As a Diamond, she never had any interest nor desire to eat or drink. Yet in this moment, she savored the hot chocolate like it was the greatest source of pleasure in the entire universe. And to be fair to her perspective, in such a state of depression, any little joy would seem great compared to everything else that she had suffered through.



“Were you trying to get home also?” asked Bill.

“No,” Bella muttered. “I… don’t really have a place to go home to.”

He was quite surprised. “Then what were you doing? What about that sister of yours, Susan?” He turned and sat down on the couch beside her.

Bella was confused at first, but then she remembered. Susan. That dumb alias that Blue Diamond had taken along with herself as Bella to work at the Big Donut so they could surprise Pink Diamond (who had turned out to just be her son, Steven) and repair their broken relationship. What a lousy failure of a plan that turned out to be. “Truth be told, I had no plan. Everything just went so, so wrong. I can’t say I have much of a family left.” At this point, she was choking on sobs. “I really messed up! I lost everything.”

Bill was at a loss for words. Both of them gazed into the softly crackling fire. “It’s sure rough,” he uttered solemnly.

“When Buck was just a boy, I…” Bill started. “My wife was really close with our neighbors, the Frymans and the Pizzas. They spent all kinds of time just being together, going to concerts, and the movies. One day they went for a drive and the next thing I know… I get a call back from the hospital telling us that there was an accident… none of them made it.”

Bella chuckled slightly through her own tears. “I guess that’s two of us then. We have no one left.”

“I’ve got you.”

She stared. And then-

“I- I don’t think I’ve ever felt this close to anyone before,” she muttered.

Bill smiled slightly, and then the door above the stairway opened.

“Dad?” said a voice from upstairs. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, Buck! This is, uh, my girlfriend, Bella. Bella, I’d like you to meet my son!”

“I think I’ve seen you before…” she admitted.

“Likewise. Cool.” Buck then went to the kitchen to snag some leftovers from the fridge.

“You know, since we’re all here tonight, how about we all watch some TV!” suggested Bill. He flipped through some channels while Bella sighed. Perhaps human entertainment could be a good enough distraction from how awful everything was at the moment.