A/N: You might want to read Ch.43 before you read this.

Greg yawned massively. He gently dragged a comb through Steven's wet curls and then dragged it through what was left of his own hair. The bath after dinner and the movie had gone well. Steven had insisted they bring Miss Watermelon to each of their activities (lugging them both around hadn't been ideal, but Steven had insisted). Steven brushed Miss Watermelon's nonexistent hair, dressing her in one of his pull-ups and night shirts.

"Daddy, le's story now p'ease." Steven squealed, jumping on his bed while Greg made sure everything was locked and clean enough to avoid a scolding. He snuck a quick glance outside through the curtains. The moon, which had only been a sliver peeking behind the clouds, was now completely covered. An oppressive, humid darkness pressed against the force field, threatening to swallow what light was left. On the distant horizon, violet-blue bolts of lightning raced across the sky, the distant rumble of thunder thankfully muted.

"Yeah, quick story before bed buddy." Greg settled on the bed with a groan, letting Steven tuck him in with one of his blankies, Mrs. Watermelon between them. "What'ya wanna read buddy, we've got a large selection for the madam and sir."

Steven giggled, cuddling into Miss Watermelon. "We wanna read 'bout stars, Daddy."

"Fine choice, fine choice." Greg grabbed the giant space book, flipping open to a dog-eared page. "Tonight, we'll be reading about white dwarf stars."

White dwarf stars went down well with Steven and his bedtime guest. Steven randomly repeated the big words Greg stumbled over, poking at the glossy pictures of illustrations of distant stars. Steven is thankfully asleep in twenty minutes. His little snores were so soft that the rain drowns them out. Greg slowly slipped under the blankets, his gaze worriedly watching the blackened sky erupt with light, the howl of the wind dampened by Pearl's forcefield.

He hoped it held.

…

The force field did hold.

But the storm proves itself to be truly a behemoth. The distant, muted claps of thunder that had been on the horizon, terrorizing some other poor costal town, had finally reached Beach City.

Despite the noise, it was Steven who had woken him up. His son's tiny hands had dug so painfully into Greg's sides that he momentarily thought he was being stabbed.

"WHA-huh what? What?" Greg shot up simultaneously with a giant flash of lightning, a cacophony of thunder followed closely behind it; an impressive boom that seemed to rattle the house.

"AH DADDY! NOOOOO!" Steven cried, burrowing into Greg's tank top. "MONSTA! MONSTA! CALL GAWNET!"

Greg's sleepy brain momentarily forgot his fluency in congested toddler speak, but after a few seconds he gets it. "Buddy, it's not a gem monster. It's just a really big storm."

Steven flinched as another streak of lightning split the sky. "Make it go time-out, Daddy!

Greg tried to smother his snicker. "Sorry dude, daddy can't put the storm in timeout."

"Pearl can." Steven insisted. He whined when Greg pulled him out from under the tank top but accepted the offered hug instead. "Or Gawnet."

"No can do. Even the Crystal Gems can't handle this baby." Greg chuckled, inching off the bed and heading to the window. The blue shield is still effervescent; a beacon in the suppressing darkness that casts a gentle light onto the surrounding beach. "Did the thunder scare you?"

"Yes, it's vewy big an' loud." Steven stretched his little arms above his head to illustrate the massiveness. "Den the lightning is too big. It won' go night-night a-and it ate da moon."

"Yeah, this storm is up way past its bed time, huh?" Greg pressed against the glass. "The moon isn't gone though. It's still there, it's just behind the clouds."

"Is…is not scary?" Steven whispered, peering out as another torrent of rain started up. The usual staccato on the roof was gone, only replaced with the gentle humming of the force field. "Sounds scary." Steven huffed, sounding entirely unconvinced.

"It does sound kinda scary doesn't it?" Greg remembered being scared too once. When Greg had been little, whenever thunderstorms hit his little town, he had hidden under his bed – thinking that surely the world was ending. "It's not really scary though, it's actually pretty fascinating."

'Fascinating'. That had been the word, Mrs. Avery, Greg's second grade teacher had used to describe the whole process. It had been Mrs. Avery who had sparked his love of the sky and then later his love for space.

"'Fascitating'?" Steven stuttered, looking back and forth between his father's bright eyes and the gloomy atmosphere outside. "Show me, Daddy! I wanna see the 'fascitating'."

"Really?" Greg asked. He looked down at Steven, seeing a mirror of himself at that age. Steven wouldn't be enrolled into a school anytime soon – it was much too complicated to explain everything that Steven and the gems were to a school administration. Steven would never get a Mrs. Avery – he just had the myriad of people around town, the gems, and his good ol' dad. "Do you really want me to show you? It might get pretty loud."

Steven nodded, his eyes lit with stars. There's a ghost of Rose's spark kindled in his little face that Greg wants to fan into a flame.

"Yeah, I'll show you! It's gonna be awesome." He heaved Steven onto his hip and gathered up a few of their things. "The force field should protect us from the rain. It'll all be in our astronomy book, I can explain it to you."

It only takes Greg a few minutes to set everything up. A giant picnic blanket, a flashlight, Mrs. Watermelon, and a bag of pink marshmallows are parked on the edge of the force field. The sand is thankfully dry. Steven is cuddling Mrs. Watermelon, looking doubtfully up into the sky.

Greg hands him the marshmallow bag and cracks open the astronomy book, balancing the flashlight between his head and his shoulder. "Okay, I got this. Don't worry Steven, once you know how everything works it makes it less scary."

"Okay." Steven mumbled through his marshmallow. He tried unsuccessfully to feed one to Mrs. Watermelon.

"Do you remember the water cycle?" Greg asked.

"Yeah, th-the sun pick up…um… water and make clouds. Den…the clouds go drink all da water, but once they drink too much they have to go potty."

Greg grinned, shaking his head. "Yeah, well thunderstorms are just like that, except they come with thunder and lightning."

"Why izzit scary?" Steven asked, mouth crammed full of marshmallows.

"Well…it kinda is but kinda not." Greg shrugged, scooting close to Steven and Mrs. Watermelon. "Thunder is loud, but it doesn't mean to be scary. It's just…all the clouds are up there trying to go potty right? But it's so crowded up there, they can't help but bump into one another. When clouds bump into one another, it makes thunder."

"Oh?" Steven hummed, standing up as though that would give him a better view. "Ah, poor clouds. There's no mo' room up there, huh?"

"And lightning is just like static electricity. Like when you rub your socks on the van's carpet and shock Daddy." Greg pinched Steven's little socks. "When the clouds keep bumping up there, they produce electricity like static shocks, just much bigger."

Another ragged bolt of lightning lit up the horizon, causing both Steven and Greg to flinch.

"Do clouds have socks, Daddy?" Steven asked.

"Um…yeah. I think so." Greg shrugged. He laid on his back, settling his weight on his elbows. Steven rolled Mrs. Watermelon into Greg's side and plopped down.

"I-I guess it's not so scary." Steven mumbled, curling into his father's side with a quiet yawn. "Daddy, how come you knows everyt'ing?"

Greg laughed at that. "Little man, I don't know everything. I don't think anybody knows everything." Steven crawled onto Greg's belly with a pout.

"But you know about how storms aren't scary and about space and watermelons." Steven listed, counting it out with his fingers – accidentally ending up with four fingers instead of the intended three.

"Yeah, but that's just some stuff, there's a lot about the world that I don't know about." Greg shrugged humbly. "I didn't know about the gems, I still haven't finished college, and I still don't really understand taxes."

"Is taxes food?" Steven asked, grabbing the bag of marshmallows and popping two more into his mouth and then some into Greg's. "I can help you cook it."

For some reason, Greg then starts to try explaining taxes and that starts an even longer conversations about how marshmallows aren't exempt from sales tax.

Both Greg and Steven end up falling asleep under the thick blanket of thunderstorms. Mrs. Watermelon; the only witness to the end of the grandiose storm.

…

Greg woke up mostly because of the jostling. It's slightly familiar – before meeting Rose, he could count how many times he'd been picked up as a grown man on one hand. Now he's all too familiar with the gentle rhythm of someone walking and the coolness of a gem's body. He guesses, still half-awake, that it must be Garnet who's carrying him. Mostly because Pearl refused to touch him and because his head would be dragging against the sand if it were Amethyst.

"Honestly, sleeping outside." Pearl's voice is far from quiet. "What if the shield had failed?"

"You made sure it wouldn't." Garnet hummed, her voice low.

"Yes, but Greg didn't know that!" Pearl insisted. "Besides, it isn't appropriate anyway, sleeping outside when we spent all that work building the house!"

"Greg trusted you." Garnet sighed. "A little faith goes a long way."

Pearl's scoff is the last thing Greg can remember. Steven's soft snores stuttered in and out like the waves on the sand. As he drifts off back into his dreams, Rose begins to hum their favorite song, her voice lilting to the rhythm of Steven's sleepy breaths.

A/N: I really like writing Greg and Steven. They're just so cute. I posted the first part to this story 3 years ago, whoopsie-doo! Be prepared to have a bunch of "parters" finally getting finished. I don't want to leave any 'old' stuff not getting finished before I finally change the status of this story to 'completed'.

Thanks as always for reading and reviewing.

(And for those of y'all who follow/favorite the story at 3 or 4 in the morning, I'm concerned. Please remember to sleep.)