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I.Tall Tree
A week after the party at Kevin’s house
“There you are! Goodness, I was getting worried.”
Steven shoved the pile of sand back over. Pearl padded up behind him, and he could always hear her pauses, like the sound of telephone wires on a summer day. He had hoped that the last place she would look would be behind the cliffs. Both of them knew that Pearl would have scoured every scrap of shadow on the planet to find him.
“Steven, what are you doing back here?” she asked.
“Nothing! Just, playing in the sand.”
There were certain kinds of lies that Steven told, and he hated that he was so bad at it. All that it took was one errant comment or action to reveal the truth. If it would make someone uncomfortable, it was easy to cover and avoid that. Most humans in his life accepted his little frivolities and didn’t push. Amethyst would push for the truth out of curiosity. Garnet just couldn’t be lied to most of the time.
Pearl could pinpoint the exact tone that Steven used when he lied. To explain himself would be to make one or the other party feel in such and such a way. Maybe he just shouldn’t have said anything at all — but would that have made things worse? The Gem stepped forward, and Steven stepped to the side obediently. Both of them looked at the little oval that he had dug with his hands. It was about the size of a loaf of bread. The boy wiped his hands on his shirt shamefully and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I don’t understand, it’s just a hole in the ground.”
Steven’s toes squeaked against the rubber of his sandals as he curled them up.
“Is something wrong, Steven?” Pearl said. “I’m a little lost, and we’re just about ready to start dinner.”
A sea breeze beat against the cliff and ricocheted off into their faces. Pearl stiffened against the buffet while Steven took a small step to plant his feet. At any other point, the boy knew that he would feel like crying. Maybe his body was just catching up to his mind. Now was as good a time as any to help the process.
“Pearl, what happened when mom died?”
“Oh. Oh, Steven.”
Maybe the weight had been around for longer than he had thought. Immediately after he asked, Steven sniffled and felt the tear began to fall. Pearl only had a chance to take one step before Steven padded over and hugged her. Gems’ bodies were always warm, like a computer monitor, but not unkindly so. The boy suspected that when the Gems made their bodies, they softened their projections just for him.
“Steven, Rose didn’t...die, not like humans do,” Pearl finally said. “We’ve told you that she ‘game up her form,’ but that’s about all we know. What Rose did was so impossible that we don’t have words for it. And even now, if you asked Garnet, Amethyst — if you ask your father, he still wouldn’t know, and he was the only one there.”
“What? Why weren’t you there? Didn’t she want you to see me?”
A small smile broke over Pearl’s face. One hand rested on top of Steven’s head, and he could feel its weight on his scalp.
“She didn’t want us to see her go. She knew we wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even after, we still didn’t know what to do. But we came in after, and Rose was gone… And you were there!”
There were many things Steven wanted to ask. He wanted to run down to his father and ask what he had seen when Rose had left. Even now, he hadn’t been told where he had been born, what life had been like for them after. There were only so many stories he had been told. This was a time of knowing. Steven wiped his face and looked down. Pearl followed his eyes to the hole he had been digging in the dirt, and how he had covered it back up after.
“I just thought, um,” Steven murmured, “I was just thinking about if there was a funeral of any kind for her. You know, like humans do. But I guess if she never… DIED died.”
Pearl was quiet for a moment as Steven half-laughed, turning a sniffle into a chuckle. No matter how close they got, humans were humans and Gems were Gems, with unique biologies and cultures and rites of mourning. But Gems never had a chance to mourn, did they? If someone was lost or shattered, a new Gem could be replaced. When did they discover that all sentient life had a unique experience? What did they do with the loss inside?
Steven let go of Pearl and nudged the pile with his foot. It had just been a passing thought, really. He had imagined all the Gems in black under a rainy September sky, standing over an empty grave. And it was almost absurd. When he looked up, he saw Pearl quickly move her hand away from where she had been wiping her face.
“I think that after all this time, I’ve accepted all I can accept. We all have. You know, we’ve seen many human families that have lost parents. Rose was heartbroken that she wouldn’t be around for you. But I think she had faith in Greg, and in the child left behind.”
“And in you!”
Pearl paused for a second as Steven took her hand. He turned her back towards the house, pulling her along the beach.
“Because she knew you guys would be around, right? And I know she loved dad but she knew I was going to be part Gem, and she knew you would be around to help whenever dad needed it! Rose had to believe in you, because, well, you’re family too. Right?”
Steven wiped his hand off on his shirt. Family could be anything as far as he was concerned. He had his father, an uncle, maybe other human relatives, and he had the Gems. Not everyone had Gems, but he did, and he was thankful for it. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl weren’t like anything that any other family had. It didn’t stop them from being family. As they walked, Pearl turned her face, but Steven knew she was smiling.
“We are, aren’t we,” she murmured.
II. Gray Cloud
Following Stevonnie’s return from the jungle moon
Waking up in the middle of the night was rarer these days. Steven knew he hadn’t kept the best sleep schedule in his adolescence, but now that he had larger challenges and more responsibility he found that he actually wanted to keep himself sharp. Every adult he knew (and Connie) told him how important sleep was. Still, when he blinked blearily into consciousness tonight, he didn’t feel as bad. He could get it back after a nice drink and maybe some meditative tapes.
The first thing he noticed was the weight of Lion — notably, its absence. The boy rubbed his eyes and yawned. Well, the cat did have his nights of wandering. Steven sniffed and glanced around his little loft. Up until a year or so ago, he could have seen Pearl kneeling at the foot of his bed. Tonight, he saw her on the top stair.
“Pearl?”
The Gem gasped and sat upright. She whirled to face the boy with a hand on her chest and swallowed. Steven had to rub his eyes again to make sure that he was indeed seeing the rings under her eyes.
“Steven, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to wake you!”
“You didn’t wake me up. Just a case of the humans.”
“I’m not sure what that means, but alright.”
Steven smiled and swung his legs out of bed. Pearl turned around as he approached and sat criss-cross on the floor above. He watched the Gem fold her hands together, clasping and rubbing them, hunching her shoulders as she let out the tiniest sigh.
“Steven, I-I feel as though I owe you an apology.”
“You haven’t done anything, Pearl! Unless it’s something I don’t know about, in which case I guess I forgive you.”
“No, it’s not something I’ve done. It’s about something I feel.”
Steven almost opened his mouth to interrupt, but he held his tongue. Pearl had something she needed to say, and it was the least he could do to listen. She clearly hadn’t expected him awake. Still, she took a breath.
“I know, you’re getting older and you’re able to do more and more dangerous things,” Pearl said, “but when we heard about the crash on the moon and when Stevonnie had to survive, I just — I’m so proud of you, but I was just so worried! If anything at all had happened, we would have been totally powerless. If anything had happened to Lars, to the ship… Who knows how long you could have been up there without help?”
Well, that all made sense. The worse case scenario could have made anyone feel terrible. Steven felt a jarring realization that not everyone had the optimism that he did in those sorts of situations. Living life like he was in a story helped calm his mind; everything could turn out right in the end. A happily ever after was right around the corner.
But he understood that not everyone felt that way, and it wasn’t until Pearl’s confession that he felt how much worry he had inadvertently caused. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Connie had felt the same when he had come back from the court. Maybe all the Gems had felt that way to some degree and Pearl was the only one he listened to.
“You shouldn’t have to apologize, Pearl. Please, please don’t apologize.”
“I know, it’s silly, it’s ridiculous, you’re old enough to — ”
“It’s not that!” Steven interrupted. “You’re not wrong to feel this way! You’re not wrong to worry about me. When you apologize for your feelings — you can’t help what you feel, it’s what you do with those feelings. And you haven’t done anything wrong!”
Pearl put one hand over her mouth and turned back towards the bottom of the stairs. Maybe she had still felt as though her feelings and her actions were the same. Maybe the notion of what she should and shouldn’t apologize for had been too twisted in her head. Steven didn’t know what had caused it, but he knew it wasn’t Pearl’s own fault.
The whole house was empty in the dead of night. On any other evening, Steven could go get some water and come back to Lion snuffling at the foot of his bed, letting the wind and the waves lull him away. Pearl could meditate in the fountains and let the reverberating water wash her stress away. Steven could only imagine her trying to let this go by herself, thinking of the boy and worrying but not wanting to go and hover over him. Then, Steven’s inner lightbulb came on.
“I think I understand. You...know I’m growing up, and you want to give me the space and room to grow, but you’re worried about what’s going to happen to me in the future still,” Steven said.
“Well, of course.”
“I think you and dad might have to have a talk, then.”
Pearl let her hand fall, and Steven couldn’t help but chuckle at the confused expression.
“Or Vidalia, or May- um, Mr. Dewey, or Ms. Miller. Because that’s all part of having a child in your life growing up,” he said.
“Well, yes, but I’m not your parent, Steven, I’m your — I’m not your Pearl, but — ”
“But you love me and care for me, just like how I love and care for you!” Steven laughed. “And when you love someone, then you start to feel this way. I mean, I’m not a dad yet, but I think that I can see parents feeling this way.”
“...what about Lars’ parents?”
Steven felt his stomach drop out from under him. He had almost forgotten about Dante and Martha Barriga and their real worst-case scenario. He couldn’t begin to understand how they felt. Having a future torn away like that, experiencing the uncertainty and having your child maybe never return from light years away —
He didn’t want to talk about it. Steven scooted over and leaned on Pearl. He felt her body jump at the touch before letting the boy relax.
“Well, that one’s more my fault,” he mumbled.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
For a split second, Steven opened his mouth to argue that he still felt like he could have done something more, that he felt wrong about it. But he wasn’t so flustered that he couldn’t swallow his words. Pearl knew exactly what she had said. The Gem moved her arm around the child’s shoulder, then pulled Steven close.
III. Bird of Prey
The night after Sadie Miller’s show in Empire City
A car door slammed. A loud laugh rang out in the empty lot. Voices and neon swam in Steven’s head. He blinked awake for just long enough to see the night sky of Beach City above his father’s car wash. The freshly washed backseat of Greg’s van was where he had spent many nights before, asleep just like this. The engine was still running.
Everyone must have been dropped off here, to go to their own cars, and Steven must have fallen asleep on the drive back. He heard the footsteps as Greg approached, opening and closing the driver’s side door as quietly as he could. Steven closed his eyes again as the van began to roll forwards. He heard his dad sigh and grunt, probably stretching his sore muscles from the long drive. Maybe he could stay asleep here, and wake up in his sweaty band shirt in his bed, carried by Greg’s equally tired hands.
Asphalt turned to concrete, concrete to impacted sand, all jostling the van in different ways. Steven knew exactly what it was like when the van drove over them, over and over again. The vibrations from the ground through the tires and into his seat was the feeling of home. The van rolled to a halt on an incline. Steven had already memorized the hum of the engine turning off, the keys jingling, the grind of the emergency break, and the following click of the door opening. He remained motionless.
“Hey, you’re all back!”
“Yup! Everything went great. Steven actually took some good video of the whole event. You should ask him when he wakes up.”
Pearl’s voice. Steven shifted in his seat and tried to keep his eyes closed, but they opened despite himself, taking in every blurry detail of the passenger seatback. He could look down and pretend not to see anything and wait for someone to come for him. He heard the plastic crunch of a water bottle being opened.
“I’d love to see Sadie’s set,” Pearl said. “And this...producer? She enjoyed it as well?”
“Sunshine Justice was a huge fan! She’s just, uh, managing the space though. We might be able to record in there if I spring for some equipment.”
“Greg, you really are doing so much for these kids.”
“What can I say? They need some help, especially financially. Shoot, if Steven asked I’d do it for him at the drop of a hat, but he’s got other stuff on his plate. Money can’t help with everything.”
What did that mean? Steven curled up on the seat and let his eyes rove to where the adults were talking. Greg was right, though. Steven really tried not to use his father’s fortune for anything too extravagant. He was thinking of a gaming computer, or maybe a telescope, nothing more than a few hundred dollars. Even that made him feel guilty. But he didn’t know what his father meant in that last sentence.
“Greg, what do you mean?” Pearl asked.
Steven’s mouth opened, then he let it close without argument.
“Being a dad is more than just taking trips and buying presents. You guys know that, you’re family,” the man said. “Times like this, I just — I can’t ask Steven, but I have to wonder what he thinks of you Gems and me. What we are to him. Pearl, this is a lot, I’m sorry.”
“No, no, it’s okay! You’re his human father. These are...human feelings.”
“Well, Steven has human feelings too. I wonder sometimes if he sees you and Garnet and Amethyst kind of like three moms.”
The exhaustion soured his stomach in seconds. Steven felt himself seize up in the moment, in the question, and he had to ask himself if that was true. He had stayed with the Gems for most of his life at this point. They ate together, played games, loved and adventured together. He loved them with all of his aching heart.
But he didn’t want to put that on the Gems. There had only been one mother, Rose Quartz, and she had left him behind to make him exist. He never considered the Gems to be anything but themselves. Why did they have to be in the category of ‘mother’ to him? Why did they have to be labeled like that? Steven took a breath and took a moment and hated what the word meant to him. There was a terrible sourness with how it tasted in his brain. A mother was a complicated, stern, distant, overbearing, lying person. A mother was a parent. A mother had to be kind. Steven felt his lungs twist in knots.
“No, I don’t think he does,” Pearl said. “No, he knows better than that.”
Steven had to force himself to keep still and listen. The wave that had crashed over him was so sudden. He hadn’t realized how much it was making him tense until Pearl spoke. The second that had floated between her and Greg had been enough to destroy Steven’s composure. The boy forced himself to take one massive breath.
“Steven knows that Rose was his only ‘mom,’ and I think he’s accepted that she’s not with us anymore. But I know it hurts him, that he’ll never know who she was as a person.”
Another pause. Steven knew that Pearl had brought her hand to her mouth again, to think.
“If Rose was still here, she would tell Steven everything, and she wouldn’t have to be just another thing for him to overcome,” she said. “And I truly think she would feel terrible that she’s done this to him. Out of all the living things in this world, she would have been the most honest with him.”
“I know she’d tell him more than she told me,” Greg muttered.
There was a moment of silence between the two adults. Greg snorted in laughter. The door of the van began to open with a click. Steven shut his eyes.
“But I’d be okay with that.”
Steven couldn’t help but grab onto his father as the man lifted him out of the seat. Maybe he could chalk it up to an involuntary response if his father asked later. Neither the man nor Pearl asked if he was awake as he was swung up and out of the seat. The boy pressed his face into his arm as the three of them walked up towards the beach house. He hoped in the dim light that they wouldn’t see his tears.
IV. Sweet Song
The day after adopting Cat Steven
“I think we got everything!”
The list was intimidating. Toys, food, and a litterbox were easy, but vaccinations and checkups weren’t as simple to get. Steven had called and scheduled with Greg for the closest vet. Cat Steven was waiting for them at home. Hopefully she hadn’t had any accidents in the house, but Steven and Pearl both knew where the cleaning supplies were in case. Garnet was ready to get her off of the sheets and carpets beforehand.
For now, they could do the simple tasks. Steven put in a book on kitten training in the cart. Pearl was reading down the list and nodded as she checked the items with the notation.
“Did we decide on the scratching post?” the Gem said. “I’d hate for her to go after the nice wood.”
“Oh, that’s right! Just a small one for the kitchen. Can’t believe I forgot.”
“Why don’t you go pick one out and I’ll start to get in line!”
“Sure! Be right back, mom.”
Steven remembered just where they were in the store. Most of the heavy cat equipment was in the back, because they wanted to keep the nice fish displays and dog accessories in the front, things that wouldn’t make the place look all industrial. The boy turned and jogged back down the aisles.
Greg had spotted them for some cash, as Pearl’s inner bank was starting to run dry. One day, Steven knew he was going to have to ask about where the Gems got all their money, considering that their wasn’t anything close to an economy on Homeworld or other colonized planets. For now, as he approached the various rope poles and platforms, Steven was thankful that they had what they had to provide for the house. He picked up a two-foot post, checking the bottom for its sticker. What a relief it must have been for Greg, to know that his son and his family never had to want for money again.
When he came back up to the checkout, he put the pole on the counter. It was the last item before the little bell-balls, which he hoped Lion wouldn’t crunch out of boredom.
“This should be fine!” Steven said, jogging down to the end to load the bags. “She’s gonna love it!”
Pearl gave him an odd smile as she pulled a bundle of bills out of her gem, much to the amazement of the teenage cashier. She didn’t say anything, and appeared to be lost in thought. Maybe she was revising the list in her head, or getting ready for duties that they had to do at home. Either way, the change went into back into the stone, and Steven pushed the cart out into the parking lot.
They had a couple minutes before Greg pulled the van around to them. He was at the department store on the other side of the street, looking at either watches or sports equipment. Sitting out in the van one night, the two Universes compiled a (mostly humorous) list of things that other weirdly rich people could do with their money. Already Greg had been harassed by different investment groups and country clubs. Simple pleasures were the way to go. Speaking of, Steven whipped out his phone as he parked with Pearl on the sidewalk.
“I’m going to text Connie and see if she wants to come over and play with Cat Steven and the new toys!” he said, frantically tapping away. “Maybe we can even do a TubeTube video with her and Lion. The last one got almost a thousand views!”
“Well, that sounds lovely!”
He had missed a couple gifs from Connie in the interim. Steven chuckled at the animals, scrolling up as he waited for a reply. There were pictures to save, schedules to check, all sorts of things to do today. As he browsed, Pearl cleared her throat. Steven looked up and was surprised to see her in a worried state — or that was the closest he could come to deciphering her expression.
“Did you hear what you said a couple minutes ago?”
“...about Connie?”
“Inside the store, Steven. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but you… Well, you called me ‘mom.’”
“What? Pearl, you’re Pearl! I wouldn’t — like, I couldn’t have said — ”
Pearl closed her eyes. A cone of light burst from her head, and Steven looked at a reflection of himself in the Gem’s hologram, completely clueless as, yes, he smiled and said that word to Pearl and then ran back without a second thought. Steven put his phone in his pocket. The visual faded in a blip of light. Pearl crossed her hands together.
“Steven…is that how you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
It wouldn’t have been just Pearl, then. Amethyst, well, she was closer to a sister if he had to put her in any group. Garnet could just have easily filled the niche, and maybe it was Pearl’s presence today that caused the slip. But nothing should have caused the slip at all. Steven had never called anyone ‘mom’ in his life except for a memory, an illusion, a pink storm. Nobody else’s mom had been anyone but a friend to him. Steven turned away from Pearl and shuddered.
“No. No, that’s not…right. That’s not how I want to feel. I want you to be Pearl, just Pearl. You’re family, but you’re not — it’s not like that.”
Pearl knelt so she could be at eye level with Steven as the boy rubbed his palms into his face, begging the tears not to come.”
“Because what if something’s wrong with me?” he said. “People don’t need two parents. And I never had a mom, and I don’t want a mom, and I hate feeling like you and Garnet and Amethyst and dad and Connie a-aren’t good enough for me, and that she’s...better. She’s not, she’s not better than you…”
He was in the hug before he could stop himself, and he didn’t care. Steven let himself fall into Pearl’s arms, and he tightened his jaw as much as he could as the tears came down. They were silent for a moment as Steven let Pearl’s hands hold him close. These hands had won wars. These hands had touched Rose. But he loved them because they were holding him, here and now.
This wouldn’t be the last time things happened this way. Steven knew that the shadow of the past covered him and the Gems. He didn’t want to think about it right now. Pearl knew better than to ask, and the Gem shushed him gently, patting him on the back.
“You know what we’re going to do, Steven?”
“Y-yeah?”
“We’re all going to go home,” she whispered, “and we’re going to get out all the toys, and we’re going to fill up the box and get water into Cat Steven’s bowl, and Connie’s going to come over, and your father’s going to call the vet, and we’re going to have a family day. Okay?”
The boy leaned back. Pearl had so much to say. He could see all the unspoken pain in her eyes, all the truths that needed to be shared between them. One day, when Steven could parse it all, when he was comfortable inside, he wanted to sit with her and the Gems and just talk about what they all meant together. But Pearl had already said it, hadn’t she? Being a family, belonging together, was enough. They didn’t have anything more to show to each other than their love. A slip was a slip. Steven took the wave of his feelings, and felt it wash over him and drain away, just as Pearl wiped a tear from his cheek.
“Okay,” Steven whispered.
As the van pulled into the plaza, Pearl stood, with Steven’s hand resting in her own. She was better than a mom; she was Pearl. Steven squeezed the pale hand and felt all the color start to soak into his soul again. The sun was so warm on their skin.