Epilogue: His Last Request

"Garnet, over here! Let's clear up some more!" Amethyst called. She cleared away some of the broken furniture, throwing it outside of the house. The gems were standing in the plains' temple.

Pearl had told the humans that they were now in charge of the plains' temple; there was plenty of room for the twenty or so former gems that Jasper had killed, and this way, if anyone else ever passed through the plains, then there would be an outpost to help travelers. The people looked almost the same way they had when they were gems, with a few small changes. They had no recollection of having existed as gems. And the gems chose to come and fix up the temple so that it was habitable.

"Lemonade!" Steven called, passing glasses around to the people, and then one to Pearl. Pearl smiled back, and nodded.

"Thanks Steven," she said, taking a sip and setting the glass down. Her gaze drifted back toward Peridot's door, and Amethyst and Garnet turned to watch as Pearl took a few tentative steps toward the door before it opened for her, and she drifted inside.

"Should we go after her? Who's room is that?" Steven asked curiously, pointing after Pearl.

"It's alright Steven; she'll come out eventually," Garnet said.

"Yeah, and even if she doesn't, we'll always be able to say that we tried," Amethyst shrugged, and grinned as Steven smiled at her joke.

The gems stared as the door closed after Pearl, and then turned back to their work in cleaning the house.

Pearl slowly walked through Peridot's room. Slowly it dawned on her that she and the other gems forgot the reason that they had visited the dead gem's room the first time.

"I think that there is something there for Steven..." Garnet had said. Pearl's eyes widened.

"Of course," she said quietly, and quickly began to look among the instruments on the ground. "Right before Rose died," she murmured to herself, and kept searching frantically.

Pearl lifted up a small, white orb, which fit into the palm of her hand. She stopped for a moment, staring at the bluish-white orb with intrigue. Poking it with one finger, she watched as the orb lit out a small flash of light, and a recorded voice began to play.

"Hey Steven!" Pearl called out.

Steven, Amethyst and Garnet had just finished passing out food, and now themselves were taking a break. Pearl walked over, smiling to Garnet, and showing her a small necklace. On a silver chain was a small hourglass of pink sand.

"That's it," Garnet said with a nod. "Good work in finding it."

"Cool!" Steven said, grinning. "Where did this come from?"

"One of the gems that died; Rose gave it to him awhile back before you were born. When we first came here, while you were regenerating, this is what we thought we would find," Garnet said.

Amethyst grinned. "Just like him to keep it all these years and say nothing. It's kinda sad that he was too depressed to ever leave the temple. He could have come with us."

"But he didn't," Pearl said softly. "And something tells me that it wasn't depression."

Garnet glanced over at Pearl. "What do you mean?"

Pearl looked Garnet in the eye. "It's nothing too important, I promise."

"Pearl, this is beautiful. You were right," Steven said. "I never really stopped and looked at sunsets for awhile." He turned toward Pearl.

Pearl nodded. "See? I told you. You can always stop and enjoy things like this. What did I teach you about sword play? To watch?"

Steven laughed, and grinned. "Hey Pearl?"

"Yes Steven?"

"Why was it that you like sunsets so much?"

"Because their beautiful, and the sunlight becomes more gentle, and they make me realize that there is much more to this existence than what I thought for at least the first century that I was alive. I realized that there was more to live for, and that I had not realized my full purpose in protecting the humans."

Steven nodded, hanging off of every word. "That must have been hard before you realized that."

Pearl smiled. "It got a lot better afterward, though. Look at the colors; I like that such simple things can be so beautiful. That's something I learned from your mother. And I promised myself that I'd teach this to someone I care about."

"Hey, Pearl?"

"Yes, Steven?"

"Thank you for being like a mother to me."

The recording left for Pearl:

"Hey Pearl? Remember the day that I decided to give you my favorite sword? That's the day I chose to record this. I saw you only a moment ago, but then I went into my room to get you something. I'm sorry for returning so late with the sword, but I had to record this. You're about to return to Rose and her team again, and I know that you will be happy there.

"I want to thank you for always trying to help me since we lost Zircon. I found out that Jasper is alive, but that he didn't want either of us to realize that he was. I walked into his room one time to see that he was around, and then I was almost killed. The next thing I did was send you away, which I'm doing right now. I'm sorry about this; I wanted you safe. But first I need to tell you something.

"I know that Jasper made an effort to kill by the time you hear this. You mentioned once, when I brought it up, that he was like a brother not just to me, but to both of us. Remember him as he was when he was not corrupt. Remember to forgive him because we loved him, and we wanted better for him.

"One of the things that instantly fascinated me was that Rose was once your mentor, just like how she was mine. I'm grateful that she sent you here. Now that I know that I may never leave this temple again, I want you to give the hourglass back to her after I die. She sent it to me just after we thought Jasper was dead, right before you officially left our team.

"And Pearl? There's one more thing I want you to know. Call it a last request, I guess. I've been alive for centuries, and I've only known you for years, but some of my most precious memories are from being with you. Before I die, I want you to know that I loved you, and that I need you to stay strong, okay? You remind me a lot of Rose. Be strong, Pearl. I know you are.

Love always,

Peridot."

This one was actually really fun to right. I've got a lot of good ideas for my next story (I'm thinking either Rose or Amethyst centric (which is great because Rose would be in my Amethyst story) ) but first I've got to get some things together. I'm starting school this Monday, and boy is that going to make finding free time fun.

Heh heh, alliteration =)

But seriously, Thank you all for the wonderful support and encouragement on this story. I'm really glad that it was so well received, especially when I almost lost control of the material after chapter 3 =D

May God bless you and keep you all,

Lindous =)