Pearl couldn't believe her eyes. Here she was. Bismuth. She couldn't believe it had been over 5000 years. Tears came to Pearl's eyes, and she shakily wiped them away. The broad-shouldered gem stared at them in astonishment. "Garnet? Pearl?" The prim and proper gem wanted so much to jump into her arms. Still, for one second, Bismuth's unbelieving smile morphed into a twisted snarl. A blink later and Bismuth's smile was a huge grin. Pearl mentally shook off the vision. She wouldn't let that happen. Not this time.
"I can't believe it's true. You're back, and yet you were here the whole time!" Pearl sniffed as more tears poured down her cheeks. Bismuth's elation shifted into suspicious confusion. She looked around the base, waving at the few new faces, and then turned to Garnet.
"Here the whole-? Are you aware-? Where's Rose?" The blacksmith looked frantic as she stepped closer to Garnet. She was trying not to blurt out everything, in case her friends weren't actually aware of her imprisonment. Garnet placed a hand on her shoulder in comfort.
"Rose is gone. You don't have to worry about her putting you in a bubble again." Bismuth's eyes widened. Gone?
"She's… been shattered?" Pearl placed a hand on Bismuth's other shoulder. There was a mix of guilt, relief, and horror in the broad-shouldered gem's eyes. Hopefully, that meant that they had already changed the timeline enough that Twoie's version would not come to pass.
"Not shattered, but she is gone. We have a lot to tell you, now that you're back." Pearl led her old friend to sit on the couch. The somber mood had left little room for the jokes that Twoie remembered Bismuth cracking when she first arrived. It felt awkward, and he didn't like it.
The young man stepped forward, worrying the others in the room. Amethyst tried to grab his arm to hold him back, but Twoie was already in front of the multi-colored gem. She looked up at him curiously, greeting his smile with one of her own. He held out a hand to her. "Hello, Bismuth! My name is Twoie Universe." She blinked in surprise but gave him a firm and friendly handshake.
Her smile got a little bigger when he also had a firm handshake. "It's nice to meet you, Twoie. You already know my name, but let me say that I'm looking forward to hearing about all of the things I've Bis-muthed." There was a groan from Pearl and Garnet, but Twoie snorted, and Steven laughed into his hands. Tension eased out of the room.
"Stars, have I bismuthed you, and you're jokes." Twoie plopped down in the seat next to her. She looked at him in bemusement, but Twoie quickly waved Steven over. His younger brother walked over and shyly waved. "This is my younger brother, Steven Universe." Bismuth smiled and held her hand out, as well. Steven felt more confident at her friendliness.
"Hi! You were in my lion, and now you're in my house!" He shook her hand, then stepped closer to Twoie. He was still a little nervous, but he liked her already. She was friendly, and she made jokes!
"Well, thanks for having me." She shifted her gaze to Amethyst, standing by the counter, and waved. "Are you a new recruit? Welcome aboard! We could always use more amethysts." Amethyst scoffed and looked away. Twoie sent her a stern look, and she sighed.
"Hi, I'm Amethyst. I'm not a new recruit, though." The purple gem didn't want to befriend her right now. Not after what she did. Or could do. She would keep a watchful eye on her, and then maybe if everything went well, she'd be okay with being friends.
The blacksmith shrugged off the rudeness and turned to face Pearl and Garnet. "Alright. Obviously, I've missed some stuff, so why don't we start from the beginning? How long was I gone?" Pearl stepped forward, hands twisting her ribbon.
"You were gone for 5,300 years." Silence permeated through the room. Bismuth stared at her in shock. How could that be when it felt like just yesterday she was arguing with Rose about what to do next? Wait-!
"What about the war? What happened?" Bismuth stood up and ran outside. The earth didn't look destroyed or taken over by Homeworld. There was a beach and grass and birds. So did they win? Twoie walked over to stand beside her on the porch.
The young man placed a hand on her shoulder. "The Crystal Gems won the war. It's been over for a long time, but it still caused a lot of problems. One of which was you being bubbled. The others are aware that Rose did that to you." So many emotions flitted through Bismuth's eyes at the revelation, but she stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue. "You were right to question her methods. Not shattering anyone was a good decision, but I'm sure she made a lot of weird ones regarding the Diamonds. That's because Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond." That was where she couldn't handle it anymore. Her mind was racing. There were so many things she had questioned, and this one secret was the reason why. Bismuth needed to vent. She needed to scream. The gray gem smiled at him.
"Excuse me for a second." She jumped over the porch fence and walked into the ocean. The others watched her curiously until they could hear muffled, gurgled screaming coming from the water. Her head breached the waves. "Oh my stars, it all makes sense now!" The gem ran up the stairs to the group again. "So the leader of the war this whole time was Pink Diamond? We were led by the very tyrant we were trying to defeat?"
Pearl glared at Bismuth. "She wasn't a tyrant! When Rose realized that gem colonization was hurting the earth, she wanted to stop it. It's why she became the leader of the rebellion. She wanted gems to have the freedom to decide their future and the ability to make those choices. She believed in everything that the Crystal Gems stood for." Bismuth took a deep breath. She could tell that Pearl felt very strongly about this matter, and it would do no good to argue with her friends after being gone for over five thousand years.
The gem fixated on the sparkling ocean water instead. She needed confirmation, though. "How do you know that for sure?" She turned her gaze back to the group. Twoie cleared his throat and gestured to the world around them.
"Because the war is over. Yes, she wronged you by keeping you in a bubble, but the Crystal Gems won. Do you think she would've let that happen if she was working for Homeworld?" She sighed and nodded. It made sense. If she had found out during the war, she probably would've treated her like the other diamonds. But that didn't mean all of her actions were forgiven. Five thousand years. Lost. That wasn't forgivable.
"Alright, you got me there. Hard to believe the war ended while I wasn't around to see it…" She sighed. She was one of the original Crystal Gems. Bismuth had fought so long and hard, spoken about their ideals, and yet she hadn't been around to see the end. "Speaking of being gone, if Rose is gone, how'd you find out about me? When did she tell you? And why are you so sure she's not coming back?" Twoie looked sheepish as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck.
"That would be me." She raised a brow at him. "I know I said my name was Twoie, but it's actually Steven. I'm from the future, so the others gave me a nickname to distinguish me from my younger self." Bismuth looked back and forth between the two half-humans. They looked kinda similar if you ignored all of the pinkish splotches on the taller one. Are the spots part of a human thing? She wasn't sure, but she disregarded the thought. Bismuth had bigger questions to ask. Like, time-travel? Really? She knew it was possible, but actually witnessing it was something else entirely. Her jaw hung open in shock, and she couldn't gather her thoughts together to actually say anything. "And they know about you because I told them about you." Twoie brushed his hands through his hair. "In my time, I found you by accident. So I told the gems about what happened and freed you."
"So, Rose never told them anything…" Bismuth muttered angrily. Such cowardice and betrayal were befitting of a diamond. Even if she was better than the others, it hurt to know that Rose cared so little about her.
"And Rose isn't coming back because she had a kid." At the other gem's confusion, he decided to explain further. "Rose fell in love with a human and wanted to have a kid. You know, offspring? So, to have a kid, she needed to give up a part of herself. But gems are only light made from their gem. So Rose wiped all of her memories so that a new being could be made from her gem." Twoie pulled Steven into a side hug. The older brother lifted his own shirt to reveal a splotchy stomach with an embedded shiny pink gem. A Rose Quartz gem. "Steven and I inherited Rose's gem but none of her memories, so we're not Rose Quartz. She's gone."
It was a weird explanation, but Bismuth felt like she understood most of what she- no, he said. So Rose's memories were wiped, which meant she was gone… Yet… There was something about Twoie that made her hesitant to believe him. It almost seemed too perfect of a story. Rose had a kid, so she wiped her memory, and now, after so much time had passed, that same kid comes back from the future and releases her after telling the gems everything Rose did? She looked him over. He had those weird purplish-pink splotches all over, sharp fangs, and were his eyes a really dark pinkish-black, or were they brown? His jacket looked slightly puffed out in the back, as though something was holding it out slightly. And he looked like he was hiding something.
If there was one thing, Bismuth had learned from the battlefield. It was how to read other gems. How to tell when someone looked ready to fight or was lying to her. Twoie was stiff. He was nervous. But he was playing it off with a smile. He was hiding something from her. It had to be something worse than the reveal of Pink Diamond because why else would he hide it? Unless… Twoie's words from earlier rang in her head. How much I bismuthed you… "Rose really is something else…" At the two confused stares she got, she laughed. "I mean, look at you two! She really is something else! Ha, everything's changing!" Bismuth gestured to the beach house. "And you guys are building bases out of wood now? Who's terrible idea was that?" She laughed at the exasperated look that her friends flashed her before inviting her back inside to talk more.
As they all walked back to the living room, she kept her eyes on Rose. She would wait for the right moment to confront her about what she did. And why she was still keeping secrets.