Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When did it begin? When did it end? All with Rose. Rose. She wasn’t here anymore. And Pearl would fight in another war to be following her again, to be loving her again, to be serving her again, instead of having nothing. But she couldn’t, and that’s that. But it wasn’t, not really. She couldn’t just forget 5 millenia, just throw it out like it was nothing. She never thought she would be grieving for Rose. And when the opportunity presented itself, she couldn’t even take it. She was supposed to be discussing what to do about the - problem. She knew she shouldn’t call it that, but how was she expected to not.

It’s not even that she didn’t like the small human, although like was probably the wrong word, it's just that it shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t supposed to be here, Rose was supposed to be here. Rose didn’t want a baby. She had never wanted a baby. Until him. Why did it have to be him? He couldn’t do anything she could. But she said she loved him. How? He was a human, nothing special. But Rose said that was the most special part. Pearl would never understand. And she supposed that was part of the reason that she picked him and not her.

She was gone now, and as much as Pearl grieved, she wouldn’t come back. But now the question of what to do with the baby arose. Pearl personally wanted nothing to do with it, but would do whatever necessary, just for Rose's sake.

“Pearl,”

Pearl jumped

“Oh Garnet, it's just you”

The 7ft tall being looked at Pearl’s hands which were clenched tightly.

Pearl looked down and softened her grip.

“Did you need something?” Pearl said

“Come back to the temple, we need to get ready,”  Garnet said, adjusting her glasses.

“Right,”

Pearl tightened her hands again.

As she made her way to the temple with Garnet, she wondered how she was holding up. She knew Garnet had loved Rose, she had been taken in by her after all. But even if not as much as she had, Pearl knew that Rose's death had been hard for everyone. Garnet seemed to still be holding together, although Pearl knew that privately, she had fallen apart.

The temple was protected by a giant statue of a woman carved into the cliff over the sea that the temple hid behind. The temple itself wasn’t nearly as impressive as the giant work of art guarding it, but it was certainly nothing to dismiss. The hands of the statue held a warp pad surrounded by a little moat filled with sharp crystals, and behind it lay a door. Roses room. Of course it was all of their rooms, but everything reminded her of Rose. Pearl paused before entering. As she entered she noticed the lack of noise. She looked at Garnet who had entered before her.

“Where's Amethyst?"

Just as she spoke, the door opened and in a rush of energy a small speeding purple ball emerged. Garnet caught it as it fell from the roof where it ended up.

“Found her” Garnet said as the speeding ball stopped to reveal a small purple being who was grinning ear to ear.

“Amethyst!” Pearl said sourly, then looked down slightly to see three packages. “Are we really doing this?”

“We’re doing this for Steven” Garnet said sternly

“I can’t wait to see little Rose!” Amethyst said excitedly, “I hope she likes our gifts!”

“Steven, Amethyst. His name is Steven” Garnet explained gently

“Oh yeah, I forgot”

Pearl stayed quiet.

“We’d better get going. Pearl be nice to Greg”

“Fine”

As they walked closer to the house Garnet was leading them to, Pearl wanted to run far far away from what she wouldn't find there. It wasn't even Gregs house, she thought shortly, nothing here was Gregs. Except the one thing that mattered.

When they approached the door, they all stood there for a second to see who would knock, Amethyst did and a long haired, tired looking man answered it.

“Oh! Um, hey y'all”

“Hello.” said Garnet

Amethyst piped in “Yo Greg, check it out! We brought gifts for little Rose!”

Garnet set her hand on Amethyst's head “Amethyst. We’ve gone over this. Steven is a…”

“...Human baby.”

“And Steven is…”

“Not Rose”

Greg let them into the house and out of the snow that was rapidly covering the world outside.

“Can I get you guys anything? We’ve got water, old… plates. Uh, how about some tea?”

“No." Pearl said coldly "We’re just here to drop off these gifts,”

“Right, sure” Greg said awkwardly

Garnet handed her box to the small baby rested on a couch, “Here you go”

“You’ll probably have to open that up for him”

“It's just a box made to look like it’s been carefully wrapped” She opened the box, “Ta-da!”

Greg noticed that the gift was a razor and quickly swiped it away from the small child.

“Whoa! Thanks Garnet, but I don’t think he needs this”

“Oh he’ll need it. In the future,” Garnet replied adjusting her glasses

Greg paused staring at her for a minute before Amethyst interupted

“Let’s open mine next!” Amethyst said, ripping her wrapped gift open in seconds

“Wow! Diapers! This is so practical!” Greg looked the gift over for a second and paused, “Wait, are these adult diapers? They’re way too big for him”

“So tell him to make himself bigger. You can do that! Right, little Greg?” Amethyst ruffled the baby’s hair with a grin on her face

“You can call him Steven. That’s the name Rose and I liked it the most” Greg said with a soft expression on his face.

“Well, whatever you call him, you’ll need this,” Pearl held out her gift and looked away.

“Uh thanks, is this some kind of kids book?” Greg took the gift and opened it, “Oh a dictionary”

“Obviously, it’s the best gift for a being that can’t yet communicate”

“Well, maybe you guys could use it to look up what a baby is,” Greg muttered “These gifts are great, but Steven's just too young for this stuff. Nowadays he’s really into this,” He pulled out a set of car keys and jiggled it around.

Steven started giggling and reaching for the keys

“Whoa, he loves it!” Amethyst took the keys and started jiggling it around “Hey little Steven!”

Pearl looked over and with some warmth in her voice she said “He’s certainly captivated with those things”

“Well next time, we’ll just bring a big box of keys for Steven.” Garnet said with a smile in her voice.

Everyone watched Steven be infatuated with the jingling keys. While he was giggling and waving his hands towards them, his stomach started to glow a faded pink. Soft at first but increased quickly. The light coming from the pink gem set in Steven’s stomach. Greg looked in shock at his son who was glowing.

“What's happening to him?!”

Garnet stared and said with disbelief “It’s… Rose!”

“Is that possible?” Pearl questioned

“Is he gonna turn into a laser?!” said Greg with increasing worry

“Relax, y’all, I got it all figured out. Rose is trying to shapeshift back to her old self!” Amethyst sounded very sure

“What?!” Greg sounded like he was about to have an aneurysm.

“She can’t shapeshift, because she’s trapped in a baby!” Pearl was trying and failing to keep her voice calm.

“Trapped in a baby?!” Greg looked like he was going to pass out.

“Rose? Rose, it’s me, it’s Pearl. Are you in there? Glow twice for yes.”

Pearl’s only response was Steven grabbing Pearl’s nose and giggling

“Baby, please. I’m trying to talk to Rose.” Pearl said very seriously

“Rose hasn’t shapeshifted, and she isn’t trapped. Steven is a fusion. Rose could be trying to unfuse.” Garnet said confidently

“Whatever Steven is, something’s happening, and I-” Greg paused “What can I do to help?”

“Well, what do you do with a human baby when it glows?” Pearl asked, only slightly less panicked

“First off, human babies don’t glow. And letter number B… What if they do?! Okay. Vidalia has some books on babies I've been reading. They’ll help us figure something out”

Greg basically ran out the living room and went into the kitchen to find some answer to his magical glowing son. In the ten seconds he was gone, Pearl looked at Garnet and Garnet looked at Amethyst and they all looked at Steven, who was loving the attention but whose belly has since stopped glowing.

They only hesitated for a second and then Amethyst grabbed Steven and Garnet grabbed Amethyst and they bolted out the door. Pearl opened the unlocked driver's seat door of a van marked Mr. Universe and hopped in at the wheel. Garnet opened the back doors of the van and jumped in, set Amethyst down and took Steven from her. Pearl started the car and slammed the gas.

“Steven! My van! Give me back my babies!” Greg shouted after the rapidly escaping gems, running after the van.

Amethyst looked back “He looks mad”

“He’ll thank us later,” Said Pearl, who was white-knuckling the steering wheel.

“Greg was doing his best up to this point. But the situation has changed. Steven is clearly a Gem.” Garnet was sitting on the floor of the van and held Steven in her lap.

“Good thing we left without any explanation” Amethyst said cheerily as the van drove out of town

“All right, Rose.”

She moved towards Steven and Garnet, “We saw that glow. So why are you still a baby? Is it… really fun or something?” Her body glowed a sharp white with a purple outline around the edge, only with a small purple gem in the middle showing, and morphed around until the light faded out to show that she was now a baby “Garnet. Hold me”

Garnet moved Steven into one of her hands and held Amethyst with the other.

“All right, I get it. These rules. But it’s been so long, like months!” The light returned and Amethyst was back to normal once it faded. “That’s longer than I was a toilet! C’mon, Rose! You have to change back! Baby, Normal. Baby, Normal…”

Steven was giggling with joy as Amethyst shapeshifted back and forth a few times.

“Ugh… It's so easy! Why can’t she do it?”

“Because it’s not shapeshifting. It's fusion.” Garnet said simply, “Steven, I understand Greg is a part of you and you don’t want to unfuse in front of him. That would be very rude. But he’s not here now. It’s just us, you can take a little break. Here, I will too!”

Garnet handed Steven to Amethyst and the two dark purple gem stones embedded in her hands stayed solid while white light surrounded her form and separated into two smaller light forms. They dimmed out showing two blue and red forms holding hands in the place of Garnet. Steven looked up where the taller woman was and then down to where the two women stood now. He was confused and frightened and started to cry. The two gems looked at each other in surprise, touched their heads together and then they were gone and Garnet was back.

“I’m here! You know me! You know them too!” She put her glasses on and sat down, putting her head in her hands, “I don’t understand…”

Pearl swerved the van onto the side of the road and stopped it. She went to the back of the van where Steven was still crying.

“Everyone calm down” She took Steven from Amethyst and sat down with him in her lap.

“Look. We can all see her, she’s right there! She just can’t reform because she has this… baby around her.”

Pearl looked down and started talking directly to the pink gem showing on Steven’s stomach,

“Rose, I know you’re in there. I can let you out. We’ll be… together… again. “

She set her hand around the gem and prepared to pull, when Steven started laughing, startling Pearl, who realized what she was about to do.

“I can’t”

She put her hand to her mouth, tears gathering, “She wanted this so much. I just don’t understand why! Everything should grow, and everything should change and isn’t it so great how it comes naturally to humans? Well, it’s not natural for us! It’s not natural… for me.”

“It will be, for him” Garnet said, creating a silence only broken by Amethyst a few moments later saying, “What about Rose?”

“This isn’t about Rose.” Garnet said “From now on, everything has to be about Steven.”

Barking and screaming came from outside the van all of a sudden.

Garnet opened the back door of the van and Greg jumped in.

“Thanks,” He then noticed that Pearl was holding Steven, “Hey, wait a minute! Why did you take Steven on a joyride in the middle of a blizzard? What's the big idea?” He asked, taking his son from Pearl

“It wasn’t really a big idea” Amethyst said sheepishly “Just a bunch of small ideas that never came together.”

“My apologies Greg. We thought we knew what Steven was, but we didn’t” Garnet said

“Honestly, I’m not sure if I do either. I never glowed when I was a kid.”

“We never were kids” Pearl said a little sadly

They sat in silence for a moment, with only Steven babbling and tugging on Gregs blanket that was wrapped around both of them now. The snow fell and life outside went on as normal but for those in the van, they knew it wouldn’t be the same again.

Greg sighed and looked fondly at Steven “I don’t know how we’re gonna figure this out, but I think we’ll have a better shot if we do it together.”

And there they sat, Three gems, a human, and a baby. Nothing would ever be the same again for any of them, but that's what becoming a parent does.

Chapter Text

12 years later

Summer

A young boy sat beneath a tree, leaves and petals seemingly dancing to the soft strumming of a ukulele. The curly haired boy grinned up at the falling petals and started to hum. He sat there humming and playing the instrument. Just letting the time pass.

Eventually he set down the ukulele and stretched before he got up. He walked away from the tree. Still humming he went towards a small house. As he grew closer to the house he also grew closer to the highway that ran by the little house. Cars barely ran by, the only car that was seen more than once was a van that seemed to still run only off of little more than a miracle. The boy walked to the front and sat down on the porch steps.

This was his house. One that was full of love and memories. And he thought it looked beautiful. Although it might only be to him. The paneling on the outside was a combination of old wood with the paint peeling and new bright freshly painted planks. But together it created this perfect blend that allowed change to be needed every few months. It held a garden tucked behind the house with a mix of bright flowers and dull sharp cacti. A stone wall with vines climbing onto it, cracking into the stone and leaving new blooms in the place of the old stones. The porch was covered by a soft shadow from the awning. Cool enough from the heat that came with living in Adneva. It wasn’t ever really hot at the house, sometimes humid, but only because of the small creek by the back of the house. It was truly a one of a kind house.

The boy pushed back his dark curly hair, slick with sweat and sighed. It was uncomfortably warm, but not warm enough to change out of his red t-shirt into a tank top. He laid down with defeat, swinging his arm over his face to block the sun, which was now lowering.

“I wonder when they’ll be back,” He mumbled to himself. He felt like he’d been waiting for hours, and he probably had. They usually took a long time to come back from work and now that school was out it felt like waiting for years.

He sat up and started drawing in the dirt. He erased the cat he was trying to draw and started drawing three figures, one tall, one short and one taller than both. He paused and looked up, the sun was almost completely down. He looked down the road and then got up and went inside.

He walked across the cold ceramic floor into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, they were broken anyways. Pearl had been meaning to fix them but because the sun went down so late, she kept saying she’d do it when Steven went back to school in a few weeks. He took out some cold pizza and stuck it in the microwave. He had been really hoping they would be back by then, but it looked like they wouldn’t be back until he was asleep.

He walked into the living room and turned on the tv. He fell asleep eating his pizza with the television playing softly in the background. Steven woke up to gentle static playing in the background and turned the TV off, leaving himself in complete darkness. He got up and set the remaining pizza slices back in the fridge and went upstairs to the attic where his bedroom was. He turned on the lights that Ameythest had found at a garage sale, small twinkling lights that reminded him of stars. He looked around his room and started thinking of more decoration ideas. He had recently changed his room around and his dad had given him some of his old junk from his storage locker. He thought of hanging his dads first concert posters up, when he decided to call his dad.

“Hey Dad!”

“Hey Shtu-ball! Whatsup kiddo?”

“Nothing much, no ones home yet,”

“Oh, didn’t the gems say they’d be back before dark? Do you need me to come over?”

“No, I'm okay. Uh, they did say that they would be back, but you know. Can’t predict when the world might need saving”

“Oh okay, well, call me if you need anything. I’ll be back in a few days, I love you kiddo,”

“I will, thanks dad. Love you too,”

Steven hung up and texted his dad a thumbs up. He laid down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. His eyes moved to the glow in the dark stars and planets he insisted on putting up when he was 7. He wasn’t that into space anymore but having them reminded him of his dad.

He thought that he should probably fix his room before school started, he'd need to clean up the small desk and Pearl would have an anurysm if she saw his room like it was now, but there were still a few weeks left. He sat up and changed into pajamas. He walked back downstairs and climbed onto the blue couch with a blanket. He laid there watching the tv play some cowboy show.

His eyelids started to get heavy and soon he was sleeping soundly with the television's flickering light turning on and off gently. His breath gently sliding in and out, and the soft mumbles of the TV were the only noise in the house, gently and quiet. Outside, crickets chirped softly, the sound of owls calling, a creek trickling softly, and the hum of the wind blowing through the grass, made the night seem quiet in its own meaning. If you were to take away these minute sounds, you would truly know silence.

A few miles away, the gently crafted stillness was broken with a sudden light, coming from the sky. A sound not belonging to this moment or to this world came with it. And as soon as it appeared, it left.

A few minutes later, a red truck moved up the dusty highway road, an extremely pale woman with a dusty blue hat in the driver's seat, a short woman with feet on the dash sat beside her. As they drove in silence with the windows down, allowing the night air travel through the car. In the rearview mirror, a figure shifted in the bed of the truck. A tall, dark woman with shades, was laying down in the back on a dusty, faded, quilted blanket, staring at the sky. The soft whistle of the wind washing over the car felt like earth.

The car pulled next to the house, gravel crunching beneath the tires. The engine coughed a final time and finally stuttered to a stop. The pale woman stepped out and her cool blue eyes seemed to almost glow, shining slightly, like moonlight touching a pool of water. She had a constant sadness that stayed behind her eyes, and if looked at from the right angle it almost looked as if she was going to cry.

She put her hands on her hips and scowled at the shorter woman who emerged from the truck, she pressed her lips together tightly and frowned deeper at the short woman, who was shorter because of the slouch that was her posture. The short woman was noticeably not human coloured. She was a grayish purple tone, that could've been excused by lack of blood flow, if she possessed any blood. Instead she just was that sickly purpley gray, with her hair a pale lavender, that easily could be mistaken as almost white. She scoffed at the taller, paler woman and walked towards the house.

From the back of the truck there was the noise of the tall woman hopping out. She put her hand on the pale woman, towering over her. She nodded towards the house and hesitating for a moment, the pale woman started for the door. The tall woman was also notably not human coloured, with her almost burgundy skin sticking out. She adjusted her visor she had on and went inside.

The short woman had reached the door first and quietly, although with a small flash of light and a whirring sound, unlocked the door. The light and sound came and went.

She threw the door open with no consideration of noise or anything like that. She walked in casually before seeing Steven on the couch and jumped over the back and bounced, waking the previously peacefully sleeping boy up.

"Steven! Guess who's home!" She said, no care of noise level before being hissed at by the pale gem.

"Shhh! Amethyst he was sleeping" She sighed and smiled at Steven "Sorry"

"It's okay Pearl, I was just watching TV" Steven said yawning

Pearl frowned at that "You know, there are studies that say that human children really shouldn't be watching television before sleep"

Amethyst groaned "Puh-lease P, he can do what he wants. And I doubt that includes you nagging at him all the time"

That comment pulled a sour face from Pearl which was always a sign that Amethyst was in for a lecture. Steven sighed, before the last woman knelt in front of him. Garnet. She was always the rock of the family, solid and there for Steven when he needed her.

"Hello Steven. Sorry we were a little late, it took longer than expected to clean up,"

He smiled as she pulled him in for a hug

"Its alright, you're back now,"

"Yes, we are," Garnet nodded seriously "Would you like to go to bed now?"

Steven nodded and held onto Garnet as she picked him up and brought him up to his room, ignoring the bickering that Pearl and Amethyst had immediately gotten into.

She set him into his bed and watched as he got himself comfortable before wishing him good night and closing his door. Fully. His door was always slightly ajar when he woke up, but Pearl said that was just from the house shifting slightly in the night.

Steven laid in bed and looked out his window, just watching the world breathe. He liked to think of the world as alive, it was nice. Peaceful.

He heard the gems stop arguing downstairs and the house went quiet again.

Pearl glared down at the small gem as Garnet came downstairs from the attack.

"Oh Garnet, where did you go off to?" Pearl stammered out

Garnet looked at her and adjusted her visor, "Steven needed to go to bed"

Pearl looked embarrassed "Were we too loud?"

"Yup"

Amethyst had gone into the kitchen and began to eat the cardboard pizza box that was left in the fridge from earlier. Pearl scrunched her nose in disgust at the scene before sighing and moving to clean the house. She didn't have to clean it as much as she had used to though, as Steven had grown up.

She paused thinking. He really was growing fast, it didn't even seem that long ago that the deal with Greg was made. And it was little more than a blink in her lifespan. Which was… not something she wanted to think about for more than she had to.

Amethyst had since eaten several bits of garbage and passed out on the couch and Garnet had disappeared somewhere, although Pearl doubted that she had left the house. Garnet preferred to stay close when she could.

She did some dishes and generally tidied while being as quiet as she could. It gave her time to think, and while more time to think wasn't what she needed, it did pass the time. Pearl didn't like to sleep or eat, and she was sure that Steven had noticed, but he didn't question their weird habits. He knew they were different she was certain, they looked different.

They tried not to talk about "magic stuff", as Greg called it, in front of Steven too often. They figured they should slowly acclimatize him to this different type of culture, but he needed to be fully connected to his human part. It's what Greg wanted, and Pearl was certain, its what Rose would've wanted. So, the gems did all they could to raise Steven like a normal human child. With much struggle.

Greg had a stable job in Beach City, and would pick up odd jobs to try and support Steven. The gems had decided that it was best for Steven to not be raised in a Van, as… nice… as Greg was, Pearl grimaced, it was decieded that help would be nice. So they watched as Steven grew, with occasional powers popping up as he was a baby. But nothing seemed to stick.

Pearl had struggled, and she was gem enough to admit that occasionally she still struggled with viewing Steven as Steven. She was still hit harshly by the reality that Rose was gone forever. But she hoped that one day Steven would ask her questions about his mother, more gem related questions, and she would answer them readily. Then, then, they could finally let him enter into his mothers culture.

Pearl didn't like that this was the answer, it was more secrets. But she had always been good at keeping secrets, and Garnet had said it would be best. So Pearl would trust her and keep her reservations to herself and hope that the day she could be at least a little more open to Steven.

Chapter Text

Steven liked the summer.

He thought it was better than the school year, even though he liked school a lot and thought he did pretty good in it. And he had lots of friends, he was a very social kid and he knew how to make friends. But it was as the years passed and he got older, he realized that people were more interested in fitting in and weren't as interested in being themselves anymore.

Steven knew he was different, and that was okay. He just wanted to be as himself as he could, and sometimes that led him to be isolated. At least at first, but he made friends who were also isolated and alone. But now his friends were all off doing things for the summer and he was alone again.

He couldn't invite anyone over to his house, it was too far away from anything. It took him 20 minutes to get to the nearest bus stop, which he would ride for 45 minutes to get into town.

Steven wasn't too sure why they lived so far away from 'civilization' as Amethyst referred to the town. He had asked Pearl about it once and she had tossed something out there about it being cheap land. She had fixed up the small house on the property and they had lived here ever since, but the point was that they lived near nothing, except empty road.

He was bored, laying on the floor trying to escape the all encapsulating heat. He could go to the pool, but that meant walking to the bus stop to go to the pool, and he could feel himself melting onto the cool tiles. The gems never seemed affected by the heat or cold, but maybe that just happened when you grew up, the temperature wasn't as extreme. He wanted to do something, but doing anything other than staying where he was; with a cold towel on his face, shirt off, laying on the floor, just seemed like pain in a bucket.

Steven sighed, pushing up the towel and looked at his phone. Nothing.

He rolled over and sat up reluctantly. He was supposed to return books to the library anyways, and might as well do that now before they were late. He had to convince himself that walking to the bus stop would be worth it once he was inside a air conditioned building. He looked at the now lukewarm towel and decided that humidity was worse than the dry heat and went to grab his bag.

His bag was kinda falling apart; it was his dad's at one point, so he'd need to talk to Pearl about getting a new one. He had seen a cool one on the Wacky Sacks website, so maybe he would get her to look at it. He walked out the door and made his way to the bus stop. The only tolerable thing about the walk was the slight breeze following him.

Steven stepped off the bus and began his walk to the library. It wasn't too far, and he was thankful for that. He looked around and didn't see too many people, just a few walking around, but it seemed most people were inside.

"Like I should be" he thought

He'd also need to tell Pearl to take him back to school shopping soon. The time just seemed to slip away before he was ready. And that was fine, he liked school. Learning was good, he liked learning. He liked his friends and they liked him. He just also liked not going to school.

His dad had promised to bring him to the beach so they could swim. So there was something to be excited about. Steven wondered when his dad would remember. He was probably busy with the car wash and life in Beach city. It was a weird name for a city, but no weirder than Scorpian town. He walked up the steps to the library and entered. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was hit with the air conditioner. He had to move out of the way of the door quicker than he would've liked, as someone walked in. That was fine, he went over to the front desk and greeted the person working it.

"Hi Cam! I'm here to return some books!" He said cheerily, sliding the books towards her.

"Hi Steven, yeah I got those for you," She smiled at him and took the books, slowly scanning them in "You here for anything else?"

Steven paused thinking, "Yeah, do you have the new copy of Lonely Sword in?"

"Book or DVD?"

"Both?"

Cam nodded "Yeah we have both, although I think the manga was recently returned, so it might be in the back. Why don't you go look around and when you're done come check out and I'll give you the manga?"

Steven grinned and gave a thumbs up "You got it!"

Steven arrived home hot but happy. After his trip to the library where he found a new book series and picked up the new copy of his favorite series 'Lonely Blade' plus the DVD.

"A success" he exclaimed out loud into the empty house. He went over to the old TV set, which he had a sneaking suspicion was also his dads as they had to add on a DVD player, and entered the DVD. While he waited for it to load to the main menu, Steven went to the freezer and grabbed an ice cream. His ever so loyal Cookie Cats, always there on good and bad days. He remembered going into a gas station for the first time by himself and buying one. Ever since then, they had been his favorite ice cream.

He sat down in front of the TV and ate his Cookie Cat while watching 'Lonley Blade'. It was a good way to pass two hours, even if he knew the story by heart at this point.

After the movie finished, Steven looked at the clock. 4:45. Too late to return the movie to the library, but too early for the gems to come home.

This ended up happening a lot, Steven left alone, not knowing much of anything. He could call his dad, but chances were he was asleep if it was a slow day, and it usually was. So Steven did what he normally did and went outside to the stream.

It was still hot, but cooling down now. The sun wouldn't set for another few hours, so he still had plenty of sunlight. He climbed up the large tree in the back and sat looking at the road It made him feel lonely. Not that he wasn't, he knew he was lonely. Maybe that's why he liked Lonely Blade so much, he could be lonely and still super strong. And Steven knew he wasn't alone, ever. He had the gems and his dad and during the school year he had his friends and teachers, but even then. He never felt the same as anyone else.

He touched the hard rock imbedded in his stomach. He didn't really notice it anymore, ocassionally he would feel it, like a hand warmer on his stomach, but that was it.

The gems said he got it from his Mom, but that was about as far as they took it. And Steven knew it didn't make him any different from his peers, but sometimes he wanted to blame the woman who left him alone, for making him lonely. He knew that he loved her, and that she didn't leave on purpose, she died during birth. His dad and the gems were very open about that. But still, it was one of those thoughts that nagged at the back of his head.

Steven threw a stick down at the creek and watched it be taken away and away from him. Everything was alright though! School would start soon and he wouldn't be lonely, the gems would come home and shower him in love and he wouldn't be lonely, and his dad would come up and take him to the beach and he wouldn't be lonely.

He layed down on the branch, thick enough to hold his weight and watched the branches above him, bright with flowers and leaves adorning them. Bees, wasps, and flies swarmed the sweet smelling flowers. He used to be scared of being stung and wanted to get rid of them, but the gems explained the importance of all life. They told him that his mom loved all living things and wanted to respect all life as it was.

"Steven" Garnet had explained to a small Steven, "They're just enjoying the tree, same as you. It's not our place to make something leave because we don't want them there."

So Steven learned to let them be, and they never bothered him anymore. He closed his eyes in the drowsy heat and …

Steven woke up to Amethyst hanging upside down staring at him.

"STE-MAN!" She grinned and shouted in his face. He started and slipped off the branch, but he didn't hit the hard ground. He plopped into Garnet's arms with a yelp.

"Hello Steven" She said softly

"Garnet!" Steven said relieved, hugging the tall, sturdy woman "I'm so glad you were here,"

A horrified cry came from behind them, Pearl was making her way over, likely to dig into Amethyst about her stunt.

"Amethyst! You can't do that to him! He's fragile!" She turned to Steven, who was still being held by Garnet "Are you alright Steven?" She looked him up and down after Garnet set him back down.

After she was satisfied that he wasn't injured, she took a deep breath and then "What on earth were you doing up there?! It's dangerous! If Garnet wasn't here, than you might've been seriously hurt and we never would've known!"

Ameythest dropped from the tree and sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes.

"He's Fine P, Right Steven?" Amethyst looked at him expectantly

Pearl stopped her rant and looked at Steven directly. Her blue eyes were always so piercing, it was nerve-racking when she put her whole attention onto Steven.

"Yeah Pearl. I'm okay, I promise,"

She bite her lip and opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but Garnet got there first.

"We should get inside, it might rain soon"

And with that, the scolding was over and small droplets started to fall from the sky.