Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She let her hand rest gingerly on the lever knob of the door. Any other kid in this darned ward. Any. Kid.

…She wouldn't be freezing up.

But this wasn't any kid. It was Connie.

Her delightful, darling daughter.

She bit back tears, blinked back a sob.

She pushed the lever down and opened the door.

The tiny toddler lay in a cold-looking institutional crib, looking serene even as monitors and wires surrounded her bed and prodded her like some sort of… medical Mother Gothel, at the ready to kidnap her sweet sunflower, never to be seen again.

She knew when her daughter awoke, the veneer of tranquility would fall, replaced by screams and squirms and…

And blood. So much blood.

Priyanka's veins ran cold and she felt as if she was being pulled into the wall behind her as she failed to stop herself from the vivid visualization of the event that had brought them here.

She blamed herself. Blamed herself for not realizing from the random weird things in Connie's first few weeks of life, for not thinking sooner that the once-in-a-while nosebleeds were weird, for not being concerned enough at the slow healing boo-boos or the occasional tender gums she'd see after brushing her daughter's teeth.

What she had was rare, they said. It wasn't her fault it took a few years and a particularly bad injury—she'd never let that 12-year-old babysit again—to find it out. She had no reason to blame herself.

Yet she did, anyway. Especially now.

She found herself lost in thought, so much so that she didn't take notice of Connie whimpering and slightly stirring as someone entered the room and tried to get her attention.

"Priyanka." It wasn't until he touched her shoulder and quietly spoke her name again that she reacted. "Priy."

She lowered her hand from her mouth—when did that get there?—and looked to the visitor.

"…Dr. West."

He smiled weakly. "Hey, you know we're on a first name basis—"

"Your first name is North. I'm not calling you that. Besides…" she sighed, looking back toward the now-beginning-to-wake small girl in the bed before her, "…I thought you might be Doug."

She crossed her arms. He'd had a security job, but it ended hours ago and he still hadn't showed. She hoped it wasn't— they'd had a fight, but— they'd had a lot of fights lately—

She sniffed and only-partially-successfully trained her attention back on Dr. West. He was awkwardly silent for a moment before cracking his mouth open.

"I… ah… well, I guess I am here to do a check on Connie—Dr. Monahan should be back to doing those tomorrow—but… well… I have a proposition for you. A-About Connie."

The pause was practically audible. "…I'm listening."

"There's—okay, you know how our hospital got approved to be part of a research program and test out a lot of new medicines and treatment methods?"

Priyanka nodded in answer.

"Well… there's a promising new treatment for what Connie has—they're calling it 'infused transfusion'—and our hospital is allowed to be part of the study as long as we have eligible patients—"

"Yes."

"But you need to sit through a meeting; you always seem to want to stay—"

"Yes."

"Doug should be h—"

"Yes! I don't care what needs to be done! I'll do it!" Her voice was raw, urgent…

desperate.

And so loud that a cry from a now-fully-awake Connie cut the air.

Dr. West nodded in nervous response.

"I… I guess I'll set something up… uh… let you know." He stood, gesturing vaguely as he backed toward the door, a nervous blush running up his face. "I will, um, give you time to try to comfort your daughter and be back in a couple minutes."

"—you on the case, if you're willing."

Priyanka looked to (or, rather, through) a television she could see in the waiting room on the other side of the conference room's small window.

It was playing the Mets. She never really liked sports.

But it felt hard to train her attention on the matter at hand… even if it was their best bet.

Her husband's hand placed on her own brought her back to Earth.

"…Sweetheart?"

She let out a terse breath as she found herself looking from a concerned Doug to an expectant Dr. West and annoyed Dr. Stromberg. "I'm sorry. I just… 'm having a hard time focusing. I-If we could just… go through—"

"Oookay… let's run past this one more time," Dr. Stromberg said, holding a button down on the remote that controlled the projector.

"An intercontinental team of specialists, mostly from Norway and Korea, have been developing a special type of blood transfusion in which the blood is combined with specific amounts of pulverized minerals in an attempt to augment deficiencies or treat rare conditions. The research has been sort of hit and miss, but they think they may be really onto something with," Dr. Stromberg advanced the projector forward, "this." The image that appeared onscreen was an almost fluorescent magenta, the powder so fine it resembled sifted flour or powdered sugar—though the recipe this called for was decidedly more gruesome than any cake or bread.

Priyanka raised an eyebrow. "It's so… pink."

"That's what I said," Doug interjected, his voice obviously trying to lighten the mood they'd all been in since Connie had been admitted to the hospital.

Whether it worked was debatable.

Dr. Stromberg cleared their throat, poised to continue, but was soon stopped in their tracks. "As you can see from this diagram—"

"That's the chemical structure for a…" She trailed off, her eyes darting between invisible thoughts she was trying to consider as calmly as possible. "Does this procedure—is there a—will anything bad happen? Blood cell structural breakdown, injury to vessels, anything?" Priyanka's voice practically drowned in worry, almost to the exclusion of the minuscule tinge of hope that served as a woefully inadequate life preserver.

"That was a concern they had in the first pilot study, but the children in the study responded surprisingly well," Dr. West answered. "We don't know the long term effects, but that's what the longitudinal study is for."

"…And… that's why we're here," she sighed and looked to her husband, who was wearing a weary expression, the evident toll of two weeks of tests, terror, and turmoil.

"Indeed. Her treatment will be covered—no payment required—by the people running the study," Dr. Stromberg said, "but there is the matter of signing the release." They slid it toward the couple as Dr. West explained.

"The basic two things that are most important are that if something goes wrong and it directly has to do with the treatment method, the hospital is not liable for any," he cleared his throat, his voice divorcing itself from emotion, "um… damages."

He let the impact of those words fall before continuing. Priyanka felt the freezing pull she'd felt in Connie's room creeping up her spine but kept her eyes on Doug… though she wasn't sure that was exactly helping since he looked just as much like he was in a lifeboat that had just capsized without warning.

But she had to stay grounded, had to hear the rest of this. For Connie.

"The other thing is," Dr. West took a deep breath, "it's possible the supply of this mineral will run out. Right now, they feel they have a sizeable amount, but they've only just found one specimen, in a secluded area of Korea, so the amount we'll receive is finite. Should the treatment require multiple doses, there is a chance of it running out before completion. The hospital's also not liable for that."

Doug managed to squeak out a solemn reply. "…That's understandable." A stiff nod from his wife seconded this statement.

They looked to the glinting, white sheet, the words clear and yet so foreign. Their eyes met, and in an unspoken agreement, they each scribbled their name onto the blood contract and passed the papers back to the doctors on the other side of the table.

"Now, again, there's just the matter of… you," Dr. Stromberg spoke. "If you're up to it, we'd like you on the team."

Tears pricked her eyes as she stumbled over her words. "No… I—I couldn't possibly… it'd be a conflict of—"

Doug placed a hand on her arm. "…Priya. No one would think badly of you for wanting to help our kid."

Priyanka's lips pursed for several moments before she nodded once more.

The treatment's course of action seemed… well, miraculous, for lack of a better term. It didn't heal the injury that had originally landed her here, of course, but what it did was so much better! Her color returned, her constant screams ceased, even things they'd been dealing with her entire life were just… better now.

She was herself again!

She was their darling, delightful… death-defying daughter.

She was Connie.

Ring.

Ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Priy. It's Dr. West."

"Mmhmm? What has you calling me on my day off?"

"It's about Connie."

A brief pause later and Priyanka continued, her voice wearing a softer, more vulnerable tone than the slightly annoyed one she'd picked up the phone with.

"…Is everything okay? Is there something we need to do before her appointment next month?"

"Um… that's just the thing. Uh… I finally got the latest records, and some of the other participants in the study… they're displaying… interesting characteristics."

A familiar chill—yet one she hadn't felt in 11 years—coursed through her system. "…Go on."

"Ah… right, well, I'll start with the least concerning things. Some kids are extremely short, haven't grown much at all since they were about… eight or so? They're getting into their teen years and whole feet off the mark now… But, then, on the flip side, there are a few ten year olds who've reached the average height of someone four to six years their senior. I know Connie's hitting her growth milestones, but that might be something to watch out for."

Priyanka jotted that down on a piece of paper as Dr. West continued, nonplussed that this was the reason he had called her.

"But anyway… the height thing's not nearly as… weird as… um… uh…"

"Spit it out, North."

"That's just the thing… even their own doctors don't know how to describe it, other than… well… uh… magic? I know that sounds crazy, but—"

"What do you want us to do?" Her brow furrowed so hard that she pinched her nose to try to preemptively remedy the headache she felt coming on. What Dr. West was saying, it couldn't—

Well, actually, it very well could be possible.

But she didn't want it to be.

"Uh… oh, right, ah—we… would like it if Connie could come in for her checkup as soon as possible, rather than next month. If… if you have a time free, that is."

Priyanka's voice grew distant, as if part of her wanted to travel to the other side of the world and the other part had been forced to travel to that day so many years ago. "I… I'll have to check our schedule. I, um, I'll call you back."

She hung up without waiting for a goodbye, just in time to see Doug pass the doorway.

"Hey, sweetheart, where's Connie?"

The answer caught in her throat.

She was with Steven.

Chapter Text

Stevonnie emerged from the carpet, their eyes shooting open.

Connie knew this place. Connie knew this dream. It had been the only one she'd had for months.

But Steven didn't, and so Stevonnie seemed to rest somewhere in the middle.

…Something about the dream was different this time. Every time Connie got to a new part in her recollection, something seemed to change.

Mom on the phone with the hospital became Mom… commanding an army? She changed appearance until she scarcely seemed to resemble the prim doctor Connie—Steven—Stevonnie—knew. Stevonnie wasn't angry with her as Connie had been in almost every instance of the dream—at least not immediately.

And by the end, instead of going to her room to punch a pillow—she had no room to go to, they weren't even on Earth anymore—they punched—she did—she was—

Stevonnie awoke with a start, flopped out of the hammock…

…and split apart.

Steven, taken aback by the sudden separation from the long fusion (and the bump he'd promptly gotten when his head met ground), took a bit to steady himself before sitting up and looking around.

Connie was nowhere to be seen.

"…Connie? Connie!"

A sniff emerged from behind a tree root. Steven scuttled over and climbed to the other side of it to see Connie, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

"…Connie? Are you… okay?"

"Steven… what was that?" Her voice was quiet. Scared.

"Diamond dream… but I don't know why h—"

"—No, I've had that dream before. Without all the… diamond outfits and… planet conquering and stuff…"

"Well, I can sort of… go into other people's dreams… and… we were… fused…" He looked sheepish, his hands aimlessly interacting with each other, only serving to highlight his nervousness.

"…But are you sure that's what happened?"

"Why are you so sure it's not?"

"Because it doesn't make sense! I've been having that dream for months! Why would I have had most of the it the same, even without you, so many times in a row? And even if you did make the dream happen… it doesn't explain the other stuff." She rubbed her arm, her explanation leaving Steven to look on in confusion.

He seemed to be attempting to decipher her meaning before he chose to speak up. "What do you mean by 'other stuff'?"

"I've been… trying to hide it. I didn't want you or the gems or my parents—especially my parents—to worry. I…" she sighed, "I don't know. They're always a little freaked out that I'm going to, like, bleed out and die or something. And you and Pearl are less like that, but I don't think you wouldn't be freaked out about—" She placed a pebble in her hand and stuck her hand out in front of her while her brow furrowed in concentration. Some sort of spherical spattering of particles—a bubble, Steven recognized, his eyes widening—seemed to try and fail to flicker into existence before Connie stopped trying.

"—stuff like that," she finished.

"But—But… what does that mean?" Steven's eyes wouldn't move from the place where the bubble hadn't materialized, his tone somewhere between asking the question of himself and asking it of Connie.

Connie took a deep pause. "I think… I don't know… I… I wonder if…" She took a deep breath. "Maybe that treatment they did on me was…" She trailed off, her internal thoughts not having caught up to her mouth yet.

"Was what? What treatment?"

She grimaced and steeled herself to explain. "I have this rare blood thing. I still go to the doctor's appointments for it, but we don't really have to worry about it anymore. But a long time ago, when I was a baby, something happened to make me really sick. And… they wanted to treat me, but they were gonna try this experimental treatment where they stick minerals in a blood transfusion. And… it worked. And I don't get sick anymore."

"So… you got better after they treated you with special minerals. What does that have to do with anything?" He looked up into Connie's eyes, almost seeming as if he was trying to force the conversation not to go down the path it was obviously destined for by this point.

"Steven, how many random rocks do you know that have the ability to bubble stuff?"

"Maybe it's just a thing that happens when rocks and blood mix—"

"Steven."

"You… You think… It—" He paused, trying to formulate a coherent sentence. "…There might be… gem shards in your blood?" His voice was quiet. Scared.

"…That's just it. I don't think it's just any gem…

…I think I'm Pink Diamond."

Chapter Text

He couldn't stop fidgeting his hands. It seemed like no position worked—resting them on his lap, crossing his arms, clasping them together…

It all felt so wrong.

Nothing fit anymore.

Trying to fit a Steven-shaped peg into a Rose-shaped hole was one thing. But trying to figure out how a Diamond-shaped hole even worked was another altogether.

And how would this work? How would he explain it to—

Connie cracked open the screen door of the beach house and came to sit by Steven on the couch with a nervous smile.

Steven responded by cracking his own attempt at a smile. It fell flat.

Connie's brow furrowed, her smile disappearing. "Are you okay? Why'd you want me to come over?"

He looked down, presumably—but not actually—at his hands. He stayed oddly silent, and if Connie hadn't known any better, she'd have thought he was being forced not to speak.

"Steven?"

He sighed, taking a minute to build his courage before he spoke. "Do you remember—on the Jungle Moon? When Stevonnie had that dream and you showed me the…" He mimed bubbling something, even that familiar action feeling foreign to him now.

Connie nodded. "Are you… you didn't tell anyone, did you?" Her voice was wrought with worry; she'd already had to hide it from her parents and her doctor (and truthfully, she didn't know how long she could keep that up), but if the gems found out—

"No. I… I didn't tell anyone. Bu… I… uh," Steven almost visibly cringed, the revelation still fresh to him, "But I found something out. And… you're, uh," he bit his lip forcing the words out of his mouth quickly with the rest of his breath, "you're not Pink Diamond, okay?!"

The statement was louder than he'd intended it to be, his emotion taking over, but as soon as the sentence was out, he seemed to practically become an empty husk, eyes staring through the kitchen's back wall to futures he was unsure of, pasts he'd never experienced.

Connie, on the other hand, looked to be on the defensive, seemingly about ready to draw a sword. Not in anger or fright, but… how was she supposed to process that? What did it even mean?!

"Steven." Her voice asked the question before she could even begin to put it into words.

"I… Pearl lost her phone, and I had to go into her gem to get it, but while I was in there, I saw," he paused, steeling himself, "I saw Pearl shapeshift into Rose Quartz and poof… poof Pink Diamond."

"I don't—" Connie's response was cut short by Steven speaking again.

"I didn't understand but then I went further back into her memory and saw m-my mom turn into Pink Diamond. And when I came out and said I knew what happened, everyone freaked out and Garnet split up and now Sapphire is who knows where! And it's my fault!"

His voice sounded solemn, worried, and embarrassed all at once. "Point is, you're not Pink Diamond. …I am." His gaze fell downward.

Connie's lips pursed, her face almost grimacing. "…Wow. That's heavy." She thought deeply about the best way to respond further. "Um… I'm sure what happened with everyone wasn't your fault, though. You couldn't have known."

Steven seemed to accept this, though the slight wince suggested otherwise. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to call her now. I feel like I don't know anything anymore." He looked up, returning to the thousand-yard stare he'd taken on before he'd had to explain.

Connie tried to join him, attempting to look at whatever distant shore was on the other side of the wall on which Steven's eyes were affixed, but for more than one reason, she found it hard to see, herself. She looked to the floor, focusing on a nail in the boards, her mind running over this new information, as if she couldn't quite believe it. She inwardly facepalmed as she came to terms with why.

"Steven." He looked up, worry somehow making him look very old despite his stature and the typical demeanor he might have any other day. "…If you've got Pink Diamond's gem, then whose shards did they put in me!?"

Steven's brow furrowed for half a second before his eyes widened to the point that it seemed like they took up half his face.

"Uh-uhm! I don't know! I—" He ran his hands through his hair, feeling guilty about this too even though it was in no way his fault. Maybe it would have just been simpler to pretend Connie was Pink Diamond and he was just Rose Quartz like always!

…No. That would make him like her… something else he didn't know the answer to anymore.

"Um. What if there are… two Pink Diamonds?" His voice broke at the suggestion as if his own body couldn't even believe what he was saying anymore.

Connie pinched the bridge of her nose, looking a bit too much like her mother for a moment. "Steven. Did you even hear what you just suggested." Her voice was so deadpan, it didn't even sound like she was asking a question so much as mentally fighting the urge to collapse onto the coffee table.

"Well, it's not like there's another—wait! When… Mom… faked the shattering, she, like, crushed up this dirt and breathed on it and made it look like shards. What if… that's what's in—"

As if sensing the topic, the door to the temple opened and Pearl walked out and into the kitchen. Despite her clearly somber demeanor, it looked like she was still trying to put on a positive face. "Good afternoon, Steven. Connie."

The two kids looked to one another. Connie nodded.

"Pearl. I—we—need to ask you something."