Chapter Text
When it rains, it pours—literally.
Towns on the coast were always prone to especially violent storms, those which brewed over the vast expanse of the ocean, gained strength from the endless supply of water, and then made catastrophic landfall. Beach City was no different, subject to the same cruel, temperamental winds and rains as every other coastal city across the world.
Cacophonous thunder rolled through the sky, clouds of varying shades of grey blotting out what should have been a clear blue sky. Waves crashed furiously against the shore, crushing anything in their path before withdrawing, dragging anything and anyone so unfortunate as to be caught unaware into the depths to never be seen again. Rain battered the Earth's surface with an unending fury while the wind howled deafeningly, suffocating any other sounds under the scream of a freight train.
Beach City's residents were all hidden away in their homes, windows and doors locked securely. The weather was far too brutal for any sort of activity—business or recreational.
Nevertheless, the weather wasn't an effective deterrent against Gems. If corrupted Gems could still rampage, then the few uncorrupted Gems who could fight back against them would still give chase. A little weather wasn't enough to scare them off.
Lightning struck distantly, lighting the sky up with a brilliant white for just a fraction of a second.
A flash of red clashed swiftly and skillfully with something enormous and furious.
Over the wind, a feral roar—a real, animalistic, and somehow almost frightened roar—echoed across the beach. A snarl followed, tapering off into a terrified squeal for a brief moment before being cut off. Something heavy hit the source of the growls. The creature collapsed into the dock, splintering the wood as it did, it's heavy weight far too great for the rotting wood to support.
Crash!
As if the monster had never been there in the first place, its body disappeared in a quick instant, leaving its Gem to fall a short distance onto the wood.
Clink!
Garnet sighed as she sunk down onto one knee in front of the Gemstone. Her gauntlets dissipated into the air, hands flexing once they were free of the excess weight. A beat passed, then another, the only sound aside from the rain and wind being her own slow breathing.
The fallen Gem didn't get the chance to reform—the instant it began to stir and glow, it was speedily contained within a red bubble and in Garnet's hands.
"Off to the temple with you," she said to no-one in particular, head tilted upwards to watch as the bubble thinned and disappeared, taking the corruped Gem with it. She nodded approvingly, adjusting her visor.
By that point, the rain had begun to slow, as if the completion of her mission simultaneously served as a sign for the storm to cease. The ghost of a smile graced her lips as she turned to leave.
Through the now-quieter chaos, a shrill cry came.
Garnet stopped.
Tension quickly returned to the Gem's shoulders as she swiftly armed herself with a single gauntlet. She sped to chase after the sound, sprinting under the dock where it seemed to grow louder and louder the further into the shadows she went. Surely there isn't another one. That possibility wasn't at all something she foresaw. Not today, at least. There are many timelines where there were more than one corrupted Gem, but she was almost certain that she was not in any of those—
…
The sound grew to its loudest when Garnet drew closer to a small cardboard box, blatantly not a second corrupted Gem. She cautiously peeks inside. Something even tinier than the box itself laid inside, vulnerable and seemingly terrified. It was a shivering creature, seeming to resemble a much smaller-than-average human, swaddled poorly in soaking-wet blankets.
"…Ah."
Her weapon disappeared once again as the tension drained from her body. Of all possibilities, she… truly had not forseen this one. The little thing could barely move itself around. It was clearly no threat in this sorry state. Her visor followed her gauntlet in quick succession.
She blinked down at the little thing.
She'd seen… similar creatures before. The humans on Beach City carried around little ones like this, like you, all the time, and almost always got frantic whenever they lost track of them. To leave something so weak and vulnerable on its own was clearly frowned upon, and for very good reason. It was more than evident to the Gem that something this small and helpless could not defend itself from threats or dangers of any sort, so it was little wonder that humans were so fussed about keeping them safe. Even without utilizing any sort of future vision, Garnet could think of a hundred different things that could fell such a fragile thing.
You. Fragile, helpless, vulnerable little you.
Aw.
Something ever so slightly softened in her expression… not that you could tell, of course. You continued to weep and scream.
She reached into your wet box, peeling a blanket away from your body. Being that wet must have been incredibly irritating. She understood that much.
Something on your chest caught her three eyes.
A stone—a Gemstone—as deep and blue as the midnight sky laid embedded in your skin. Her eyes widened, and she instantly hastened in pulling you out. Even in such poor lighting, she caught the pattern encased in your Gem. Six rays stretched beautifully outwards from the center, resembling the points of a star.
Recognition dawned on the Gem almost immediately.
"A Star Sapphire," she murmured, unusually awestruck and even daringly excited. "How rare."
Her arms were awkward and tense as she fumbled abnormally to draw you inwards, closer to her chest like how she has witnessed humans do to their little ones. It has been quite a long time since she's been so uncertain about something.
Worse yet—she couldn't read your future. No matter how long she stared down at you (you seemed calmer with her holding you, she noted), she couldn't decipher much at all. The infinitely many possibilities all tangled themselves into a knot that would take her endless time to sort through, and she didn't have endless time to decide what to do with you.
You're… a Gem, and a rare one at that, but you resembled something adjacent to a human. You're equally as vulnerable as a human. She was not certain what to do with you. If you retained any awareness whatsoever of yourself, you wouldn't look like this. You wouldn't be this vulnerable.
…But you were.
She hummed thoughtfully, blinking down at you with all three eyes. You giggled, reaching up towards her and babbling incoherently. Cute.
She crouchef as she made her way out from under the dock, glancing upwards at the sky once she was out. The storm had mostly cleared, sunlight filtering through the few clouds that remained. She shifted her gaze back down to you and instantly sucked in a sharp breath.
A crack stretched threateningly across your Gemstone. It wasn't that evident before, shrouded in the darkness and hiding from her prying eyes, but now it seemed to glare up at her and announce its presence with pride.
Even if you ended up being a threat, it wouldn't be right to leave you this way. Cracked, vulnerable, and so tiny.
(Not that Sapphires were notoriously big or intimidating gems in the first place. She knew that, but you—you were abnormally little, even for a Gem of your kind. You were also abnormally… not Gem-like in appearance, which was simply another curiosity of yours.)
Maybe Rose Quartz would know what to make of you. She wouldn't want Garnet to leave you to die, after all.
"Where did you get that?!"
"It's… human? No, it can't be."
"Is it defective?"
Rose Quartz gasped, her pupils practically stars as she stared at the fussing baby in Garnet's arms. She looked down at Amethyst excitedly. "It's not defective, Amethyst," Rose insisted, looking back at you. "It's… I don't know! Isn't that incredible? This planet never ceases to amaze me!"
"It's… well, whatever it is, surely this isn't it's final stage of development," Pearl said, motioning to you. "It can't even defend itself."
"Whaaat?! No way, look at it, Rose!" Amethyst gasped, crawling up Garnet's leg and poking you a bit once she could reach. "Pearl's right. It's totally defective, dude."
"They're a Gem," Garnet states as Amethyst leaps off of her taller form, "a type of Sapphire, but their Gemstone is cracked."
"Oh, poor thing," Rose mused, walking closer. "Let me see."
…Somehow, Garnet almost didn't want to, or someone within her didn't want to, or some combination of both. Nevertheless, she did, handing you off to Rose. Your arms pressed close to your chest, inadvertently obscuring your injured Gem from view.
Rose giggled as she cradled you, but her laughter quickly died down as you began to fuss. "Ah…" she chuckled, gingerly pushing your tiny arms away from your chest. She permitted a small bit of sadness to bloom within her at the nature of your circumstances—just enough for a tear or two, just enough to repair the crack. "Silly starling. Have you suffered much? Oh, I hope not. Here, let me heal you…"
When her tear came into contact with your Gem, the crack glowed and disappeared.
You're whole again.
…So why aren't you shapeshifting? Turning back into a Sapphire? Doing… something, anything at all?
"It's okay. We won't hurt you," Rose tried.
…
Nothing. You fussed more, whining and squirming in her arms. Panic rose in her chest as she glamced between the other three Gems surrounding her. They all looked equally as unsure and helpless as she herself felt, much to her despair.
Your whines escalated.
Rose's eyes landed on Garnet.
"They seem to like you, Garnet," she said, anxiously handing you back off to her. "I don't know why they're…"
Her voice trailed off.
"Uh—" the other Gem stumbled, but accepted you back into her arms as she glanced around behind her visor. "We— this… No, this is…"
"What do we do with them?" Pearl asked hesitantly. "We can't keep that… thing forever."
"But we can't leave them," Rose refuted softly, glancing between Pearl, Amethyst, and an abnormally conflicted Garnet. "They're vulnerable like this."
"They're kinda cute… You sure we can't keep them?" Amethyst wondered. "I mean, they have better chances with us, right? Garnet?"
The mentioned Gem didn't respond, murmuring to herself rapidly.
A moment later, a gentle ray of light radiated from her as she separated into her two halves.
You were held in Sapphire's arms, the small gem staring down at you as you began to cry, sniffling into her gown as she tensed and tried to soothe you to no avail.
"Let me try, Sapphy," Ruby insisted, holding her arms out.
"…Yes, okay, here. Be… gentle. There's clearly something wrong."
Sapphire, however, didn't know what. It disturbed her that she was so incapable of understanding you—you were like her, at least somewhat! She should have been able to at least grasp some understanding of why you were so… different, but perhaps that in and of itself was the problem. Most Sapphires are alike in, at the very least, a basic way, but you…
You were different. Clearly.
She handed you over to her other half, brushing the hair away from her eye to see more clearly.
Ruby smiled down at you.
Yeah, you're cute. Adorable, actually.
Ruby certainly wasn't sure what exactly you were—not in the slightest. If Sapphire had no clue, she herself definitely had no idea. You were a Gem, clearly, or at least… part Gem, but you were something else entirely as well. Your body was flesh where it should have been nothing more than a projection made of light. You had absolutely no capacity to fend for yourself.
She had no idea what you were (aside from super cute!), but that was fine with her. You're vulnerable, if nothing else. She could protect you for the time being.
Your tiny self wasn't very imposing, anyways, and Sapphire didn't seem to think of you as a threat. As of right now, there was no reason for Ruby not to protect you.
"What's goin' on in there, little Sapphy? Can't talk to us, huh?"
You babbled at her. She laughed.
Ruby's laugh was dangerously contagious; Sapphire herself giggled, heat rushing to her face as she playfully chided, "Don't call them that. It's embarrassing."
You quieted down when Ruby pressed you against her chest, shaking a little bit with her barely-restrained laughter at her incredibly sweet lover's embarrassment. It was painfully hard for her not to tease Sapphire a bit more, but she managed to forgo it… this time. Her hold on you was a little firm and just as graceless as Garnet's had been, but it was secure in a way that the wet cardboard box the fusion found you in was not.
Rose's eyes grew wide and awestruck as she watched, and something clicked in her mind.
You were been shivering the entire time, but in Ruby's arms, it came to a cease. Her warmth chased the chill away.
"Oh!" Rose gasped. "They must've been cold, poor starling."
"They shouldn't be," Sapphire mused, leaning over Ruby's shoulder to look at your sound asleep face, "but… they are seemingly organic. I hadn't considered that possibility."
"…So we're keeping them?" Amethyst asked, appearing almost excited at the prospect. Pearl watched, wordless and terribly confused, as if trying to dissect and understand what you were… but failing to.
Ruby and Sapphire shared a look.
Sapphire nodded. "Yes."