Steven gingerly held his friends in a hug as they both continued to sob.

It had been two days since Pumpkin had died, and Steven was doing his best to comfort his mourning friends at the small pets' funeral service.

Steven remembered being awoken that morning with a phone call from a very panicked Peridot and emotionally vacant Lapis.

Steven had warped over to the two gems' shared house in Little Homeworld as fast as he could.

He hadn't even crossed through the front door before Peridot and Lapis were pulling at his arm, dragging him into their home.

They rushed Steven over to a small, plush dog bed. Nestled within the bed was Pumpkin, but she did not stir.

Peridot could barely articulate the words she was attempting to get across, tears and snot running down her face and smudging up her signature visor.

"W-we tried to get her to wake up for her m-morning walk, but she wouldn't move! She doesn't respond to any sounds or physical touch and her eyes won't open..."

Peridot tried to continue, but at that point, she was too choked up to continue talking.

Lapis, who had been standing silently this entire time, broke the silence.

"Steven, this is that thing. That thing that happens to Earth things, like shattering...This is that thing called 'dead", isn't it?"

Steven forced himself to look away from the distant look in Lapis' eyes. It had been years since that look had been on Lapis' face and he refused to let himself look in fear that he'd start to break down.

No, he needed to be strong for his friends right now.

Steven delicately scooped up Pumpkin's motionless body in his arms. He turned to his two friends and sadly confirmed Lapis' fears.

And now here they were several days later-the three friends standing together at Beach City's local cemetery where they had chosen to hold a service for their fallen Pumpkin.

The groundskeeper had initially been hesitant to allow the trio to bury their friend within the cemetery grounds.

This had infuriated both Lapis and Peridot who insisted that Pumpkin was just as much worthy of burying as any human body.

It took a lot of convincing, but Steven had been able to convince the groundskeeper to allow them a very small plot of ground for Pumpkin.

In all fairness, the space they were given turned out to be perfect.

It was atop a small hill towards the back end of the cemetery grounds. A small tree had sprouted on the hill as well and Lapis suggested that they bury their friend at the foot of the growing tree.

The three of them had been crying since they got to the graveyard that day. Tears fell from their cheeks as they made their way to the spot where their small friend had been laid to rest the previous day. And on top of that hill, they stood together and cried into each others' arms for hours.

The sun was setting in the sky and casting an orange glow over the gloom landscape as Steven finally rubbed the last of the tears out of his eyes. It was probably time that they headed back home. They could always come back the next day when they had more sunlight.

Steven took his two friends by the hand and gently began to lead them back to the cemetery's exit.

The trio's mournful trudging along was suddenly cut short as Steven began to hear strange noises.

He gestured to his two friends to stop and listen. The sounds of the friends' sniffling were soon drowned out by the growing sounds of shifting earth, snapping of plant-life and what could only be described as an animalistic moaning.

Suddenly, Peridot shrieked in panic, startling Steven and Lapis.

"Oh my Stars! What is THAT?!"

Clawing out from the ground nearby was a single pink hand.

Steven's eyes grew wide at the sight of the wriggling, rotten pink arm bursting from the ground at his feet.

His mind was brought back to the schlocky, B grade horror movies that he'd so often watch with Lars, Sadie, and Ronaldo.

Steven's mind raced at the implications of what was happening in front of him.

A half-rotten, human arm. A PINK one.

Steven knew that his spit and tears could heal. Hell, they could do more than heal. He had quite literally raised Lars back from the dead all those years ago in the forgotten depths of Homeworld. But Lars had only just died and was entirely intact when he was revived. This...

This was entirely different. Steven had no idea his powers would work on something...someone who was so long gone.

What was he even supposed to make of this? The body that was slowly breaking forth from the ground had been revived, but just how revived was it? Was whatever this arm attached to capable of thinking? Or was it a mindless monster like the ones that so often featured in the horror films he had seen so many times before?

Steven was finally broken out of his train of thought when he felt the weight of his body shift and the distance between his feet and the ground grew.

Steven looked up to see Lapis, with a horrified look on her face, lifting Steven into the air with her as Peridot clung to dear life from Lapis' back.

"Steven, Steven!" Lapis shouted as she shook Steven in her arms, "Tell us, do you know what those things are down there?"

Steven looked back down at the cemetery grounds, now far below them. Several mangled bodies had broken through the earth and were scrambling to pull themselves free.

The bodies were in various states of decay. A few of the bodies seemed to be almost entirely normal, aside from the torn clothing they were clad in and the disheveled look of the bodies' now pink hair.

Unfortunately for Steven's stomach, most of the former corpses were not as pretty to look at.

Steven retched, barely managing to hold back the bile that was threatening to spill from his throat. The sight of exposed ribcages, half-rotten organs, and mangled limbs was something Steven would be seeing for a very long time in his nightmares.

"I-I think those are human corpses. Bodies of people that are dead. Or, were dead, I think? I have a sneaking suspicion that their pink skin might be because of my healing tears."

Both Peridot and Lapis were alarmed at this piece of information.

"Steven, I thought your powers fixed things! Correct me if I'm wrong, and I KNOW I'm not, but you humans aren't supposed to be able to move around with half your inside parts spilling out!"

Steven shrunk further into Lapis' grasp at the sight of the body Peridot had been speaking of. Indeed, the now pink body had an assortment of organs poking through areas of the stomach where there was no longer any flesh.

It was then that Steven noticed something strange. Well, stranger than the pink zombies now wandering around the graveyard.

The aforementioned corpse that Peridot had pointed out had slot begun to change. A pink glow was emanating from various places on the body. Slowly, the pulsating pink light moved across the now resurrected body, and where it passed, new flesh had grown.

Steven felt a growing sense of disgust, intrigue, and wonder at the sight of the body seeming to slowly repair itself.
After pointing this fact out, the trio began to notice that all of the risen corpses were following suit.

Organs were repairing themselves, new flesh appeared to cover the exposed bones and innards of the bodies, and limbs loudly snapped and cracked as they slowly twisted back into their proper orientations.

After several minutes, even the most deteriorated of the bodies had been seemingly repaired.

Now the cemetery was the site of several dozen pink humans of various shapes and sizes slowly standing to their feet and looking around at their fellow revived humans.

Steven took a deep breath before telling Lapis to let go of him.

Lapis and Peridot both gawked at Steven, not believing what they were hearing.

"Steven, are you crazy? Just a few minutes ago, those...things were crawling around on the ground like bits of shattered gems. Are you sure that anyone is even, well, in there anymore?"

Steven knew Lapis had a point. It was a surprise to see his powers had so thoroughly repaired the former cadavers, but he had no idea if the minds of these people had been brought back as well.

"I have to check Lapis. If I did manage to revive these people, well, I can only imagine how terrified and confused they might be right now. What if they need my help?"

Lapis groaned in exasperation. Even for what may be husks of formerly living beings, Steven chose to have compassion. She knew that there was no way she would convince her friend to change his mind. She dropped Steven from her grasp, allowing the teen's floating powers to kick in as he slowly descended to the ground.

Steven generated his shield, ready for the worst-case scenario. He wanted to help these people if he could, but just in case, he wanted to be prepared.

Steven slowly approached the nearest former corpse. It was a short and stocky, male human who was now pink in complexion, of course.

"Hello? My name is Steven Universe. Who are you? Do you maybe need some help?"

At the sound of Steven's question, the short man turned around and gazed at Steven. He stood silently for several seconds, causing Steven to worry that his fears of the bodies being mindless were true.

He breathed a sigh of relief then when the small man finally opened his mouth and ever so shakily uttered a few words.

"M-my name...Bud...Buddy Buddwick. My name...is Buddy Buddwick."

The man's voice was incredibly hoarse and strained, clearly struggling with forming sounds after such a long time being unused. But that wasn't what surprised Steven. It was the man's name.

He remembered that name. It was the name that Beach City's library was named after. It was the name of the researcher that Steven had read about so many years ago with Connie. It was his journals that had helped Steven locate his mother's palanquin.

It was true then. Steven had accidentally raised a man from the dead after being buried for some 200 years. And that was just this one person.

Steven lowered his shield, seeing no need in keeping it raised. The boy had a lot of explaining to do.

He looked around at the other pink humans who were all seemingly coming to grips with the fact that they were able to move and speak and think again. This was going to take a lot of explaining.

The rest of that day had been a blur for Steven. Shortly after realizing the humans were truly back from death, he had to call the other Crystal Gems for help.

Steven had done a lot of difficult things in his relatively short life. He'd fought monsters, dismantled an empire, and saved the earth from all manner of destruction on numerous occasions. But nothing compared to the difficulty he was now facing. How does one go about dealing with several dozens of people who just up and come back from the dead years, decades, centuries after they had ceased to be?

After much deliberation, Steven and the Crystal Gems had convinced the mayor of Beach City to look up and contact the closest surviving family members of the newly revived.

It was a truly strange sight to behold. Parents reunited with children, long separated couples were reunited, and many a family happily welcomed back individuals they had thought long gone.

But what exactly could one do about the revived who had no one? Most of the people who had been resurrected had living family members who remembered them from before they had died and come back. But there were still a decent handful of individuals who had been dead for much, much longer.

Steven groaned in frustration. The past few days had only become increasingly taxing to his emotional and mental well-being.

Steven sat down atop the hill where Pumpkin was laid to rest, hoping he could get a small break from the scene taking place nearby.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were attempting to help one of the revived humans who had been gone the longest come to grips with how much had changed since they had died.

While the gems were able to get the whole "rising from the dead" thing across well enough, they were having issues when it came to explaining the existence of magical, shape-shifting aliens and technology that had advanced past the 19th century. Steven had a feeling that he'd be dealing with this issue for a long time to come.
His thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sight of his blue and green gem friends climbing up the hill to join him.

Lapis and Peridot had done their best to help Steven and the other Crystal Gems deal with the aftermath of his accidental mass resurrection. In a way, it might have been good for them to be so preoccupied with something aside from Pumpkin, even if just for a short while.

The three sat for a bit in silence underneath the small tree growing on the hill, just next to where they had buried their friend. Peridot was the one who finally broke the silence.

"You know, if you were going to go through all that effort, you could have at least brought back the friend we actually would have wanted back Steven."

Steven signed dejectedly. He had grown used to the green gem's bluntness over the years, but now really wasn't a good time.

"Come on Peridot. You know I didn't do any of that on purpose. Besides, I cried on Pumpkin's grave too and nothing happened. That isn't my fau-"

Steven was cut off by the familiar sounds of a bark. It was quiet and muffled, but all three of them had heard it.
The trio looked at each other, shocked, before hearing the sound again and looking down at the plot of ground to their side.

Wriggling through the top layer of recently disturbed soil was the top of a pumpkin. A pink, wiggling, barking pumpkin.