#rose returns

As most of the Crystal Gems have their memories, Rose’s secret is out and she doesn’t feel comfortable leading the Crystal Gems especially when it will probably get out sooner than later that she was a diamond so she tries to nominate a new leader: Pearl.

Pearl is shocked and flustered and asks who would follow her?

Everyone, even the gems who don’t remember, but were told stories about Pearl’s many accomplishments, raise their hands. Garnet raises both of her hands.

Well... Pearl imagined that sooner or later this meeting would have been inevitable. After all, Steven’s mother had been brought back through... means Pearl didn’t fully understand. She hadn’t asked simply because she still had been on Homeworld until fairly recently. Steven was gone on his trip now, though, and Pearl had been spending a bit less time around Little Homeworld to explore the town properly when they had encountered one another.

Seeing Rose... Pink Diamond, whatever she wanted to call herself, seeing her again was a little hard. Lingering fond feelings bubbled up to the surface and the feelings of hurt were shoved down. Yet, despite that, Pearl found herself instinctively reaching her hand up to the cracked side of her face.

The cracks were, after all, a bit worse than they had been when she’d last seen her diamond. Coming more to terms with what had happened to her had helped, sure, but there was no denying that Pink Pearl still wasn’t fully okay.

“My diamond...” The words were instinctual. She didn’t know what else to say in greeting. Before too long, she did move her hand away from her face. Then she glanced away.

“Rose...” This wouldn’t be an easy conversation, Greg knew. For him, it would mean going back to times he had thought were best left forgotten. However, now that he knew Rose’s past it only felt fair to share his with her. So, there he sat in the van with her at his side. He looked like he was still debating going through with this. However, after he took a breath and let it escape through his nose, he went for it.

“I haven’t been honest with you about my past. There’s so much I haven’t told you,” he said. He knew that he himself had said that the past was the past, and that all that mattered was who someone was in the present, but this felt important. She needed to know, Greg decided.

“Steven’s probably mentioned it, but my last name wasn’t always Universe. Before we met, way before, I was just... Gregory DeMayo.” He paused, but realized that wasn’t even the most shocking thing he was going to reveal. He and she did have a fair amount in common, he’d started to realize.

@wasdiamond

“Greg really did take good pictures from the wedding, didn’t he.”

If there was one thing Sapphire was glad of, it was having the chance to show Rose what she had missed while she’d been gone. Her return couldn’t have come at a more opportune time, really. With things being as peaceful as they were and everyone more or less accepting of the truth, there was no better time to get their leader all caught up. Sapphire was seated with her in the beach house with a book Greg had put together of her and Ruby’s wedding. Steven had helped, of course, but the credit for the pictures was Greg’s.

“Ruby looks so beautiful in her dress...” As she pointed out that particular picture, her expression softened. This was nice, but a small part of her felt off. Just showing Rose wasn’t quite the same.

“I wish you could have been there in person,” she admitted. “Somehow it doesn’t feel quite right to just be showing you pictures.” What else could she do, though? It wasn’t as though they could rewind time and make it so Rose could be there. Shaking her head slightly, Sapphire smiled a bit and collected her thoughts.

“Well, even if it doesn’t, I’ve already named it. Horatio.”

Greg just was being silly. There was no reason to not eat the egg. However, he was a dad. Dads were allowed to have some silly moments, weren’t they? As for the backstory...

"Hey, I think you're doing pretty all right at this. Don't be so hard on yourself," Greg said. Granted, he'd never taken Pink camping before. He himself hadn't been in quite a long time. So what if the tent still hadn't been fully set up and the poles were kind of all over the place? They could figure this out.

“Mom...”

“Your happiness shouldn’t depend on me,” Steven told her. His happiness, he’d learned, couldn’t be dependent on how helping others made him feel. His own existence didn’t need to be validated by feeling like he needed to be needed, either. Could his mother have been feeling the same way he had? He wondered.

Slow, careful steps were taken as he moved to sit beside her. There was still a lot he needed to work out in relation to how he felt regarding her, but Rose was still his mother. He wasn’t going to try and help her just to make himself feel better, though. No, Steven wanted to try and help her for her own sake.

@rcsebyanothername

“Yes... we did. We really did.”