This was actually supposed to be more of a comedy fic, working under the assumption Steven was oblivious to Pearlrose and Connie had picked up on it. But of course, when Pearl gets talking about Rose, it's always going to veer into some angst...

"Hey, Steven…" Connie asked, seemingly out of the blue as her eyes drifted to the enormous picture of Rose Quartz hanging above the door. "Does it ever feel weird? You know, the whole… having three moms, but no mom, but one of your moms saw your mom as like her mom, and another of your moms was like dating your mom or something?"

Steven looked at her blankly. "…Wha?"

Too many "mom"s in there for it to make sense, she guessed. "Well, you said that all the gems are like moms, like when you brought them all to dinner that time… except also that they're not, because your mom 'gave up her physical form' to have you? But from what your dad said, it sounds like Amethyst kind of saw Rose as her mother. And, well… Pearl, obviously."

Oops, he was still lost. "What about Pearl?"

…She was suddenly reminded a bit of when Steven read through over half of the Unfamiliar Familiar series before asking what a familiar even was. Even though she'd already explained it anyway. "Uh, y'know… her and your mom?" She got sidetracked by another question, then. "…What happened between them, anyway? Pearl made it sound like they were going to get married or something after the war, but obviously Rose fell in love with your dad-"

"Whaaaaa?!" Steven was surprised, and then started to laugh. "Pearl and my mom getting married?!"

"Not so loud!" she exclaimed in a whisper.

Sure enough, Pearl rushed in. "Steven! Did you call for me?!" she asked, looking worried. She relaxed a bit after a glance around the room showed no signs of danger and she saw Connie.

"Pearl, Connie thinks-"

"STEVEN!" she exclaimed, face flushing as she covered his mouth.

She looked at Connie, an eyebrow raised. "You think…?" She trailed off, the implication being, 'You think what?'

"No, I don't! Obviously you couldn't have…"

"Couldn't have what?" she asked, feeling more confused by the second.

Steven managed to pry Connie's hand away from his mouth. He took a big breath to make up for having had it covered before speaking. "Connie said she thought you and Mom might've gotten married."

"I did not!" she exclaimed. "I said-" Oh, gosh. Now there was no way to say anything without embarrassing herself further. "Y-You know, when you talked about how you kept thinking about your life with her after the war…"

Pearl's entire face was lit up bright blue. Before she could say anything, however, Steven came to a realization:

"Wait- Connie, is that who you meant when you said about one of the gems dating my mom?!"

"STEVEN!" Connie exclaimed again, feeling embarrassed herself at the conversation. Maybe it was a secondhand embarrassment for Pearl. She also had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that Steven apparently hadn't realized Pearl's feelings for Rose.

"Obviously that's ridiculous! Right, Pearl?"

"Uhh…" Pearl gave a small, nervous laugh.

"…Are you okay?" he asked, noticing her nerves.

Pearl cleared her throat, then sat down, blush settling as well. "Your mother and I were never married. Gems don't do human rituals like that."

He was now surprisingly attentive. "Wait, so… but…"

She wasn't really fond of talking about Rose, which inevitably led to a lot of pain resurfacing, and this was a conversation she hadn't really wanted to have with him – certainly not at this age. It didn't look like she had any choice at the moment, however. "…Yes, Steven. Rose and I… were together for a very long time."

"You mean like… fighting together?"

She shook her head. "That too," she replied. Her eyes were upon the painting above the door, but her gaze seemed far off as she recalled those days. "We… were very close." Much closer than she and Greg, whatever he might think. She opted not to speak those words for Steven's sake. Her hands clasped together as she continued, in the way her and Rose's hands used to. Her own hand was a poor substitute for Rose's, though. Their hands had fit together so perfectly… "Closer than I know how to explain. She was my everything… and for thousands of years, I was hers, too." Tears formed in her eyes.

"And you were… in love with her?" Connie prompted.

"Mm," she said by way of confirmation. "But it was so much more than that… It was indescribable." The only way she could think of to describe it, likely colored by her grief, would be to verbalize just how badly the loss had felt when Rose gave up her physical form. But she wouldn't do that to Steven. She could be oblivious to others' feelings at times, and that doubled when it came to the subject of Rose… but she did have the foresight to realize that would be a bad idea. Like how she had accidentally made Amethyst feel terrible by referring to the kindergartens as horrible mistakes that never should have happened – she did, thankfully, learn from that. And, yes, Greg and Rose's relationship also was categorized in her mind as a horrible mistake that never should have happened… even if she hadn't felt that way about Steven himself in almost a decade. She didn't hate Greg as much as she once had, because he was pretty great for Steven, but her opinion was still a ways from actually liking him.

"So… what happened? I mean, why did you break up?" Connie asked.

Pearl shifted, looking uncomfortable. She tried not to let her gaze fall upon Steven. "Rose had many brief relationships with humans. Nothing romantic to her, or serious… She just considered it a good way of learning some of the intricacies about humans." She gave a small laugh as she recalled, "The first one wasn't even intentional. She didn't start out knowing of human romantic rituals, of course, so when a human man she had spoken to asked her to dinner… In the end, he thought they were romantically involved, and she thought he was a kind human who was teaching her a lot about humans.

"I didn't care about that. She realized it when he tried to kiss her, and she started to laugh… Maybe I should feel a little sorry for him. Anyway, ever since that, she just sort of… went along with it when humans were romantically interested in her. She always broke it off before things got serious." She sighed. "The truth is, we never broke up. But she met Greg, and… I always knew she saw him differently than the other humans she dated. She said her love for him didn't mean she loved me any less, but… I'm not sure that that's true." Her expression darkened, and she forgot to be mindful of her words. "After all, it's because of him that she…"

A slight, intentional sound on Connie's part reminded Pearl that she was still talking to Steven (and Connie).

"…So our relationship ended when she gave up her physical form." Pearl reached over to give Steven a one-armed hug. "But now we have Steven. I miss her… but I'm glad to have him," she said, giving him a small smile as she finally actually looked at him again.

Steven grinned. That was a validation he had been longing for for a long time. That the gems – especially Pearl – loved him as his own self, and not just because he was all they had left of Rose. And that they wouldn't prefer having her back to having him. The fact that Pearl had been in love with his mother was a little odd to digest, but if he looked at it the way he normally would, all it really was was that his mom was in love with his (other) mom. That wasn't too weird. "What about the others?"

"…I was the only gem Rose ever loved romantically. The four of us were like a 'family,' I suppose, much like we are now… but different. Before, your mother was like a mother to Amethyst, Ruby, and Sapphire. Garnet, too, even, I think. But now, the three… or four… five?... of us, we're like mothers to you."

"Are you… still in love with Rose?" Connie asked a bit cautiously. She was curious, but also a bit afraid this would be opening a can of worms with Steven here.

"I… don't think I could ever not be in love with her," she said with a small laugh. "Rose was… amazing. And even though I'll never see her again… I don't think I could ever love anyone else the way I love her." Love. Not loved, but love.

Steven had to work up some courage to speak the words he did next. "Um… why exactly did Mom decide to give up her physical form and have me?"

Pearl gave this some thought. There were various reasons, but most of them were things meant to be kept from everyone else. (Some of them, though Pearl was entirely unaware of this, were unknown even to her.) The fact that she was talking to Steven also had to be taken into consideration. "She wanted to bring a human into the world. One who could protect humans and gems alike. Rose… felt a lot of guilt over the casualties from the war, even though we were the ones protecting Earth and its inhabitants." And perhaps he could help bridge the two… That was an awful lot of responsibility to put on a child his age, however, so she opted not to say it yet. If, as she hoped, he was immune to the regular side effects of human aging due to his gem, though, he would have as long as it took. Something that had gone on for thousands and thousands of years was certainly not going to change in the span of a decade. Probably not even a human lifespan.

"But," she continued, "I think she also liked the human notion of having a child. Gems don't reproduce in the same way humans do. And even if we can't see her… she believed that, since you have her gem, she'd be a part of you, and thus able to see things from your partially human perspective."

"…Were you and the other gems mad?" he asked, although he was nervous to hear the answer.

Oh, gosh. Here was a subject she had never wanted to discuss with him. With this topic, she opted simply not to. Her feelings back then, and even the other gems', were not something she ever wanted him to know about. "Losing her was… very painful. But how could we be upset when it brought us you?" Pearl forced a smile. The truth was that Garnet had taken to him fairly well, but she and Amethyst had been resistant. Pearl had been the last to budge, despite the turmoil she experienced after Rose asked her to look out for the child. By now she watched over him willingly, but at the time "resentment" wouldn't be nearly a strong enough word for how she felt towards both Steven and Greg – the humans she felt were responsible for the loss of her Rose Quartz.

Steven grinned, not noticing the forced nature of her smile. Connie did strongly suspect that there were some parts to the story that were being intentionally left out, but she wasn't about to say as much. Certainly not in front of Steven. Sometimes she felt frustrated with the insensitivity she heard of the gems treating Steven with when it came to his abilities. She was sure it wasn't intentional, but it was clear when he retold various happenings that it hurt him. So the last thing she wanted to do was anything that might prompt her to say something else hurtful to him.

"We love you, Steven," Pearl said, her smile softening to one of sincerity. Eager to change the subject to a less emotionally taxing one, she asked, "…Why exactly were you two talking about… Rose and I getting 'married,' anyway?" A slight blush began to creep up again at the thought.

Steven looked to Connie. "Oh, uh… I was just thinking about your family, and you'd kind of made it sound that way…"

"What?! When- When did I do that?!" Her blush rose. She hadn't exactly been hiding her feelings from Steven, but she was fairly oblivious to just how clear they had become, even in his presence.

"Y'know… with the whole, 'the life you'll have together after the war' thing…"

"Oh… No, I didn't mean… well…" She wouldn't consider themselves to have been married, but the level of closeness struck her as similar to that of humans who were wed. "As I said, gems don't do 'marriage.' But I did look forward immensely to being able to spend peaceful days by her side." She gave a small laugh, bittersweet. "She would always remind me of it. When I risked my life to protect her, after the battle, she would always speak of it." She couldn't help herself: she projected a hologram of Rose to replay the memory. Connie's question was her excuse to do so. She stood, as she had been at the time of the conversation she was about to play out.

"…But we can't have that if we don't both survive," Pearl said as the hologram's lips moved. Her tone was caring, but one of conviction. It perfectly matched that of her memory.

"And your survival is just as important for that!" she exclaimed. "I won't stop protecting you, Rose. I won't."

"I can protect myself, too. You don't always need to throw yourself in front of me…" The hologram moved forward, putting her hands on Pearl's shoulders. "I hate to see you getting hurt all the time. Please, hold onto that – the future we can have, together."

The hologram leaned down and gently kissed Pearl's gem. With tears in her eyes, she stopped the projection, realizing she possibly should have kept that part to herself. The tangible feeling of the hologram brought back her wish for Rose to be by her side again. "I… have to go take care of some things," she lied, trying to steady her voice. "But… I hope I answered your questions." Tears were beginning to fall.

Even with her back to them, Steven could hear that Pearl was crying. He hugged her from behind, as he had the first time Pearl had spoken of her connection to Rose. "I'm sorry that you lost Mom," he said. "It's not the same, but… I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere!"

To both kids' surprise, Pearl began to laugh, just a little. She turned, picking Steven up to hug him tight. "And I will always be glad for that." Her tears stopped, and her smile stayed.

She would always love and miss Rose. But in return, she had Steven. And she wouldn't trade him for anyone… even Rose.