Epilogue

…

The universe was so much wider than Steven could've imagined.

For almost three years, he and Spinel had explored the furthest reaches of their curiosity. With the assistance of the galaxy warp and Spinel's pod ship, they were able to travel wherever they pleased. Together they had earmarked dozens of planets and moons on their 3D holographic map of the galaxy, both the habitable planets and the hostile ones.

While he had visited home quite a few times, today marked the beginning of his first extended stay back on Earth. He felt nostalgia swell in his chest as he leafed through a thick photo album, full to the brim with the memories of his adventures. In one picture, he and Spinel laughed mid-twirl while skating across the icy surface of Europa. On the next page, Spinel dangled helplessly from an alien vine on an uncharted planet in the Alpha Centauri system. A blurry shape hidden in the foliage behind her revealed the clawed, insect-like monster that pounced on them shortly after the photo was taken. Needless to say, that planet was marked 'hostile', and they were able to laugh about it after the fact.

Most of the photos were pleasant though, like his birthday picnic last year on a planet he and Spinel agreed to name "Daffodil" after the miles of pale yellow flowers that inhabited it. They visited there every time they happened to pass by.

The shelves that lined his office were full to the brim with jars of seeds, dried flowers and petals, journals and logs detailing the events of the past few years, and an array of alien stones and shells.

So much he'd already experienced by the age of nineteen. Well, almost. Next week was his birthday, hence the trip home. He smiled to himself and let the album fall closed.

He met his reflection in the mirror hanging against his office door. Three years had made a remarkable difference in his appearance, and he couldn't honestly complain. His hair fell in thick black ringlets to his shoulders, which had broadened out from both age and exercise. His face showed none of the shadows that used to hang around him, and most of his scars had faded away completely. Aside from the jagged scar that creased his left eyelid, his eye had healed in its own time. He hadn't just recovered from the chaos, he thrived in his newfound freedom.

No one knew that they were back on Earth yet, giving them plenty of time to settle into the apartment that they kept year-round for their visits. They'd only been there for a couple of days and already the stagnation was chafing on Spinel. He heard her restless sigh from the next room over. Even after all of their travels, she disliked staying in one place for long. She hated staying still.

Tucking the album back into its place on the bookshelf, he left his office. He found Spinel sprawled out over their bed, staring at the ceiling. Her long hair flowed across the pillows behind her in the new, grown-out style she preferred nowadays. She smiled and sat up when she saw him leaning against the door frame. "Let's do something," she said, "I'm bored."

You always are, Steven thought with amusement. "What do you want to do, love?"

Spinel flopped back down onto the bed and sighed dramatically. "Anything," she said, "but sit here. There has to be some place here on Earth that we haven't visited."

Steven thought. "There are a few places I can think of." He said.

"Like?" Spinel asked, her eyes sparkling.

They'd already visited all of the major cities that he could think of, and most of the gem ruins that he knew of on Earth. Most.

He smiled at her and asked, "Can you be ready in ten minutes?"

…

Pink's palanquin was exactly as he had last seen it. Half-sunken into the ground and grown over with long grasses and vines of pale flowers it stood, the emblem of a war long forgotten by the land around it. Pale, gauzy curtains hung in tatters which stirred on the gentle breeze. It should have felt like a desolate, haunted place, but it didn't. The earth had reclaimed it, made it new even in its decay. It was beautiful.

Steven helped Spinel step over a broken, rusted sword that jutted from the grass, and they stood for a moment in respectful silence. Here, Pink Diamond had finally stood up for herself against the other Diamonds. Beneath the grass, Steven could see the exact place where Pearl, disguised as Rose Quartz, had staged Pink Diamond's death.

"Wow," Spinel breathed next to him. "So this is where it all happened?" She asked.

Steven hummed and took her hand. "Let me show you around."

Together they ducked under the curtain and into the shade. It was cool and stuffy inside, and it smelled like dust. Pink's mobile throne stood tall and proud in the center, unaffected by the millennia that had passed since its last use. Steven was flooded with memories.

"Here," he said, pulling Spinel behind the throne, "is where Pearl agreed to 'poof' Pink. And where, in Pearl's memories, I found out that my mom was Pink Diamond."

Spinel's hand found his, as it often did when he spoke of the parts of his old life he couldn't recall. He was haunted by the actions and choices he couldn't account for, couldn't remember, and Spinel sought to comfort him. They'd spent countless hours talking over how they both felt about Rose, and Pink, and the war that neither of them participated in.

For the span of time before and after Spinel, Pink Diamond was as much of a stranger to Steven as she had been in his childhood. Before her, thousands of years stretched monotonously back and back. After Spinel… Rose had done a pretty thorough job of erasing as much as possible when she created Steven. He felt grateful every single day that Rose hadn't known about her most precious lost memories, and so didn't destroy them like she had the rest.

"I'm alright, thank you." He said, running his free hand through his tangled hair.

She gave him a wan smile and tugged him back to the front of the palanquin. Outside, she leaned against one of its many spindly legs and sighed, still clinging to Steven's hand.

"Thank you for bringing me here," she said. "It's… unexpectedly pretty."

Steven smiled and stepped closer, plucking a delicate flower from the vine next to Spinel's shoulder. He leaned in to tuck it behind her ear. "You're the only person I would bring here, love."

She smiled at that. "Sweetheart," she accused.

"Guilty as charged," he said, trailing his fingertips along her cheek. He loved that, even after so long, her eyes went starry as he stepped closer to her. He loved that her breath hitched just before he kissed her, and he loved the way that her fingers tightened over his. She pulled him closer just before they broke apart, then looked up at him. He knew what she was going to say before she had begun to speak.

"You wanna climb it or something?" She asked, her eyes glinting.

Steven laughed, leaning his palm against the palanquin's leg. "You already know I do," he told her. She smirked.

In the next instant she was gone, flashed away to a point twenty feet above him. She stuck her tongue out from the trellised roof of the palanquin.

"That's cheating!" Steven gasped, already looking around for a way to climb up fairly.

He found it, and had started his ascent when something made him look up. Spinel's face had gone pale, and her hands were limp at her sides. She stared at something on the ground, out of his sight.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Steven, is… is that what I think it is? Over there, look." She stretched her leg back down to the ground, and took his hand in hers again. She led him through the tall grass to a small clearing.

Glittering on top of the hard-packed dirt were shards of glass. Pink glass.

"The fake gem shards," he explained. Sure enough, he could see a faceted section of the stone sending brilliant rainbows across the dirt around it. Small and broken, but undeniably beautiful.

A chill ran down his spine when he remembered Spinel's gem similarly shattered.

"I don't like the thought of that being you," Spinel said, practically reading his thoughts. "It looks too real."

It had been her, at one point. She had been a pile of rubble just like this, a puzzle of shards for him to piece back together. His stomach twisted. He couldn't speak, but Spinel understood. His free hand was taken in hers, placed over her heart.

Her gem was warm against his palm. Whole.

Steven let out a breath. "You always know how to make me feel better, don't you?" He asked, pulling her into his arms. Her gem pressed against his chest.

"Hmm," she replied, "I try, at least."

They pulled apart to inspect the shards again. Spinel crouched and peered in close, poking at the different pieces to flip them over.

"Oh, look at this one!" she started, picking up the biggest piece, "It's-"

They both saw it at the same time, and froze. Steven felt a pang of disbelief, of horror, at the deeper shade of pink that glinted up at them.

There, underneath the fake, shattered Diamond, was the missing shard of Spinel's gem.

…

Two days later found Steven staring at the bubble in front of him, lost in thought.

"She's here!" Spinel's voice rang from a few rooms over. Seconds later, he heard a knock on the front door. He sighed.

Steven stood from his desk and stepped into the hallway. Spinel bounced out ahead of him, jittering with anxiety. Although his family were always cordial with her, she still seemed shaken each time they met.

She beat him to the door, but disappeared in a flash of light and ended up five steps behind him.

"You did that on purpose," Steven said, laughing as he reached for the handle.

"Did not," she protested, but she sounded so nervous that he wasn't inclined to believe her.

"Heya, Steven!" Bismuth called as he opened the door, sweeping him into a hug before he could even say 'hello'.

"Oh, you've grown! Soon you'll be as tall as I am!" She held him at arm's length, looking over every inch of him with the air of an overbearing aunt. "Gosh, and those arms! I need to get you into blacksmithing, seriously, you should consider it."

Steven's face heated at the compliments to his physique, especially as Spinel wiggled her eyebrows at him from across the living room.

"Thanks, Bismuth." He said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll uh- I'll consider it." He smiled.

Spinel nodded at him encouragingly, and Bismuth noticed his glance. She didn't seem to have noticed Spinel in the room with them until that moment.

"It's nice to see you, Spinel. I trust you've been well?" Bismuth said, her voice forcefully polite.

Spinel flushed a deep magenta and nodded, saying, "I have been, I hope you have too."

Steven gave Bismuth a tight smile that said 'be nice' and then cleared his throat. "We called you here for something kind of important, Bismuth," he said. "Go ahead and take a seat, I'll be right back."

He left Spinel alone with their guest and walked back to his office. He returned with the bubble tucked under his arm.

Bismuth's eyes widened at the sight of it. "Is that… Steven, be serious." she said, disbelief coloring her tone.

"I am serious; we're giving her to you." he said, holding Pearl's bubble out for the larger gem. Bismuth took it gingerly onto her lap.

"Why?" She asked.

Spinel spoke, wringing her hands. "We, well, I decided that she didn't deserve the fate she left me to, but we didn't know what to do with her. So she's in your hands now."

"It's up to you whether to let her out or not," Steven said, "but I do ask that you wait until after Spinel and I leave again, for our safety."

Bismuth was looking at Spinel with a strange expression, as if seeing her for the first time. Spinel squirmed under her gaze.

"Also," Steven continued, "if you let her out, it's your responsibility to stop her from trying to reach us. You need to make her understand that she and I-" he gestured to Spinel, "are together now, and that she's not welcome."

Bismuth nodded. She stared at the bubbled gem in her lap, frowning. When she finally spoke, her voice wavered. "I don't know if I can." She looked up at them and explained, "I mean… she fused with almost all of us, and she kept so much of herself hidden; that level of deception is just unheard of. If I did let her out, I don't think I'd ever be able to trust her again."

Spinel frowned sympathetically, and Steven nodded. "It's up to you," he said. " We won't judge you at all if you keep her in there, or if you don't, just let us know. That's all we ask."

Finding Spinel's gem shard hidden beneath the fake Pink Diamond had been a nasty shock, salt in the wound of Pearl's betrayal, but they had already decided weeks before to hand Pearl over, and had already gone through the trouble of visiting the garden to retrieve her. Twisted and cruel as she was, she wasn't their problem anymore.

…

Their apartment was dark and quiet after Steven's birthday party; he and Spinel shouldered through the door laden with armfuls of gifts just before midnight.

"Gosh," Steven heaved as he dropped his pile onto the couch. "There's no way they expect us to take all of this with us."

Spinel laughed and deposited her pile next to his. "Well, you still have one more," she said. "I hope you can make room for it."

When Steven turned to face her, she was holding a small velvet pouch out to him. It was warm from her pocket and had a nice weight against his palm.

"Can I get a hint?" He asked, smirking at her.

She pushed his hand and said, "Just open it."

He turned the bag over into his hand and a tangle of black cord and silver wire came tumbling out. It took him a moment to unravel the mess.

Spinel had definitely been putting her free time to good use, he thought as he examined the necklace. The pendant was thickly wrapped in braids of delicate silver wire, so much so that he could barely see the magenta stone at its center. The braids and vines tightly hugged the jagged edges of the stone, encasing it in a protective shell of metal. Steven knew at once what it was.

He held it close to his chest and said, "Oh, Spinel, you didn't have-"

"-Hush, I wanted to. What else was I going to do with it?" She said, smiling.

Steven examined the gem shard, toying with the black cord it was hung on. "Don't you want to, you know-" he gestured to her gem, where a jagged section still glittered white instead of pink. "Don't you want to put it back in?"

Spinel hummed. "I feel like that might hurt," she said, rubbing her chest anxiously. "Besides, how else would I do this?" She smirked and disappeared in a flash.

She reappeared several feet behind him and several feet too high. He heard her fall to the floor with a crash and turned around. He had to try hard to reign in his exasperation as he watched her pop back up and try again. The room lit up again, and she appeared just behind him, wrapping her arms over his shoulders.

"You have way too much fun with that, you know." He said, moving his hair as Spinel pulled the black cord over his head.

"I know," she said with a smile, "but I can't help loving that look on your face. It's hilarious." She pressed a kiss into his neck, and he shivered.

"I disagree," he said, turning to face her. "You could get hurt. I won't always be close enough to catch you, my love."

Spinel pulled a face. "You planning on leaving me or something?"

"Never," he replied instantly, quick to give her the reassurance she needed. Of course she knew that he wasn't going to leave her, but he never missed a chance to tell her so.

His eyes were drawn down to his chest, where Spinel's hand rested over the pendant she'd made him. "I love it," he told her, and he did. The handiwork was beautiful, but it was the core that melted his heart.

"Now I'll always be with you," she said, smiling up at him.

He pulled her against him, brushing his nose against her cheek. He breathed her in, losing himself in her familiar warmth. They had so many years ahead of them, so many cards to turn over, together; infinite tomorrows.

In that moment of perfect rightness, he knew that this is what his future was meant to hold all along. No matter what path he had taken, he would have found her. His life would have been so empty without her, so void of meaning that he wasn't sure he'd have survived it.

He had been waiting for her as much as she had been waiting for him.

"You already were," he told her, "and I'm never letting you go."