Description: An epilouge to 'The answer' and then some...
Author's Note: So..um...this was supposed to be an epilouge to 'The answer' (Which was sooo AWRESOME! ^.^) but then I added so Head Canon abotu Sapphire and Pearlnet cuz I can't step it nd...just read the story, fsvourite if ya like it and follow me for more!
OH and a big shout out to the user MSU82 for following me it seriously means a lot to me (probably more than to you) but THANK YOU SO MUCH this probably owuld have taken an extra two weeks if I hadn't seen your favourites and followes and felt encouraged to produce more! :D
"Did you tell him?" Pearl asked, twisting her hand nervously. While she would have liked to listen to make sure the fusion followed through with her self-assigned mission, she had been asked not to and she had in the end decided to compile.
"I did. He knows now... " Garnet said, letting out a small puff of air and removing her glasses to drag her hand lazily across her forehead, as if removing sweat. Pearl knew she was not. She was just giving Pearl an excuse to see her eyes, the two normal ones open and focused, the third closed and resting.
"And the rest?" Pearl bit her lip. She didn't want to ask, really, but she needed to know how much the fusion told him, and how much was still a secret.
"It'll wait. He may be getting older by human standard, but he's still too young for...that. Maybe for his next Birthday" Garnet said, her voice faltering ever so slightly as she looked down at Pearl. "Though I guess then it'd be your turn?"
Pearl sight, shaking her head ever so slightly. She knew it was only fair, after Garnet started story, that she'd continue. She knew that... It was just that… she didn't want to continue. Ever. However, she was and would always be a Pearl, and a Pearl Knew better than to express their discomfort; especially with such a mundane task… And besides, with Garnet having her future vision, it was largely unnecessary for her to tell the fusion anything; because often she had already seen it days ahead.
"I suppose that's fair. You started, I continue." She answered, trying to sound dismissive.
Garbet smiled, putting a steady hand on Pearls shoulder in a comforting gesture, as if knowing that it wasn't quite willingly she had agreed. The comforting gesture helped a little as intended, but she still felt tense.
"And then it's Amethyst." Garnet added, giving Pearl a wink and immediately making her feel more at ease than she had been all night.
In fact, it made her feel so at ease that Pearl couldn't help but laugh. It was a soft, sweet laughter, kept quite on purpose as to not re-awaken Steven... assuming he fell asleep again, which she really hoped he did. But maybe he didn't? Pearl agreed with herself that she'd have to ask Garnet sometime...
"He fell asleep as soon as I left, dear. Please don't worry" Garnet said, ending her spiraling train of thoughts.
"Thanks" Pearl said, daring to flex on her feet and reach up to place a small kiss on Garnet's cheek, giggling when Garnet immediately lifted up her hand knowingly in order to remove the pink lipstick now sticking to her cheek in a perfect, lip formed mark; instead getting the sticky substance onto her glove-clad hand.
"Garnet! You can't do that, you're getting lipstick on your glove!" Pearl shrieked in horror, without thinking twice about it removing the glove from Garnet's hand and bringing it over to the small sink at the corner of the barn. There, she filled it up with water and starting to smoke the glove in the liquid, to which she had added just a little bit of soap before drowning the fabric and scrubbing spin order to try and remove the pink liquid.
While Pearl was busy being a, well, a Pearl and quite compulsively cleaning off the glove that had been smeared with the pink lipstick Steven gifted her on Valentine's day two years prior, Garnet was just standing where she had been left, frozen on the outside and burning up on the inside.
Because the future had changed.
The change made her think about how easily changeable the future was, so very sensitive and fragile in ways no one but those that were like her could even begin to imagine. One little thing, that not even she had the time to include when she checked and prepared herself for what was to come, like a Pearl's compulsive need to keep things clean, or a Ruby's sometimes less than caring nature, could change the outcome completely.
And that, was exactly what had happened at this very moment. Something changed in the setting, and the future went on another path, that Garnet had not seen before. It meant she no longer knew what the future held.
For Garnet had seen a future where she'd been standing exactly there where she was now standing, hugging Pearl tight and recurring Pearl that all was going to be good, to try and make her not worry for the night.
Now she was instead standing there, but alone, without the glove on Sapphire's hand as Pearl was currently washing it in the sink about 500 meters away. And, most importantly, it wasn't Pearl who was terrified and scared, it was her.
Garnet never wanted to be without her gloves, it was an old and deeply engraved fear on Sapphire's side that not even Ruby's presence could chase away. And Without it's secure pressure and warmth around her hand she couldn't think properly and all Garnet currently new was that she really really wanted it back and she wanted it back now.
"Pearl" Garnet said, trying to sound unfazed. "Can I have my glove back?"
"No. It's not proper for someone like you to go around with a dirty glove" Pearl scoffed, not even bothering to look up from her work as she continued to scrub it in the water, either not hearing or pretending not to hear as Garnet swore under her breath.
"But I need it back! Now!" Garnett tried to reason, her voice a little more pleading as she was yet to move from the spot where Pearl left her due to Sapphire's feeling of fear and shock sending out trails of ice from under her feet and across the ground and glueing her to it.
"You're...not...getting it back before I'm finished" Pearl answered, her voice wavering slightly as she said 'not', but quickly getting back it's firm, determined manor. She was finishing her job, first of all, no matter what anyone else said. Such was her inner rules, and such was her decision.
"I'm dangerous without it, Pearl !" Garnet screamed, Sapphire having snapped inside of her and panicking as she was just about ready to do anything to get her glove back, And Ruby simply not being enough to keep her in place as she took over Garnet's body.
And it was because of the inner chaos, that none of the three parts realised their mistake before it was too late to regret.
It only took a matter of seconds, and Garnet was roughly thrown and pinned down with her body pressed harshly against the ground. The event, which she hadn't even had time to register, reminded her of when she'd been new to the rebellions and Rose had had her train with Pearl, because she was now pinned to the ground by the gem in question once more. Pearl growled and bared her teeth as her whole body pushed down on top of Garnet's. Garnet knew she meant nothing by it, though. It was the only way for someone her size to pin down someone of Garnet's size and keeping them there, after all.
"Call me not dangerous one more time and I'll show you how dangerous it can be!" Pearl hissed, her slightly glazed over eyes showing that she had gotten herself lost in some sort of memories.
"I didn't say you're dangerous!" Garnet corrected her, hoping to bring her out of her memories. "I said I am!"
After her last exclamation, Garnet used all her strength to push Pearl off her chest, grabbing her by the wrist as she fell forward. She had wanted to help the smaller gem and make sure she didn't fall and hit herself, but instead she made a mistake. A mistake that had been the very reason Sapphire never wanted to be without her glove in the first place.
As Sapphire's blue gem, embedded deep within Garnet's unprotected hand, and ice cold when touched, made contact with Pearl's equally unprotected wrist, it sent a chilling. and painful sensation throughout the slender gems body; the effect increasing for every second of contact between the two gems.
Being so caught up in the moment, however, Garnet didn't have time to notice more feel afraid of what she was doing herself, and didn't notice she had grabbed her with Sapphire's unprotected hand. However, as soon as she noticed Pearl making small, painful sounds and falling more than rising as Garnet tried to put her back on her feet, she immediately understood.
Garnet let go of Pearl's wrist, feeling as if she had been the one to be at the receiving end of her horrible power, and not Pearl. She wished she had been.
After being released, Pearl landed in a whimpering pile on the ground, unable to move as she tried to recover from the few moments of torture she had just been forced to endure. She was proud of herself for not screaming, even though the pain had been huge, and felt that she was going to be okay. Or so she hoped. Shakily, she lifted up her arm, inspecting the deep blue, gem shaped mark that was now engraved deep into her skin. She wondered how she'd hide it from Steven the next morning.
"I'm sorry Pearl I'm sorry I didn't mean to!" Garnet apologised profoundly, trying to show in every way she could just how sorry she was for using her abilities in that shameful way, yet still staying on a good distance from her friend.
As Garbet continued to apologise, it took a few moments before Pearl managed to get back on her feet, at the same time answering her anxious and shameful friend.
With quick, graceful, tip-toeing steps that spoke nothing of her feelings more intensions towards the other gem, Pearl made her way across the distance between her and her friend, not stopping until she was close enough to put a small, pale white hand to Garnet's chin and thus forcing them to look into eachother's eyes.
"Garnet. It's okay." She Said, her voice reminding Garnet of Roses for some odd reason. "I should have known better, and I should have remembered"
"What do you mean 'remembered'? I never told you about...this" Sapphire asked, speaking through Garbet as her curiosity for what Pearl said overcame her shame and apprehensiveness towards the other.
Upon hearing Garnet's confusion on the subject, she laughed. This time, the laughter was dark and bitter, not even remotely similar to the relieved and happy one she let hear of earlier that night.
"Rose was right, it seems...her tears wiped your brain clean. It made you forget" Pearl told Garnet, her hand still cupped around her cheek so the fusion wouldn't look away.
As she said that, a memory started to brew deep inside Garnet. A memory of her hand touching Pearl's, in a flash of blue light accidentally and with so much power releasing it's torturing sensations that it transferred to it's fellow gem, making the Pearl in her memories scream and beg of her to let go. The power Sapphire possessed, it was like Bolts of electricity, but so much worse; torturing the receiver for as long as the physical contact between the two gems was kept...
"You remember now?" Pearl asked, not having missed the change in Garnet's eyes.
"I hurt you" Garnet whispered "I let loose my power upon you, and I wouldn't let go"
Pearl nodded upon hearing this, smiling a beautiful, lovable, happy smile that didn't not go along with the horrible discovery Garnet made, nore the unsettling piece of information Pearl had told her.
"Exactly. By the time Rose got to us and managed to separate us, both of us had sustained damage to our gems." Pearl continued the explanation twisting her unharmed wrist slightly. "When she healed yours it also seemed your forget what had happened. In reality Rose wanted you to learn to control it, but I thought it was better to leave it for the time being….I….I believed there was a reason you hadn't told us before"
With the same ever so happy smile on her lips she walked away, over to the now water-free sink at the corner of the barn. There, she bent down and picked up Garnet's glove. Despite all the guilt however, Garnet couldn't help but notice just how good Pearl's butt looked when she bent over, and in the back of her mind she could hear Ruby playfully scolding her for the inappropriate behaviour, to which she reminded her that she could make granet look away. The both of them continued playfully bickering until Sapphire sent out a distress signal and made them aware that pearl had asked a question
"You want it back?" Pearl asked politely, swinging it in the air for emphasis and smiling smugly at her, reminding all three of them what was wrong with this situation and why they should be upset. Pearl's feelings didn't seem to reflect the situation and she wasn't seeming to understand what she was doing to Garnet.
Because of this,Garnet couldn't answer Pearl's question, once more feeling frozen as Ruby raged and Sapphire retracted further into herself, chiding away from both Ruby and Garnet's consciousness yet clearly sharing her feelings on the matter: guilt. How could she have been so clumsy, so inconsiderate and stupid that she let all of this happen again? How could she have hurt her friend twice, even going as far as to forgetting that the first time ever happened? How Rose have let her walk among her fellow gems when she knew she was dangerous?!
"Garnet it's okay"
Pearls voice cut through the metaphorical ice that seemed to leave Garnet Frozen time and time again when there was something she couldn't comprehend, and as she returned to the present and once more became aware of the world around her, also seeing that Pearl had moved.
Pearl was now standing in front of her face, obscuring her vision with the still damp glove that she had made sure was now lipstick free.
With only the slight bit of aggression to it, Garnet quickly grabbed the glove and put it back on, immediately feeling better, but still feeling something was off.
"How come you weren't afraid?" She asked, catching Pearl by the waist and pressing their faces closely together, lacking the feeling of shame that Pearl obviously displayed as a result of the close physical contact.
"What? " Pearl asked, dumbfounded.
"You knew I was dangerous, but convinced Rose to leave it be. Why?" Garnet asked again, still not letting go of Pearls waist, the serious look in Pearls eyes killing all romantic feelings and downs that might have spurred from the close contact, had the situation been different.
"Garnet" Pearl started seriously. "On Homeworld, I did nothing but fear. Fear the diamonds. fear doing something wrong. fear being me. When I came to earth, I promised to stop fear. And so i did. I chose not to fear, because I believed it was better. It's my choice that I have made and is still making."
"So, you chose to tolerate a monster to walk among you? To come close to the one you loved?! such a good nights you must have been!" The words slipped out of Garnet's mouth before she could register them being there, sounding spiteful and painfully made her cringe and she immediately wished she could take them back, thinking they would crush Pearl.
She was wrong.
Pearl didn't care, however. She just smiled,
Stretching her feet and reaching up to kiss Garnet on her lisp. It was no long kiss, just a small peck on the lips, but it was enough.
"I was a good knight, but Rose didn't need my protection, it was I who needed to protect her. And" Pearl said, her tone becoming almost flirting, if Garnet would have believed she had such a tone." It was never she who i loved. I obsessed, but I didn't love."
"I love you" This time, Garnet knew what she was saying. She had her glove, she had her visions, she had her control. And when you have control, you say things you wouldn't otherwise.
"I love you too"
And with that, Pearl threw herself into Garnet's arms, hugging her tight and burying her head in her chest, the whole scene not being too unlike the future she had originally planned for, though so much more happier.
She sight. She had told Steven how Ruby and Sapphire happened to meet, but there was still a lot he'd one day know, and a part of it would probably come on his next Birthday or something alike. When it was Pearl's turn to talk.