Thanks for all the supportive comments from those of you who commented! I was honestly going to post this solely on AO3 because of the massive amounts on SU fanfic that immediately buried mine and because nobody seemed to like it at first. But you guys left such nice comments, I felt like I should keep cross posting, because why not?

Stars in a Constellation

1: before the beginning

Amethyst Rivera surveyed her new living quarters with a mild degree of apathy.

The common area wasn't terribly cramped, but it wasn't anything to brag about, either, and as she lugged her overstuffed duffel bag (packed mainly with perishables and Cheese Whiz) into her new bedroom, she noted that it was equally unspectacular.

She shrugged and threw the duffel carelessly onto the uncomfortable-looking mattress before following in much the same suit. "Ah, well," she said to the empty room. "It is what it is." Amethyst wasn't one to dwell on the negative. If she were…well, the world only needed one Pearl.

If that many, she thought, half-amused, half-annoyed. It had been years since she'd seen the tall, peach-haired girl, as Pearl was several years older than Amethyst and had gone off to college while Amethyst had still been in high school.

Presently, Amethyst heard a series of…noises (interrupted by the occasional English) coming from the direction of the hallway, and lifted her head, eyebrows raised in mild curiosity.

"…oof! Stupid wall…GACK! Urgh…clodding…suitcase! I will…destroy you…! THUMP. Yerrgh, damn door!" This last outburst was followed by the telltale sound of a door being kicked, and a yelp of pain. Finally deciding it was worth her while to check out what all this noise was about, Amethyst rolled off her bed, sauntered through the generously dubbed 'living room' and swung her door open just as a short girl with messy, light blonde hair came into view, back first, dragging a large suitcase along the carpet with both hands.

"Uhhm…hey?"

"GACK!" The girl nearly leapt out of her skin, the suitcase landing on the floor with a solid 'thud'.

Amethyst raised an eyebrow—her right, the one she'd gotten pierced the past summer because it seemed like the college thing to do. "Sup?" she asked, as if it were perfectly common to find frazzled, messy-haired blondes in oversized, neon-green alien hoodies cursing up a storm at her doorstep.

The girl shot her a sidelong glare and puffed a lock of white-blonde hair, which had fallen out of its place, hurriedly clipped at the top of her head. "In case it wasn't obvious enough, I could use a little help here," she replied in a nasally, and slightly annoyed, tone.

The other eyebrow quirked. "Don't waste time on manners, huh?" she asked casually, watching as the girl struggled to shove her suitcase back upright. The girl shot her what was clearly meant to be a lead-melting glare, though her flushed cheeks and flyaway hair somewhat dampened the intended effect. After a moment more spent lazily watching the girl struggling with her luggage, Amethyst pushed out of the doorframe and tugged the suitcase out of the girl's grasp. She gave a surprised grunt.

"Shit, what's in this thing?" she commented. Then, with a glance at the girl's hoodie and a mischievous smirk, "Moon rocks?"

"Oh, ha ha," the girl snarked. "Though I must thank you for your help. It seems I may have...overpacked." She cleared her throat and pushed her glasses up on her nose in embarrassment. "Slightly."

"Slightly, huh?" Amethyst replied, rhetorically. This girl had an odd way of speaking, almost mechanical. She'd be fun to mess with… "So…where's this going?" She gestured to the suitcase.

"Oh, uh, just down the hall," the other girl stated, then frowned. "I think. I don't really know my way around yet."

"That's cool, neither do I."

The two girls headed toward the end of the narrow hallway, Amethyst lugging the heavy suitcase behind her. After a little asking around (on Amethyst's part—the blonde didn't seem to want to speak to anyone unless absolutely necessary), they found their destination.

With a loud groan, Amethyst lifted the suitcase and tossed it onto the bed nearest the wall.

"Or wait, did you want a window?"

"I don't really care," the girl replied, after a moment looking at the other bed. "And I'd rather avoid any arguments with my potential roommate so early on."

Amethyst shrugged and hoisted herself onto the bed after the suitcase, dangling her legs over the edge. The beds were so high—she doubted even Pearl, with her long dancer's legs, would be able to touch the ground.

Then she shook herself mentally. She wasn't going to waste her college years pining over Pearl.

Or her amazing legs.

Especially when Pearl was somewhere on the very same campus.

"So, I didn't catch your name," Amethyst said, watching the other girl take in her surroundings.

The other girl, who seemed a little disconcerted that Amethyst had just made herself at home. "Peridot." Then, a moment later, "Diamond. My name is Peridot Diamond. And that is my bed." She pointed to the bed Amethyst was currently lounging on. "Kindly get off."

Amethyst laughed—this girl was a trip. Instead of doing as the blonde—Peridot—had asked (or, rather, demanded), she stretched and fell backwards so that she was lying flat on her back on the plastic-coated mattress. "I'm Amethyst," she said, turning onto her side and propping up an elbow to balance herself. "And you can relax around me, dude, I'm not the dean or anything. Take the stick out of your ass, you remind me of someone I knew…back in grade school…"

Amethyst fell silent, and out of the corner of her sharp eye, Peridot regarded the other girl for a long moment. This girl, Amethyst, didn't seem to have any concept of boundaries. It had been less than five minutes and she had teased Peridot, taken over Peridot's bed, ignored Peridot when she asked her to get off, and informed her that she had a stick up her…well, her bottom. And yet…she'd helped Peridot, a total stranger, lug her monstrously heavy suitcase to her room without a seconds' hesitation. She would definitely have to study her more before she came to a consensus on what kind of person she was.

"Ah, sorry about that," Amethyst sighed loudly, pulling herself back into a sitting position. "Heavy shit, you know?"

Peridot nodded, as if she knew.

Amethyst seemed to pick up on the hedge, because she just laughed at Peridot's reaction and shook her head. "But this isn't high school," she said, opening her arms in a sort of grand gesture, "this is college. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives! It's time to fuck shit up!"

"I sense a flaw in that logic," Peridot commented blandly.

Amethyst ignored her and hopped off the bed rather gracelessly. She'd never been graceful, and it wasn't hard to see why. Anyone could see she wasn't built for it—she was short with short limbs and, while not quite stocky, she was definitely chubby. Not that it bothered her. Amethyst had never had issues with body image. She was just realistic.

Graceful was for people like Pearl, tall and slender and finicky. Graceful wasn't for Amethyst, who couldn't enter a room without the neighbors filing a noise complaint.

"Gack!"

Graceful also, apparently, wasn't for people like Peridot, who'd just tripped over her own two feet on her way to hang a poster whose alien-head design matched her hoodie.

"You okay down there, shorty?" Amethyst asked, amusement in her voice.

"Shut up," Peridot said, voice muffled as she picked herself up from the floor, flushing darkly. "And you're one to talk. You're shorter than I am."

"I never said I wasn't. I just said you were."

Peridot grumbled under her breath unintelligibly while Amethyst chuckled and reached over to brush the dust off her front.

"Alright, I'm gonna let you settle in then," she said, straightening up and stretching, hands intertwined above her head. "Unless you think you're gonna need someone to dial 911 for you at some point." Amusement tinged her voice and her features, and Peridot felt herself blushing darker than ever. "I'll see you around, P-dot!" Amethyst left, still chuckling, hands clasped behind her head, while Peridot was left to contemplate this enigma of a person.

Amethyst groaned into her pillow.

The whole point of college was supposed to be getting a fresh start, right? So then why did her mind keep on drifting back to Pearl?

In reality she knew the answer. Of course it was because Pearl was closer now (physically) than she had been in years, and even though Amethyst didn't want to think about her, her subconscious was stuck in a nervous loop of 'PearlPearlPearlPearl' and trying not to think about her was only making Amethyst think about her more.

Fuck, she hated psychology bullshit.

With felt like the hundredth groan that hour, Amethyst pushed herself up with her hands and folded herself into a sitting position. All this lying around by herself was no good for her. She hated silence, and being alone. Not just because it was boring, but because it gave her ample time and lack of distraction to contemplate just how shitty everything was. It turned her into a pessimist, and Amethyst hated that. She was the life of the party, the one who cheered people up when they were feeling down. She hated the feeling it gave her; or, more accurately, the lack of feeling. More than anything, Amethyst hated feeling numb.

So despite her body's protests, she hopped off the bed, grabbed her jacket (an overlarge, worn zipper hoodie that had belonged to an old boyfriend whose name she couldn't quite remember, not because Amethyst was that type of person, but because he'd been the first of many fruitless endeavors to forget Pearl, or even to stop caring so damn much) and headed out the door before she could think it through and give in to her laziness.

The hallway was a completely different place from just a few hours before, now that a good amount of students had arrived. A football whizzed over Amethyst's head and she ducked lazily out of the way, hands stuffed in her jeans as she slouched into the common area and casually surveyed her new floormates for the rest of the year.

It was a lot like high school, without the restrictions of teachers hanging around every three corners or so. The football had been thrown by a hulking girl with oddly striped skin and muscles even Garnet may have been jealous of. She was only half paying attention, glancing up only to catch the ball as she chatted with the bored-looking girl leaning against the wall on her left. That explained why it had nearly beaned Amethyst, then. Across the room, a boy with a curly red mohawk was leaning against a wall, obviously trying to look cool and failing miserably as he attempted to hold a conversation with a group of oddly familiar people…

"Yo, Jenny!" Amethyst shouted over the den. Said girl blinked and turned, looking for the person who'd called her, until her eyes settled on Amethyst. She broke into a wide grin and waved enthusiastically as the shorter girl wove through the crowd to join her old high school gang. Jenny held out an arm from her seat on the sofa, and Amethyst, taking the hint, fell onto the cushion beside her, fitting easily under the fashionable girl's arm. "Sour Cream, Buck," Amethyst acknowledged the two boys on the floor. Sour Cream, a tall, gangly, white-haired boy was propped up against the balls of his hands, legs sprawled lazily across the floor, affording room for Buck, who was donning his usual sunglasses and lying out so that his head was resting against Sour Cream's stomach. The two boys glanced up at her and nodded in greeting, clearly somewhat lost in their own world.

Amethyst couldn't help but grin at the sight. These three had the craziest, most amazing relationship she'd ever seen, and she'd never seen anyone who loved each other more. She did always feel like a bit of an outsider, though the three had made it clear she was more than welcome to join in any time she wanted. She would have felt as if she were intruding, and as awesome as their relationship was, it wasn't Amethyst's cup of tea.

"So," the arm around her shoulders squeezed gently, forcing Amethyst from her rare introspective mood. Jenny was wearing a casual expression, but beneath it was a hint of trepidation. "How's it goin'?"

Amethyst raised an eyebrow. "Fine? I only got here a couple hours ago, yo."

Jenny shoved her playfully. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she replied as Amethyst chuckled and fell back against her side. Then she adopted a more serious tone, looking Amethyst right in the eyes. "I mean…how are you?"

Amethyst, mood slightly dampened, rolled her eyes. "Like I said, I only just got here." When Jenny's deceptively nonchalant gaze didn't waver, Amethyst gave a theatrical sigh and threw up her stubby arms. "I haven't even seen her yet, dude, I'm fine!"

Unfazed, Jenny gave her a look that clearly said she didn't believe a word of it. Still, being Jenny, she let the subject drop. There was no point trying to have a rational conversation with Amethyst, especially about something like her feelings, when Amethyst didn't want to. The more she was pushed, the harder she would push back, and it was just easier to let her be. Most of them had learned that lesson early on.

And then, of course there were those who couldn't seem to let sleeping dogs lie despite knowing better, whether for the sake of their own pride or simple stubbornness…whatever the case, it was that core conflict that everyone but those directly involved could see was just driving the wedge in deeper. Ironically, at one point in time it had served as a magnet as well.

So of course Jenny was worried about Amethyst. They all were. Amethyst knew, despite how thick and unconcerned she acted. They were choosing their words carefully, walking on eggshells…she wished they would just stop. It wasn't like going to the same school again was going to change anything at all. The bickering came so easily now, Amethyst wouldn't even have to try. And besides, Pearl was a senior now. Just one year, and Amethyst would be free. Maybe being closer to her would even make it easier, what with all the nitpicking and squawking and just overall Pearl…ing. How could she have feelings with all that bombarding her?

You did once before, a small voice in the back of Amethyst's mind reminded her.

Shut up, she replied, and the voice obediently died away.

Amethyst stayed with the trio for a while afterwards, not so much for the sake of conversation—it wasn't like they had a whole lot to say, having only been away from each other for a few weeks—as for the company and the meaningless chatter. The orange-haired boy had skulked off at some point, after being ignored for the better part of an hour, and the crowd had thinned considerably when Amethyst finally got to her feet and stretched.

"I'll see you guys around," she said. "My roommate's probably here by now, I gotta go make sure she doesn't mess with my shit."

"Oh I think your shit's fine, Ame," Jenny replied, staring down at her phone. "Most people aren't into fossilized burrito collecting."

Amethyst flipped her friend off and turned to leave. "And don't get involved with your roommate," Sour Cream added seriously, from behind her.

"That road leads straight to Drama City, yo," she heard Buck add, and could almost see him nodding along with Sour Cream's words as he did so. Laughing at her friends' 'sage advice', she nodded and shot them a noncommittal wave over her shoulder as she headed back down the hallway toward her room.

In all actuality, maybe starting a thing with her roommate would make for a nice distraction.

Plus, imagine the look on P's face if I told her I was fucking my—

Amethyst growled in annoyance at her own thoughts. Who cared if Pearl cared if she was fucking someone else?

Someone, there is no else, idiot.

She hadn't even seen Pearl yet and she kept invading her thoughts. God, what was wrong with her? It had been three fucking years already. If it was this bad now, how much worse would it get when she inevitably bumped into Pearl on campus (because we've already established that the universe hated Amethyst)?

And to top it all off, this whole thing was making Amethyst start off her freshman year of college in a bad mood, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Still frustrated, she swiped her keycard and walked straight into her dorm room, flinging herself face-first onto her (still unmade) bed without even noticing that she wasn't alone anymore.

"Um…are you alright?"

Amethyst's eyes snapped open and she fumbled into an upright position, facing the direction the voice had come from. It had apparently come from the short, sweet-faced blonde girl who was kneeling on the floor, going through her belongings. "Oh, hey," Amethyst said. "Uh…" She hedged for a second, came up empty, and decided on the truth. She sighed. "Sorry about that. I swear I'm cheerful normally."

The girl laughed, and Amethyst felt a weight lift from her chest. She'd hate to start on the wrong foot with the chick she'd be sharing a room with into the foreseeable future. She stood up, dusting off the knees of her jeans. "No worries," she said kindly. "I've seen that look before. Hell, I've worn it." She stepped forward, over the mess of personal items that was currently their floor, hand outstretched. "I'm Sadie."

Amethyst eyed the proffered hand for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly. Taken aback, Sadie faltered in her approach. Then, Amethyst jumped down from the bed and opened her arms wide. "I'm not much of a hand-shaker," she said in a teasing voice. "Let's hug it out, roomie!"

Sadie gave a little relieved/disbelieving laugh and, after a second's hesitation, accepted the hug, tentatively hugging back. When they let go, Sadie was smiling, her cheeks a little rosy, clearly unused to such easy contact, but pleased nonetheless. Amethyst glanced down at all their belongings littering the floor.

"Shit, I hate this part," she commented, and Sadie, following her gaze, laughed.

"Yeah, me too."

It was several hours' worth of work, but Sadie was a surprisingly good conversationalist, and they managed to keep each other entertained through chatting through the chore. By the time eleven rolled around, they were both too tired to do anything more than turn out the lights flop down on their beds (which were now made, though Amethyst's looked more like a nest than a bed, as Sadie had jokingly pointed out), still in the clothes they'd been wearing all day.

Despite her exhaustion, Amethyst fell asleep with a smile on her face. All that mindless work had driven her Pearl-centric thoughts from her brain and she felt much more like herself—happy and ready to face her first real day in a couple days' time.

I'm sorry nothing really happened in this chapter. It's kind of hard to write the base chapters, before really getting into the story, but I hope it's not as hard to read! I was going to have Amethyst and Peridot be roommates but changed it at the last minute for…reasons that, if not already transparent, will become so later on. I hope Amethyst didn't seem OOC in this chapter as well—I take pride in my characterization. It's just what came to me and again, these build-up, nothing chapters are hard so they always become too introspective…anyway, I really hope you guys enjoyed it, at least. I promise the story will take off soon!

I guess it's important (or I think it is) that I let everyone know that I'm not one for dark fics—I get depressed enough without stuff I read/watch being all depressing as well, haha. So no matter what angst may eventually come, rest assured it will have a happy ending! I also want to thank everyone who left me a comment/kudos! You guys are great, and I was so happy to see that so many people seem to be enjoying this so far! I hope you all continue to enjoy this work, and if you have the time, please comment/review as well! I love to hear your opinions/input, and like I said before, it's great motivation for us writers! Thank you all very much for your support!