The ballroom they step into is positively massive. Clearly designed for the diamonds to comfortably attend any balls Pink may have once thrown. The walls are a pale pink, almost white, and covered in banners showcasing the colors and symbols of all four courts proudly. Crystalline windows, floor to ceiling in height, break up the chaos of the banners, allowing plenty of Homeworld's natural light to illuminate the space, and provide a gorgeous view of the garden that surrounds the palace.
Gems of all cuts scatter around, happily chatting with each other. Agates getting along with quartzes, garnets chatting amicably with pearls or peridots, even fusions and off color gems all over. It's as though they've suddenly stepped into a dream, an impossibly wonderful dream.
In the very center of the room are Homeworld's three giant matriarchs. White, Yellow and Blue diamond, each lounge on large, soft looking cushions, each resting a single hand into a large-ish pool of water. The water inside swirling with each of their colors.
"Guys!" A voice calls to them.
Steven leaps from the edge of the pool where he'd been standing with a bubbled gem in his hands. In their amazement and slight fear, none of them had even noticed him standing there dwarfed as he was by the three diamonds. He carefully places the bubble on the lip of the pool and runs to them.
"You reformed! Just in time to!" He grins.
Amethyst, Garnet, Bismuth and Pearl simply stare, frozen at his appearance. As if he were about to go for a swim Steven's only wearing a pair of swim trunks, exposing his gem. His pink diamond gemstone. He glances down at where they're staring. Dark Pink Pearl huffs, as if offended on his behalf before grabbing Peony and marching away to their group of friends.
Looking at his stomach Steven shrugs. "Yeah, that. There's a lot to talk to you guys about…" He gently plays with the pink hair on the back of his head, the soft curls easing his nerves and his embarrassment over how he handled things back on Earth.
"Before that though, we're in the middle of something. C'mon!" He gestures for them to follow him.
Leading them across the ballroom Steven explains, "After you guys got poofed we finished up a few things on Earth before coming back. Checked on the Cluster, they're still comfortably bubbled, got my leg ship back here, it's overdue for a ton of software maintenance. The gems I put in charge of all that keep finding sand in the strangest places!" He laughs, then hops back up onto the lip of the pool and grabs the bubble he'd left there. They immediately recognize it as Centi's, her gem/eye resting inside. "Then we brought some bubbled gems back with us."
He holds the bubble gently, mind wandering for a moment while the Crystal Gems glance uncomfortably at the three diamonds staring them down; Yellow specifically glaring openly at them.
"We're gonna heal them." Steven says, quiet hope in his voice, as if he's too afraid to say it out loud, worried that he's wrong or it won't work like every other attempt the Crystal Gems, specifically Rose, tried.
"What?" Pearl asks, just as quietly.
"While you guys were poofed I asked Peony and Dark Pink Pearl to keep an eye on you. That way I could focus on working with Yellow, and eventually Blue and White, on healing the corrupted gems. Yellow's pretty confident we've got it figured out, so we set all this up to test it out!" He gestures to the pool and diamonds.
Without waiting for replies or questions Steven hops into the pool with Centi and submerges her bubble, popping it. The water, now swirling with pinks as well as blues, yellows, and whites, ripples gently with the movement of his body. The ballroom goes completely silent. All chatter ends as every gem in the room waits and watches with bated breath. After a moment a gem with a single eye and a wild mane of white fur breaks the surface. She blinks slowly, squinting as she looks around before settling her gaze on Steven.
"Do you… Know who I am?" He shyly asks her.
She blinks once more, a small smile curling her lips, "Steven."
Everyone gasps quietly. "It worked." Steven whispers, then cheers, "It worked! Centi!"
He lunges forward, tears streaming down his face as he tightly hugs the newly healed Nephrite.
The next few hours were like one large party. The few corrupted gems Steven and Yellow had brought with them from Earth were quickly healed. One of which was Jasper. The moment she reformed, green splotches and horns on her form, she spotted Steven. Prepared to attack she formed her helmet, then paused. Steven was sitting on the edge of the pool, feet kicking in the water while he chatted with Centi and other gems around him. The sight of his stomach gave her pause, the pink diamond gleaming in the bright light of the ballroom. She dissipated her helmet and carefully looked around her, finally noticing the obviously Homeworld architecture, the Homeworld gems with pink diamonds on their appearance modifiers, Hessonite, chatting amicably with the Crystal Gems! Someone above and behind her cleared their throat. When she turned she nearly fell back into the colorful water in shock. The Diamonds were watching her; had seen her about to attack Steven, who was apparently Pink Diamond not Rose Quartz!
Yellow gestured for Jasper to come to her, which she obeyed immediately. The diamond lifted Jasper in her hand and, while Blue and White monitored the healed gem's behavior, explained the situation to her. She nearly dissipated her form from stress and confusion alone. Instead she contents herself to sit near the diamonds and observe the new pink diamond.
Amethyst got to reunite with the majority of the famethysts. The group gathered together and snuck up behind her before burying her under a pile of purple gems. She giggled and chattered and roughhoused with them for a while. Pearl and Bismuth watched worriedly. Amethyst may be plenty strong but she's still small and getting piled on by a lot of gems much larger than her could risk poofing. Garnet simply watched, still as a statue.
Steven stretches his arms over his head, enjoying the pleasant pop of his tense shoulders as he eases his still muscles. To most observers he seems to be perfectly content and happy. He's actually been incredibly on edge, always watching the gems out of the corner of his eye. Now however, he's stuck around and been a good host for a respectable amount of time and with a quick word to Yellow, Blue and White he can call the party to an end.
Leaping into the air he floats above the ballroom full of his court. He never in a million years imagined this is where his crazy, gem adventure filled life would go.
"Everyone!" He claps his hands to get everyone's attention. "Thank you for coming today and celebrating the successful first test of healing corrupted gems. I am incredibly grateful for all your help and support to get to this point." He slowly turns to look at his fellow diamonds. "Thank you all so much." He wipes a few tears from his eyes as he slowly floats down onto the lip of the pool.
"This concludes our gathering today. Peony, please show the Crystal Gems to my office. I'll meet you there shortly." Despite his lack of coverings he stands straight and proud, hands behind his back. Peony nods and gestures for the gems to follow her.
"Hessonite, please guide the healed gems to Yellow Diamonds office for examination." Hessonite nods and gathers up the handful of uncorrupted gems to lead them away.
As the gems begin to move on, returning to their posts and responsibilities, Steven shares a few words with the diamonds before all four of them depart at the same time.
If gems used paper there'd be paperwork strewn all over Steven's office when he walked in. Instead his desk, chair and the extra chairs he keeps for guests are all overturned and thrown around. Scorch marks scatter around the room, most in the shape of Ruby's small feet. Half the room, of course it had to be the half with crystal windows now cracked, is covered in a thick layer of frost and ice. To say the room is in chaos would be an understatement.
Peony stands in front of him blocking the door. Likely to keep anyone from leaving before he got there, though she's shaking like a leaf. She can be stubborn and even scary when she wants to be, but her anxiety is still easily triggered and the two gems destroying his office is certainly a good way to trigger the poor pearl.
Steven stepped around her, careful to avoid frightening her more and gestures to her, telling Peony without words it's safe to leave if she wants. She nods and leaves, grateful to get out of there, trusting Steven to call someone if he needs extra help. Maybe she should call Rhodonite, just in case…
After the door closes behind Peony, Steven turns back to the chaos. Amethyst is yelling at Pearl, who's still covering her mouth with tears flowing down her face. Ruby is crying and leaving scorch mark footprints as she follows a yelling Sapphire while she paces the room, freezing more and more of it. At least Bismuth is keeping calm as she leans against a far wall, watching the group, but not helping calm anyone.
Sighing Steven steps up to his destroyed desk and yells, "Hey! Stop destroying my office please!" getting everyone's attention.
"Alright." He takes a deep breath to start. "Mom was Pink Diamond."
Pearl drops to her knees, hands falling from her mouth as she sobs, saying "Finally." and "Always wanted to." between sobs.
Placing a chair upright and sitting down Steven prepares himself to explain everything and to apologize for how he handled things on Earth, but Sapphire interrupts before he can start.
"She lied to us!" through her hair she looks, more like glares, at Ruby. "She looked right at us with that knowing smile and told us never to question who we are as Garnet."
"But Sapphire, we couldn't have known!" Ruby cries.
"No you couldn't have known! You never know anything, that's what I'm for." Sapphire replies coldly.
"Please Sapphy, let's just talk about this!"
"What more is there to talk about? How our whole relationship was based on a lie?"
Lifting her skirts Sapphire tries to run to the door, leaving a broken hearted Ruby behind.
Sighing frustratedly Steven waves a hand, making a wall of panels cover the entire room, blocking Sapphire from leaving.
She pounds furiously on the wall, leaving frost everywhere she hits, "Steven, lower this wall immediately!"
"Oh just shut up!" He yells at her.
Everyone gasps, Pearl and Ruby's tears stop and the whole group stares in shock at the angry young man.
"I get it! You're mad at her for lying to you! Guess what? She lied to everyone! She lied to everyone, she hurt everyone! She abandoned the diamonds, she locked Bismuth away in a bubble, she used a gag order on Pearl, circumventing her very own free will! She died and left me to clean up her mess! She caused the shattering of millions of gems! You're not the only one hurting, but you are the only one trying to run away. You're taking it out on Ruby, hurting her, then running away from the whole problem. So much for being the calm and logical one huh?" He steps right up to Sapphire, uncaring of the bite of cold on his legs as frost climbs his pants.
"Listen to me and listen good. Rose isn't why Garnet exists. She exists because of you and Ruby, because of your love. All she tried to do was encourage Garnet, encourage you two, to be happy. Her lies persisting this long aren't your fault, aren't Ruby's fault. The fault lies with her, and now she's gone."
He turns to glance at everyone in the room, eyes settling on Ruby before returning to Sapphire. "Are you really going to throw away everything, throw Ruby away, throw Garnet away, throw away thousands of years of fun and memories, because of one gem's lies?"
Ruby carefully inches her way to Sapphire, no longer scorching the floor as she goes and stops next to Steven. She watches the love of her life stand frozen in anger and fear. Carefully she reaches out to take Sapphire's hand, grateful when she doesn't pull away or yell some more.
"Sapphy, let's just take some time to… Process, y'know?"
Sapphire turns to Ruby and squeezes her hand, "I. I don't think I can… or want to be Garnet right now." She tilts her head down, watching as her frost slowly thaws.
"Then don't be." They both whip their heads to Steven standing next to them, a small, sad, and tired smile on his face.
"Maybe it'll be good for you two to process everything on your own for a while anyways. Besides, if both of you don't want to be Garent, then Garnet doesn't want to be Garnet. Maybe later you two can sit down with Pearl and talk things out. She's the one who could answer any questions you have now… If she wants to of course." He smiles sadly at Pearl.
She stands, sniffling a little and smiles at him proudly. "I'd be happy to."
"Cool." Steven sits back down on his chair in the middle of the room. "We still have a lot to talk about so get comfortable."
For the next hour or two Steven explains everything that's happened. Laying it all out to the Crystal Gem's amazement and horror. He tells them about forming his court, bonding with them and the diamonds, changing laws all over Homeworld and how that's ultimately benefited gems. He told them about the diamond's grief and shame over their treatment of Pink and how that made them all the more willing to listen and work with him, but that he also had to do the same for them. He explained the full, unedited, story of Aquamarine and Eyeball kidnapping him and the punishment they're serving for it.
"They weren't alone in their plans to hurt me. Y'see at the same time as you guys came and got me, another gem, frustrated that her plans kept falling through, made an attempt to enter my palace and take me." He explains.
"That's why there were, like, no guards and nabbing you was so easy?" Amethyst asks.
Steven nods, "Yeah, they were all dealing with her. Emerald. She was mad about the changes I made, but mostly she was just holding a grudge against me cuz several of my first court members were off colors she'd wanted shattered for stealing a ship from her and trying to escape Homeworld. When they didn't get the punishment she wanted, she blamed me, and started plotting this whole thing."
"Now she's serving her punishment right alongside Aquamarine and Eyeball, she's been stripped of her rank and titles, has no access to her gem abilities, and is far from here." He sighs, "She's honestly lucky the diamonds didn't shatter her anyways, since I wasn't here to stop them." He then smiles. "I'm so proud of them, they've really changed."
Steven then goes on to explain his initial plan when he found out the gems were on their way to rescue him. How he'd originally planned to have the "Pink Diamond" conversation on Earth, get his leg ship, repair the Homeworld warp so Yellow could check the stability of the Cluster's bubble and bring a few corrupted gems back to work on healing them. Unfortunately he didn't expect to get so emotional and scared when it all came to pass, especially when he saw Bismuth, whom he'd not been expecting to confront.
"I should've listened when the diamonds suggested talking to you here." He laughs a little, "Connie also said it was a bad idea… Yeah I could've handled this whole thing way better."
His gaze moves to each of the gems in turn.
"I'm sorry."
Once they finished their discussion, Pearl even choosing to explain some of Rose's reasoning, Steven guides them all back to his main chambers.
"I asked the pebbles to quickly make you each your own room, " he gestures to the four doors, "so you can have your own space to relax for now."
Ruby and Sapphire go to Garnet's room while Bismuth goes to hers. Pearl and Amethyst opt to stay in the main chamber for a while. Pearl and Steven introduce Amethyst to the pebbles who absolutely love her and her somewhat crazy requests.
"A double decker couch?" Steven laughs, "why didn't I think of that!?"
For a short while he and Amethyst goof around with Pearl watching. It's almost as if things are back to normal. The door chime going off draws them from their tomfoolery. Steven opens the door, revealing Rhodonite. She glares suspiciously at the two Crystal Gems before addressing Steven.
"Your next appointment is here." She tells him.
"Right!" Steven rushes to another door, the gems getting a glimpse of a bathroom before the door closes.
While they wait Rhodonite fidgets nervously and glares ferociously at Pearl and Amethyst. Her diamond may trust them implicitly but after what she saw she certainly doesn't. The image of Steven stunned on the ground next to the warp pad with the Bismuth standing over him and the other gems around them with their weapons out plays across her mind. Steven's explanation of what happened didn't help either, it only served to make her more nervous at the thought of leaving him alone with them.
As her thoughts wander she remembers the excitement and joy on his face as he introduced her to Beach City. Literally dragging her around by one of her thinner arms to every person he could. He was particularly excited to introduce her to his dad. That was an interesting meeting, meeting the human who collaborated to create her diamond. He was so… unremarkable, yet she could easily see the similarities between the human and half human. She also got to meet Connie, her diamond's favorite human. They both blushed when Rhodonite called Connie that, and for a moment she'd worried she'd accidentally overstepped a boundary.
Her introduction to the Connie was more like she was expecting when meeting the Greg. A roar sounded across the sandy beach as a pink swirling vortex appeared before them. Suddenly a giant fluffy pink creature burst forth from the portal, leapt over them both, twisted to face them midair, then skidded to a halt, throwing sand all over. Seated comfortably upon the creature's back, a large pink sword strapped to her, was the human, Connie. She was fierce, intelligent, and kind. All things she gleaned as the Connie promptly scolded Steven for his handling of the situation, lectured him, threw in a few "I told you so's" then hugged him and told him she was glad he's okay. Rhodonite can see why this one is his favorite human.
The bathroom door opening draws Rhodonite from her reverie. Steven emerges in his workout gear, ready to go train with the amethysts. He offers his amethyst to join them, which she does happily, cheering something about "famethysts"... Whatever that means. The joy she can feel radiating from her diamond tells her though, he's happier than he has been in a long time and everything is going to be okay.
2 Years Later
A chime sounds throughout the greenhouse as the warp pad activates. The light fades revealing Steven, 17 years old, standing tall and proper. He sighs as he takes in the calm atmosphere of the flowers and greenery around him. He steps off the warp pad and makes his way down to his bedroom. Opening the door, he can't help but smile at the clothes laid out on the bed before him. Pearl, ever the mother hen had laid out his clothes for him, most likely after tidying up his room. He changes out of his work clothes and into something less formal. Taking off the stuffy looking pink pinstripe suit he puts on some loose blue athletic pants, a light blue shirt with a star cut out to show off his gem, and his latest favorite article of clothing made by Peony, a pink letterman jacket.
Steven stretches his arms over his head with a satisfied groan and makes his way downstairs and outside. He grins as he sees Pearl, his dad and Lion relaxing on the beach together. He joins them, sitting in the back of the van.
"Hey dad, Pearl, Lion!"
"Schtuball!" Greg grins.
"Hello Steven!" Pearl hums happily as she fiddles with a guitar.
"Whatchu guys up to?"
"Greg is teaching me to play the bass." Pearl says, proudly pronouncing the word like the fish.
"Pearl, it's called a bass." Greg tries to explain, pronouncing the word like base.
"Excuse me. B-A-S-S spells bass."
Greg just shrugs, "Whatever you say!"
Steven just grins and giggles as he pets a very content Lion. While Greg and Pearl practice he looks over the beach, filled with joy at the sight.
Garnet is watching over a group of Sapphire's as they learn from her how to live more in the moment, instead of being overcome by their predictions of the future. Ever since his kidnapping, when the lack of information caused her future vision to be almost entirely useless, she's been much less reliant on it. Garnet's admitted to Steven that she feels much calmer without the constant need to analyze and make predictions. Even then, when Garnet feels she needs a break, Ruby and Sapphire will unfuse and spend the day together but separate. It's done wonders for their relationship. They even got married! After some time apart on Homeworld the two gems wanted a way to show their love, and be together without having to be Garnet all the time. Steven suggested, and even helped plan their wedding! Peony and the pebbles designed Sapphire's suit and Ruby's dress. It was a beautiful ceremony, and a wonderful way for Steven to return home on a more permanent basis.
From his vantage point on the beach he can just barely make out the forms of Bismuth, Amethyst, Peridot and Lapis as they work on what looks to be a large warp pad, based on the way it's reflecting light from this distance.
With the diamond's blessing, and the help of his court, and lots of paperwork, they've been able to build a small town next to Beach City they're calling Little Homeworld. It's nearly finished and soon any gems from any court will be welcome to visit, or live permanently on Earth, and commute to Homeworld for their jobs, just like Steven does. Though he's the only one who gets his own personal warp straight to Homeworld.
He leans back in the van and takes in the warm, clear summer sky.
Yeah, everything is going to be okay.