Rose awoke with sunlight shining through the lower window, shrouding the entire wall with her portrait in darkness. She looked around the bed and saw various posters, toys and video games. For a while, she mused about what life as Steven would be like, but then she remembered that if she concentrated on Steven's memories too much, he would inadvertently come back. She thus instead decided to look out the window, where she saw the all-familiar beach and part of the statue that she and her fellow Crystal Gems unfortunately nicknamed "the Temple Fusion".

Instead, she let her mind wander, momentarily forgetting about Steven. She instead thought about the other Beach City residents that surely had their own lives by know. People such as Greg, the human friend Amethyst had made named Vidalia, Mr. Smiley and many, many others had known of how Rose "gave up her physical form" so that Steven could be born, and with however many years that had passed, were likely to move on past her, with only three gems with four gemstones as their guardians, and a fifth one being no more than an excitable child.

How were the Crystal Gems holding up, anyway? They seemed to at least somewhat care for Steven, as they were scared once he disappeared, and couldn't accept the fact that she could be back, even just for a moment. But at the same time, there was the feeling that she had left them, and nothing could fix that...

"Rose." Someone in the house spoke. Rose immediately recognized it as Pearl.

"Yes, Pearl?" Rose turned away from the window, and her eyes met the pale face.

"When I first heard your voice through Steven's mouth, I realized that there were so many things I never got to tell you. I was excited to tell you everything about the future and how things have changed since you had Steven, but now, I seem to have forgotten everything."

"It's about Leo, isn't it." Rose thought back to yesterday.

"Leo?" Pearl batted an eye at the term she had never heard of previously.

"The lion."

"Oh. Steven just called him Lion, so I assumed that was his name." Pearl struggled to keep the conversation going.

"I never told you about him since I wanted for him to be the connection between me and Steven. I knew I couldn't be there for him, so Leo as a whole is my present to him."

"Well, you two do have the same gem..." Pearl nervously giggled. "Don't worry, Pearl. I still love you, and I'm pretty sure Steven loves you as well." Instead of responding, Pearl broke into tears. She hugged Rose, and the two looked through the window together, admiring the beauty of the world and how they have each other to see it.

Rose, though, continued to stare blankly at the landscape. "This isn't working. I made sure our case was closed before I left, and I felt fine about it..."

"But I was not. Eventually, the only thing that helped... was to think about Steven more." Pearl continued crying.

"I promise to only leave when you are fine about me leaving this time." Rose sighed, and the two continued their moment, hugging each other.

The moment, though, was interrupted by another weird human sensation that Rose felt. This time, her stomach was emitting a sound, and since Pearl had hung around a human being for long enough, she knew that Rose needed something to eat. "Oh, hey, sorry that you need what humans need. I'll bake you pancakes." Pearl got away from Rose and descended to the kitchen. Soon enough, the sound of pans and cutting boards hitting just about everything imaginable could be heard, and Rose wondered what these human "pancakes" would taste like.

As she couldn't be distracted any longer, she looked down, back to Steven's personal belongings. Just then, one of them began emitting an electronic sound, and something appeared on its previously black screen. There were two simple lines of text, "INCOMING CALL - CONNIE", separated by a rotating horn thing, and two buttons, one green, one red, both depicting the same horn thing.

"That is a telephone," Pearl explained to Rose as she looked back to see the sound. "You swipe your finger from green to red and then put the phone to your ear." Careful to not throw the phone away, Rose placed one of her fingers on the green button, swiped to the red button and didn't even watch as the elements of the screen changed; the phone needed to be by the ear.

"Steven?" a voice spoke on the phone.

"Why is everyone assuming that I'm Steven?" Rose spoke back. The person on the other end of the phone emitted a grunt; she could tell that the voice wasn't that of Steven's, or any other Crystal Gem's.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Who are you, then? And what happened to Steven?"

"Rose Quartz, nice to meet you. Let's just say... that Steven and I can't both exist."

"But I thought you were dead... um... I'll be there quick." After this response, there was a click, and when Rose pulled the phone away from her ear, she noted that the pattern on the screen changed once again. Without doing anything else to the appliance, she put it down and turned to Pearl. The process of eating had just begun, and as even sitting seemed to exhaust the human body, Rose lay again. She didn't feel the same fatigue as in the evening, though, and therefore didn't proceed to "dream".

"Humans have a lot of different sensations. Being a gem was much simpler." She spoke to herself as she waited for the pancakes to be made.

"Well, the only person who you could talk to about it is not really here." Pearl spoke back.

"Greg?"

"Sorry, I meant Steven. Greg is still alive, as far as I know."

"Should I use your communication device to talk to Greg?" Rose asked.

"I don't think that would be a good idea, since even we, the Crystal Gems, were freaked out about your sudden appearance and... now someone's coming." Pearl turned her attention away from the kitchen to look at the beach, where Connie was running upstairs. Rose, curious about what Pearl saw, stepped downstairs, but as she was descending on the last step, Connie slammed the door open and stepped in, heavily breathing. She wore a cyan dress with a string tied around the dress, emphasizing her waist. Rose was startled by the sound, lost balance and fell over.

"Hey, Steven...'s mother?" Connie looked at the plump woman dressed in pink, who had collapsed in front of her.

"Rose! Is everything okay?" Pearl ran to the door, ignoring the fact that she was still cooking. Rose used her arms to push herself away from the ground, and Connie and Pearl both helped her get back into standing position.

"I apologize for the unceremonious entrance." Rose said, blowing the dust off of her. She looked down at her gem, checking for cracks. Luckily, there were none.

"So. Nice to meet you? You look just like the portrait! Where's Steven?" Connie looked at Rose in the face, and Rose looked back. At the sight of the human, though, something turned inside Rose, and she felt as if she was losing herself. Rose thus diverted her eyes from Connie.

"Even in gem terms, that will be hard to explain." Pearl looked at Connie condescendingly, before also turning away from her and going back to cooking. She flipped the pancake, so its other side could cook.

"No way! I can totally understand gem stuff. Go on, explain!" Connie took Rose to the couch by the table, both so they could eat breakfast and so there would be a more personal environment for the two to talk. Rose, however, was still looking away from Connie, trying to not even think of her face.

"You've fused with Steven, right?" Rose wanted confirmation of what Steven told her, so that she could trust her environment, instead of it being another dream.

"Yeah?" Connie wanted to know the angle that Rose was getting at.

"How did it feel?"

"Well, it felt like I was with Steven in... somewhere, but our fusion was also in there, and the three of us... were sort of rivaling for attention. If we let go... of our differences, Stevonnie would be dominant and..." Connie's sentences were split in unusual places, likely as a consequence of her still needing to take heavy breaths after running all the way from her own home to Steven's.

"Stevonnie?" Rose was puzzled over the strange non-word.

"When we first met it... them, Amethyst just mashed their names together, and it stuck with us." Pearl filled Rose in.

"Oh, alright." Rose looked at the wooden wall, since it seemed to carry the least memories of everything in the house. "You see, something similar is happening with me and Steven, except there is no amalgam personality to take over both of us, so most of the time, one of us is there, being happy with their life."

"But?" Connie hoped to continue what Rose began saying.

"If something highly personal to the other person appears, the other person will also appear."

"Is this why you have been looking away from me while we were here?"

Rose closed her eyes, taking another breath, and, after a while, opened them again. "...Yes."

"Exactly how bad are the effects on you?" Even if there was magical stuff involved, not being able to see the face of the person she was talking to was unsavory to Connie. Rude, even.

"Is that a dare?" In the background, the fire was turned off, pancakes placed elegantly on plates and put on the tables. As a servant class gem, Pearl knew just how to do what people want you to do while intruding as little as possible to other people's personal affairs.

"Rose, I'm your son's friend. This is kind of a touching matter on both of us." As the meal was prepared, Pearl stood behind, listening to Rose and Connie's conversation.

"Alright." Neither Rose nor Connie had touched their meals yet, and both simultaneously decided that they weren't going to until they were done with the experiment. Rose closed her eyes once again, turned to the side of the table where Connie was, and opened them again.

Immediately, Rose shivered, and Connie noted that Rose was actually physically uneasy, rather than just considering her unattractive. As Rose and Connie intensely stared at each other, a voice suddenly jumped out, speaking from Rose's lips but in the distinct "Steven-y" personality: "Hey, Connie! How's my mom?" As the words were said, Rose instinctively looked away from Connie once again, before turning back.

"She's great. But apparently there is something separating us, since she keeps looking away from me."

"Yeah, that is sort of the deal. We had a bit of trouble in my first conversation with her too."

"Steven?" Pearl finally recognized what was going on with the fact that Rose's personality drastically changed.

"What?" Rose turned to Pearl. Connie decided to begin her meal. Rose was tempted to as well, but had no idea how to even begin eating human food.

"Oh, sorry, Rose. I guess you already explained everything!" Pearl nervously laughed, and Rose looked at the plate. There were the pancakes, along with what humans called "a fork" and "a knife".

"Okay, how do you..." Rose wanted to ask Connie how to begin eating, but realized that humans don't want to speak while eating, as that would be rude.

"You take the fork and the knife, cut away a small part of the food with the knife, and then put it in your mouth with the fork." Pearl ranted. "I've seen enough of Steven eating to know that."

"Oh, alright." Rose picked up the fork and the knife, both on her right hand, and wondered how to begin cutting the food.

"No, they go to different hands." Pearl sighed at how inefficient her explanation was. Rose took the knife to her left hand, and held them both in fists.

"No..." Pearl sighed once again. "Just look at how Connie holds them." Rose glanced at Connie's hands, sure to not make contact with her face, and noted that the silverware in her hands was held more swiftly. Rose tried to replicate that, but accidentally got a cut on her wrist. A red, thick liquid began pouring out of it.

"How do you even live like a human? How does this make any sense?" Rose started lightly crying, partly over the cut, partly over the red liquid and partly due to still not getting humans entirely, despite being one right now.

Realizing the truth about "healing tears", Pearl swiped some of the tears that Rose cried and put them on the wound. The wound closed, and using a towel, Pearl was able to wipe the red liquid away. She then placed the fork and the knife in Rose's hands correctly, folding the fingers as appropriate, and Rose could now begin cutting the food.

She had one more question, though. "What was the red liquid?"

"Blood." Pearl only answered, and watched as Rose began eating, while Connie was already in the middle of the process.

Due to the incidents, Connie ended up finishing eating first. She turned to Pearl and asked: "Wait, so exactly how much did you miss her?"

"My whole life was dedicated to her," Pearl began reminiscing. "Ever since I was assigned to her, I did my best to follow her orders, and the mentality continued when we were already Crystal Gems. She told me a lot of her secrets, and for a time, I even felt like we saw each other as equals, but the truth remained. I was a Pearl, someone made to serve others, and only she could tell me what to do. Now that she's gone, all of what I know about being a Crystal Gem, how to protect the Earth, how to take care of Steven... was in her memory."

While Rose was getting the hang of eating, she heard what Pearl said about her. She raised a finger, as if wanting to say something, but realizing humans didn't say anything while they were eating. Since Pearl understood the gesture, she put her finger on her mouth, asking Connie to be silent, and she nodded.

Once Rose noted that no large chunks of edible material were on the plate, she looked at Pearl. "You mean... you never felt a sense of individuality? That you could do something on your own?"

"Why would I?" Pearl said, inexplicably excited.

"Because if not, you will always want me around to tell you what to do. You need to realize that the only person who can tell you what to do is yourself."

"But... how would I be able to do that?"

Rose looked at Pearl, confused. Clearly the dynamics of the Crystal Gems were only working when she was still a gem looking to protect the Earth, and the others followed her path, but now, they had literally lost a sense of direction. She first thought about staying here, leaving Steven inside the gem, so that the balance would be unbroken, but then she realized that she needed to remain in the past. Steven was a growing boy who was about to have his own life, while she was the one who needed to accept that her role had been ended. The Crystal Gems, though, were a psychological mess which needed additional guidance, since none of them could handle Rose being gone, and while Garnet had her relationship and Amethyst had her quirky personality, Pearl was completely lost.

"I suppose I need to teach you, then." Rose stood up, walked next to Pearl and extended her hands. Pearl took them, and they held hands together for a while.

"I would do anything... I mean, I realize now that I need to move past you." Suddenly, Pearl felt broken on the inside. This would be easier said than done.

Author's idiotisms: Yeah, so I messed up. I thought that Rose Quartz was actually significantly taller than Garnet, while Story for Steven reveals that they were around the same height (minus Rose's fluffy curls).

Tune in next time for the Steven Universe version of Self/less. Oh, who am I kidding, no one even bothered to pirate that movie.

Also, you have to realize: writing 3K chapters is unnatural for me. Until I get used to the format, the chapters will actually be slightly shorter.