You are young, when you meet Rose. Barely half a millennium. Old enough to know the many aspects of defect intimately, but young enough for the label (the condescension in it, the implied lesser) to still sting. Old enough to have learned to keep your body still and your voice level. Too young to learn how to dance, in private, to centre yourself and let the movement out. Too young to learn how to deal with the anxiety – about everything and anything, too-loud/too-quiet/too-much – that makes you just want to fidget it out.
And, of course, no matter how much you try to hide it, to suppress the symptoms and mimic the gems around you (eye contact is good/movement is bad/no one cares to hear about history/use words not holograms) the evidence of your defect is right there in the shape of you (your pearl, Steven would say, but you are a gem and your gem is you), obvious to anyone who looks.
But you're clever and good with your hands – still a pearl, even though broken/wrong/defective – and the species can't spare to lose even a barely-gem like you, so they put you to work. They ship you offworld as soon as they can. You're assigned to what is the first of the Kindergarten projects – not on Earth, on an older colony much closer to homeworld – as a minor technician.
Rose is sent there too. If she's older than you, it's not by much. She's young and inexperienced and nervous about her new job. All rose quartz can heal. They're the only gems who can, other than maybe – it is rumoured – the diamonds themselves. The Homeworld population being in the state it is, medics are critical.
Building a kindergarten – especially the first one – is dangerous work. Rose is one of two medics on the mission, all that can be spared. She has her hands full, and you are very careful not to get hurt. Killing the defect isn't worth it, but you don't want to test whether anyone would actually try and save your life.
(Of course, you didn't know her as Rose then. She was just one of two rose quartz, just as you were one of many other (normal/healthy/whole) pearls.)
...
Rose – rather predictably – is the one who introduces herself to you. You're off-shift (gems don't need sleep, but they do need rest for optimal work efficiency) and a long time from your next allotted return back to Homeworld. So you wander away from the workers camp, hoping to catch some quiet and some privacy (both essential to you in a way food and oxygen aren't, and in shorter supply).
This planet has water – it's one of the few things it has going for it. You've always been fond of water – pearls come from the ocean, after all. And you are a natural-born gem, one of the last made before Homeworld just gave up. (Sometimes you wonder if that's the reason you're the way you are, if the planet ran out of magic partway through forming your layers.) You like the sound and smell of the ocean and the feel of the water against your skin; it reminds you of the partway-conscious time before you fully hatched from your oyster (completely different biologically from the ones on Earth, but they fulfilled a similar function so the name stuck).
That off-shift, though, you don't get the quiet/alone/calming time you were searching for. Because she is there.
Rose (not Rose, then, of course, she's just the larger of the two rose quartzes) catches you on the way out of camp, asks for a word. You can't refuse her; as a medic she is higher rank than you (few aren't, in those days). You can ask to talk to her somewhere quieter, though. So the two of you walk together towards the orange-pebbled alien waterfront.
On the way, Rose asks you questions. Who you are, what you do on the project. When you answer – formally, of course, this is a superior showing interest, for some bizarre reason you don't understand – she nods, and asks you personal questions. What your hobbies are – history and swords, you answer, and manage to prevent yourself from starting to ramble about them. What you did before this project – odd engineering jobs around Homeworld, and training. How old you are, where you're from – "wow, you're really young for a natural gem, you must be one of the last, that's so cool."
You don't ask her questions in return, of course. That would probably be an overstepping of the invisible social boundaries that you've had to learn to pick up on, and those never end well. Still, her presence leaves you feeling happy, somehow, and it's only once she leaves you on the orange beach to spend the last few minutes of your shift alone that you realise why.
For all that Rose insisted the conversation would be all about you, the subject of your defect never came up.
...
After that first conversation you observe Rose. Note how she singles out gems, one at a time, every rest period. You don't eavesdrop, but you notice. Notice how she makes sure to know – and greet – every gem by name (which is difficult, unless you are a jadeite-chemist with their inborn intuition for gem structures). Notice how she slides herself into groups of gems and makes sure to join their conversations.
Sometimes she comes back to talk to you. Asks you about swords, which it turns out is an interest you both share. Once the two of you find sticks (your small sword collection is back on Homeworld) and walk down to the pebbled beach. You practise forms, and spar. She beats you, but it is a close match, and she is unable to restrain her enthusiasm afterwards.
"That was so much fun, we should definitely do it again!"
You look out at the ocean – blue far away, orange close to the shore where the rocks can be seen easily through translucent water – and nod.
She still never mentions the defect, and you are pitifully grateful for that.
...
You end up being the one who brings it (the defect/the flaw/the perpetual elephant in the room) up, in the end. It's after an explosion from the gem matrix preparation area pulls Rose away from you right at the beginning of your rest period. There are lots of injuries; the other rose quartz can't handle it on her own.
When you next see Rose, it is several shifts later, and she looks exhausted. (Later, you will become used to the sight of exhausted Rose, but for now it is something of a novelty). She's sitting with a group of gems, all of whom are speaking over her at once.
Rose is the talk of the camp, it seems.
"I thought I was going to die," a jade is explaining animatedly to a cluster of gems (mostly other jades, in varying shades of green; you can't tell whether nephrite or jadeite or both). "I was like, 'dammit, that idiot onyx messed up the concentrations, I knew I shouldn't have trusted her with the matrix mix'. And then I was like 'wow those are really terrible last thoughts'. But then Rose Quartz – the big one, y'know her? – she just did something to me, and the crack on my gem just vanished! I barely needed any time to regenerate!"
You walk away from that conversation, past many more almost identical ones. You go to your beach, and take in what you've heard, and think. And later, the next time Rose comes to visit, you ask her.
"I want you to heal me."
She looks at you oddly, concerned. "What do you mean? Did you get caught in a minor accident and not report it? Pearl, you know you shouldn't be doing that."
"No, I mean I want you to fix me. Everyone says you're one of the best healers in history, you must be able to."
"Fix you?"
Do you really need to spell it out for her? "Yes. Fix me. Make me not-broken anymore. Heal the defect."
Rose makes a strangled sound in the back of her throat. "I'm sorry, Pearl. I really am. I… I didn't realise you felt that way." She looks away, down at the orange beach. Picks up a pebble half the size of her gem, rolls it in her hands.
You stay silent. You already know the answer, but you want to hear her say it. Proof that even Rose – Rose who you, for some reason, thought might be different – doesn't care. No point wasting resources on the defect.
"I can't heal you, Pearl. I… I can't heal healthy gems."
You stare at her.
She sighs, still looking at the orange rock in her hands, and starts speaking again when she realises you won't. "My powers only work on changes from the way a gem is born. Cracked gems, injured avatars, things like that. I can't do anything about that 'defect' of yours."
She loads the word with such contempt that you cringe away from her. You'd thought/hoped/wished Rose was different, but maybe she just hides it better.
Rose sees the flinch and raises an arm out to reassure you, stopping before she actually makes contact. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that, Pearl. I meant it… I meant it like… there's nothing wrong with you, Pearl."
"Yes there is!" you snap, and you realise you are crying. "You know there is, stop pretending like there isn't!"
"You're different, but you're not wrong."
Possible responses run through your head rapid fire but you can't make the right words come. Instead you turn away from her and pull your knees up to your chin, staring at pebbles but not really seeing them.
Rose puts her hand on your shoulder, makes contact this time. You flinch, involuntarily, and she hurriedly takes it off.
"Pearl…" she starts.
"Go away," you manage, and she goes.
...
You manage to avoid Rose for a very long time. Throw yourself into your work – "working so fast, defect? Better make sure she doesn't put any defects into the machine, heh" – so that you don't have to think. Spend time in your quarters or by the beach designing and programming a command-hologram you can use to spar with. Who needs real-gem sparring partners anyway?
You think, a lot, about what she said. "There's nothing wrong with you." Who does she think she's kidding? Everyone knows there's something wrong with you. They can see it right there on your avatar's forehead, even if they didn't notice all the things you do that normal gems don't.
But… you've never known Rose to lie. (Maybe she has, and you've never noticed; you know you're not great at reading gems). Maybe she genuinely believes there's nothing wrong with you. You're not-broken/not-defect/not-wrong.
Maybe she's stupider than you thought she was.
Anyway, kindergarten is a large operation, but it's still small enough that you don't manage to avoid Rose forever, though the project is much closer to being completed than it had been previously. Your tranquil beach disappears, is replaced by the foundations of a pearl farm just like the ones on Homeworld. The main kindergarten itself is taking shape; the chemists swear they've almost got the matrix mix working properly this time (and the last time, and the last time) and the engineers have nearly finished construction of the delivery machine. Soon, and you'll be reassigned, and the thoughts that Rose has put in your head (the ones that come back over and over and over and over as much as you try to get rid of them) might finally disappear.
It's your fault, really, when you wind up in the medbay. You should have been paying more attention to your work, and then you would have realised that that beam wasn't secured properly. As is, the darn thing lands on you and breaks your avatar's legs. Leaving you – after Tourmaline drops you off and scurries back to work – alone with Rose.
She looks at you and starts crying, waving off your alarm. The tears drip onto your legs and the pain stops almost immediately. The sore shoulder you'd been ignoring for weeks disappears too. You give both an experimental flex. Good as new.
"As you've probably discovered," Rose tells you, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her dress, "my powers don't distinguish. Anything in you I can heal I already have. Would you like a mirror? I can promise you your gem hasn't changed."
You glare at her.
"I'm sorry. That was rude of me. Are you feeling better, at least?"
"Much better." You hesitate, and add. "Thank you for healing me, Rose."
She smiles at you. "It is what they keep me around for, you know."
Yes, but not for defects, you think. Someone else might not have bothered, you think. Someone else would have viewed your injury as the final straw, the one thing to finally spur them into shattering you, you think.
What you say instead is, "Rose, can we start spending time together again?"
"I'll see you when we're next off-shift," she tells you.
...
"Maybe you are right," you tell Rose, grudgingly, many off-shifts later.
The first Kindergarten has proved a resounding success. Now that its operational most of the crew needed to build it are being reassigned, with only a few gems being left behind to make sure it runs smoothly. You and Rose are both officially on holiday until you get reassigned elsewhere.
You'd relished being back in your small apartment on Homeworld – back with your meagre sword collection and second-hand history books – until Rose had showed up on your doorstep and asked you to come visit Zebulon with her. ("Come on, Pearl, you can't spend all of our holiday moping around Homeworld.") You'd protested – would you be able to handle so much time in close proximity to one person? Would she get sick of you eventually? Surely she could find someone else whose company she'd enjoy more? – but she'd waved off your objections, insisted it was your company she wanted and taken you along.
Now you're on a gem-controlled moon, strolling amongst the strange rock formations Zebulon is famous for. As you walk you look up at the sky, see the pale-blue gas giant you're orbiting and countless stars.
"Right about what?" Rose asks.
You fidget, fingers folding over and over each other. "You know. The defect thing."
"Oh, right, the thing where you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that maybe there's nothing wrong with you because heaven forbid Pearl ever be wrong about anything even if it's finding excuses to hate herself," Rose says dryly. "That thing."
Heated replies come to mind, but you bite back on them. You were the one to start this conversation, after all.
"It's not that simple, Rose, you know that."
"Of course I do."
You stop in your tracks, unhook your fingers from each other to grasp Rose by the arms.
"No, but do you really? There are so many things gems like you can do so easily that gems like I can't. You don't know what that's like, and you never will."
"No," Rose says. "No, you're right; I don't know what it's like to be you."
"So why are you trying to tell me that there's nothing wrong with me, then?" you demand. "If you don't know what it's like to be me then what gives you the right?"
"Because I like you, Pearl," she snaps, and you are so taken aback that you release your grip on her arms. "I like you, and I like the way you're so precise about things, and how easily you can use your holograms to show people things, and the way your entire body shows it when you're happy, and how much you know about history. I like you and it kills me that you seem to think the world would be better off if you didn't exist."
There is so much in what she's said that you're having trouble unpacking all of it. Too much information in too short a span of time. So what your mind focuses on is:
"We both know you only like me because your powers force you too."
(It's true; Rose had confided that in you a while ago. "All rose quartzes have healing powers, but in different ways," she'd said. "Mine come from my tears, so for my powers to work I need to bring myself to cry over someone. So I taught myself to care about everyone, y'know, so I could cry if they got injured.")
"That's not true!" Rose says. "I don't invite just everyone to come to Zebulon with me, and you know it."
(You hadn't, but it does seem rather impractical, now that she's mentioned it. Rose knows an awful lot of gems.)
"But you still wouldn't like me if it wasn't for your powers."
"Does it really matter?" she asks, exasperated. "No, like, really, does it matter? I like you now, what does it matter why it happened?"
How do you explain it to her? "Because there's nothing there for someone to like naturally. Can't you see?"
"But that's not how my powers work at all! They don't make me like people, I make me like people. If there was nothing there to find likeable, I wouldn't find it. And I happen to like you quite a lot. Though times like this I wonder why, you can be absolutely infuriating." She smiles at the end. That means she doesn't actually mean it.
You can feel the blush rise to your cheeks. "I still don't understand why either," you mutter.
"The point is, I like you, and I hate how you view yourself as less than a gem. You're not."
"Actually I think you'll find that's exactly what defect means."
"Pearl. Stop being deliberately obtuse."
"Well what else am I supposed to do," you say, tears forming at the edges of your avatar's eyes. "This is who I've been my whole life. The defect. What a pity she got made, we could have spared her material on a proper gem. It was just how things were. And then you waltz into my life, tell me everyone else is wrong and actually I'm not lesser, only different, and expect me to welcome you with open arms."
You realise you are yelling. You can't quite bring yourself to care.
"And you know what the worst part is," you tell her, "the worst part is that I'm starting to think that maybe you're right, and everyone else really is wrong about me."
"Maybe the diamonds don't know everything," she says, and clamps her hands over her mouth when she realises what she's said.
"But if you are right, and I am more than a defect, then who am I?"
Rose smiles at you, and her entire face lights up. "You'll have to answer that for yourself, Pearl."
...
The team that worked on the original Kindergarten is split into smaller groups, each of which is assigned a different planet to replicate the project on. You form the core group of workers; many others are added to bulk up the numbers but they are ultimately subordinate to your experience. It is an odd experience, being in charge of someone, even if in your case it's only three other pearls. You are not sure you like it.
Rose, thankfully, is assigned to the same planet as you. She's the only medic this time round – more kindergarten projects mean the rose quartzes are in even more demand – and worried about it, she confides.
"I can't be everywhere at once," she frets. "What if something happens and I'm off-shift? What if there's another big explosion and there are more injured gems than I can cope with?"
It is odd to be the one reassuring Rose instead of the other way around, but you try your best. In the end you resolve to capture Rose's tears in bottles and hide them in the medbay for an emergency. Only you and Rose know where they are, you realise. She chose you, of all gems, to keep this secret and hear her worries. You're not quite sure what that makes you feel. Worthy/special/equal, for the first time in your life.
...
The second kindergarten is completed faster than the first, and once more the group is split into several smaller ones. You are assigned to one planet, and then another. Each time – miraculously, fatefully - you end up on the same planet as Rose, and feel a sense of quiet relief. It is difficult now to imagine your life without her in it.
Over time you – slowly, with much prompting from Rose – get to know the gems who stay consistent between assignments. Jadeite, responsible for preparing the material that is injected into the planet and forms the basis of the new gems. Her assistant, Sapphire, known for her voice and ability to problem-solve. Carnelian, who introduces you to strategy games (and is the only gem who can consistently beat you at them). A handful of others who you are less fond of – the ones who say things about the defect. Once you wouldn't have paid any special notice, but now, after Rose, after your almost-friends, it seems to sting more.
The fifth kindergarten you are assigned to is on a planet called Earth. This world is strange, filled with odd green growing things – and what appears to be other primitive but civilised life.
("It's fascinating," Jadeite had told a group of you a few weeks after your arrival. "This entire planet, all the life, it's all based on long-chain carbon molecules. Organics. It's so different from the gem-crystal-lattice form of life we're used to. I could spend the entire rest of my life studying this."
"Well that's not what you're here for," Aquamarine-the-overseer had said, overhearing. "Your job is to build a Kindergarten, not to amuse yourself playing mad scientist. Clear?"
Jade had swallowed and saluted. "Crystal.")
The humans (and the other, even more primitive forms of life that also inhabit this planet) are seen to pose a threat, and so a security detail is called in. You're not allowed to leave the camp site or workgrounds without armed companionship and you hate it, hate how your time alone has suddenly become so much more limited. Rose, of course, doesn't mind at all, spends her time befriending the guards tasked to accompany her on her wanderings. You start to feel a little resentment at all the time she spends with gems who aren't you and try to stifle it. Rose is Rose, this is how she always has been. Why is it suddenly starting to bother you now?
Rose, naturally, is fascinated by the humans. She comes back from expeditions outside the Kindergarten complex with stories of their primitive cultures and ways of life. You don't really care – how can this society match up to the millennia of gem history? – but you listen, and watch the way her face lights up as she talks about the humans.
What you do find interesting is the plant life, the inanimate life forms (mostly but not all green) that cover so much of this planet. There's something about the way it grows – imperceptively but surprisingly quickly – and the way it changes with the weather – that fascinates you. So when Rose decides that she wants to try and grow some by the medbay ("It does have a purpose, I swear, the humans use them to heal each other, this isn't just frivolous misuse of resources.") you volunteer to help her, even though it means getting all icky and covered in dirt.
That is how you both discover that rose quartz powers appear to extend to controlling this strange plant life. Rose swears you to secrecy, without quite explaining why. For some reason you don't yet understand you go along with it. It becomes a habit for the two of you to leave the compound during off-shift, ditch your escort (usually a particular labradorite, easily persuaded to let you do your own thing in exchange for some hours of observing the humans on her own) and test the limits of Rose's newfound plant powers.
Meanwhile, the now-familiar structures of the kindergarten are taking shape once more on this new planet. Progress is slower than anticipated. The actual structures are fine, but the seed mixture – needing to be modified for each planet individually - proves elusive.
("It's the planet," Sapphire had explained one off-shift, as Jade buried her head in her arms, glowering at the table. "Its environment is so different to what we're used to working with."
"The Authority's getting impatient," Carnelian had commented. "They don't like how long this is taking. You guys should be careful."
Jade lifted her head up to direct her glare at the brownish-red gem. "You think we don't know that?"
"I'm just saying.")
Progress, when it finally comes, is sudden. The off-shift after the breakthrough is announced Sapphire and Jade come to find you. Both of them look thoroughly miserable.
"Where's Rose?" Sapphire asks you.
You know exactly where she is – the hidden place where you've been exploring Rose's plant powers – but you don't want to tell them. You feel suddenly, strongly possessive of the secret, just yours and Rose's. This isn't something you want to share.
In the end, though, the grim expressions on their faces make you relent. The three of you find Labradorite ("Wait, Rose isn't back yet? How did I manage to leave her out there on her own? No one finds out about this, understand?") and, escort acquired, go into the wilderness in search of Rose.
The news isn't good. They've managed to get the seed mixture to work, finally, but it doesn't react very well with the planet's organic biochemistry.
"We'll make gems," Jade explains, "but we'll kill everything else on this planet."
Rose is silent for a long time. When she finally speaks, it is the grimmest you have heard her.
"There is no other way? You can't get it to work any other way?"
"Given another fifty years, probably. But we don't have that time. The Authority wants this kindergarten now. And you know what happens to gems who argue with them."
"I'll try and talk to Aquamarine," Rose says. "Maybe I can make someone see reason."
Sapphire shakes her head. "It won't work, Rose."
"Well, I'm going to try. We have to do something."
All five of you walk back to the camp in silence soon after. The mood is glum. You don't really care about the humans the way Rose and Sapphire do; don't even really have Jade and Labradorite's academic curiosity. But this planet is beautiful, and, more importantly, it's important to Rose. That, you realise, makes it important to you.
...
"It's no use," Rose tells you a week later. "Just like Sapphire said. They don't care about the uniqueness of this planet at all."
You are in a new part of the wilderness, on top of a grassy hill. It offers views of the planet on all directions. Rose stands with her back to you, staring out at the view. You wonder if she is actually seeing any of it.
"I even threatened to resign as medic," she continues. "Even that didn't sway them. They told me I wasn't as special as I thought I was, that now they have the kindergartens I can be replaced."
"So what are you going to do?" you ask her.
She sighs. "I'm not sure. I just can't let them kill this planet, Pearl. You have to understand. The humans… the life here… they deserve better than this."
Cautiously you place a hand on her arm and squeeze it, attempting reassurance. She turns to smile at you, weakly.
"If…" you try, stop, and try again. "If… if you try to fight, there will be those of us who side with you. Not just me. You won't be alone in this."
This time her smile is genuine, and she turns to wrap you in a tight embrace. "I know, Pearl. And… thank you."
...
Three off-shifts later finds you and Rose back on the same hilltop as before.
"I've decided," Rose tells you, watching the landscape below.
"You know I'm with you," you say.
"Pearl," she says, turning around. Her voice is serious. "I'm going to stay and fight for this planet. You don't have to do this with me."
"But I want to," you tell her. It's as simple as that.
"I know you do. But please, please understand. If we lose, we'll be killed. And if we win, we can never go home."
It is still so, so simple. On the one hand you have Homeworld, the place where you've never really felt like you belonged, the place that only views you as broken/wrong/defective. And on the other hand you have Rose. It isn't even a choice for you, not really.
"Why would I ever want to go home if you're here?" you ask her, and watch her face part in pleased surprise.
Soon, you know, you'll be fighting a war. Rose intends to lead a gem rebellion against the Diamond Authority itself. You will most likely be crushed and killed, and the few who would mourn your passing will be killed alongside you. Soon you will return to the compound and start recruiting others, start planning this rebellion – glorious, terrifying, impossible – in earnest.
But for now – in this brief moment before everything changes - you have this. You have Rose, holding you, beside you. For now – for now it's enough.
So I hadn't written fanfic for a very long time, but then Steven Universe happened and gay alien rocks kinda took over my life… I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it :D (This is also posted by me on AO3, btw.)