Chapter Text
He hadn't showered in weeks.
It's not like he didn’t want to take care of himself; he just didn’t have the time to, not with all the stuff he needed to deal with.
Sometimes it felt like he was the only reason why Little Homeworld was still functioning.
And his responsibilities didn't end there, obviously: he had to deal with the remaining corrupted gems, he had to take care of the Gems questionable teaching methods, and also make sure his father didn't feel neglected.
Frankly, Steven was exhausted.
He sighed deeply, falling deeper into the sweet allure of the covers of his bed, staring at the ceiling and squinting his eyes, feeling the incessant pounding at his temples becoming stronger: a new, unwelcome guest in his busy mind.
Steven groaned under his breath and closed his eyes, regretting his action in the next immediate second as bright shapes and colors danced under his eyelids, forcing his overstimulated mind to open his eyes again.
"Just what I needed.", he muttered under his breath, sensing a feeling of defeat settle deep in his bones.
Whenever he wasn't attending to the needs of those who needed him, Steven spent a lot of time thinking. He thought about the past a lot, so much that the future seemed...void. He couldn't think of one. Not only that, but he kept thinking about his mother, about what she did and who she was, and more importantly, how everyone kept seeing her in him.
Were they truly so similar?
It happened so often that by now he had gotten used to gems greeting him by the name of Rose. But he wasn't Rose. He could never be so...cruel and uncaring like she had been. He wouldn't lie to his friends, keep secrets from them, lie to his family, or abandon gems in remote gardens.
Steven groaned again, an action he found himself doing more and more often lately, and stood up from the bed. There was no use in lying there; it was time to start a new day (even though he didn’t fall asleep the previous night), and there were many humans and gems alike who needed him.
He dragged his feet over to the bathroom, locked the door behind him, and let cold water run at the sink. He gathered some water in his hands and splashed it over his face, trying to force away the deep and dark bags under his eyes. He repeated the action a couple of times before he straightened up and looked in the mirror; his breath caught when he saw Her staring back at him.
He felt an unexplainable feeling of panic come over him, and he reacted by instinct: shoving his fist against the glass, shattering it in a million pieces with a loud noise. He breathed heavily and fast, feeling air claw at his lungs and his heart pushing against his ribcage.
Steven backed away from the broken furniture, slamming his back against the wall and slumping down, his hands finding their way to his hair and pulling at the greasy curls.
"No,no,no,no...that's not me, that's not me!" He whined through the tears that bubbled up around his eyes, making him feel like a kid all over again. "I'm not her! I'M NOT HER!" He screamed, a growl like one he'd never heard before escaping from his lips.
He stared down at himself, his eyes zeroing in on the gem that covered his navel. "Get away from me!" He begged, closing one hand around the diamond and pulling, his thoughts scrambled and empty if not for the need to get it away from him. His clammy fingers held tighter, a loud scream tearing from his throat as he pulled and pulled and pul-
'Today is a good day.’, Garnet thought as she wrapped up another, quite frankly, extremely successful lesson on safety, putting her hands on her hips and smiling satisfiedly as she watched four, slightly dazed, gems walk away from her.
She looked around Little Homeworld with a content expression, humming a familiar tune under her breath as she scanned the surrounding area, taking in the smiles and laughs coming from everywhere.
Garnet moved her eyes up towards the sky, and looking at the sun, she realized that most of the morning had already gone by, yet she hadn't seen Steven around at all. She shook her head, imagining the little guy in his bed, oversleeping like he always used to do when he was younger.
She reached up to her glasses and adjusted them, taking a glance into the future to see when their kid would join them, yet paused confused when Steven just wasn't there.
A feeling of dread and terror took over her whole being, her throat getting dry and her hands sweaty. This wasn't like her. Why couldn't she calm down? She turned around and made a run towards the warp, shoving a gem or two out of the way as she almost tripped over her own two feet and appeared in the middle of the living room of the temple.
Garnet ran upstairs, pushing the door open but finding it empty, the bedroom looking the same as she last saw it, except for a slight stink of a room that hasn't seen fresh air in a while. She cursed under her breath and went back downstairs, pacing the room before a small voice inside her, probably Ruby, reminded her of the existence of the bathroom.
She walked over and forced the door open, tearing the lock through the wood.
And Garnet gasped with pure terror and confusion.
Slumped over the wet floor, with a sickly white color and with closed eyes, lay Steven, one hand lazily closed around his diamond, which was outside his body, why was it there, what is happening.
Garnet felt powerless.
And suddenly Garnet was no more.
Sapphire slumped over on the floor, crying and trembling, clawing at her arms, asking herself how she didn't see this coming. Ruby stumbled over her feet, staring at Sapphire with a lost expression, realizing she wasn't good enough. She couldn't protect him. She was useless.
As the two gems dug deeper into their self-made despair, a shallow and weak breath snapped the red gem out of her misery, her body moving towards the boy before her brain even registered it.
"Steven? Steven, are you okay? STEVEN!", she begged, fat tears falling down her cheeks and onto Steven's shirt, her eyes zeroing in on his chest, searching for a movement. Ruby grabbed the pink diamond, now dull without its host, and she didn't even realize that Gem Steven wasn't here.
She tightened her hold around the precious stone and lifted Steven's shirt, forcing the gem back into his navel. As she did so, a bright and blinding light surrounded the house, forcing Ruby to close her eyes but not losing her grip.
When he came to his senses, the first thing he felt was water.
There was water under him, soaking his clothes uncomfortably, and there was water coming from above him.
What?
Steven slowly opened his eyes, groaning at the dim light, and focused on the shaking figure who was hovering above him.
"Ruby?" He groaned, eliciting a sharp gasp from the distraught Gem.
"STEVEN!" She screamed, hugging the boy for dear life, soaking his shirt even more with her tears. "Steven you're fine!", she wailed, shifting one of her hands so it was resting over his beating heart.
Steven hesitantly held the Gem, trying to gather his thoughts and recall how exactly they ended up in this predicament. He looked around the bathroom, the running sink, and the shattered mirror, and...oh.
He inhaled sharply as he realized what he did. Why...why would he do that? Sure, he was tired, but he had never had any urges.
He looked down at the weeping Gem and decided his thoughts could wait. "Ruby, I'm fine...please don't cry; everything is okay.", he said with his soft voice, wiping away the tears from her cold skin.
"It's not fine!" A new voice called out.
Steven raised his head towards the doorway and saw Sapphire, who was also crying, standing there with her fists closed tight.
"I didn't see it coming! How could I, when you're...you! What happened, Steven? Why did you take your gem out?!" She screamed in pure confusion and anger, marching over to the boy and weakly punching him in the shoulder.
"Just what were you thinking? Why did you never tell us any of this? Are you really so sad you would do something like this?"
Steven sighed and felt an invisible force squeeze his heart. He didn't want to hurt himself or anyone else.
"Sapphire... I'm so sorry; please don't cry. I'm not sad, I'm... I don't know what happened, but I would never do something like this.", he tried to explain himself.
"But you did!", she sobbed, shaking her head and crouching down to her knees, shuffling closer to his side.
"... I'm sorry.", Steven whispered, wrapping his other arm around her, holding the two Gems close to him, mentally kicking himself for having caused all of this.
The three were sitting down on the couch, Ruby and Sapphire next to each other, holding their hands, and Steven on the other end of the couch.
"I don't know what happened, guys. I'm serious. One second I was getting ready for the day, and the other I just felt like the gem was not part of me.", he explained weakly, knowing it probably didn't make much sense to them.
"What does that mean? Are you not...you?", Ruby mumbled, wiping away the remnants of her tears with her free hand.
"No, it's just like-", Steven groaned in frustration, "- I'm not my mom. I'm not Rose Quartz, and I'm not Pink Diamond! I'm Steven!" He stood up, tugging at his hair and pacing the room. "But everyone keeps talking to me like I'm Her, but I'm not! I'm nothing like her! I'm not a liar!"
The two Gems looked at each other with concern, a flicker of understanding jumping between them before they fused again.
"Steven. You're not her. You're Steven." Garnet said, crouching down to face him, putting her hands on his shoulders to force him to face her.
"Garnet...", Steven whimpered, feeling like he was 14 all over again.
He was scared. Scared of himself.
"What should I do?", he whispered, feeling his breath get quicker with fear and confusion.
Whatever wise comment Garnet was about to make, it got cut off by a bright light as the warp activated and Pearl and Amethyst stepped into the house.
"I'm so hungry!", Amethyst complained loudly, stretching her arms over her head with a lazy grin as she eyed the refrigerator with the look of a pouncing cat.
"Who knew teaching could be so tiring?", Pearl said at the same time, overlapping with Amethyst as she stored her phone away in her gem.
They were loud. Steven groaned.
"Oh, Steven, here you are! I wanted to ask you if I could borrow Rose's portrait. I wanted to show it to some of the Gems; they are quite curious about her, since not all of them have ever seen her before.", Pearl mused, noticing Steven standing next to a concerned Garnet.
"Laame!", Amethyst shot back, walking over to the kitchen and raiding half of it, putting together a monstrosity of a sandwich. "Talking of Rose, when did that become your nickname? You would not believe how much time I spent looking for a Rose before I realized I was searching for you!", the purple Gem snorted, shaking her head in amusement.
"I'M NOT ROSE!", Steven screamed, turning sharply towards the two new Gems and snarling, unintentionally sending a force field towards them, sending the two flying backwards, crashing into the wall, and, in Amethyst's case, the cabinets of the kitchen.
A tense silence fell over the room.
"Steven?", Pearl said with a weak voice, slowly standing back up.
The boy gasped sharply, his eyes widening in realization at what he did. He took a few steps backward in shock, forcing himself out of Garnet's hold.
"I-I... I didn't... I'm sorry!", he choked out, running out of the house before the others could realize it.
"STEVEN!"
His lungs were burning, begging him to slow down and breathe. His legs were aching, fighting against gravity as Steven ran up the hill where he last saw Spinel, the same hill that got poisoned first by the girl and the grass he had to kiss to heal the earth...wasn't that something?
He fell to his knees and sobbed loudly, letting his emotions burst in an overwhelming display, raw cries and shouts filling the quiet nature around him.
"Why do I feel like this?", he screamed at the sky, not understanding why he felt so sad.
"Well...this is awkward.", an unexpected yet familiar voice mumbled, clearing their throat.
Steven's head snapped to the side, blinking in surprise at seeing Yellow Pearl.
"Hello, Steven Universe.", she said, nodding in respect to the crying boy. "Yellow Diamond sent me here to check up on you and formally request when you're planning to visit again... Is this a bad time?"
Steven sniffled and stood up, drying his tears. "It's fine, don't worry.", he croaked out, coughing his raspy voice away. "Tell them I'll visit them as soon as I can.", he said with a polite smile, waving as the pearl turned around and began to walk away.
He looked at the hill, his thoughts drifting back to Spinel and the Diamonds. Were they truly able to bond so well over his mother? Did she and Spinel have many things in common? How well did they know Her...?
"Yellow Pearl!", Steven shouted, making the pearl stop and turn around in question. "I’m free right now; would it be okay for me to make my visit right now?"