"You like me right, Rock?" Amethyst asked,Talking Rock didn't respond. Not that it ever had, it was meant to be talked at. Not responding back. But for some reason it made her mad. "Don't make me hang out with Sitting Rock!"

Talking Rock stared back, mocking her.

She stormed over to Sitting Rock and sat on it.

"You guys used to be way more fun." She told it.

She flopped back. "Bet no one else is having fun either."

Pearl had come by, and asked her if she was ok. She always acted so perfect. Well she didn't need to waste her time pretending to care anymore. Amethyst didn't need her pity, and she was sure Pearl wouldn't come back after she'd attacked her. Which was good, Amethyst knew where she belonged, and she'd been happy here for ages without them.

She wasn't lonely.

Greg knew the gems were gone. The whole city did, he didn't know how to raise Steven without them, Rose had said he could trust them. But he couldn't. Luckily he was allowed to have Steven at the car wash most of the time. He found a reliable babysitter, a highschool girl. And called Vadalia when he was in a pinch.

It worked, his son was okay. And hadn't started glowing again. So Greg was okay, as long as Steven was. Months past, he normally celebrated Steven's milestones alone, although occasionally he visited Vadalia and she would bake cookies for them and they would chat.

"You heard the gems are back?" She asked one day.

"What no! What did you hear?"

"Someone spotted Pearl on the beach. Although they just said 'the thin one'"

"Pearl…great. Of all the gems that could have come back." Greg grumbled. Spoon feeding Steven another scoop of sweet potato baby food. Sour cream had earphones on and wasn't listening to a word they said.

"She had another one with her. A little red one. Can they have kids? Amethyst never really got the idea."

"No, that's Ruby. I've only met her once. She's half of Garnet. At least it's not just Pearl…although it means Garnet's not back and it's been months."

"Huh?" Vadalia asked.

"Gem stuff, I don't really get it either," Greg shrugged. "I should probably go talk to them," he said.

But he didn't.

A week passed and he hadn't.

He heard about them occasionally from people at the car wash. They hadn't come into town but occasionally could be seen on the beach, walking, or pacing in Ruby's case as often as not.

Greg wasn't ready to talk to them, he wasn't ready to ask where the others had gone. He wasn't ready to deal with Pearl at all, not about Rose, and certainly not about what she had done to Steven.

Another week passed.

And then two.

Eventually the decision left his hands. There was a sharp knock on the door of the car wash, he knew it was her before he opened the door, no one knocked, it was a car wash for Pete's sake.

They were both there, Pearl and Ruby. "We came to visit Steven." Pearl said.

Greg didn't know how to feel. Angry? Should he tell them to get out? Relieved? That he finally had someone to help him when gem stuff appeared again? He was just tired, he opened the door fully and moved out of the way.

"I didn't know Steven could sit up!" Ruby said excitedly.

Steven sat in the middle of the office, chewing on a stuffed bear's ear. The office was small. It had a desk and chairs to do business on one side. A small couch and TV tucked into the other corner where Greg normally ate his lunch, and a large green rug Steven played on most of the day between them, a handful of toys littered across it. A door near the couch lead to a small half bath.

"Well he couldn't last time you saw him." Greg said. "He just learned that."

Ruby reached up and touched her forehead. "Oh." She said, sounding almost sad.

"I'm sure he will be especially talented." Pearl said. "We should work on his language…unless he's learned that as well?"

"No, Pearl. He didn't learn to talk." He shouldn't be this annoyed with her. Rose didn't know anything about babies either.

Ruby laid down next to Steven, staring at his gem, which he had pulled his shirt off of. "So that's her? Pink Diamond?"

"Who's Pink Diamond?" Greg asked.

"Pink Diamond is dead. There's only Steven now." Pearl said to Ruby, she turned to Greg "Do you still have his dictionary?" She asked.

"Yeah, Pearl, I didn't throw out your gift. I wouldn't do that," Even if you did almost kill him. He thought. "It's in the van. Are you going to answer my question?"

"Ruby will." Pearl said, leaving the room much more quickly then normal.

Greg looked at Ruby.

"Yeah. I can tell you." Ruby said, and then Ruby told him everything. Pearl took a surprisingly long time to get the dictionary and conveniently came in at the end of the story. She ignored Greg as she sat down next to Steven. Greg was fine with that. He didn't have anything to say to her either.

She opened the dictionary. " A : the 1st letter of the English alphabet 1) used as a function word before singular nouns when the referent is unspecified 2) the same."

She was really going to read the whole dictionary to him, Greg realized. He hoped Steven was tired. It was sort of like a bedtime story.

"So….do you have any questions?" Ruby asked.

"No…" Greg said.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah…Rose offered to tell me everything. More than once. Maybe I should have taken her up on it…but it's my own fault I didn't."

"Oh….Does Steven still like keys?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah. Big key fan." Greg said, handing them over. "Here you go. You can let him hold them if you want."

Ruby eagerly took them and waved them in front of Steven. Steven laughed and tried to catch them.

Greg sank into a chair, staring at the two gems like they weren't real. It felt like they had walked out of a dream, a nightmare at that. His least favorite gem and one he barely knew came in after months and told him everything he knew about Rose was a lie, no wonder Pearl had always acted like she was better than him, how could he compete with literally being made for her?

It was a stupid thought, Rose had never treated him like he was less important to her than Pearl, if anything she had proven the opposite many times. And Rose had offered to tell him everything. It wasn't important who she had been, he had made that choice. they had talked about everything that really mattered, who they were then, what they loved then, that's what actually mattered.

So why was he so tired? Why was he so mad at the gems? It's not like they would have been useful if they stayed around. Was it just that they had almost hurt Steven? He shook his head and focused on the scene in front of him. It was an almost cute scene, Pearl reading her book to him and Ruby shaking the keys a little too hard.

"No need to be that aggressive, you aren't trying to scare off a wasp." Greg told her.

Ruby waved the keys less hard. And Steven returned to grabbing at them.

Greg watched them, until his eyelids shut against his will and he drifted off to sleep.

He didn't get to stay asleep for long that time, being woken up when Steven started crying, Pearl and Ruby were fighting over who had upset him and he had to calm them down and tell them he was just hungry. It wasn't a concept they understood.

But when they left Pearl said they would be back next week, and they were, almost to the minute. It became a pattern, 8 am Thursday mornings they appeared.. He watched them play and read to Steven. Watched Ruby master baby toys and showed Steven how they worked. Watched Pearl learn to hold him, watched her eyes widen as he grabbed hold of her finger for the first time, watched as she put down her dictionary and rolled a toy car over to him for the first time.

He didn't interact with them much when they were over. Pearl and him had nothing to say to each other, and he didn't know Ruby. But Steven needed them, he needed the connection to his gem side. Greg couldn't give him that.

He took to watching TV instead, he was close enough to help if they needed it but this gave him a much needed break and let them get to know Steven without him in their way.

He'd found this really great show called Li'l Butler that was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He would watch it the whole time they were over.