An: Can you believe it? I actually uploaded this at a decent time compared to the last update. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please leave reviews. I really enjoy reading them and they give me more motivation to write. Thank you so much!

Steven was still on the floor of his mother's room. The clouds weren't pink like they use to be. They were a grey color. It was reflecting off of Steven's emotions, that is what his powers do after all. He was on his knees on the floor staring at his gem.

"Corruption." He whispered to himself. "I'm becoming corrupt." Tears rolled down his face. "I knew this would happen." He finally put down his shirt covering the corruption. He strangely wasn't too bothered over it. He knew that if he was going to be in the state of mind that he was in, it was bound to happen. He was just like Jasper in a sense.

"Great." Steven sighed getting up. "How am I going to explain this to the gems?" He questioned himself trying to get the courage to get out of the stormy room. "They're going to be so upset with me." He walked out of Rose's room in the Temple.

"Steven!" Pearl jumped out of her chair looking at the youngest member of the Crystal Gems.

"Yes, Pearl?" Steven said in a strange voice.

"We were worried about you and why do you sound like that?" Pearl freaked.

"I wasn't in there that long." Steven was getting annoyed. He wasn't himself.

"Steven, we have been back from our mission for a few hours now." Pearl was also getting annoyed.

"Where is Garnet and Amethyst?" Steven questioned trying to ease the tension.

"They have been out looking for you. I stayed here in case you were to come back." Pearl answered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I was gone for that long." Steven apologized. His emotions were all over the place. Once minute he was himself the next he wasn't. Corruption was strange that way.

"The rooms in the Temple create an affect that time goes by much slower than being out here." Pearl explained to the best to her ability.

"Oh." Steven responded.

"You still never told me why your voice sounds different." Pearl wasn't going to let this one slide.

"Steven!" Garnet and Amethyst yelled running in Steven's part of the house.

"Hey." He simply responded.

"Where were you?" Garnet questioned slightly mad because he worried her so much.

"He was in Rose's room." Pearl answered for him.

"Dude, why were you in there?!" Amethyst was slightly shocked. Steven rarely went in there.

"Personal reasons." Steven responded which worried them more.

"Steven I need to check your gem to see if it's healing correctly. You seemed to have been moving a lot." Garnet got closer to Steven.

"You're not going to like what you see." Steven looked at Garnet who was standing right in front of him.

"What?" Garnet took off her shades trying to pay close attention to what he just said.

"I said, you're not going to like what you see." Steven was losing himself slowly.

"What is that suppose to mean?" Amethyst butted in who was soon shushed by Pearl.

Garnet slowly lifted up Steven's shirt to see what he was talking about. She exposed his gem with the green spikes around it. She stood there silently with fear in her eyes.

"Corruption." Pearl whispered covering her mouth with tears building up in her eyes.

"Haha, very funny Steven." Amethyst laughed thinking it was another one of his jokes. No one moved. "Steven the jokes over, it's not funny anymore." Amethyst's voice cracked coming to a realization that he wasn't pranking them.

Everyone stood there silent. It was so silent that you could hear the Funland music.

"Garnet?." Amethyst looked at Garnet who was still holding up Steven's shirt. Her whole body was shaking.

"I-I can't." Garnet started glowing. She was unstable.

"Garnet, we need you to help us through this! Don't split up!" Amethyst ran over, but her words didn't change anything.

"Steven." Pearl repeated still in shock.

"What are we going to do!" Ruby stomped on the floor panicking.

"Ruby you aren't helping by being angry. We all just need to be clam-" Sapphire was cut off by Ruby.

"How can you say that at a time like this?! How are you so calm?!" Ruby grabbed her own hair in anger.

"Ruby, please." Sapphire floated up from her sitting position and put her hand in Ruby's shoulder.

"I-I'm sorry Sapphire. I can't watch him suffer like this." Ruby has tears steaming down her face.

"Oh Ruby." Sapphire hugged Ruby and they started kissing.

"Ahem." Amethyst coughed trying to get them back to reality.

"Sorry." They blushed with embarrassment.

"What are we going to do?" Amethyst questioned.

"We don't know how to heal corruption. Rose couldn't even heal corruption." Pearl finally spoke and looked at Steven who looked worse then before.

"You're right." Sapphire sighed and looked at Steven. They were around the same height now.

"Guys." Steven spoke up.

"Yes Steven?" They all responded.

"I knew I was going to get corrupted." Steven frowned.

"How did you know?" Pearl was confused.

"I just felt it." He simply responded.

"You can't just know you're going to become corrupt." Pearl answered.

"What were you doing before you got corrupted Steven?" Sapphire held onto Ruby's hand.

"I-I went into Rose's room." Steven answered knowing they wanted to know more.

"What happened in there?" Sapphire questioned holding onto Ruby's hand even tighter then before.

"Well I asked the room what Rose thought of me and what you guys thought of me. It made fake versions of you that felt so real." Steven started confessing. "You guys all said very negative, horrible things that seemed so real. I broke. I broke down to the point where I lost all strength. I felt a sharp pain and lifted up my shirt and saw I was becoming corrupted." Steven looked at his family. They all had tears in their eyes.

"Steven it wasn't us." Pearl said quickly.

"I know. It felt so real though." Steven looked at Ruby and Sapphire.

"Is something wrong?" Sapphire asked in her calm tone.

"Well I am being corrupted and are you and Ruby going to fuse again?" Steven was closer to Garnet and felt more secure with her around.

"We might not be stable enough right now to fuse." Sapphire looked at Ruby worried.

"Don't worry Sapphire. We will fuse again sometime, I'm sure." Ruby was never un fused from Sapphire in a while.

"I hope you're right." Sapphire calmly spoke.

"I hate to break up this moment, but Steven is getting those spikes on his arms like Jasper. It's spreading." Amethyst pointed out.

"It hurts." Steven was losing himself more and more as time passed.

"We need to try and help him." Ruby let go of Sapphire's hand and walked closer to Steven.

"Be careful Ruby." Sapphire already saw this as a possible outcome.

Ruby reached her hand out to touch Steven's arm which was now covered with green spikes.

"Don't!" Steven yelled slapping Ruby's hand away.

"Steven, I might be able to burn it off of you." Ruby rubbed her arm where Steven slapped it away.

"You can't touch it. You might become corrupted. It could spread." Steven explained.

"He might be right. We don't know what corruption can do. It's very unknown." Pearl added in.

"Sapphire we need to fuse. Garnet would know what to do." Ruby walked closer to Sapphire.

"We can try." Sapphire said.

Ruby and Sapphire held each other's hand and kissed each other on the cheek. They started to glow, but it didn't last long. They couldn't fuse.

"W-why isn't this working?!" Ruby almost lost it again.

"I think we are both unstable still." Sapphire stated.

"You guys are always stable!" Amethyst added in.

"Maybe we need a break or.." Sapphire didn't get to finish her sentence.

"Or what?! We can never fuse. Garnet will never exist?!" Ruby couldn't handle it.

"What I was saying was we might not be able to fuse until Steven's better and cured of corruption." Sapphire sighed pulling her bangs away form her eye.

"I can't be away from you for a long time. I feel stable." Ruby brought her finger up to her head.

"It's Sapphire." Pearl blurted out causing everyone to look at her.

"What do you mean?" Ruby questioned.

"Sapphire is unstable." Pearl answered.

"Sapphire?" Ruby looked into her eye.

"I-I should have saw this coming. This is my fault Ruby. I had seen this as an outcome, but it was highly unlikely." Sapphire had tears coming from her one eye.

"This isn't your fault!" Steven yelled, but this time the corruption was up to his shoulder.

"This could have been prevented." Sapphire started to freeze.

Steven couldn't be here. He couldn't watch his family blame themselves for him bottling up his feelings. That caused the corruption. He had no choice, but to run. He couldn't stay there and let them have a chance of becoming corrupted. Corruption on a half human and half gem wasn't known. Corruption in itself wasn't known well.

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