As Steven paced in front of the skeletal remains of his mother's star ship he watched as Bismuth pounded the frame repeatedly with her hammer hands trying to get all the dents and bends they inadvertently put in it while taking it apart out. All the while he still couldn't stop hearing, "It's all your fault," over and over. Amethyst and Connie had long since left to try and figure out a way to cheer him up, but he was so focused on fixing what he believed to be his mistake that he didn't even notice.
Those thoughts where interrupted though as he saw Lapis fly towards him holding Peridot in her arms and he yelled up at them, "GUYS YOU'RE BACK," and as they landed in front of him he continued saying, "Any luck finding another ship?"
Lapis shied as she said, "Well the bad news is pretty much every Gem here was either one of the corrupted Gems already on Earth or used the Warp Pad to get so none of them have a ship."
As Steven started to sulk Peridot stepped forth saying, "But the good news, the construction of Little Homeworld is 100% Complete!" She then used her magnetic abilities to move a few party poppers up into the air before pulling the strings on them with a huge smile.
That smile didn't particularly affect Steven at all, even though the party poppers where his idea before all this happened, so Peridot awkwardly cleared her throat before she continued saying, "What that means is that we can now start putting The Legs back together without any issues."
"That's great! How long do you think it will take," asked Steven as stars formed in his eyes excitedly at the idea that this could all be over soon.
"Hmm, let's see," said Peridot as she pulled out her tablet. "Luckily, since I planned on putting it back together from the beginning, I kept a log of each piece we used so finding the parts shouldn't be a problem." She then began walking as she scrolled through her list saying, "We just need to actually assembly it, wire it up, encrypt the link software in a way that the other Diamonds don't know what we're doing just in case, but we can still access the star maps to help guide us there," she then reached a crude drawing she had done with the legs looking like her own and the label 'All Hail Peridot a.k.a. Green Diamond' on it before swiping it away with a slight blush as she hoped no one saw that, but a smirk from Lapis told her otherwise. She briefly thought, "Probably gonna have the deal with THAT when we get back to the barn tonight." She then tried to brush it off for now as she continued saying, "and of course putting the upgrades I wanted to do on to the side for awhile, it should take about three weeks."
"THREE WEEKS! ISN'T THERE A WAY WE COULD FIX IT FASTER!?" asked Steven as the stars in his eyes shattered and his panic once again returned.
Peridot then adjusted the parameters of her tablet as she said, "Well if we skip the tests on the gravity drive we could possible get it down to two weeks.... that is if you don't mind the possibility of the micro black hole collapsing on itself and potentially ripping a hole in the space time continuum itself."
Thankfully Steven didn't have to make such a decision in his very irrational state as Connie and Amethyst, along with someone else they had enlisted in the "Calm Down Steven Squad" had walked up around then, and upon hearing all this ran up as Connie said, "Three weeks will be plenty soon, in the the mean time," she reached into the bag she was holding and pulled out a case saying, "I just got the Crying Breakfast Friends Movie on DVD for us to watch!" She then showed Steven the back of the case as she said, "Look it even has a commentary track from the creator, Alexandra Cinnamon!"
Amethyst then stepped forward saying, "And while you two watch you can have your favorite snack, Fry Bits, coated in sugar by your favorite doughnut guy LARS!"
She then gestured to the latest member of the team who nervously smiled holding the bag as he said, "Hey dude, uhhh. These two told me you needed some cheering up about something so I figured I'd help out."
He then held out the bag to Steven and, as he caught a whiff of the perfect sweet and salty mix, he started to form a slight smile saying, "Gee thanks Lars I.... WAIT LARS!" He then remembered that the person standing before him wasn't just a doughnut delivery boy, but was also the greatest pirate this galaxy had ever seen as he grabbed onto him saying, "PLEASE TELL ME YOU STILL HAVE THE SUN INCINERATOR!"
Lars became somewhat nervous at seeing this reaction as he said, "I hate to disappoint you man, especially with how you seem now, but no I don't."
"WHAAAATTT! But why?!"
"Well dude did you think everyone was happy about this whole 'piece among the galaxy' thing?" responded Lars.
"Kind of?" said Steven as he never thought to much about it.
Lars sighed as he briefly remembered Steven's huge naivety and how it used to to annoy him, but also how it led to them being friends, and later how he started to feel like a big brother to Steven teaching him about stuff as he sat down and gestured for Steven to sit down next to him and he prepared to tell him stuff that the Diamonds apparently wanted to keep from him.
As Steven sat down Lars began saying, "Look Steven, plain and simple there where a lot of Gems who liked the status quo and the power it gave them and didn't like this idea of every Gem suddenly being equal. I know it sucks, but it happens and one of those Gems was Emerald. So in order to get her to go along with all this not only did I have to give her her ship but me and the Off Colors had to issue a formal apology, and that was just to get her to open up negotiations!"
Steven thought about all this as he said, "Huh, I never even thought about that.... I mean so many Gems came forward willing to embrace change that... I didn't even think about the ones who wouldn't."
"Well change can be scary man, when you've been doing the same thing for so long it's hard to think about doing something else. Especially if you actually enjoy it," said Lars.
"I guess," said Steven as he briefly recalled how Jasper refused to give up her mission to the end and how there were probably plenty of other Gems like her, before returning to sulking.
Upon seeing this Lars felt just like he did when he and Steven had been kidnapped by Topaz and Aqua Marine as he put his arm on him and said, "OK man, clearly this is worse then those too let on, so what's up?"
Steven shied before saying, "Well it's a bit of a long story, but basically I have a friend who's stranded on an alien planet because of something stupid I did and it's gonna be a while before I can rescue them."
Lars chuckled at that as he said, "Gee I wonder what that's like." This resulted in a slight grin from Steven as Lars continued saying, "Come on Steven, who's the one who talked about moving on during this kind of thing and said how it was cool that I was doing pirate stuff?"
"Me," replied Steven as he looked up briefly.
"And who's the one who actually helped Sadie move on and start her band?" said Lars as he stood up excitedly.
"I did," said Steven as he too stood up with a slight smile.
"EXACTLY! Look it doesn't matter if you screwed up, the point is you're working to fix it and in the mean time it won't do you any good to just sit around thinking about it," said Lars.
"I... I guess you're right," said Steven as he looked up at Lars with a slight grin. "I'm just scared that something bad is going to happen to Spinel before we can get to her."
"Please, I'm sure if she's your friend she's plenty tough. After all, nothing bad happened to me while I was gone," said Lars before glancing at his pink skin as he said, "Well... almost nothing bad."
Steven let out a little chuckle at that, the first genuine one in days, as he said, "I guess you're right." He then turned to Lapis and Peridot as he said, "You think you guys can handle things for awhile."
Lapis opened her mouth to answer, only to be interrupted as Bismuth yelled, "YOU KIDDIN!" before hopping down as she looked to Steven saying, "The three of us can get some Bismuth done like THAT! After all... we'll find a way."
Peridot then jumped forward saying, "To save the day."
And then Lapis causally floated over saying, "That's who we are."
"Right," said Steven as he nodded at them and said, "Good luck."
He then ran over to Connie and Amethyst as Connie looked at him saying, "Sooo... Crying Breakfast Friends Movie?"
"Of course! I've been looking forward to this for awhile. I heard the're gonna introduce a new character named Breakfast Burrito who has some kind of mysterious connection to Pear," said Steven as he smiled. The three of them began walking towards the house before he turned back to a smiling Lars who was getting ready to head back to Big Doughnut as he thought about all they've been through and how Lars wasn't the only one who thought of them like brothers, before saying, "Hey Lars, if you want we can hold off on the movie until your shift is over so you can watch it with us."
Lars turned to Steven as he said, "Yeah... I'd like that... little bro," feeling now seemed like the right time to express how he felt.
Steven smiled and nodded at this as he said, "We'll be waiting for you... big bro." The two shared a simple look of understanding before going their separate ways. As Steven walked with the others he thought to himself, "I'm still gonna rescue you Spinel, but I'm gonna try not to worry about to much along the way.... key word being try," he thought as a small bit of anxiety flared up. "Please just be OK."
Meanwhile at Sugarcube Corner
As Pinkie slowly opened her eyes she was greeted by another pair of eyes staring at her as Spinel jumped back and yelled, "SURPRISE!" She then gestured at a collection of papers taped over the entirety of one of Pinkie's walls that outlined the exact design and size of the stage for their show.
"Golly Spinel... you sure put a lot of work into this," said Pinkie as she lightly smiled at her and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes.
"I'm just so excited for our show and can't wait to get started on it!" said Spinel excitedly.
"Awesome," said Pinkie as she got out of bed and started her morning stretches to wake up. She slightly yawned before saying, "So what kind of show did you want to do?"
With her smile totally unwavering Spinel yelled out, "I HAVE NO IDEA!"