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Pearl was sweeping again.
She couldn’t believe it. Of all the stupid, pointless- it was just so infuriating, so self-involved, the way she didn’t even notice that the rest of them-
Amethyst took a deep breath, and stepped off the warp pad, pulling at the stupid skirt-thing her current form had decided to sprout. She hated it. It was very… Back When There Was a Fence Amethyst. And also it made her look like Pearl.
Pearl with her stupid broom.
What was even the point of sweeping a cave? It was a cave. A cave on a beach, where any sand you swept out was just going to blow straight back in as soon as the wind picked up. “If we let it build up in the cave, you’re just going to track it all over the temple!” an annoying sing-song voice echoed at the back of her brain. Amethyst opened her mouth to make a smart remark about the sweeping, when she noticed Pearl’s feet, and the words died in her mouth.
The sand was drifting over the pink toes of Pearl’s shoes, forming tiny dunes around her. The breeze caught more sand and shifted it into the pile, the only motion in the cave.
Amethyst took a step towards her. “Hi Pearl,” she started, nervously. Pearl didn’t respond. She didn’t shift her weight. She didn’t blink. The broom twitched fitfully once, twice and then fell still. A fat tear fell beside her, forming a temporary oasis in the sand dune creeping up her left foot.
Amethyst waited a little longer, but nothing else moved, and Pearl didn’t say anything.
“Bye, Pearl,” she said at last, and turned away to summon her door.
…
It was good to be back in her own room, even if everything else was bad. And you knew things were bad when going back to stay at the kindergarten had seemed like a good idea. Normally she went back for a visit now and then when she was feeling nostalgic, but not to stay. She’d never wanted to go back to stay since she’d discovered how much better people were as companions than rocks.
But at the moment the benefits of people over rocks were feeling pretty thin, so she’d gone home for a few days. She didn’t tell anyone, she had sort of expected Garnet or Pearl would notice she was missing and come looking for her, but of course they didn’t, and they hadn’t. She’d just sat around the kindergarten, talking to rocks and sleeping in her hole, until she started to feel like the comfort of the place was wearing out, and the rocks were just rocks, and she’d given up and gone home home to the temple.
Pearl had been sweeping when she’d left, too. Had she moved at all? Had she actually been standing there crying and staring at the ocean this whole time? Well, Amethyst had been talking to rocks this whole time, so what could she say?
Somehow that thought filled her up with a sudden rage.
She tried, really tried to feel bad for Pearl, she knew how much Pearl loved Rose. Everyone knew how much she loved Rose. Even before Rose had… well, even before, Pearl just couldn’t shut up about how much she loved Rose, so yeah, they knew. She ought to feel some sympathy or something, but all she felt was anger, and she didn’t know why.
Pearl hadn’t done any of this, but Amethyst still felt the desire to go back upstairs and start a fight.
Instead she started a fire, which was always a fun way to pass the time. Garnet had told her not to burn things inside, but after all, the temple was an infinite fold in the fabric of space, it wasn’t like she was going to use up all the air. It wasn’t like Gems even needed air to breathe. She threw an old tire into the flames, and a big wet log, then she snared a moldering armchair that she’d had longer than Greg had even been alive, and tossed it deftly onto the pile with her whip. Anything that was going to smoke or stink.
She managed to create a truly noxious cloud, which not only smelled bad but also left greasy black soot on everything it touched. Pearl was going to flip. She would probably go polish every crystal in the ceiling or something. Amethyst watched the smoke drift up into the higher reaches of the temple and looked around for something else to burn. She tried to push a sort of manic glee up her own throat to cover the tears, but it didn’t work. She felt her breath catch and a hot feeling in her face that had nothing to do with the flames.
In disgust, she left the fire and headed for her door.
Garnet was there, stepping off the warp pad as she emerged. There was a crack in the corner of her visor, and her form showed other signs of damage, a rip here, a scratch there. She was holding a bubble in both hands, and one under her arm, each containing an intimidatingly large gem.
“Hi Garnet,” Amethyst began, but there was the rage, again. She wanted to shout about how not every mission could be to the lava grotto or whatever, and too dangerous for her and Pearl, how they were supposed a team, how she was bored out of her ever-loving mind, but when she looked up the hand with the black bubbled gem in it was trembling, and when she opened her mouth nothing came out.
Garnet stepped around her to the door. “Bye, Garnet,” Amethyst said to her retreating back, but the door swallowed her up and she was gone.
Amethyst spared one look for Pearl’s mute form and her personal sand dune collection, and walked out of the cave.
…
She had tried the ocean, and she had tried the kindergarten, which left nowhere else to go but the human word. She turned her feet toward Beach City.
Human stuff always made her think of Greg, mostly because he was the only human she knew well. She wandered toward the carwash, but before she could approach the van Greg came out. He had a big grocery bag in his arms, and something tied up to the front of him.
“Hi, Greg,” She waved hopefully. “Your backpack is on wrong.”
“Amethyst!” he said, and he even sounded happy to see her. A warm wave of relief flooded her. It had been so long since anyone had spoken to her that she had started to worry she was secretly dead or something. “It’s good to see you again,” Greg went on, “And, this isn’t a backpack, it’s actually Steven. Do you want to see him?”
Amethyst sidled closer and peeked at the not-backpack. A tiny human with a head the size of an orange was sleeping against Greg’s chest. “Is Rose in there?” she asked.
“No... Well, her gem is. It’s in his tummy, right where hers was.” Greg smiled a watery smile and wiped at the corners of his eyes. She’s not there, but her gem is made no sense at all, so Amethyst said nothing, and took a step back from the tiny human. “Well…” Greg said, shifting the grocery bag in his arms, “I was actually about to head over to Vidalia’s. I said I’d make her dinner, since I kinda owe her. Like, a lot. Do you wanna come? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“Vidalia?”
“Oh yeah, you haven’t met. She’s an old music friend from back in the day. Come on, we’re just going to eat spaghetti and watch TV, but it should be fun!”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, and followed him down a few streets to a small house near the quickie-mart.
Vidalia threw open the door, and shouted for them to come in over the deafening noise of a small blond human with a boombox who was dancing on the coffee table.
“WE’RE KINDA MID-DANCE PARTY HERE, COME ON!” She hollered, and so they’d all gone in the living room and danced, and then they collapsed around the kitchen table while Greg boiled water and heated up spaghetti sauce, and before she knew it she was squeezed onto the living room couch with Greg on one side of her, and Vidalia on the other, and both tiny humans in their laps.
Vidalia declared that Little Butler was on in 5 minutes, and she turned on the TV. The talking quieted down, and the show started. The humans were laughing, and for the first time since she had reformed, Amethyst laughed, too.
…
“Pearl,” Amethyst said, walking past the mute form sitting with legs dangling over the lip of the cave, in exactly the same spot as yesterday. She didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t wait for one.
She headed for the mouth of the cave, but not before Garnet stepped out of the temple door and onto the warp pad.
“Garnet,” Amethyst said with a nod, but she didn’t slow down, and the light of the warp pad activating was the only thing that followed her.
Amethyst shook off her annoyance, and headed toward Beach City.
The Big Donut appeared ahead, and she felt her stomach grumble eagerly. She wanted a donut, but she knew from experience that if you went into places with doors and tried to take things out they usually wanted you to give them money first, and Amethyst didn’t have any money. Luckily there were a couple of kids coming out when she arrived. They were wearing some kind of matching sports clothes and opening a white paper bag.
“Well, I don’t think that kind of language is inappropriate for T-ball! I think they should have let you stay,” the redheaded kid was saying.
“Gee thanks,” said the kid next to him, whose blonde hair had been braided back in aggressively tight pigtails, “But I don’t really care anyway. It’s all my mom…” the girl reached into the bag and offered the redhead a donut, and Amethyst saw her moment arrive. She snaked her arm across the space between them and snagged the donut. The arm whipped back to her in a flash of shape-shifting energy, and she took a chomp out of the donut.
“Hey, that’s mine!” the redhead yelled, with tears springing to the corners of his eyes.
“You snooze you lose!” She responded, flashing a peace sign and sticking out her crumb-covered tongue. That was the kind of thing people were always doing on tv, humans loved that stuff. The redheaded kid wasn’t laughing, but she was pretty sure the blonde kid thought it was funny. And anyway, the blonde kid was already offering him half of her donut, so he would be fine. He wasn’t a very big human anyway, he couldn’t need that much food.
“Greg-o-reee!” she called, as she licked the last donut crumbs off her fingers and approached the carwash. Greg had some hoses stacked up in front of the van and was trying to untangle them.
“Amethyst!” He called back with a smile, “How are things at the temple?”
“The same. Stupid.” she replied. “Hey, want to head to Vidalia’s and watch some Little Butler?”
“Vidalia is working today,” Greg said, “But it’s about time for a lunch break. Want to watch a couple now? I’ve been taping it!”
“Yeah, okay!” she said.
“Do you want to hold Steven?” Greg asked, as he lifted a swaddled bundle out the the copy paper box on the mattress, and moved the box to the front seat, “I think he’s getting pretty sick of staring at the ceiling, even though I did stick some of my best posters up there for him.” Before she could answer he had unwrapped the bundle and put the baby into her arms.
“Hello, Little Rose,” she said, holding the tiny human up in front of her to stare at the pink gem peeking out of its sleeper. The baby reached out a little hand and patted her cheek, then wrapped its arms around her neck and hugged her with surprising strength, and suddenly she was choking.
“Amethyst?” Greg said, glancing up from where he had been fiddling with the TV connections, “Woah, hey, are you alright?”
She tried to say she was fine, but when she opened her mouth all she could do was gasp and sputter. Tears were streaming down her face and getting the mattress all wet. Greg took the baby out of her arms and she found herself strangely unwilling to let go.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Greg said, patting her shoulder, “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“I just…” she sobbed, mortified at her own implosion, but unable to stop, “I just… I miss Rose so much! She always used to talk to me, and- and play with me, and hug me. No one ever does any of that now! Pearl is just- a disaster area, if she had healing tears I don’t think anyone on Earth would ever die again! And Garnet hasn't said a single word that wasn’t a mission directive in months… I just- I miss having someone to talk to. I miss getting hugged!”
“Hey, it’s okay!” Greg responded, “I give hugs!” He wrapped his arm around Amethyst’s shoulders and squeezed, which only seemed to push the tears out faster, and then he snapped his fingers. “I have an idea! Come on, put Steven in his car seat. I’m going to take you someplace amazing!”
…
When the door of the storage locker flew up, Amethyst momentarily forgot to be embarrassed about all the crying. She hadn’t realized she was standing in the presence of a master.
“I’m… I’m so inspired right now!”
Greg laughed, rubbing at the back of his neck ruefully.
“Heh, heh, yeah it’s kind of a mess, but I’ve got some good stuff in here. Let’s see… here we go!” He reached around a tower of boxes, and, bracing the boxes with one hand so they wouldn’t topple, began to extract something brown and furry from behind them. She admired his technique, as he managed to pull out a giant stuffed bear from the depths of the pile. It was nearly as big as she was, and wearing a purple bow tie with white polka dots.
“He was Rose’s,” Greg said, handing the bear over, “I won him for her at Funland on one of our first dates. But I want you to have him. For when you need a hug! He takes up a lot of space, and anyway Steven has plenty of stuffed animals.”
Amethyst hugged the bear experimentally, burying her face in its brown fur. Then she looked up, wide-eyed.
“It smells like Rose.”
Greg smiled sadly. “Yeah, I know. It’s okay, I don't need him. She had a lot of stuffies.”
“Thanks,” she answered from deep in the bear's fuzzy neck, “I love him.”
“Good,“ said Greg, “And hey, you know if you ever need to talk, you can always come to me. Hug buds?” and he put his arm around her shoulders again.
“Yeah, hug buds,” she replied.
Later, when she was squeezed into the van in front of an episode of Little Butler, with Greg beside her cradling the baby that was only sort of Rose, and the stuffed bear squished into her lap filling all the remaining space, she felt something that had been hurting and twisted in the center of her suddenly relax.
For the first time since Rose had hugged her and said goodbye, it felt like maybe, just maybe, things might actually be okay.