"Sapphire? Were you asleep?" Ruby's voice broke through to her and she jolted upright.

"Ruby? What are you doing here?" Sapphire blinked the sleep out of her eye. "It's months until - until you visit." Their anniversary was meaningless now. She had made that choice.

"We had something to tell you."

She glanced around, but Ruby was alone. She glanced into the future and saw Pearl crouching down next to Amethyst's hole. Ruby had used a 'we' when Pearl wasn't even with her. Ice crawled across the floor of the cave.

"I brought you a gift though." Ruby said. "I didn't…it didn't feel right to visit you and not...even if it wasn't our day."

Ruby held out the stick she was holding, and Sapphire smiled. "I don't think you have ever managed to surprise me this much."

Ruby beamed. She went over to the shelf she had made covered with rocks, sticks and leaves she had brought Sapphire - the frog she had brought her had hopped away immediately- Ruby never planned out what to bring her, only picked something up on her way up the mountain so Sapphire would never know what she was bringing her in advance.

"So, what brings you here, Ruby?" Sapphire asked.

Ruby rocked on her heels as she turned back to her. "We found something…" She said slowly, and then the words poured from her. "A Lapis Lazuli gem, she was trapped in a mirror. She wasn't corrupted with the rest of them. She wasn't quite shattered either, we healed her, and took care of her -"

"She joined the crystal gems?"

"No. She went back to Homeworld."

"You let her go back!"

"We needed to! We couldn't fight her! We needed her to trust us! I couldn't- I couldn't see what the right thing to do was- I couldn't ask you what you thought."

"So, you sent her home?"

"I did what was right! I didn't keep a gem caged when I didn't have to! I didn't trap another gem; I didn't attack for the first time in five thousand years for the first time we had another option!"

"So now I watch to see if she'll ever return? Trust Sapphire to know if you have made a mistake?"

"No! I don't care about her! She'll come back or she won't. I don't care. We'll deal with it then. I just wanted to tell you-"

"Well. You have done that."

"Why do I bother!?" The ice around Ruby melted as she raged. "Why do I still come here? You don't care! You don't care about anything I say. You pretend that-nothing ever happened. Like 5000 years didn't mean anything to you. If you don't want me to visit…maybe I shouldn't."

"Whatever you want to do, Ruby"

"STOP IT!" Ruby yelled "STOP ACTING LIKE YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING! IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING. THAT MEANS YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME! ABOUT US! IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING?"

"Of course not, Ruby." Sapphire's heart ached. Only Ruby could make her hurt this much. She almost wished she would leave. Even though she would just return to missing her the moment she was out the door. "but it was a lie."

"I wasn't lying. Were you? Tell me you never loved me if that's what you want to say."

"It doesn't matter, Ruby."

"Of course it matters! We aren't Pink Diamond, what does it matter if she was lying. I wasn't lying. I love you."

Sapphire didn't know what to say to her. Why couldn't she accept that Sapphire was right? Ruby always came around to her way of thinking. She pulled herself from the conversation. Instantly going to the place, she always went she couldn't handle anything else. The kindergarten.

"Ruby." She said slowly.

"What?" Ruby cooled down; the spread of melting ice slowed.

"Go Home. Amethyst will want to see you. She's going home."

"Home?" Ruby asked

"Yes." She looked up at her, expecting her to be thrilled. But she looked thoughtful. "What?"

"You still call it home…" Ruby said, softly. "…I've got to go. You're right. I need to be there for Amethyst…but I'll see you soon."

"You can do whatever you like."

"I'm not giving up on you." Ruby said. "One day you're going to stop blaming yourself. We didn't do anything wrong." And with that she turned from Sapphire and marched out of the cave. The ice slammed shut behind her.

Amethyst was throwing rocks when she saw the light of the warp. She quickly flew up to one of the holes and watched as Ruby walked away. Pearl sat on the warp as Ruby went out of sight before standing. "Amethyst? Amethyst, where are you?" She called. "We have news." She continued as she walked around.

"Amethyst! Please come out!" Pearl wrapped her arms around herself, if she hated the kindergarten so much why did she keep on coming back here?

She wasn't looking around at Amethyst's mess with distaste, only scanning for movement to find Amethyst, she sounded more and more tired as she called for Amethyst, and Amethyst felt a pang of guilt for hiding. "What do you want, Pearl?" She yelled.

"Amethyst!" Pearl sounded relieved. "I need to talk to you, something happened."

Amethyst turned back into herself and scooted to the edge of the hole she was in. "Yeah? Did Sapphire turn out to be Blue Diamond?"

"No, Sapphire isn't with us, you know that."

"Whatever."

"We found a lapis." The name didn't ring a bell to Amethyst.

"Ok? What, can't fight it on your own?"

"No…She wasn't corrupted."

"How? Is she young like me?"

"No…Remember that mirror we found at the warp? Somehow that protected her. We gave the mirror to Steven, and he realized that she was intact."

"Who's Steven?"

"Rose's son, Amethyst."

"Oh, right. What does this have to do with me? You and Ruby got a cool new gem. I don't care." She didn't. She didn't need them. She had better friends here, even if they didn't talk back. She wasn't surprised Pearl and Ruby had found a better gem than her.

"We don't. She left for Homeworld."

"What? And you let her?"

"We didn't have a choice-"

"So you are here to beg for help!"

"I'm just here to tell you!" Pearl screamed at her.

"Ok! So, you have told me! You're having a great time without me and have new friends and don't need me anymore. I hear you already! I know she's better than me! You can go!"

Amethyst dropped down to the ground and darted into her hole as Pearl hesitated and seemed frozen in place. She hoped she left. She didn't want Pearl to tell her she was right, and that the new gem was a good gem who hadn't destroyed Earth and didn't leave messes everywhere, that they were only coming to get her because she was gone. She couldn't hold back her tears as she rocked slightly. She didn't hear Pearl come in behind her.

"She wasn't better than you, Amethyst. We would take you over her any day."

"You don't have to lie to me! I know how you feel! You hate me! Rose hated me! You just felt bad and like you had to take care of me! Well, I'm done weighing you down! You don't have to deal with me anymore!"

Pearl was silent for a second "But…I want to. I want to deal with you every day. I miss you every day. No matter how frustrating I sometimes find you…I wish you would come home."

"You hate me! I never understood before. I knew you thought I was bad. But I didn't know why you put up with me, but it was guilt, and I was always making you feel bad. You can't forget this place with me around!"

"Is…is that what you thought? Amethyst, you didn't make us feel guilty…you made us so happy. You were the most perfect thing we had ever made. You were free, you were…wonderful. Oh, Amethyst, we loved you. Rose would go on for hours about how much she wanted for you. How much you could do, you made us feel…Like we had done something right. After all of the devastation we made. We had made you, it…it almost made it worth everything. That is how much we loved you…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry I never told you."

Amethyst couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth, words she couldn't have even dreamed up. "But you hate this place! Because I killed it!"

"Because we killed it…most of the gems made here were lost in the war, born and gone in a blink of an eye. The rest are lost to Homeworld…a fate Rose believed was almost as bad. But, you, Amethyst, not a resource was wasted to make you. We regret nothing about you."

"But…but..." Amethyst didn't understand, her mind was shrugging to keep up with Pearl's words. She did the only thing she could think to do. She flung herself into Pearl's arms and sobbed onto her shoulder as Pearl held her, muttering "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Over and over to her in a whisper.

"Come home. Please, we miss you so much." Pearl said to her finally.

"You...you really miss me?"

"Like you have no idea, and oh, Steven would love to meet you."

"What about your new friend?"

"Oh, she's halfway to Homeworld by now." Pearl said with a wince.

"I can't believe I missed something like that. Most exciting thing to happen in a thousand years and I'm in this dump."

"Well…I can't make any promises it will happen again; I think Lapis was one of a kind."

"Whatever. I'm not being here if she comes back or something. Let's get out of here. I'm sick of this place."

"You and me both." Pearl said, taking her hand and helping her from the hole. "I hate being here."

"So why did you keep bothering me?"

"Because I hated the thought of you being alone here."

Amethyst felt a pang of guilt for the number of stones she had thrown at Pearl's head over the last few years.