I have a knack for starting new fics don't i
I will try to keep this one relatively simple. It's supposed to only cover an arc of a week and I will try to keep the chapters short to see if -this- is the first written thing I write into completion.
The rose quartz stone is sitting on the coffee table, waiting. It hasn't moved from there, but every single inhabitant of the house veers away from it, and the cushion it lays in, like it's some sort of anti-magnet. Like it radiates sorrow.
And really, it does. Garnet has already burned the corpse it belonged to in the incinerator. They'd rather keep a bubble with the leftover smoke as the sole remain of his physical form over the rotting flesh— he was still half-human, back when he was alive. He'd still rot and stink and need to eat and other gross things that came with being organic.
A large, muscular gem is idly sitting on the couch, on his room. To say the temple and the human house kept as facade aren't filled with tension, with a bittersweet blend of horror, sorrow and expectation, is to lie blatantly to herself and to every other resident, so she doesn't even deny herself her own grieving process— Her amber eyes still drift from the e-magazine in the holographic screen to the resting rose quartz, expecting the moment when it won't be inert anymore and her beloved Quartz child will be reborn from it.
Garnet had touched the gemstone on his belly after he fell limp, not even bothering to hold back, even less wipe the tears as she did a thorough inspection. His physical form was damaged enough alright, but it hadn't disappeared in the classic shockwave of smoke and fairy dust all gems tended to go in when they retreated to regenerate.
Instead, when the fusion had poked it, the gemstone had popped right off the body of the half-human, leaving behind his organic tissue. The corpse was still the exact same, save for a perfect round hole where the gemstone had once been imbedded. His stomach possessed no navel, and the team had speculated the "scar" of his "umbilical cord" had precisely been the gem Garnet was now holding, torn between horror and plain shock.
Opal had theorized the man, being organic in a sense, must simply drop his obsolete physical form when regenerating, instead of poofing. That had brought her a fake sense of calm. Her form still wavered, flashing white, every few minutes, and Garnet eventually suggested she and the other fusion retreat into the temple, to practice a few exercises centered on keeping her fusion stable. Opal was still very new, for permanent fusion standards; only a hundred years or so, and she still split ocassionally when put under enough stress.
The gem on the couch cuts the flashbacks short, trying to not be personally affected by the loss of a team member. Really, it wouldn't matter if the man wasn't half-human. She'd seen Peri succumb several times; Lapis had rested on the green gem's lap while she idly stroked the resting gemstone, heck, she'd even seen cracked gems along the way. She tells herself this is no different, even though, in seven hundred years, the Quartz child hasn't succumbed once. He'd lived enough to see his human mate die. He'd lived enough to have several of those.
She has to admit that it partly has to do with the fact even weaker gems like Lapis —well, at least physical form wise— would put themselves in the way, preferring a regeneration over the uncertainty of what would happen to him if he was poofed.
Well, here we are, the beefy gem reflects, her eyes still glancing at the stone and the way the yellow light of the warm lamp sparkles off its facets.
She flips the page of the e-magazine with a swipe of a her thumb, even though all of her reading has been absentminded.
Then, it happens.
Jasper puts the small device on her hand down and the e-magazine shuts off with a flicker of the screen. She turns off the lamp and puts it aside, giving the gem the space it needs to make mass for a physical form. The base mannequin for the form of all gems begins to flourish from the gemstone as a jingle plays, and it's in that exact moment that Jasper senses something is wrong.
The mannequin is female. It's female, and it's too eerily familiar.
Jasper's figurative heart figuratively thumps in her chest as realization hits, as the mass of curls sprouts from the mannequin's head and a flowy, wide dress appears on her body.
The form flashes a final time, landing gently atop the coffee table. Rose Quartz's curls bounce and fall into place, and the last of the silky, light dress takes down, enveloping her legs gracefully. She's barely changed since the last time Jasper saw her, and that was literal millenia ago. It was only three Earth centuries more and they would hit the six or seven thousandth anniversary, in fact.
Those dark eyes, enveloped in long, curly pink eyelashes, flutter open. The scent of earth, of flora, wafts from the newly formed gem and creeps into every corner of the room.
Just as they finish opening, though, she's taken aback, adopting a defensive stance with such ferocity she flips the coffee table in the process, spilling several e-mag chips and making them flicker open in the articles and bookmarks the rest of the team had left them in.
"Jasper?" She shrieks, dumbfounded.
The former Homeworld advocate is too caught up in what just happened to even properly react, so her eyes simply close slowly and open again, just in time to catch Rose's glancing down at the star logo proudly embalzoned on the chest of her uniform. Her expression next is simply boggled, and Jasper can't hold back a smirk at just how out of context the former leader of the gem rebellion must be after seven hundred years.
"The one and only," she answers, some of the pride she basked in so abundantly in the old days still slipping in the way she speaks. "Jasper the Crystal Gem to you, Rose Quartz."
"Wh—"
"Don't worry. No resentment. The Quartz child taught me better than to hate you." She gulps, unsure of how to drop the news. She's always been blunt, so her best guess is to just do as she has always known. "He should be here, not you."
It's that sentence that really makes her brain scramble the pieces together, and the pain hits like a dull kick square in her bosom. If this here is Rose Quartz, then that means her little Steven is probably never coming back.
Yep, he's dead. Jasper is programmed to cope with the passing of a fellow soldier with more relative ease, but she can already sense the breakdown looming over the rest of their team.
The next Earth revolutions are going to more than just a bit tough on them. She can practically taste it.
She thinks Rose Quartz can feel it too, for one of her hands has dramatically flown to her face, while the other clutches the gemstone on her navel. "My son," she whispers, and Jasper nods in understanding, leaning forward and placing her elbows on her knees.
"I shouldn't be here," the pink gem says, and Jasper makes a gesture with her head that, though simple, sends the I wholeheartedly agree message pretty straight.
"Where is he?" she asks, and the orange gem sighs.
"We incinerated his body. We were all sure it was going to be him who came back instead of you." She's spit out that last word. Rose isn't even offended. Not even she wants herself there.
The blonde one slides her tongue gingerly through her lips, feeling them all dry. "Why don't you go say hi? I'm sure there's a bunch of people who want to give you greetings inside the temple." She picks up the e-mag and pushes the chip, and the hologram flickers to life again. Rose reacts in shock to the display.
"Don't worry," Jasper says. "We'll have plenty of time to update you on how things have changed on the past seven hundred years here on Earth. And boy do we have a lot to tell." She sarcastically widens her eyes, now ignoring Rose, and places her feet nonchalantly on the edge of the flipped coffee table, her gaze focused on the hologram. "Also, no hard feelings."
Rose looks around the temple house, so vastly remodelated as its materials gave in to the erosion of age.
Her gem shines for a split second, and the rose seams trace the door, opening the portal to the actual temple. She steps in, her legs wobbly with fear. It's a stark contrast, seeing someone so huge so goddamn frightened.
The doors close behind her after a few gentle steps, and Jasper lifts herself from her seat, stifling sobs and growls of pain as she picks the coffee table and shuts the chips in the floor off before putting them. She's a battle toughened gem, she's seen deaths, she's survived things to which the word "horrifying" is a mere understatement. Yet this loss has burrowed on her shell.
Though, of course, as always, she's too prideful to let Rose Quartz of all people watch her cry.
I hope you enjoyed!