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It had been days since Amethyst had seen Pearl. When she eventually saw her, she noticed her eyes were wide and unfocused.
"You need to take a break, P."
There was a long silence as the taller gem looked past her; Amethyst had begun to repeat herself when Pearl said finally, "I'm fine. Besides, we have to find Peridot."
"It's like—We don't have to find Peridot, you have to find Peridot."
"Exactly."
"No," Amethyst groaned, "I mean—you and Garnet and me can go find her together. You feel like you need to do it yourself but—"
"It would be nice if I could do it myself," Pearl said with a sigh, "but I don't think I can. I'm going to give up."
"You shouldn't," said Amethyst. "I just meant—you should take a break. Do you want to talk?"
"Talk?" Pearl balked, her voice tipped with disgust. "Why would I need to talk—to you?"
This is why I don't get near her when she's like this, she thought. Yet something—whatever had compelled her to raise her voice in front of Garnet—compelled her to keep talking.
She said, "I don't know. Why not?"
Pearl sighed and relaxed slightly, her shoulders lowering; Amethyst had not noticed, before, how tense she was. Maybe she was always that way.
"I just want to find Peridot," she said quietly, reverently. "If I can—then I'll not have wasted her time—or it won't have mattered because we'll have gotten her."
"I don't think finding her would help things between you and Garnet," said Amethyst. Pearl crossed her arms, posture stiffening again.
"Of course it will."
"Even if you didn't waste her time, you still hurt her feelings."
"Feelings?" Pearl scoffed. "No, no, it's just that I wasted her time."
"You lied to her."
"Well—yes," Pearl said, looking ahead, "but she knows I didn't mean anything by it."
"I don't think she knows why you did it. That's part of the reason she's so mad."
Pearl inhaled sharply. "She—she knows."
"I don't think so," said Amethyst quietly. "Do you even know why you did it?"
"Of course I do," Pearl said, slowly lowering herself to the adjacent couch, shoulders sinking. Amethyst sat beside her.
"Well?"
"I haven't felt that way since Rose—"
Pearl said her name softly, with such tremulousness and tenderness that it seemed antithetical to her being; Amethyst felt something bubbling up in her gut.
"I miss her too, you know."
Pearl glanced at her, eyes full of something that looked to Amethyst like indignation.
"You miss her? I knew her for thousands of years. I fought for her. I died for her. I—"
Pearl looked at Amethyst with an intensity that forced the smaller gem to avert her eyes.
"Of course you do," Pearl said, voice low. "We all do. She was perfect."
"I wouldn't say she was perfect," said Amethyst.
"She was as close to it as anything can get," said Pearl quietly. "She was so smart. She always knew what she wanted to be. And then she became it."
"And then she left us," said Amethyst.
"I loved her so much," Pearl said with a shudder that shook her frail, bent body.
"I did too," Amethyst said.
"Not the way I did," said Pearl, her eyes lowered. "You don't know what it's like. It's different."
She spoke slowly, her voice shaking.
"I know what it's like to be in love," Amethyst said, face flushing, voice raised.
Pearl glanced at her with sad amusement. "No, you don't."
Amethyst rose and put her hands on her hips. "You're such an asshole!" she shouted. "You're not me. You don't know. Maybe I do."
"Is it—that human woman?" Pearl said after a long silence, her voice higher. "Is that how you're taking after her?"
"Vidalia?" Amethyst said with a laugh. "No."
"Is it Greg?"
"No!" shouted Amethyst, the color of her face deepening. "I mean, not anymore."
"Garnet?" Pearl said, her voice still. "I can understand that."
"No," Amethyst said, frustration in her, "Garnet's not—" Amethyst groaned. "Geez, Pearl! M—Maybe it's you."
The woman beside her laughed, its sound strident in her ears. "Be serious, Amethyst."
"I am!" Amethyst cried, face on fire. "Don't laugh at me!"
"No you're not," Pearl said, her voice quiet.
"I know how I feel," Amethyst said, crossing her arms.
"You don't love me," Pearl said with another laugh before she grew quiet. "No one could possibly."
"Rose did," said Amethyst. "Maybe it wasn't exactly the same, but—"
"Rose loved everyone," said Pearl. "That's who she was."
Amethyst scoffed, her entire body hot. "Well who am I then?"
Pearl looked to her folded hands. "Not her."
Amethyst felt breathless; Pearl's lips were pursed and her eyes were shut. Her clasped hands sat in the center of her lap.
"There's more to life than Rose, you know." Like me.
"I—"
Amethyst watched as Pearl looked through teary eyes to the portal in front of them, to the door to their rooms, to the cabinet Amethyst had cleaned earlier today.
"There's…Steven," she said quietly, her eyes blank. "And he won't even let me watch him sleep anymore." She let out a short laugh that was cut off by a sharp inhale. "Sometimes I do, still. I know I shouldn't, but I—I just need to sometimes, to know that he's safe, and he'll never know about it, so I…"
The woman beside Amethyst was no longer trembling, but her shoulders drooped and the curve of her elegant back was lopsided and low. Her breathing was slow and deep and shaking.
"I don't know why I'm allowed to see Steven at all."
"What?" Amethyst laughed in incredulity. "Who would stop you? Steven loves you."
A slight smile brightened the taller woman's blushing face before it sank and her lips tightened into a frown.
"I've been so irresponsible with him," she said quietly. "I've put him in danger so many times."
Amethyst shrugged. "So? We all have. We're fighting monsters all the time—but Garnet thinks it's safe, and she's the one with—"
"No," Pearl said darkly, "not that. When it was just me and him—he's almost died more than once."
Amethyst shrugged once more. "We know you'd never hurt him."
"I—I don't know," she said, her voice shaking. "Sometimes I get so caught up in—in everything I…"
She let out a deep, low sigh, eyes to her pointed feet. Amethyst slowly placed a hand on Pearl's leg. Pearl glanced at it, eyes empty.
"I know it must be confusing for him when I—break down. When I call him 'Rose.' It happens so often. I just don't know why I keep—"
The door opened and her voiced ceased instantly; then, an octave higher, cheerful and light she said, springing up, "Garnet! You're back! How was—"
Her posture, a moment ago, Amethyst noted, so weak and wilted, was now straight and poised. She couldn't see her face, but, she thought, it probably didn't look different. Garnet would see it and know she was struggling, and she would walk past her. And Amethyst would be left with her and with Steven.
Amethyst wanted to be alone.