"-nobody would notice if you le- oh! Amethyst!"
Amethyst didn't stop, but she did turn her head slightly as Pearl rushed over to her, abandoning whatever conversation she'd been having with Lars with little more than a 'sorry, be right back!'. The purple Quartz managed a tired smile in the pale gem's direction, twisting her head around to look back at Lars briefly before dropping her gaze to the pieces of rubble she'd collected, the remains of broken buildings, towers and statues. She shifted them slightly, moving to make sure they weren't pressing against her gem, and flicked her gaze toward Pearl without turning her head as the gem fell into step beside her. "Did you see him? Did he say anything? Is he okay?"
"They're fine," Amethyst replied, shifting her grip once again and crushing some of the rubble a bit more to hold it better while she waited for her particular choice of words to, ah… sink in.
"They…?" Pearl was silent for a moment, looking puzzled, and Amethyst merely hummed a quiet confirmation as she came to a stop, passing off the crushed rubble she was holding to one of the Amethysts passing by. She brushed her hands off, watching bits of dust that had lingered fall from her fingers, and turned to face the taller gem completely. "Wait, you don't mean… he…"
"The pink 'Steven', yeah." Amethyst shifted on her feet, shrugging. "Turns out he's not Steven." Pearl only managed to look further mystified, and Amethyst couldn't bite back a smile on time. "They're brothers. Pink dude's name is Aster, apparently. At least they're keeping each other company." She paused, lifting a hand to rub at her face, then let it slide around to rub the back of her neck instead as she heaved out a quiet sigh. Pearl just looked down at her, brow furrowed. "Of course… ah… Steven's gem, uh… their gem is kind of still… you know. Split."
Pearl's breath caught at that, pupils shrinking. "What?"
Amethyst grimaced, settling a hand over her chest for a moment. Instinctively, her shoulders flinched a little at Pearl's tone, at the panic look that flashed across her face, and years of experience had the small Quartz readying herself for a whole lotta screaming, maybe a 'why didn't you mention that first?!'. Not that she didn't love Pearl, she'd absolutely die for the gem in front of her and that was a fact, but there was still a part of her that expected to be scolded. To be called 'irresponsible' or be blamed for this even though there's no way it was her fault at all. Looking back, she realized - but not with any bitterness or resentment - such things had happened a lot. Like Pearl had just looked for any reason to be angry with her. Their relationship had taken such a drastic turn from what it used to be that she almost didn't… recognize them.
Pearl, of course, surprised her yet again in the best way and Amethyst wondered, with a rush of irritation directed solely toward herself, why she even allowed such a thing to surprise her at all. "Oh… no…" The pale gem quieted for a moment, covering her face. "How… they're not hurt?"
"They said they weren't," Amethyst replied. "They didn't seem hurt." She paused, thinking, and shook her head with a sigh. "No, I asked… they said they were okay. They seemed okay."
"Okay…" Pearl sighed, dropping her hands, though she held them tightly in front of her for a moment before letting them fall slack again. She looked down at the purple Quartz for a moment, then flicked her gaze down to where Amethyst's gem rested on her chest, hidden and secure beneath the tank top she was wearing. "And what about you? Are you okay? Your gem-"
"I," Amethyst interrupted, offering her a loving look before turning away to keep walking again. Pearl kept pace beside her, tense with worry. "Am fine. It's just an itty bitty little crack, not even an inch deep. More like a surface scratch." She puffed her cheeks out, looking down for a moment, but even she couldn't see her gem. She could certainly feel it, though. Especially now that she was paying attention to it, she could feel the pain thrumming through her system, a constant ache flushing through every facet in her gem, spread through every inch of her form. Another gem might have been on the ground, curled up in a fetal position, but for Amethyst…
… saying she was 'used to it' would have been an understatement.
"What?" Pearl sounded shocked. "You didn't ask Steven to heal it? Amethyst!"
There it was. The scolding, but, for good reason, the Quartz supposed. She rolled her eyes to the side and sighed, though not out of irritation. "Pearl, the kid just had his gem ripped out and shattered. I wasn't about to be like 'oh by the way can you do me a favor and heal my gem?'."
"Now you know he would have happily-"
"If he could, Pearl," Amethyst insisted, finally shooting her a glance from the corner of her eye. Pearl faltered a little at that, realizing where Amethyst was going with this before she'd even opened her mouth to continue. "You remember how fritzy his healing stuff used to be, right? Well, the kid just got shattered. Literally shattered. He's alive, and that's great! I- I'm ecstatic that he's okay, Pearl, but his gem is split in two. And he's only got half of it now and I don't even know if his powers are working like they're supposed to, and the last thing I want is for him to try and heal me and not be able to and then… you know how he spirals when he feels like he's…"
"Failed us," Pearl murmured, a pained look flitting across her face. She looked away from the small Quartz for a moment, staring ahead, and Amethyst let her shoulders droop. "Yes, I know."
"I just don't want to pile more on him than I have to." Amethyst fell silent for a moment, staring at the ground beneath her feet as she walked, and wrapped her arms around herself with a frown. "Not like I've never dealt with this kind of thing before. You remember how I used to crack all the time. Rose practically kept a vial of her tears on hand whenever…" She stopped, clenching her teeth, and swallowed hard with a soft, weary sigh. "It's been a while, but I still know how to handle it, okay? I know it's a pain in the ass, since we just got a handle on this stupid defect-"
"Hey," Pearl interrupted sharply, resting a hand on her shoulder to pull her to a stop, and Amethyst reluctantly turned back to her with a grimace already twisting at her lips, flicking her gaze around furiously without quite meeting the pale gem's gaze. "This is not a defect."
Amethyst let out a quiet, strained sound in the back of her throat, a mixture of disagreement and amusement, and glanced up at her. "It's something wrong with me - actually wrong, not just the height thing - that's not supposed to happen. I'd say that's pretty much the definition of what a defect is." She fell silent for a moment, watching as Pearl's expression shifted, and sighed. "Look… it is what it is. I know I'm defective. I've come to terms with the whole thing. I'm just…"
Pearl softened, gazing down at her, then crouched down and reached out to take one of her hands. Amethyst looked down, silently curling her fingers with the taller gem's, and lifted her gaze as Pearl leaned in and pecked her on the lips with a mumble of, "I think you're perfect."
("Defective?" Rose had laughed the first time Amethyst said the word in front of her, her shocked expression dissolving into something a little more strained, a little horrified, honestly, before it melted into a startling mixture of amusement and affection. She knelt down in front of the much smaller Quartz, brushing her curls from her face and reaching out to take Amethyst into her arms, and the purple gem was more than happy to reach her arms up to allow Rose to pick her up under the arms, holding her up in front of her face. "Oh, Amethyst, there's nothing wrong with you. There's so much emotion inside of you. So much love, and strength, and determination, and any gem would crack under the pressure of holding it in all the time."
"Even you?" Amethyst pinched her eyebrows together, glancing down at Rose's gem.
"Especially me," Rose murmured. She held her close, then, arms wrapped tightly around the smaller Quartz, and Amethyst snuggled closer, keeping her eyes on Rose's gem for a moment. She lifted her gaze back to her face, however, when the pink gem hummed and continued, "you and I are different… maybe I don't crack like you, but that doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. And as long as we have a handle on it - which we do," she added, with a warm smile, as she pressed a finger to Amethyst's gem, "then everything is going to be just fine, Amethyst."
Amethyst gazed at her gem for a moment, glittering brightly now that Rose had healed the thin fracture that had grazed across the front, a quick, clean cut because she'd gotten too excited.
"So I'm not a defect?"
"Stars, no," Rose laughed a little, hugging her close. "I think you're perfect exactly as you are.")
Amethyst's gem hummed as a warning, a sharp ache bringing her mind back to the present, torn from the memory of one of the last times she'd cracked. One of the last times, because… she'd cracked when Rose disappeared (which they'd been prepared for, thanks to Garnet), and she hadn't cracked for fourteen years after that, not for that reason, not until the night she'd watched Steven turn away from them and surrender himself to Homeworld, the night she'd let the last remnant of one of her best friends, of the gem who had been the closest thing to a 'mother' Amethyst had in human terms, slip away, the night she'd cursed and blamed herself for every misstep, every wrong move, every setback, every chance to attack that she didn't take…
Another burst of pain, another warning. Amethyst sucked in a breath, steadying herself, and met Pearl's concerned, wide blue eyes with a shaky smile. With all the pain bursting in her chest now, she was surprised that the crack wasn't any worse. And it wasn't; she didn't need to see it to know that. She'd be able to feel any slight difference, every deepening in the fissure of her gem. She'd grown accustomed to such a feeling, after all. She'd learned how to manage it.
At least, she thought she had.
"I love you," she murmured, and sucked in another breath. "But I can't… m'gonna crack more."
Pearl only nodded, understanding, and squeezed her hand once before standing up. Amethyst steadied herself, looking away, and her gaze caught a flash of purple as one of the Amethysts - Chevron, she knew now, that was her name, wasn't it? - headed over to them with a huge smile.
"Howdy! How's it going over here?"
"Fine," Pearl replied curtly, lacing her fingers with Amethyst's. The smaller Quartz just stared for a moment, glancing Chevron over silently. She remembered how Aster and Steven had reacted to the mere mention of her, how Steven's expression had shifted and Aster's eyes had hardened when he'd mumbled her name. She remembered seeing Steven and Chevron together during the battle, actually; they'd stuck close to each other for a little while, though Steven hadn't seemed particularly pleased with her presence. Something was going on there.
(And with how Steven had mentioned that Amethysts had tortured him before, on multiple occasions, Amethyst wasn't sure she was going to like what it was when it was revealed.)
For now, however, she simply set her jaw and looked away again. "Let's get back to work-"
"Actually," Chevron interjected, and Amethyst narrowed her eyes, looking back up. The constant hum of her gem and the thrumming of pain just below the surface served as a steady reminder to try not to get too angry, but she wasn't sure how successful it was. "My Diamond wants you."
A moment of silence passed. Amethyst raised an eyebrow, flicking her gaze down to the blue uniform Chevron was wearing, and narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, tell Blue to shove it up her-"
"Ah, no. Sorry." Chevron chuckled, and sighed. "White Diamond wants you."
And there it was. White Diamond. Amethyst stiffened, tension and nausea and something rolling through her like thunder, something painful and intense and strong enough that she could feel a subtle shift in the crack in her gem, along with a flare of pain that almost dissipated her form completely. Her hand twitched in Pearl's grasp, the only physical sign of her discomfort, but she was quick to release her grip and draw her hands closer to her chest, holding her gem through the fabric of her shirt as if the touch alone could keep the crack from getting any worse now.
White Diamond. The name alone made her dizzy, but that wasn't anything new.
"Oh," she mumbled, stomach clenching. She'd known this was inevitable. She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew from the moment she saw her, even just through that Pearl - first in Yellow's room and then a few days after she'd taken Steven - that there was some… kind of…
(She didn't want to think the word. The thought was too scary to finish.)
"No, no, no, no-" Pearl began, stepping closer to Amethyst. "No, that's- not-"
Chevron raised her eyebrows. Amethyst shook her head a little. "... I don't think there's much of a choice, P." She stopped, taking a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then she looked at Chevron again, with renewed anger this time. Of course this was the Amethyst in White's court that Pearl and Steven had mentioned, the one that supposedly reminded Pearl of her way-back-when, the one that had been in charge of Steven's punishments, the one that was, apparently, worse than Jasper. She wasn't sure how she hadn't put it together first, but now that she knew regardless, she was even more furious with the gem than she had been originally.
Deep breaths, Amethyst. Don't make that crack in your chest any worse, now, her mind warned, and her gem hummed again as if in agreement, another sharp ache only serving to steady her.
"I'll go." She took another breath, tilting her head toward Chevron. "Lead the way."
