"How long have you been here?" Her rough voice cuts through the air.
She's been sitting on the beach, close enough to the water but far enough out of its reach.
She's a quartz, she should be able to bounce back, but here she is.
All is quiet, but she can hear the grounding of sand as the person behind her takes several steps closer to her.
She knows who it is, though she's not fully surprised, she didn't expect it to be her.
"Long enough to evaluate the situation. How long have you been out here?" Her stoic voice asks.
Jasper doesn't answer, instead she shrugs her shoulders. She can hear Garnet let out a soft sigh.
Garnet stays quiet, but slowly moves to sit next to but quite a ways away from Jasper. Together, they sit in silence.
Garnet stares out beyond the ocean, just waiting for Jasper to speak when she's ready. Jasper stares down at her feet but slightly at the edge of the water, debating whether or not to speak.
"How did I allow someone so weak to cripple me so bad?" Jasper asks the fusion without turning to look at her.
Garnet looks at Jasper out the corner of her eyes, but doesn't turn otherwise.
"You were blinded by your rage at me and allowed yourself to ignore all the signs she was emitting."
Jasper turns to look at Garnet. She waits for her to turn, but Garnet never does.
"And now here I am. A defective quartz. Yellow Diamond would have me crushed." Jasper turns back to face the ocean.
"Yet, your situation, unlike the rest of us, is fixable...for the most part."
"How?"
Garnet turns to look at Jasper before turning back to face the ocean.
"Your rage stems from your distaste of my current state, your time as Malachite has not only increased your distaste for fusion, but also a fear of it and water. Though some will take longer, you're a fixable defective."
Jasper turns to face Garnet as she finishes her last sentence.
"Yet so are you," Jasper says.
Garnet allows a small smirk to pull at her lips and turns to face Jasper. "How so?"
"Unfuse."
Garnet frowns at the statement. "And risk losing Sapphire and Ruby? We'd rather not."
"You speak as if you are not fused because each are too weak to stand on their own."
Garnet can sense Ruby's anger flailing up in her and she swallows it back down. "They are not fused because they are weak, they are fused because they love each other and are scared to lose each other. Being me, ensures that they both can stay together."
Jasper furrows her brow at Garnet's statement. "Love?"
"Human emotion, yet when Ruby and Sapphire first fused, they had not known the name for it. Rose Quartz was the first to name it."
"Love," Jasper tastes the word on her tongue. She turns back toward the ocean. "Do you feel it?"
Garnet continues to look at Jasper before too turning to the ocean.
"I can. I love Steven very much, like he is my own."
Jasper nods. She may not understand 'love', but she's sure that's not the way she meant it.
Jasper turns to look at Garnet and though she doesn't respect her as a gem, she respects her as a warrior. She's also not above acknowledging the beauty that is Garnet.
Garnet can feel her staring at her and turns to face her. "What?"
Jasper quickly turns back to face the ocean, a light blush tainting her cheeks. "Think I'll ever get back to my old self?"
Garnet continues to look at Jasper. "There's no guarantee that you will be exactly how you were before these past events, but there's no doubt you will still be the great quartz warrior that you were."
"Thank you," Jasper softly let's out.
Garnet nods her head. "If you would allow us, we could help," Garnet says as softly as her stoic voice would allow her.
Jasper turns to face Garnet, a faint afterglow of her blush still evident on her cheeks. "Anything that will help."
Neither says anything, but both turn back to stare out at the ocean.