Missing Peace: Chapter 47

There was a battle raging around the human zoo; thousands of Gems fighting to decide the future of their world. But none of that mattered to Rose Quartz. In the black, suffocating void of her own fury, there was no context; no wider mission; there was only her purpose. When she had first emerged, that purpose had been to fight, and build, and carry things, and generally just do what a good little soldier of the empire would do. Now though, her purpose was different. She had been through millennia of betrayal and imprisonment since then. Now, the only purpose that mattered to her was to make Pink Diamond pay. But no one else seemed to care as much as she did. Her fellow Facet 31 Gems were angry too of course, but they all seemed too concerned with their own wellbeing to fight to their fullest, and the Crystal Gems? They didn't seem to acknowledge that Pink was even there. They indulged her as she disguised herself as a small, soft human; pretended that she was a different person entirely. Rose was the only one with the resolve to continue, even if it meant her own shattering. She had come too far to not finish things now.

Fixing her eyes on the tiny organic being that served as Pink's current form, she charged, swinging her weapon wildly, her ingrained sword training evaporating in the face of her anger. 'Steven', as the Crystal Gems liked to call Pink these days, moved with surprising agility for a being so small and stocky, blocking every one of Rose's strikes. This was frustrating enough for Rose in her fragile mental state, but what was perhaps even more infuriating was that Pink seemed to be patronising her. The rest of the Crystal Gems had rushed to their ally's aid when Rose attacked, but the tiny Diamond had raised a hand and told them to stay back. Rose might have chuckled had she not been so overcome by rage. Did Pink really think she could survive against her on her own? Rose had fought Pink before, even when the latter had been fused, and Rose had still won. What chance did Pink's diminutive form have now?

"Rose!" Steven cried out as he parried yet another sword swing. "You don't have to do this! Can't you see this isn't going to get you what you want?!" Rose shook her head and glared at Steven through her tears, before snarling through clenched teeth: "All I want is to shatter you! That's all I need!"

"That's a lie and you know it!" Steven shouted back, the once pleading tone of his voice replaced by what sounded almost like the tone of a scolding parent. He spoke with a surprising level of confidence for someone so tiny. The Facet 31 Gems all looked shocked to see their leader being spoken to this way. The Crystal Gems of course knew Steven better, and weren't so taken off guard. They had seen him stare down the Diamonds themselves, brave even in the face of their overwhelming power. If he felt that he could get through to with Rose, then they trusted him to do so. "If all you wanted was to shatter me," Steven continued, "you could have done that the last time we met, but you didn't. You could have done it on your own, but you didn't. You got all these other Gems together."

Rose screamed, and sent a flurry of blows his way, which took great effort to block. "What's your point?!" Rose growled as she continued to push him back. "The point is that you care about these Gems" Steven replied in between blocks. "You wanted to give them a better life. That's why you started Facet 31 in the first place, wasn't it? Because you didn't like how you and the others were treated on by Homeworld?"

"Not just by Homeworld!" Rose shot back, having become so wrapped up in the shouting match now that she stopped even trying to attack. She simply stood with her eyes clenched shut, tears still streaming down her face, as she directed centuries of built-up emotions at Steven. "By you, Pink. I was one of your most trusted soldiers; all the Rose Quartzes were, and you used us all as scapegoats for your rebellion! I wanted to make sure none of us would ever suffer like what again! So yes, I do care about my Gems, unlike you!" Pearl looked like she was about to shout a colourfully worded rebuke of some kind, but Steven cut across her. "Does this look like what you had in mind? Does it look like no-one's suffering to you?" he said, gesturing around the room. Rose opened her eyes and looked around. It was the first time she had even noticed her surroundings in the last few minutes, having been so caught up in what was happening with Sapphire and Pink. Dozens of poofed Gems were scattered across the command centre floor, and the wreckage of damaged or destroyed vessels floated outside the main window. The ships that remained on both sides were being rocked by explosions as they continued to fight this battle; her battle. A brief pang of regret slipped through her strong-willed façade, and she felt the tears begin to flow again. She shook them off and turned to face Steven again. "So?!" she replied defiantly. "It's not like we had a choice! We couldn't live on Homeworld anymore, or on Earth; all we could do was try to makes things like they used to be!"

"Sapphire didn't think so!" Steven said with a mixture of rebuke and sympathy that only he was capable of. "She was willing to stop it all just so she could live with you, and I bet that if you asked the other Gems in Facet 31, a lot of them would say the same thing. If you trusted her to watch your back, and give you advice, why wouldn't you trust her when she said you didn't need to go through with it? You've built a family here. Why make them throw their lives away just because of what Pink did?"

"What's the alternative?!" sobbed Rose. "That we just go and live on a planet somewhere? How would that make anything better? The Homeworld we remembered would still be gone; the humans would still be swarming over Earth, and corrupting Homeworld with their backwards ideals. It wouldn't make anything better."

"You don't think that would be better?" asked Steven, desperate to make her understand. "At least you'd be able to live how you wanted. Back on the old Earth, or the old Homeworld, you were only able to do what other people wanted you to do. But you have a chance now to make your own lives. If you wanna live by Homeworld's old rules, you can; if you wanna live by new rules, or no rules at all, you can do that too. No-one's saying you have to agree with what the Humans or the Diamonds are doing now, but no-one's going to let you force them to go back to the old ways either. If you stop thinking about how everyone else feels just because you're angry about something, if you let the people you care about get hurt just to get back at someone you hate, you'd be no better than the Diamonds were." After the tiniest of pauses, he added "You'd be no better than Pink was." He hadn't been sure whether or not he wanted to add that last part, but he had committed to it. He'd been pushing it to the back of his mind ever since Garnet's wedding, but it was time to just admit it. His mother had made mistakes, and if he was going to fix things, he had to acknowledge that.

For the first time, his words finally hit home. Rose began trembling as she attempted to respond to what he'd said, speaking under her breath but with frightening intensity. "No…no, I'm not like her! I did all this to make up for what she did. I wouldn't hurt them like she did, I…I…" Rose didn't have it in her to even deny it any longer. As she tried, the faces of her fellow Gems came to her; first the shocked faces of her fellow Rose Quartz as they were hunted down by the Diamonds' forces, then the faces of her Facet 31 Gems as they fought a hopeless battle against Homeworld and Earth. Both sets of Gems wore the same terrified expressions, as they lost their lives in what should never have been their fight. Finally, another haunting face came to her. It looked up at her through the single, multi-faceted Gem it bore in place of an eye, its expression contorted in fear and sadness. Sapphire. Rose's speech gave way to quivering and whimpering as the weight of her sins hit her. She had hated Pink for so long, but in trying to get revenge, she had done to her own family what Pink had done to her. Rose fell at Steven's feet, and began balling uncontrollably. She tried to form words, but sobs racked her body and prevented her from speaking. In mere moments, thousands of years of anger and hatred were washed away; giving way to sadness that she could no longer supress. She tried to stand, but the will to fight had left her, and her legs felt like jelly beneath her body. Every Gem in the command centre, Crystal and Facet 31 alike, simply stood and stared at the collapsed Quartz. The muffled sounds of the two fleets battling outside could still be heard through the hull, but the inside of the zoo had suddenly become very quiet.

Steven knelt down next to the sobbing Quartz sprawled on the ground before him, and pulled her with some effort into a hug. She didn't return it, but she didn't resist either. She just cried onto his shoulder as he held her. After a few minutes, Rose had enough control over her breathing to be able to speak. Still blubbing, she whispered into Steven's ear "I really can't fix things can I Pink?" Steven pulled back slightly, and looked her in the eyes with an expression that was somehow serious and compassionate at the same time. "Pink's gone Rose. But I'm here, and I'm not going to make the same mistakes she did. We can start to make things better together, but first, the fighting has to stop. Can you do that? Not for me, or her, but for your family?" Steven had claimed to not be Pink many times since they had first met, but now, for the first time, Rose believed him. This organic, whatever it was, it didn't think the way Pink did. His compassion was the same as the Pink she had once known, millennia ago, before all the betrayal, but he had something that Pink never did: an understanding of how she felt.

Steven gazed down at the once imposing form of Facet 31's leader, hoping he had got through to her. Then, in spite of even his most optimistic expectation, Rose smiled up at him. She was still crying, but even through her tears he could tell that this was the first genuine smile he'd ever seen from her. It was completely different from the crazed smirks he had come to expect of her. She looked so innocent like this, so much like his mother. It was so easy to forget the atrocities that both had presided over. As she smiled, she finally replied. "Yeah, yeah I can do that. Y'know why? Because I am better than her." The tiniest hint of malice crept back into her voice as she uttered those words, reminding Steven of a time Bismuth had said something very similar, but somehow it didn't upset his as much this time. After finding out the whole truth about his mother, he couldn't blame anyone for feeling that way anymore.

Rose got up and walked a few steps over to her comm panel, putting herself on a channel to the entire Facet 31 fleet. "All ships, this is Rose. Stand down. Repeat: stand down... It's over." Taking her finger off the panel, she into a sitting position on the floor and sat looking out into space. The Facet 31 Gems occupying the command centre stood staring, some dumbfounded, some relieved. The Crystal Gems didn't seem sure how to react either. They hadn't been present when Steven had won over Lapis, Peridot, and Bismuth. Nor had they been conscious to see how he had brought the Diamonds round to his way of thinking. For the first time, they were seeing just how Steven had done it, and it was an inspiring sight. But for every Gem in the room, Crystal and Facet 31 alike, the sight raised one question. Breaking the silence, Connie was the first to vocalise what they were all thinking: "So…what happens now?"