They walked around the farm, Steven's arm around Connie's shoulders, and up into the surrounding hills. Steven talked about the workings of the farm, about how they were planning on shipping extra food and gems to create hybrid colonies on organic-habitable moon bases on the other Diamond's old planets and make those gems part of the other Diamond's court. It sounded nice, but the rebelling colony in the Jade System was simply killing off so many soldiers they were overproducing food and new gems on Pink's colonies. They needed to do something about that planet. They needed to be subdued.
"Can't you do something?" Connie asked.
"Me?" Steven laughed. "What can I do? I can't do anything."
They were at the top of a hill, sitting side by side, watching Wolf idly chew on the tail of some lizard he'd found. Steven got up and walked a few paces down the hill.
"Everyone wants me to be something I'm not. To be… I don't know."
Connie smiled sympathetically. "To be perfect?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.
When Steven whirled around on the spot, eyes wide. She just shrugged.
"Yea," Steven said in disbelief. "But I'm not," he added, getting angry. "I'm not how they want me to be and I don't know why. I do everything they ask, but it's not enough! Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. My aunts say that I have a place, but…"
But Steven wasn't filling that place, wasn't he? Connie thought Pink Diamond was in seclusion, one way or another, and the rebel planet in the Jade System was getting out of hand. The Pink Court needed a leader.
Steven clenched his fists and growled, tears forming in his eyes. "What is the point of all this? Why am I bothering to do all this work if nothing is going to come of it?"
"So why not do something Steven?!" Connie said, leaning forward against her knees.
"What can I do?" Steven asked tearfully.
"Anything! You're Pink Diamond, aren't you?"
Steven paused. "I… what?"
"It was pretty easy to figure out. You should not have let Lars tell that story."
Sniffing, Steven smiled at her. "Probably not. I thought… maybe you wouldn't bring it up. I thought… maybe you won't see me anymore."
Connie stood up and went to Steven. She took both his hands in hers. "I guessed you were Pink Diamond's son from the start and it never affected how I saw you. And you don't have to be like your Mom. No one can be like the Diamonds. Even them. If she was so perfect, she would have had you without disappearing and leaving you with this burden."
Steven laughed and wiped his eyes. "I don't think we're supposed to admit that out loud."
"Well, too bad!" Connie shouted. "You don't have to be a Pink Diamond the way she was. You can be a Pink Diamond the way you want to be, your version of what it means to be a leader! Your Mom was different from the other Diamonds. You can be different from her."
Steven laughed again and let go of Connie's hands. Backing up, he tied the bottom of his shirt so that his gem showed. "Okay. Wanna see something cool?"
"Is it your Pink Diamond form?" Connie guessed.
"Why can never surprise you?!" Steven shouted.
"Because I pick the most amazing thing possible and that's usually it," Connie grinned. "So show me. Do you get huge?"
"Well! Not really… But watch, anyway." Steven took a deep breath and seemed to relax.
Connie stared at him intensely, watching for any signs of change. But when it began, she knew it was happening. Steven glowed, starting from his gem, then spreading to the rest of his body. His gem was fully visible in the brightness. It truly was a diamond and looked almost too big for his body. Turned out he'd simply been hiding it by having the bottom of it facing out. Now it was rotating so that the flat side was pointing down and the side was facing out, showing that it was and he was a Diamond.
Steven stopped glowing and opened his eyes. Nothing had changed about him physically. He was still the same shape and size. But his hair, today tied up into a bun, was a pink was dark pink lowlights. His eyes were pink as well, with diamond-shaped pupils.
"So?" Steven asked sheepishly.
A slow grin spread across Connie's face as she saluted. "My Diamond," she said with genuine sincerity.
Closing the distance between them, Steven put down her hands and hugged her. "My Pearl," he said.
They hugged.
They hugged for what seemed like forever.
"You're going to do great," Connie said. "Just march up to the other Diamonds and say, 'I am Pink Diamond and I am going to rule my part of Authority!' They'll have to listen. They can't keep you away from your subjects. You've got to be a leader, Steven."
"You think?" Steven whispered.
"Yea."
"And you'll be with me?"
Backing up, Connie smiled at Steven. "Why would I ever be anywhere else, when you're here?"
Steven nodded, then picked Connie up around the waist and began spinning her around.
"Steven! Ah! No!" Connie wriggled to get loose and fly off, but Steven had too good a grip and she was laughing too much.
"I've got you, Connie!" Steven said, spinning faster, lifting off the ground.
They spun and spun, laughing and shouting until something happened. Connie felt it immediately because she'd never had a gem in her body before. It sat between her breasts like a stone that had suddenly been placed in her sternum. Contrary to making it hard to breathe, it made her warm. It made her flush and hot with power. Finally, she felt respected. Steven took an extra moment to realize that things were changing. The cool aura that washed over was so foreign to him. He was unburdened by destiny. But once he felt he dove into it, embrace the feeling completely. Steven was brilliant in this state. He was the smartest person in the room, but strangely ignored. Connie found herself suddenly to have the opposite problem, to have all eyes on her and have none of the answers they sought.
But they were a hard fact, the two of them, unswayed by the opinions of others. They were a ball of their own emotions. They shouldn't be. They were a brand new thing that had always been in some form or another, in another world, at another time. They lived in a glorious contradiction to themselves!
"Who are we?" Connie and Steven asked.
They were a song they knew the tune to, but not the words.
"Who am I?" they asked. "What's this feeling?"
"Well, it could be…" Steven began.
"It could be?" Connie asked.
"It could be a deep friendship," Steven said, thinking of Axelle and Pearl.
"No," Connie said, taking a chance. "It could be…"
"What, you know what it could be?" Steven asked.
"I think it could be loyalty," Connie said, too scared.
"So you know it could be…" Steven felt her nervousness.
"… I don't know. Could it be…?" Connie asked breathlessly.
"I mean! Why couldn't it be affection?!" Steven asked.
"But isn't it?" they said. "Isn't it? Isn't it… love?"
They blinked and looked left, then right, then down. Then they decided that down was the important part as they were several feet off the ground.
"Well," they said. "I'd better get down. Steven, how you… we… I? Get down?" They struggled for a moment before finally lowering to the ground. "Hell. That was hard."
Wolf padded over, sniffed their hip, which was where he now came up to, and yawned.
"Good to see you, too," the fusion said. They pet his head only to realize how dark their hand was. "Wow. My hand is dark. Like Connie. And my hair. Pink still." They looked down. "Two gems. Oh, my stars! I have a gem now! And my hair is short and fluffy!"
"I'll say! You look like Pink D!"
The fusion squeaked and turned. Axelle was sitting in a tree with a bag of burritos, watching.
"How long have you been there?!" the fusion asked.
"Just a few minutes," Axelle said. "I was going to check on Connie when I heard Wolf. So I had to find out where you went for the day and that took ages. And then I got hungry and had to stop for some burritos. So you two can fuse now?"
"Uh… I guess so," the fusion said. "But I don't have a name or anything."
"So let's take you to Pearl. She'll help." Axelle stuffed a burrito in her mouth.
"Won't she be mad at me?" the fusion asked.
"Nah, she'll be thrilled. Anyway, I'm not talking about Rayne. I'm talking about Lacey."
"Oh!" the fusion said. "Wait. Who are they?"
"Gah," Axelle said. "New fusions. Come on. Ste–Con–Stecon–Stev–Hells! Come on!"
#
Pink Diamond's Tower was only a place for Steven to grow up in on New Homeworld and be close to the Pink Stars. Pink Diamond, before her death, had lived in the reclaimed gem temple while on New Homeworld and had traveled the rest of the time. Like all Diamonds, the seat of her power away from Homeworld was her Moon Base, which Connie had orbited on her way to New Homeworld's surface. The only way into the Moon Base was the warp pad in the Tower, which was simple to access as they were Pink Diamond and were being escorted by a Pink Star.
The Moon Base was not a tiny control base like the rotting one on Yellow Diamond's moon. It was a sprawling palace under a clear doom with lush plants, running rivers, and tumbling waterfalls. The fusion looked around, explaining to themself that Steven's Mom wanted organic gems to work at the Base and so she made it habitable for them.
"Stevenconnie!" Axelle said from the arched doorway. "This way!"
The fusion groaned. "I need a name," they muttered.
They followed Axelle down endless hallways, passing a scarce amount of guards, which they explained to themself was because no one knew the original Pink Diamond had died just yet. They reached the private rooms of Pink Diamond after a long walk through winding hallways.
"Yo, Pearl! Guess what happened!"
"What?" a voice like Pearl's said.
"Steven fused!" Axelle shouted.
"Oh, my stars! With whom?!"
A sound of running feet echoed on the polished floors, then a pink, nearly flawless pearl came shooting out of a side room. She dressed similarly to the other Pearl but in shades of pink, with a long flowing skirt.
"How many Pearls does Steven have?!" the fusion asked, then immediately answered themself. "Rayne and Lacey are Mom's Pearls. I only have one. You." The fusion blushed.
"This is Pink Diamond's original Pearl," Axelle said. "But we can't go calling every pearl she and Steven collect Pink Pearl. So we call Pink Pearl Lace Pearl, Lacey for short. Then there's P, who's Rainbow Pearl, Rayne for short. And Connie, who's Aubergine Pearl."
Axelle turned to Pearl. "Pearl this is Stevenconnie. She's… he's… they're? Hells. You figure it out! I got 'em here!" Axelle flopped down on a bed and sighed, but got shaken off her seat by something moving under her. She moved aside and a head with two pink heart-shaped buns popped up from under the blankets.
"Did I miss something?"
"Spinel," Pearl said. "Steven learned to fuse!"
Spinel lifted her head and turned it around. Her neck was basically a rubber band.
The fusion waved. "Hi, Ellie. Steven can fuse now."
A wicked smile spread over Spinel's cartoonish face. "Is this Pearl your girlfriend now?"
"What?" the fusion said and barely held together.
"Spinel!" Pearl scolded.
Axelle laughed. "Good one, El!"
Spinel jumped out of the bed. "Look at this! A new best friend! Every fusion is a new best friend!" She bowed. "I'm Ellie! A pleasure to meet you, Stevonnie."
"Stevonnie!" Pearl said. "Perfect. Good job, Spinel. Now for the gem type."
"And the gender," Axelle huffed. "Organic gems have a gender."
"I'm a them," Stevonnie said, then suddenly realized they weren't sure of what they looked like under their clothes. Probably best to not mention that and figure it out later.
"They," Pearl said. "Of course you would be. Obviously. But your gem type… Hmm. There have been Pink Diamond-Pearl fusions before." She led Stevonnie to the side of the room towards a door.
"What?!" Stevonnie shouted. "Did she… Did Mom?"
"Of course," Pearl said, throwing open the doors on what turned out to be a closet. "She loved fusion, why wouldn't she fuse?"
"The gem temple," Spinel said, "is a model of her fusions! Once you can fuse with the Pink Stars you can create her."
"Create who?" Stevonnie asked.
"Obsidian, duh," Axelle said. "But for now, who are you?"
"That's right," Pearl came from the closet with an armful of Pink clothes. "You must know who you are before you can fuse anymore. These were some of her clothes. You look like you should fit them."
"Oh! Okay." Stevonnie began to undress. They thankfully found a leotard under their clothes.
Pearl continued. "Now Pink Diamond and I made Pink Quartz. And she and Rainbow Pearl made Rainbow Quartz. So you must be…"
"Raspberry Quartz," Axelle said. "Because of how dark their gems are."
Pearl nodded sagely as she helped Stevonnie into their clothes. "Perfect. Raspberry Quartz. Call Garnet and Rayne, Axelle. They're going to want to see this."
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