Steven sat on the couch with Spinel, watching one of the many, many Lonely Blades.

"Is there a reason there's a janitor in every part?" Spinel questioned, shoving popcorn into her mouth as she stared at the movie.

"Yeah, but I can't tell you until the end, it's a surprise." Steven replied, grabbing a handful for himself.

"Woah, the janitor was the bad guy the whole time?!" Spinel gasped, nearly tossing the popcorn in the air, Steven laughed at her exaggerated reaction.

"Yeah," he chuckled, "it's called a twist, so now you can watch the movie later, and pick out all the parts where the janitor was." He stood, taking the tape from the VCR machine and popping it back into the box. His face grew dark as his thoughts returned to the coup.

"Spinel, do you think I should do something about aquamarine? And the diamonds?" He asked, sighing heavily as he sat back on the couch next to his friend.

"Honestly?" Spinel paused, trying to think of how she might word her answer. "No, because right now, no one is after you." She stopped herself, unsure in Antarcticite was sent by one of Steven's foes, but quickly shook the thought from her head.

"Maybe if earth was in danger, but right now, everything seems okay." She answered, reaching for Steven's hand and coiling her arm around his. "You don't have to fight them…"

Spinel paused, not finishing her sentence, she wanted to say that she didn't want him to fight, because she didn't want to lose him, but she knew that it would seem needy, and she didn't want to be like her old self.

Steven didn't look at the gem, but opened his mouth to speak.

"I don't want to fight them, but I feel like I need to, like this is my fault, and gems are getting hurt because of it."

"Then do what you think is right." Spinel answered softly, releasing her arm from his. Recoiling as though his words were an immediate rejection of something she had never even said.
Steven turned to her, a thankful smile on his face.

"Thanks, Spinel, you're a good friend." The gem blushed brightly, suddenly embarrassed at her own selfish behavior. All this time, she was only thinking of what she wanted, and Steven merely wanted her advice.
She felt bad that she didn't come to the conclusion earlier, but beamed at the thought of her being a good friend, and maybe..a best friend.

"Ah, it's nothing, what else am I here for?" She glanced down at her feet, giving him a small smile, trying to hide the overzealous joy she felt.

"We're back!" Pearl called from the warp pad upstairs, her, Amethyst and Garnet entered the room, waving a small welcome to the two.

"The galaxy warp is temporarily disabled, so no gem can come to earth through them, but we can still go to anywhere on the planet." Pearl remarked.
Steven stood up, giving the gem a confused look.

"That's where you guys went?" He questioned, trying to recall if they had mentioned anything of the trip to him, he would have liked to go.

"Well, we tried to wake you up, but you didn't want to get up." Amethyst replied, pretending to be a tired and cranky Steven.

"He's a growing boy, Steven needs his sleep." Garnet said, she turned to the boy, "don't worry, we took care of it."

Steven sighed, he didn't realise he had slept through the whole mission. It didn't even occur to him that they would just go without him. The stress of everything left him exhausted, and the anticipation even more so. He glanced back at Spinel who seemed occupied by her own thoughts before offering a small shrug accompanied by a smile.

"We should try and get in contact with Pink Pearl, she can tell us anything going on with the diamonds, where they hid, and if Aquamarine or anyone else attacks them." He turned toward Pearl who nodded in agreement, before quickly stepping past him to search her room for something that would suffice.

"I used to have a communication device, Pearl's under the diamonds used them to communicate with each other, among other things, it should be here somewhere." She said before entering her room.  
She returned with a cubical device and opened it up to project a screen.

"She should be in here somewhere…" Pearl scrolled through facet cuts and numbers, finally stopping on one. "This should be hers, but I don't know if the signal will reach."

A soft roll of thunder sounded in the distance, heralding more rain to come.

Antarcticite stood just beyond the sight of the gems as they focused on the communicator.

"I got the signal." She said quietly into her own communicator, Aquamarine's glitched face cracked a sly grin.

"Perfect, make sure the fusion stays out if our way."