"So," Anger S said, "are we not even trying to understand what's going on anymore?"
Steven had led the group to a hillside where a large, drill-like structure stood. Spinel had turned her hand into a horn and blew it, causing the structure to rise; this seemed to bring cheer to the others, so the Joys had went along with it. Shortly afterwards, however, Spinel and Steven seemed to get in some kind of argument. Throughout all this, Garnet's contributions amounted mainly to passively observing without really paying that much attention.
"I mean, why bother?" Fear S said. "First they're happy, now they're upset- there's clearly some sort of major drama happening here that we simply lack the context to comprehend."
"Yeah," Joy R said. "Might as well just go with the flow until everything gets resolved."
"Hey, what's that?" Sadness R asked. She was referring to a device that had fallen out of Steven's pocket when Spinel shoved him.
"How should we know?" said Disgust R. "All of us know as much about the outside world as you do."
"Which is to say, nothing," said Disgust S.
"Let's have Garnet pick it up so we can get a better look," Joy S said.
"Are you sure it's safe?" Fear R asked.
"Why would Steven be carrying something dangerous?" Sadness S asked. "I mean, we don't really know him, but it doesn't seem like something he would do."
"And besides," said Joy R, "it could be something fun, like that fork-spoon fusion we found earlier!"
"Yeah, and how do we even know what either of those things are?" Anger R said. "I've been looking through the manual, and I don't think Gems even need to eat."
"Does the manual say what this device is?" Fear S asked.
"If it did, I would have told you!"
"So let's find out for ourselves!" Joy S said as Garnet picked it up.
"Garnet! Don't touch that!" Steven ran over and grabbed the device from her just as she activated it. In his hands extended a long blade of energy.
"See?" Fear R said. "This is why we don't just grab things that we don't know what are!"
"But it seems Spinel knows," Sadness R said, looking at the viewscreen. "And she seems pretty upset about it..."
Spinel blew into her hand again and the structure came crashing back down. Garnet was pulled away by Pearl, but she quickly made her way back over the rubble to watch.
"What? No!" Fear R cried. "Why are you having her do that?"
"Because I'm tired of not knowing what's going on!" Anger S said. "I want to head back and find out why they're fighting!"
"Yeah, I thought they were all friends," Sadness R said.
Garnet addressed her queries to Steven, but, of course, Spinel heard them just as well.
"Looks like we've still got an audience," Spinel said. "How about a front-row seat?" She stretched her arms and grabbed Garnet.
"See? See?" Fear R said. "This is what happens when you get too curious!"
"I'll admit," Anger S said, "in hindsight, this was probably the most likely outcome."
"It was the most likely outcome in foresight too," Disgust R remarked.
Spinel held Garnet hostage and continued to argue with Steven. "You want to attack me; just admit it! Or better yet, just try it!"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because that's not the truth!" And with that, Steven snapped the rejuvenator over his knee.
Inside Garnet's mind, a message popped up on the screen. It read, "EXTERNAL INPUT ACCEPTED: PERSONALITY BACKUP RESTORE INITIATING."
"Personality backup restore?" Fear S asked. "What's that mean?
"Yeah, Anger," Disgust R said, "does the manual say anything about that?"
"I'm looking, I'm looking, okay?" Anger R said, frantically flipping through the book. "There's a lot of pages in this thing, so could you just wait? Yeesh."
"And what's this stuff about external input?" Disgust S asked. "Like, we didn't do anything to make this happen, did we?"
"I think it was triggered by events on the outside," Sadness R said. "You know, like when Steven broke that thing and talked about-"
"The truth!" Joy S gasped.
The restore process began. Core memories, which had been removed by the rejuvenation but not discarded entirely, were returned from where they had been hidden and deposited back into their proper places. Outside the window behind them, Islands of Personality were quickly being rebuilt.
"What's going on?" Fear R asked.
"I'm not sure," said Joy R, "but I don't think it's bad! I mean, look at these memories!" She hurried over to examine them more closely. "Most of them are yellow, and that means joyful! I wonder what they-"
She had barely touched one of the orbs when all of them sent out a shock wave of energy, dazzling and disorienting the emotions. But when they recovered a mere moments later, they were filled with clarity.
Joy R gasped. "I remember! I remember everything!"
"Me too!" Joy S said. "I remember all of you, I remember Garnet-"
"I remember her!" Anger S said, referring to the gem that still had Garnet in her grip. With a press of a button, the emotion sent out a wave of defiance that made Garnet break loose.
"I've known hardships and confusion," Garnet said, "but love can live through it all, if you face the truth together!" She began to glow and cycle through her previous forms; an angry Spinel tried preventing this with a boulder, but even mid-transformation, she was too powerful to be stopped.
At last, Garnet's appearance was how it was before she got rejuvenated, complete with shades and wedding bands. Steven gave her a happy embrace and was soon joined by Amethyst and Pearl, who had been observing from a safe distance.
"The others!" Joy R exclaimed. "They're back to normal too!"
"They were already back to normal," Disgust S said. "It's just that we didn't realize they were affected in the first place."
"In any case, we're all back!"
"But how?" Fear R asked.
"Anything in the manual?" Disgust R asked.
Anger R shot her a dirty look.
"I don't know for certain," Sadness S said, "but I think instead of the memories being deleted, they were merely repressed. Replicating the circumstances of certain core memories then triggered them to restore. Steven must have triggered Amethyst's after he found her, and Pearl's was at the concert..."
"The final one for Garnet must have been this one," Joy S said, pulling it up. On screen, two different videos appeared, one indicating that it had originated from Sapphire's mind and the other from Ruby's. They showed the same event from the component gems' viewpoints: Ruby, wearing a dress, and Sapphire, dressed in a suit, moving towards each other to eventually embrace and fuse. The separate images merged to a single one from Garnet's perspective.
"Their wedding!" Sadness R exclaimed.
Sadness S nodded. "But remember why they got married in the first place? It was when they expressed doubts about their relationship after they found out Rose was actually Pink Diamond. But their love prevailed because they faced the truth together. Steven's words thus echoed it."
"Makes sense," Disgust R said. "Or at least, as much sense as anything else that's happened today."
"I hate to interrupt," Fear S said, "but Spinel's still right there, and she's about to attack!"
"Let her," Joy R said. "She won't succeed."
In the end, Steven managed to convince Spinel to quit attacking, though not until after she had released the injector's poison in one large wave, saving the planet but severely damaging Beach City. Afterwards, Spinel left to live with the Diamonds, Steven put his saliva to work healing the planet, and the other Crystal Gems started helping to rebuild the town.
"It was rough going there for a while," Joy R said, leaning back contentedly, "but it all worked out in the end! Everyone's safe, sound, and happy!"
She had barely said this, however, when Sadness S nudged her and pointed to her counterpart, who was standing in the middle of the room, staring the core memories.
Joy R sighed and approached the forlorn emotion. "Hey, everything okay?"
"We nearly lost all of this," Sadness R said. "All these memories, all these happy memories- everything that makes Garnet who she is… they were almost lost forever."
"Yeah, but we got them back!" Joy R said.
"But what if we hadn't?" Sadness R bawled.
"Would it have mattered that much?" Joy S asked, joining them.
Sadness R turned to look at her. "You can't really mean that, can you?"
"Yeah, S, what the heck?" Joy R added.
"Well, yeah, it was awful when Ruby and Sapphire forgot about each other," Joy S said, "but once they rediscovered fusion and became Garnet again, remember how excited she was? Every little thing was amazing to her. We would have lost thousands of years of wonderful memories, but we would have made countless new memories just as great."
"Yeah," said Joy R. "Yeah! Even if we lost the memories for good, that just means we'd get to relive those experiences as if it were the first time. Getting to know all our friends, going on adventures… even getting married again. And now, we get the best of both worlds: all the memories Garnet's made in the past, and the memories she'll make in the future."
"And all those memories," Joy S continued, "whether they're happy or sad, or angry, fearful or disgusted, we'll experience them all together. So there's no need to worry about what might have happened; just keep looking forward to what's going to happen. And I don't mean with future vision."
Sadness R gave a small smile. "You're right," she said.
"Of course we are," Joy R said.
"Thank you, that helped a lot." She made her way back to the console as the two Joys looked on.
"I wasn't sure what you were going for at first," Joy R remarked, "but it was a good point, and it managed to cheer her up. Well, it cheered her up as much as she could be."
"Don't dismiss your own contribution," Joy S said. "You picked up on my meaning quite quickly and were able to elucidate it well."
"Thank you," Joy R said, blushing a bit. "We make a good team, don't we?"
Joy S wrapped her hands around her counterpart's waist. "We definitely do." The two came together in a kiss.
"Now come on," Joy S said after they were done, grabbing Joy R by the hand and pulling her along, "let's get back to the controls; we wouldn't want to miss out on Garnet being happy."