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“Sapphire! I didn’t mean to!” Ruby complained, following the other with a pout of frustration, ignoring the looks of complete confusion she was being shot by the others that had been outside with them.
The other gem didn’t turn around, her arms crossed over her chest in annoyance as she stared out at the open water in front of her, it was almost the same deep blue shade as her dress in the late night sunset. Earth had been wonderful so far, so much more peaceful that homeworld, and nobody had been trying to force the two of them to stop speaking to each other.
But it had been the moment that it became more than just speaking that it had become a problem, the first time their lips had met hidden behind a training building, when they’d both suddenly, messily realised that it was more than just friendship, that homeworld had started to become a problem. It wasn’t that they discouraged fusion, it was a useful tactic sometimes, and it could have some very powerful results. But the two young gems fusion was dubbed to be less than satisfactory, and was an act of affection, not a tactical move, and they’d been dragged apart by force barley weeks after that first kiss.
Sapphire had never known anything could hurt that much and she had trained in the same way that every young gem had to for long enough that she understood the pain one gem could cause another, but this feeling was deeper, more intense, like someone had dragged out half of her heart.
Even her future vision wasn’t helping, she wasn’t sure how to control it yet, and nobody in the prison she was held in had any desire to help her learn. Gems needed to train in specific skills to learn to fully control their powers, and from her lessons as a gemling, she’d discovered that the psychological powers took the longest to learn to control. So in the time she’d been left with, she focused on the other skill she had discovered, her affinity with ice, and wasted hours learning to create intricate patterns on the celling in time to the songs she’d been making up in her head about Ruby, glad that they hadn’t yet arrived to force her back into her gem form and lock her away until they found a use for her.
They’d been in forced separation for over a millennium (or at least that’s how it felt) when Rose Quartz had come cascading into Sapphires life. Rose was well known. The homeworld equivalent of a scientist, she’d done extensive work into the logic behind gems, especially how fusion worked and what it could do for a gem. The younger gem had only ever heard of her through rumours and stories from the older gems, especially about her affinity with everything pink.
But the kind, curly-haired woman that broke through her containment shield was not what she expected, especially when she smiled.
“Good afternoon, Sapphire.” She beamed, kneeling down a little to speak to her, Rose must have been at least eight feet in height, and Sapphire was barely breaking four.
“H-hi?” She almost squeaked, it had been so long since she’d interacted with another gem that her voice seemed to stick in the back of her throat.
“How are you today? I heard you singing.” The older explained, a holographic tablet in one had as she looked the younger over, summoning the ability to scan the other.
“Oh…” The blue gem muttered, looking away shyly: “I-I was… bored…”
“I’m not surprised; you have been in here a long time.” Rose chuckled as she finished her scans, tucking away the device and offering her hands to the other to help her to her feet: “Would you like to help me with something? I was investigating a problem that I think you may be the solution to.”
Sapphire nodded without thinking, a sudden feeling of warmth building inside her stomach, as if something was insisting that she needed to trust the new gem.
Silently, she followed the other through the halls, internally amazed to see the mountains of technology covering every surface of the building, running through details and protocols of missions around the cosmos. On the night she’d arrived she’d been far too distracted to take any notice of the world around her.
Rose just beamed at everything, leading her through a final door and into a whitewashed training room.
Sapphire hadn’t realised the room was occupied until she heard the squeal of surprise and delight from the other side, and a bright red warmth came bolting towards her, both arms thrown tight around her with a squeal.
“Sapphy!”
“Ru-Ruby?!”
For a few moments there was nothing more than squealing and kisses, the two gems wrapped around each other before a gentle noise from behind them stopped them before they could fuse.
Rose smiled down at the two of them as she summoned more of her equipment, setting it down on the table and looking them both over: “I brought you both here because I’m investigating your ability to fuse.” She explained as if their reunion hadn’t interrupted her speech, settling down as she crossed one leg over the other: “From my prior research, I discovered that neither of you have full control over your abilities, but you both seem completely capable of fusing...”
Ruby lent over slightly and wrapped her hand around the others slowly, encasing her ice cold touch in her warmth.
“…So, I wanted to see for myself, how you manage to fuse… If you don’t mind?”
Rose’s curiosity became an escape for the two of them, and every day the pink gem would collect her two young test subjects and allow them to fuse, satisfying their desperate need to be together. Sapphire began to expect that Rose didn’t actually need them around, her investigations seemed to have finished after the first week, and their fusion form was mainly being used as a sounding board for her yattering as she worked. Garnet was surprisingly quiet for the fusion of the two most talkative gems that Rose Quartz had ever met.
The day they left for earth was exactly the same as every other day they’d spent together, Rose had collected them, scanned them and allowed them to fuse in five minutes flat, and proceeded to use Garnet to carry another pile of her experiments around the building.
But when her work was finished, and she’d instructed the two of them to de-fuse, Rose didn’t lead them back to their cells. Instead, she lead them down a corridor they hadn’t been through before, down a second flight of stairs and pressed a bundle into Rubys arms.
“You’re going to need these.” She explained quickly, not looking around, pulling a door open and leading the two of them into the lower deck of a ship already crowded with other gems: “I’m taking you both to a new land with me, I need your help to investigate.”
Sapphire felt the pressure on her hand increase, Ruby was obviously as unsure about this as she was, Rose was usually so talkative that she’d have mentioned this days ago.
There was something she wasn’t telling them.
But if it was between blindly following Rose and being forced apart again, She didn’t need to ask the other what their decision was going to be.
Ruby finally caught up with her girlfriend, gently placing her hand against her shoulder in an attempt to turn her around, but Sapphire moved without needed to be prompted, throwing both arms around her in one movement, nuzzling into her neck.
“I know. I forgive you.”