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Steven opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and for a long moment his memory was perfectly empty. Then it came back to him, flashes and hints of emotion: he'd... fallen, somewhere, in one of the old Gem locations on Earth. Right? He'd fallen, and he'd gotten up because it hadn't really been a bad fall, and there'd been this bright bluish-white thing in the middle of the room, and it had been so pretty...
So he'd touched it, because it seemed like the thing to do at the time. And now he didn't know where he was.
Steven pulled himself up and pushed the thin, gauzy blanket off his frame, staring around in surprise. There were colorful murals all along the walls of the room, like the ones at the Gem buildings back on Earth. The one on the far wall showed a group of people, some with gems glimmering on their bodies and some without, holding hands and surrounding a collection of planets. Next to it was a depiction of a tall person with a long, braided ponytail; their eyes were closed, and they held their arms clasped in front of them, framing the pink gem in their belly. Around them, a collection of twining vines and flowers bloomed, spots of pink and white in the gray marble, and above them hung an incredibly familiar planet. Steven's eyes traced the silhouettes of the Americas, Europe, the western coast of Africa-- that was Earth. On a Gem mural? And that person--
Steven got off the bed carefully, tucking the blanket back into place for politeness's sake, and went to take a closer look. Up close, he could see elaborate designs in the person's hair and in the flowers surrounding them: an etching of two people meeting who looked suspiciously like him and Connie-- he could see the flowing edges of her sundress, the star on his shirt-- and below it, another picture, this time looking like the Crystal Gems, facing off against stylized versions of the Diamonds, and below that an etched depiction of Steven arriving on Homeworld as Pink Diamond, and another of a battle, and another, and another...
An inscription of something that looked like words caught his eye, down near the bottom. He kneeled, wide-eyed with interest, and saw three lines of text. One was in what looked like Gem script-- the next, in something that looked kind of like a mix of different alphabets--
The third was in English. Steven mouthed the phrase to himself: A single person is worth more than every sword in the world. Why did that...?
Oh. He recognized it, actually. It was a line from the Spirit Morph Saga-- something Archimicarus had said to Lisa, after she'd almost fallen into the volcano. Steven had always thought it sounded nice.
A door slid open to his right, and he jerked up from the floor, wondering if he should summon his shield just in case-- but the woman at the door wasn't carrying any weapons.
The woman at the door, Steven realized with a shock, was human. She had dark skin and darker hair piled up in a fancy bun on her head, and her face was criss-crossed with bright orange tattoos. She looked like she was used to smiling. "Oh! You're awake. Are you feeling okay?"
Steven said sheepishly, "Yeah, I'm okay. Um, can you tell me where we are?" He remembered his manners and added, "I'm Steven, by the way."
"It's nice to meet you," the woman said with an amused smile. "I'm Naya. You're in the medbay of the Galaxy Skipper-- we're a cargo class vessel headed to Upsilon 9, but since you dropped in we've had to divert to Konos 45." Something in Steven's expression must have shown how he wanted to apologize, because she added, "It's all right! We're a fast ship, you aren't causing any trouble. Were you playing around with a spatial destabilizer or something? How'd you end up here?"
What was a spatial destabilizer? It sounded cool. "No," Steven said, thinking hard. "There was a bright blue thing, in this room I was in, and when I touched it I woke up here. I don't know what it was."
Naya bit her lip. "Sounds like... maybe something temporal? Or an artifact core, those are pretty weird, but this stuff really isn't my field, so shale if I know, right?" She grinned at Steven, and suddenly she looked like she wasn't much older than Sadie. Steven smiled back. "It's probably something that'll wear off on its own. We can just drop you off at Konos, let you hang around a bit till you go back-- it's like a rubber band, see, you pull it and pull it and it snaps back hard-- ugh, I'm rambling, ask me another question?"
Steven took a second to catch up with everything she was saying, then said, "Okay, um. Tell me who the person in that mural is?" What would Connie say to make this sound less weird-- "They look really familiar."
Naya laughed. "Well, duh. It's really stylized, which I guess would explain the confusion, but that's Pink Diamond. You know, Stevonnie?"
Oh. "Oh," Steven squeaked. "Yeah, I guess-- that makes sense. Okay."
"Are you okay?" Naya side-eyed him curiously. "You seem a little on edge."
"I guess I just don't know much about them," Steven said awkwardly. "Like, they're a fusion of a human and a gem hybrid, and they're a Diamond, and they're important..."
"Haha, yeah, it's kinda confusing, isn't it," Naya commiserated. "It's like, I think they aren't actually a supreme leader? We're not Ancient Homeworld, right, so none of the Diamonds are supreme leaders-- but I guess Stevonnie's closer to it than everyone else. All that stuff you hear in modules about how nice and smart and wise and powerful they are is nothing compared to the real thing, apparently. They're like a symbol for Gem-Human relations who's also ridiculously badass. I guess you were kind of named after them?"
Steven jumped. "Yeah!" he agreed awkwardly. "Something like that." Kind of the other way around.
"Sorry, sorry," Naya said, looking faintly embarrassed. "I just thought 'cause of your gem... Rose Quartz, right? That's kind of a loaded Gem for a hybrid."
Steven shrugged. "You get used to it. All the legacy stuff..." Hybrid? Like they were more common here?
And she'd said Ancient Homeworld... Something told Steven he wasn't in Kansas anymore.
Naya winced. "Right." She rubbed her eyes, then perked up. "Well, if you're awake... I can show you around? Then we can go down to Communications, see if there's anyone you want to contact... shale, I should have asked that first, oops."
"It's fine!" Steven assured her. "I don't have anyone I have to contact right away." If he was right, and he was beginning to think he was, he wouldn't be able to contact his Gems either way. "A tour would be nice, though."
"Awesome!" Naya grinned at him. "Let's go, then." She opened the door and stepped through into a crowded hallway, and Steven followed her.
*
They were at the edge of Earth-Gem space, and gems and humans lived together like everywhere was Beach City. Steven had gleaned that much from what Naya had been saying. It wasn't just that, though-- apparently gem-human hybrids were a thing, even if they were kind of uncommon, and Stevonnie was basically a Diamond now, and the other Diamonds were completely fine with gems fusing with each other as much as they wanted and having kids with humans. Steven hadn't heard the word 'organic' once. It was weird, but a good kind of weird. The kind of weird you could get used to.
They passed a Pearl and a Carnelian holding hands in the halls in front of a giant window. Steven paused to stare wonderingly out into space, at the completely unfamiliar collection of stars. There was a planet in sight, deep reddish-brown with white and orange clouds, and around it were gleaming rings, like a fancier Saturn. "That's Konos 36," Naya volunteered. "It's a gas giant, so it's not really all that habitable for us. It's pretty, though, isn't it?"
Steven nodded, starry-eyed. "It's beautiful." Naya cleared her throat, and he turned to follow her farther down the hallway. The Pearl waved as they left.
Steven waved back.
Naya yelled, "Hey, hothead!" just as they entered a giant cafeteria-- a space cafeteria. A future space cafeteria. Steven felt like that needed capital letters. A giant fusion, looming over a group of arguing gems in a corner, looked up and waved, and Naya waved back. The person she was yelling for, a light-skinned young man with a Ruby's gem on his forehead, broke away from his conversation with a Lapis Lazuli and groaned audibly.
"Stop calling me that!" Naya led Steven over to their table and pulled out a chair for him before plopping into her own with a grin.
"Dude," she said, "you couldn't pay me all of your dessert credits to stop! You earned that nickname fair and square. This is Steven, by the way, he had an accident with an artifact core and now he's stuck here for a while."
The Lapis Lazuli, darker than the Lapis Steven knew and sporting a pixie cut, waved at him nonchalantly. Hothead glowered, sighed longsufferingly, and said, "My name's Anselm. Assistant Engineer Anselm Ruby Thomsson. Not Hothead. You set fire to your hair one time when you're twelve--"
"Fourteen," the Lapis Lazuli corrected.
"--and your friends never let it go! It's ridiculous."
"I knew his great-grandfather," the Lapis Lazuli told Steven. "His whole family's this touchy, it's ridiculous. I'm Lapis Lazuli Facet 6X7Y Cut 12ZZZ. You can call me Zee if you want, everyone does."
"Nice to meet you," Steven said hesitantly. Better not give his real name here... "I'm Steven Quartz, uh, DeMayo." Zee smiled, and he smiled tentatively back. "What do you guys do here? I know you--" He motioned at Anselm-- "said you're an engineer, but what about you two?"
"I'm a medtech," Naya told him. "Zee's an engineer."
"A reproductive engineer," Zee corrected. She wasn't eating, but she had a few slices of some kind of purple-green fruit, and she was chopping them up into little pieces with her spork. "I'm helping make new gems."
Steven frowned. Like with the Kindergartens? He'd thought, if some weird future Stevonnie was in charge, that they would have put a stop to that. "How's that work?"
"Oh, no, don't ask that," Naya groaned, but Zee was already perking up.
"It's absolutely fascinating. I'm an Era Three gem, so I was made just after all the fuss with Earth, right?" Naya and Anselm nodded. "So I never really got to see all that dictatorship empire stuff. But even then all the sustainable Kindergarten tech was still in progress, so forming a new gem took life out of the soil. Now, though-- we're able to form new gems with hardly any damage to ecosystems at all! Using the methods pioneered by Peridot Facet 2F5L Facet 5XG, we can grow plants and other organic lifeforms and use their life force to create new gems-- with some augmentation for the plants of course-- and since plants photosynthesize and contribute to the water cycle and all that-- I can help-- the creation of new gems is basically solar powered! It's the same principle that breeds giant zucchinis and all that out of the same soil, over and over again, even when the nutrients seem to come out of nowhere."
"Oh. So it's-- completely sustainable?" Steven asked, leaning forward. That Peridot's name sounded really familiar...
"Completely," Zee enthused. "It's awesome."
"'Course it is," Naya said indulgently. "Hey, hothead, Zee, you wanna come with us for the tour? I told Steven I'd show him around."
"Didn't 7XC say not to move him without asking her first?" Anselm asked. "I specifically remember her saying that. In fact, I could swear it was directed specifically in at you, Nay."
Naya widened her eyes beseechingly. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. And anyway, I left her a message, didn't I?"
"Did you," Anselm grumbled, but the other two seemed to ignore him with the ease of practice.
"Are you guys coming or what?"
"It'd be really fun if you could tell me more about this ship," Steven added hopefully. He tried giving them puppy dog eyes (they always worked on Garnet) and was delighted to see them both cave almost immediately.
"I guess I can put off my work," Zee said reluctantly, already rising from her seat.
Anselm gave a deep sigh and picked his jacket off the back of his chair. "What have you seen so far?"
"Just the room I woke up in and this place," Steven said. Zee frowned, almost comically offended.
"That's not gonna work! Come on, Nay, you didn't even show him the greenhouses?"
"I wanted to see you first!"
"Not even the engine room?" Anselm asked plaintively, and Naya shook her head.
"See, this is why we need you along."
*
The tour was probably the best thing that ever happened to Steven, aside from meeting Connie and a few other things. Gems and humans and even other aliens were all cooperating on the ship, talking and smiling like it was totally normal that Homeworld gems saw organics as people. Steven thought Connie or Pearl could have gotten a lot more out of all the tech talk than he had, though.
The engine room had looked a lot like the Crystal Heart in the center of the Temple, and it had pulsed and glowed in time with the ship's movements. Anselm had introduced him to his fellow engineers-- mostly humans and Peridots, but Steven thought he'd seen a Bismuth and an Aquamarine working in one corner-- and Zee had dragged everyone to the greenhouse to show him the giant zucchinis. Naya had been tracked down by her supervisor and yelled at for a good five minutes. It had all been really fun and a little awkward.
Everyone here was as friendly as the cool kids, back in Beach City-- so assured in themselves that they didn't worry how they appeared to strangers-- that they weren't reserved around new people. Steven was consistently amazed.
Then they ended up in Anselm and Zee's shared quarters-- connected by a bathroom, which Zee pointed out she didn't even need-- and Anselm offered to help Steven make a call.
"It's Fleet tech, so you might not see it planetside," Naya was explaining. Steven thought she might have mistaken his confusion for something less serious. "But it works pretty much the same way as a standard quantum phone."
The screen was lined in bright pink text and had a number of tiny circles on it like apps on a desktop. Maybe it was like an iPhone and had vocal recognition, then? "Can I just say who I want to call?"
Zee shrugged. "Sure, go ahead."
Steven nodded, trying to remember one of his friends' designations, and said, "Amethyst Facet 5 Cut 8XM," hoping he'd gotten it right. Naya startled and gaped.
"Wait, are you sure that's the right name?" Zee asked, but the call went through before she could get an answer.
The screen floated up and expanded, and a familiar purple gem came into view. Future Amethyst had a cool outfit and the same long, messy hair as always, and she glanced over at the screen like she was considering punching it to make it go away. "Hello? Hey, I'm kinda busy here, if this is some kinda prank--" She cut off and stared, mouth hanging open. A long moment passed in silence, and Steven broke it with a giggle.
"Hi, Amethyst," he said with a little wave. "How's it going?"
Amethyst shook her head violently and pointed at Steven through the screen. "Wait, what? You haven't looked like that for eons-- you haven't unfused for like millennia! What the heck!" Steven saw Anselm mouthing the same thing at Naya, eyes wide. He felt a little bad that he hadn't mentioned the time travel.
"I'm not that Steven," Steven explained, a little awkwardly. Millennia? "I don't think I am, at least? I was on a mission back on Earth, just after the Diamond attack when everything had calmed down, and I touched this weird glowing thing, and then I ended up here. I'm just not sure where here is."
"The Earth-Gem Alliance," Amethyst said automatically. "It's like, this whole thing now. After you-- can I tell you what happens? Is that something I can do? Ugh, this'd be a lot easier if Garnet were here, she knows about time stuff."
Steven froze. "What happened to Garnet?" If she'd been hurt, or unfused, or--
"Nothing!" Amethyst cut in. "Nothing, she's fine, she's just on another planet right now. We do a lot of cool stuff, but it means doing a lot more work, too. Pearl's with you-- uh, other you-- right now. So're Bismuth, Lapis and Peridot. Nephrite, too."
"Nephrite?" Steven leaned closer to the screen.
"Centipeedle," Amethyst corrected, looking at him almost in anticipation, and Steven's heart did something complicated in his chest. Centipeedle. Nephrite, who'd stayed on Earth because she hadn't wanted to leave her crewmates, who'd played with him and saved him from other Gem monsters and had drawn pictures, had told him who'd sent the Corruption song in the first place--
Steven was tearing up. Steven was-- the Diamonds had just attacked, and he was going to Homeworld in the next few days, and he'd been running on adrenaline and hope and fear for days now, and now he'd woken up here--
"She's okay," he choked out. "You're-- is everyone okay? No one got-- shattered, or hurt, or-- or anything? Everything's okay?"
"Yeah, Steven." Amethyst's eyes crinkled. "It's been a long time, but I promise-- everything's okay."
He wiped his eyes. "That's-- that's good. That's really awesome, Amethyst. What about Jasper? And the other Diamonds, and Lars, and everyone else?"
Amethyst grinned. "How 'bout we pick you up so you can see for yourself?"
Steven couldn't agree fast enough.
*
Three days later, measurements showed that Steven was on the verge of jerking back to his present-- their distant past. He'd already said goodbye to Naya and the other new gems he'd met, along with some old friends he'd been glad to know were still around-- but there was one person he hadn't spoken to.
Or, well, two people. They were an experience.
"Remember," Pearl told Steven carefully. Her blue eyes were deadly serious. "They can't tell you anything specific about what happened to get you to this point. If they start to, you have to cover your ears and refuse to listen. Do you understand me, Steven?"
He nodded. "I understand, Pearl."
"But are you sure--"
"He'll be fine," Garnet cut in. "We're here, aren't we?"
"Yeah, Pearl, don't be such a worrywart," Amethyst told her. "Steven's cool, he knows what to do. And it's not like Stevonnie's gonna mess something like that up."
"Oh, very well." Pearl wrung her hands. "It's just all very overwhelming. Be careful, Steven, all right?"
"All right," Steven agreed. He hugged Pearl one last time, then waved to everyone else-- to Lapis and Peridot and Bismuth, to Jasper and Nephrite, to the Famethysts and other Beta Kindergarteners, a whole crowd gathered to watch his last moments in the future.
The Crystal Gems stayed at the entrance to the giant greenhouse-park, conversing with the guards and each other at its entrance. Steven walked in alone.
Every plant in the park was from Earth. There were thick-vined morning glories with blossoms the size of trumpets, and wide pink hibiscus nearly Steven's height. Watermelon vines snaked across the ground and tangled with the ground cover. The air smelled like freshness, and wet dirt, and thousands of plants and animals all growing together.
Steven could hear water, running in the distance, and birdsong. If he looked for it, he could even smell the sea. It was just like the tropical island he and Lars and Sadie had gotten stranded on, back before they'd learned about the Cluster and all the threats to Earth.
He kept going. Eventually, a body of water came into view-- and with it a tall, familiar figure. Steven called out a greeting, and Future-Stevonnie turned and stood, bounding down to where Steven waited.
"Wow," Stevonnie breathed. "You're so small, Steven!" They stood taller than Jasper, taller than Garnet-- maybe as tall as Opal, Steven thought. Maybe just as beautiful. Their smile was blindingly bright and warm, and there were flowers in their braid: pale pink roses, yes, but also chrysanthemum and sweet pea, twining effortlessly through their long hair. They were dressed in silky pink clothes that folded around their body like a robe but showed their gem (Steven's gem) bright and clear. Even though they'd been kneeling in the sand, there wasn't any sand on their outfit. Stevonnie noticed Steven's gaping and laughed. "It's weird, right? Future fabric! It doesn't get dirt stuck to it, so it's always clean."
"That must be useful," Steven said. "What else have you guys done?"
Stevonnie grinned. "Cured cancer, brought life to lifeless planets, started a whole Federation like in Star Trek... I've lived a long time! All Connie's dreams about space flight came true. All your dreams about having your family safe came true. Things just... kept going after that."
"It's really pretty," Steven said quietly, too overwhelmed to raise his voice. "It's-- I don't understand how you've done so much. Right now I don't think I can handle anything else."
"Where are you on the timeline?" Stevonnie went back to the sand and handed Steven a shovel, then started building a sand castle. Steven plopped himself down in the sand next to them and started working on digging a hole, relieved to have something to do with his hands.
"The Diamonds just attacked Earth," he confided. "And I'm going to Homeworld soon."
Stevonnie dipped a bucket of sand in the water and drained it carefully, then overturned the wet sand onto the beach. When they raised their eyes, a thousand years of empathy met Steven's own. "I'm sorry," they said. "Things will be hard for you, in the future. Like they have been for a while, now, for you."
Steven took the unwritten cue and carved a window out of the sand, then put a smaller tower on top of the bigger one, like a stunted cathedral. "I'm scared," he admitted. "I don't know if I can do this." His voice broke. "I don't know if I can save everyone. What if this isn't the same timeline? What if I just fail? What if I get everyone killed?"
"You won't," Stevonnie said furiously. "Even if this isn't the same timeline. Even if things happen that we couldn't ever imagine-- you're not alone, Steven. You have your family. You have Connie. And when you're me, you're never alone."
"But I'm not always you," Steven said. "I'm not-- sometimes I am alone. There's only so much I can do when I'm alone." He blinked back tears and drew a little door on the sand castle, little whirls and swirls to represent murals and fancy decorations. Stevonnie scooped up a shard of seashell and pressed it over the door like a good luck charm.
"You can do plenty," Stevonnie promised. Then they perked up. "Here, I've got something to show you." They scrambled up, careful not to knock over the sand castle, and waded into the seawater, dipping down beneath the waves like a seal. When they paddled back to shore, there was a pinkish-red object in one of their hands. "Here," they said, presenting it to Steven. "What do you think this is?"
Steven took the item-- a chunk of pinkish rock, rough and pitted organically-- and said, "Coral?" It was pretty, in a natural way. It felt like living.
"Yeah," Stevonnie said with a grin. "But it's almost something more. Can you feel it?" Steven closed his eyes and concentrated, then opened them with a start. The rock felt like a gem-- like it could form into someone at any moment. He thought that if he reached close enough, he could see them like he'd seen Lapis and Peridot after they were poofed, in the mindscape.
"It's alive," he said aloud. "It's-- someone. Almost. Right?"
Stevonnie looked at the new gem with easy warmth. "She'll be a Coral," they said. "A new kind of gem. White said I should try to make more gems in my image, so. I thought I'd give them the best of both of me."
"Like what?" Steven couldn't imagine designing a whole new type of gem. It was so much responsibility, and what if they didn't like how they were made? How could you even help someone with that?
"From you," Stevonnie said, "I'm giving them growth powers. Healing, too, and shapeshifting like Rose Quartz, though they won't be as durable as a soldier." Then they smiled, a little mischievously. "From Connie, I'm giving them the human ability to choose. They won't have any programming for what they're supposed to do. They'll have to learn for themselves." Steven was willing to bet that that wasn't quite what White had had in mind.
"So they'll be able to do what they want," Steven tried.
Stevonnie nodded. "They'll have powers suited for certain things," they admitted, "Like fixing planets, or going out on missions, because that's what I'm good at. But they'll be made for no purpose but themselves. They'll be the first gems ever to be made like that. Another step towards progress."
Steven stared down at the new gem in his hands and felt the weight of the future. "They won't know about Homeworld's empire except in history books," he said aloud, trying to get used to the concept. "Like a lot of the people here. It'll just be the past to them."
"Makes you feel old, doesn't it?" Stevonnie asked. Steven gave a watery grin and handed the half-formed gem back, and they placed it carefully at the sand castle's doorstep, like they were welcoming it home.
Steven felt a sudden lurch, like he'd been jerked sideways, and he gasped. Stevonnie's eyes snapped up to meet his own. "Oh. What's-- what's happening?"
"You're being pulled back to the past," Stevonnie said. "Your present. I guess your vacation time is up."
Steven's eyes welled with tears. "I won't ever see you again. Or I will, but I'll be you, and it won't be the same. How am I supposed to make this happen? How do I make this real?"
"Do what you'd do anyway," Stevonnie told him. "Be kind. Be Steven, and you'll get through everything." They were wavering in Steven's vision, like they were slipping away, becoming unreal--
Like he was slipping away. Like he'd only imagined the future all along. "How do you know, Stevonnie?" Steven asked desperately. "How do you know it'll be okay?"
"Because!" Stevonnie smiled knowingly. "Steven. I remember this conversation from both ends."
Oh.
The world faded to nothing, and Steven found himself sprawled on the ground of an abandoned temple, staring up at an ornate ceiling. Pearl was shaking him fearfully. "Steven! Steven, are you all right? Do you recognize us?"
Steven pushed himself upright and smiled tiredly. "Yeah. I recognize you guys." Pearl, and Garnet and Amethyst were behind her, still scuffed up from their fight with the Diamonds. Garnet had only just had her wedding. "I love you."
"I love you too, Steven," Pearl said, touching over him to check for injuries. "But are you sure you're not hurt? You disappeared for a good twenty minutes!"
"Pearl, I'm fine." Steven insisted. The mural on the ceiling caught his eye again, and for a moment, his memory of the mural on the wall of his recovery room in the future overlaid it. The etchings describing the course of his life, the little figures of the Crystal Gems, Stevonnie's clasped arms... A promise of peace, someday. A promise that things would get better.
Yeah, Steven decided. He was fine. He'd make sure of it.