Pearl anxiously paced in the living room. Greg had told them that he would be taking Twoie and Steven on a road trip, nothing strenuous, but it was well over the time they were supposed to be back. It was very early morning of the next day, for crying out loud! Garnet sat watching her friend pace, while Amethyst lounged lazily about.
"Yo, P. You're going to wear out the wood. I think I can see a dip forming from the line you've been pacing for the past several hours." Amethyst teased. She was initially worried, but once they heard back from Greg that they were on their way home and got caught up in a discussion, she figured everything was fine. She stuck around just to watch Pearl act frantic.
Pearl didn't pause, but she did grab her ribbon in her hands and fidgeted with it. "It's just so late, and who knows what could've happened on their way home? I was worried when Greg asked us if he could take them out on a trip this morning. We still don't understand Twoie's condition, and what if this made him worse? They said they had to deal with something unexpected!" She rushed over to the window, checking for car lights, before returning back to her pacing. Amethyst rolled her eyes.
After another couple of minutes of pacing, Pearl perked up at the sound of a car pulling up. She quickly ran back over to the window and sighed in relief when she saw the van parked in front of the house. She opened up the door and meet the tired group at the stairs. "Twoie, Steven! Oh, thank the stars, you're back!" She scanned Twoie over as he got out in case anything had changed. Nothing stood out to her, which relieved some of her worries. But Twoie looked exhausted. He had dark bags under his eyes and looked as though he was just barely staying awake.
Twoie gave her a nod in greeting as he stepped out of the van. He walked over to the back, Pearl following nervously. She hadn't seen Steven yet, and her paranoia wouldn't rest until she knew they were both okay. She let out a relieved sigh when she saw Greg unbuckling a sleeping Steven from his chair. The older man gently passed him over to Twoie before grabbing their bags and locking up the van. "How was the trip? You look so tired, Twoie." Pearl whispered quietly as they all walked up the stairs together.
The young man only shook his head. "I'll tell you about it in the morning, I'm way too tired to talk about it, and there's a lot to talk about. I'm gonna put him to bed, okay?" He opened the front door, waved to Garnet and Amethyst, and headed up to Steven's bedroom. Greg followed along and gathered Steven's PJs, so he could dress him for bed. Twoie, now relieved of caring for Steven, headed back down the stairs and plopped down tiredly on the couch.
Amethyst and Garnet exchanged a look of concern at his exhaustion. "Are you okay, dude? You look like a raccoon." Twoie groaned in response. Pearl walked over to the group from where she was standing by the front door.
"He said he would explain what happened in the morning. Apparently, something major did happen. The ensuing discussion is going to be draining." She fretted at the implications. The pale gem knew something had gone wrong. And the confirmation only made her paranoid about the upcoming discussion.
Garnet hummed in contemplation. Something that occurred on the road trip was serious, but not severe enough to be immediately discussed. Her future vision still didn't work with Twoie, so she couldn't figure out exactly what they would be discussing. It seemed like it'd be something pretty serious from the little she could glean from her power. All she could see was a shouting match, which did not bode well. "Are you sure there is nothing you could tell us now?" Twoie shook his head.
"Trust me. You'll want me awake enough, so I don't say anything stupid." He mumbled softly. Pearl gently guided him, so he was lying down on the couch cushions. Thankfully, the couch was pretty long, so Twoie could lay down on the part that stuck out while Greg could sleep on the opposite side of the couch. After she laid him down, Pearl took one of the blankets, leftover from the previous night, and laid it over the half-asleep teen. A soft noise of gratitude sounded from Twoie, and soon, he was fast asleep.
The Crystal Gems moved off the couch when Greg came back down. "I'm gonna go to bed, too. We're all pretty exhausted. Wake us in a couple of hours?" Amethyst gave him a thumbs up. She would give them several hours, though. Otherwise, Steven would be the only one well-rested.
When Twoie woke up, he was not expecting to see Pearl watching him. She stopped doing so a long time ago when he told her he didn't like it, and as far as he was aware, she had stopped. So, when he saw her staring as she stood over him, he was embarrassed to say she startled him, right off the couch. Amethyst snorted at the loud thud. Pearl immediately helped him, rambling apologies as she did so. "You were just so tired when you guys came back, and I couldn't help but worry. I didn't mean to startle you, I'm so sorry!"
Twoie waved her off. It was too early, and he was too tired for it to bother him. He made his way straight to the coffee pot and poured some out into a mug. He looked around as the coffee worked its magic. Amethyst and Garnet were all sitting around the counter. His dad had stepped out somewhere, and Steven was awake and sitting on the window seat by the front door.
"Good morning, Twoie! I didn't want to start without you. Besides, you know more about what we talked about than I do." Steven sheepishly shrugged. The gems had practically jumped him when he had woken up that morning. As the only one who slept during the drive back, Steven was the first to get up. However, the events of the previous night were best told by Twoie, so the gems had begrudgingly waited for the older boy to wake.
Twoie pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "Right. Okay, then, I guess I should start with Pearl." The gem in question straightened up at the sound of her name. She was surprised to be called out. "This should work…" Before she could question what he meant, Twoie spoke again. "I know Mom's biggest secret." She flinched. Garnet and Amethyst looked at her quizzingly as she paled in fear. "Before I can say it, though…" He turned to Garnet. "You have to promise not to freak out or leave until after the story is done. There's a lot we need to talk about, and you need to be here for it. Okay?"
Garnet felt a sense of foreboding. Her vision from last night popped into her head, and she nodded at Twoie. Hopefully, they could avoid that situation. Twoie tensed as he addressed them. "One last thing, you can't get mad at Pearl for this. She was ordered not to tell you. It was an order she physically can't break herself. But I can break it." Pearl held her hand out to Twoie, but both hands whipped straight to her mouth in a strangled yelp. Everyone's eyes widened at the motion, now aware of what Twoie meant.
"Rose Quartz was not who she said she was. She was the leader of the rebellion against the Diamond Authority, and she cared about the earth. But she was not actually a quartz soldier." Twoie took a deep breath. "Rose Quartz was actually Pink Diamond." Silence reigned through the house.
Pearl's eyes welled with tears as she shakily pulled her hands away. She turned to face Steven. "I'm so sorry." She whispered while wiping away her tears. "I wanted to tell you for so long, but I couldn't go against her order. My final command was that no one should know. Now that Twoie knows, I can tell you all everything!" Garnet looked back and forth between her and Twoie. Amethyst was staring at him, slack-jawed in surprise and confusion.
"Let me get this straight. Rose Quartz, Leader of the Crystal Gems, Steven's mom-!" Steven nervously rubbed the back of his neck. He was worried about this, and Twoie mentioned they would freak out. Amethyst brushed her hands through her hair as she continued her rant. "Was actually Pink Diamond?" She hopped off the stool and started pacing the floor. "Oh my stars, so we were being led by a Diamond the entire time? I'm freaking out, man!"
Twoie rubbed his eyes with his palms as Pearl took over the explanation. "She faked her own shattering so that she could reform as Rose Quartz and stay Rose Quartz. She may have been a Diamond, but she cared immensely about her cause." It took all of his control to bit his tongue and refrain from adding a biting comment as Pearl talked about her. The last thing he wanted was to give them a bigger reason to freak out. The gems handled it well enough in his time, except for Garnet. Being too negative would only make her reaction worse.
Amethyst narrowed her eyes at her. "That makes sense. I mean, pink Lion, pink sword, and now Pink Diamond? At this point, you could tell me she invented cotton candy, and I'd believe it! Man, that's gotta suck, having to pretend for so long to be something you're not."
Pearl shook her head with a fond smile. "That's the thing Amethyst, she had to pretend around the Diamonds, not us. With the Crystal Gems, she could be who she really wanted to be." Twoie relaxed a little as he saw Pearl and Amethyst handling the news well, but then his gaze landed on Garnet.
The leader had her fists clenched tightly as she trembled slightly. "You're wrong." All eyes turned to Garnet. "She did pretend with us. This entire time she pretended that she was never a Diamond. That she never had anything to do with the Diamond Authority. She pretended to only be a quartz. And we never questioned her." And just as Twoie feared, Garnet's form glowed white and shifted into two light forms. Ruby and Sapphire.
Ruby held her hands out placatingly to Sapphire. Sapphire's rage, however, could not be quelled. "She lied to us!" Steven quickly hopped off the window bench and ran over to stand beside Twoie. He stopped from getting to close by Twoie putting a hand out. "She lied about everything!" Ice formed and spread across the floor as Sapphire yelled. Pearl and Amethyst jumped at the suddenness as ice lightly encased their feet. Thanks to Twoie's quick reaction, Steven was fine, but Twoie found himself trapped in place as ice encased his feet as well. "She looked us right in the eyes, and told us to never question who we are as Garnet! We never questioned ourselves, or her!"
Ruby took a step forward and held her hand out. "Sapphire, wait! We couldn't have known!" Although it didn't show, Sapphire glared at Ruby.
"No! You couldn't have known. You never know what's going on!" Ruby flinched at the hurtful words. "That's what I'm for! I'm supposed to know the future. I'm supposed to guide us along the right path. But I never looked into her. I trusted her! I let her make fools of us all!" Sapphire gripped her dress and lifted it up enough for her to run for the warp pad.
"Sapphire, wait!" Ruby called out as she tried to follow her. Twoie narrowed his eyes in anger. She promised she'd wait. He needed her, needed them both! But she was going to leave again, even after she promised.
He raised his hand and shouted, "Stop!" Pink fractals formed in her path and cut her off from the warp pad. She banged her fists on the shield, then rounded on him.
"Twoie! Drop this wall! Now!" Ruby ran up to her and took her hands in her own. Twoie didn't realize he could form the wall but concentrated on keeping it up. It was his only chance to stop her from leaving.
"Sapphire, please! We promised as Garnet that we'd hear everything out. Can't we stay c-calm and talk about this? Let's just talk!" She tried pulling Sapphire back towards the others, but the little gem stubbornly held her ground.
"Talk? Talk about what?" Tears cascaded down the side of her face. "Talk about how our relationship was based on a lie?" More ice formed out of nowhere, cause little spikes to form and jut out from the ground. Ruby quickly backed away. The little gem stared at her in heartbreak. Sapphire ignored her pained expression and turned back to Twoie. "I told you to drop it!" But Twoie had had enough of her. Had enough of her selfishness. Pink alighted on his cheeks.
"Sapphire, stop taking your anger out on Ruby! She's trying to support you, and here you are lashing out! Do you think Ruby deserves the way you're treating her? And another thing, you already promised that you'd listen to the full story. You need to shut up and let us tell you everything!" Everyone flinched at Twoie's harsh tone. Sapphire became incensed at the disrespect.
"You're just as bad as her! You came here from the future, with all this information that could be helpful to us, and yet you always wait until the last second to tell us something useful! If it wasn't for you, my future vision would be working, and I wouldn't have to rely on you to know how to handle things! This was a huge thing to keep from us! What else are you pretending to not know? You pretend that everything is okay, and then drop these bombshells out of nowhere. You're just lying to us. Lies of omission are still lies." As the little blue gem yelled, her ice grew more and more jagged. Steven backed up as ice covered the floor, and Twoie flinched at the numbing cold as it inched past his ankles. The jagged edges of the ice pricked painfully at his skin. Safe from the ice by her fire powers, Ruby covered her mouth in horror as Sapphire's words echoed in the living room. Her shoulders shook as sobbed quietly.
Twoie clenched his fists in anger. He glared at the little blue gem as pink encompassed his body. "Don't compare me to her! I have spent years trying to fix her mistakes, and back home, I'm still fixing them! You think this is about you? Well, it's not! Pink Diamond made a bunch of mistakes. Maybe she should've told you a long time ago, but you're not the only person she hurt! So, stop acting like it!" Sapphire flinched as the ice along the floorboards cracked and shattered into pieces.
The house settled into silence. Only the sound of Twoie's ragged breathing could be heard as he tried to calm his anger. Steven was staring at them with wide, horrified eyes. He knew Garnet would take it hard, but he didn't expect them to split, or for Sapphire to take her to hurt out on Ruby. He didn't expect her to yell at Twoie either.
Sapphire gripped her head in her hands, pushing up her hair enough to see the pain in her single eye. "Of course, she hurt others. She was Pink Diamond! But why did she have to drag us into it? Why couldn't she have stopped the colonization herself?" Pearl lightly cleared her throat.
All eyes turned to her. "She tried, Sapphire. When Pink told the other Diamonds that she didn't want to go through with the colony, they told her to finish what she started. When she told the other Diamonds that she wanted to preserve life on earth, they created the Zoo and threw a handful of humans in. She did everything she could as Pink Diamond, but her status meant nothing to Blue and Yellow." Pearl hung her head and looked away. It was hard for her to remember how unhappy Rose was with the Diamonds. How much they hurt her. "So, she decided to make a stand. As someone they couldn't ignore. She was going to scare every gem off the planet."
Amethyst was staring at Pearl in awe. She knew some of the stories of Rose, but a lot of info they didn't tell her because they thought she was too young or too immature to know. And even though she had her flaws, there were still things to admire about Pink's actions. And she did it as a quartz. It made her feel a little prouder to be an amethyst.
Pearl looked back to Sapphire and then smiled encouragingly at Ruby. "But everything changed when she saw your fusion. She admired you so much. That was the first time we tried to fuse. It almost worked, but then we remembered you, and we were too worried to try again. And then we reencountered you." She thought of the memory fondly. She missed Rose so much, but she could reminisce about the good times later. She needed to help get Garnet back. "Before Garnet, Rose was only fighting for the earth. But Garnet changed everything! Rose wanted to fight for her. She wanted to fight for gems!"
Sapphire stood there, contemplatively. So, Rose really wasn't using them. She really did care about the earth and about gems. She really did care about Garnet. "This whole time, I thought we were following her, but she was… following us." Sapphire smiled. "How could she not after you swept her off her feet." Pearl flushed in embarrassment. "That's how I felt when I came here with Ruby." She turned to face Ruby and swept her into a big hug. "Ruby! I'm so sorry! Twoie was right. I did take my anger out on you, and you didn't deserve that in the slightest. Can you forgive me?"
Ruby looked at her with a smile. She wiped her tears off her face as she pulled away from the hug. "Of course, Sapphy! I'll always forgive you." The two hugged again, and in a ball of light, re-formed into Garnet.
The perma-fusion used her fire to melt the jagged ice from the floor and free everyone trapped in the ice. "Thank you, Twoie, Pearl, for helping me understand the truth. And I'm sorry about Sapphire losing control and encasing you all in ice." Although Pearl and Amethyst wholeheartedly accepted her apology, Twoie stared at her. She apologized for the ice, but not for her verbal attack. And now, she was acting like it never happened. Like they could all just move past the awful words that were said. Twoie's nails dug into his palm. And if he did bring it up, he'd probably sound spiteful. Twoie gritted his teeth and held his tongue. No point in starting another argument. Instead, he focused on the next thing they needed to discuss. He plastered a fake smile on his face.
"Now, that you all know about Pink Diamond, there's something we can do." All eyes turned to him. "How would you like to reunite with an old friend?"