Steven burst through the screen door to the temple, a beaming smile on his face. Before he could say a word, Pearl had shot up from the couch and wrapped him in a surprisingly strong hug for her wiry frame.
"Steven! Oh, it's been so long!" she squawked.
The 23-year-old chuckled. "I was here last week, Pearl," he said. "Maybe you were too busy with your girlfriend to notice," he added, wiggling his eyebrows.
Pearl's peach cheeks flushed blue. "I don't know what you're talking about," she insisted, as a voice from the couch called out "Yo, Stets!"
"Hey, Sheena!" Steven waved to a middle-aged woman with multiple facial piercings, shoulder-length silver hair, and laugh lines around her eyes. He tried not to let his face fall when he scanned the room to see that the other gems weren't in the living room or kitchen. "Where are they?" he asked.
"Err...well..." Pearl stalled, but Sheena didn't beat around the bush.
"Amethyst hardly ever leaves her room anymore," she said. "She's really struggling with...you know."
Steven nodded. He knew.
"But Sunny should be down at the Big Donut getting us breakfast!" Pearl said. "I haven't quite, uh, gotten the concept of eating food yet, but coffee is a pleasant-tasting substance."
Sheena stood up and wrapped her arm around Pearl's thin waist. "We're making progress," she said.
A blue gemstone in the lower right arm of the star on the door in the back of the temple glowed suddenly as it split open diagonally. The temperature in the room lowered instantly by about ten degrees as Sapphire stepped out of her icy room. "Hello, Steven," she said in a dull, emotionless voice. Her sky blue hair had lost some of its volume and her royal blue gown had become a pair of trousers, ever since the last time she reformed, almost ten years ago.
"Hey, Sapphire," Steven said, trying to hide the pain he felt at seeing her alone. It has to be much worse for her, he thought. "You...excited for donuts?"
"Not particularly," Sapphire answered.
Steven's face fell slightly. "Oh, well..." He wasn't sure how to continue, so he changed the subject. "I had something I wanted to tell you guys, but I want you all to be here."
"Oh!" Pearl exclaimed. "Is this about -" she began, but Sheena shushed her.
"Let Steven say it!" she said, taking both of Pearl's hands in hers Sapphire went back to the door, but instead of going back into her room as she was prone to doing often, even when Steven was there, she simply knocked once. Almost immediately, a scowling purple face poked out.
"I was asleep," Amethyst growled before catching sight of Steven. "Dude!" she yelled, and rolled across the room to knock him over, kneeling next to his huge barrel chest. "Dude, what's up?"
"I have some big news," Steven answered, "but Sunny needs to be here first."
Almost on cue, the screen door Steven came through fell off its hinges in the hands of a large reddish-orange gem who looked like she'd barely fit through the door. "Whoops," she said in a gruff voice. Her long red and gold dreadlocks were pulled into a haphazard bun, and two of her hands held boxes of donuts while the other two tried to put the screen door back on its hinges. She turned halfway, a smile brightening her three eyes and even making the two gemstones on her face glisten. "Hey, Steven, what's up?"
"Steven has something he wants to tell us," Sapphire said calmly, levitating up and then floating down to a spot on the couch next to Pearl. Amethyst perched herself on the stairs as Sunstone sat cross-legged on the floor.
"So, you all know that yesterday was the five year anniversary of when Connie and I started dating," Steven said, puffing up his chest. "Well, I took her to a nice dinner at a real swanky place in Atlantic City, and I asked her to marry me! And she said yes!"
"Oh, wow, congratulations!" Sheena exclaimed, but the gems mostly just seemed confused.
"What's that?" Sunstone asked, a blank expression on her face.
"Oh, uh," Steven said, running a hand through his thick brown curls, "you know, marriage. It's sort of a human ritual where two people promise to stay together forever."
"Like...permafusion?" Sunstone asked, and her right hands interlocked their fingers. "Like me?"
"Kind of, only you tell everybody, and there's a big ceremony and then there's a party afterwards and then...and then you stay together. Forever."
He was met with confused silence from the gems, broken by Sheena telling Pearl "It's kind of a big deal for us humans."
"Oh, well..." Pearl started awkwardly. "Congratulations! I'm looking forward to learning all about this...this 'marriage' thing. It must be a big deal to spend all of eternity with someone."
"Not really," Sapphire said suddenly. "If it's anything like permafusion, it'll be easy. It's just one day at a time."
"I know I wake up every day thinking that I want to experience that day with my other half," Sunstone said. "Is it like that?"
"Kind of? I...I don't know how to explain it any better than that, I'm sorry," Steven said. "Just...I asked if Connie wants to be a part of my life for the rest of her life and she said she would, and we're gonna throw a party to celebrate that."
"I'm happy for you, Steven," Sapphire said coolly. "I'm sure Ruby would've been excited to hear it too." With that, the blue gem floated up from her spot on the couch and back into her room.
Sapphire's room had changed over the past nine years, thought it was still just as cold as it had been the last time she'd been in it alone, one of the times Garnet had split. It seemed like nothing now, but she was sure it must have been important to her and Ruby at the time. When she'd been in her room then, over thirty-five years ago, it had simply been a long, low cave with sparkling, icy stalactites frozen from the ceiling. Lining the walls had been shelves filled with gifts Ruby had given her over the thousands of years they'd been together: a snowball Ruby had thrown at her, a small daisy now covered with tiny icicles, the baseball from the time all the other Rubies came to Earth.
Sapphire wiped a tear from her eye and took in the sight of the new room, the way it had transformed over the past nine years. Now it appeared as the Keystone Motel room where she and Ruby had last fought with each other. The walls glistened with ice and any horizontal surface had icicles hanging from it, but overall it was the same exact room.
Other than a small bubble containing a key floating just above the bedside table, which went to the bathroom door. The bathroom was less of a bathroom in this existence than a storage closet filled with little knickknacks in bubbles; the snowball, the daisy, the baseball.
Sapphire never opened the bathroom. Those things all reminded her of Ruby too much.
Ruby. The brave crystal gem soldier with a moral compass too strong for her own good. Sapphire's best friend and partner for over millenia. Sapphire would give anything to be able to leave this room and enter Garnet's. But Garnet hadn't existed for nine long years.
Sapphire let a sob wrack her body, and she crawled into one of the motel beds, trying to get comfort from the warmth of the blankets.
They were frozen.