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Ruby knows: once she was nothing.
It’s not that she wasn’t alive. She remembers becoming a living thing, a living Gem -- it was a thousand years ago, or more, when she came out of the dirt. The walls of the Kindergarten were riddled with holes, and Ruby looked up at the vastness of space and knew that she was very small, in the scheme of things. She knew that, and she knew who she was and what she was meant to do -- she was Ruby, and she would protect, she would serve , she would give . But she knew, too, that she meant nothing to anyone. That she was just another face exactly the same as a million other Rubies.
And then, a thousand years after she stood there on that tiny little planet and looked at the sky, she was standing on another little planet, and looking at Sapphire. And Sapphire looked back at her -- just once, just quietly, her bangs pushed to the sides and her blue eye glowing in the firelight. And there, in a little cave on a little planet in a solar system that no one even cared about, Ruby wasn’t nothing any more.
Ruby fights, see. Ruby is made to fight, to let go of her own life in dedication to her cause. That hasn’t changed. That is the core of her, the very essence of her being -- Ruby fights.
It’s just that now -- her cause isn’t serving her Diamond. It’s Sapphire, now. It’s always gonna be Sapphire. Ruby thinks if it came down to it she would shatter herself rather than let Sapphire be hurt, which is a terrible and powerful thought to have, a terrible and powerful feeling.
Rage comes easy for Rubies, like fighting, but love --
Ruby’s not quite sure what to do with love, yet. She doesn’t know if this even is love, because it’s not like loving and serving and dying for your Diamonds, it’s all Sapphire, like every bit of her has climbed free of Blue Diamond and fallen into Sapphire’s open hands. She isn’t sure if that’s love. All she knows is it sits bigger in her body than rage ever did. That it flares into life at Sapphire’s smile. That it makes every part of her scream please, please, please.
Wanting does not come easy to Rubies either -- Rubies must be willing to die for their Diamonds, they aren’t supposed to want anything, attachments make dying harder -- but, oh, stars. Ruby wants Sapphire more than she’s wanted anything in the universe. She can remember back thousands of years of her own life and yet Sapphire is the only thing she can remember wanting, ever -- her soft hands and her unsmiling mouth and the way she holds Ruby’s chin in her hand like she’s precious, like she’s irreplaceable. Even though Ruby is too hard and too hot-headed. Even though Ruby has rage like a volcano. Even though Ruby isn’t anything special. Even so.
“I don’t know why you saved me,” Sapphire whispers to her one night, when they are crouched in the cave, watching the rain drip down outside. Her voice trembles, and Ruby reaches out to hold her close, wanting to keep her warm, knowing that it’s not possible. “I don’t know why you saved me. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Sometimes it is like this -- the rain cold and Sapphire colder. Sometimes she is so shaken from the loss of the only future she’d known she does not look at Ruby, for fear of it changing again.
“I was supposed to protect you. And I didn’t want you to get hurt, because I was supposed to protect you.”
Sapphire shivers, and Ruby holds her tighter. Ruby burns, and Sapphire shivers -- but together, here, together, like this, they’re fine. (Ruby hopes they’re fine.)
“You were beautiful,” Ruby says, and it feels like handing her gem to Sapphire, hoping she won’t crack it. Ruby presses her face into Sapphire’s hair. “You were beautiful, and I wanted -- ”
Sapphire pulls back, and reaches out with one of her cold hands to touch Ruby’s face. “I thought you were beautiful, too,” she says, hushed, like it’s a great and terrible secret. “Not before -- but when you were pulling me out of the way, just before we --” She coughs, and cuts herself off. Ruby looks away. Before we fused.
“I looked at you, and you were so determined. Brave. And your eyes were so bright,” Sapphire continues, her voice a thin, reedy thing. She swallows, and looks away, out into the rain. “Beautiful.”
(Ruby does not tell her she is beautiful again for moons, not because she isn’t, but because she thinks she can’t bear hearing it back.)
Sometimes it is like this, and the rain falls, and they try to trace uncertain lines in the sand, to keep up with old rules, old things in their heads. Where Sapphire is quiet and Ruby is angry, where Ruby doesn’t know where beautiful sits on her and how it could ever mean a tenth of what it means about Sapphire or the sunset. Sometimes it rains on Earth, and Sapphire is cold in Ruby’s arms, and she does not know if they are meant for this.
“Do you think we --” Ruby says, and then looks away, and then says it again, flustered. “Do you think we could ever find them here?”
Sapphire doesn’t have to ask who them is. “It’s a big planet,” she says, neutrally.
“I know,” Ruby says, and doesn’t ask about it again.
“Look at this,” Sapphire says. It’s the middle of the day, one of the brighter days. The sun has been beating down on them, and Ruby feels full and lazy, lying in the grass and soaking up the rays. She likes to watch the sun as it travels over the sky, and watch Sapphire flit from flower to flower, sometimes stopping to look at a little creature in the grass, sometimes coming to lie next to Ruby.
Sometimes the days are like this; sunlit and golden.
Ruby sits up, and Sapphire is holding out a flower with white petals. “It’s pretty.”
She doesn’t say not as pretty as you, though, even if she wants to. Sapphire smiles as if Ruby has said it, flushed and pleased. She eases the stem of the flower into Ruby’s thick hair until it’s where she wants it.
Sometimes the days are like this, and Ruby lies and drinks in the sun, and Sapphire weaves flowers into her hair. Sometimes she knows that they could be meant for this.
Ruby does not think about the time she fused with Sapphire, because thinking about it makes her want to fuse with Sapphire again, because it had felt -- soft, and kind, and she’d felt warmth all through her (their?) body and she had belonged, so completely that it terrified her.
So she doesn’t think about it, fusing with Sapphire, because -- it’s not the right reason, Ruby thinks. To fuse because you want to belong.
She thinks about Sapphire herself, instead, and that’s easier, because Sapphire’s mouth is softer, now, gentler and more ready to smile, and that’s because of Ruby. Her tiny little smiles and high giggles are all Ruby’s. No one else is here to hear them. And Ruby’s gravelly laughter and strong hands are Sapphire’s, too, and that’s okay, because Sapphire likes them, and Ruby finds she likes them too, now that she doesn’t have anyone around telling her that she shouldn’t.
It’s not like fusing, but it is like being together. Ruby likes it. Ruby likes the way Sapphire takes her hand, the way it makes her woozy; the way she wishes she could crawl inside her bones and never come out. Ruby is angry and harsh and strong, Ruby is a volcano, but Sapphire -- she’s something stiller but just as powerful. Like thunder. She meets Ruby’s rage with quiet patience, and nothing has ever made so much sense before.
She tells Sapphire this, and Sapphire giggles. “You think we make sense ,” she teases, and her eyes are dancing with joy.
Ruby shrugs. “Yeah,” she says, “I think we do.” She smiles back and doesn’t elaborate. Sapphire knows what she means.
Some nights are like this: she is lying under the stars, and Sapphire’s fingers are creeping into hers, and her hands are cold and Ruby’s are warm and they only make sense when they’re touching each other.
“I don’t know how to be anything other than a unit,” Ruby says. She still looks around for the other Rubies sometimes. She still waits for one of them to say something she’s thinking. They didn’t share a brain unless they fused, but it felt like it.
Sapphire’s fingers lace through hers, slow and careful, like Ruby would ever, ever tell her no . “I don’t know what to do when I don’t know what’s coming next,” she says. “You made that happen once, you know. Before all this, when you pulled me out of the way of that Pearl, and we fused --” A pretty blue blush settles over her cheeks. “I couldn’t see anymore.”
“Were you --” Ruby swallows, hard. “Were you afraid?”
“Yes,” Sapphire says, “very,” and Ruby burns with shame. Scaring Sapphire is -- she can’t fathom it, can’t bear it, even now when they’re only talking about something that happened moons ago. Sapphire is soft -- she has tiny, soft hands, and a smooth, cold face, and her mouth is a hard line that will occasionally turn soft, too, when Ruby coaxes it out of her. Sapphire is the softest thing Ruby has ever had the luck to touch. (She doesn’t love her for just that, but it’s -- there, it’s present. It’s something she thinks about when she watches Sapphire and Sapphire watches the sky.)
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Ruby mumbles, tugging her hand out of Sapphire’s and looking away.
Sapphire catches her chin in one of her soft, small hands, and turns it back. “I was even more scared,” she says, quietly, “when they said they would shatter you. You were so precious. So irreplaceable. I didn’t know how they couldn’t see it.”
I’m not, Ruby almost says, but she is . Here in this place, on this Earth, with Sapphire -- she is.
“You made every part of the future re-arrange itself, all at once,” Sapphire says. “And then I saw you being shattered, and I didn’t want it -- I’ve never wanted to stop anything so badly. And then I did.”
She traces her thumb down Ruby’s cheek. Hot as cinders, rough as stone. (Ruby is made for battle.)
“I changed everything,” she says, her voice shaking. “The whole future. And you’re in it now, Ruby. My whole future -- it’s all full of you. ”
Ruby’s eyes widen. “For how long?”
“For forever,” Sapphire says. “I think. I hope. I want forever, with you.”
“What do you see?” Ruby asks, and Sapphire traces her thumb almost idly over Ruby’s lips. Ruby’s body buzzes.
“I can show you,” Sapphire says. “Or, I can try.”
Ruby nods. Sapphire leans forward, and her mouth touches Ruby’s, and it’s the softest thing in the world, that kiss, and Ruby is dizzy with it -- dizzy and soft and alive.
Flashes fill her head, tiny fragments of future vision -- it’s not strong, but she sees the two of them, together and together and together. For thousands of thousands of years. It is four thousand years from today, and Sapphire is still holding Ruby’s hand, stronger in their love, in their rage, in their patience. The combined pressure of a thunderstorm and a volcano, the two of them inside each other’s bones --
Sapphire’s hands are still soft and cold, and Ruby’s are still hard and warm, and, and, and. Ruby breathes out, and pulls back. She wants to kiss Sapphire again, but she wants to think, first -- since when has Ruby thought about anything? Since when has she not just jumped in, headfirst, hands swinging?
And the stars hang above them, heavy and low. Ruby thinks of stepping out of the Kindergarten and seeing the stars, and feeling very small, feeling like nothing. Ruby thinks of fusing with Sapphire, holding her hand. She thinks of feeling like something.
“We stay,” Sapphire murmurs, and pulls Ruby’s battle-calloused hand to her mouth, and presses a kiss to her palm. “We stay together, for as long as we can. As long as you want me.”
“Forever, then,” Ruby says, and Sapphire’s smile is more brilliant than stars.