In the millennia that she has known her, Pearl can count on her fingers the number of times that she has seen Garnet un-fuse, at least until recently. And every time she had, it had been an occasion: a wartime reconnaissance mission, for instance, that required a Ruby or a Sapphire. Or else it had been one of those terrible moment when Garnet had been ripped apart from the outside, or one of those even rarer instances when her own emotional state had brought her undone, caused her to fall apart at her seams…

In the months since Homeworld, though, she seems to have taken an altogether more casual tact on the whole matter, as if being forced to unfuse for the Ball had proven to her the truth of the words that Ruby had said to Sapphire when she’d proposed: We can be together, even when we’re apart! And, therefore, because Garnet doesn’t feel as though her existence ends when Ruby and Sapphire are able to look each other in the eye, such occurrences are more frequent, if not entirely commonplace.

And these incidents are, Pearl thinks as she wanders on the beach with Ruby, more relaxed than they had ever been. Ruby—bronze ring glimmering in the sunrise light like Sapphire’s Gem, even in the absence of Sapphire herself—carries herself more contently than Pearl has seen her in the handful of times she’s seen her on her own at all, and certainly more contently than Sapphire had been, in those days just after Rose’s (Pearl’s own) secrets had spilled out into their lives…

But, Pearl reminds herself, Ruby isn’t Sapphire.

“Are you…happy?” Pearl asks, tentatively.

Ruby stops, turns to look at her. “Huh? What are ya talkin’ about?”

“It just occurred to me…We haven’t really spoken since your wedding, so I just wanted…I wanted to be sure...You’re happy?”

“Whatdya mean we haven’t spoken? You and Garnet—”

“I know Garnet’s happy. I asked about you.”

“Oh.” Ruby blinks, then grins. “Yeah! I am happy! I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy!” She pauses. “Are…you?”

“Me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I…Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well…I was just thinking…I guess no one ever asked you, after Steven read your mind—”

“Steven never read my mind!”

“Or wandered around your Gem, ya know what I mean. After we all found out Rose’s big secret and everything. Everything sorta just became about Sapphy and I…and then about Steven…and then about all the Corrupted Gems…No one ever really asked you how you felt about it, or about the fact that all of those secrets were just sorta yanked out of you…”

“Oh!” Pearl blushes, gripping the back of her neck with one hand. “There were so many other important things going on, and it didn’t really matter what I—”

“It did matter, though.”

“Well, I owed you all an explanation, and—”

“No, you didn’t. Maybe Rose did, but that wasn’t on you.”

“I…Right.” Pearl turns to gaze out at the ocean. In some small, odd way, the scale of it—the regularity of the waves crashing on the shore—comforts her, and she lets that comfort carry her down to the sand. She continues as Ruby follows suit. “It’s strange…even after, well everything, after all this time…I still sometimes forget—I have to remind myself—that Rose and I aren’t—weren’t—the same person.”

“Ha.” Ruby chuckles. “Tell me about it.”

Spots of color once again well up in Pearl’s cheeks. “I…of course. It’s different for you…you and Sapphire are…Garnet is…I didn’t mean to compare…”

“Sure, maybe some of it’s kinda different. But a lot of it’s the same too.” Ruby lies back on the sand, extends her arms toward the lightening sky in such a way that makes Pearl wonder whether it’s a pretense to admire her ring. “Steven told you, didn’t he, that when he first found me after Sapphy and I split—ya know, before I proposed—for a little while I wasn’t even sure I wanted to get back together with her at all?”

“Greg did, but yes.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Not in detail.”

“It was cuz, before that moment, I’d never thought about what I wanted before. I mean, you know what it’s like! I was built for Sapphire. I was built to think about her. What she needed to be safe. What she wanted. What she’d like…” She pauses. “It was probably even more like that for you, as a Pearl. ‘Specially a Pearl built for a Diamond…”

Pearl nods, and when she speaks, finds that her voice is quieter than she intends. “Yes.”

Ruby holds the silence for a moment more, as if waiting for Pearl to continue, and when she doesn’t, speaks again. “But I realized that I could be my own Gem and love her at the same time. I was built to think that those things contradicted each other, and for so long I did, but they don’t, ya know? And our relationship’s better now that I know that.” She sits up, angles her body toward Pearl. “Garnet’s better.”

“That’s wonderful.” But Pearl doesn’t smile as she says it. “Truly, it is. And I’m so happy for you—both of you—and for Garnet. But I…I never got to do that with Rose. Be my own Gem with her. Perhaps she saw me as more—or maybe she didn’t, I’m not really sure, but....all I ever was was her Pearl. And now she’s gone.” She turns her head toward the sea. “What I had with her…I don’t know if it was ever real. If it was ever love…it was…it was just my programming. Perhaps it’s still just my programming.”

With a great deal of effort, Pearl pries her head back toward Ruby, and when she does, it’s to see, to her immense surprise, Ruby smiling.

“Nah,” she says. “The devotion…that part came easy to us. You and me. We didn’t have to work at it, because it was programmed into us. We were built that way. But Sapphy, Rose…they weren’t. They had to learn. And sometimes I think we taught them. And once we did…together, we—Sapphy and I, Rose and you—together we made that devotion into love. And that’s real.” She pauses. “You know how Garnet’s more than just Sapphy and me?”

“Yes...”

“Well, what you and Rose had, I think it was—is—more than just you and her. You both built something together. Something beautiful. You grew together. And yeah, maybe you’re still learning—I sure am—but you couldn’t have built that if you weren’t already starting to become your own Gem, ya know? Even back then.”

“I…” Pearl begins There’s a familiarity to the way Ruby speaks, she thinks, a familiarity to the way it grounds her. But then perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised—she’s known Garnet for thousands of years, and Garnet had to have gotten that quality from somewhere. She’d always assumed that it had been from Sapphire, but perhaps it is—has always been Ruby, or at least something Ruby and Sapphire shared…

(There had been things that she and Rose had shared too, beyond all the secrets and the homesickness that both of them falsely swore they didn’t hold in their hearts. And even if those things had begun because her innermost thoughts and feelings had been calibrated to match Rose’s, she’d grown.)

(They had—both of them—grown.)

Pearl smiles, continues: “That makes sense.”

“ ‘Course,” Ruby says. “That doesn’t mean that what happened—the things Rose did—didn’t hurt you. Sounds like they still did. Especially because she made it so you couldn’t talk about it with anyone…That’s gotta be hard, even if—maybe especially ‘cuz—you loved her.”

A nod. “That’s true. It…it did hurt. And it hurts that she hurt me. But I think…” Pearl pauses to ensure she has these thoughts properly converted into words before she speaks them into being. “I think…it only adds to what you said earlier. If I really am my own Gem—if I was back then, as well—then I can disagree with what she did, even vehemently disagree with what she did, and still love her.” She feels tears prick at her eyes. Are they happy, she wonders, cathartic, loving? Or are they sad, angry? “And I do.”

“Mm.”

The waves crash. Ruby emits a fiery glow that joins with the ever-strengthening sun in reflecting bright light off the waves. Pearl breathes.

“So…” Ruby says, softly. “You never answered my question. Are you? Happy?”

When Pearl smiles this time, it’s softer, but no less real. “I think I will be. Soon.”