Chapter Text
“I have something for you!” Steven stated with excitement, presenting Rose with a neatly wrapped package. Rose lifted the box to her head, listening intently as she shook it, “I doesn’t sound like anything’s in there.”
Steven chuckled, “Sure there is, open it up!”
Curious, Rose tugged at the delicately tied ribbon before Steven stepped in once more, “Sorry, I should have just told you. It’s not really tied with a ribbon, it just looks like that.” With that, he gently lifted the lid above the box. Rose inspected it contents, it appeared to be some type of cloth. As she removed it from its container, she held it out in front of her face.
She immediately recognized it as a t-shirt, its sleek design and colors summoning memories of her first meeting with a young rock star on one faithful night. But something about the design stuck out to her as different while she read the text out loud.
“’Mrs. Universe’?”
Steven beamed with joy, “Yeah! Dad helped me design it, and Buck helped make the shirt! And I know you’re pretty big, so I made sure it was a XXL…”
Rose smiled, eagerly slipping the shirt over her head before carefully lifting her hair from under the fabric, “Oh, sweetie, it's lovely!” she exclaimed with unbridled glee, scooping Steven into her arms into a tight hug.
“Yeah, we’ve had you around for a year now. So we all thought we’d do something nice to make you feel more welcome…” Rose already felt her heart soar at his words, lifting him closer to her to give a kiss to his forehead, “You’re such a sweetheart…”
Rose could barely even wrap her head around the concept. Not long after Steven’s journey to Homeworld on his mission to appease the Diamonds he and Connie devised a plan to discover her consciousness deep within she and Steven’s memories.
Since then, they had been on a litany of adventures that had allowed her to bond with the child she long since thought she’d never see face to face. Perhaps the most ludicrous development was her procuring of a new gemstone. What felt to her was almost a new lease on life. It felt so strange to think it had all been just one short year ago, “Oh, Steven. I can’t begin to tell you of how proud I am of how far you’ve come. I had thought you seeing Homeworld and getting through to White was a milestone. But… this… me being here and being able to hug my baby boy. You never cease to amaze me…”
She immediately spotted Steven’s smile falter at the mention of White. Without a word between them, she could see an all too familiar look in his eyes. One that hid troubling thoughts and hard to ask questions, a look she knew was best not to be ignored, “Steven, is there something troubling you?”
He looked down towards the floor, as if he were carefully parsing out the words he wanted to share in his mind. “Mom. There’s been something I wanted to ask you, I just never knew how to say it.”
“Of course, sweetheart, what’s on your mind?” Rose answered curiously.
Steven seemed to squirm in her arms, his struggle to verbalize his thoughts seemingly bringing about true physical discomfort, “On Homeworld… when White… you know… was that you?”
Rose’s brow furrowed, “What do you mean?”
“Like… when White… removed my gem.” He said timidly. She could not have heard that right, he had to have misspoken, or at the very least, not phrased his question quite right. “She did what!?” Rose exclaimed in confusion and outrage. The very thought of White allowing that kind of blatant trauma to happen to Steven making her hands begin to shake with righteous indignation.
Steven, however, seemed completely baffled by Rose’s response, “Wait, do you not remember that?”
“Steven, I am quite certain that I would have remembered this!” Rose assured. “When you arrived on Homeworld, I was practically in the dark…” She set Steven down and rubbed her forehead in a measure to calm herself down, “What… what happened… when she… did this…”
Steven struggled to provide an answer, “It was weird… I was really expecting you to reform. And for a second, it looked like you would. But when it did, it reformed as… me.”
“You?” She answered, trying not to sound too troubled, “Did he… say anything?” Steven nodded, “When White asked where you were, all he said was that you were… gone.”
“Gone?” she echoed, her confusion over the whole matter quickly mounting, “Like, somewhere else?” Steven shook his head, “No, like ‘gone’. Like… forever…”
This didn’t seem right. Although of course she knew she would surrender her gem to Steven, the statement by this being and her presence seemed to inherently conflict with one another, “But Steven, how can that be? I’m right here!”
“I know. But after everything on Homeworld, I was half certain Bismuth wouldn’t find you in my memories.” Steven stated timidly, not sure of how to explain it all himself.
Rose started to feel a pit in her stomach. Some sort of constant discomfort from this revelation that had previously been unknown to her, “I… I don’t how to feel about this…”
“Hey, it’s alright. I didn’t think it was really important to bring up until now.” Steven reassured, “Not to sound mean or anything, but I was happy to see me there instead of you. It means that I wasn’t you, I was my own person. Both as a human and as a gem. And now that I have, well, ‘me’ figured out, I’m really happy you’re here to get to know me.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Rose said, her mind still trying to reconcile the flurry of complicated thoughts that seemed to dance around her head like a swarm of insects, “Well, it’s getting late. We should get some rest now. Goodnight, Steven.”
Steven grinned, reaching out to give her a hug, “Goodnight, Mom. I love you.”
Rose struggled to pay attention to the world around her as she tried to process this new information, “…’love you too…” she said listlessly.
As the last vestiges of the day finally faded into night, Rose still felt her mind repeat the same thing over and over in her head, ‘She’s Gone.’ She kept thinking, trying to perhaps make sense of the statement as it related to her. That perhaps there was some deeper, more understandable meaning behind it all. But the more she thought about it, the more she felt the bluntness of these words hang over her. ‘What does that say… about me?’
She hoped sleep would at last free her of these thoughts, that she could forget about this in the morning. Her body began to relax, her mind drifting as she allowed herself to slip into a state of unconsciousness.
The moment she opened her eyes, she immediately spotted Steven standing beside her, a troubled look present as he stared at her through narrowed eyes, ‘Why are you here?’ he said, the tone of his voice far harsher than she had ever recalled hearing him speak with.
“What?”
‘I said, why are you here!?’ he grumbled through gritted teeth.
She ignored the venom of his words as she pressed further, “Steven, sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Steven’s eyes widened with rage, ‘What’s wrong? You! You being here and talking to me, that’s what’s wrong!’
Rose’s eyes began to mist, she honestly was at a loss of what he could have been talking about or why he seemed to levy so much vitriol towards her, “Steven, please, if I did something wrong, I’m sorry…”
Steven’s fists shook, Rose immediately taking notice of a glowing pink aura that appeared to consume him, ‘You’re supposed… to be… GONE!!!’
The power of his voice reverberated throughout the temple, the walls and floor around her shaking and giving way before being blown away into the empty void that appeared around him. The only thing left being her and him. ‘He moved on from you! They ALL moved on! But you just won’t leave them alone, will you!?’
Tears streamed from the sides of her face, “But Steven, I thought you wanted me here?”
‘How can he be himself when it turns out you were still there!? Are you even Rose Quartz!? Or are you just some bad memory that they should have left behind!?’ he jabbed.
“…I…” She tried to think of something to say, something that would reassure her identity. But the more she thought, the harder it was to justify it all. Any argument she thought of dispelled by the endless repeat of two words, ‘She’s gone…’
‘If you’re not his mother then stop pretending you are!’ he demanded, ‘They don’t need you anymore!’
She sprung up, finally freed from her nightmare. Immediately what she felt she had to do was leave. Already, she could feel the space around her and even the others close by that before seemed so welcoming and calming now only bringing anxiety and discomfort to her. Tearfully, she dashed outside in a desperate bid to collect her thoughts.