Bubbled Up

A perpetual pink hue had wrapped itself around a room, in which was stored a multitude of bubbles. There were small ones, holding slivers of shards from something once great, while others were bigger and sturdier to hold heavy gems. These bubbles never floated away, nor moved from their spot. Some were new, but many were old, taking up space in a room that only grew smaller with each new bubble.

The sound of flip-flops smacking onto the rock ground could be heard in a rhythmic movement of the owner who paced around the room. The owner of said flip-flops was short and a little heavy for their height, with a chubby arm holding the other one up to touch their chin. Light blue jeans and a bright, red shirt with a yellow star in the middle was all the child wore, stopping for a moment to gaze up at all the bubbles.

To many they were just a child, but only to those who took the time to get to know this boy, they knew him as Steven Universe.

Steven’s black eyes shifted from right to left as he let out an audible hum to break the eerie silence that forever accompanied the room. “Where did you float off to…”

At the lowest level of the bubbles, Steven soon recognized the only bubble in the room not holding a gem, but a bag of opened chips. With a quick, sharp gasp Steven dropped his arms as he locked onto the bubble he wanted. “There you are!”

Lightly running over to the bubble, Steven jumped a few times in a futile attempt to reach the bubble. He waved his arms every time in hopes of jumping higher than the last, but finally stopped when he realized it was too high. “Man, you are way up there.”

Gazing at the pink bubble, Steven focused more on the odd gem inside, which was a perfect sphere save for the stripe of black that ran around the middle and split to make a circle in the center. At the center of the circle was a black dot, but Steven more commonly saw it was an eye since to the gem, it was their eye.

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it.” Steven kept his gaze on his bubble when he spoke, not expecting a response since it was impossible to give one.

Awkwardly Steven rubbed the back of his neck, eyes averting away. “Sorry I haven’t been around. Things got real crazy after I bubbled you. Like… I learned how to heal.”

Looking back up at the bubble, Steven raised his palm up. “With my spit actually!” He then hesitantly lowered it. “But I kind of lost it after I learned it. I don’t know when I’ll be able to heal again.”

Feeling an itch on his shoulder, Steven scratched at it while looking at the floor. “I probably should have tried to heal you while I still had it. But I doubt it could have worked if my mom couldn’t heal you.”

Tired of standing, Steven moved to sit on the floor of the bubble room, continuing to look up at the bubble. “Then there was Lapis Lazuli, I made a lot of me’s out of watermelons, Jasper and Peridot came to earth and Jasper and Lapis fused into Malachite.”

Steven nervously chuckled. “They’re somewhere at the bottom of the ocean right now. The Gems still take trips to find them but… no one has been able to find them yet.”

He half-heartedly smiled. “I hope we find them again. I hope they’re alright.”

Feeling a little insecure, Steven pulled his knees to his chest, resting his head atop his knees. “Connie’s been taking lessons from Pearl on how to fight; Jamie fell in love with Garnet.”

He looked away. “That went about as well as you would think. Thankfully Jamie got over it quickly.”

Raising his palm out, Steven started to count on each finger what else has happened. “Then I got to see Sardonyx and Ruby and Sapphire again, and we finally caught Peridot! She used to live in my bathroom but now she’s one of us! Cool, right?”

Excitedly Steven allowed his legs to stretch out, placing his hands on the ground. He idly rocked his feet side to side. “A lot has happened since you were last out.”

Steven moved his eyes from the bubble to stare at his toes. “We’ve been working on a drill to help us reach the cluster for awhile and now it’s ready to be used. We came back here to grab some last minute supplies, so I can’t stay for much longer.”

Steven idly moved his fingers over the smooth rock underneath his body, before staring up at the bubble again. “I don’t know how long we’ll be gone… or if we’ll come back. But I just wanted to say that there’s been a lot of bad that’s happened, but there’s also been a lot of good. I have faith that we’re going to stop the cluster and save the earth.”

A small smile spread on Steven’s lips before it blossomed into something much more. “And when we get back, I promise to come back and tell you how it went. Then maybe… I can save you next.”

“Steven?”

Steven idly turned his head behind him only to hear and see Peridot smash onto the ground from losing her footing at the top of the room. “Oh hey Peridot.”

Grumbling Peridot raised her head up first before moving to stand up, a slightly annoyed expression on her face. “What are you doing in this room? The others are waiting for you.”

“Oh, sorry.” Steven stood up around the same time Peridot got her footing, taking another glance at the bubble he was staring at for awhile. “Just catching a friend up with what’s happened and saying goodbye.”

“’Friend?’” Peridot scanned the room around them, pursing her lips. “There are no ‘friends’ in here.”

“Yeah there is.” Steven pointed up to the pink bubble near the bag of chips. “See?”

Peridot narrowed her eyes, before gazing skeptically at Steven. “This bubbled gem is your ‘friend’?”

“Yeah.” Steven smiled again, lowering his arm. “There name is Centipeetle. They helped us out on a mission, but ended up getting hurt at the end.”

“How predictable.” Peridot surmised, still not understanding why Steven looked so fondly at the corrupted gem. “The gem is corrupted, after all. What you call a ‘brain’ is lacking, to say the least; though I’m surprised it had the thinking capacity to aid you on a mission without forgetting what it was doing.”

“I’m not.” Steven absentmindedly shrugged. “That’s the power of friendship.” To emphasize his point Steven made a gesture of a rainbow with his hands, to which Peridot gave him a dead-panned look back.

“Fascinating.” Surveying her surroundings again, Steven could tell that Peridot still wasn’t comfortable with the bubble room.

Her face looked a little uneasy. “Why is it that you-“ Peridot paused, a light blush coming onto her face. “Uh, I mean, we, Crystal Gems bubble these corrupt and broken gems?”

“I think it’s so that we can keep an eye on them.” Steven moved a little closer to Peridot in hopes of calming her nerves. She instead gave him a funny look, but didn’t move away.

She looked to Steven with a disturbed look. “You place human eyes atop the bubbles?”

“What?” Steven shook his head. “No, no, it’s a figure of speech.”

“Figure of speech?”

Steven held up his hands as he then gestured one arm to all of the bubbles. “See, if we just left the bubbles where we found the gems, we wouldn’t know where they were after awhile. That’s why we bring them here, were we can check on them and try to help them.”

Peridot gestured a hand. “You can’t help these gems. Only a gem with healing powers can really help them.”

She flinched her fingers back, turning her attention to Steven who was staring at his palm in deep thought. “Not to say that you won’t be able to successfully heal these corrupt gems. You helped heal Lapis Lazuli’s cracked gem, right? So, it’s not unreasonable to say that you won’t be able to do the same after you figure out how to heal again.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Steven lightly smiled to Peridot, who gave a nervous, cheesy grin back.

“Peridot, did you find Steven?” Pearl’s voice wafted up from outside of the room, where the two could also hear Garnet and Amethyst.

“Come on Steven! Let’s get in the drill and smash this cluster!”

“Let’s go you two.”

“Coming!” Steven called back out, running over to the several pipes of crystal that led back up to the bright light out of the room. He turned his head back to notice Peridot come close, to which he extended his hand to help her up.

At the top Peridot didn’t waiver in leaving the room, but Steven took a moment to look back out to the Centipeetle bubble. “Just wait a little longer for me. We’ll be back before you know it.” Before turning to run out of the room.