A/N: The episode "Earthlings" messed me up pretty bad. I've always loved Jasper as a well-written antagonist, and seeing those small moments of vulnerability from her broke my heart a bit. I determined afterward I had to write something for it, and this was the result. I technically place this either at the end of the war for Earth, or shortly before the war's end.

Stars drifted by outside the window, silent in the frigid void. Eyes the color of gold witnessed their passing, not truly seeing their white light. There was too much on her mind, and yet nothing all at once. Thought lurked behind a hastily erected barrier, thoughts that threatened to unleash a torrent of emotion. And emotions weren't something that most Gems were allowed to openly display, even a Quartz.

Jasper knew what pain was. She was a master of delivering it, and a stubborn survivor of the injuries inflicted upon her. Physical blows and the wordless exchange between warriors on a battlefield formed their own sort of language, one she was more fluent in than almost any other Quartz. But this? This was a different kind of pain entirely. No amount of wounds inflicted by another Gem's weapon could match this; in fact, they seemed dull, numbed in the face of sheer betrayal.

Betrayal.

She clenched her fists unconsciously.

Soft-pink fragments rained before her eyes, literal diamond dust.

A breath sucked in through her teeth, shuddering with the emotions she fought to suppress.

Why?

There were many things her elder sister Rose Quartz did that struck Jasper as nonsensical and treasonous: bestowing upon lesser Gems the radical notion that they could blindly follow their own self-proclaimed path; inciting rebellion in the name of protecting a near-worthless colony planet that was three-fourths water; encouraging the aberrant fusion of two different Gems into a single being that flouted and scoffed at the long-established caste system…

But this? To destroy the very being she had been created to serve?

Jasper exhaled the breath in a powerful expulsion of air, closing her eyes as she battled with the torrent of thoughts and feelings. The worst part of emotions like these were that she had no idea how to untangle them from one another. They were so interlocked and twisted together that focusing on them was overwhelming, and it made her very core throb with phantom pains.

You were my sister.

After a second, she opened her eyes, looking outside the window again. Stars drifted by. She didn't bother to note their location as the ship followed its steady course back to Homeworld.

But she was our Diamond.

The edges of her eyes burned with an unfamiliar dampness, and she wrested her emotions under control. She was not weak, and she would allow nobody to witness any sign to the contrary, no matter how fresh the pain or how deep the wound. She would never allow it.

And I will never forgive you, Rose.

Her golden eyes narrowed at their reflection in the window, and slowly she brought her arms up in salute, knowing with a pang that no matter who she was called to serve now, they were not Pink Diamond. She would grant them the respect they deserved, but never would she answer the call so eagerly as she once did for her lady. Never would she salute with such devotion again.

She watched her reflection twist, shimmering briefly into the image of Rose Quartz. She scowled, narrowing her brow viciously, and her own reflection reappeared.

No… she would give this salute only one more time in her life. When she beat Rose into the ground and cowed her into submission, before shattering that treacherous Gem once and for all, she would salute her lady one last time.

The stars drifted by, silent witness to the warrior's vow.