In which Pearl needs brain soap, and Connie fears she is a candidate for the weirdest reality show ever.
Re-rated to T specifically for this chapter. And for the single, accidental innuendo courtesy of Amethyst. Bad Amethyst.
at first
"We have something very important to tell you," Rose announced. She squeezed Greg's hand and glanced around at the other Gems. "Maybe you should be sitting down for this."
"I'll catch them if they faint," Garnet promised.
"Maybe I should be sitting down for this," Greg said. He dragged several folding chairs out of the back of his van and arranged them in a circle in the sand. Pearl took a seat at the edge of her chair, crossing her feet primly. Despite the balmy sunshine on the beach, the circular set-up made her feel like they were forming a tribunal planning to go to war. She didn't have any idea what Greg and Rose could be announcing- the two already spent more time together than apart, had for multiple Earth-years- but the whole thing still put her on edge.
Rose cleared her throat. She cut right to the chase. "Greg and I are going to have a baby."
"A baby?" Pearl exchanged a bewildered look with Amethyst. "A baby what?"
"A baby us," Rose said simply.
That couldn't be correct. "But how?" Pearl asked.
"How?" Amethyst echoed.
"How…" Greg put his palm to his forehead.
Rose smiled warmly. "I'm pregnant."
"You're what?" Pearl asked. A misunderstanding. They'd have it cleared up in a moment.
"PREGNANT?" Amethyst roared. "Pregnant? Like Vidalia was pregnant?" She pounded her fist into her hand. "Where is that Marty? I'll kill him! I will!"
"No, no, no. It's Greg's baby," Rose said quickly. "Greg's and mine. Our baby."
Amethyst scowled at Greg. "What did you do to her?"
Amethyst did not entirely comprehend the nature of pregnancy or how it came about. Pearl had done plenty of research. But in this particular instance she did not understand either.
"I- I just don't think that that's possible," Pearl said, biting her lip.
"Well, we had our doubts in the beginning, but… it is," Greg said, smiling lopsidedly. "Miracles happen, ya know?"
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!" Amethyst demanded again.
Greg took a deep breath. Of course 'miracle' wasn't a good enough explanation. "Well, Amethyst, you know that the way Gems reproduce is-"
"You drilled a hole in her?"Amethyst interrupted, shocked and horrified.
Greg blinked at her once, still smiling. Then he stood up and kissed the top of Rose's head. "Have fun, sweetie. I'll see you later."
Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him back down into his seat before he could make a break for it. She also refused to stop smiling.
"My hair is coming out, Rose. This is making my hair fall out."
"It's not," Rose whispered.
"Just look."
"Human reproduction is very different," Rose finished, gently pushing Greg's head away. "And I am pregnant. As a human being experiences pregnancy."
"Are you- are you sure?" Pearl stammered. "Because I don't believe that Gemkind possess the necessary… components…"
"Love," Rose interrupted.
"What?"
"All you really need is love," Rose said with a meaningful look. Pearl frowned, and then as she watched, Rose folded her hands to form a heart, then shapeshifted them together so the shape was as perfect and complete as a human Valentine.
Oh. Oh, stars in the heavens, shapeshifting.
"Oh, you're going to have a baby!" Pearl gasped. She turned to Garnet and shook her shoulder with a violent grin. "Did you hear, they're going to have a baby!"
Not by way of a miracle. Oh, what had they done?
"In a few months, we'll have a new member of the family," Rose said, touching her abdomen lightly. "And we're very excited about it."
"Of course you are!" Pearl said, smiling too widely. "We're very excited for you as well! We're very-" She was breathing too fast now to finish the sentence. "But will it- will it be a human? It- it can't be a Gem. Will it be a Gem?" she turned to Garnet, almost pleading.
"Congratulations," Garnet said, holding out her hand to the couple. "It's a boy. He will not be like anything that's lived before. And after much deliberating, you'll most likely decide to name him Steven." She paused and studied the others' faces. "Whoops. That may have been more than you wanted to know."
"A boy? We're having a baby boy?" Greg's eyes filled up almost immediately. He grabbed his head, laughing nervously. "Oh, man. This is really happening, isn't it?"
"Steven," Rose repeated, under her breath.
"Oh, thank you!" Greg flung his arms around Garnet, a gesture that she did not return. He embraced Amethyst tightly as well, but Pearl sat back down and folded her arms, and he kept his distance. She couldn't help staring at him then, at his slightly flabby human form which was glistening with sweat in the late afternoon sun.
Pearl felt vaguely ill.
"Rose, I need to speak to you in private. Immediately." Garnet adjusted her goggles. "Actually, it can wait. We should be celebrating right now." Her face twitched microscopically. "But I really need to talk to you as soon as possible. It can't- it can't wait long." She folded up her chair and stashed it in the van.
Pearl told herself not to be alarmed by Garnet's brief moment of contradiction, as she herself was feeling unsteady. She told herself not to be alarmed by any of it. Rose had always been partial to human children. This could be a wonderful experience.
"You know, I had an Uncle named Steven," Greg said. "He was a pretty great guy. Took me fishing sometimes… Now I can't get that name out of my head." He pulled his hand away from his temple, holding several loose strands of hair. "Okay, now do you believe me, Rose?"
Pearl stared at the dangling hair in horror. She had no choice but to believe any of it.
Amethyst studied the page in Pearl's book for a long moment. "Dude." She squinted and then turned it sideways, upside down. "Duuuuude. Hey Pearl, remember when you told us we all needed to study up on human anatomy?"
Pearl didn't respond. It was better for the nausea if she kept her mouth shut.
"It sounds like somebody took your advice!" Amethyst snickered. "Up top!"
Pearl didn't high-five her.
"Well, it's obvious that Rose's fascination with the human race and its customs no longer has any remaining boundaries. But if she wishes to engage in…" Pearl paused to choose her words carefully. "…primitive human mating rituals, she's entirely within her right."
"That's so crazy. I didn't have any idea that they could. Did you, P?"
"Of course," Pearl said quickly. "Rose has confided many things in me. That doesn't mean I enjoyed focusing on the thought. D-did you know, Garnet?"
"Yes."
"No fair! Rose told everybody but me!" Amethyst crossed her arms.
"She didn't tell me anything," Garnet said. "But experience has given me some advice for the two of you. If you don't have future vision, I would suggest you always knock before entering Rose's room." She gave them a long, meaningful look before turning on her heel.
"Dude," Amethyst said.
"Pearl, what are you doing?"
Pearl glanced up from the pink tile floor that she was furiously scrubbing with a sponge. "Oh- oh nothing much, Rose." She drew a hand across her forehead and smiled widely. "I was just thinking earlier how it's been a long time since we disinfected every surface in the temple, hasn't it?"
Rose blinked and watched Pearl continue to pour herself into her cleaning. "Well, thank you, Pearl, but... This room is an arbitrary construction of my mind. So there's no guarantee it will even be here tomorrow."
Pearl stood and wrung out her sponge into a bucket. "Yes, I know," she murmured. "We definitely need to keep up with the cleaning..."
but then
"Pearl! Connie has a question she wants to ask you!"
"No I don't!" Connie rushed into the room so close behind Steven that she plowed into him.
"Yes, you do!" Steven insisted, wiggling away when she tried to cover his mouth.
"No, really, it's nothing!" Connie pushed the frames of her glasses back up, blushing wildly. She wouldn't make eye contact with Pearl.
"Come on, Connie! Pearl's really good at answering questions. Even stupid ones." Steven turned to Pearl. "She thinks it's stupid, but I bet it's not. Connie's really smart."
Pearl leaned the mop against the wall. "Connie, you don't need to be embarrassed about seeking knowledge," she said.
Connie twiddled her thumbs. "I just wanted to know a little more about Gems." Her blush deepened. "And, um, how they reproduce. Or- or if they do. Because I was thinking that a species that doesn't age maybe doesn't need to have kids?"
Connie had no idea that she had just stumbled upon a philosophical and ethical dilemma that had raged on Homeworld for millennia. Normally, Pearl explained Gemkind to humans on a strictly need-to-know basis. But Connie was a truly bright-minded scholar for one so young. And it was touching that she cared so deeply for the foreign world that Steven was a part of. Pearl took a seat on the couch and motioned for the children to join her.
"Well, Gems don't produce offspring in the traditional way that humans do." She used her gem to project an image of two cells combining. "You know that when humans mate-"
Connie coughed violently and cut her eyes toward Steven, who was happily popping bubbles on a game on his phone. There was no telling if he was tuned into the conversation or not.
"I don't know if he…" Connie whispered.
"Ahhh. Yes. Steven…" Pearl cleared her throat. "Steven, you haven't heard about this yet, have you? Greg's never told you anything about… the birds or the bees?"
Steven shook his head.
"The facts of life?" She searched her memory. "The… green gown, if I may?"
That last phrase may have been a bit archaic, but it wasn't as if Pearl had had this conversation frequently in the past few centuries.
"No, but that does sounds intriguing. Tell me!" Steven set aside his phone, curious.
"Well, it's a very special story about where people come from. And we all promised Greg that he got to be the one to tell it to you."
"Oh." Steven nodded seriously. "I see."
There was silence. Steven looked from Connie to Pearl. "Well, I'm going to make a sandwich," he announced, then strode into the kitchen.
Connie continued in a lower tone. "I know… I know that Gems don't really have a biological sex according to a human understanding of the concept, do they? And so maybe they don't mate… or… but… I…" She faltered.
Pearl projected the image again, zooming in on the DNA structure of the human parents' cells.
"When humans mate, the resulting offspring has a combination of its parents' genetic coding that makes it entirely unique. And the child spends a period of time incubating in the mother's body before making an appearance."
Pearl projected an image of one of the Gem injectors, back in its functional state. "By contrast, Gems incubate in a special area underground. Reproduction doesn't take place naturally. The process is expensive and time-consuming and certainly cannot come about by accident."
Connie nodded slowly. "Yeah, Steven told me a little bit about the… the Kindergarten."
The image from Pearl's gem darkened, ever so slightly. She fought to keep the scene from transforming to the bleak reality of the abandoned mine. It really was a good thing they had come to her with this question and not to Amethyst.
"But I- I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly because I also thought about- about fusion and how it's- it's sort of two Gems making a new Gem, isn't it?" Connie said. "I know it's not the same thing…"
"No, not at all," Pearl said quickly, blushing a little.
"But I- I was wondering about Steven? Because he- he has two parents? And so I didn't know if there was some magic involved and- and maybe they fused and- I mean, I could have asked Mr. Universe, I guess, but I wasn't going to ask Mr. Universe!" Connie laughed, the pitch just a little too high.
Pearl sighed. "No, Greg and Rose were never capable of fusing. Through shapeshifting, Rose was able to mimic a female reproductive system and-"
"I get it!" Connie blurted out, covering her eyes. Pearl turned off her hologram projection as Connie continued to stammer.
"I- I just got worried because- I didn't know where Steven came from and- and he and I fused the other day and I- I don't understand all of your Gem magic and I got scared- I got scared that- it's nothing, but-"
Pearl blinked at Connie, and pity came over her along with understanding. "Connie, listen to me," she said soothingly. "There is absolutely no way that you are pregnant."
"I told you it was a stupid question!" Connie wailed, flinging out her arms. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. "I'm eleven years old and I've never even kissed Ste – anyone - and if my parents knew - I couldn't stop thinking about what I was going to tell them if - if somehow due to this impossible m-magical stuff I was - I was going to have -" She gasped for breath. "And they don't even know that I know about- about sex, and I only know from books, and if they knew that I knew then they would take all my books away and I need my books. I need them, Pearl!"
She wrapped her arms around Pearl, still struggling not to cry. Pearl patted her back hesitantly.
"Of course I'm not going to tell them," she reassured Connie. "And you can just calm yourself with the knowledge that Steven was conceived in the regular old human way."
"I don't know why I thought it was something more… magical than that," Connie said, sitting back on the couch.
"I don't pretend to appreciate the subtleties of the process myself," Pearl admitted. "But Steven was created out of a love different from any before or since. So I'd say it's still something of a miracle."
Connie sniffled, but she also smiled. "I guess so."
"And, of course, Steven's only the first generation of a human-Gem being. There's no telling what kind of complications will arise when the time comes for you two to produce offspring."
"What?" Connie squeaked.
Pearl glanced around innocently. "What?"
Connie shook her head. "Nothing. Let's just change the subject now."
That was when Steven burst into the room, snapping his fingers. "Intercourse!" he said triumphantly.
They stared at him.
"That's what Dad called it. He told me where babies come from, but he called it intercourse. Intercourse, of course, of course." Steven nodded, pleased with his little rhyme. "Yup, I heard that story." He walked back into the kitchen.
Connie put her hands over her face and slid down her seat until she disappeared.
Tune in next time to see Connie star in 11 and Pregnant with My Best Friend's Baby through Inexplicable Magic Alien Biology. It's sure to be a hit.
Reviews are much appreciated!