I didn't think I was going to make another chapter for this, but, well, I had some extra free time. Don't expect much. Rebecca Sugar owns everything except for my canon mistakes, which she only owns the properties of.

Steven dreams.

When he was little, before he knew more about the Crystal Gems, before the Diamond Authority haunted his waking hours, before he had the groundedness in a close partner like Connie, his dreams were silly. Fanciful. Nursery rhymes made up for himself and Crying Breakfast friends, made-up games and a few locals to Beach City.

Now, though, Steven is fourteen, and his dreams touch someth- someone he can't. Curled ringlet hair in the softest of pinks cascades down he- hi- their back, a flowing dress encasing their large form, bare feet making their way across the dirt of a newborn Gem Kindergarten.

Sometimes the dreams are just wisps of a past life: a song Steven doesn't remember writing, a twirl of a skirt in a dance he doesn't know, faces and names that have long since been lost to time. The memories are faint and golden with sunlight, sometimes inaudible, sometimes without vision. But they're there, and Steven wonders sometimes if he dips he feet to deeply into them, that Steven will go away, and something new- neither Rose nor Steven- will surface from his body and grow in his place.

This is a new thought- not one of fear, perhaps, but something deeply unsettling nevertheless. Steven tries not to let it get to him at night, when Pearl and Amethyst and Garnet are out on missions and he's alone, when his Dad doesn't really understand what it means to be something of false form and solid light (not that he really does either), but instead he remembers how natural Lars' body felt stretched over his mind, and he tries to forgive himself for his mistakes.

But tonight, his Dad asleep in his van, the Gems out on chore-shaped missions, Steven is alone in the house. The ocean, older than he or any Gem he knows, sings outside his window, and he feels…restless.

So, Steven digs into his hamburger backpack for his most recent purchase. It's in there somewhere, underneath his spare clothing for missions and Connie's book she lent him a week ago.

Victorious, he fishes out the VHS tape with a grin. What could be better than a garage sale purchase?

With little fanfare and a near miss with the VCR's slot, Steven manages to stick the tape into his TV and press play. He eagerly rocks back onto his bed, adopting the post Garnet had taught Stevonnie while counselling the fusion on mindfulness.

"Welcome to Madame Rodgers' Mystic Mindset series!" The tape blarts out, a cheesy harpsichord jingle jangling in the background. "This week, we'll tackle the Magical Madame's meditation on past life regression! Are you ready? Don't forget to have something to ground yourself with nearby!"

Oh, shoot, what was something grounding? Steven quickly rolls out of his pose and slams the stop button on the VCR, trying to quickly think of something ground like. He didn't want to go grab some dirt from the town- it was way too far a walk for eleven at night- but he did live on a coastline. Was sand good enough?

Unsure, but eager to move along, Steven jogs into the kitchen and digs a novelty cup from Funland out of the sink. (Evidently Amethyst had forgotten the dishes, again. Steven would take care of them later if he remembered to.) A little rinsing, a paper towel, and it was clean enough.

Steven bolts out of the house, still in his pajamas, taking four steps at a time in order to just grab some sand and get back to his plans. Wiping away excess sand from the outside of the cup (Pearl would scream if she had to sweep up any more sand then necessary- it was just everywhere in a beach home-) Steven grins in success.

A few hops up the stairs, and he's back in bed- sand and all. A quick push of the play button, and Steven is back in business.

"Here we go!" Madame Rodgers' VHS tape sings, the jingle finally falling into silence. Now it's only Steven's breathing, the static hum of the VHS tape, and the dull roar of the ocean outside.

"Close your eyes.

"You're falling into your own consciousness, the person you once were. Do you see it? Your hands are not the same- but you recognize them. Your scalp feels different- the hair that falls in your eyeline is strange, but it feels familiar. Where are you? You've been here before. Your body follows the paths you've taken a hundred times before…"

The roar of the ocean, Steven realizes, is deafening. He can't hear the tape anymore, just the ocean, and even the hum of the static is slowly fading away, his breaths no longer reaching his ears. Confused, he opens his eyes-

And there's the ocean in front of him, glinting in the sunlight, stretching farther than could be seen from even the highest vantage point. Cotton candy hair drifts into his field of vision, and a fuchsia-gloved hand pulls it back behind his ear.

His chest does not rise and fall with breath. The air tastes like salt and decay, something belonging only to the water, and Steven can't help but be moved by the sight of the glittering waves.

"You were right, my Diamond," Steven hears from behind him, in that tone that Pearl only uses in her most vulnerable moments, "It truly is beautiful."

Steven turns with a beaming grin, eager to share more of his excitement with her-

And then he sees the temple as it must have once been, his house nowhere in sight, Quartzes crawling over the rock in order to carve out the icon of the Gem goddess.

"Wonderful," he hears himself drawl, his voice sounding feminine and musical despite the clear tone of boredom. "It will be wonderful to have a warp station so conveniently close to the Prime Kindergarten. And it's only a few hours in the palanquin to Face 5, how useful."

"Don't worry, my Diamond!" one of the Quartzes shouts from the statue, a wide grin across her face, "the Prime Kindergarten will have its own warp up and running soon! It is to be set up with the best of technology for our Diamond, your shininess!"

Steven sighs- his only breath so far- in response, feeling his hopes of avoiding the project slowly going up into smoke. "Wonderful," he says again, ignoring the Quartz's shushed reprimand from her peers. "I am, of course," he lies, a small sneer twisting full lips, "Satisfied with your competence. Continue."

"Yes, my Diamond!" the Quartzes cheered, and Steven turns around to leave behind the sight of the slowly destroyed mountain-

-and instead he finds himself inside a house of stick and bark, not rock and crystal, a troubled smile on his face opposite a familiar human woman's soft smile. The woman, his dear friend, reclines on the floor, the image of relaxation, and Steven tries to mimic her- only to sit upright when his dress pulls oddly against his body, his curls brushing the floor. He is too uncomfortable in her- his own skin.

"You cannot love yourself," the woman points out, "If you do not love all parts of yourself. If you are truly so hesitant to embrace yourself, spend some time with the truest you."

Steven's wobbly smile dips into a frown, staring at his bare feet, free of the suited boots of the recognizable Diamond. "How do I do that? The getting to know myself part?" he asks, wiggling bare toes. The woman shrugs.

"How do I know?" the woman asks, rolling her eyes at the ceiling, her bone-beaded dress resettling as the woman changed her position. "Only you will know with time. Find a craft you like. Make your home nice. Embrace your friends and see how they embrace you back. Love the body you are in," the woman suggests, seemingly at a loss. "Have you ever truly looked at yourself?"

Steven found himself staring into the dark bottom of a bowl the woman offered, Rose Quartz's confused reflection glinting on the surface, her shape still new and wrong over his Gem. A short transformation and a steep bend let Pink Diamond's form appear in the bowl without breaking the humans' house, and Steven still couldn't rouse any form of affection for either form, the chosen disguise or the off-color disgrace to the Diamond's Disgrace. Steven made to turn away-

-and Steven finds himself atop a Homeworld spire, a Topaz calling him from inside, begging him to come down, when Steven just absolutely wants to know if he will float like Red Diamond did when he jumps. He takes the leap into the air, and for a moment, he feels nothing but fear-

-and he lands in a prototype Palanquin, the walls and ceiling measured for a full sized-Diamond, and Steven feels so alone and exposed inside of it, nothing inside but an undersized, malformed Gem and a single mirror, and Steven can't help but look at his own size, the delicate limbs, the cotton pink hair, the magenta uniform, all just small enough to be cradled in a fellow Diamond's single hand, and weeps. He turns to run out of the transport-

-and finds himself trapped beneath the dirt of some unknown planet. There is no light. There is no air. There is no warmth- only the coldness of isolation and the darkness of the depths. He knew he was supposed to dig his way out, but Steven also knew that being awake and aware was wonderful, something to treasure, and he wanted to cherish the sensations for a moments longer. The comfort of closeness, the stillness, the sleepiness, are all worth feeling for one last time.

But needs are needs, and he is a Gem, and Gems dig themselves out. It is programmed into them, and he knows it in his innermost core that he must reach the surface. So Steven takes the leap, digging his fingers into the grittiness of the sandy soil….

…only to open his eyes and find his fingers deep in a Funland cup filled with sand, the television casting static shadows on the walls as the ocean called to him from outside.

He inhaled deeply, chugging breath into his lungs as if he had truly not breathed for the duration of his memories, and coughed. He pulled his fingers out from the cup and walked his way into the bathroom, drowsily washing the sand from his fingers as he tried to remember what he had seen: Homeworld, before the Rebellion, Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond intermingling as a single person, not separate stories.

Steven doesn't know a lot about his mother. Pearl, he thinks knew her the longest, but she doesn't want to talk about the years she spent with Pink, as opposed to Rose, and there are simply some things she can't tell him. Garnet and Amethyst can only tell him about Rose Quartz's past, but that's only part of Mom's story, and although Garnet could add onto Pearl's battle stories, Pink Diam- Rose Quartz was more than her rebellion.

His Dad though, he thinks, might have known her the most…wholly. He loved her, Steven knows that he loved her, but he also saw more sides of her than Pearl or Garnet, more of her doubts, her fears, her reckless decisions. There was no…no worship. No awe of her as a Gem savior.

Steven shuts the water off. To his Dad, she was just Rose.

Maybe, he thinks, he'll ask Dad more about Mom tomorrow.

But, until then, it is two in the morning, and he has combat practice with Connie tomorrow morning. Steven peels off a shirt soaked in sweat, tosses it beside his bed, and shuts off the VCR. The ocean's dull roar faded as he laid his head to his pillow, his eyes shutting from exhaustion, but the noise does not end when sleep comes.

Instead, Steven's dreams are all of a picnic on the seashore, his father, and a belly swollen with pregnancy, all covered by music and laughter.

I love, you, I love you, I love you, Rose whispers to the baby beneath her Gem. I love you more than I could ever say. I love you, Steven.

(More than I could ever love myself.)