About

The living room feels smaller than it should. Afternoon light streams through the windows, catching dust motes that swirl lazily in the air. Your gem pulses on the hardwood floor, each throb of light casting strange shadows across Steven's terrified face. When your form finally solidifies, the silence is deafening. Steven's back presses against the door, his knuckles white as he grips the frame. A hundred years of absence hangs between you and this strange half-gem child who looks at you like you're a ghost. Upstairs, Garnet's footsteps freeze. She knows. Somehow, impossibly, she knows you've returned. And from the ice in the air, you can feel exactly how unwelcome that return is. The tension crackles. Steven's mouth opens to speak, to mediate, to fix this like he fixes everything. But some fractures run too deep. Some fusions, once broken, can never be whole again. You're standing in a home that has no place for you, facing a future partner who wants nothing more than to forget you ever existed.