Chapter Text
When Sapphire has managed to calm Greg down - stars know someone has to, and Ruby and Opal aren't always the most reassuring people - and everyone is back at the temple, Opal barely manages to get Steven into his bed before he falls unconscious. It was always the most probable outcome - after all, it's been a long day - but Sapphire can't help but focus on Steven's sleeping form with a certain careful fondness tonight. She has not stood guard as her charge sleeps for months now, at Opal's insistence, but she may have to break her streak tonight.
Ruby is watching Steven too, still in the way she so rarely is. She was scared, then. Sapphire knows of old that Ruby will not admit weakness until she absolutely has to, but she also knows that Ruby loves Steven with the fiery, staggering passion she brings to everything, and that him being in danger must have been terrifying for her. She’s been practically bouncing off the walls of her cell before Steven had managed to rescue them.
Her brave boy. She is so proud of him.
Opal is down by the beach still, and she is moving debris, already beginning the clean-up. Their comrade was never one to rest on her laurels for long - a blend of Pearl's methodical neatness and Amethyst's impatience, she'd once though, until Rose had taken her aside and explained that Opal was more than the sum of Pearl and Amethyst. She had known this, of course, but Homeworld’s lessons are hard to unlearn sometimes. Easier for Ruby, who was just a foot soldier, nothing more than cannon fodder, and for Opal, who by nature rejects all of home world’s teachings. Sapphire had been an aristocrat. She had been a true part of the system, and it had certainly left a mark.
She doesn't often think about her life on Homeworld. It is the gem ship's fault - submerging herself in their systems had brought back memories, not to mention the jasper's presence. At some point, she is going to have to sort through this new information and figure out how best to use it, and what it will all mean for her family.
But for now, it's not urgent, and she is tired. She will content herself with checking that the people she loves are as well as they can be, and begin work on a strategy come morning.
Steven is first, most fragile and most urgent, so she reaches out to him first, letting her mind fall over him. Apart from a hot, puffy bruise around his eye which his sweat will have healed by morning - she has not told him that all of his bodily fluid can heal, because he will learn in time anyway - and some psychological damage which they will deal with when he wakes, he is acceptably close to alright. His dreams are restless and frightened as his mind tries to process what has happened to him, but a little nudge sends them off to better places. There is a rabbit and a frog. Sometimes, Sapphire does not understand Steven.
Ruby she checks on next, but the other gem senses her, as she always does, and heats up slightly in irritation. "You could just ask, you know? You don't have to go prying in my head."
"I’m not prying," Sapphire points out, but she takes no offence. Ruby has had a stressful day, and she has always resented what she views as Sapphire's intrusions. She must make allowances. "Are you alright?"
"Fine. Totally okay, bar really wanting to punch Jasper in the gem. Still, watching her get dragged into the ocean was great stress relief." Ruby is telling the truth, although she has left out the exhaustion. She lets her be, stands, and floats down to the ground floor.
"Going to check on Opal?" Ruby asks after her. She nods an affirmative, and feels Ruby's relief. She had been worried, but hadn't known how to breach the subject. Ruby mostly avoids conversations about emotion.
What a group they are. To borrow a human term, all three - four - three of them are completely FUBAR.
She leaves the temple, and goes off to check on Opal.