Rose Quartz stood on a raised platform in a courtroom, face to face with Blue and Yellow Diamond. They glared down at her, furious, and she stared back up at them, calm and almost guilty.

Rose had had no choice but to turn herself in.

Not long after the shattering of Pink Diamond, the skies of Earth began to glow an eerie white, and a distant, haunting sound began to fill the air. Rose knew that light. She knew that sound. And she knew that she had to do whatever she could to stop it, to save the Crystal Gems.

So for the first time in her life her shield went behind her, sheltering Garnet and Pearl from the blaze, as Rose Quartz surrendered and screamed for the diamonds to stop.

Somehow it was enough. She hadn't entirely expected it to be enough, but it was. The light and the sound stopped. Her troops scattered (at her orders) as Homeworld gems returned to Earth, and took her prisoner. But the Crystal Gems were free and safe. For now the diamonds plight was only with her.

Now she was on trial for her own murder.

"How did you do it?" Blue came closer, her eyes clouded with rage and raw emotion. "How did you shatter Pink Diamond?"

Rose was unable to hold that gaze. She looked away, then, and instead met the eyes of her very panicked Pearl down below. The only prisoner Homeworld had taken aside from herself.

Poor, dear, loyal Pearl, who had given up so much because of Rose. Too many gems had given too much— lost too much— in the name of Rose Quartz. And the life of an entire planet had nearly been sacrificed in the name of Pink Diamond.

It seemed that no matter what Rose did, she would never truly be free. There wasn't much left for her to lose.

Just as she thought that, she noticed that Pearl was trying to tell her something. She was mouthing something frantically, eyes wide with fear.

'Don't!'

But Rose had already made up her mind.

There was only one way to fix this, and it was by doing what she should've done in the first place.

She slipped Pearl a sad smile ('Thank you.'), and then Rose Quartz held her head up high, and looked the diamonds square in the eyes.

"Like this." She said.

And then her gem began to turn.

There was a collective gasp from everyone in the courtroom as Rose Quartz began to glow, and her light stretched and grew into a painfully familiar form, and then— impossibly— Pink Diamond stood before them.

Yellow went rigid. Blue's hands flew to her mouth, her voice a hushed mixture of horror and relief once she finally remembered how to speak.

"Pink?"

Pink (Rose?) flinched as Blue touched her face with trembling hands, making sure she was real. She was.

Somewhere below them a Jasper fell to her knees.

"My diamond?"

There were similar cries of joy and anguish as all the gems in the room reacted to what they'd just witnessed. Pearl was whiter than usual, terrified by what Rose had just done. And, Rose couldn't help but think, she had good reason to be. Who knew how the diamonds would react— what they would do next.

Yellow stood frozen.

Blue pulled away from Pink, betrayal slowly winning out over relief.

"I don't understand." She said.

"The earth is full of life." Pink's head was still held high, but her voice was now more timid. "Life worth protecting. Life worth saving. Life I don't want destroyed in my name."

Blue's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

Pink looked up at the diamonds with earnest eyes.

"I tried to make up excuses as to why the earth colony should not be completed, but you wouldn't listen. I knew you wouldn't listen to me if I told you I wanted to stop. I begged you for a colony, and abandoning it would only seem childish. You would never take me seriously. And as long as I was here the colony would be completed." She looked down at her gem, and thought how many times she'd stared at it, hating herself. Hating what she was. "I thought that if you thought I was- shattered- you would leave the planet alone."

"We thought you were dead!" Blue cried, anguished. "After everything we've done for you, do you think so little of us? That you would leave us to suffer such grief for the rest of our lives, while you were off galavanting around on Earth, doing who knows what?" She motioned to the gems below them. "We nearly corrupted every gem on that planet because of you! Our own gems! Your own gems! Because we thought you had been killed!" Pink had never expected the two of them to feel such emotion over her. She was surprised (and pained) by the open pain in Blue Diamond's eyes. "We could have corrupted you!"

"I know. I'm sorry." Pink felt small then, and she knew the worthlessness of her words even as she said them. "In order to make you stop treating me like a child I acted like a child. I was wrong." Despite the shame she felt she continued to hold her head up high. "I came back because I didn't want innocent gems to suffer. You didn't deserve to think that I was dead. And those gems didn't deserve to be corrupted when they'd done nothing wrong." And then, in a show of theatrics that she knew the diamonds would appreciate, Pink dropped to her knees, pleading. "But I beg of you, if you care for me at all, please spare the Earth." Pink looked up at them with desperation in her eyes, and saw that she had their attention. "If you would let me, I would continue to run the Earth as my colony… just… differently than any colony we've had before." Despite the seriousness of her situation, a delicate smile began to bloom on Pink's face as she spoke of Earth. "There are resources there unique to the planet. We can learn from them, and try to harvest them in a way that won't harm the planet. And there is intelligent life on earth. More primitive than us, yes, but kind, and curious, and innocent. There's so much we can learn from this planet."

She looked up at them, chancing a hopeful, fragile smile.

Yellow diamond crossed her arms.

"No." She said, deadpan.

"Yellow!" Blue cried.

"Blue!" Yellow hissed, her voice dropping so that only Blue could hear, "We are not going to reward her for this behavior!"

Blue matched her hushed tone.

"But she wasn't running away from her responsibilities, she was running towards them." Blue said. "She's finally showing interest in running a colony."

Yellow recrossed her arms.

"Not in the way the authority would want her to."

"Maybe not." Blue agreed, "But maybe once she gets a taste of really running a colony she'll change her mind." Once again her eyes were filled with grief. "We thought she had been shattered, Yellow." She whispered. Yellow looked away. "I can't count the number of times I thought to myself that I would do anything to get her back. And now she stands before us, asking us for help, and you want to turn her away?" Her gaze turned harder, more distant. "If we do this, we will lose her all over again. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I could take it."

"She is acting like a child. She said so herself."

"But she's not." Blue urged. "Coming back to us? Telling us the truth? Owning up to her mistakes? This is the first time she hasn't acted like a child."

Blue and Yellow returned their attention to Pink, who had been straining (and failing) to hear their conversation.

Yellow began to pace, and Blue and Pink and the rest of the courtroom watched in tense silence as she thought.

"If we allowed this," Yellow began slowly, "You would have to report back to us with regular updates on the progress of your colony. The resources of earth and what we can learn from the planet."

Pink nodded vigorously, almost unbelievingly.

"I can do that."

Yellow continued to pace, her arms folded behind her back as she looked at Pink with an expression of extremely mild interest.

"And you would have to allow us to check in on your colony in person, at least once a year."

Blue's mouth flickered in a fragile smile as Pink looked up at her.

"Of course." Pink said softly.

Yellow and Blue Diamond exchanged a glance, and said nothing, which implied that the discussion was over.

Pink should have been satisfied. All of this had gone much better than she could ever had hoped, and yet…

She gave a smile that was half wince.

"... May I ask for one more thing?"

Blue and Yellow looked very tired.

"What?" Yellow asked.

Pink swallowed.

"There are gems that… don't fit into the grand design of the authority. Gems who we shatter for being different. I believe this is wasteful." She rushed the rest of her argument when she saw the insult in their eyes. "But since I understand that you don't want to waste your valuable time and energy on such gems, I ask that you instead send them to earth with me."

Yellow's eyes narrowed, calculating.

"Why?"

Pink blinked.

"Just because they're different doesn't mean they can't still be of use." She said slowly. "If earth is really my world, I want to share it with the gems who have fought by my side. All of them." She fought the urge to look down at Pearl. "And if kindergardening were to continue on earth, it would destroy the planet. This process must be stopped, but I'll still need gems to help me. I'm asking to take gems you don't want. Along with my Pearl."

Yellow could think of no reason to say no to this.

"Very well." She agreed.

Pink beamed, her shoulders drooping with relief, and Yellow couldn't help but think that she really did have the light and radiance of a Diamond.

"Thank you." Pink bowed her head and gave the diamond salute, fighting back tears for more reasons than she could count. "I truly am sorry for all the pain I've caused you." She whispered.

And yet Yellow knew that this wouldn't be the end of it.