Work Text:
Candidates for Steven Universe’s first memory:
The stars.
Reaching.
Dada.
Little Steven lay in his crib, blissfully unaware of all the textbooks saying he could not possibly remember this night, this moment. It is far too early, isn’t it? And as to the future—who knows? With trauma comes vast gulfs in memory, long tracts of shadow swallowing any light that shines their way.
Chubby fingers, their future yet unwritten, stretch toward the hand-painted mobile of the Milky Way.
Swat. His fingertips just brush one of the nine planets, sending them spinning.
There’s an imperceptible shift in the warm darkness around him. A gentle sea breeze wafts in from the window. Tiny, unfocused eyes perceive no one else around. Many children would wail, but Steven flops back with a sense of satisfaction. The planets continue to dance merrily.
Something else catches his attention, and he hoists himself up—
Making his careful way forward, one little step at a time, to the edge of the crib.
(To, that is, the bars.)
Mama.
The painting is a splotch of pink and white striped with the blues of calm Beach City night. Yet, he knows it well: Garnet has lifted him to see it many times, placing him on her head while he stares, mouth wide. Mama. Steven’s hands tighten on the bars of the crib, willing himself to go up. To get closer.
The painting is different than it might have been.
There’s no way for Steven Q. Universe to know that, of course. But sometimes, just sometimes, he feels something in the way Garnet looks at it. He won’t have words to put to that feeling for many years to come, if he ever does; but he already knows his caregivers so much better than they realize.
With one hand wrapped around a wooden bar, he scuttles, wormlike, an inch or two off the ground.
The other hand flexes toward the familiar blotch.
Mama.
He scoots himself up with diligent determination.
Closer.
This is as high up as he’s ever been—and so is the next time, and so is the next time.
Soon, his fluffy curls peek over the crib’s rim.
(Of all the many things to be surprised and pleased about, Dada had remarked on his full head of hair.)
Just a little further and both hands are on the rim.
He is as high up as he can go, as close as he’s ever been.
It is enormously dangerous.
Steven Q. Universe laughs at danger. Literally.
High above his little world, he can make out the details of the painting at last.
***
“STEVEN!”
Pearl knew there was something, something not right—
But when the light of her gem snaps on, illuminating the little room, she is by no means prepared for what she sees. There is Steven, safe and sound, fully intact. He sits at the table in the makeshift dining room, slowly eating a chocolate bar—peeling back the blue and foil wrappers like a banana.
(She is somewhat stunned to realize she even knows what a banana is.)
In one hand, he holds a TV Guide, which he has begun gamely to try reading.
But now, he turns his bright smile and even brighter eyes toward her.
“Powuw!”
Pearl’s first instinct is to leap for him, snatch him up, hold him. But there is something else about the room that is not quite as it should be. She probes the shadows until she comes to rest on Rose. Rose Quartz, who is seated some three feet from the opposite side of the table.
Quietly, quietly observing Steven with the biggest grin on her face.
“Rose, how did Steven get out of his crib?” Pearl asks. “That’s very d—”
She stops there. Rose’s eyes have not left Steven, and she offers her son the tiniest little wave.
Now the boy is confused. Pearl glides over, picks him up, and deposits him in his mother’s lap. But she lingers close by, close enough to take Rose’s hand, and Steven in turn places his hand on hers. She is so used to the warmth of human life now, she hardly notices the melting chocolate.
“Isn’t it amazing, Pearl?” Rose squeals. “Look at Steven, not even three years old yet and already exploring, affirming his own choices ...”
Pearl gives Steven’s hand a little squeeze before she answers, as if confirming he is there. Her tone is weary, but there’s no edge to it.
“Be that as it may, it’s really very dangerous for him to let himself out in the middle of the night. The crib is much too high, and he could have fallen and gotten hurt.”
“You’re right,” says Rose. “It is too high ...” Her gaze goes distant for a moment, and when she brings her hands together in an excited clap, little Steven lets out a yawp of joy. “He needs a bed. A real bed like all the ...” One hand waggles in search of the proper word. “Big humans get.”
“Adults,” Pearl supplies. Knowledge from many thousands of child-rearing books fills her gem, so much it sometimes feels like it’s all sloshing around in there. Certainly, there is a Pearl inside Pearl’s pearl who thinks about nothing else. She gazes down at Steven, a small smile on her face. “And he’s still a long way from being an adult. But it may be time for a bed.”
“We can ask Greg to make one!”
“Greg has many talents, but woodworking?”
“He made the crib!”
“My point exactly.”
“He made the mobile. It’s Steven’s favorite!”
Steven chirps his assent.
“Hmm,” Pearl concedes, a sort of grin on her face. “I could say a thing or two about the relative sizes of those planets.” She stands there, gazing off in that direction, until an idea strikes her. She takes Rose’s hand, and as she bends that way, the two are eye-to-eye for a single moment.
Then Rose gets the idea; with Steven in tow, she lets herself be herded toward the couch. With a look, Pearl directs her to settle in first, cradling the child carefully as she does. Then Pearl chooses her place, perching on the arm of the couch like a bird for an instant before she slides in.
“There ... is everyone comfortable?”
“Yes,” says Rose.
“Yeth,” answers Steven.
“Good.”
That solitary ember of fear lingered for a little while in Pearl, but now in the warm near-silence it is finally extinguished. There is a kind of closeness she has only found here. The familiar whisper of breath—not just Steven’s, but Rose’s as well. When did she pick up that habit? In the stillness, Pearl’s smile widens.
She is looking out toward the crib, and does not see how Rose looks at her.
Then, a moment later, the gentle glow of Pearl’s gem flashes to a more vibrant hue and brings forth a vision in indigo and silver that suffuses Steven’s beloved mobile. The shapes are still there, still visible, but they sit in the midst of a dome of light, a swirl of stars—all the heavens, as seen from Earth.
Many children would shriek, would squeal. Steven sits up and watches.
Steven Universe’s actual first memory:
Mama and Powuw.
That thought stirs a while before coalescing into something else.
Mamas.
Pearl sits, stationary and serene, holding the image in her mind so the projection will be everything it could be. But then she feels Rose shift, a warm breath on her ear, and a whispered question that trills down her spine: “Pearl, are you happy?”
It is the last thing she ever expected to hear.
Pearl’s smile widens, but she does no more than shift so they are all close as can be. Her tears spill out, and all the universe glows between them.
***
And that’s how it would have happened.
Pearl feels that familiar voice swirling through her gem like the soothing caress of warm water. It is then she realizes they are apart. Gently, their essences separate. As Sardonyx fades, Pearl finds herself held fast in Garnet’s arms. Her first, passing impulse is to bury her head against a welcoming shoulder.
She gulps down a nameless emotion, which shivers softly across her form.
Garnet expects tears, but her old friend surprises her.
“She—“ Another gulp. “She would have been so proud of him.”
When those words finally come, they are overflowing with warmth.
So many times, they had that discussion—could Rose be with them? Could she return? Could she and Steven truly exist together? It was a terrible burden in those early, dark days: Pearl clinging to a hope that was so remote, so inscrutable, so complex, that all their efforts could never—
Garnet sees the shimmer in Pearl’s eyes and realizes she lost track of the moment.
But Pearl is smiling.
“She would have been so proud,” she repeats, gazing wide-eyed at the truth of it.
“Yes,” says Garnet. “Every day.”
“But he, they—“ One hand starts to flail, but it’s still caught up in the embrace the two Gems share. The hand grasps, ever so briefly, then lets go, fingers slowly easing down Garnet’s back in a silent thank you. Whatever she thought to say doesn’t come. Instead: “She would have loved him.”
“She did,” Garnet assures her.
Pearl lounges there a moment, seeking words. Garnet waits as patiently as ever.
“I feel ... small,” Pearl decides at last.
“Mm.”
“But ... but not the way Gems are small. Not the way Homeworld is small—I feel like ...” She blinks. The tears are still there, but a new strength stirs her. A breath of inspiration, like wind in the first sprigs of spring. “I feel ... I feel like I’m full of potential, and the world is full of, of things—“ She corrects herself: “Of wonders ...”
“Then you understand how Rose felt about this planet. And about everyone.”
“Everyone but herself.”
“This is a part of her legacy, too. But you weren’t ready, Pearl. None of us were.”
Pearl doesn’t break contact, but she finally turns herself to sit beside Garnet.
“I ...” It’s like she can’t believe she’s saying it: “I feel ready now. I feel like I ...”
This is far beyond what Garnet foresaw. She doesn’t help. It must come from Pearl.
“I feel like I grew.”
There is a long, dazzling, silent moment.
“There’s more,” Garnet tells her. It is as much a warning as an invitation.
And Pearl understands full well, knowing with the kind of knowing that fusion leaves behind. All of those moments, after Rose’s announcement, when Pearl left to be alone with her pain. Garnet was always there; hours and days, though in only nine short months. There is more to see. More of Rose. A Rose she has never known.
Pearl rises slowly and stretches.
“That’s enough,” she says, quiet and calm. Around them is a room so very much like the one in the vision. The Beach City night is cool, welcoming. There are shadows of things here; the place where the crib would be, the place where Rose’s portrait once hung.
And there is love—
So much love Pearl feels she is bursting with it.
“Let’s go see Steven,” she suggests.
And they do.
And the love of all those many other worlds goes with them.