Pearl started the day as she always did. First, morning stretches on the beach as the sun rose. Second, she did a thorough check on the house, looking for any signs of wear or tear.
Of course, it wasn't the same house Greg had built 1,500 years ago. The materials had been replaced only as needed, all at Steven's insistence. This, at first, had confused her tremendously. It would have been so much easier to start anew, then to slowly, painfully, meticulously replace each part of the as it gave out over time.
Late one night, as Pearl helped him replace the deck for the fifth time in four hundred years, he'd admitted something to her.
"So many things have disappeared Pearl. Connie, Dad, Sadie. Beach City isn't even called Beach City anymore! I made so many memories with everyone in this house. It's like, maybe if I can keep house standing, a part of them is still alive too."
After that night, she never again questioned the work and effort he put into the upkeep of his childhood home. When Steven grew too old, too weak to do much of anything, Pearl took it upon herself to watch over the house.
The day he died, she still didn't quite understand what he meant. A part of her was furious at herself for not trying harder.
As they waited for Rose to reform, as Garnet said she eventually would, Pearl busied herself with keeping the house standing. She did her research, looking at what materials existed that would best wear the test of time. The deck got a good cleaning and sealing every summer. The house was dusted daily, the floor swept and waxed. Every spring the windows were opened and the stale air let out. Pearl personally didn't think it did much of anything, but Steven had always insisted that it brought good energy to the house. Who was she to doubt him?
Steven's room, however, remained just as it had been when he passed. The only thing Pearl ever dared disturb was the dust.
This was her routine, as days became weeks and weeks became months, she kept the house standing. There were days where she found a deep, soulful contentment in the work. There were days where the work felt like a blade through her heart.
It was like losing Rose all over again. She wanted to forget Steven. She wanted to remember Steven. Regardless of what she did or where she went, everything was just a distraction from the pain and it never lasted long.
It hurt and didn't hurt to be in that house. It was bittersweet. It was welcoming. It was both right and wrong.
When Rose finally reformed, Pearl so hoped that they would find the same comforts in one another that they had so many years before. But the moment she saw the tears in Rose's eyes, heard her agonized cries, she knew Rose had been changed.
She wasn't just the Gem who had loved and protected the Earth. Not anymore. She was a Gem who had felt the sting of mortality. Who had taken organic and inorganic life and fused them, creating something entirely new. Who had somehow learned who her son was without ever speaking to him.
She was a grieving mother who had never met her child.
So, Pearl did what she always had done best: her own pain became secondary to Rose's. She spent day and night with her, comforting her, telling her ever kind and good word she had ever thought or heard about Steven.
It did nothing to help quell Rose's agony and that fact reopened a wound in Pearl she had thought long healed. This wasn't the Rose she had fallen in love with. This was someone new and this someone was grieving so deeply that Pearl feared she may never be able to stop.
Years and years pass with Rose's grief permeating the very air surrounding her. Pearl did what she could to comfort her, to let her know she was there to help. But Rose never spoke, never told them what it was she needed.
So, her own heart aching in the grief of losing Steven and the Rose she had once known, Pearl went back to doing what Steven had unknowingly tasked her with.
She kept the house standing.
When Rose is suddenly gone one morning, a deep, primal part of herself begins to panic, to cry out to whatever might hear her thoughts.
Not again. Please. Please not again.
She only calms when Garnet tells her that she hasn't left forever. She's simply gone to find Lars.
So, once more, she finds herself waiting for a return. Days pass. Then weeks. Then months. Then years. In all that time, she kept the house standing.
When Rose finally returned, with that bubbling, beautiful laughter Pearl had fallen in love with floating through the air, she finally understood why Steven had wanted this place to stay standing.
It's walls, now a patchwork of varied materials, were a tapestry of stories and changes.
The iron wrought deck furniture was the same they had gotten for Steven's hundredth birthday party, well cared for and loved. Countless cook outs and cakes and parties had been held around it.
Steven's room, his personal affects, his favorite knickknacks, all brought a gentle joy to her mind when she looked at them. Even grown, he had always insisted that he was never too old for a toy.
Even though he was gone and he could never come back, this had been his house. In a way, because it was still there, because it was still standing, so was he. It was that realization that finally let Pearl feel her grief fully, to finally let herself begin to heal after all this time.
She was glad she had kept the house standing. It told a story, more so then words ever could. Lars would have a place to come home to. Rose would have a place to come home to.
They all would have a place to come home to.
Pearl had kept Steven's house standing and, in turn, it had kept her standing too.