Chapter Text
Lars came with his spaceship, his crew and a large dark-blue star on his uniform, much like a medal. The Diamonds came, too - perhaps in hopes to see Pink regenerate after the death of her vessel, perhaps to see her off for good, a funeral they never got the chance to perform in times of war. Connie didn't come. After Steven had let her go into her pink immortality, deciding not to burden her with his slowly ageing body, going so far as to forbid her from watching him die, she had not come back for a long time, close to two years.
Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet, Lapis and Peridot were there. Even Jasper came back from Mars for a day, looking to everyone just as nonchalante and filled with barely contained rage at something as always, though there was a sour note to every remark she made, and she even made sure not to look at Lapis even once when she might notice, though the blue gem being uncomfortable in her presence had not mattered to Jasper once in the past.
The Diamonds had come on their Palanquins, landing them in the very middle of Beach City with little regard for the natives. No buildings were harmed, however - a show of respect for Pink Diamond? Only they knew. They came with their Pearls and didn't interact with any of the other gems except for, maybe, a quiet nod of recognition. When they saw the terrifying renegade Pearl again, they both remembered times long past, but they seemed so long ago that they hardly mattered now, though they did, and severely so.
The people arrived last, a dozen or so descendants of Beach City denizens from when Steven was a child, a single TV-channel Pearl had allowed to be in the vicinity, and Mark Burgundy, the only person to ever get the Crystal Gems in front of a camera to perform in a music video. But those times were so far away now, though they were merely thirty or forty years ago, that neither Pearl nor Lars were sure anything prior to this moment had actually happened.
The Diamonds and their Pearls sat at the very edge, sure not to infringe upon the other gems' personal matters. They were as far away from the Off-Colours as they could possibly be while still present. But after Pink had spent hours upon hours debating and talking to them during what was to be known as "The Great Discussion", they wouldn't have done much to hurt them, either way. At least as long as they were on Earth - or The Neutral Planet, as it was now called. Lapis took long, furtive glances at Blue - did she remember her? If she did, she didn't show.
Peridot had beads of sweat running up and down her face whenever Yellow even started to glance in her direction. Though the incident had been a good two hundred years ago, she still wondered if her retribution for calling the yellow giant a "clod" would follow any minute. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl sat at the very front. The people were spread out in the middle, while Lars and his crew sat in the back, closer to the ocean than to the city, as if Lars wanted to be washed away.
While the coffin was lowered into the ground, the Diamonds exchanged a few words.
"Can she regenerate in there?", Blue asked Yellow. Yellow shrugged. "I don't think she'll want to, considering all we know."
"No", Garnet said, loud enough for the Diamonds to hear, "this is it." She was trying to hold back the tears as much as she could, Ruby and Sapphire giving comfort to each other within her, but it grew too strong once the coffin disappeared beneath the ground. Long rivers of tears ran through the folds and marches of her face. Pearl put a comforting hand around her shoulders.
"He's gone, don't you understand? How can you be so calm?", Garnet said.
"Oh, I do", Pearl said, "I'll cry later. You know me."
Garnet wiped a tear from beneath her visor. "Yeah, I do. Sorry."
"No need. You're still by far the strongest of all of us. I see that even more clearly today. I just... I'm saving it for when I'm alone, I guess", Pearl said.
Amethyst had it the worst. She wasn't even looking at the coffin, had instead turned around and was quietly talking to Peridot, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
Peridot spared a glance at Pearl. Why was the pale gem so calm? She'd expected her to react the worst. She was always the sensitive one. If she was saying she'd save it for later, Peridot didn't want to be around when it unfolded. Pearl smiled at Peridot. The green gem mouthed "Are you okay?", but Pearl merely shrugged and said she had to be, for now, at least.
Lars, in the back, also looked at Pearl. One of the Rutile twins put her arm on his back and rubbed it. This was what Lars had done that one time when the memories of Homeworld had been too strong, so it felt right to do it when he himself seemed to be haunted. "Thanks, Rut", he said, "but you and Tile probably don't understand."
"We do", they said in unison, "we lost many friends in the caves."
"Ah, yeah. Right. I'm sorry."
"Captain. Are. You. Holding. Up?", Fluorite asked.
"Yeah", he said, "better than I thought I would."
"I. Remember. The. Last. Time. We. Came. Back. To. A. Funeral."
"So do I." He kept a picture of Sadie, both the young one he fell in love with and the old one as she lay dying, in a pocket of his uniform. Both pictures elicited the same emotion by now. Grief, grief beyond grief. He'd known how Pearl felt for a good eternity now, but seeing her on the day of Steven's funeral made it even more clear - she had twice lost the same person, at least almost.
Once the coffin was in, the musician Steven had known well, Mark Burgundy, took to the podium. "You are all welcome to take some earth with a small shovel and bury the coffin with it. I understand this ritual might seem weird to you, but it will help some of you... deal."
First, Pearl. She got it over with quickly, her expression unreadable. Next, Garnet. Then, Ruby and Sapphire. Those who had never seen the fusion apart gasped before gems seated next to them could explain the reason. Amethyst was next, and with nowhere for her feelings to go, they came out when she shoveled with more energy and vigour than was necessary, angrily throwing the earth down.
"Is this it, huh?", she asked loudly.
Padparadscha whispered "Blue Diamond will start crying", and true, once Lars had looked over at the blue giant, huge tears were rolling out of her eyes. He'd felt one leave his a minute ago, but he'd thought it was his own. Well, it still could have been.
Pearl hugged Amethyst. The purple gem cried out in horror and grief, flung her arms around her friend and remained so for a good five minutes, motionless, while the other gems and humans continued the ritual. Yellow declined the offer, but Blue shrunk down to an appropriate size, had her Pearl go first, then took the shovel and used the last speck of earth. "The coffin is not fully covered", she said. Pearl nodded.
"Such is custom. It will be covered after the ceremony is over and we have left. I don't want to see it happen, but I will, and you can stay until then, too."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. He told me to invite you."
"You mean to say..."
"Of course he knew."
Pearl gave the speech. Burgundy told everyone to seat themselves again, and everyone but the pale gem followed - though Yellow Diamond and her Pearl had never left their seats. Pearl stood up in front of the small crowd - mostly gems, but some of the descendants of Steven's friends in his youth were also there, representatives of the long and illustrious lines of Dewey and Yellowtail.
Her arms were shaking. In an effort to stay upright, she took a small stand out of her gem and leaned heavily against it while speaking. She started her speech with the very first song he wrote - We Are The Crystal Gems - and mentioned how great it would've been had Rose herself heard it. She continued with his early growth, talking about small pictures he had drawn, how much he had been like any other human child and how they had been utterly ill-prepared to handle him. "We Gems do not believe in souls", she said, "religion is foreign on Homeworld." A couple of gems from Lars's crew nodded.
"It is a nice thought, to think we might see him again." Yellow Diamond scoffed quietly. Blue nodded. Lars just thought about Sadie - the fact Steven was now gone, too, had not fully sunk in yet, even though his hand had been uncontrollable after he'd given the shovel to Rhodonite. It still clenched and unclenched at random.
Pearl continued.
"During the many years he's been a part of our lives... he was more than a friend. He was a brother, a son, a father, too. Steven was always frighteningly mature for his age - yes, of course he loved cookie cats and all those things. Remember when he got sent so many by the manufacturers for saving them from a monster that he ate nothing but sweets for two weeks? He'd said he'd feel bad if he didn't."
Some people nodded fondly. The second youngest Dewey, a girl around 16 called April, wiped a solemn tear away. She'd seen him breathe his last, seen his gem faintly glow, as if to say goodbye.
"Steven never asked for statues, for anything at all, really. All he wanted was all of us to get along. Thanks to him, we did. Not always, never all of us at once, but without him, we'd have destroyed each other. Without him, this beach would be emptier now, both in the way his memory fills it and our physical forms are here, now."
The gems were all shedding thick, wet tears due to Blue Diamond's powers, but there surely wouldn't have been a dry eye in the room anyway. "I will remember many things about him forever, until this universe and I with it end - his kindness, the way he played his little guitar, his voice and the looks of the people and gems he healed. Both physically and mentally. Centi is not here, but she sends her regards - she says she can't bear funerals, and can you blame her?"
There were two other notable absentees: Bismuth and Connie. The smith had declined the offer, saying she could not bear to see either the Diamonds again or face her very mixed feelings for Rose Quartz on a day like this. She had, however, made the gravestone - a combination of Rose's Sword and Steven's Ukulele, intertwined like two vines, with a Diamond in the middle. They were burying three people, after all.
Connie was different. There were unspoken things there, things that would now never be said. She would come, but not now, not when it was still fresh.
"A Gem only dies when it is shattered, and that is almost unheard of outside of war", Pearl continued. "We don't know funerals. Humans die all the time. It is part of their ever-changing nature, to go from one state to the other, never stopping, until..."
Pearl paused. Her hands clenched around her abdomen, scratching at her clothes with her fingernails.
"You can stop if you want to", Garnet said quietly.
Pearl shook her had. "I have to", she whispered.
Lars had never seen her like this, and he didn't want to ever again.
"When his human father Greg died, Steven's body took the form of an old man, weary and done with the world. We brought him back, with time. But as the people around him started passing, his friends, even his small number of enemies, who were really only people who didn't like him though he still liked them, he couldn't take it. Nothing we did could change his physical form back - he was done. There is one night I will always remember from these last weeks. He had left his bed one more time, and I was crying in my room - most of you know me, I tend to do that."
Subdued laughter. Amethyst was grateful for the attempt at a joke and would surely tell Pearl later. "I heard him approach and wanted to stop, smile at him, but I couldn't. I turned away from him. 'Why are you crying', he asked. I didn't say anything, how could I?"
Amethyst found it hard to hold back sobs, but she didn't have to. Lapis was crying loudly behind her, held by Peridot to one side. Jasper was looking at her with pity, her expression stern and serious. As soon as she caught herself, she looked back at Pearl. "He asked again. He just wouldn't back down, he never did. I finally broke - I didn't want to worry him with my worries, he was always looking out for all of us too much, wasn't he?"
"He was", Lapis said.
"Thank you, Lapis", Pearl said.
Peridot stood up. "He helped me find a new home."
Lapis followed. "Me too."
Lars felt it was his duty to go next, and he stood up, clenching his fists. "He brought me back to life."
"He did so much for all of us", Pearl said, "so many times." She looked at Jasper. The orange gem nodded solemnly and then looked away, towards the ocean.
"So sentimental", Yellow Diamond whispered.
Blue nodded. "This is good", she said, "we should have done this for her, too."
Pearl continued. "He helped me many times, too. When I couldn't believe Rose held secrets. When I made a terrible mistake, costing me the trust of Garnet before she forgave me. When I didn't want to live anymore, many times over. But I'll always remember that night. I told him I was worried what I'd do when he was gone - that I'd be no-one, truly a Pearl without a purpose. He - he came to me and..."
She bent over the podium. There they were. She'd been waiting for these tears all day, and here they finally were, thick and heavy.
Lars started crying openly, too.
Every moment he'd ever spent with Steven after he'd become pink came rushing back, the hours on his spaceship talking about everything and nothing, the days he'd spend lying around in the beach-house when he visited. Greg's funeral. His mother's funeral, his father's, too. Sadie's funeral. Funerals upon funerals, only the two of them remaining to see their human friends off. Until now. He'd never hit it off with Connie, so now he was alone, alone with Gems who were not quite like him and never would be, and humans he would always overtake in life and experience. That moment, he missed Steven more than he ever thought possible, even more than he missed Sadie, because now, he truly was the last one left of a time when the adventure had been new, and the future scary, bright and beautiful.
"Please, give me a second", Pearl said. "I'm gonna... Oh God."
Nobody heard her retch. It was a habit she'd picked up from the brief time Rose had told her to try having a stomach. It felt liberating to retch, she thought, if only for a second.
"He came up to me", she said, ready to get it over and done with, "hugged me from behind. And in a voice I hadn't heard in years, the voice of his young self, when we all were touched by him and his love for the first time, he spoke and said I'd do great. That I'd probably give a speech and make everyone cry, and that I'd always be there... to remember him and... his mother."
She let the words sink in. Blue Diamond held Yellow's hand, and the regal Gem let her. No sound. Nothing, just the waves. Yellow Pearl leaned against Blue Pearl, not saying a word, not looking at each other, staring silently at Pearl, transfixed.
"No matter how pathetic I was at the time", Pearl continued, seeing that Amethyst wanted to interrupt her and say something but silencing her with a trembling hand, "how small and unimportant I felt, Steven always made me feel like the greatest person in the world."
Me too, most of them thought, me too.
"If we take one thing from his life, just one thing, let it be this. That the smallest things can make you feel the biggest. That the greatest conflict can be resolved by realizing the people in it are only that, people, regardless of whether they're human or gems. Steven was P-P-..."
She still couldn't say it. The seal was too strong. Yellow Diamond said it for her. "Pink Diamond." Blue sobbed.
"Yes. He was Rose Quartz, something he struggled with his entire life. But, most importantly, he was our friend, our son, our brother, our closest, most admirable special someone in the entire universe. And he became all of these things by being himself, true to his good nature and heart. So let it be known. Let it be known that a human life is long enough. Let it be known that grace may grow on earth, and that love is worth more than anything else, for it is here, on this beach, in every room where people speak his name and beyond. Thank you."
"Amen", Mark Burgundy said, unable to restrain himself.
Lars wasn't crying anymore. Instead, he looked at the pale gem, now standing her full five feet eight inches, looking to the rest of the world like a calm island in a storm. The words she'd spoken sounded almost like something Steven would have said, had he ever developed the necessary vocabulary. He'd have to talk to Pearl after this, thank her.
"We will now hear Mr. Burgundy perform "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on Steven's Ukulele. Afterwards, you are welcome to join the Crystal Gems in the Greg Universe Memorial Van Museum. Those who do not fit inside", she looked at the Diamonds, "are still welcome to stay for a while." Blue nodded, Yellow rolled her eyes. "Thank you all very much for coming. I'm sure he would have loved to see you here, though he'd probably feel really bad about making you cry and try to make up for it by, you know, using everything in his power."
She stepped off the podium, sat down next to Garnet and just sunk into herself, not moving, not making any sound. Burgundy took Steven's small instrument, walked up to the podium and started singing, in a voice so divine and beautiful it wasn't hard to tell why Steven had loved his music so much. "Who is this?", Rhodonite asked Lars.
"He's a famous musician on earth", he said, "and a close friend of the Crystal Gems. Of Steven, at least."
"Dear", Fluorite said, "it. is. beautiful."
"I'll take your part/when darkness comes/and pain is all around/like a bridge over troubled water/I will lay me down..."
Lars was sure Pearl had chosen the song herself, and if not her, it had to have been... no, it could only have been her. Or Steven. If Steven had chosen the song for his own funeral, Lars didn't know if he could take any more.