"I was never made for Pink Diamond, originally White Diamond commissioned me for herself. Before I even had a chance to meet My Diamond there was an accident. Pink broke her pearl in a fit of anger, not shattered her, but damaged her form. The talk around homeworld was that Pink's pearl was a bad influence, as if a mere pearl could influence a diamond, but regardless of whether she was or not White took her away and gave me to Pink with the orders to make her happy, and to teach her everything she needed to know to be a proper gem leader and I really did try. Back then none of us could have known how things would have turned out.

The first time I saw her I was in awe. She was so beautiful so…perfect seeming and she seemed so nervous to meet me. I played my part just as I was made to do. I was the perfect obedient pearl, but that seemed to make her more uncomfortable the tension was unbearable after a few months so eventually I took a risk. I tried talking to her as I would talk to Blue and yellow's pearls. "

"You didn't talk to pink's old pearl?" Steven asked. Pearl shuttered.

"No White…Wiped her personality she was little more than a puppet even back then, but back to the story. I started talking to her like I would the other pearls and she immediately relaxed, started joking, confiding in me. It wasn't until much later that I realized she never wanted a pearl. Someone made to serve her. She wanted a companion who enjoyed being with her. Someone she could trust not to go to the other diamonds if she had ideas different from theirs.

I think even then I loved her even if I never would have entertained the thought of it being more than pure devotion to my diamond. By the time she got her colony we were friends, confidants, and I would have done anything for her. I still thought of myself as less than her, but she never once treated me that way. I knew it was strange I had seen how dismissive the other diamonds were of their pearls, but it was just one of the many oddities that were Pink diamond.

Once her colony was established she spent a lot of time watching her gems but also looking at all the different life forms on earth. Humans were by far her favorite. She couldn't go down to colony itself except for official functions but she watched it all through the observation orb and for a while that satisfied her, but eventually she got bored. She got sullen. She wanted to meet her gems, get to know them. She had tried once or twice to talk to a jasper or an amethyst but their responses were limited to reports and a lot of yes my diamonds. My orders were to make her happy and by then it was what I wanted more than anything else. So one morning as she was grumbling at the observation orb watching the progress on the kindergarten. I shapeshifted into an amethyst and held out my hand towards her.

"Would you like to join me for a walk around the kindergarten Pink?" Her eyes widened. She grabbed my hand in excitement and shapeshifted for the first time into Rose Quartz. We left the ship and mingled with the other gems. They welcomed us like family and treated Rose like just another quartz. She loved it. After the first day I didn't bother shapeshifting. No one questions a what a pearl is doing we're mostly ignored. We spent every day like that for a while. Mingling with the gems, exploring the earth, eventually even meeting a few humans, and each moment she fell more in love with the Earth and I fell more in love with her.

It was a new side of her, a side I had rarely seen until then. Here she wasn't sullen and demanding. She was curious and fascinated by everything around her. Plants, animals, the weather, the sea, all of it was new and beautiful to her. She spent only as much time each day as Pink diamond as she absolutely had too spending most of her time learning all she could about this beautiful place she had discovered. It didn't take her long to realize the kindergarten was leaching life from all around it, and when she did was when she started trying to back out of having earth as a colony.

At first she tried claiming their were to many organics. That she didn't want to destroy so many lives. Yellow berated her for her sentimentality and blue just built her a zoo where she could keep a few that caught her fancy thinking that would satisfy her. After that call, for the first time since she had started going out as Rose, she got angry. She started talking more and more about how the diamonds were wrong to be doing this to planet after planet how they were killing everything, both privately to me and occasionally as Rose to the other quartz soldiers.

Some laughed off her rants about the diamonds, others said they wouldn't report her but avoided her after that. Even I didn't realize how serious she was, until she started training me. I couldn't summon a weapon then so she had a sword commissioned for me, she got one as well as she learned to summon her shield. These were just human swords we hadn't met bismuth yet, but we practiced with them until we were sure we could beat anyone who came at us.

For years it was just the two of us. She would go back and forth between being Pink complaining and trying to back out of her colony when she needed to and being Rose the rest of the time. We would destroy her own supplies, fight her own soldiers, and she would talk to gems as well trying to get them to see her point of view giving them a choice of what they wanted to do what they wanted to be. Slowly gems joined the rebellion. The earliest that you've met was Bismuth. She transformed the rebellion outfitting us with better weapons and encouraging bigger more daring fights, but she never knew Rose was anything but a rose quartz, none of them did.

Then came the day we met Garnet. She's told you that story so I wont repeat that, but what she didn't tell you was how excited Rose was. She knew some gems fused in battle rubies especially, but a fusion with more than one kind of gem? She was fascinated, by the idea, by what that would be like what it would feel like. She turned to me once we were away from the battle with the biggest grin I had seen from her in quite a while and asked the question that changed our friendship.

"Pearl…" She said nervously. "I don't want…I mean I'm not asking as your diamond but as your friend…Willyoufusewithme?" It took me a moment to understand, but once I did I blushed and held out my hand with a grin. It was so easy she pulled me into her arms and I melted into her embrace. Rainbow Quartz was starting to form, but then I err…I panicked. I was fusing with my diamond. Gems of different types didn't fuse it just wasn't done and a pearl and a diamond there couldn't have been a more inappropriate mix in the eyes of homeworld. In my panic we broke apart. I went to help her up and started to apologize but she just looked up at me with stars in her eyes and pulled me close again. Not trying to fuse just reassuring me and telling me we would try again when and if I was ready.

I was still a little shaken up when we stumbled upon Garnet a few minutes later. I probably looked like a fool holding my sword out at her while still blushing fiercely, but it all went well we took Garnet back to base, and she fit into the crystal gems right away. Well once she stopped apologizing and offering to unfuse every few seconds that is.

There was a battle not long after that, maybe a few months maybe a year or so. It all runs together sometimes. A jasper, now that I think back it could have been Jasper, almost poofed rose. I was at her back and I pulled her to the ground to get out of Jaspers path. She landed on top of me and before I could even process what was going on. We were Rainbow Quartz for the first time. Being us was…an experience I never wanted to end. We were strong, beautiful, powerful enough to take down homeworlds forces in that battle without breaking a sweat. After the battle was done we went off into the forest and just enjoyed being us for a while before we unfused quite ungracefully I landed on Rose's lap actually. I was rather embarrassed, but nothing could stop the pure joy that both of us were feeling. We laughed together for several minutes and then I got up from rose's lap offering her my hand to help her up. She pulled me back down and we started laughing again. I leaned up against her and we both just laid down and looked up through the trees out to the stars.

"They have no idea what they're missing…" Rose said with a wistful sigh.

"The Diamonds?" I asked

"Well yes, but all of the homeworld gems. There's so much more to life than the diamonds let you believe."

"Then let's show them." She turned to look at me with something like surprise that slowly morphed into a smile.

"That's my precious renegade Pearl."

I knew I was blushing once again even then it seemed silly to blush at something a silly as a pet name after something as big as fusing for the first time, but it was just in the cards that I was going to blush a lot that night as that was also the first night she kissed me and told me she loved me.

"Whatwasthat?!" I blurted out in a panic after she pressed her lips to mine. "I mean not that I mind I just…"

"The humans call it kissing. They do it with people they love." She suddenly got nervous. "should I have not I'm sorry I should have asked and I ju—" I interrupted her with another kiss and she pulled me closer an—"

The sound of a throat clearing in the kitchen of the beach house grabbed my attention. Garnet was staring at me and I suddenly remembered who I was telling the story to. I felt myself blush in embarrassment.

"Sorry Steven I got a little…caught up in the memories." I looked up sheepishly at him but he was just staring at me with stars in his eyes. "Anyways she uhhh….pulled away yes that's what happened directly after the kiss nothing else…and she looked at me once again with those stars in her eyes. Seriously how do the two of you do that by the way? " Steven just shrugged waiting eagerly for the rest of the tale.

"Then she asked "Does that mean you love me too?" I was blown away I froze probably for atleast a minute if not longer.

"Pearl? Pearl are you okay? Pe-"

"YOU LOVE ME?" I interrupted practically yelling in my shock.

"I did say that's what humans do when they love someone." She laughed. "Yes I love you Pearl. I think I have for quite a while now."

"Then I— I love you too? Am I allowed to love you too?"

"Of course…well back home probably not, but here we can do anything and be anything we chose to be."

"But a diamond and a pearl?"

"A Rose Quartz and a pearl. I don't think Pink Diamond is going to be around much longer we need to end this war. So many have already been hurt and worse shattered in this stupid fake war I started trying to protect life. This isn't protecting it it's only getting worse."

"What will we do?"

"I haven't worked it all out yet but when I do you'll be the first and the only one who will know don't worry."

It was a while before she came to me with the idea of faking her own shattering. There were many battles, many friends lost, and bismuth was gone. I thought she had been shattered and it was a blow bismuth was probably the gem I was closest to other than Rose of course and I never expected Rose to keep something like that from me she watched me cry for her and said nothing.

I was against faking Pink's shattering from the start, but nothing could stop Rose when she decided on a path to take, but before she did it, she planned a final trip back to homeworld. She wanted to try one more time in person to get the diamonds to spare the earth and she had heard rumors of Gems hiding in the old kindergartens. Ones that weren't quite right."

"Like the off colors?"

"Exactly like off colors, and fusions like Garnet who wanted to stay fused. She found very few and convinced even fewer to return to earth with her. Even as a rose quartz they didn't trust a perfect gem and becoming Rainbow Quartz on homeworld was too risky not when we were so close to finishing the war or so we thought. We were almost caught once behaving outside of homeworlds norms. We got a little…preoccupied while in Pink's room waiting for an audience with white. Blue silently entered the room to find me laying on pinks chest while we were deep in conversation about humans of all things.

"I just don't understand your fascination with them Pink. Humans are boring."

"That's where you're wrong my love…" She caught Blue gaping at us from across the room. "…ly pearl." She corrected and nudged me off her so we both could stand and greet Blue diamond.

"What are you doing Pink? Acting so informally with your pearl? Allowing her to talk so disrespectfully? Actually disagreeing with you? You're lucky it was me who saw! If it was Yellow or god forbid White you would have lost another pearl! Is that what you want?" She sighed. I looked down at the floor trying to blend int the scenery was much harder now that I had spent years being whoever I wanted to be. "Are you ever going to grow up and be a proper diamond Pink? Go back to your colony. White and Yellow are tired of your excuses and frankly so am I. You're making us all look bad with your incompetence. Deal with your little rebel rose quartz and finish colonizing Earth and none of us want to see or hear from you again until it's done. "

We headed back to Earth after that and you already know the story of her shattering. Word spread immediately to the diamonds and they called a retreat attacking the planet in a way that should have killed all gems instantly, but Rose shielded Garnet and I and when it hit Rose's shield something happened it distorted and instead of killing all the gems that were left it corrupted them all. We spent centuries hunting them down and bubbling all we could hoping we could find a way to heal them one day.

Time went on and Earth changed. Homeworld was a very stagnant place technology would get slowly better and weapons more affective, but as we don't age everyone and everything essentially stayed the same throughout centuries. Earth was different. Humans were different. Things changed in the bling of an eye it seemed. Amethyst came into our lives and made things fun and interesting and in a lot of ways she reminded me of the Pink diamond I first met. Childish and quick to anger quick to feel and react. She became part of our family. Rose met humans, men and women both that she loved for a while until they died or moved on with their lives, but I was her constant. We were a constant just as much as Garnet was and is.

Then one day she met Greg and it was the first time I saw stars in her eyes that weren't aimed at me. I was…jealous for the first time. She still loved me, and I knew most humans had a problem with people loving more than one person at a time so I'm ashamed to say I rubbed it in his face at every opportunity. Greg tried to get along with me but I just refused and I distanced myself from Rose as well as stupid as that was.

All the jealousy and frustration and anger came to a head the night she announced she was going to have you and what that meant. That she was leaving…me…all of us behind. I yelled. I cried. I begged. Finally hoping for her to finally understand I asked her to fuse for the first time since the once time we fused in front of Greg. As we became Rainbow Quartz I focused on how I had been feeling since she met him, how I was feeling in that moment. All of me fear all of my anger all of my sorrow. I felt the tears running down our face before she broke the fusion and pulled me into her arms, both of us sobbing in the sand.

"I love you Pearl I always have and nothing could ever change that."

"But you're leaving me. You're leaving all of us all we've done together. You won't exist anymore Rose!" She smiled sadly and held me tighter.

"Every time my son or daughter looks to you for guidance there will be a part of me there too. Every time they are impressed by something you do I will be there impressed as well. Every time you make them laugh or their heart swell with love I will be laughing and loving you too. They will have a part of me I will become part of this wonderful little human person."

"Is the experience of being human really worth losing yourself? You wont remember yourself…or me or what we've done. Can't you just buy a tiny human? Raise it yourself do you have to be one? Do you have to leave me?"

"Adopt is I think the word your looking for Pearl and yes Greg and I could adopt a baby, but I want to bring Steven or Nora into this world. I want them to grow up with you. I want them to grow and learn and change and be everything they want to be. I want to give up my gem to make this happen. I've done so many things Pearl. You know this better than anyone. Eventually the diamonds will come to get their revenge and I would be shattered. It probably wont be for a couple hundred years they get distracted so easily, but that gives Steven or Nora plenty of time to have a normal human life and after that who knows what will happen to my gem, but if I'm gone the diamonds will leave earth alone and you'll all be safe."

"I Don't Want To Be Safe Without You."

"I know I don't want to lose you either my beautiful Pearl."

"I love you Rose, and if this is what you want I'll be here for your tiny human."

"And Greg?"

"No."

"No? You really won't even keep an eye on him? This will be hard for him too." I sighed but agreed without too much more grumbling. Not long after she was gone, and you were here. I'm sorry to say I wasn't the nicest when you were first here. I avoided you couldn't even look at you to be honest. Greg had been trying to see me with you for weeks before he finally cornered me. I could have gotten through of course and even did start to push past but he thrust you in my arms and you looked up at me with stars in your eyes and my heart melted and I just started to cry right there in the middle of the street. He walked with me back to the temple. Me holding you the whole way and when we got there he handed me a video take like the one she left for you.

He didn't explain just said to watch it, but after seeing you I wasn't in the most argumentative of moods so I did. Amethyst had a tv and vcr laying around so I hooked it up played the video. When your mom came on screen I started crying all over again. I cried a lot for quite a while if we're being honest. She said.

"My precious renegade pearl, I wanted you to have something of me that you could always look back on when you're feeling alone. From the day we met I wanted to know you. Yes even when all you would say was "Yes My Diamond" and other silly things like that. You were the one who inspired me to go outside of what I was told to do. Your change from obedient pearl that was just part of the back ground of the palace to the beautiful, powerful, funny gem you are today amazes every part of me. You are proof that gems change and grow. You inspire me and hopefully you will continue inspiring Steven or Nora. I love you so much Pearl never doubt that. I was never more content than when we were Rainbow quartz or you were in my arms. Those are my favorite memories. The ones I most regret leaving behind. Please learn to be happy even in a life I'm not in. I won't say goodbye because in a way I'll still be with you."

And that's it really I mean you were there for pretty much everything else. But I promised no more lies and keeping things from you. So that was what Pink and Rose were like. I'm sorry I never told you some of those stories before, but they hurt too much to think about."

Steven threw himself into my arms. I hugged him tighter than I ever had before. He looked up at me with those same stars in his eyes.

"How do you and Rose do that? I've never met a gym or human that literally gets stars in their eyes."

"Ya know I'm not sure it just happens when I'm really impressed or excited or somethings really cute or I really love someone."

"Well why is it this time?" I teased.

"Peeearl you know I really love you."

"Y-You do?"

"Of course you're like the mom I never had since she became me. Which works even better now that I know mom loved you so you would have been my other mom if she was still here." I felt myself blush harder than I had since Rose was alive.

"I really love you too Steven."