Chapter Text
—Six Weeks Later: Volleyball—
“Oh, we’re going to be late—”
“We’re not going to be late,” Volley says, at the same as Amethyst says,
“You’re already six weeks late, what’s a few minutes going to matter?”
Pearl shoots Amethyst a look, then reaches for Volley’s hand. “Maybe we should just go on our own. This is silly. It won’t happen again. The odds are so astronomical I can’t even calculate them.”
“I’ve already calculated the odds, it’s a one in 1.5381379 times 10 to the 25th chance.”
“Not helping, short stuff,” Bismuth says, her hand falling heavy on the top of Peridot’s head. “Pearl, it would make everybody feel better if you’d just wait for Steven, even though we all know nothing’s gonna happen. Doesn’t matter if it’s silly, and the pearls at Baroque Beach aren’t gonna fault you for taking precautions.”
Peridot holds out her tablet hopefully. “I also traced the warp route using Diamond Broadcasting satellites, the path is clear of obstructions. See?”
Pearl bends to look, scrolling through three-dimensional diagrams with a finger. “It does look clear. Thank you, Peridot.” Then she turns to look at Volley, her hand rubbing unconsciously at her scar. “What do you think?”
Volley laces their fingers together. Warping has gotten easier. Short distances, places she knows, places on Earth. This is different—this is a galaxy warp, from the pad under the dome at the beach house, across open space. She hasn’t warped off-planet since Bismuth brought her back from the Reef; when she sleeps, she still hears the sound of the impact in her dreams. Right now, even being in a bubble with Steven seems like a better option.
She squeezes Pearl’s hand. “Let’s wait.”
Pearl lets out a slow breath, nods. “Okay.” Then she looks over at Garnet, her expression a question Volley can’t quite read. Garnet can, though; she pauses, then holds up five fingers, tips her head as she silently counts them down. On one she points at the door, as a shadow hurries up from outside and throws it open.
“I’m here! Sorry I’m late,” Steven huffs, his hair windswept and messy.
“You’re not late,” Pearl lies as he throws his arms around her waist; she smoothes his curls, just a little.
“Ready?” he asks, and she smiles and nods. Then he turns and looks at Volleyball, his smile a little softer, careful. “Ready?”
Volley looks at Bismuth, who blows her a kiss; at Pearl, who’s holding her hand tight; at Steven, who seems so much calmer than he used to. “Ready, Freddie.”
Steven grins, stepping up onto the warp. “Have you been hanging out with Lapis?”
“She helps me water the plants in the greenhouse sometimes.”
Pearl draws her up onto the warp pad, tugs her in close. Steven holds out his arms, and a bubble forms around them, so thick it makes everyone outside look a little blurred. Pearl waves, some of the tension leaving her frame. “See you after the talk!”
“You’re gonna do great!” Bismuth calls back, and then they’re floating, on their way in the shining warp stream.
Volley breathes. She keeps her eyes open, tries to focus, even a little, as Pearl and Steven chat. Keeps Pearl’s hand clutched in hers, and doesn’t let go again until they’ve touched down in the Reef and the bubble flows back into Steven like water.
“Goodness, it’s so busy,” Pearl says first, looking around the bustling lobby; she steps down from the pad and Volley follows after her, watching all the pearls passing through trying not to be obvious when they turn to look. If Pearl notices, it doesn’t seem to faze her; instead she turns back to Steven. “You’re going home until it’s time?”
“Yeah, I’ll come back with the others a little later.”
“Use a bubble, okay? I don’t love the idea of you going back by yourself.”
“I’m gonna be fine, Pearl,” he says, mostly with patience, and lets her kiss his forehead.
“All right. See you later.”
“Bye. Bye Volley!” Then he makes another bubble, smaller, just for him, and is gone.
“Stars,” Pearl sighs, leaning into Volley’s side. “I thought I was getting better about him being on his own now.”
“It’s okay to worry,” Volley assures her, soft. “Come on, let’s get you to your mic check.”
—Six Weeks Later: Bismuth—
Everything is fine.
Everything is fine when Steven comes back, happy and calm. Pearl and Volley are at Baroque Beach, he tells them, getting ready for Pearl’s talk.
Everything is fine for an hour while Bismuth tries not to pace, tries to keep herself occupied, present, as conversation happens around her in the house. Steven and Amethyst make lunch; Lion wanders away and comes back with Connie; Connie and Steven and Amethyst eat lunch, and Amethyst eats some other things besides. Everyone’s a little nervous, if Bismuth is reading the room right. Even Garnet. But everything’s fine.
They warp to the Reef, and nothing happens except that they arrive at the Reef. The lobby is nearly empty when they land on the pad, except for a huge video screen set up at one end of the room, a bare stage and a microphone projected on it, and a row of folding chairs.
“Bismuth!”
And, of course, Tiny. “Hey, friend! Good to see you in better circumstances.”
Tiny claps her hand to Bismuth’s shoulder with a grin. “Same. I’m really glad the Renegade’s back in action. And here! Everybody’s all worked up about a celebrity in our midst.” Then she takes in the others, and her eyes land on Steven. “Two celebrities!” she amends, and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Steven Universe. The Renegade told us we were worth something, but you’re the one who told us we were free.”
Steven blushes pink and smiles, awkward, but when he says “Nice to meet you too!” he sounds like he means it.
Introductions are made all around, and the non-pearl audience—Bismuth, Steven, Connie, Garnet, Amethyst, and Peridot—settle in to wait. Amethyst passes Steven and Connie a bag of popcorn; Peridot tries to take a selfie of the whole row of them, discovers her arms are too short, and levitates her phone instead. ”For Lapis,” she says, “I think she wanted to come, but she still struggles with displays of emotional vulnerability.”
“She hates mushy stuff,” Bismuth translates for Tiny, who’s sitting at the end of the row with an eye on the screen and an eye on the rotating security feeds on a tablet in her hand.
“Is this gonna be a mushy talk? I’m a crier,” Tiny admits; Steven, on Bismuth’s other side, leans around her to smile.
“That’s okay. Me and Bismuth are too.”
“Speak for yourself, meatball,” Bismuth tells him, ruffling his hair, “but it’s true, Pearl can get me going.”
“And romantic movies, and especially pretty sunsets, and—”
“Okay, okay.”
“Sh, it’s starting,” Connie interrupts, gesturing at the screen, where a willowy green pearl with a long braid and her gem in her throat steps up to the microphone.
“Hello, everyone. As the Director of the Baroque Beach Programming Committee, I’d like to welcome you to today’s lecture. In this room, our speaker needs no introduction—every pearl here knows who she is. I’ll just say that I’m very glad and grateful she’s here today after something of a harrowing adventure, and that she’s brought family from Earth here in the audience and joining us in the lobby. Thank you all for your attention, and please join me in welcoming the Renegade.”
A raucous wave of applause follows as Pearl takes the stage, and Bismuth can see her slipping on the Terrifying Renegade even as she’s stepping up to pull the microphone off the stand; she’s nervous underneath, but that’s never stopped her a day in her life, and it won’t stop her now.
“Good afternoon,” she says, looking out over the crowd; her gaze lands on someone in the front row—must be Volley—and she smiles. “Thank you all for the warm welcome. I’m Pearl, and many of you know me as the Renegade. I’m here to tell you that each and every one of you is worthy of respect.” Pearl’s eyes rake over the audience, taking in every face, every shape and color and variation she finds. “Each and everyone of you are deserving of love.”
Bismuth has read the speech a few times, heard Pearl practice it a few more. She lets it float over her a little, just watching Pearl, the way she moves back and forth across the stage, the way she makes eye contact, the way she’s left the neck of her shirt unbuttoned to show the scar, though a paler patch on already pale skin doesn’t really show up on video. How her hands move, gesture, float tiny signs as she speaks; how the nerves drain away and something like the old Pearl, who expected to be listened to when she spoke because she’d earned that much by blood and tears and blade, suffuses her form.
“...matter how it functions or what it looks like, your form supports you. It enables you to interact with the world, and with others; it enables you to feel pleasure and pain, to bring others joy and show them yours. No matter how it’s shaped, your gem contains you, gives your consciousness a home, shelters your thoughts and dreams and feelings. Love your gem, and love your form—they work hard for you.”
Beside her, Tiny sniffles and wipes at her eyes; Bismuth leans into her shoulder with a little smile.
“But I can’t actually tell you how to love yourself, to value yourself, because every pearl is unique. There are as many ways to be a pearl as there are grains of sand on the beach. I can tell you what I did. I didn’t like being silent, so I started to speak. I kept speaking, with my voice and my hands and my whole body, until somebody finally listened. I didn’t like being a pretty accessory, so I stopped caring what anyone else thought of my form. I knew, inside, that I was a whole Gem, a thinking, feeling person, and I showed that person to the world in order to find people who would love her, instead of changing that person to suit what the world was telling me it loved.
“I didn’t like being passive, I didn’t like feeling weak, so I learned to fight for what I wanted. But that was just what I wanted. Another pearl might like to be quiet and peaceful, or loud and funny, or delicate, or strong. Any pearl might be any way at all. I might be the only one who fought an outward rebellion. But every pearl can fight internal ones, just by doing what they love to do, being how they want to be. Who you want to be has value, just by virtue of being you. You don’t have to fit into the role you were made for—you can pick and choose the parts you like, and leave the parts you don’t like behind you. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The way you choose to look and act, the way you choose to be, the way you choose, those are the things that make you unique, and valuable, and deserving of love.”
Pearl pauses, looks around the room; Bismuth looks down the row at the others, all watching rapt, Steven with tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Look at where we are. The place each one of us was made, from a tiny speck of sand, intended for a life of servitude. But here we are now, every one of us free. It’s everything I ever wanted,” she says, softening from the rhythm of rhetoric into something quiet and personal, “more than I ever dreamed we could have. Remember that, on the darkest days. We won the war. We win it every day, just living, being together, loving each other. That’s all I can really tell you—live. Be. See what you’re really capable of. That’s how we win.” She pauses again, a moment of silence so intense Bismuth thinks she can hear the humans’ heartbeats, and then she smiles. “Thank you.”
The crowd erupts again, leaping to their feet; Bismuth sighs, scrubs the heels of her hands into her stinging eyes. “One of these days,” she murmurs, “I’m gonna marry that Gem.”
“I don’t know what that means,” says Tiny tearfully; on her other side, Steven grabs her arm and leans in with a wobbly grin.
“Really!?”
Bismuth smiles, mimes zipping her mouth shut. “Just keep it to yourself, kid.”