Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe!

Title: The Little Things Matter

Summary: The gems get over Rose in their own time, and in their own ways. The same can be said with warming up to Steven.

Warnings: You know how I said that Garnet was the toughest for me to write? Yeah, no. Pearl was practically impossible.

Chapter Title: Pearl

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KND Operative Numbuh 227- I know, right? Steven and anything having to do with square mom is adorable in my book. =)

Phoebe Sophia- I try, but this is my first Steven Universe multi-chapter. I'm prone to errors. =)

wildface97- Thanks! I figured they're be a bunch of these, honestly. I've seen a couple of different fanart mini-comics for it. And, yeah, she's not the most accepting of him at first, but who can blame her?

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If there is one thing Pearl is grateful for, in terms of it, it's that it's given her that many more chores to do around the temple.

Pearl liked the chores. The baby?... Well, it deserved some respect, she supposed. It was Rose's offspring, after all. But that didn't mean she had to like him.

Honestly, she thought with a grimace, waiting for the tell-tale noise that signaled the washer was done. What were those two thinking? Sure, the child may have Rose's beautiful gem, but that didn't make it one of them. It just made it better than the average human; not that that was a spectacularly hard accomplishment to achieve.

She didn't even twitch when the warp pad was activated, but she did look when Amethyst appeared with Steven in her arms.

"Hey." She paused, rocking on her heels. She looked somewhat sheepish. "Look. We've got squat here to eat, and he's stayin' over the weekend. Garnet's... somewhere, doin' Garnet stuff, so take care of him for me?"

She rushed over and set him in the empty hamper. "Just make sure he doesn't fall off, okay? 'Kay, thanks, bye." She said in a rush.

"What? No! Amethys-"

The purple gem leapt onto the pad and disappeared without another word.

"Ugh." Pearl growled in irritation, then, remembering the baby staring at her from the hamper, she picked him up and set him on the ground. "This is low, even for Amethyst."

The washer beeped. Pearl opened the door and pulled out a small pair of star-riddled pajama bottoms and a pajama shirt with a large star on the front.

Steven, having gotten to his feet, giggled and pointed at the load of laundry, tugging on her pant leg excitedly. "Gem!" He squealed.

Pearl frowned and examined the star emblazoned on the front of the shirt. "No, a star. Star." She dragged the word out. "You should know this; you're the one who wears these silly things."

He watched her mess with the laundry for a little while, then started toddling around. Pearl grabbed him mere-seconds before he fell off the stone hand and plummeted to the ground far below, setting him on top of the still washer. "There. Honestly, Amethyst wasn't even this much trouble when she was small."

To be honest, however, Pearl and Amethyst had gotten along a lot better when she was small, and, as such, was less prone to getting into trouble.

It's amazing to think so much has changed in such a short amount of time.

Speaking of change, Steven wasn't really a baby anymore, was he? Pearl blinked at him owlishly. He was a toddler now.

That was fast.


Pearl finished drying the clothes, then folded them. As Amethyst had yet to return, and she wasn't going to go back into the house and give the toddler even more things to mess with, she re-did the last load of laundry and grabbed some towels from the day before to wash.

The morning passed into afternoon and then into early evening. Pearl was starting to get worried, if only for the innocent humans standing in Amethysts way getting food, when finally the warp pad was activated.

Pearl, whom was more than at her wits end at this point, didn't waste time with pleasantries. "What were you thin- oh. Hello, Garnet."

The leader of their ragtag group of rebels tilted her head towards her in greeting. "You been here all day?"

Pearl wrung her fingers together with a nod. "More or less. Have you seen Amethyst?"

Garnet nodded, then shook her head. "I'll take over. She needs her rest."

"We don't sleep." She reminded her tersely.

"There was a situation at the store. Took us most of the day." She paused. "Sleeping is her way of fixing her wounds a bit without poofing. Let her rest."

"Something happened? And no one came and got me?" A burst of indignation bubbled up inside her. She'd survived innumerable battles and losing the gem she was willing to die for, and Garnet didn't think she was capable of handling a 'situation'? Did Garnet honestly think so little of her? Was she really so unreliable?

"Someone needed to babysit Steven. You were already here." The fusion walked over and stoically looked over the ever cheerful toddler on the washer. "I hope it wasn't too much of a bother."

"Of course it was. Amethyst practically threw him at me before disappearing without even asking if I'd agree to it!"

"That sounds like her." She chuckled, bending over slightly to pick the boy up. "I'll be right back."

She confidently walked onto the warp pad, Steven in her arms, and warped away without another word.

Pearl hovered over the hamper set on top of the dryer, filled halfway with perfectly folded clothes, and was hyper aware, more so than before, that the hamper was getting more and more full with every visit of the tiny half-gem.

Pearl liked routines. She liked it when things were orderly and simple. But now even her more basic routines are routinely changing, and how was she supposed to deal with that?

More and more toys littered the floor after every visit. No one ever bothered to return them. The same went for his clothes. They'd added on his very own room, complete with a new bed and everything.

The last time they'd created a bedroom of any sort was when they'd first adopted Amethyst.

Garnet reappeared a few minutes later. "I put Steven to bed. He'll no longer be a problem."

"Thank you."

The fusion stepped off the pad and leaned against one of the stone fingers, patiently waiting for her to speak.

Pearl took a deep breath in through her nose, then let it out as a sigh. "Garnet, what's really going on? With the baby, I mean?" She refused to call the toddler by its first name. It felt... too personal.

Garnet paused a moment- deciding how to put what she was thinking into words, no doubt- then shrugged. "We're talkin' about letting him live here."

Pearl choked on air. "Live here?"

"Not right now." She assured her. "In a couple of years. He's not old enough yet."

'A couple of years'? Who was Garnet trying to kid? That was the blink of an eye to them; mere seconds. Pearl was certain she could snap her fingers and those 'couple of years' would be gone.

"I know what you're thinking, Pearl. I understand. This is a big decision. I can only imagine how Greg must be feeling; letting go of his last connection to Rose."

Greg's feelings towards surrendering his son to live with a trio of strangely-colored magical extraterrestrials didn't particularly interest Pearl; it was the whole 'surrendering' part that had her full attention. "B-But, Garnet! He's a human!"

"He's a gem too. And, like it or not, he's going to have magical powers just like any other gem. We won't know how strong or how weak they may be until they begin to mature. We need to start teaching him while he's young, Pearl. For his safety, and the safety of the humans around him."

"We don't even know how to take care of a human offspring!"

"We'll leave the parenting to Greg." She shot her a look. "Who will be allowed to see Steven when he isn't with us. It's only right."

"W-What about food? And all those... other human things?"

Another shrug. "Again, Greg. We'll have to start stocking up for two now, but that's not a big deal. Humans don't eat as much as Amethyst does anyway."

"I mean, I-I just..." She sputtered, trailing off. She slumped over the dryer, feeling every eon of her age. "I don't know if I'm ready for something like this." She stated, voice flat.

A strong hand set itself on her shoulder. "I know, Pearl. None of us really are." Garnet's face softened, if only a tad. Pearl vaguely wondered how Ruby and Sapphire were reacting to all of this change. (At least they had each other, but who did she have?) "But he needs us. He needs our guidance and he needs our wisdom- what little we have. He deserves to know exactly where he comes from and what he can do. Who are we to deny him that?"

Pearl didn't answer. She couldn't find the words to.

"I'm not asking you to like it. I'm not asking you to like him. But someday, for one reason or another, he's going to need your help. And you'll have to decide if you will or not."

Garnet left her alone to her thoughts. Pearl hardly even noticed her go, save for the cold breeze on her once-warm shoulder.


"Star!" Steven yelled, pointing a chubby finger at the expanse of darkness above them.

Pearl sighed. "Yes, Steven. Those are stars. I'm glad to see you've started to figure it out."

She doesn't know how she got to this point, honestly. One second she was silently staring at the stars, trying to wrap her mind around all the change she'd been forced through in what amounted to mere minutes in their lifespans, when suddenly she had a toddler in her lap. She wondered if this was Amethyst's doing, or if he'd just wandered his way onto the porch on his own. Part of her recoiled at the unfamiliar look about him, all soft and squishy, but he's still Rose's son, and it's not that bad, all things considered, so she doesn't make him move. Besides, he probably couldn't survive a tumble off the porch should he fall off by accident.

Humans were truly such fragile creatures.

"Rose used to love the stars, you know." She told the small child. "She loved them the most when she was looking up at them from the Earth. Any planet, really. She always used to say they reminded her of how small she really was." Pearl chuckled despite not finding anything funny. "I never understood how she could say such things about herself. I think... sometimes, I wonder if she thought all those things we said about her were us humoring her; making sure she didn't lose her confidence. And that couldn't be any farther from the truth."

Steven stared at her a long moment with his eyes in the shapes of stars. It took Pearl's breath away, because, yeah, Greg could do that too, but he looks so much like his mother, but so much not like her. He reaches up- her head is bent- and taps the gem in the center of her forehead triumphantly with the palm of his hand. "Gem!"

Well, at least he was starting to get his terms right. Pearl blinked at him, the moment somewhat broken. She slowly reached down and poked his pajama shirt directly above the gem in his stomach with a nod. "Gem." She agreed. Steven giggled.

She shook her head. "I just don't know what Garnet is thinking. You should be allowed to live a simple human life with your simple human friends. Our history is riddled with things no child- nor any human- should ever have to know."

The toddler was silent for the first time since Pearl had been stuck with him that day those few weeks ago, watching her with curious eyes. Pearl sighed "But, if you're anything like your mother was, that'll be the last thing you'll want."

Steven yawned and fell back against her sleepily. Pearl hesitantly picked him up, suddenly very aware of her strength and his easily hurt body, and walked into the temple. "It's past your bedtime."

She wondered if it was wrong of her, liking Rose's offspring, if only a little. It felt almost like cheating, even if her feelings were entirely different from that of his mother. She'd sworn her very existence to his mother, and now she wanted to do the same for him; protect and nurture him, be the gem to inspire him. Pearl wasn't quite sure how to describe how she was feeling.


Pearl wrinkled her nose at the obscene amounts of human food-goop covering Steven's chin and shirt and stifled a gag. "That is disgusting."

Amethyst, on her part, just shrugs. "Hey, he's gotta eat. 'S not my fault he's really messy about it."

"He's following your example."

"He can barely talk. He ain't 'following' anybody."

"Regardless, I refuse for him to learn that it's okay for him to eat like a pig. It's bad enough I have to smell it, I refuse to have to see it twenty four-seven."

Huffing, Pearl picked the small half-human up and headed towards the bathroom with an air of determination. "He's getting a bath. Now."

Garnet nodded her approval once she left the room. "Well, it's a start, at least."

"Yeah, I guess."

She glanced at the purple gem currently draped across the couch nonchalantly. "And what about you? Are you alright with all of this?"

"Hmm? Whattaya mean?"

"You were Steven's first and main caretaker. Now you barely even get to hold him."

Well, yeah, but Amethyst isn't exactly in the running for mother of the year. It was a good thing that somebody else was willing to step in and take charge when she wasn't capable or was too lazy to. And, sure, having both Garnet and Pearl be approving of him meant they'd have one less thing they could relate to each other when he got older, but it'd also give him one less hang up, which was for the best.

Besides, he wasn't something she could own and posses. He was a living creature; not the junk in her room.

"Meh." She shrugged and looked away, bangs covering her eye. "I would've gotten bored of taking care of him eventually anyway. It's probably for the best."

Author's Note: First multi-chapter Steven Universe fanfic done! I feel so accomplished. =)

Also, it might be wise to state that these chapters are spaced out time-line wised; they aren't one after the other. Amethyst is only a few weeks/a month or two after Steven is born (well, however long it takes for a baby to develop enough to grab things and yank on them. I'm not sure how long that takes). Garnet is a year or two after that, and Pearl is two or three years after he was born, at least.

There was so much I was trying to convey in this chapter; grief, indecision, confusion, etc. I hope I managed to at least allude to some of those things.

Random Fun Fact: Amethyst is my favorite character, and it kinda shows in how I managed to work her into every chapter. I just really like the complexities to her. (They're all complex, of course, but Amethyst is my favorite to write/think about).

No flames! Don't like don't read! Review!