Berry was a day old - a day, five hours, two minutes and eight seconds - when she met her.
The moment she first laid eyes on Pink Diamond was the first time she truly felt something, something besides the annoyance, the irritation, the anger - the fire - she had felt from the moment she'd been created. The other Rubies beside her kept their heads up and gazes low, but Berry couldn't bring herself to look away when her gaze finally found her Diamond. She was exquisite, beautiful, amazing. Not as tall as the others, who towered just behind her, but Berry could quite easily block the three of them out in favor of flicking her gaze down and back up the smaller Diamond, taking in every inch of her before steadily letting her gaze trail toward the Pearl at her side. She was beautiful, too, Berry noticed - this time with a faint humming just beneath her gem, a burning sensation throbbing through her left hand - but she ignored that.
Her eyes went back to Pink Diamond, and she had to bite back a gasp when she saw the pink gem was looking at her. She almost averted her gaze, almost looked away - but then she froze.
Froze, because her Diamond was smiling - all warmth, no hostility, no disgust, no contempt. Berry held her gaze for a moment, holding her salute steady, and thought for one, numb second that there was nothing she wouldn't do to keep that smile on her face, that sparkle in her eyes.
Her Diamond lifted a hand and waved.
Every instinct screamed at Berry to look away, remain in position and do as told.
Instead, with a pause to make sure nobody was watching, she broke the salute and waved.
Too old. Berry was too old when she met him.
Old, and tired, and frustrated. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be in the palace, in this room, she didn't want to be near Rose Quartz. Anyone who knew the Ruby would assume she'd be the first to step up to give the gem what she deserved, for what she had done to Pink. Sometimes, Berry wished she had it in her to want to. She wished she wanted that kind of revenge on Rose Quartz. She wished she could feel anything except this passive, quiet understanding - she wished she hadn't caught her gaze all those years ago on the battlefield, wished she hadn't seen the warm smile that flashed across her face, wished she didn't have the knowledge that despite everything, the Crystal Gems really were on the right side of things.
She wished she could feel like the other gems on Homeworld did about the situation. Her Diamond deserved that much. She wished she didn't understand, even if it was just a flicker…
She was too old. Too old, too tired, and she'd seen too much now - knew too much now - to even consider raising her weapon against the leader of the Crystal Gems. There was something, some desire to talk to her, to ask her, to find out why, but she didn't really want to.
Or maybe she did. Maybe she did want to.
But she didn't need to.
She was so young when she met her Diamond. So old when she met Steven Universe.
She didn't know what to make of him. She'd seen humans from the zoo before, but admittedly none this small, and they'd never been allowed as far as Homeworld. She had no idea why one of them was curled up, shaking, in one of the many rooms the Diamonds held their prisoners in - or why he was wearing limb enhancers, why he was wearing a blue Quartz soldier uniform. She didn't know, but this wasn't the room she was supposed to be in, so she hadn't really cared.
The Ruby could see the terror spasm across his face the moment she stepped into the room, the blind panic and fear that flashed through his eyes as his head rose. His fear stole her own breath away for a moment, her racing thoughts screeching to a halt all at once - stars, she wasn't even supposed to be in here, why was this thing looking at her like she was a Diamond?
She was prepared to dismiss herself, to leave.
He stopped her - Homeworld knows why - and called her back.
And he showed her the gem on his stomach, embedded into the flesh. A Rose Quartz. Berry had stared at it for a few seconds, disbelief spreading through every facet in her own gem.
She thought back to the battle on Earth, so long ago now, as discomfort seized her form. She remembered Rose Quartz's face, her eyes, her smile, her gem. This was, unmistakably, the same gemstone she had seen all those years ago - but this couldn't possibly be Rose Quartz.
The Rose Quartz.
And he wasn't, as he explained. He wasn't her. He had her gem, her gem, but he wasn't her. Berry could… somewhat understand. It was the same concept as fusion, just a little bit different. Cross-gem ones, at least, like the ones she was sent in to punish on occasion (and never did). Steven wasn't quite a fusion, but he was a mix of two different things - a gem and a human. A hybrid abomination if she ever saw one, and yet, somehow, the most interesting one so far.
He changed everything.
Berry watched his constant struggle. The fear he held toward this place, this place he claimed to want to save, and hated how much that look in his eyes reminded her of her Diamond.
Pink had wanted to save it, too. And she couldn't.
She watched him change, after their escape attempt.
"I'm tired," he'd told her once, desperation written across his face, exhaustion lacing his words.
("I'm tired," Pink had murmured, her eyes fixed ahead to where Spinel was spinning cartwheels around the garden. Berry remembered wanting to hug her - feeling desperate to hug her, to pull her into her arms and tell her that it was okay to be tired, that she was there for her, that everything would be okay. She didn't know what stopped her, but something did. Words wouldn't come, actions wouldn't come - the most she could do was stare, sympathetic, understanding, until her Diamond had shaken her head and forced a smile. "You wanna play?")
Berry hated it. How much he reminded her of Pink.
And she loved it.
And she loved him.
And she thought, maybe, maybe she wouldn't make the same mistakes with him. She hadn't known what to do about Pink Diamond. She wished, back then, she had the strength, the courage to drag her onto a ship and take her as far away from Homeworld as she could have.
She couldn't do that for her. But she could do that for him. She wanted more for him…
… more than what Pink and Rose and all of them had.
And she was going to make sure he got it.
She was too old, when she learned that everything she knew was so, utterly wrong. Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond were the same. Her Diamond was the leader of the Crystal Gems.
And Steven was her son.
Steven had her gem, thus condemning him to this - to the hell and the torture and the torment the Diamonds - Blue Diamond - that all of Homeworld had put him through. Could it have been avoided if they'd known? Would it have been worse? Better? Berry didn't know. She didn't know. And furthermore, she didn't know what to think. She didn't know what to make of any of this.
Steven was her Diamond's son.
(Steven was Steven, he should have never been dragged into this-)
Oh, Pink… Berry ached. Every part of her just ached, and hurt. Oh, Pink, what did you do?
How could I not have known?
How could she not have told me?
How much would be different, if Berry had known? If she could have figured it out? How much pain and grief could Steven have been spared from? How much more would he have endured?
How much more was he going to endure?
Pink, she pleaded silently, hands pressed into her eyes, Pink, what have you done?
She should have known.
Stars, forget her. How must the others feel right now? And Steven? She remembered the expression on his face as they realized - as they thought - that Pink Diamond might have simply been working with the rebels. The way he'd mumbled, as if to himself, that it had all been for nothing. And what else could he think now? Knowing that Pink Diamond had never even been shattered in the first place, knowing that Rose and Pink were one and the same, knowing that there had never even been a reason to hurt Rose Quartz in the first place - much less Steven.
Steven, who wasn't either of them.
(But stars, he reminded her so much of his mother…)
It was so unfair. A cruel, twisted joke, and Steven was taking the brunt of it.
Had she failed him, like she'd failed Pink?
They'd all failed him. Her. The Diamonds. Homeworld. Just like they'd all failed Pink.
She could only imagine how he was feeling right now. How confused, and hurt, and scared he must be. How angry - stars, how understandably angry he must be, should be. Oh, she'd get it.
She wished she'd loved her Diamond a little less.
Maybe then she could be angry, too.