Rose found her seashell collection full of water one afternoon, sitting in spots of puddle across her windowsill. The rain had come and gone while she'd been in class, and Rose had forgotten to shut the window that morning.

She closed it now, yawning, and straightened her now-damp paper pile on the desk in front. Rose deposited a folder from class on top. She retreated from the bedroom into her living space.

Her ordinary fern, Plant, spilled over the edges of a flowerpot from 3D Morp I on the counter. A modest stack of additional flowerpots waited within one another on the floor below. Rose's living space, outside the bedroom, was an open studio separated into roughly space for leisure and a space of creative productivity.

The productive side, attached to the bedroom, contained a working table, countertop and sink. It was also the side with the window. Her leisure area consisted of a low table and boulder-like cushions on which to lounge. It had, like her bedroom, become a repository for various sorts of things Rose made or brought home, including a number of unsuccessful morp assignments and a deflated Dogcopter balloon from Funland.

It was quite a lot more space than she'd expected to live in, but the high walls and narrow apartment space still inspired an uncomfortable buzzing in the back of her mind from time to time, especially on a dim and foggy evening. As far as she'd seen, each gem utilized their lodgings according to their preferences - and Bismuth and her team would happily accommodate any reasonable request.

Rose plugged her phone in to charge and revisited a Philosophy Majors playlist in her TubeTube app history. The phone's little speakers distorted the sound of the music against the counter. It was familiar, but new.

Rose settled against her cushion to catch up on overdue Decide Stuff journaling. She'd also have to complete a goal sheet after her midterm tonight. Her goals being her biggest problem, Rose had avoided looking at the paper since its assignation, buried somewhere in the stack.

Onion waved hello at the Big Donut. He was alone. I was pleased to see him.

Across the room, her phone pinged with a new message, then another, interrupting the music.

Today, Peridot 5XG told the geminar how corn works. We visited the cornfield. It's organized. I feel glad when Peridot talks about life on Earth.

The phone went off again. Rose got up to check it. It was a message from Pearl - Volleyball, from class.

Pearl: Did you take the project folder?

Right. Their horticulture midterm. They'd made progress on the presentation together in class today. Rose looked through the bedroom door at her pile.

Rose: I have it

Pearl: Perfect.

Pearl: Would you return it before you leave tonight, please?

Rose: Ok

Pearl: and good luck! :^)

Rose: Thank you!

Rose: :^)

Rose smiled at the screen. Another text popped up, not from Pearl.

Amethyst: yo!

Amethyst: mad early but if you're ready now, we can pick u up in LH instead of BC

Amethyst: pearl drove to school today B3

The smile warped into a grimace. They were almost an hour early. Rose considered her options; she needed to deliver the folder to Pearl, and return a community bicycle to its rack tonight.

She wasn't keen on troubling them at the beach house if it could be avoided.

Rose : 10 minutes ok?

Ding!

Amethyst : perf. cya soon

The Decide Stuff midterm was a half-shift with one of Amethyst's human GHEM partners, but the work itself sounded uncomplicated; Rose would provide some form of labor at the hospital for the night and then share her thoughts in class. She'd gone over the information with Amethyst, who had been quick to reassure her the important thing was getting used to "human stuff" and working with humans in a group. By that metric, maybe even Rose couldn't botch it.

"They'll give you something easy, just to help out," Amethyst had said. "It's a learning experience."

Rose pedaled down Little Homeworld's cooling walkways. Ocean Jasper waved to her on the way out of their corner of the neighborhood. The wet surface of the path, plastered with fallen leaves and sticky evening light, gleamed like molten metal. The sun was as red as the leaves themselves, flashes flickering about the heels of hedges and patchworked personal dwellings. Everything smelled of water and earth.

And everywhere, gems and humans. A Topaz fusion sitting on a garden bench, humming to herself; the Sapphire from Rose's horticulture geminar, crouched by the side of the path, eye trained on a broken line of ants scrambling to collect themselves. She even saw the friendly french fryman, making conversation by the bulletin board with old Crazy Lace.

An overwhelming feeling bubbled out of Rose's gem and up her body onto her face, splitting it into a smile.

She laughed, and didn't duck the leaves of the next low-hanging branch in her path, her head and shoulders wet with streaks of rain.

"This is why I'm here," Peridot had said that morning, her bright yellow boots lost in the mud. "This corn and this rain. They never happen the same way twice. Everything on Earth is changing, all the time!"

Rose returned the folder to Pearl's. She rode the bicycle back to the Little Homeschool parking lot, where a familiar van idled.

Amethyst was leaning on the driver's side door, chatting to instructor Pearl at the wheel. Upon noticing Rose, they froze for just a moment in the way people still tended to when surprised. Amethyst waved her over and Pearl raised a hand in greeting as well.

"So it's your first day of GHEM? How wonderful," Pearl said. Greg's sunglasses were hanging from the front of her shirt.

"It's just the one-day midterm," said Rose.

Splendid!"

Pearl had the uncanny ability to make eye contact with every part of Rose except her eyes.

"We've got one pit stop before the hospital," Amethyst said when they were all in the van. "Buckle up."

Pearl and Amethyst had seatbelts on, but Rose, cross-legged on the mattress, staring into a box stacked with tapes, didn't bother searching Greg's bedroom for one. Though far from empty, the van felt strangely vacant.

Their "pit stop" was just a stop for gas. While Pearl filled the tank, Amethyst vanished into the gas station convenience store. She returned bearing an armful of bottles of various colors.

"Drink?" she asked Rose, offering an electric-blue beverage. Rose shook her head. Amethyst buckled into her seat and Pearl started the car again. The little curtain over the van's back window fluttered.

"So, how are classes?" Pearl asked in an overly-cheerful tone.

"Good." Amethyst had her hand out the passenger-side window. "Rose Quartz's midterm session is second-to-last on the list, I'm almost done for the week."

"Oh yes, Rose Quartz," Pearl said. "How is your Human Technology project coming along?"

"Me?" said Rose.

Pearl glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "You've found someone to interview?"

"Someone to interview?" She still hadn't asked anybody. Privately, she wasn't sure she considered herself capable. Rose had nearly avoided thinking about it. She'd been reminding herself grades didn't matter, with a pit of guilt in her gem nonetheless, for weeks. "Of course."

"Excellent!" Pearl said. "Who is it?"

"It's," Rose cast about for a human-sounding name. There was a paperback wedged beneath Pearl's seat, but she couldn't make out the author from this angle. "It's a surprise?"

"Hmm," Pearl said, and Rose could tell she'd been caught in a lie for once. But Pearl just smiled. "In that case, I look forward to being surprised!"

"Excited to hang with humans?" Amethyst asked her, leaning around the seat back.

"A little," Rose admitted. Amethyst beamed.

"I knew there was a secret Earth geek streak behind shy Rose Quartz, ha." She took a sip of antifreeze. "You're gonna do great. Dr M's chill."

They pulled into a spot across the street from the hospital and crossed to the emergency room entrance, stepping through shiny reflections of the streetlights overhead. Rose followed her friends, ducking her head through two sets of automatic doors and into a waiting room. Approximately-human-sized chairs wound against one wall of windows like a serpent, a few of them occupied.

A human child was slamming a purple cube of plastic against a low table. There were a couple of slightly taller tables containing piles of glossy magazines, and informational graphics adhered to each wall. The child's table had been adorned with a magnificent sculpture, a 3D morp made of colorful wire through wooden beads. On the wall a mounted television was playing Little Butler reruns, closed caption tape unfurling across the bottom.

Reception desks and doors to elsewhere sat behind a clear barrier opposite the chairs, and Rose could see an EXIT sign down the hall ahead of them. Amethyst and Pearl walked right to the desk and hailed the receptionist, who greeted them with warm familiarity.

"Dr. Maheswaran will be right out," Amethyst said to Rose as she caught up to them. Rose startled.

The door beside the receptionist's window opened. Pearl beamed and Amethyst moved to hold the door.

"Pearl! What a surprise," said the doctor. "Hello, Amethyst, and you must be Rose."

"Hello," Rose said. Dr. Maheswaran had blue reading glasses on, connected by a plastic chain curled around the base of her neck. Rose had never seen them before. She felt like a giant, twice as tall as she should be. Taking Dr. Maheswaran's hand, Rose shook it gently, as gently as she could.

"How goes Connie's college preparation?" Pearl asked.

Dr. Maheswaran laughed. "You know Connie; spreadsheets everywhere. That girl doesn't know how to slow down."

"Steven sent us a very nice photo of the two of them last week," Pearl said, pulling out her phone to show it off.

The teens stood on a wooden platform in some northern forest, arms around one another, Connie bright with laughter and Steven more subdued but smiling, eyes on her. Behind them stood an enormous boulder specked with lichen and lovers' autographs, and a shock of bright pink fur.

"If you have ten minutes now, you might catch her," Dr. Maheswaran said. "I left my bag at home. Connie's on her way over with it."

"We need to get back," Pearl said. "Please tell her, 'Pearl says hi!'"

"Later, doc," Amethyst said. She winked at Rose. "Good luck!"

After the instructors left, Rose was alone with Dr. Maheswaran, who lead her through the door and down a series of hallways. There were humans everywhere, walking to and fro with a sense of purpose or loitering in the many doorways. It was almost like being back on the Cruise Ship.

"Let's get you into scrubs," Dr. Maheswaran said. "I'm well aware that gems don't need physical clothing, but you know hospital policy." Rose didn't. She stared at Dr. Maheswaran's long, dark hair as she followed the smaller human through the hospital.

They stopped in front of a closet. "So, Rose, Amethyst said you went over our options, and she passed along your signed paperwork," Dr Maheswaran said, digging through a box of blue fabric. Someone walking by them shot Rose a wary look. There were other colors and cuts of fabric on the shelves; folded blankets and spotted gowns, a pile of street cone-orange microfiber towels. "We can't use your skills in violation of HIPAA, so you'll be double-checking labels with the lab techs tonight." She glanced Rose over. "You're about the same size as Biggs Jasper. See if these fit."

Rose took the offered scrubs. She probably was. Her gem had been based on other quartzes, and all but a few quartz gems manifested the same foundation to their physical form.

"Do you breathe?"

"Yes," Rose said, then caught herself. "But I don't need to."

"Would you shapeshift a mask, please?" Dr. Maheswaran lifted the one hanging around her neck in example.

"Of course," Rose said, and did.

"Now let's introduce you to- oh, one moment." Dr. Maheswaran answered her phone, though Rose hadn't heard it ring.

"Hi, honey," the doctor said. "Are you out front? Oh, alright. See you in a minute. That's my daughter," she said to Rose, ending the call. "She's just dropping something off. But, yes. For safety's sake, we'll think of you like any other human."

"Right," Rose said. The fabric in her hands, eggshell blue, had the texture of the the curtain in Greg's van.

"Mom!"

Dr. Maheswaran and Rose turned to see Connie in a bright green polo slip around two nurses and a doc, medical bag in hand. She tripped over her own feet when Rose looked up, but quickly recovered. Connie joined them in front of the supply cabinet.

"Connie!" Dr. Maheswaran said, drawing her daughter into a quick, tight hug. When they separated, Dr. Maheswaran was holding her bag. "Thank you for coming out. You took Lion?"

"Of course, Mom," Connie said. "I'm still on my learner's permit."

"Of course," Dr. Maheswaran said warmly. "Connie, this is Rose Quartz, one of Amethyst's students. She's here with GHEM."

Rose looked at Connie.

"Hi," Connie said. "I thought you were a rose quartz! Connie, human; nice to meet you." She offered a hand. Rose firmly grasped it. The difference between their hands was so great, the human girl's arm looked as though it had disappeared inside her fist. There was a tiny grey Dogcopter embroidered on the breast of Connie's polo.

"Oh, and welcome to earth," Connie told Rose's hand.

"Rose," she said. "I like your shirt."

Connie looked down. "Oh yeah," she laughed. "I forgot I had this on. You've read Dogcopter?"

"I like the movies," Rose said. "I haven't seen all of it."

"The books are much better. They left out a lot of stuff."

Rose blinked. "What stuff?"

"Oh, it would take hours to explain. You should check the library for them. You know about Dogcopter's nine lives?"

"From Dogcopter 4," Rose said. "His...parents were cats?"

"Yeah! In the books, that's a whole thing. They finally made use of the anticapitalist subtext in Pupcopter, but the movie timeline skips Dogcopter's memory garden and the intradimensional torus arc completely. Technically, the series isn't over yet, but still."

"That is... a lot to leave out." Rose said. Her face felt immobile.

When Connie got fired up like this, she would punctuate the end of each sentence by either furrowing or raising her eyebrows. She was doing it now. "There's a lot of lost lore. But the trailers for Dogcopter 6 show some promise."

"Connie," Dr. Maheswaran interrupted. "I'm sure Rose would love to hear about your Dogcopter lore, but we have work to do."

"Right! Sorry," Connie said, beaming. "Bye, mom. Love you. Nice to meet you, Rose. Check out the book."

"I will," Rose said. "Nice to meet you!"

"Okay, let's get you to the lab," Dr. Maheswaran said after Connie had left.

Rose was introduced to the technicians on duty and instructed in applying adhesive labels to empty containers and taking down double-counts of refrigerated tubes before they'd be sealed for shipment. She wasn't permitted to handle samples because of another hospital policy. It was strange work.

For some reason, maybe all the GHEM guest lectures, she'd expected something different. She didn't feel entirely suited to this; gingerly peeling stickers with her fingertips in the depths of a maze, listening to humans talk around her. But then, Amethyst made placements based on their counseling sessions, so if Rose was uncomfortable she only had herself to blame.

The humans weren't unfriendly, but they didn't speak much, and behaved like gems. Rather, like gems had once been designed to behave. They wore uniforms by role. Rose could already tell a couple apart by their uniform, like Dr. Maheswaran's coat. The humans had specialized purposes and spoke mainly about the task at hand.

She knew from discussing the placement with Amethyst that she and Dr. Maheswaran had only recently convinced the hospital to join GHEM. As far as Rose could tell, she simply provided a spare set of hands for non-specialized tasks. That would increase the efficiency of humans with specialized skills and knowledge. It made sense.

A few hours into watching the lab staff, she thought she'd figured out the shape of the hierarchy based on who issued commands and who spoke familiarly to one another, but it was hard to be sure. It was unsettling to see. But the humans she worked with were friendly and patient. They made a few attempts at small talk.

Dr. Maheswaran stopped by again halfway through her shift to send Rose on a break. Rose followed her down another narrow hallway. It fed into the reception area, which she'd seen from outside before; an open space the hallways met on every side, with a big round reception desk punctuated by computer monitors.

Dr. Maheswaran led them into a tiny white room. Inside, a white plastic chair sat at a white plastic desk. the rest of the room was filled by two white refrigerators under a bright white light. Rose stepped in behind the doctor. The room felt full to the brim. Dr. Maheswaran opened the fridge.

"Would you like a little juice?" she said. The interior was a wall of color; plastic cups of juice in purple and red and orange, green and pink gelatin and squat green cans of soda crowded the shelves, and the drawers at the base had been stuffed with tiny bottles of water.

Rose didn't really want a little juice from this strange oasis, but she did want to make the most of GHEM. "Sure," she said. Dr. Maheswaran handed her a tiny purple cup, sealed with foil. It was even tinier in her hands. Rose pinched the edge and peeled it back.

"How are you doing?" Dr. Maheswaran said. "I should have come to give you a break twenty minutes ago; the ER's on fire tonight."

"It's fine," Rose said. She sipped at the juice. It tasted like corn.

Dr Maheswaran made small talk for a few more minutes, until someone tapped on the doorframe asking for her. She left Rose in the little white room with a thumbs-up.

Her work went smoothly the rest of the evening, thawing Rose's caution and emboldening her coworkers. In the last hour or so, there wasn't much to do, and conversation picked up as people went home. They were curious about gems. It was sweet. It reminded her of the way she felt about human beings.

This team hadn't worked with Biggs, but they knew of her. Someone dropped by her desk She answered questions she'd fielded hundreds of times from other humans in the past, and found herself warming up to it.

"You're essentially a solar-powered robot," one of the lab techs said, a small square man with short hair. He looked older than Steven but younger than Greg. Rose had forgotten his name as soon as he told her it, but he was adorable. He'd wandered over with nothing to do. "How do you manage energy?"

"A kindergartener would explain that better," Rose said.

"You don't need to eat or sleep at all?"

"Gems don't have to sleep, but they can."

"Do gems dream?"

"Of course," she said.

"Is it true you're time-travelers?" the supervisor asked.

Rose squinted at the roll of stickers in front of her. "Well, we live much longer than human beings do."

Soon enough, it was time to leave. Dr. Maheswaran came to collect Rose. Rose again followed her, but this time she knew the route.

"Isn't the exit this way?" she said when they took a turn towards the little white room full of juice.

"I'm parked in the garage. Little juice for the road?" Dr. Maheswaran said, pausing in front of the white room.

"No, tha-" Rose began, but an ear-splitting shriek from behind them froze her in place.

" I DON'T WANNA! "

On the opposite side of the reception desk, a human child was screaming.

"I know you don't wanna, but you have to," an adult human was explaining.

" NO! "

Rose couldn't see the child over the counter, but she spotted the adult human right away, standing in front of an open doorway.

"If you don't get your shots, you'll get tetanus," the adult human was saying. "You don't want tetanus, do you?"

She heard a high, wet sob, and then, in the same piercing tone, " YOU'RE MEAN. "

"Yes, I am mean. Come on, sweetie, you're too old for this."

" I'M TOO OLD FOR TETANUS! "

The counter came more than halfway up the adult; the child might be as small as a Ruby, or an Aquamarine. The adult crouched, vanishing from view.

" NO! I HATE YOU! "

"I know," said the adult. "Shots are scary, come here..."

Dr. Maheswaran and the admins hadn't reacted whatsoever, but there was one human staring as openly as Rose, so she wasn't imagining this.

She couldn't see what happened next, so she didn't catch the next thing the adult said, but the human child screamed something else. Then the human adult was standing most of the way up and walking into the room. Rose caught a glimpse of brown hair before the door shut.

"Everything alright there, Doctor?" One of the admins called from behind a flickering monitor. They nodded in Rose's direction.

"All set, thank you," Dr. Maheswaran said, turning to Rose. Rose saw her glance down and uncurled her fists. Dr. Maheswaran tapped Rose's arm for her attention. "Is everything all right?"

Rose stared at her.

"Necessary care for humans is often uncomfortable, or even painful." Dr. Maheswaran said. "People of all ages fear needles, but children lack the frame of reference of an adult. They can't internalize that a little hurt today means less hurt later on, and see only the immediate threat of pain."

"What's going to happen to her?" Rose said. The door didn't have a window. It have a number, but that number was just C.

"The child? They'll receive their immunizations. Their body will develop a defense in response to the contents."

Everything was fine, but for some reason Rose couldn't stop the fearful buzz that had come over her.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Dr. Maheswaran said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"A ghost?" Rose said.

"It's a figure of speech. You seem shocked," the doctor explained. She glanced at the reception desk. "Let's head to the garage."

Dr. Maheswaran didn't ask her any more questions until they had gotten in her car, Rose squeezing into a seat made for someone smaller. Dr. Maheswaran's radio was tuned to a late-night easy listening station, and Rose was surprised to hear a familiar tune. The parking garage was like a stack of alternating concrete ramps on top of one another, decorated by sparse but brightly reflective vehicles. Because of this shape, their journey out took the form of a downwards spiral.

They pulled out onto a highway and Dr. Maheswaran turned down the volume.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she said. Rose found that she did.

"Well," Rose began, drumming her fingers against her thighs. How could she explain the boiling feeling in her gem? I panicked because all of the humans here act like gems , and I remember what happens when a gem refuses to do what they're supposed to, made no sense in Era 3, and it made no sense in a human organization either.

"I was worried about the child," she said, instead of all that. "When gems shout like that, there are consequences."

"I really should tell Amethyst to find a trauma counselor for these gems," Dr. Maheswaran said, sort of under her breath. But to Rose, she said, "Children are still learning. A responsible adult understands that a child usually needs more information or reassurance, and won't punish them for signs of distress."

"Screaming is a sign of distress?" Rose said.

"What else could it be? It's one of many possible distress signals an overwhelmed human might communicate with. For a child, whose experience managing emotion is limited, it's completely natural. That's not to say screaming is limited to children."

Rose remembered her GHEM form. She retrieved her phone and texted Amethyst that they were on the way back.

The rain was chopping up Dr. Maheswaran's headlights, fading in and out of focus with each pass of the wiper.

"Rose, I have to be honest. A hospital is a high-stress environment."

Dr. Maheswaran's eyes were on the road. The green beads of her eyeglass retainer reflected no light, unlike the rain. They passed under a highway sign; Beach City, 1/2 mile.

"Is it?" Rose said. It hadn't seemed too bad, until the end there.

"Very. That's true even among humans who have preexisting context for human behavior," Connie's mom continued. "I'm concerned about the level of distress you expressed tonight."

Rose flushed with shame. "I'm sorry."

They spiraled down the exit ramp.

"It's fine," Dr. Maheswaran was quick to say, waving her hand in the air. "I'm concerned for you, Rose Quartz. In my professional opinion, you should choose another internship."

Oh.

So she'd messed things up again. Rose nodded, gathering her voice before she spoke. "I understand. Thank you for helping me tonight, Dr. Maheswaran."

"You did nothing wrong," was the reply. "Frankly, most gems - and humans - I've met would benefit from a therapist - someone to help process feelings."

"Like adult humans do for children?" Rose said. She couldn't help but smile, weakly.

"Much different," Dr. Maheswaran said. "The average adult doesn't perform that job without training. Almost anyone can have a child."

"Anyone? That's wonderful," Rose said.

"It usually is." Dr. Maheswaran took a turn towards Little Homeschool. "A parent-child relationship is more like...you were in a sort of military, yes?"

"It's close enough," Rose said.

"How close?"

"Most quartz veins are used to produce soldiers," Rose said. "Made for fighting."

"What were you made for?"

Rose's arm was squashed up against the window, and her hair spilled over the seat around her.

Dr. Maheswaran took her eyes off the road for a moment. "Rose Quartz?"

"I think I was made to entertain, but I did fight," she said, staring out the window at silhouettes of bushes and trees just outside the headlights' reach. "Is that close enough?"

"Well, did you ever have a mentor - like someone above you, or older, who took care for your wellbeing? Someone to explain new experiences?"

"No." Rose said.

"Someone below you, then. Someone you had to defend, or teach, who eventually became self-sufficient. It's the closest analogy I have. Was there anyone like that?"

For that, she could think of someone. "There's one," Rose said. "Someone I looked after and tried to protect. Although I don't think it was noticed, and if it were it wouldn't be welcome."

She was surprised by a laugh in response.

"It sounds like you understand parenthood more than I thought," Dr. Maheswaran said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "It often feels that way."

Rose sighed, fogging up the window. "I'm afraid I caused more harm than I ever helped."

"Everyone is," Dr. Maheswaran said. "We just try the best we can, and listen when they talk to us. Is this it?"

They'd pulled up to the Little Homeschool parking lot.

"This is it," Rose said. "Thank you, Dr. Maheswaran. For everything."

"You're welcome, Rose Quartz. Good job today."

Dr. Maheswaran looked a great deal like her daughter when she smiled. Rose's phone went off while the car was pulling away.

Amethyst : perf! can you swing by bismuth's?

Rose : ok

She padded through puddles to the center of Little Homeworld, lost in thought.

There were voices leaking out the forge's open door, but Rose thought nothing of it until she heard her name. She froze.

"-rom Rose Quartz," Amethyst was saying. "She'll be here in a sec."

"Oh," Pearl said in a tone that could have cracked Rose's gem. "GHEM with Priyanka went well?"

"IDK, probably," Amethyst said. "She's pretty chill."

"Hardly seen that gem since she arrived," Bismuth said. "Nearly dissipated my form when she walked in."

"It's super weird," Pearl said. "Oh, but I do feel bad."

"You two've got her in class, yeah?"

"You get used to it with exposure," Amethyst said in her shrug voice. "But it's definitely super weird."

Rose didn't come any closer. She could see firelight flickering in the doorframe.

After a moment, Bismuth ventured, "...you don't think Rose did that on purpose?"

There was a pause.

"I don't know what to think," Pearl said.

"Well, y'all know I'm no kindergartener, but this Rose is cool with me." Amethyst replied. "Huge fan of Earth. She's really trying."

"I wish Rose could see this," and Rose was surprised to find tears in her eyes, a lump in her throat, at the sound of Pearl saying her name. "She was always worried while making the rose quartzes. She'd be so happy to see one here on Earth."

"Rose would have loved this," Bismuth said. Rose heard movement, a sandy shuffle. "We were always daydreaming about Earth's future. Gems doing what they wanted to do."

"Mm."

Amethyst chimed in again. "Yeah. It's sad."

"Wish we'd ended on better terms," Rose heard Bismuth say. "I hope your doppelgänger isn't getting shit."

"Nah, people are pretty much used to it now. Though I guess Bluebird freaked out on her a couple times."

A sigh from Pearl. Rose could picture the way she shook her head in distaste. "Bluebird. Oh, she covered the van in tissue rolls this morning, by the way. Neatly stacked. She doesn't know you're supposed to throw them and make a mess."

"That's hilarious."

As the subject changed, Rose finally snapped out of it, face wet from the rain. She'd invaded their privacy enough. She'd just go inside, hand in her form to Amethyst. Just a few steps to the door, a few pleasantries, and then she could return to her room and sleep.

"It's easier to fix than the proper prank, at least."

Rose heard an inner door door slide open and shut.

"She got me with the sponge over the front door," said a new voice. A human man.

Greg.

"Ha," Amethyst and Bismuth laughed. Rose heard Pearl snort.

"I also heard you three talking a minute ago. Sorry for eavesdropping, but that rose quartz gives me the willies," Greg continued. "I don't know how you do it, Amethyst."

Just a few steps from the forge door, Rose turned away.

Rose: sorry, may i bring it tomorrow?

Rose: forgot I had to meet a friend.

Amethyst: np! see you tomorrow, RQ