Connie cried after the ship left.

She told herself she wouldn’t. She hated crying. It was something she did when she was child, someone who couldn’t defend herself, someone who could do nothing when bad things happened ...

But she felt those things all over again when Steven left. As far as she’d come, she felt like a useless child again.

Steven was gone. And all she could do was cry.

“I’ll tell Greg,” Pearl said, after they had all had a moment to catch their breath. “It’s ... it’s best if he hears it from me.”

Connie sat in Steven’s bed and nodded. She heard Amethyst raising her voice to Garnet downstairs, clearly on the verge of tears, but couldn’t make out the words.

Pearl swallowed and laid a hand on Connie’s shoulder.

“Are you ...” Pearl hesitated. “Are you alright?”

“No!” Connie said, more harshly than she intended. Pearl flinched, but Connie kept going, “How can you even ask that? Of course I’m not okay!”

“Connie ...”

“How am I ever going to be okay?!” Connie said as her eyes stung.

Pearl embraced her, pulled Connie into to her chest.

“It’ll be okay, Connie,” Pearl whispered, as if she were Connie’s own mother. “It’ll be okay.”

But Pearl was crying too and they both knew it wouldn’t be okay.

Connie had taken one of Steven’s shirts with her home. After she’d told her parents what happened and they tried to help her (which Connie appreciated even though it didn’t make her feel any different), she took the shirt into her room.

It sat folded in her lap, star facing upward. Her hands rested on top of it.

“This is creepy,” Connie muttered to herself. “You’re being creepy right now ...”

Despite saying that, she laid the shirt on her pillow and laid her head on it. She could almost smell him.

“Steven ...” she said, tears lingering on in her eyes but not trickling down, “You big, stupid jerk ...”

She shut her eyes tightly to stop from crying again. Eventually she must have fallen asleep ...

She dreamt of being on the beach where they first fused. She was dancing, but stopped when she realized there was no one else with her.

She was alone.

Connie showed up for training the next day, and the day after that ...

She didn’t want to, but she didn’t know what else to do. Her heart wasn’t in it. She was just going through the motions.

Connie knew Pearl could tell, but she said nothing.

Connie found herself walking past the car wash each day. She thought of Greg.

She wanted to see if he was okay, but couldn’t bear to knock on the van’s door. She knew if she did, all they’d talk about was Steven and she wasn’t sure if her heart could take it.

It was almost a week of sleepwalking through life when she first got the idea.

She remembered Steven could jump into people’s dreams.

He’d done it for Lapis. He’d done it for Kiki. Connie wasn’t sure how, but he could do it.

She allowed herself to get hopeful.

That’s what he’ll do, she thought. He’ll come to us in our dreams and he’ll tell us where he is so we can find him. It’ll be fine.

I’ll see him soon.

It’ll be fine.

She was frustrated at her dreams. He hadn’t come to her yet. It was all just nonsense.

She’d kept a dream diary. She’d had the dancing alone dream another few times. She had one that was just what happened, Steven leaving on the ship, turning and saying “I love you.”

(She’d woken up with tears on Steven’s shirt that time).

There was several where it was just her and Steven having fun on the beach or on the boardwalk, like normal.

(She’d woken up crying those times too).

There were several she liked better: her saving Steven from the ship, her going to Homeworld and cutting down Gems until there were none left, her holding that little blue gnat’s Gem in her hand and squeezing until it was crushed, her being the hero ...

There was one other dream she chose not to even write down. Teenage stuff. All it accomplished was making her wake up feeling uncomfortable and depressed once she remembered what reality was.

Steven hadn’t come to her in any of those. None of the Steven’s in her dreams were real. She could tell if it was him.

She knew she could.

She’d asked around town about people’s dreams. Of course most of them had had dreams about Steven, but none of them had dreams where it was really Steven.

She almost chickened out, but she finally knocked on Greg’s van to ask him.

Steven had to have come to Greg, Connie thought. It’s his dad. If he hasn’t come to me, he must have come to him.

But Greg just shook his head when Connie asked.

“I haven’t been able to sleep much since ... everything,” Greg said sadly. He pulled a small orange bottle of pills from his pocket. “Your mom wrote me a prescription for these but ... even those haven’t helped much. ”

“But ... but you must have fallen asleep at some point!” Connie said. “You must have had a chance to see Steven, he would have come to you, he--”

Greg frowned.

“I’m sorry, Connie,” Greg said.

“No! It ... he had to have, he--” Connie didn’t realize she was getting worked up until she heard her own voice crack.

“I’m sorry,” Greg repeated.

Greg wrapped his arms around her, and Connie thought of how he used to hug Steven, and that just made her lose it even more.

After she’d had a good cry, Connie was about to walk out the van ... when she noticed something at her feet.

Greg’s bottle of pills had fallen down on the pavement, right at her feet.

Connie stared at it. She glanced back at the van. Greg wasn’t looking.

And for reasons she herself was unsure of, she took it and stuffed it in her pocket.

She didn’t even have a dream that night. And she woke up feeling cheated.

“Why are you taking so long?!” Connie shouted to no one, picking up Steven’s shirt. “WHY HAVEN’T YOU COME TO ME? DON’T YOU MISS US?! DON’T YOU MISS ME?!”

And despite not wanting to think of it, the thought occurred in her head.

He hasn’t because he’s already dead, she thought. He’s already dead and you’ll never see him again, never fuse again, never have your first kiss with him, never--

She gritted her teeth.

No, she thought. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. There has to be another reason why. I just ...

I just need to give him more chances, that’s all.

I just need to be asleep for longer.

She walked over to the sock drawer and pulled out Greg’s bottle of sleeping pills ...

She woke up at noon. She couldn’t remember if she’d had a dream or not.

That wasn’t long enough. She needed more time.

She locked the door to her room.

She took another.

She woke up at three in the morning, she still couldn’t remember anything. Her vision was still blurry as she reached for the bottle.

“Come on, come on,” Connie said. “Just a little bit more and I’m sure I’ll see him.”

She took one pill out before she thought for a second, then poured the rest of the bottle in her hand ...

Steven was by her side, crying.

“Connie stop, I don’t want you to do this! Stop!”

Connie woke up in a hospital bed. She could feel an IV attached to her wrist. Her head felt loopy and hazy. She knew she was awake, but everything felt slower, out of focus, as if it was a dream ...

There was a doctor standing over her. Her mother and father were nearby in tears.

“Oh my god, Connie, I was so scared, I--” Priyanka started.

But Connie cut them off. She shook her head.

“No ... no ...” Connie shouted. “No, I saw him!”

Priyanka cringed. Doug seemed bewildered.

“W-what?” Doug said.

Connie shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Why did you wake me up? I saw him! I ACTUALLY SAW HIM!” Connie said. “It... it was actually him, I know it! Why didn’t you just let me sleep?”

The doctor said something, but Connie didn’t listen.

Priyanka started crying.

“Connie, it’s alright--” Priyanka said.

“No it’s not!” Connie said. “I saw him, I--”

Priyanka and Doug both hugged her, tried to soothe her, but Connie barely even noticed.

“I saw him ...”