Greg grimaced.
"Do we really need all of this?"
"Well, maybe. You never know, right?"
"I don't think we need one of those."
"You'll regret it if you don't."
"What even IS it?"
Rose grabbed the catalog and squinted. She turned it upside down. She tossed it with the rest of them into the ever-growing pile on the pavement. The Gem stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry, resting her hands on her swollen belly.
"I don't knooooow," she whined, lying back on the floor of the van with her legs hanging out over the parking lot of the car wash.
It was slow enough that Greg had been given some time off, and so the two of them had some much needed alone time. They were never really alone, though, and as he leaned with Rose, he couldn't help but stare at her pregnant fullness, the child inside of her, and the reality of fatherhood that still seemed – well, alien.
June was passing them by. Only the traveling tourists passed by their road, driving minivans and pickups with rust on their hubcaps. Heat shimmered from the ocean and coated the town. The thick layers of blue sky were as laden with color as the clear nights were laden with stars. Perhaps, Greg thought, tonight was a night for stargazing. They hadn't done it in a while. He had been working hard, and Rose was equally distracted.
He turned his head.
"How are you feeling?"
Greg could tell that she was uncomfortable, all the time. Her forehead was beaded with sweat. Her clean white dress was more rumpled in places, like an overgrown garden. She was trying to smile, but even that was too much effort until she opened her eyes and looked at him. Then, she beamed.
"I feel fantastic."
"You know that's not true," he said, reaching over to rub over her stomach. "And you know that I really want to make this easier on you, but I don't know how. I haven't exactly done this before! Ever!"
"Neither have I. But I'm still feeling good about this, about everything."
Rose took a deep breath and sighed, stretching out in the shade of the van.
"I'm bringing life to planet Earth. Human life! Isn't that such a wonderful thing? No Gem has ever done this. And this child, they're going to be a human, born right here, and…" She paused. "Well. Maybe not human. Not entirely."
"Yeah, I was wondering – about the Gem thing?"
Greg sat up and crossed his legs, hunched over his wife.
"Humans need two parents to be, y'know…made. You know, like – "
"Greg."
He tried to wipe the blush off his face. "My point is that whoever this kid is, they're gonna be half you and half me, and does that mean they're gonna be half-Gem-powered? What will that even be like?"
Rose reached out and rested a hand on his leg.
"It'll be something brand new."
"You hear that, kiddo?" Greg grinned and leaned down, pressing his lips against Rose's belly. "You're going to be an awesome alien monster!"
Rose laughed with her whole body, then grunted in pain as her body resisted in equal measure. Her husband looked on in concern, but his presence was all that she needed. That and some breathing, to settle herself – and she was able to sit up, ducking her head to make sure she didn't hit her head on the van's roof. Greg slid out as she stood, her hair shimmering in the afternoon sun, curls of perfect pinkness down past her waist. He brushed his own mane past his shoulders, picking stray strands from his black t-shirt. Ocean gusts ruffled the pages of the catalogs on the ground, and he scooped them up, tossing them into the bed of the van.
"But seriously, Rose, I don't know how much of this I can actually afford," he sighed. "A crib, bottles, baby food, diapers, clothing, a carseat, a highchair, a stroller…"
Greg brought out his guitar, pulling it towards him and played the first few notes of the first classic rock song that came over the muted radio. He barely recognized it, but hummed along regardless as Rose watched.
"And names, too! For a girl, definitely Rose." He winked. "Boys, uh, we could go with Greg, but that's pretty bland, so probably something better."
"Steven."
"Steven?"
She winked. "I already asked Garnet."
"I like Garnet but I really wish that y'all wouldn't use your mind powers to spy on our kid in the future," he muttered. "And did she even say why?"
"I like it." Rose rubbed her thumb over her gemstone. "It sounds good on the tongue, like it's sweet. Not like how a rose is sweet, but human sweetness, like a strawberry, earthly sugar! Sugar on strawberries, Steven on Earth."
Greg plinked out a confused chord.
"Kinda reaching there, but I guess I like it."
Plunk.
"Steven Universe! It's a rockstar name. Like Tyler, or Perry!" he said, waving the instrument and making whooshing noises with his mouth. Rose smirked.
After Greg got his sandals and Rose got the black camera, they shot the back of the van and began to walk. Over the town, the sight of the temple loomed, its massive arms stretching towards the sky, hunks of marble shaped by might and magic. The two of them walked slowly, hand in hand. The wooden guitar rocked against Greg's shoulder. Rose cradled the camera and the stand against her side.
Greg squeezed her hand as they crossed the road. The only moving car appeared to be the mayor's van, half a mile down the road, making its rounds across town.
"No, but really, are you okay?" he asked.
"Greg, I know this is hard for you. You know I don't want it to be like this."
"It's what you want. What else is there?"
"I wish I could be here for him. I wish he could live with both of us, have both of us there. You know how much I'd love to hold him and hug him, to kiss and to bathe and to feed and to be just like a human parent. But I can't be," Rose said, "for so many reasons."
Greg would have liked to think he knew all the reasons. On second thought, though, he knew that there were things he could never know. And that was okay.
"They're going to think they've lost me," she continued. "In a way, I suppose that's true. But you know that our child, he's going to be part of us. Part of me. I'm not going. Not really. As long as he's here, I'm here. I just wish I could tell him that."
They stepped onto the beach. Rose took out the camera, and Greg watched as she walked towards the water, flipping out the little viewpoint as she approached the tide. Sometimes, at the back of the Big Donut when the town was asleep, he watched her listen to the ocean, giggling at the animals and sounds she had captured in her little world. It was strange, and beautiful, and once again alien to him. But that was Rose, and that was one of the reasons that he loved her so much. There it was, the moment of joy that came when she laughed, when her smile lit up the world more than any terrestrial sun. It was the purest form of humanity, even though she could never understand it. There it was, what he knew he was going to love from his son: the joy of discovery, of revelation, of everything the world had to offer.
As he rested his guitar down on the mat underneath their own private umbrella, he paused. Greg gasped, running towards Rose.
"You can!"
She turned as he skidded to a halt in front of her in the beach. "Can what?"
"You can tell him," he panted. "You can tell him everything!"
He pointed to the camera in her hands. She glanced, confused, but then came the moment he loved, where he swore he could see stars in her eyes.
"For Steven," she whispered.
She pressed he red button and the cassette whirred to a halt.
Autumn was wet this year. Pearl shook off a wet leaf from her foot as she crossed the sidewalk to the car wash. The silver morning brought the question of snow, but the frosts had not yet come to Beach City. Puddles slicked with oil and murky with silt stretched from the sidewalk all the way to the hills along the road.
If it was not for the coldness that bit down on the town, Pearl would not have bothered to wear the sweater that hung loosely around her torso. She felt like someone was staring at her, even though the streets were empty. It felt drained. It felt like a corpse.
She hadn't seen Greg since the funeral. None of the Gems had. She came around to the back of car wash to the van. Pearl wrinkled her nose at the smell that came from the garbage bags that slumped in a line against the wall next to the van, untied and rotting. They were filled with pizza boxes, torn paper, parts to the car wash, and bottles. There were many, many bottles.
"Greg?"
Pearl knocked on the back doors of Greg's home. She could hear music playing on the inside, some modern song, something she didn't recognize. One more knock – still no answer.
Her fingers gripped the freezing metal of the door, and she twisted it open. The smell struck her first, followed by the voice over the radio:
Now you have me on the run, the damage is already done, come on, is this what you want, 'cause you're driving me away...
"Why are you here?"
She didn't like the tone of his voice, or the slurred inflections that came with it. Greg looked awful. His hair was unbrushed and matted against his t-shirt. All he had on was the white shirt and his undershorts; both articles were stained with red pizza sauce and brown alcohol. He stared at the window of the van, eyes half-closed, a throne of brown bottles stacked in front of him. Pillows and blankets were stuffed into the corner. Only the photographs remained pristine, untouched on the little shelf he had made for them.
"Greg," Pearl said.
He turned his head to face her, red eyes glaring at her pale blue. He looked sick, Pearl knew, like he had been awake since Steven –
She cleared her throat. "Greg, we're going through the house. We have…his belongings, games, toys, memorabilia, that sort of thing. Would you like – well, would you like me to drive the van over so we can take them to your garage?"
"Things…"
"Sorry?"
Greg began to crawl towards her, dragging his guitar over his shoulder. Glass clinked against wood as Pearl stepped back, trying to avoid the puddles around them.
"All I have left are things," he growled. "Got the t-shirts, got the pants, got all that, but there ain't nothing left but that and mem'ries."
"Memories are good, Greg, they – "
He slid out onto the pavement, his legs visibly shaking. The cold wind pressed his stained clothes against his body. A bottle fell out onto the ground and shattered, crystalline chunks around his bare feet. The man didn't seem to notice at all.
"They didn't ev'n find a body, Pearl. No blood, no Gem, nothing. You…can have all the memories you want, but you'll never know. You couldn't have a child if…if your life depended on it."
Greg reached back into the van and pulled out another bottle, hitting it against the van's bed with a slam to pop the cap off; it made Pearl jump. That was part of the smell as he drank, draining it in a matter of seconds, letting this bottle also fall to the pavement. Pearl didn't move an inch.
"Rose…we had Rose, part of her, through Steven. I was fine. I was…humans, Pearl, they can die and we can accept it. She knew it. We were so…ready for him. And then you all wanted to teach him. You wanted to…you wanted Rose back."
Pearl stiffened. "That is NOT true, and you know it."
Greg laughed, but it was not a healthy laugh. It was not a happy laugh. It ended with him seething through his teeth, crying through his dry eyes, callused fingers gripping the neck of his guitar until the instrument and his muscles were shaking.
"You took my child from me," he whispered. "He was happy with me. He could have seen everything that this world had through me, and he could have chosen. But you made him into HER. You gave him – a destiny? You call THAT a destiny? My child is dead, Pearl, and it's all your fault! 's all, you all, you did…you did this to him…"
The man paused to cover his mouth, retching for a moment before containing himself, deep breaths to keep his stomach neutral and the alcohol inside.
"A parent should never have to bury his child," Pearl said quietly.
Chilled wind swept up discarded coupons from the parking lot. The radio turned to soft static. A muted howl caressed the empty streets. Pearl lifted a hand to her eyes and brushed away a single tear.
Greg had his face in his hands. The sobs behind them were horrid, wet and grotesque and only somewhat stifled by his fingers. He removed them only to take the guitar off his body, raising it above his head and throwing it with a grunt against the building. Unspeakable notes cried out, the wood underneath the strings cracking as the instrument fell to the pavement.
"I can't live like this," he spat, the cliché sour on his tongue. "I can't go anywhere without people seeing him. They treat me…they act like I can bring him back. Everyone looks at me like they looked at him. Who was I before Steven? Before Rose? I was nothing, Pearl! And I'm nothing now. He… Steven was everything. I did it all for her, for him, and he d-… He k-…"
More retching interrupted him. This was no use. She didn't even bother to stop her tears now, letting them fall down her face and onto the wool of her sweater. Greg took steps to help his balance, and Pearl winced as the skin of his feet was sliced by the fallen glass. He didn't appear to notice.
Suddenly, he lurched forward, and collapsed onto his knees, his knuckles white as he gripped Pearl's sweater. When he looked up, the desperation in his face made Pearl feel sick herself. There were some broken things that could never be fixed, and the more that Greg said, the more she watched his bottomless mourning, the more she saw the torment that still held him, the image of the child in his heart.
"Another…"
He sniffled, and the smile that appeared was as fragile as the bottles that he had dropped.
"Another son," he whispered. "Pearl, we can have another child. We can save… W-we can make another warrior, another boy, please… Please, Pearl, we can make this right – "
Pearl recoiled, inhaling sharply. Her expression must have said more than she ever could, because Greg immediately fell back, one hand in the puddle, fingernails digging into the mud. The wind blew around his flimsy clothing as he crawled, scraping his skin as he reached out to the Gem.
"Pearl! P-please, Pearl…"
The Gem had already turned away, but she looked back, and a chill ran through her body. In all the world, she had never seen any human this torn asunder. In all her life, she never thought she might be able to understand. But even now, she knew that these words would be her last to this man.
"I am glad he never lived to see you like this."
Pearl walked away. Greg dug his knuckles into the pavement, spittle and tears falling onto the asphalt. There was a trail of blood that led from the glass shards to his feet, their bare soles turned upwards to the sky. He struggled to stay upright for a moment, and then the earth pulled him towards it into the murky puddle. He laid there, his hair trailing in the motor oil, his hands gripping his body as he sobbed. The name, his name – Greg repeated it incessantly, curling up in the parking lot. He was alone.