"You guys go on ahead, I think I'm just going to walk home...." Pearl sighed, figuring that since they were closer to the Crystal Gems territory, she'd be alright with walking home. "You sure P? I can drive ya home" Amethyst suggested, knowing full well  that Pearl wasn't in the right of mind, considering the fact that her surrogate son had rightfully chewed her out. "No, I need some fresh air, and I need to clear my head...." Pearl sighed, running her fingers through her short, pale red hair. Before Amethyst could even protest, or even convince Pearl otherwise, she watched her leader walk away and down the street. Pearl shivered as she made her trek back to her small house, the nip in the air made her pull her leather jacket tighter on her torso,  however the chill in the air was helping her think.  "He's becoming more like his mother everyday....it's so hard to not see the similarities, I know he's not her, but he's still her son. I just can't let go of the fact that I still helped raise him, I guess it's just a "maternal instinct" even though he's not my biological son. But Steven is right, he's growing up still, but he's more mature than many others I know of. I keep forgetting that he's twenty two.....maybe he's right...." Pearl sighed as she continued to walk, so much has happened in such little time, and honestly she should've seen this coming. She reflected back to these past six months, she had noticed that Steven had changed ever since he was kidnapped, at first he seemed only tired, but that dissapated as time wore on. Steven seemed more alert, but at the same time, carefree, happy, and secretive. Pearl, for the life of her,  couldn't figure out how Steven was able to keep Spinel a secret from anyone, well actually Amethyst did know about Spinel stalking Steven for a good couple months, but Pearl still couldn't figure out how and why Steven had befriended the maniacal female. Suddenly, a hand grabbed Pearls neck from behind, and she was lifted off the ground, her hands attempted to claw at the hand that wrapped around her throat. One second, she was dangling above the pavement while gasping for air, and then the next, she was being slammed repeatedly into a cement wall. After being bashed into the wall multiple times, she was finally able to slump onto the sidewalk, her pointed nose now bent to the left, a small bit of blood was splattered on the wall, and even more blood dribbled down her face. After gasping for mere seconds, due to being basically strangled plus with the blood gathering in her mouth, she was only able to glance up at her attacker, and she could tell it was one of the Topaz twins that had attacked her. With that, the twin stomped on Pearls face, knocking her out cold, which allowed the twin to duct tape Pearls arms and legs together, followed by duct taping her mouth closed before tossing her into the trunk of a car that is parked nearby.

    Steven was fast asleep in his bed, however he was tossing and turning in his slumber, his body was drenched in sweat as he woke up with an audible gasp. His whole body felt overwhelmingly warm, in fact, his whole room felt more heated than it should've. Suddenly various waves of vibrations shook through his floor, knocking certain things off of his shelves, and at first, Steven believed that he was in the middle of an earthquake. "Hold up.... something's not right....." Steven thought to himself, earthquakes don't cause rooms to increase in temperature, and with this thought, he got up from his bed and made his way to his bedroom door. As his right hand wrapped leisurely wrapped around the doorknob, his hand felt like it was on fire when his skin connected with the metal, in which he jerked his hand away rather quickly, and his palm was now red due to it being slightly burned. Stevens brown eyes glanced down to the bottom of the door, and he could see semi-black smoke trickling in from the underside cracks of the door, meaning that his door was on fire, which also opened up the possibility that his apartment was on fire as well. This time, along with another heavy wave of vibrations rippled through his bedroom, but a loud BOOM was also heard, and as hard as he tried, panic began to set in. "Shit shit shit shit...." Steven thought to himself, "did someone set the building on fire?!" He mentally asked himself before heading to the window, knowing full well he couldn't leave his room like normal, but he didn't exactly have the fire escape right by his window. Steven did know that the fire escape was near his living room window, but that would mean that he'd have to risk his life and head out into the flamming hallway. He grabbed his pink organic bomber jacket off of the carpet and placed it over his mouth to act as a type of mask, he then used one of the sleeves to act as a type of glove so he could grab the doorknob once again, he didn't have time to grab anything else, all he knew was that he had to just escape. The heat was unbearable as soon as Steven opened the bedroom door, his brown eyes hurt from how bright the glow of the large flames were, and he flinched as he kept his jacket over his mouth when he rushed through the hallway. Even though he had the jacket covering his nose and mouth, the male began to cough from all the smoke, he could even hear the buildings fire alarm ringing loudly, and the sounds of screaming pierced through the roaring fire. The screams only confirmed one thing for Steven as he struggled to walk through his living room that was ablaze, "it's not just my apartment, it's the whole damn building...." he thought before reaching the window, noticing that it was broken due to the fire popping the window. However Steven knew better then to crawl through a broken window, and even though the plastic latch had melted due to the extremely hot temperature, the male was able to break the latch and open the window. Broken glass tinkled down to the ground as the overheated male crawled through the open window, now feeling the chilling air  on his sweaty skin, and he gasped in a few breaths of fresh air. He leaned against the cold railing, but only for a few seconds since he was still in danger of being cooked alive, so with that, he made his way down the fire escape barefoot, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Now that he was outside, Steven could see that most of his building was on fire, he had no clue about what started the fire, but what he did know was that he had to get away as quickly as possible. As the male began to climb down, he heard the sound of something loud crumbling, and he looked up up just in one to see the top two floors collapsing due to the building being on fire. Steven could only watch as bricks, and cement chunks tumbled down, and one single brick was able to bonk Steven on his forehead, causing him to loose his grip on the fire escape ladder and fall to the pavement with a sickening thud. The brown haired male didn't pass out however, rather he felt dizzy and nauseated at the same time, which only increased when he stood up, and he figured that he may be concussed. "I gotta get away.....I gotta get away...." That thought ran through his head repeatedly as he slowly limped away from the burning building, ultimately forgetting his pink bomber jacket in the alleyway, and after limping for what felt like forever, he finally collapsed into a pile of trash bags in a different alleyway. As Steven slowly drifted off into a painful sleep, ignored by the passerbys for being mistaken as a homeless man, the firefighters that were fighting the fire watched in awe and horror as the whole building finally collapsed into a charcoal mess.

    The next morning, Spinel was walking through The Diamonds base, getting a room ready for her to interrogate the kidnapped Pearl, both unaware of last night's incident at Stevens apartment complex. As she walked down the hallway, she could hear two guy members arguing in one of the infirmary rooms, which peaked her curiosity, "what the hell are these two idiots bickering about?" She asked herself. She slowly stepped towards the infirmary's door, placing her hand flat against the wooden surface to push it open quickly. "What the fuck are you two bickering about? It's giving me a headache" Spinel hissed, eyeing the members named Ryan, and the Joe, now Joe was sitting on one of the cots, his arm bandaged, but it was clear that he was burned. "The IDIOT here mixed up smoke bombs with a couple of REAL ones" Ryan grunted in annoyance, which earned an agitated glare from Joe. "It's not MY fault there was a couple bombs mixed in, we was only supposed to smoke out the buildings resident, and snag up the guy...." Joe huffed, "but that obviously didn't happen, now we have blood on OUR hands cause that guy is dead" He hissed. "What the hell did you guys do exactly?" Spinel asked, unsatisfied that these two numbskulls messed up so badly, although she was curious about the fact that they received orders without her knowing, but then again, all she was supposed to worry about was making sure that Pearl was brought here. "We was supposed to smoke out the building, to set off the fire alarms ya see, and it was supposed to evacuate all of the residents of the apartment complex. Then when everything was chaotic, we was supposed to snatch up the guy and bring him here. But that didn't exactly go to plan...." Ryan admitted, embarrassed at the fact that he and Joe fucked up badly. "The bombs, the real ones, went off and......it started a fire......which spread extremely quickly. I was burned since I ran in and helped a woman escape before the building collapsed, we wasn't supposed to kill anyone....." Joe sighed softly, feeling guilty about everything that happened due to their incompetence. Spinel sneered from his answer, "how can you be so clumsy?! You two WEREN'T supposed to kill anyone....who'd you kill huh? Who's life did you take?!" She barked out her question, getting close enough to grab Joe's injured arm, squeezing extremely hard. "H-He was probably gonna die anyways Spinel! Take it easy on him!" Ryan stated, and he reached to yank her arm off of Joe's injury. Spinel retaliated by grabbing Ryan by the collar of his shirt and kicking his knee, making him kneel down in pain, "I asked WHO!?" She hissed. "W-We didn't know at first, but when the fireman were finally able to put out the fire. The rescue crew searched the rubble and pulled out a roasted body, and I mean completely roasted." Ryan whined, fearing that he'd lose his other, well, let's put it as his other "appendage" to Spinel. "I-It was a g-guy, it was hard to tell b-but he seemed young, M-Maybe in his early to mid t-twenties? He also had patches of singed hair still on his head, but he seemed to be a brunette...." Joe squeaked out of pain, only to screech when he felt Spinels grip tighten on his burn. "GET to the POINT!" Spinel barked once again, only to have her pink colored eyes gaze over to the corner of the room to land on a paper bag. She briefly let go to walk over to the bag, something settled deep in her heart the closer she stepped towards the bag, and she only freezed when she finally looked into the bag. "W-We found that near the body in the rubble, we was going to show the Unholy Trinity, but I guess showing you is enough..." Ryan admitted when he noticed Spinel pulling out a familiar piece of clothing from the paper bag. The pink fabric was dirtied from the smoke, and the hem of the jacket was burned ever so slightly due to the fire, and this made Spinel's heart stop. "Are you saying that...." She began to speak, only to find her words drift away. "Y-Yes, Steven Universe is dead..." Joe answered, the two members didn't notice Spinels mood change due to the fact that her face remained as still as stone. She shouldn't believe their words, after all they've proven to be incompetent before, but she felt her heart shatter into a billion shards and dissapaite right then and there from Joe's response. "Fine, I'm keeping the jacket, it's still usable you morons..." Spinel huffed, holding back the overwhelming emotions that flooded through her body and mind before leaving the infirmary room completely, leaving behind a bewildered Joe and Ryan. She clutched onto the pink bomber jacket tightly, rushing through the hallways until she ended up in a bathroom, locking the door at the same time tears began to stream down her face. "H-He can't even dead....N-No no no no....he has to b-be alive....." Spinel tried to convince herself, but then came to the realization that if Steven was ok, he would've contacted her by visiting her after that whole fiasco. Mascara ran down her face as she brought the organic jacket closer to her face, and as she buried her face into he clothing, she could smell smoke and the faint scent of sweet strawberries. This is the last thing that Spinel had that belonged to Steven, finding herself slipping on the jacket and holding it closer to her chest, silently sobbing in the bathroom believing that Steven was gone, and never ever coming back. It hurt, never going to hear his kind voice again, never going to see that sweet smile of his, never going to feel his comforting hugs ever again.

(Merry Christmas ya filthy animals)