"Sometimes I think they expect too much," Connie said.

The sand was warm against her skin, and she stared out at the waves. It felt like she'd spent her entire life looking out at the sea, but she'd never really been as comfortable as she had been since meeting Steven.

"I know what you mean," he said.

"Tennis lessons, violin, tutoring...I had to let them think training with Pearl was about a sport, or they'd have never let me spend that much time on my own."

She glanced at Steven. If anything , he had the opposite problem.

Gems didn't have children, so they didn't really know how to be parents. From what she'd seen, Steven had far more freedom that she'd ever be comfortable with. The gems sometimes didn't see him for hours or even a few days at a time, and once he'd told her he'd been gone for two weeks on an island with his friends from the Big Donut, and the gems hadn't even been that upset.

Connie couldn't imagine how her parents would have reacted if she was gone for even one day, much less two weeks. They'd have called out the National guard.

He had less supervision than some of the worst bullies at her school, yet somehow he'd turned out...better than OK.

"It's hard dealing with expectations," Steven said, nodding slowly. "People expect you to be a certain way, and then they're disappointed if you aren't."

Connie glanced sharply at Steven.

"I don't think the gems are disappointed with you," she said.

He was silent for a moment. "I've always been terrified that they would be. I'm not really a gem, and I'm not really human."

"Human's not the worst thing to be," Connie said.

They'd had this conversation before. With all Steven's strengths- his compassion, his courage, his sense of humor, his greatest weakness was this underlying sense of insecurity."

"Gems don't respect humans much," Steven said. "Pearl especially. You've been around her long enough to know how it is."

"I don't think she means anything by it," Connie said.

She knew what he meant, though. The gems didn't really see most humans as people. At best they looked at them like humans looked at puppies and kittens, as cute playthings. Pearl didn't find humans to even be cute.

"Still, it's there in the way they talk. They'll protect the Earth, but they don't really see humans as worth talking to. They tolerate them."

Connie was silent. "So when you couldn't use any of your powers..."

"I never wanted them to think of me like that," Steven said. He stared down at his lap. "If I was just another human, then that would mean that Mom gave up everything for nothing."

Reaching out, Connie grabbed his hand. "You're not nothing, Steven. If you had less power than I do, you'd still be..."

She looked away and her cheeks felt warm.

"You'd be worth the world."

"They expect me to be Mom one day," Steven said.

Connie wished she could have been surprised, but she'd been training with Pearl long enough to know that the older gem sometimes confused Steven with his mother even now. How much worse it would be when he was older and came into his powers she didn't know.

"Even if I have all of her powers, I don't think I'll ever be able to step into her shoes."

She tightened her hand around his.

"Just be you. That'll be enough."

Sometimes Steven reminded her of Atlas holding up the sky. He was the glue that held his family together, and they were the ones who protected the entire planet. That was a lot of responsibility to place on one twelve year old's small shoulders.

Suddenly tennis practice and violin lessons didn't seem like so much.

They watched the sea in silence.