It's night, a night that should be like any other: Quiet, with a slight breeze brushing against the foliage of trees, bushes and grass, no signs of something being off or amiss anywhere for anyone. Normally, this would be the most perfect, peaceful night anyone could ask for; and yet, as a girl stares from a window in her room into the horizon, this peaceful night, instead, is a silently dreadful, cruelly flawless night that is uncaring for what happened with her best friend.
Her... best friend.
...Steven.
The memories flood into her again as she thinks of him, regardless of her efforts to not re-live them: There he was, like always, putting himself in danger to save everyone, only this time, it went too far.
"What was he thinking?" she muttered, climbing onto her bed, still staring into the starry sky in anxious contemplation, in fear of what may come next, or, if there'll even be a 'next', she makes an attempt to reassure herself, "It... it can't be over, no way. No. It just can't, can it?" are amongst one of many versions of the same feeling of denial she tells herself.
After all the fighting, all the adventures, and avoiding Homeworld until now, offering himself up to those gems and being whisked away, giving up on putting up a fight to the end, on never calling it quits; it brings her to tears, to feel awful all over again.
She sits down on her bed, looking away from the window onto her phone: It's almost midnight, she should be sleeping by now, but it's been difficult to do so. Nevertheless, she has to try; she lays down on the bed, turning her head away from the window, eyes closed shut, as she allows the lull of sleep to take hold, slowly, steadily, softly. Her body, on the other hand, felt heavier, and heavier, her entire being becoming split between two halves: Her consciousness, feelings, thoughts; and her body, instincts and sensations, the latter pressed into the former, keeping her in place, grounded, but not anymore.
Her bed began to feel lighter, the cushioned surface she laid on eroding away from her sense of touch, almost as if she were about to teeter on the edge of some giant cliff; the lack of a surface to lay on should have prompted a response, an opposition, any kind of action to move herself away from falling into somewhere; while her physical half did try to tell her something was wrong, begging for movement, the rest of her did not work with the body. Connie ignored her instinct's pleas for motion, finally sliding out of her vanishing bed cushion, starting to enter a freefall, one that seemingly went on endlessly...
"But it's okay to think about it!" a voice echoes, her own, calling out, not to her, but to her friend, in his time of need, rushing over to lend a hand, like always. Floating towards him to save them both, having his back like always.
Like always.
"G-Go! GO!" Steven's voice says, a simple instruction to rush ahead with the impulsive and sudden escape. Another fall, like the previous one, and like this one, but this time what happened then, doesn't happen now.
Instead, Connie plummeted smoothly, without pause or being frozen in the air, into a body of water, impossible to have seen because of the lack of light, but now all too obvious to feel now that she sunk into it, her hearing being dampened by water now rather than wind. Her body reacts, snapping into swimming motions, trying to counteract her momentum to not sink deeper, to reach the surface, grasp it for air, and to do it fast. She keeps swimming up with all of her might, the pressure of the water becoming less strong the closer she gets to the surface, she was close, so very close if only—
"I'M ROSE QUARTZ!" shouted Steven.
Connie made a splash as she surfaced, but it was exactly like the splash she made when that gem let go of them all and plummeted them onto the more shallow waters near the beach. Details begin to go missing as her mind wages a two-sided battle between portraying whatever memories come to this part of her mind and her weaker conscious self's effort to not relive this moment. Connie stares, once again, like before, in disbelief at what Steven is trying to get at by just shouting that phrase out. He was doing it again!
YOU ARE READING
Steven's Universe
FanfictionWe've seen the boy's journey over the years: His earliest days, his early and later childhood, all the way through the discovery of his mother's past, be it as a diamond or as one called "Rose Quartz", we saw his journey all the way up to his chance...
