At dawn, the noise is barely there; Pearl shrugs it off as an early start of cicada season, even though it's barely the end of April.
By mid-noon, everyone's about losing their mind.
The whining high pitch is very high, so high that the townspeople could minimally hear it, yet still feel it; the Gems, on the other hand hear it intensely that it feels like the vibrations are seeping into their very gemstones. While Pearl racks her mind for anything remotely familiar to her that could have caused, a small (okay, maybe bigger) part of her is downtrodden that such a beautiful day like this was utterly ruined by some insufferable… sound. Still thinking, she looks out from the window hole, as there is no window in place— really, Greg should get to that soon, it's been weeks now—she faintly admires how the sun sparkles happily in the rolling waves, and how the amount of clouds is just right, not too much to be cloudy, and not too little to create a boring and barren sky. It's all in the details, she surmises.
But then the whine increases in intensity and Pearl's distracting thoughts pop like a soap bubble and she gets the urge to throw herself off a cliff. Luckily, Garnet steps out of her room, and Pearl instinctively knows that she's figured it out— after all, she's spent the better time of the day finding the culprit. She and Amethyst, who's been laying on the sparsely-finished floor, turn to listen to her. They've known her well enough now to understand that finding the accurate place from all the futures where they try out different warp pads takes an extensive time. Usually, this isn't the team's preferred method of problem solving, but because the sound is nothing that they've ever encountered, odd times call for odd measures. Garnet turns to Pearl and her shades catch a glimmer of sunlight.
"Pearl," she calmly states. "I'm pretty sure you know what's been making that sound."
Pearl wrinkles her brow, wondering why Garnet would say that: she's been stumped all of this— "Oh! Why didn't I recall sooner!" she exclaims, absently gesturing with her hands. "You're talking about The Great Dome Hub's alarm system, right?"
"Yes. You worked on it." While the vocal inflection didn't sound like a question, Pearl's known Garnet for a long enough time that in fact, it was.
"Only a little, back in the day, I just helped with the overall schematics, but… Why would the alarm system be going off? Neither the place nor the security system were ever really complete, you remember— we had to abandon a lot of our projects at the start of the war," she says, tapping her fingers lightly to her chin and momentarily looking down in reminisce.
Amethyst dusts herself off and languidly stands up.
"If it wasn't finished, why did you guys even put an alarm in there?" she says, slightly scrunching her nose. "What, afraid someone's gonna steal the dust in there?" and makes a mocking face at Pearl.
Pearl sighs and rolls her eyes at Amethyst. "Don't be silly, of course not. Everyone knows the framework needs to be laid out before any bare necessities are added. And anyway, why would there be dust in there? We don't even use the same building materials as humans do, so no minuscule structural residue—" and is cut off by Garnet's pat on her head. Naturally, Pearl pouts and crosses her arms.
"Come on. We have to go," she simply says, carefully walking to the warp pad. "Warp us there." Amethyst and Pearl follow, also minding parts of unfinished flooring that Greg hadn't gotten around to putting in yet.
The Warp Pad takes the Gems to a cliff by a different beach, at least three times as small as their Temple's; the beach is peppered with small rocks that eventually taper off at the beginning of the waves. Pearl thinks that in the beginning, it would have been a lovely gem place but now that it's been abandoned, all of the plans and detailing that were supposed to happen were laid to waste. The waves glitter as pleasantly as the waves back home, but the melancholy surroundings seem to diminish and weaken their playfulness.
"I don't see anything," Amethyst announces while looking around. "What, did the whole thing collapse already?"
"Amethyst, please," Pearl rolls her eyes. As soon as she finds the entrance activator by the cliff, she beams in triumph. "You haven't even seen the best part!" Ignoring Amethyst's deadpan look, she steps to an ornate rock that's roughly her size. It's covered in traditional Gem hieroglyphs that are now worn from the weather, yet still legible and working— at least, Pearl hopes.
"Now, was it 'Tranquility, Propriety, Constancy, and Ataraxia' or was it 'Dignity, Erudition, Sovereignty, and Virtue'?" Pearl pokes around, craning her head to inspect the rock and trying to remember the specific order. "And oh, curse this unpredictable Earth weather! It rubbed away 'Erudition' almost completely; it probably doesn't even work!" she moans while inspecting the stone. Garnet, ever the beacon of logic, speaks up.
"Then it's not the right code," she evenly says. "The planners wouldn't have built a button that would have been so easy to break," she states, then shifts her glasses.
As Pearl considers it, she starts nodding slowly and returns to the front of the rock. "Yes, you're completely right, which makes the first code correct… hopefully," she pinches her eyebrows in worry and then presses the corresponding hieroglyphs.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them starts to slightly tremble, and the cliff changes before their eyes. A grand door-shaped portion of the rock almost effortlessly glides down into the ground and reveals the true hidden set of doors set in the native cliff rock, yet decorated in traditional and complex Gem arabesques. The group steps closer and Garnet pushes the double doors; they surprisingly open with relative ease and reveal an almost pitch-black tunnel leading downwards.
"This is really creepy, you guys," Amethyst comments, cringing at the total lack of visibility.
"Well, the way I remember it, you have to close the doors first," Pearl retorts. "Um, Garnet, could you…?" and at her request, Garnet does. Not a moment later after the darkness envelops them, the tunnel's self-sustained light system kicks in.
The phosphorescent Gem-made lights bespeckle the tunnel's ceiling, twinkling like stars, and Pearl feels an odd pang that's been steadily returning ever since Rose… left. That familiar overhead sight, coupled with the Gems' complete silence while going down, makes Pearl nervous at herself, at her own traitorous emotions that just can't seem to be under control today. But she starts to feel the distracting occasional drip of water overhead, so she pushes those thoughts as best as she can to some other time, some other place, some corner of her mind that she has no wish to access anytime soon. As the tunnel's steps lead them downward, the ceiling's leaking increases, and Pearl's anxiety grows.
"Garnet… you don't think this place might crash down on us? There's an awful lot of leaking, especially as we get further down under the ocean floor…" she trails off. Garnet doesn't miss a beat, yet turns slightly to face her.
"It's okay. I don't see high chances of this place coming down. At least," she pauses. "Not for a couple of years."
Pearl, being Pearl, isn't assured by this at the very least, but tries to compose her face and sets her eyes back on the path. The stairs gradually decrease in steepness and the soft light at the end that was quite small a minute ago grows larger and larger. Strangely, the alarm seems to grow quieter as they descend.
"Why is this taking so loooong?" Amethyst whines and drags her fingers down her cheeks. "Seriously, we're going to be walking here for days before we get to the dumb end. What were you people thinking when you built this!?"
Pearl, the epitome of patience (actually, she's just as bored as Amethyst, but denial is never a pretty color and she should know that) just sighs before correcting her.
"I don't know why I have to repeat this, but I never built it!" she retorts. "Like I mentioned earlier," she then gives Amethyst a pointed look, "I only helped the other gems with planning the security system, nothing large-scale," she huffs, and subconsciously adjusts a lock of her hair. "I haven't even been in this place, only seen the blueprints.
You know," Pearl begins with a slight sparkle in her eyes, and Amethyst already preemptively makes a face. "The Great Dome Hub was actually designed for very high-ranking gems, as a sort of meeting place. I know you haven't ever seen one, Amethyst, but they're just these impressive and imposing characters, so I completely understand why they'd want a secluded, yet grandiose place." She momentarily suspends her monologue to wipe an annoying water drop that landed miraculously on her nose, then resumes.
"Really, we lower Gems would have hardly had a chance to be invited here," she sighs sadly. "This was destined to be a very exclusive place and Gems like us would have been invited only if we'd committed an extraordinary service or a great crime. I guess," she starts to contemplate, "they had a lot of plans before—"
"We're here," Garnet says and stops them with a hand motion. "Will you know your way inside?"
"I don't have the exact map memorized, so I can't project it, but the essential layout was a dome center, alluded to by the name of this structure, with four branches, er…" she tapers off her sentence as she tries to recall better. "Yes, we're currently standing in one, so there's three more left? They modeled the separate branches by Earth's cardinal directions, so…" Pearl looks around and tries to evaluate their current position. "Well, it doesn't matter. The branch housing the alarm should be directly in front of us."
The Gems then step off the stairs that end and cut off at an unfinished frame that possibly was made to hold another set of double doors. They step over the empty frame, and soft blue light embraces them. They look up in wonder, gazing at the marvelous blue dome. Soft ocean light languidly shimmers down, while shadows of large fish dance on the floor below. The dome is constructed entirely of glass and three large glass chandeliers are crafted directly from it, looking like dreamlike waterdrops and shining with the ocean light that makes them seem like they're moving in slow motion. Pearl slowly lets her eyes drift down to the floor, away from the glass dome, and sees that it's in a pitiful state. The floor is foundation only, the most bare essential. The designated deep blue stone pieces have only been put in the stairs that lead into the branches, and the rest sits in a neat pyramid, away from the middle. Pearl can imagine how awe-inspiring The Dome would have looked, had it been finished.
Garnet unsurprisingly interrupts the silence. "Let's go shut this thing off."
"Wait!" Pearl exclaims and throws her hand to stop Garnet. "I think I should be the only one to go disable it. I'm not entirely sure what they later added on without me, the alarm should be partly triggered by weight per square tile. I don't know what other security measures have been implemented, but the less of us go, the easier it will be to avoid them," she reasons, then turns to face her. "Is that okay?" she adds in a moment of hesitation.
Garnet shrugs and crosses her arms. "Do what you think is best. Is it hard to turn off?"
"It shouldn't be, "Pearl responds. "All I have to do is input a deactivation code, the standard issue. I just have no idea what other forms of protection they have installed here, or if they are malfunctioning along with the sound alarm, so—"
"Pearl, get moving already!" Amethyst groans and throws her head up in exasperation. Pearl then huffs in retort and makes her way to the other branch in front of them. She reaches her hand to her gem and takes out her spear, in case she needs to protect herself from any boobytraps. She pays special attention to her surroundings, wary of any danger signs, but the way seems clear so far, so she quickens her pace. The Dome's area is actually smaller than it looks, and Pearl gets to the entrance of the tunnel in front of her in only a few minutes with no mishaps. Strangely, her feelings of apprehension intensify even though she's very close to her goal. She climbs up the six steps to enter the tunnel, then pauses at their top with her spear in hand and glances behind her back to check for any disturbances.
Suddenly, the stones give way and Pearl finds herself falling. Luckily, her reflexes don't fail her, and she manages to somewhat land on her hands and feet, relatively unscathed. The stones make a horrible racket and create an unstable obstacle
.
"Pearl!" Garnet shouts across the distance. "What happened? Do you need us?"
Pearl blinks a couple of times to make sense of what happened, listens to a curious barely-there sliding sound, but dismisses the whole event as a structural fault, not a safety measure.
"I'm okay!" she yells right back. "I think it was only—" and is hit by a blindingly fast large white shape.
She barely registers herself flying across the room when she hits the dome's glass side. Everything goes temporarily black and Pearl just lays on her side for what it feels to her like eternity. Slowly, her vision returns, although it's considerably blurry; Pearl is merely relieved that at least she didn't retreat to her gem. She would have been no help to anyone in battle if she had. She tries to make out what's happening, but all she can see is a moving y-shaped creature, and small blurs of purple and red around it. Her hand blindly reaches out to find her spear and when it doesn't feel anything, she procures another with great difficulty from her forehead.
Putting the hilt as firmly as she can on the ground, Pearl tries to stand up; it proves to be a challenge. The 'thing' hit her hard enough to almost disrupt her body's projection, so her body is now weak and wobbly. She blindly feels her forehead and to her relief she's been lucky enough not to damage her gem. Eventually, she stands up, but still needs to use her spear for support. She finds that in the time she tried to get up, her vision has almost wholly cleared, and she's horrified at what she's seeing.
The creature that crashed her all the way to the other side of the room is actually a gem monster, with two heads that have a gem on the very forehead. Pearl, realizing the monster is actually two fused bodies linked only by their tail, pales in horror at the sight that's unfolding before her very eyes. Now that the vertigo has almost passed, she can see just how much trouble they're all in. The monster itself is crazy fast, so fast that even Garnet has trouble keeping up. She and Amethyst are split up and take the two heads individually but even then, they use desperate moves to avoid the relenting heads' attacks. the compounded creature is large enough to dwarf all of them and evade the Gems' efforts to tangle them up. Pearl curses her condition and pulls out another spear out with considerably less difficulty. Her balance is still lacking, but she knows her aim is as good as ever with her full eyesight back, so she positions her body diagonally to make up for her imbalance, pulls her burning shoulder as far as it can go, and shoots her spear on target to Amethyst's head's eye.
She underestimated the monster's speed. She anticipated the head chasing Amethyst to catch up slower than it did so her spear bounced uselessly against the head's neck, which is protected.
"Pearl!" Garnet signals while dodging the other half. "Help Amethyst!" True to her words, Amethyst is having a worse time, barely evading the attacks. She's having trouble fighting the gem with her whip; it's too close an opponent to utilize her whip to it's best. The rocks she uses to throw at the monster do slight, if not any, damage. From the neck down, Pearl sees that it is encased in a crystalline armor that protects two-thirds of its serpentine body, only opening at the belly that only hints at a pale blue soft underside. Problem is, it's what the corrupt gem slithers on to move. Pearl knows she has to get a move on now or never, so she wills her body despite the pain forward.
Spear in hand, she races gracefully to the monster and aims for the soft underside; unfortunately, it senses her and anticipates her attack with bared fangs. Pearl notices out of the corner of her eye that the other half is being pulled near them, and Garnet has a hard time steering the other away from her and Amethyst. In a split second, Pearl changes her course and jumps up to stab the beast in the eye.
"Pearl, no!" Amethyst screams, and as Pearl gets closer to her target, she notices that the gem has no eyes. To her horror, she mistook the smaller glittering spikes that are a part of its armor for an eyeball. She lands hard on the head and the monster, sensing an unfamiliar weight, thrashes around in circles. Pearl, trying her best to hang on, uses her spear to try and chip away at the defense, but it's no use; it's too hard and she just holds on as best as she can. While doing so, she sees Amethyst charge her whip and wrap it around the monster's neck. Pearl herself finds herself slipping, since the top of the gem's head is smooth —she slides down to the top of the neck, dangerously close to Amethyst's pulsating whip.
All of a sudden, the corrupt monster flings its body wildly to the ground, taking Pearl with it. The monster succeeds in freeing itself from Amethyst's whip, but is momentarily dazed. Pearl thankfully isn't damaged as badly as she was the first time, and gets out from under the gem with relative ease. Glancing from the corner of her eye, she sees Garnet's half of the monster turning its head to them, but then Garnet bangs her gauntlets loudly on the floor, and Pearl realizes that this gem is completely blind. It relies on its extra-sensitive hearing to detect their positions.
The half fighting Amethyst and Pearl is lured by Garnet's sound and starts to slither over there. Amethyst flings a rock with her whip to bait it back to their side, and pulls out another whip to wrap it around the snake. While the additional noise does bring its attention back to where they want it to be, it's too strong for Amethyst's whip to hold. The gem madly starts attacking Amethyst, dragging its other head with it. Pearl is doing her best to somehow slow it down, but the dang thing follows Amethyst's steps too persistently.
"Pearl!" Amethyst yells while she dodges most of the attacks, "I have an idea, but you're gonna have to distract it for a little!"
"How!? What's your plan?" she shouts right back, while using her spear to somewhat protect her and Amethyst.
"Just trust me and make a lot of noise!"
Amethyst then jumps up and leaves Pearl to fend for herself. Pearl then pulls out another spear to double wield so that she can maximally protect herself, but it's not a big improvement, and all she can do is dodge, anyway. She then sees what Amethyst thought up and widens her eyes in disbelief. Amethyst has just used her whip to hook onto the overhead chandelier, and is currently standing on it precariously. Before she can do anything else, Amethyst hollers as loud as she can.
"Come on, you overgrown worm! Get over here and try to get me!"
As anticipated, the blind corrupt monster turns around to meet Amethyst overhead, and Pearl, who can only stare in abject horror, watches as the Gem swerves to Amethyst's direction. It rises up and tries to snap at her, but is thankfully too short and constricted by the additional body attached. Amethyst then double wields her whips, charges them, and envelops the head's neck in a deathly crushing strangulation. Pearl can't believe how great this spontaneous plan worked, but her feeling of triumph comes too early because everything goes to hell fast.
The glass chandelier abruptly cracks and falls, taking Amethyst with it. Pearl takes the sight in a distorted slow motion and watches as the Gem opens its tremendous mouth and swallows Amethyst whole.
"Amethyst, no!" Pearl screams in pure agony and her eyes fill with tears. Her mind fills with burning rage and she immediately detects the best possible opportunity— the monster, by trying to reach Amethyst, has exposed its weak spot: the underbelly which it kept at this point away from harm. Through her tears, she throws her spear in hand directly to the neck, then reaches for more from her gem in lightning-fast motions and lances the monster as much as she can. She is, as always, accurate and five of her blades embed themselves in the underside.
Even a monster as big as this one cannot properly function from that much damage, and the body, along with the half that Garnet is fighting, dissolves and retreats back into two gems. Still in tears, Pearl runs up to the fallen gems, and sees that Amethyst has retreated to her gem along with the creature.
"Pearl!" Garnet calls as she runs over to the defeat site. "What happened?" Bending down, she takes Amethyst's gem along with the two enemy ones, and gives Amethyst to Pearl as she inspects the set.
"Who are they?" Pearl whispers as she cradles Amethyst closer.
Garnet gestures to the gem in her right hand. "This looks like Howlite, the half you fought. I think I was fighting Albite."
Pearl uses her forearm to wipe away the last remaining tears. "Amethyst got the bright idea to hang on a glass chandelier and somehow choke the thing out, but I said over and over in the beginning that the place was never finished!" She then looks down and frowns to Amethyst's Gem, as if she could hear her berating. "So she predictably fell and the Gem swallowed her whole." Pearl sighs before continuing her tirade.
"The serpent's insides probably put her body under too much pressure and she retreated. Honestly, she could have at least told me what she was thinking!"
Garnet cracks a small smile. "If she did, then you would have stopped her."
"Well of course I would have!" Pearl gesticulates wildly with her free hand. "This was ridiculous, she could have gotten really hurt!"
"Pearl," Garnet states as she bubble up the two gems separately. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"I don't think— oh right, the alarm," she says and ducks her head lightly in embarrassment. "Uh, here," she extends her arms to Garnet. "Hold Amethyst while I disable it."
Garnet takes her, and Pearl turns around to head to the tunnel housing the alarm. Looking around, she sees that the unfinished floor is in an even worse shape after the battle. She takes care not to step on the cracks in the foundation and soon enough, reaches the tunnel. Inside is darker than the entrance, but shorter, so she jogs her memory and follows the path until a fork, where she takes a right. The alarm system is an unremarkable glass wall at the dead end. With a resigned sigh (aimed mostly at Amethyst), Pearl activates the system by inputting a passcode, then enters the standard issue deactivation code. For a few minutes, the screen remains blank but after a moment, it chimes and presents a confirmation message.
Pearl heads back to meet with Garnet, but her head is cloudy with worries and intrusive thoughts. After a couple of minutes walking back to the center of the dome, she's filled with anxiety of their sudden vulnerability without Rose. Pearl hates this, but cannot stop as she thinks of all the horrible things that could happen, now that Rose is gone. She and the other gems are very vulnerable without her; without Rose, they can't afford to be careless and let their gems crack (the very thing Pearl was afraid of for Amethyst) and Steven is still small, too young to utilize even the simplest of Rose's powers. Rose wouldn't have let Amethyst hurt herself, Pearl internally reflects. We would have completed the mission perfectly if she was here, the way it was supposed to go. Rose's loss is still fresh in her mind and it hurts, so badly that Pearl sometimes thinks she's going to collapse from the pain again. She bites her lip hard to try and control herself and walks forward.
Garnet stands in the middle and is looking up at the ceiling. She hears Pearl and meets her halfway to give her back Amethyst. Pearl, curious as to what Garnet was looking at, glances up and sees that the ceiling now has a crack at least Pearl's length, no doubt caused by the broken chandelier's fall.
"Is this going to be a problem?" Pearl hesitatingly asks.
"...We can't come back here anymore, Garnet replies after a pause and adjusts her visor. "The Dome's chances of collapsing have doubly increased."
Pearl softly crosses her arms and cradles Amethyst's gem. "You're right, this place is a disaster waiting to happen. It's absurd once you think about it," she adds and then turns around to head back, "it was just another structure meant to emphasize Homeworld's rigid hierarchy. It was going to be useless anyway, after the Kindergartens choked out the Earth's life...Fools," she adds almost inaudibly.
The two Gems walk alongside each other and reach the exit tunnel. They climb up back the stairs that led them there; Pearl is still sore from the fights, so she gently links her free arm with Garnet, like she used to sometimes do to Rose. She knows Garnet well enough to understand, or maybe she's imagining things from her fatigue, but Garnet almost imperceptibly leans closer to her. The walk back feels faster than it did in the beginning, perhaps because the little worried part of Pearl is now calm. The pair arrives at the stone double doors and Garnet pushes them open. Warm sunlight welcomes them back and Pearl feels the battle's tension completely melt away— she can only speculate that Garnet feels a lot better, too. She sneaks a look at her teammate, and can't help but think that she misses the way she used to be, the way they and even the whole group were. Garnet and Pearl head walk along the beach, sand crunching pleasantly with their footsteps. They're almost at the warp pad but at the last minute, Pearl stops in her tracks.
"Garnet?" She turns her head and tightens her grip on Garnet's arm.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think we should just get rid of the entry stone so no one can come here?"
"Do you?" The now-setting sun's light hits Garnet's visor and Pearl feels foolish all of a sudden.
"...I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter, since no human can, anyway. The odds of one randomly hitting the right pattern are too high to ever be likely."
"What if the alarm acts up again?"
Pearl glances back at the small cliff now behind them before replying.
"It shouldn't. The deactivation code is permanent. I essentially shut the place down," she answers and turns her head back to face Garnet. "Well, shall we go back home?"
Garnet nods and they step together onto the warp pad. Pearl takes a last look at the dreary beach, and finds herself cracking a little smile now that the incessant frequency stopped. The warm sunlight of the setting sun colors the mood of the beach, lifting and polishing it, and Pearl thinks that she's actually glad this place conquered Gem influence as the familiar blue glow of the warp pad envelops them and takes them home.
The week without Amethyst passes mostly uneventfully. Pearl, who is predictably a neat-freak, bugs and bugs Greg about finishing the house's flooring and exterior until he gives in. He promises them to come over on Wednesday, five days after the Great Dome Hub mission, since that's the slowest day for the car wash. Without Amethyst, only Garnet and Greg can work on the home— Steven's still too small to wander alone and it's up to Pearl to watch him. She and Garnet leave their rooms a little after dawn to wait for the familiar 'Mr. Universe' van to arrive by the beach. Even though she loves being with Steven, Pearl feels partly guilty for letting Amethyst get hurt and partly because a deep, venomous part of her can't help but believe that they give Steven to her because, well, it's not like she would be any help anyway. She's not strong, like Garnet and Amethyst are. Pearl knows that Rose (that accursed pang returns yet again) told her over and over again that there are different ways of displaying strength but now that she's… No longer around, it gets harder for Pearl to actually believe in it.
The light spring breeze picks up and Pearl admires the falling pink petals that surround her, fallen from her favorite tree, where she goes to relax and contemplate. Usually, she would determine the time of day just by looking up at the sun, but she's been trying to learn more about how humans view the world and act, so she tries to guess the time. It's eight hours and fifty-two seconds, she mentally challenges herself. She glances down at a worn wristwatch that Greg gave her to practice and it reads 10:30. She turns up her nose in annoyance, partly that this is so rudimentary and yet she's still haven't gotten the hang of it, and partly because human culture is still a complexity, too alien for her to grasp.
Her time sitting by the tree is interrupted as she sees Greg's van heading towards The Temple from her hill. By the time she makes it down at a leisurely place, Greg has parked the car and opens the side door for Steven. Pearl and Garnet, who just recently arrived by her side, can only look in complete love and adoration as a cute little pink ball leaps out of the van and heads for them.
"Garnet! Am'ist! Pearl!" Steven calls out, and Pearl can feel her face break out into a warm smile. Her and Garnet wave out to him while walking closer, but Steven meets them more than halfway. With his endless energy, he barrels into Garnet's shins first, hugging them as much as his tiny—but so cute, Pearl internally gushes— arms can allow. Garnet pats his bouncy curly hair in affection and then turns to Pearl for a hug. She bends down to his eye level and hugs him in return, pressing the side of her face softly in his hair.
"Pearl," he mumbles as he gets out of her embrace, "where's Am'ist? Is she hiding somewhere? Is she that butterfly?" he inquires, pointing at a passing purple one. Pearl exchanges a look with Garnet before trying to answer as best as she can.
Pearl stands up. "Uh, no, Steven, she's not the butterfly today. she's um...—"
"She had to rest today somewhere else, Steven, " Garnet interjects. "She was really tired, but you'll see her next time you come."
Steven's face scrunches up in confusion. "Where is it? Can I come?"
"It's a place only she can go." Seeing Steven's worry, Garnet cracks a half smile and adds, "It's a really nice place. You can ask her about it when you see her next time."
The two Gems can see that Steven doesn't really understand, but he smiles anyway and asks, "What are we gonna do today?"
"Well, Steven," Pearl steps closer to him and takes his small hand. "We haven't finished The Temple's house, so your dad and Garnet will work on finishing the exterior."
"Pearl, what does 'ex-tee-your' mean?"
"Oh," Pearl responds, still not used to his limited and developing vocabulary. "It's a big word for 'the outside of something'. Look," she points to the construction, "We still haven't put the windows in, and the house still doesn't have a door." At this point, Garnet walks over to Greg's van to help him unload the building materials.
"My house has windows and a door! We have an inside door and an outside door, but only Dad 'n me can use the inside," Steven says and then laughs. "Your house is like a donut! It has a lot of holes, but other sizes. Donuts only have one circle hole," he seriously proclaims, and Pearl chuckles at his rationing.
"So, Steven, since your dad and Garnet have to work right now, do you want to do something with me?" Pearl starts to lead him away from the house and out of the way. She gets a small anxious feeling she always does when she has to watch him; it slightly wounds her that it seems like he has the most fun with Amethyst. It pains her to admit it, but he connects with Amethyst the most at this age—whenever Pearl tries some activities that she usually finds interesting, like explaining her favorite subject matters, Steven eyes glaze over and he loses interest quickly. She attempts to believe that he will grow to like her more as he gets older, but sometimes, Pearl is not so sure. Sometimes… She thinks that he'll never connect with her, like she used to with Rose. And yet, he is Rose? She rubs the back of her neck with her free hand lightly to snap herself out of those toxic thoughts.
"Pearl? Why did you do that?" Pearl just now notices that Steven's been staring at her for a while.
"Ah, no reason. Did you think up what to do today?" She smiles hesitatingly at him.
"Can we build sand castles?" Steven pleads with little stars in his eyes. "My dad bought me new sand castle toys! You're gonna love it!" he exclaims, pulling her hand to lead her to the van.
The day goes very well, in Pearl's opinion. They spend the whole afternoon and a small part of the evening by the beach, looking for pretty shells and building various sand objects. As they play more, Pearl starts to feel at ease and even shows him little tricks she can do to mold the sand into moving figures and things. Steven, no surprise, is absolutely starstruck and almost endlessly asks her for more and more sand play toys, until he's surrounded by little sand giraffes, elephants, dogs, and cats that are usually in space suits. Pearl then gets a nice idea to make up stories for the little animals, and then it's yet another round of making sand buildings, one home for each toy.
She is genuinely having fun with Steven and giggling when he mispronounces her name to "Purr" as he animatedly talks faster and faster in his excitement. They both barely notice when Greg and Garnet walk up to them at the end of the day.
"Dad!" Steven calls out and gives him a big hug. "Look at what Purr made for me, isn't it cute, we gave them houses and I have two Cookie Cats, they're brother and sister, but we didn't really use my new toys, I still like them but we just didn't need them for today, is that okay?" he finishes, and takes adeep breath.
"Of course, kiddo!" Greg ruffles his hair affectionately. "Do you want to see what we did at the house?"
"Yeah!" Steven exclaims and hollers in joy as Greg hoists him up to his shoulders.
When they get to the house, Pearl is very pleased with the work accomplished today. The flooring is completely done, as are the windows and a nice door with a screen. The house still doesn't have much furniture except for some kitchen appliances and a spare cabinet or two. The stove and fridge are not plugged in; in fact, they are only out of the boxes and still in their factory packaging.
"Heh heh," Greg sheepishly rubs his head and Steven lets go of his hand to go explore the new place. "I hope you don't mind, I didn't install the appliances in. It's getting kind of late and I'm no good with that anyway!" he laughs loudly and scoops up Steven as he runs past Greg's legs. "Pearl, you like technology stuff, right? Can you handle this? I left manuals and everything," and gestures to a big pile of dusty books. The appliances are simpler than Gem technology she's used to working with, but she agrees to set them up.
The sun gradually goes down as Greg and Steven go back to their home; Garnet and Pearl stand on the porch and wave until they're completely out of sight because they know Steven does the same.
"So, did you have a good time?" Garnet turns around and heads inside.
"Yes, today was so much fun with Steven," Pearl admits and then chuckles lightly. "He seemed so fascinated today that I can animate sand! It was very…" she coughs and covers her mouth with her hands to hide her blush, "pleasant. Although, I'm sorry that you didn't get to spend much time with him."
Garnet activates the doors to her room and cracks a smile. "I figure you'll owe me next time he comes."
The day that Amethyst fully recovers is a on a relatively calm Sunday. Her gem rests gently on a pillow in the top portion of the house, where Steven already claimed as his bedroom. A mere moment before she regenerates, Pearl is tinkering with a microwave that Greg left among the new appliances. For some reason, the darn thing has been turning on at random points of the day and it's driving Pearl crazy (but what things don't?). She's sitting in the cross-legged position when she sees a pale lavender beam of light coming from the second floor.
She climbs up the ladder and sees that her gem is already in mid-air. Amethyst cycles through one or two forms before coming out in a full head of bushy long hair, a loose purple tank, black pants with star cutouts on the knees, and white boots. She lands softly on her feet with a relaxed expression of her face and stretches her arms over her head, then opens her eyes.
"Well, that sucked," she simply says and sighs. "But hey, I got to change my form again! Don't you think my new hair is nice, P?" Amethyst buries her hands under her hair and raises them in a dramatic motion. "I'm gonna have soooo much fun with it, and really, short hair is not as great as you always—"
"That was stupid."
"Uh, what?" Amethyst freezes up and looks quizzically at Pearl. "Geez, I know you keep it short all the time, but it doesn't mean—"
"No." Pearl calmly states, but inside she's boiling with anger for a reason even she can't discern and it grows hotter and hotter the more carefree Amethyst looks. "I meant your little foolish stunt back in the mission."
Amethyst widens her eyes in surprise and then narrows them. "Excuse me? My plan was great! Everything would have went great if the stupid light hadn't broken off and anyway, I gave you a chance to hit that thing with your spears in its weak spot!" she bites the end of the sentence scathingly.
"You didn't have to do it that way. We could have figured something out," Pearl frowns and crosses her arms. "Because of you, the chandelier broke and who knows!? The ceiling could have cracked; whole place would have crashed down on us and then what would we have done?"
Amethyst goes completely still and her tone becomes ice cold. "You know, Pearl, I didn't see you doing anything while me 'n Garnet were fighting that thing. We did all of the work while you were busy apparently napping in the corner. So don't take it out on me that that time wasn't all about you!"
Pearl grows indignant and immediately retorts. "Napping? In case you didn't notice, that thing ambushed me in the middle of the mission! How was that my fault!? I was looking out for all of us by going first, by putting my safety on the line for yours may I remind you, and most importantly," her voice grows even louder, almost to a shout, and her hand gestures grow even more animated," I'm the only one here who can do anything besides punch and hit! I serve my purpose every time, and I served it there. You have no right to undervalue me!"
"Oh, boo-hoo, poor poor Pearl," Amethyst mocks her and imitates tears running down her cheeks, " today wasn't her 'shining star' day, "and makes air quotes. "You just can't handle when other people are being smarter than you, because it's all you've got over me! If you were the one to pull a daring stunt like I did, you'd be expecting us to grovel at your feet for being 'the most precious' and 'most smartiest' Gem that ever was!" she continues and makes a high-pitched voice at the end to ridicule.
Pearl's anger grows even more and body betrays feelings by projecting a deep blush. A few beats pass, but she, determined not to let Amethyst feel like she won, comes right back at her again.
"If you could have just been patient, like I always remind you, then you wouldn't have needed to do something as completely stupid as letting a Gem monster completely swallow you," she scowls and deeply crosses her arms. "If you would have just listened to me and waited the attacks out, you wouldn't even have needed to regenerate and the mission could have been a success!"
That hits the final straw for Amethyst. "Hold up. And how exactly was the mission not a success!? You disabled the alarm, like we were supposed to! The monster was defeated thanks to me, like we were supposed to! But I guess for you, the only way a mission goes right if me 'n Garnet become your little drones and do everything the way you want to! You know what I think? I think that all you can do is sit on your ass and wait because you can't do anything!" At this point, Amethyst gets aggressive towards Pearl and starts yelling. "You won't do anything because you're weak and you're scared of everything! You're so bitter anytime the spotlight's not on you that you can't stand when I finally get the credit I'm worth and you're left in the shadows because that's all you can ever be! I'm not gonna stand there and let you torment me so you can feel better about your pathetic self!" She ends the final word as harshly as she can and jumps off of the loft. She heads for the door without looking back, but Pearl's voice stops her.
"And where do you think you're going?"Pearl is putting all her energy into not crumbling into a little ball as she calls to her.
Amethyst slowly turns around and all Pearl can see is that her gaze is filled with the biggest dose of hatred she's ever seen on her face.
"AWAY FROM YOU!"
Amethyst slams the door going out and breaks it completely off its hinges. Pearl watches her run, run far away until she's a little purple speck among grass. First come the big tears on Pearl's cheeks, the ones she can barely contain slipping past and at her first sniffle, she lets her legs go and softly lands on her shins, face completely buried in her hands. She sits there for a good couple of minutes, just trying to slow her breathing and calm down. Pearl doesn't even know what's wrong with her, she has never gotten like this with Amethyst, but her carelessness just struck a nerve within her, and she didn't mean the things she said but Amethyst has left, ran away, away from her, and all Pearl can do is sit there, just like Amethyst said, because she was right, that's all she could do.
And now that she's gone, Pearl wants to say that she was just scared something else was going to happen, only now they don't have Rose with them to help. You can never do anything right, a traitorous voice whispers inside her. The only difference between then and now is that Rose isn't here to clean up your messes. Pearl hates that she gets like this, and how she treated Amethyst, and just everything right now. So she does the only thing she can: she gets up, eyes still blurry from tears, and goes back to the faulty microwave. Pearl knows the best way to calm herself is to occupy her mind and hands that accidentally squeeze so hard, they leave light bruises.
The emotional detachment of the activity and the fact that she has to focus on a singular thing helps, quite a lot. As time ticks by, so does her awful mood and while she's still not feeling good, she feels much calmer. By the time she's done and tested the darn appliance, the sun is starting to set. Looking over at the entrance, she sees the fallen door and screen and, although she's feeling apprehensive just by looking at it, she wills her body to move over there. To her small relief, the door has been cleanly ripped off, or better than Pearl expected, so she goes and gets the necessary tools to put it and the screen back on.
All the while she's rummaging through the toolbox, Pearl debates inside herself whether Amethyst meant all of the things she said. She herself said things in the heat of the moment that weren't actually true, now that she thinks about it, but she can't say the same for Amethyst. Living many thousands of years with her teammate has left her with the knowledge that Amethyst tends to bottle things up and only let them go in fights. The anxiety comes back as Pearl entertains the possibility that Amethyst really does despise her but she fights her hardest to keep it down. Tools in hand, she walks back to the entryway with heaviness. It doesn't take as long to put the two doors back in their hinges like the way it was before.
But then that activity is also finished and Pearl finds herself craving something else to keep her mind from going to dark places. She walks around the barely-furnished house for a bit before stopping by the refrigerator and noticing a stack of books on top. She stands on her tiptoes and grabs them; the books are culinary books, left behind by Greg so that the Gems can practice making food for Steven if they need to. Pearl sighs at her foolishness as she remembers when Greg tried to teach— his whole apartment smelled like burned pancakes for a month. Figuring this is a good time as any, she inspects the refrigerator's insides to see what she can try before settling on a pie recipe. Flour, he said, is one of the cheaper things to buy, so he can afford to spare some.
The book is open to the pie recipe page and a lone table lamp is turned on as Pearl prepares the batter. She finds the process calming in a way, even though she can't (or rather, doesn't want to) taste the final product. Now that she's baking alone without Greg's help it gets harder to judge how much she's improving, aside from how burnt it turns out. She will absolutely not put it in her mouth— the food passing through her body frankly freaks her out enough to flare up her anxiety to unbearable levels.
Time goes quickly as Pearl finishes the process and puts the pie in the oven. She sits down on the ground by the oven and turns on the inside light, glancing at it every so often. A few minutes pass as she glances back and forth again, but seeing that nothing is happening, she busies herself with another pie. As she mixes the batter, she wishes that Greg brought her an apron, like the one in his house. The timer from the oven ticks away and Pearl only hopes that this one is her most-improved one.
It's four hours later, and the entire house smells like various levels of pie. To Pearl's dismay, her first one was a disaster— it turned out she entered the timer information wrong and baked it to cement hardness. Although the first batch dampened her spirits, she resolved to get the hang of this 'cooking' thing even if she failed a thousand times. Luckily, she didn't have to wait long, as her third one was much better, not saying anything about the taste. The small success motivated her to further her progress and by the time she noticed, the counter was filled with three normal-looking pies among two not-so-resembling-pies pies.
I am never going to get the smell out, am I? Pearl laments her current odor as she cleaned her forearms and counters; she tried to keep them as neat as she could, but this time, the pies won over her cleanliness. She stops at a particular stubborn dirty counter corner to scrub it out, but her head perks up as she hears the door being opened up. A small familiar figure enters and Pearl stands there awkwardly, not wanting to make eye contact but desperately wishing to say something. She fiddles with her dish towel as she sees Amethyst get closer to the counter out of the corner of here. Her eyes are firmly set on her nervous hands as the silence wraps around them and clenches, like an inescapable boa constrictor of their own making. It stays that way for a little until Amethyst tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and speaks in a very uncharacteristically-Amethyst quiet voice.
"Have you lost it, Pearl? Why did'ja bake so many pies?" but the words sound flat with no usual tinge of teasing to accompany them. Pearl's eyes unwittingly shoot up to meet Amethyst's, but they quickly come back down to her hands as the shame that she tried so hard to suppress all this time comes back.
"Well, I, umm, I thought I'd practice now that we have electricity," she mutters. "For—for Steven, when he comes to live with us," she lamely adds. The stifling silence returns again and Pearl hates that she doesn't know what to do. She's awful at confrontations, even more so at apologising because, she sadly adds in her mind, the only time she's good at talking is if it's not about the things that truly matter. She knows Amethyst was right about her, the way she's too scared of everything, so in a spontaneous moment of courage (or maybe complete idiocy) she leans over to the counter and pushes the best pie out of the bunch closer to Amethyst.
"Do you want this? I know you like human food, and I don't know what else to do with them," her voice is louder now and she looks in Amethyst's direction although she's still avoiding her eyes like the plague. Amethyst mumbles a 'sure' and pulls up a chair to the counter. She almost starts to dig in, but Pearl quickly leans over the counter and and stops her.
"Amethyst, you can't eat it like that," Pearl complains at the lack of cutlery being used right now. "Here, use the fork. No, wait, don't," she fumbles, clearly torn. "Let me cut the pieces for you." Her face is completely flushed now, but Pearl is determined to show she's willing to let bygones be bygones.
Pearl spins the pie around, cutting even pieces, then gives it back to Amethyst.
"Geez, Pearl, you don't have to baby me." The complaint is feeble and Pearl spies a small blush that speckles Amethyst's cheeks. The air feels light again on both of them and Pearl feels herself visibly relax.
"I'm not babying you, Amethyst, I do the same for Steven," she states, ignoring Amethyst's grumbling that she can't really make out anyway because her mouth is full of chocolate. Pearl watches her eat and wants to say something because words are bubbling at the top of her throat and yet it's always been hard not to just run away, like she always does from her feelings. She wants to prove Amethyst wrong, that she's not always scared but doesn't know exactly how, so she starts with a small step.
"I'm sorry."
Amethyst looks up from her meal, mouth full. "What did you say?"
"I…" Pearl trails off, not really sure if her sudden burst of courage will last long. "I said I was sorry," she casts her eyes to her fingers that absently trace curlies on the counter. "I wasn't angry at you, and I don't think your actions were stupid."
Pearl looks up and sees Amethyst widely staring at her. She lets out a small huff that somehow softens her discomfort and keeps going. "It's just really hard for me right now not to… to react to dangerous things like these."
"But why?" Amethyst puts down the fork and presses on. "Why are you scared now? You know that I can fight and just because I'm younger than you or Garnet, it doesn't mean that I can't do things, too! You never reacted to me getting hurt like this before!"
"But it's different now." Pearl feels the tears coming back and faintly lining her eyes but keeps talking. "What are we supposed to do now if we get hurt? We… we don't have Rose to help, and who knows when Steven will develop her powers, or even if he will at all. I… Amethyst," Pearl looks straight at Amethyst and reins herself in. "We can't fight exactly like we used to once Steven comes on missions with us. We don't know how he will be, if he's as tough as we are, or even if he can retreat into his gem once he's badly hurt. And he doesn't even have Rose's thousands of years of experience! You may come out of a dangerous battle fairly okay, but he might be the one to suffer because of your unpredictable actions!"
Amethyst slightly rolls her eyes and puts down her fork for a minute. "Listen, do you really think I haven't thought of that, Pearl?" she says in a matter-of-fact tone. "The lil' goofball has been around a while now and I get that he's not as tough as me. But I can control myself, unlike what you think, and I care for him, too, so don't act like I'm gonna go all crazy and forget all about him. Give me a lil' credit, will ya?" She picks up her fork and starts to finish the other half of the pie.
Pearl watches her consume the rest and feels like she's ready to admit defeat. "Alright, alright," she concedes and raises her hands in a surrendering gesture. "I guess I did somewhat underestimate you, and I'm…" Pearl scowls a little to the side. "I'm sorry. I'll try to have a little more faith in you next time."
"Awww, was that so hard?" Amethyst teases.
"Yes!" Pearl lets out indignantly, but Amethyst ignores her in favor of wielding her fork like a blade and stabbing the last piece viciously.
"Now, don't go looking too smug, you still have two to go," Pearl crosses her arms in mock revenge and smirks.
"What, no' gonna ma'e me ea' da burn'd pie?" Amethyst somehow articulates a sentence with a face full of blueberry and crust. Pearl scoffs while picking up the two first-tries and throws them in the trash.
"Well of course not. I'm not into torturing myself by poisoning you and then letting you whine me to oblivion."
Pearl cleans the last remaining ingredient stains while Amethyst finishes the big bite. The night sky is cloudy and Pearl wonders how Garnet's solo mission is going as she scrubs the counter almost to perfection. Done with that, she decides to open a couple of windows to let the burned/pie smell out and relishes the fresh ocean breeze that caresses her face. She finds it sad that she cannot see the stars tonight, yet oddly happier than she's been in a long time. Fireflies flicker aimlessly on the grass and she finds herself musing that, for now, they might be even prettier than the celestial bodies they so innocently imitate.
Author's Notes:
Oh my gosh, my first published fanfic! I'm so happy, and I hope you enjoyed reading it too! This piece was written for the lovely SeerofBread of Tumblr; feel free to check out eir url and musings! I want to thank em for graciously helping me edit this huge elephant of a fic and being a good, supportive friend!
I also couldn't resist and added some shipping teases in the story. If you caught that, I'm so sorry! I am shipping trash, the recyclable kind, pay no attention. Also, Steven Universe canon kind of killed Amethyst's regeneration time in this fic, so I hope you can forgive me for writing it this way. I wrote it way before the actual episode, so I thought Pearl's regeneration time was somewhat standard. If it displeases you, you can think of this as an alternate storyline not in line with canon.
Aside from that, if you have any questions or comments, you can always contact me on my Tumblr for the fastest response! This work is also on my Ao3 account.