"Human Beings?"

"Human Beings!"

"Human Beings. . ."

Pearl set the toolbox she'd borrowed from Greg by the front wheel of his Van. Shuttering silently at the story she'd heard, or rather a single piece there of. What he'd said ran on a loop in her head as she strode back towards the temple. In Steven's room Amethyst slept nosily on a couch, Pearl barely noticed her as she went by, opening the door to the temple into the bubble storage room in which Garnet was taking inventory of the Gems recovered from the cluster. One thin limb snapped out, catching Garnet's shoulder, spinning her, Pearl's tear soaked face reflected in her glasses.

"You helped him?!" Pearl demanded quivering in rage staring white hot defiance into her own reflection.

"I've helped a lot of people Pearl, you're going to have to be more specific." Garnet's calm monotone taking a slight edge at being handled and addressed as she'd been.

"Him! The only Him the same Him it always is. . .You helped Greg steal Rose away from us. . .away from Me!" The fiery rage that had burned behind her eyes faded slowly, smothered by hopelessness.

"Oh, that him. Yeah I did." Garnet answered bluntly

"Why?! Why would you. . .How could you do that to me? You knew how I felt about her." Pearl's voice was little more than a whisper as she slumped down against one of the walls. "We were happy."

"We were Stagnant." Garnet offered, kneeling beside Pearl, slipping the glasses from her face to look the other Gem in the eye. "Something needed to change Pearl, we were doing the same thing day in, day out for thousands of years never growing never learning anything about ourselves. Look at you now, look at Amethyst, she's grown more in the last twenty years than she has in the last twenty centuries. Pearl couldn't argue, though tear still fell as she rested her face in her hands.

"Did it have to be like that though? Did it have to be that change, couldn't we have done something? Wasn't I good enough?" Pearl pleaded

"It's not a matter of being enough, none of us were right for it." Pearl looked up from between her fingers as Garnet finished speaking.

"What would it have been like. . .if you hadn't helped him, if you'd thrown him over that fence when you'd had the chance. . ." She spat ". . .What would it have been like? I know you must have looked. Garnet nodded

"I did. For the longest time pearl I could see years into the future, so few things were ever likely to change for us it was easy to look into possibilities decades ahead. One of the least likely possibilities was that silly little man turning his van around and busting down our fence.' Garnet chuckled a little, and even Pearl offered a weak smile. "But he did, even less likely was that he and Rose would last more than a few months, he would have been. . .how did you put it? Just a phase. If that happened we would have been what you call "Happy" for at least the next decade or so, things would have gone back to status quo. I saw if I spoke to him, gave him the right push his chances from nearly impossible to just "Probably never gonna happen" and most importantly Pearl, I did it because I saw it was the option that would make Rose the happiest. Take that as "You weren't good enough" if that's what you want but it made her happy.

After it worked though, I looked again." Garnet's voice grew quiet as she leaned back against one arm, eyes drifting upward, her whispered words full of awe. "After that the future was Chaos, so many possibilities, the little stream we'd been riding on turned into a great river. There was so much I could barely keep it all together where I could see decades before now I could barely see months without losing it all. Eventually I saw Steven coming. . ." Pearl leapt to her feet at that, rage rekindled as she stared daggers, fingers flexing as if she wanted to go for her gem.

"You saw what she was going to do, and you did nothing to stop her?! How could you, we could have saved her!" Garnet remained on the floor, leaning back and staring up at her.

"And Steven would never have been born, you'd be okay with that?"

"Yes" The word came so quickly the last sound hadn't left Garnet's lips when she answered. Genuine surprise crept on Garnet's face and she slowly rose to her feet, resting one hand on Pearl's shoulder, only to have it shaken off and the thin gem step back, wrapping her arms around herself as if cold.

"I hate myself for it, I think about it all the time and it just makes me more disgusted. He's an amazing little boy but. . ." Pearl fell to her knees sobbing. "Some times I think if Peridot walked in and told me I could have her back if I just. . . Just. . ." Garnet moved up, wrapping both arms around her tightly.

"You don't give yourself enough credit Pearl I know you would do anything in your power to keep him safe, and I don't need future vision to see that." Pearl closed her own arms around Garnet, still weeping openly.

"I miss her so much!" Garnet nodded. "Please don't tell him." Garnet nodded.