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Pearl couldn’t stand the way her face fell.
Rose’s bright eyes dimmed slightly, her expression wavering.
Of course. What was Pearl thinking?
She was supposed to be happy for her, wasn’t she?
Perhaps this was exactly what Rose had expected and dreaded.
You never even asked me. And why would she?
It wasn’t Pearl’s decision whether or not Rose had a child. It never would be.
Perhaps it was unfair to feel sucker-punched by the confession, and how delighted it made Rose appear.
I’m pregnant.
And?
Pearl hesitated for a moment longer. “Well,” she chirped, coaxing a look of delight from her fallen features, “really? I hadn’t-” She thought better of pointing out that nothing like this had ever been done before, certainly, a Diamond had to know that. She shook her head. “I see. I’m happy for you.” She was sure to doll up the words, lifting her posture up like air returning to a ship’s great sails.
They were close enough to know when the other was wounded, weren’t they? Pearl would have to be convincing.
It was alright.
It was fine.
By now, she was terribly used to keeping secrets.
The bright-eyed Rose Quartz, who Pearl had always loved, was a secret herself.
Every Crystal Gem admired her empathy, her passion, her protective nature. She was moved to tears at the endangerment of her beloved gems, enough for their healing qualities to unveil themselves fresh on the battlefield.
She fought for her unwavering truth: an end to the tyranny imposed by the four diamonds, one now shattered, and freedom for gems and fusions to live as they pleased.
She admired Garnet’s strength.
She admired Amethyst’s strength.
And she admired Pearl.
Even in the shadow of their secret, Pearl had always felt an equal, not like a toy or a servant. Rose had always done everything in her power to make that distinction clear. Pearl had always wanted to believe that Rose wouldn’t have done anything to violate her wishes.
Even when her fingertips lay across Pearl’s lips, and she whispered, you can’t tell anyone, Pearl had agreed. Even then, maybe she’d expected to take it to her grave.
A terrible secret.
Rose Quartz, the beloved, empathetic, thoughtful and kind, who stuffed Bismuth into a bubble because she couldn’t stand the idea of shattering as a form of fighting back, had murdered Pink Diamond.
So they thought.
Pearl knew.
When she stood in front of the mirror, unable to even open her mouth and tell herself what had happened, she knew why.
Garnet would never understand that the Rose Quartz she knew was the very same gem she had spent years hiding from, fighting the armies of.
Amethyst would never understand that the enemy that had conjured her cruel kindergarten into existence was the very same gem she threw back her head and laughed with after telling a good joke.
But Pearl knew.
She knew Pink Diamond.
She knew Pink Diamond was loving and gentle, yet she knew what Pink Diamond was willing to sacrifice for her greater good.
Pearl remembered that at the time, she only felt a grounded, aching pity, that Pink Diamond was so convinced the world would be a better place without her in it.
Was she afraid?
Afraid that the diamonds, if they saw their precious pink creation throwing up her hands at the gift she’d begged for and taking up arms against death and destruction, would put her in that closet again?
That they’d scold her like a child, rip her precious pearl from her hands and shatter her, too?
How many was it now?
One, two?
A pearl, along with every other gem she’d rallied to defend, she’d tried to stand up for, crushed into dust to quell her newest emotional outburst?
She’d done everything to be different, to be better.
Pearl could see it in the way she spoke. Pearl could see it in the secrets she kept, the feelings she kept on a tight, invisible leash.
Pearl never dared to ask if Rose was ashamed of herself, or if she was afraid of herself.
Maybe Rose couldn’t trust that her spirited armies would gaze up at their leader with shock, realizing with a cruel, jabbing twist that the face they admired was the same one they feared. Perhaps she couldn’t stand the idea that their hope would be squandered, that their expressions would warp into fear, then anguish, then crumpled despair. Maybe she couldn’t stand the idea that their hope would vanish into thin air.
Gone, just like that, because she’d dared to be herself, and not the perfect, practiced person she pretended to be.
No.
No one knew Pink Diamond, and no one knew Rose Quartz.
No one, not even Greg.
No one except Pearl.
Rose Quartz hadn’t counted on dying -- not as her second, perfected persona, at least -- but she was more than happy to do it.
The empire had pulled its terrible tendrils from the crust of the Earth and disappeared. For once, everything was quiet. The air grieved. The sea mourned.
For once, they were safe.
Rose Quartz met a man, and Pearl lost her to him.
Then she died.
She died to bring a bright new life into a world she had assumed would be safe.
Oh, how he made Pearl’s heart twist. When he first came into the world through brilliant matriphagy, she couldn’t help herself but to loathe him, even as the others set their angered sights towards Greg.
Yet, she could hardly help herself. Steven was easy to love, he was easy to forgive.
He hadn’t known what he’d taken from the world in order to be born into it.
He missed her, too.
Pearl saw the way he stared up, admiring her portrait, wishing he knew who she was, wishing she could have been there to guide him, wishing she could have been there to complete the family, rather than leaving an empty hole for him to fill.
Still, he was just like the others. He would never know her.
Not like Pearl did.
Even if she could speak of that fateful night when Pearl had slain her, her fingers tightly wrapped around the gem of her first friend, her first love, her brightest star, who was she supposed to go to?
Not Garnet.
Not Amethyst.
Certainly not Steven.
Greg?
Hm.
It was almost ironic, perhaps he would have understood her the most.
Yet, Pearl had promised to take the secret to her grave.
It had been easier to promise all those years ago, before the loneliness climbed through her window each night, before Peridot landed, before Lapis unveiled herself.
It had been easier to promise when Rose was still there.
Old wounds were still wounds, after all, ones that were deep enough left scars.
Pearl could never bring herself to hate her. She’d never dream of hating her.
Rose thought she was doing the right thing, a good thing.
She’d wanted a child -- how could Pearl blame her for wanting a child?
She’d wanted a child, even if it meant finally erasing herself from the world she had wanted so desperately to save.
No, Pearl could never bring herself to hate her.
So who would she hate instead?
Greg? What had he done, but be better, somehow?
Pearl? Should she loathe herself for being short of good enough? For not being dashing enough, alluring enough, forward enough?
Pearl had been Pink Diamond’s closest friend, after all -- she’d always been good enough. Every fusion flash into Rainbow Quartz was spontaneous, wonderful and warm. Every division was bittersweet, and left Pearl aching for just one more second spent in harmony.
She’d wanted to be Rainbow Quartz forever.
Yet, Rose Quartz loved him.
That was the problem -- it wasn’t a matter of being good enough. No matter what Pearl did to be impressive, dedicated, or loyal could change that.
Rose Quartz loved him.
If she loved Pearl, too, once, twice, never, it was yet another secret that had died with her.
She had loved Greg, and she had loved Steven.
There was an emptiness to abandonment that never left.
Ever since the day she died, Pearl had felt lonely.
No, it was longer than that.
Ever since Rose had spoken of her plans to have a child, Pearl had felt lonely. What was she to do?
There was no reason to sour the few months they had left.
Rose was going through enough, looking her own undoing in the eye.
There was no time to feel betrayed, no time to anguish. Pearl had to be there for her, as she always had been.
There was no right answer, since there was no wrong action.
Oh, how desperately Pearl wished there was, so she could snap Rose out of a decision she’d already made, to take back a trigger that had already been pulled, to vomit all of those awful secrets onto Greg’s lap, so that he might finally be disgusted enough to let her go.
To save her from herself, from her own bad choices.
Yet, she stayed quiet. What a good little pearl, with her tightly-locked lips.
The world was never the same after Steven Universe was born.
Pearl’s world certainly wasn’t.
Like a ghost with her hand to the window, staring in at the present, drowning in her past.
Yet, she bit her tongue and bore it.
Steven Universe needed a mother, didn’t he?
Not just a ghost in a photograph.
Rose had taken her hands and tried to tell her -- because she was too smart not to notice the vacancy signs in Pearl’s eyes -- that the world was a beautiful place.
She had tried to tell her that Pearl was a wonderful gem.
And even if Rose Quartz wasn’t herself anymore, she would still be there with her, in a way.
As Steven.
She had tried to tell her that sometimes, an end is a beginning.
Even if this was an end for Rose, it didn’t have to be an end for Pearl, too.
There was still a wonderful life to be had out there by a wonderful gem.
It was a silent plea.
Don’t give up. All those things we did never stopped having meaning.
And neither did you.
Do you believe me?
. . .
Pearl bit her tongue and bore it, watching as the world moved on, oblivious to it all.
Time refused to catch its breath, and the future surged on without Rose Quartz in it.
A heart rate fell flat. Another carried on.
The world continued to turn.
Perhaps there was still a wonderful life to be had out there.
Maybe one day Pearl would find it.