Fractures

3. Fault Line

- Pink Diamond spends time with Yellow Diamond.

---

The first thing Yellow Diamond had felt was doubt. Pink was Rose Quartz? How ridiculous, impossible, utterly laughable. But the message had come from White, spoken from the mouth of her damaged, dead-eyed pearl, a pearl that had once been a happy bubblegum pink.

The second thing Yellow Diamond had felt was anger. How dare Pink get them all involved in her little game? How dare she cause the destruction of so many perfectly good gems? How dare she spread her corrupting ideas around and disrupt the natural order of things?

Without giving notice, she had gone to Pink's moon base, and sent her pearl to Pink's palanquin. Pink Diamond had been in neither of those places.

Pink had put up a decent fight, but hadn't been able to dodge her lightning strikes for long. Just like that, the truth was revealed to everyone. Yellow had watched with bitter satisfaction as Rose Quartz's army was engulfed in chaos. Many had died that day; the rest would soon be shattered to teach Pink a lesson.

White had given the orders. Yellow was to take over the colonization of Earth, Pink's zoo was to be shut down and dismantled, and every Crystal Gem was to be apprehended and shattered in front of Pink Diamond.

Blue had pled for mercy. Couldn't some of them be reprogrammed? Couldn't some of them be reconditioned into proper members of society? Yellow had to agree; there had never been an execution as large as this. It was a massive waste of resources.

White's word was final.

---

Yellow Diamond occupied herself with work, trying not to think of that day. She took more calls than she needed to, trying to drown out the sound of Pink's screaming. She read through reports, letting numbers and words fill her mind instead of the image of Pink kneeling on the ground, her voice all but gone as she asked to be shattered.

Anything to distract from the knowledge that they had broken her.

Pink didn't laugh anymore. She didn't go running through the halls with wild abandon, singing silly songs. She didn't ramble at anyone who would listen, or vibrate with excitement at new things. She didn't come into Yellow's control room unannounced to pester her with questions or press buttons that she shouldn't.

Now, Pink was quiet. Now, Pink's eyes were dull and vacant, her body bent as though a great weight rested on her shoulders. It had taken centuries for her to start talking again.

In the beginning, Yellow Diamond passed by Pink's room more often than was necessary. The walls often shook with the force of Pink's tantrums. Sometimes, she would shriek and sob for hours at a time, her voice laden with agony and her body left with bruises. Sometimes, when Yellow pressed her ear to the door, she could hear an incessant stream of apologies, or fragmented, one-sided conversations.

When these things started to happen less frequently, Yellow had hope. Pink could come out now, with supervision. Pink could begin to relearn all the things about her status that she seemed to have forgotten. And yet, she did not leave her room unless she was forced to. All she ever seemed to do was sleep.

Though she was not allowed to have a pearl, Blue sometimes sent hers to brush Pink's tangled hair, to cleanse her tear-stained face and smooth her rumpled dress. Pink never spoke a word to her.

As Pink grew quieter, Yellow grew more worried. Pink had been such a social gem before, but now she chose to live in isolation. When she went out, she didn't meet anyone's eyes, and hardly seemed to register when someone was talking to her.

Yellow did not express her concerns; White would not care, and Blue was already struggling with the depression brought on by Pink's suffering.

Yellow Diamond hoped that this trip would change things. Pink needed to be snapped out of it, needed to be shown that all she had to do was be a diamond, and everything would be okay.

How could she have been so stupid?

---

The Earth lay before them, its surface gray and marked by deep jagged holes. The colony was complete.

Pink stared out of the window of the moon base, her eyes wide and her arms wrapped around her middle. She didn't move as Yellow gave her speech, save the trembling of her form and the tears that made twin rivers on her pale, pastel cheeks.

Yellow kept her eyes on her colony. She did not let her voice waver, not until Pink collapsed to her knees and she was forced to look at her small and fragile sister.

Pink's hand was on the diamond in her navel. Her fingers were tensed, as if she was going to-

"Please. Shatter me, too. Please..."

"Oh, Starlight. Don't be silly."

Yellow Diamond froze, seized by a sudden fear.

By the time she started to move, Pink's hand was clutching tightly at her other hand instead. Still, Yellow knelt beside her and put a hand on her shoulders. Pink stiffened at her touch.

"Pink, please. Y-You need to stop this." Yellow blinked away the tears that wanted to fall, swallowed the tightness in her chest. "You're being ridiculous, you should be happy to see-"

The words jammed in her throat as Pink's head snapped up to meet her gaze. For once, Pink's eyes weren't glazed over. No, there was something hard and cold in them, something that made Yellow want to take a step back.

...

The moment passed as Pink looked down at her lap, her hands still folded together as if they could not be allowed to move. She was crying again. She always seemed to be crying.

Yellow Diamond looked out at the Earth, remembering the numerous calls Pink had made, pleading with them to spare it.

This trip was a mistake.

...

"...Do you want to go home?"

"...Yes."

Something deep inside her told her that Pink hadn't meant Homeworld.

---

A/N: Lemon mom is starting to realize what she's done.