered correctly, attendants would strap the patients down to the table, and a doctor would administer the electric current through the “rods” directly through the patient's brain, theoretically alleviating the stress their illness put upon the mind’s cognitive faculties. The straps, she informed, were for the doctor’s safety as much as the patients - some seizures were so violent, patients would break their own bones.

“The thing Steven had been instructed to put in his mouth, that he said tasted like cardboard? That was… likely a sort of gag,” Sapphire explained with disgust. “It’s supposed to be a brief moment of discomfort, like being shocked from static electricity, but… high voltages will cause patients to scream.”

The water treatments were, in some ways, worse. ECT only took a few minutes for the whole process to be completed, aside from the potential memory loss suffered by patients afterwards - that usually only lasted for an hour or so, though for some, it lasted a lifetime. The hydrotherapy was different. Steven said he had been left there for days, and he was only a child. How long would they soak adults in scalding water? Pearl wondered, in a passing thought, if the human body reached a point where it stopped registering pain. She hoped it did.

“The wraps… blankets, they’re designed to be a ‘snap’ treatment - short, sudden, that sort of thing. The shock of cold on the body was supposed to stabilize manic patients, and by the end of the hour, the chill should have helped them to settle. They’re favored because they required little work from the staff, just, tuck a patient into bed and come back in an hour. No monitoring... required...” she paused momentarily, slowing turning to glance over her own shoulder.

Amethyst had just started to ask what was going on when Sapphire shook her head and apologized.

By the time they reached the end of their compounded stories, the four of them were all reduced to dire straits. The information together was almost too much - Steven was a child, and he’d been through those treatments enough times that they’d become common place. Harold had lived here for nearly twenty years - how many times had they tried to scald the gay from him, or surge electricity through his body to fix him? Pearl was so nauseous, she had to lean her forehead against the cool wall in the hallway to keep from turning ill.

After a tense minute of silence, Sapphire eventually began to pace, slowly at first and then picking up speed as she worked out some sort of riddle in her own mind.

“This isn’t just a compliance issue,” the psychologist continued, casting a look towards her partner. “This is… this is criminal. Inhuman. We need to call the police.”

“There’s other buildings,” Pearl pointed out. “We should try to see them all before we contact the authorities.”

“No, we should definitely call the police,” Amethyst shot back. “Let them document this stuff - we aren’t doing anyone any favors by looking into this ourselves.”

To their surprise, Ruby, who had sunk down against the wall with her head to her knees, started to laugh. It was a bitter, almost frightening sound.

“This is just perfect,” she sighed. “Perfect. You went in the outer wards. Did we tell you to go in the outer wards?!”

“W-What?!” Amethyst took a step back in surprise. “Of course we did - Steven took us there and…”

Ruby cut her off, slamming a fist against the wall. “You don’t understand! This - this is… the outer wards are not authorized for our inspection.”

“Uh, so what?”

Sapphire gasped, stumbling towards Ruby and sinking down beside her on the floor. “Oh, no… no, we can’t - but Ruby, we have to…”

“How? How, Sapphire?” She asked, no longer sounding angry, but desperate. “We weren’t authorized to see those wards by DI!”

“Uh, still a little lost here,” Amethyst grimaced, clearly unhappy to see the numbers on her side of the argument dwindling.

Ruby’s years as a risk assessor had prepared her for this. “Sapphire’s right, this isn’t a compliance issue - but now it’s a privacy issue.” She flipped open her own small notepad, reading something to herself before continuing. “We are here because we’re allowed to be here, through the contract with DI and the hospital. If we report what you saw to the police, they could come and arrest some doctors and that’d be great for a few days, but it wouldn’t admissible in court.”

Pearl felt her mouth turn dry, and the smug look on Dr. Straumberg’s face returned to haunt her.

What about the outer wards?

Those? Those are none of your concern.

“W-well, what if we, I don’t know, phone in an anonymous tip or something?”

Sapphire shook her head, face pushed beneath her bangs in frustration.

“The police could come and ask for permission, but if they’re denied by Dr. St--” she paused, grinding her teeth slightly. “By the staff, they’ll need a warrant. That could take… best case scenario, a few hours. Worst case? Days. Weeks. The request could be denied.”

Unwelcome tears sprang to the corners of her eyes as Pearl came to realize the gravity of the situation. Her own meddling had ended her here, with a plethora of horrible information she could not share, and even if she did, it would be useless against the hospital. There was nothing out of compliance within the inner-hospital, so even their DI report would be faultless. Their employer would continue to fund this monstrosity, and Harold would probably die here, and Steven would grow up here.

“We can’t do anything…” Sapphire said quietly, vocalizing what they were all coming to understand. “We can’t stop this.”

“So that’s it?” Amethyst kicked a nearby crate brutally, causing whatever was within to shake. “We literally find people who are being punished for being sick, or gay,” she emphasized the word, looking coldly at all of them. “Or for reasons ‘unknown’, and we’re just going to give up on them?”

A knife tipped with poison, Amethyst continued with her refusal by lashing at her.

“And you - you go and get a little kid involved in this?! We can’t not do something, seriously… Steven will still be here if we leave. P, we can’t just leave him here.”

And the truth rushed up to meet here like a violent wave, causing her knees to buckle and water to fill her lungs. The hospital would not only continue, but Steven would still be here. He would grow up here, probably, but worse than that, she involved him with her stupid sense of heroism. The doctor clearly saw that Steven had been the one to initiate the inquiry into the outer wards - why else would Pearl refuse to let him go? Stars, Steven would be left behind, with broken hope and a lonely life, but… but what would they do to him? The attendants made him sit in his own urine for days when he was giving them trouble during the hydrotherapy, and that was just for complaining. Recalling that condescending smile on Dr. Straumberg’s face made Pearl nearly throw up.

“No, no - no no no,” she began to practically sob the words, unable to accept this.

“Please, please, Sapphire, Ruby, please, we have to be able to do something.”

Alarmed, Ruby shot back, “Don’t you think I’m trying to think of something!?”

Sapphire tried to soothe everyone. “We just need to think… the way I see it, there’s only a few options. Rather we can try to pursue a warrant and let the police investigate, or we try to continue looking around the hospital itself for some sort of slip up, something bad enough that if we report it, our inspection will require us to look into the other buildings. That’s part of the contract, I just never… I never imagined…”

She hung her head, and Pearl felt even worse. Her own crushing sense of defeat had drowned out the suffering of her friends, and she realized that both Ruby and Sapphire appeared more strained than she’d ever seen them. Now that she thought on it, it was clear this treatment had been going on for years - and each year, the two of them had come to this small ocean town and passed the building for another year of operation.

After a long, tense silence, Ruby eventually pulled herself to standing.

“Okay… I think I have an idea. I… I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but bare with me.”

All three of them listened with rapt attention, eager for any instruction that might help.

“So the way our office is set up, we are basically private contractors for the police - we have lots of ties in with the authorities anyways, right?”

“Okay…” Amethyst nodded.

“So, if I’m technically a ‘private police officer’, which I feel like is really stretching my real title, but it’s sort of true, just, a police officer who only works in one specific domain… anyways, if I work with the contacts we have for this county, I could try to get them to request a warrant with the information I’ve collected through the right municipal court, without having to wait for the actual police to show up and make the request themselves. And if we are approved, all of the stuff we’ve found will be admissible both in court and for DI…”

She continued to explain the plan, and while it relied heavily on a long series of best-case-scenarios and big what if’s, Pearl was glad to accept it over doing nothing. The essential responsibilities boiled down to getting the most information they could, while they could. If they left the premises for the day to come back later, or to wait for the police to do the same, (which Pearl was not prepared to do anyways,) it might give the hospital a chance to clean up the evidence, so they had to use what little precious time they could in the remaining day to investigate.

Ruby was going to play the phones. She was going to call in favors to an old acquaintance of Sapphire’s, Zircon, to try to play to the most sympathetic judge they could, and every ally she could through the police - a few cousins, thankfully, that she knew she could rely on to try to work things internally to speed up a warrant request.

Sapphire would join Amethyst, Pearl, and Peridot to finish searching the rest of the grounds as quickly as they could to gather more evidence. Anything that they failed to document could be gone by the morning, so they needed all remaining hands on deck to search the buildings.

“What about the main building?” Pearl asked nervously. If they failed to get the warrant, the only information that would be valuable would be that collected regarding the central building… and Sapphire seemed to think the place was infallible.

The psychologist sucked her teeth, thinking. “I’ve never found a hair out of place here, but then, I’ve only ever seen what Dr. Straumberg has showed me… maybe if someone knew where to look, they could find something…”

“Oh.” Pearl blinked. “Steven.”

Awkwardly, Ruby and Sapphire met eyes and nodded. “Yes… he’s probably the best chance of finding something unusual within the walls of the main building… but it would be putting him in an even more, erm, compromising position if we…”

“I’ll get him,” Pearl interrupted. She knew how that sentence would end, and she wasn’t going to accept it as a possibility. Steven would not suffer for her - she would sooner die than let that happen.

“Hey, P, you sure about this?” Amethyst caught her wrist before she had the chance to walk away. “Steven’s a good kid and all, but you seem…”

“I’m fine,” Pearl said curtly, freeing her arm. “Steven is afraid of this building more than any of the others. There has to be something going on here, something that’s well hidden, and he’s the only one who could show us.”

As fast as her legs could carry her, Pearl whipped around a few corners to find Peridot and Steven seated against a wall, him smiling and watching her fiddle with something in her lap, clapping his hands enthusiastically.

“Wow!” He exclaimed, and Peridot looked smug.

“And this is how --”

“Ahem, hello,” Pearl announced her arrival.

The words had scarce left her lips before Steven began semi-crawling towards her, sort of dragging himself in her general direction.

“Oh, Pearl! Pearl, you need to see! Look what I made! Peri showed me!” He pulled himself up to proper-sitting, ready to be picked up again.

She moved over and knelt down beside him, raising a brow at his cupped hands.

“...A piece of paper?”

“Pff, no,” he giggled. “It’s a cat, look!”

Allowing for some… creative license, Pearl realized that the paper indeed resembled a four-legged animal. Vaguely. Origami of some sort, she assumed and passed a quizzical look to her colleague.

“Eh. Robots aren’t the only thing I know how to build,” Peridot shrugged.

Pearl smiled and nodded down at Steven’s creation, scooping him up before setting a course back towards the others.

“Well it’s definitely something. Does it have a name?”

His brow furrowed. “Hmm… no, not yet. Uh… I’ll name him… Cookie! Yeah!”

Peridot, walking beside them, let out a quick chuckle. “A cookie cat? That sounds like a -- ”

“Listen,” Pearl interrupted, her voice turning urgent. Peridot blinked. “There’s something going on here, and we can’t catch you up to speed right this moment, but I need you to trust me. Okay?”

“Erm… okay…” Peridot answered hesitantly. “Is it something having to do with the investigation?”

“You could say that.”

After a short debate, Peridot, Amethyst, Sapphire, Pearl, and Steven set off down the beach, their path set for the women’s ward. While it seemed to make sense in one respect to start in the hospital, given that they were already there, Amethyst pointed out that she only had one flashlight and they were quickly losing daylight. The main building was well-lit and wasn’t going anywhere, whereas the outer wards were going to be harder to search without the bits of sun that came in through the windows.

Amethyst hung back slightly, filling Peridot in on as many details as she could while Sapphire filled the silence by asking Steven all sorts of questions. Pearl felt admittedly useless while they walked around the side of the cliff, providing little but a means of travel for Steven.

When they turned the corner, Sapphire and Peridot both froze - Pearl wondered if she and Amethyst had reacted the same way before.

Sapphire dragged her feet forward, mouth agape, and Peridot covered her lips with a hand.

With his usual, if not startling, enthusiasm, Steven waved a hand out in front of him. “So, this is where I live!”

“I… see,” Sapphire muttered, and Pearl noted an uncharacteristic note of vacancy in her voice. Sapphire carried a tone, usually, that harbored only comfort and reassurance; perhaps that was why Pearl was so troubled by the sound, why it felt like grenade shrapnel digging into her eardrums.

What does one call that - that emptiness?

Disappointment? Anger? The indescribable place between emotions, where your faith in humanity wavers, and you feel like you’ve missed a step going down the stairs?

Pearl sighed. She didn’t really know. It’d only been a few hours, and she felt like nothing made sense anymore.

For Sapphire’s sake - she insisted on being thorough, no matter the personal cost - they made a very second quick tour of the men’s ward. Pearl didn’t want to go back again, but the psychologist insisted that she needed to see it herself.

The second round through the ward was only slightly less painful than the first. Pearl noticed things she hadn’t the first time - holes in the walls that leaked in ribbons of sunlight, missing glass on the barred-windows, possessions mixed in with the cots of rags and hay. More than once, with her heart lodged painfully in her throat, Pearl was certain she recognized one of Steven’s scratchy drawings laid neatly beside a man’s sleeping pile, long since crinkled and worn with yellowed paper, but there all the same. A backlog of birthday drawings, she guessed, for all the friends Steven had made here.

Sapphire and Peridot went through many of the same horrors as Pearl and Amethyst had the first time - Peridot gagged when they entered the actual bathroom, with toilets and urinals overrun with filth, any trace of sanitation long-since abandoned from the building’s overall lack of maintenance. She barely managed not to throw up, as Amethyst had when they first walked in.

It was painful to watch another person have to go through the motions. Pearl could see the visible traces of hope drain from Sapphire’s face, or questions die on Peridot’s lips. Still, the former took furious notes, scribbling down an impossible list of violations that would, hopefully, lead to this monstrosity’s condemnation.

The sweep of the building slowed for a few minutes when their group found Sour Cream in the same state as before, and that discovery had shaken Sapphire deeply. The psychologist in her could not stop but try to coach him through whatever sort of episode he was having - stars, he’s already been like that for hours, hasn’t he? - but to no avail. The sickly thin boy only muttered to himself, frantically searching the corners for something they could not see - Pearl assumed, whatever it was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see it anyways.

During a quiet lapse in the tour, as they ascended the steps leading to the third floor, Steven leaned up to Pearl’s ear and shot her a conspiratorial whisper. “Psst. Hey.”

“Yes?”

“How old are you?”

Pearl smirked. “Now, don’t you know it’s considered rude to ask a lady her age?”

He stuck his tiny tongue out in defiance. “But you know how old I am! That isn’t fair!”

“He has a point,” Sapphire remarked with a tired smile, clearly appreciating being able to talk about something other than the nightmare all around them.

Amethyst nudged Pearl in the ribs. “She’s 29, Ste-man.”

“Amethyst!” Pearl reddened, not even sure why she was embarrassed. “You can’t be throwing around other people’s personal information like that!”

Steven laughed at her chagrin, however, and the sound helped them all to relax... at least, marginally.

Considering they just reached the third floor, their moods were going to need all the help to they could get.

And so, the tour concluded in the same way it had started - dawning horror mingled with unwelcome understanding as they exited the building. The inspection had been a complete success, and an utter failure.

Steven was chattering excitedly as they exited the building, clearly not noticing the lifeless look on all four of their faces.

“Okay, so that was my house - but le’s go see Bismuth now! You’ll all like her she’s got really pretty hair! The girls sleep in that one,” he pointed to a building that was the mirror image of the men’s ward.

Any wit Amethyst had stored up had clearly already been spent, and she met the others with a lifeless glean in her eyes. Pearl imagined she probably looked just as bad, and Peridot was visibly shaking.

Steadfast, Sapphire was already marching ahead, and Pearl felt herself reluctantly follow.

“So, um, Bismuth is so super strong, an’ she knows how to make all sorts of stuff,” Steven babbled as they approached the building. “An’ she always fixes the toys when she can but they break a lot and the blue people make her rest all the time cause she gets so worked up.”

They entered the building, and it met and exceeded every one of Pearl’s awful expectations. If the men were living in filth, the women were living like… Pearl couldn’t even describe it. Animals? Test subjects? Prisoners of war?

What were once black-white checkered floors were so smeared with grease and dirt, it was hard to see any color beneath the murky brown that crunched beneath her shoes. There was hair everywhere, sticking to walls and the ceiling and mingling with cobwebs and spider webs that dangled innocently from the ceiling, and unlike the men’s ward, this place smelled much more heavily of cleaning products - like bleach and metal, mixed together.

It was the sort of smell Pearl wished she never knew how to identify, but such had become her life in the past six hours. For all that the men’s ward was awful, a place where the air had been sucked out and replaced by the haunts of every manner of negligence, where the remains of human waste and unidentifiable fluids settled into her lungs like poison, it was hard to say if it was worse than this. Where Steven lived, the visceral slap of reality was pitted in a dark place, one that crept up inside you, tearing you down in painful ways of acceptance.

Here, the women’s ward, the smell of iron and, to a lesser extent, vomit swelled in the hallways. It was much less permanent, as it was buried beneath the sharp chemical smell of the bleach, but it made the waves of nausea hit her much stronger - it was actually physically painful to breathe here.

Worse yet, as Pearl’s eyes adjusted and she studied the surrounding hall, with unassuming doors and wallpaper so faded and stained it was hard to tell what the pattern was supposed to have been, she staggered slightly from the onrushing dizziness. When she caught herself with her free arm on the wall, Steven looking at her with eyes filled by concern, Pearl pulled back her hand and observed the sticky, black cracked substance that peeled away with her fingers.

She looked around, because no - no, no, this had to just be grime, right, just filth - but the floor seemed less brown and more black, even maroon in some places. The walls were not just marked randomly with stains, but there was splatter.

Every crevice, every corner that stretched into a black hallway, every momentary glimpse towards even the most innocuous splatter on the wall consumed Pearl with dread.

It was all blood.

Like nearly dried paint, it flaked off her fingers as she shook her hand violently, heart racing so fast it felt like she’d just sprinted a marathon.

“What happened… is that?” Amethyst’s voice cracked when she lifted her boot, choking on the last word.

One by one, they all realized what had happened here, right in the front door, right in the foyer of a building meant to house people, to protect them.

Something had gone wrong. Something had, gone horribly, terribly wrong.