Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rose Quartz is strange.

Garnet never had the opportunity to meet another rose quartz before they were recalled from Pink Diamond’s army, but she’s met many other types of quartz. Ruby in particular knows what they’re like, their boisterous sociability and violent tendencies. Garnet sees none of that in Rose Quartz. She’s friendly, but keeps to herself. She’s a skilled fighter, but it doesn’t burst out of her in barely-controlled torrents. She disappears, sometimes, for days on end, her pearl apparently with her.

Except Pearl isn’t Rose’s pearl, and that is perhaps the strangest thing of all.

Garnet doesn’t have much first-hand experience with pearls. Sapphire never had one of her own, and even on the rare occasions that she spoke to another gem’s pearl, nothing of much substance was ever said. She hadn’t thought pearls capable of especially substantive thought, to be frank.

But the newness of her existence is causing her to rethink a lot of assumptions. The idea of an ownerless pearl is as strange as…well, as strange as Garnet herself, and yet Garnet can’t deny what she sees. Pearl follows Rose, listens to her orders, is obviously devoted to her, and yet…it doesn’t feel the same.

Pearl does things of her own volition. She has opinions of her own. She disagrees with Rose, out loud, to her face. These are not things that pearls do, and yet here she is. Pearl fights battles. She addresses Rose as Rose rather than as my Rose Quartz. She discusses commands with Rose rather than rushing to complete them. These are not things that pearls do.

These are not things that pearls do, and yet Pearl is unquestionably devoted to Rose. Garnet can’t wrap her mind around it. If Pearl is following Rose, isn’t she her pearl? Why follow Rose, as a pearl, if she does not belong to Rose? What is that devotion inspired by if not the fealty a pearl owes to her owner?

One day, Garnet realizes that if she goes to the forest clearing they’ve been using as an arena, she may receive an answer to her question.

Pearl is there, of course. Rose is not. Pearl is running drills with her swords - her swords - and for a moment Garnet pauses in the shadow of the trees and watches. Pearls do not do things like this, and yet...

“Hello,” Garnet calls out when the time is right, stepping out into the clearing.

Pearl startles and turns, swords at the ready. Garnet wonders if she sees guilt on Pearl’s face for a moment, or if that is merely what she expects to see.

“Ah.” Pearl relaxes. “Garnet. Can I help you?” Is that subservience, or politeness? Garnet thinks it must be the latter, if only because there is no reason for Pearl to be subservient to…someone like Garnet.

“Rose is finalizing our plans for the spire attack,” is all Garnet can think to say.

“Does she want me to come back?” Pearl asks, visibly perking up.

“No,” Garnet says. “No, I...” She steps forward again, further into the clearing, and she’s close enough to reach out and touch Pearl if she wants to. She doesn’t. “I wanted to speak with you.”

Pearl nods, but she’s wary again. Garnet knows that her existence is still unsettling, as much as Rose and Pearl have both begun to adjust to her near-constant presence. She’s supposed to only exist for fighting, if she were to exist at all, but she knows she is an independent gem. Pearl is barely a gem, and yet she thinks and argues and fights. What an odd pair they make.

“You and Rose,” Garnet says, and stops. What should she say? She tries to look into the future, to see what statement will have the best effect, but the possibilities are overwhelming to the point of meaninglessness. What does she want to say? “I don't know what I’m doing here,” she says finally. “This, all of this, you and Rose...none of it makes sense. You don’t belong to her, but you follow her.”

She was afraid that she would say something to hurt or anger Pearl, but instead Pearl just looks thoughtful. She puts her swords away in her gem and sits down on the ground, Garnet hesitantly following suit. “I didn’t understand it at first myself,” Pearl begins. “When Rose first started telling me about humans, about freedom, about the possibility of being equals...well!” She laughs self-consciously. “I listened and I agreed with her and I didn’t understand a word. But she showed me. She showed me how humans can listen to each other, follow each other, respect each other, without worrying about ownership. Their ranks, their duties, can change. Humans who lead listen to the others and respect them, but they still lead. It’s...difficult to explain.”

It’s difficult to understand, too, but one thing in particular bothers Garnet. “But you and Rose aren’t equals,” she says. “She gives the orders and you don’t...and yet you still insist she doesn’t own you.”

Pearl taps her fingers on her knee. “I choose to follow her. If I wanted to I could leave, and no one would be there to stop me or bring me back. And...and she says she doesn't own me.

“Sapphires outrank rubies,” she adds abruptly. “Did Ruby choose this?”

“I...” Garnet looks at her hands, her gems. Sapphire certainly hadn’t ordered Ruby to fuse with her. Ruby had acted out of a sense of duty, but that didn’t explain fusing, and it certainly didn’t explain fusing again, and again, and again. Ruby had wanted this. Sapphire had wanted this. And now she’s Garnet, and whole, and it is blissful.

“I chose this,” Garnet says firmly, and Pearl smiles.

“Isn’t that wonderful?”

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Garnet may have the memories of a ruby, but nothing could have prepared her for the realities of rebellion. Awkward and uncoordinated as she was when she first came into being, it takes a while before Rose decides she’s fit for battle - but even with that preparation time it’s still a shock. The Crystal Gems don’t fight like Homeworld. Fighting as a ruby was somewhat formulaic: you were expected to charge in without a thought, to fuse if there was more than one of you around, and to clear the way for the more valuable soldiers. Fighting as a rebel is nothing like that. With an enemy force so much larger and more powerful than their own, they can’t afford to charge in to a battle. No gem is expendable, no gem is replaceable, and so they have to carefully plan every strike. What’s more, nothing ever goes according to plan, even with the assistance of future vision, and so every fight is full of improvisation.

Garnet loves it.

She’s growing accustomed to the way her new future vision works rather than expecting it to be like Sapphire’s, and there’s something exhilarating in the split-second decisions she has to make between probable futures. She wouldn’t describe fighting Homeworld as fun, but there’s nothing like the rush of emotions following a victory, especially when she spends an entire fight hearing words like abomination and freak from the lips of soldiers who were her allies not so long ago.

And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, like the first time she sees the massive, four-eyed, pink and purple fusion towering over the battlefield.

It happens not long after she joins the Crystal Gems, and later she’ll wonder if she herself was the inspiration for such an act. In the moment, though, there’s no room in her mind for anything but simple awe. The fusion is gorgeous and terrifying and mesmerizing and ruthless, and the battle is quickly won.

Garnet doesn’t know what the fusion’s name is until after, when there are three gems huddled together in a ravine that is thick with foliage they hope will be enough to hide them if more soldiers come looking.

“Rainbow Quartz,” Rose whispers.

Garnet doesn’t think Pearl has stopped blushing since she and Rose unfused, but she doesn’t hesitate to agree. “I’ve never felt anything like that!” Her voice is a bit louder than perhaps it should be, but Garnet can’t bring herself to tell her so, and from the look on Rose’s face neither can she. “So strong and confident and in control. I can imagine why you never unfuse!”

Before Garnet can think of how to reply to that (but she’s smiling, riding the wave of Pearl’s enthusiasm, remembering how that first time felt) Rose reaches out to ruffle Pearl’s hair. With a fond smile she says, “We’ll have to try that again sometime, when we’re not fighting.” Her voice is soft because they’re hiding, yes, but Garnet still feels as if she is not meant to hear the words.

Pearl gasps and says, “Can we? Oh, oh goodness, that would be…”

Watching the two of them laugh and excitedly swap their impressions of Rainbow Quartz is enough to finally let Garnet relax. She has truly found where she’s meant to be. And, she thinks, as Pearl leans into Rose’s side, content and happy, it’s bizarre that she could have ever thought that it is better for pearls to be with their owners than with people who care for them.

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“But if we attack from the east, we’ll have cover to retreat into,” Pearl argues, jabbing a finger at the makeshift map they’ve carved into the stone wall.

Rose shakes her head. “Blue Diamond’s forces are too dense there. We won’t be able to break through.”

Garnet has seen Rose and Pearl argue before, but they’re usually able to resolve the issue quickly. The Crystal Gems have grown, and these two have proven themselves to be effective strategists time and again, often of the same mind.

This time, however, they’ve been arguing for nearly the entire meeting, and their arguments are starting to sound repetitive. Garnet keeps wanting to interject with her own solutions, but she knows she isn’t much of a strategist; rubies are impulsive and sapphires single-minded, and she can’t imagine that combination would make for a good leader.

So all she does is listen, occasionally exchanging glances with Bismuth. The four of them are at the center of the rebellion, and Garnet finds it strange that this feels natural to her now. There are members of the Crystal Gems that outrank all of them - not many, but some - and yet somehow everything revolves around a quartz, a pearl, a bismuth, and a fusion.

“They don’t know how to move on Earth like we do,” Pearl is saying. “If we focus on picking them off one by one they won’t be able to counter us effectively.”

“We don’t have enough time to do it like that,” Rose says. She’s starting to sound impatient. “We have to come in from the west, Pearl.”

Garnet isn’t sure what’s different about that statement, but the result is palpable: Pearl relaxes, stands up straight, and says, “Yes, of course.”

“Thank you,” Rose says, her voice full of relief, and the meeting is quickly brought to a close.

Garnet can’t shake the feeling that Rose hadn’t won the argument, but she isn’t sure what she can say about it so she quietly exits the small stone building behind Pearl, leaving that conversation for another day.

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Garnet is at the edge of the fighting when the call to retreat goes out. Even with their force as large as it is now, the Crystal Gems don’t retreat in an orderly fashion; they scatter, disappearing into the wildness of Earth, and before Homeworld is able to muster their forces, there’s nothing to chase.

They eventually regroup in a predetermined location, showing up in ones and twos over the course of a few days. Garnet is a straggler this time, but even she makes it there before Rose and Pearl.

The rebellion is anxious and disjointed while Rose is gone. A few report having seen her leave the battlefield, but no one seems to have seen Pearl. Garnet has trouble looking for them in the future; she can see futures where they both appear and futures where neither of them do, but the details are hazy, the paths leading to them unclear.

Finally, nearly ten days after the battle, Rose and Pearl are there.

It’s as if they were never gone. The ranks settle down, reassured that their leadership is intact, and Garnet is pulled aside for a private meeting - alone, now that Bismuth is gone.

“Pink Diamond has been shattered,” Rose says, her voice overflowing with excitement.

For such a short statement, the implications hit Garnet like a topaz’s fist. “Shattered,” she repeats numbly. She’s sure she should feel glad, or at least feel something, but mostly she keeps thinking why didn’t I see this coming?

“She’s gone forever,” Rose says, and the pure glee in her voice seems odd until Garnet thinks about Blue Diamond. Perhaps she would have the same reaction in Rose’s place after all. “We’ve won. We’re free.”

Garnet’s gaze slides to Pearl. In great contrast to Rose beside her, Pearl looks miserable, slouched and drawn and tired. Garnet wonders if that’s the result of the battle or of the days that followed it. The bud of victory that had been growing inside of her begins to droop and wilt. This wasn’t a victory; this was a last resort. She can understand that a weight has been lifted from Rose’s shoulders, but she’s not sure anyone wanted things to turn out like this, with the rebellion in such bad straits that two of its members had to topple a tyrant on their own to ensure that everything hadn’t been in vain.

But a diamond had been shattered! Garnet had never imagined that such a thing could be possible. She’d certainly never foreseen anything of the sort happening, but by now she’s used to the fact that her future vision never seems to work quite right when Rose is involved.

“This is…unbelievable,” Garnet says. It really, truly is. “I can’t imagine how you could have achieved something like this.”

Rose rests her hand on Pearl’s shoulder and Pearl stands up straight, her face clearing into calm neutrality. “I couldn’t have done it without Pearl,” Rose says, suddenly serious, turning so that she’s addressing both of them. “And this never would have happened without the support of every member of the rebellion, the two of you in particular. I owe you everything.”

Garnet feels light and giddy, her triumphant flower blooming with full force. They’d shattered Pink Diamond! They’d won! Pearl is blushing slightly, gazing up at Rose with nothing but devotion etched into her face, a stark difference from her earlier melancholy. Garnet knows that they’re not out of trouble yet, but surely this would all be worth it in the end.

She finds Pearl sitting on the edge of a cliff hours later.

Pearl wipes her face hurriedly before smiling up at her, eyes still a bit wet. “Hello, Garnet.”

Garnet sits beside her in silence and for a while they watch as the yellow sun creeps towards the horizon, painting the blue sky with shards of pink. There’s a light breeze, and the silence between them feels immense, eternal, until Garnet decides to speak.

“I never thought we’d see a day like this.”

“Neither did I,” Pearl murmurs in response.

“Victory so close, and all because Rose…Rose shattered a diamond.” She can hear the awe in her own voice.

Pearl opens her mouth to say something before curling in on herself, her hands clasped over her mouth, shoulders shaking.

Garnet has seen pearls lose their owners before. She’d seen pearls join the rebellion alongside their owners only to see them cut down by an enemy soldier; she’d seen pearls on the battlefield confronting owners they’d left behind. Some brush it off, but it isn’t always easy, even for pearls who have wholeheartedly embraced the concept of freedom.

Pearl has never told her who she was made for, but Garnet is good at guessing, and this feels like confirmation.

“I’m sorry,” she says, gently stroking Pearl’s hair.

Pearl lowers her hand from her mouth. “It’s better this way,” she says. “It really is, but…” She bows her head. The sun slowly sinks below the horizon, dragging the shards of pink down with it, to be reborn on another day.

Chapter Text

Garnet can’t stay together forever.

The more time passes the easier it is for her to exist, but even after centuries she still sometimes comes apart. Ruby and Sapphire need to stretch their legs, or are feeling existentially anxious, or one of them decides to take a particular situation on herself instead of letting Garnet handle it.

Ruby usually ends up wishing she’d let Garnet handle it after all, but sometimes she just needs to do something and Garnet just wants to be rational and patient and ugggggggggh.

This time, though, there isn’t anything to handle. The first weeks after the bright light had been frantic, too frantic for anyone to stop and think, and now…

Well, Ruby needs time to process. Sapphire might not have wanted to admit it but Ruby thinks she does too.

Ruby also thinks that she could use some other rubies to commiserate and roughhouse with, and the thought of what happened to the other rubies in the rebellion nearly burns down a tree.

Maybe she shouldn’t be doing this in a forest.

But she’s mad she’s mad she’s MAD and she’s aching and she doesn’t know what to do with that. They’ve lost everyone, it’s just Rose and Pearl and Garnet now. The loss is monumental, unthinkable. At least when other gems are around she has something to fight, but all of them feel familiar, all of them make her wonder, and then suddenly punching them isn’t quite so cathartic anymore.

She thinks that’s why Garnet fell apart in the first place, Sapphire thinking that they had to take care of everything then so they wouldn’t have to take care of it later and Ruby thinking that a lot of these were old friends and she doesn’t know what to do.

Thinking about Sapphire makes her angry-hurt again and she whirls around to punch the blackened tree and Pearl is standing there in front of her.

Fist still in the air, Ruby spits out, “Why are you here?” Pearl doesn’t move an inch.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” Pearl says calmly. Because of course she’s still calm and unmoved, of course she can keep everything under control even when everything is falling to pieces around her because Rose is still there so everything’s just fine and dandy, isn’t it?

“I’m fine. You don’t need to follow me around like - like I’m some upper-crust - rrrrrgh.” Without anything to punch, Ruby stomps on the ground, which is not nearly as satisfying but does set a couple of dry leaves on fire.

“You’re going to start a forest fire,” Pearl says with disapproval. Ruby sullenly moves out of her way so she can put out the flames with a quick grind of her heel. “And really, isn’t it obvious why I came to talk to you instead of Sapphire?” She frowns at the ashes on her foot, wiping them off in the leaf litter, and it occurs to Ruby that she might not be the only one missing the company of others who understand, and that maybe this is the best option either she or Pearl has right now. Or will have, for the rest of their lives.

She’s still mad, but it’s less of a punch-a-tree-into-splinters sort of mad than it is a flop-down-on-the-ground-in-a-huff sort of mad, so she does that.

Pearl stays standing. Ruby refuses to be intimidated.

“Where’s Sapphire?” she asks.

“I’m not sure,” Pearl admits, leaning against the still-smoldering tree. “Rose was going to look for her, but when Sapphire doesn’t want to be found, well…”

“I didn’t want to be found,” Ruby grumbles instead of agreeing. Pearl doesn’t say anything.

“Why did you come find me?” Ruby asks finally.

Pearl looks down at her feet again. “Have you ever wanted to talk about something so badly you thought you would crack, but no matter how hard you try…you can’t?”

“Yeah.” Ruby remembers all too well the days and weeks and months spent on Earth with Sapphire before finding the Crystal Gems. (How funny that they’ve been reduced to their original membership.) She remembers the burn of her thoughts, the anxiety and frustration and that one, unnameable thing crackling within her. “It’s not forever.”

Pearl smiles wanly at her. “Some secrets are important enough to be eternal. Are you angry with Sapphire?”

“Yes,” Ruby says.

“No?” she adds.

“I’m angry at everything,” she decides.

Pearl leans her head back so it’s resting against the tree and closes her eyes. “Sometimes I am too.”