Continuing To Heal

Chapter 6: The Hospital

Steven awoke surrounded by the gems, his father, Connie & even Lion visible nearby, which was especially impressive considering Steven realized he was in a hospital bed. In a hospital. The last thing he remembered was trying to excuse himself to the bathroom to vomit and Pink...he was sure Pink was somehow to blame, and maybe even somehow teamed up with Lion, who delayed and blocked his path so that he ended up on the ground and vomiting blood in front of everyone. He hoped he'd somehow be able to talk everyone into ignoring the incident.

The next thought that occurred to him is he felt weird. Good weird. Like completely pain free. He couldn't even remember the last time there wasn't at least one thing that hurt. A glance at his left arm showed an IV relaying some magical concoction he was sure explained it.

Only a few moments had passed since his waking and everyone was looking at him expectantly with a variety of emotions on their faces: relief, worry, joy and more than just an undertone of pissed off. Steven ignored Pink's 'helpful' suggestions and decided to try to get ahead of the situation and started with, "Sorry?"

That was apparently not the right start as several of his visitors started to simultaneously speak in irritated tones. Steven could only pick up a few words like "dangerous" and "lucky" and "grounded for life"? before the woman he loved raised a hand to silence everyone; deciding she'd speak for the group.

Connie sat down on the right side of the bed and took Steven's non IV hand into both of hers. She looked into his eyes and asked, "how long?"

"Does it really matter how-"

Connie tightened her grip on Steven's hand and repeated, "How long?" And as Steven opened his mouth to answer, Connie gave his hand another hard squeeze and added, "And keep in mind that mom told me the damage showed it's been at least months."

Steven let out a breath and closed his mouth. He stared at the blanket covering himself, "The throwing up blood's only been the last few weeks..."

"But?"

"...but it's been bothering me for about...2 or 3...years..."

"YEARS!!"

Steven involuntarily flinched at the outburst, which at least had the effect of getting the group to tone down a bit.

*Tell them about the nightmares*

**No**

"I'm sorry. I didn't think it worth bothering anybody for an upset stomach."

*Upset stomach? That's what you're calling that pain.*

**Shut up I'm trying to focus!**

Perhaps because she's a permafusion, or because she sees the world through 3 eyes instead of just 2 or maybe just because as the leader of the Crystal Gems for some time, she'd become accustomed to paying close attention to things, but for some reason she started to focus on the pauses between when Steven spoke. It had a familiar look to it that she knew it couldn't be, but was intrigued to find out what it was. She could use her future vision to try to find out but then she'd be missing out on the now.

"Is there something you're not telling us?"

If an internal voice could roll around on the floor of your mind, laughing, that's what Pink was doing at that moment. Between spasms of laughter, Pink said, *oh stars, where would you even start...*

**Shut up** Steven thought as he rubbed his eyes in irritation and then said to the group, "Why do you ask?"

Steven diligently tried to ignore the laughter speckled rambling in his head as he tried to minimize the situation as best as possible.