And here we are! a little shorter than fri- er Saturdays chapter but I hope you enjoy a nice little piece of respite
thanks to squish for betaing! see you guys friday!
Blue Pearl had been there when Pink Diamond had first emerged. And of any of the diamonds, Pink Diamond was probably the one she was most familiar with. And old habits did not fade, especially ones that had been so ingrained in her for millennia. She knew that recently Blue Diamond was lashing out as she had done in the first few decades of Pink Diamond's shattering, albeit with words now instead of shatterings. She felt Blue Diamond's joy in a wave that unsettled her more than any amount of anger and sorrow ever could. She started with a single step back, more of a habit than anything else, but the next thing she knew, she had left the council room and was halfway across the building, the unease finally fading from the center of her gem.
There were other things she had picked up just from the brief moment she had seen Pink Diamond. The younger diamond's confusion and unease had been relatively plain on her face but there had also some discomfort when Blue Diamond had rushed at her with a hug. Of course for every ounce of discomfort that Pink Diamond felt... Blue Pearl couldn't imagine what Pink Pearl was feeling now.
She entered the workroom and collapsed in her chair, mind spinning, trying to focus on the important things, like how to incorporate a long shattered diamond into a structure. Thankfully the door opening pulled her from her thoughts. Jet came in with Yellow and Pink behind her, all of them looked shaken, though Pink was a little more than that.
"How the stars," Jet began. "All stars, any stars, is Pink Diamond back?"
"Steven can heal gems." Yellow pointed out, she had a hand soothingly on Pink and Blue envied her. "He healed Domina."
"Domina's shards were in a pile on the floor, not on some unterraformed planet for 5 thousand years." Jet said bluntly. Pink Pearl flinched. And there was a knock at the door. "Speaking of which," She opened the door and presumably glared at Domina. "What do you want?" There was a sigh.
"Can I please come in Jet?" Domina asked.
"Why? Haven't you done eno-"
"Come on in Domina." Blue Interrupted, she wasn't willing to listen to those two bicker right now. Jet sighed and stepped aside. Domina stepped in and stopped when she saw Pink.
"I... It wasn't intentional I can tell you that." She said to the room at large. Pink Pearl had buried her face in her hands with a large sigh and shook her head.
"I didn't think it was Domina," she murmured. "But how... how is this even possible?"
"Stevima." Domina shrugged and three out of four pearls in the room nodded. "We didn't even intend to heal her just, uncorrupt her shards!"
"Well it wouldn't be the first time you didn't think something through," Jet grumbled, obviously trying to get a rise out of Domina. Blue sighed and shot her a look. But Domina just laughed half-heartedly.
"Jet, I can assure you that no Diamond has ever thought anything through."
"Blue, what's going on? That's not actually... White didn't really..." There were a lot of things that Pink Diamond was still trying to process but the circumstances around her shattering and Domina's whole... existence was still baffling.
"Oh Pink, I know it's a lot to take in." Blue Diamond hugged her tightly again and Pink Diamond did her best not to sigh.
"You've missed a lot, Pink," Yellow said, her voice wasn't as condescending as it often was, which she supposed tracked with what Ros- er Steven had said about her willingly spending time on Earth, with humans at that. At least she wasn't hugging her anymore, that had been a surprise that had just about poofed her, again.
"White did... she did shatter you." Blue's voice went somber enough to match the tears of joy that had been streaming down her face. "And Pink, you should have seen how she punished herself over it."
"Is that why Domina's... around?" Pink Diamond asked. Blue ignored her but she pretty obviously saw Yellow Diamond wince.
"And Homeworld has changed, Diamonds certainly don't have the same power they used to."
"Or the same responsibilities." Yellow quickly added.
"Ok, but like what about the Earth, or my zoo?" Pink Diamond asked, she really only cared about the zoo, Her rose quartzes had been gathering a ton of data on the humans there when she left for Earth that last time.
"Earth has... " Blue deflated even more, "Unfortunately been given over to the Crystal Gems, part of Domina and Yellow's ill thought out arrangement."
"Which certainly wasn't our fault." Yellow pointed out.
"But you'll have other colonies, we'll make sure of it," Blue said firmly and Pink was pretty sure she definitely did not want another colony. But she smiled and nodded because what else was she supposed to do?
"And the Zoo," She asked, at least for right now they were listening to what she was saying, and she'd have to take advantage of that while she could. Blue hesitated and glanced at Yellow, who cleared her throat nervously.
"I believe Pink Pearl is overseeing that, decommissioning it I believe."
"Decommission- wait" Pink Diamond reigned her outrage back in with her confusion. "Pink Pe-... My Pearl?!"
Both Yellow and Blue looked uncomfortable but Pink pressed on while she had their attention.
"What business does my Pearl have running my zoo?"
Domina walked home with Pearl in silence, which really wasn't how she wanted to spend the first day with Pearl back. Normally they would warp directly there or Domina would fly them up, to Pearl's chagrin, but Pearl had bypassed the citadel's warp pad and taken the long route through the winding streets of Homeworld. She still waved at a few gems she recognized but Domina felt... subdued. She hadn't meant for this all to go so wrong, it was just supposed to be a peaceful gesture to maybe start to make amends with Blue. It wasn't supposed to dredge someone up that would cause such... anxiety for Pearl.
Domina didn't exactly remember when she had learned that Pearl hadn't always belonged to White Diamond. It was probably something that someone let slip to her when she was younger, that kind of information usually was just given to her by accident. But she did know that talking about the diamond had always made Pearl uncomfortable or at least filled her eyes with a half vacant remembering stare. And really from everything she gleaned, she didn't see that there was much different in how Pink Diamond had treated her pearl than from how the average morganite treated theirs. But Pink Diamond made Pearl upset, and in the end, that was all Domina needed.
"Is that a new shirt?" Pearl asked, finally breaking the quiet between them as they rounded the corner to their building. Domina looked down on the shirt she had hastily thrown on two days ago before leaving for Steven's. It read "I cheated on the Turing test" which was apparently a reference to some Earth scientist.
"It is!" She said with a small smile that, thankfully, Pearl returned. "I have a few more now."
"I'm sure they're all incomprehensible."
"They will be until I show you the Earth media they reference."
"Oh. Great." Pearl stepped on to the buildings local warp and Domina hopped up next to her.
"Don't worry, Steven and White sent you music too, and I even found time to clean the apartment, kind of."
"You have been busy, resurrecting Diamonds, doing maintenance work, are you sleeping like you're supposed to be?" Pearl asked with an eyebrow raise only half-jokingly.
"Yes, Pearl." Domina said dutifully, "Of course I do."
What passed for the evening on Homeworld was mostly just a lull in activity in their section of the planet. Domina found Pearl in the corporeal section of the apartment a few minutes after they arrived, lounging and reading through reports on a couch that had taken an hour to carefully move from Earth. Domina hesitantly sat next to her. Then after, Pearl moved her arms, Domina carefully leaned down on to her shoulder. She closed her eyes and felt that for the first time in a year, despite whatever chaos she had once again just caused, everything was right in the universe.