Things to Come

Shadow did his best to hold her back. He had fought Jasper before but never when she was like this. He could almost taste the anger coming from her. Shadow was worried that Fury was whispering lies to her. It wasn't Fury at all though. He knew better than that. Jasper had always been looking for an answer and now she got it.

Jaspers arm came back and struck him in the mouth. His head snapped back and the taste of blood filled his mouth but somehow he managed to cling on to her. That was the only positive thing about this situation.

"YOU LIED TO US ALL!"

A terrified Pearl held a hand to her mouth like that had been doing for so long. It was her silence that had put them in this situation. Shadow felt a tinge of guilt for feeling angry at her but he knew she wasn't the real culprit for everything.

To the side of them, a flash blurred his vision. Where Garnet once stood Sapphire and Ruby were either on their knees or holding themselves against the wall. Ice grew around Sapphires feet then slowly spread across the room. He tried to decipher her frantic words but another blow to the face and he found himself on his back.

Someone was yelling over someone's else's voice. A cry, a loud bang, then all was quiet. Shadow couldn't move, he didn't want to. His brain overpowered his body until Steven came into view, looking down on him with sad eyes that tried to hide stress.

His voice was sadder than the look on his face. "Shadow? Are you alright?"

Shadow wanted to say yes but he honestly didn't really know what to say. When Steven touched his arm his body seemed to finally listen to him and he slowly sat up. Pearl was against the wall holding her knees to her chest with her face in her knees. Again he tried to feel some sort of anger towards her but he couldn't. Shadow would never understand what she had to have been feeling all these years, she lied for love, she did it for love. Now the consequences of a five-thousand-year-old lie were coming to light.

Still, when he tasted the blood between his teeth he couldn't help but get a bit angry. The door was all but ripped out of the wall. He could guess by Jaspers absence that was her doing. Weirder than that Ruby was gone. Sapphire was on her knees, ice still forming around her sapping the warmth from the air.

"I cannot believe it. I didn't see it." Her words of disbelief were the same exact thing that they were all thinking.

Shadow got to his feet with the help of Steven. When he looked at Pearl she was looking right back. No tears were in her eyes to his surprise but he could still see the regret.

With a sigh, he said, "I know." Shadow reached a hand out to her. "We saw the truth, we understand why you did it Pearl and you do too. So now let's just repair what happens next and not worry about something that happened before any of us were born." Shadows gave her a grin and it must have worked because the gem reached for his hand. When he pulled her up Pearl grabbed him into a tight embrace that took him by surprise. It was nice though and he held her back.

A cough to the side and the two broke up. Amethyst stood in place with her arms crossed, irritation written all over her face. "Guys I don't think we have time for any chummy non-sense. Ruby AND Jasper are gone and you know that that is not good."

Shadow pulled away from Pearl, he could feel the rising so he turned to Amethyst to hide it. "Lets split up-"

Sapphire started to ball her eyes out. When her tears left her face they froze in midair making a plinking sound as they struck the ground. "W-why Pearl? I-we trusted in her…" Her single blue eye went back into her hands as did the words that came after.

Pearl gripped his arm. Shadow looked down at her hands that dug into his arms. She looks like she could crumble at any moment, he thought to himself. So he didn't free his arm from her vice and instead ignored it.

Steven sat down or slipped next to Sapphire to try and console her. By the painful expression on the boy's face, he slipped on the ice that grew with every second. "Sapphire," he said, "everything will be alright okay? I know… this is a lot to take in but you'll get past this." He looked at his adoptive mothers then him lastly. "Will get through this." The steel in his voice made him grin. He really wasn't the same boy he met in Korea a couple of years back. Steven was more mature than the rest of them in his own right. You could see it in his eyes.

Shadow could feel the determination in his stomach. To Amethyst, he said, "you take Steven and go find Ruby. I doubt she went very far with those short legs of hers." Amethyst chortled but when Sapphire began to cry even more she went quiet. When Pearl dug her fingers into his arms deeper he grimaced. "And you…" he didn't really know what to do with her. "You come and help me find Jasper!"

Pearl put a hand to her mouth again. "You can't be serious? Go find Jasper!?"

Fury was in my voice. "Did I stutter?" He took a step towards the gem. "It is high time all these lies come to light. No, more, we're all a family now Pearl so start acting like it."

Again the gem tried to hide her face behind a pale-skinned hand. "I-I don't know Shadow. You saw how angry she was with me. She even hit you!"

Shadow growled. "No, she did not, Pearl. She hit me on accident and you know that. Or were you to busy cowering from the face of someone you hurt so dearly?"

That was enough to get the gem to stop her protest. As hurtful as his words were he didn't know what else to say. Pearl needed to help him set things right. For good this time.

Half an hour later they found themselves with Greg's car driving out of town. When they asked around town, about half a hundred times, someone said they had seen Jasper headed out of town on foot. That was the nice thing about this town. They were all so used to seeing the gems now I didn't have to make up some weird skin disorder to describe Jasper. I just say, "hey, have you seen an orange angry gem," and bam! We were going in the right direction. Although the right direction seemed to turn Pearl even sour.

Shadow wanted to ignore her. Ignore everything that has happened but Pearl's attitude towards Jasper put a bad taste in his mouth.

"Pearl." He said her name like a question. As if she wasn't sitting right next to him.

With her continuous silence, she might as well have been in the car with him. Shadow took his eyes off the road to look at her. Sad turbulent eyes that he couldn't bear to stare at for too long. If it wasn't possible her skin seemed paler than her normal cream colored holographic facade that she held. It hurt him to see her like this.

Again he said her name. "Pearl. Please say something." He was regretting the way he talked with her earlier. They just started to be true friends again, and again, he was losing her.

Pearl didn't say anything for a couple more seconds. Then, "Shadow please," she said so softly Shadow had to hold his breath to hear her perfectly. Pearl placed a hand over his hand which was holding the shift. "Please, I understand that things can't go on this way. There is too much at stake for any more pain, for any more hate." A light in Pearls eyes made him feel better.

Shadow looked back to the road. A drop of rain suddenly hit the windshield, then another, then, a downpour. Suddenly, out of the blue, the car was being bombarded with rain so hard he had to turn the high beams on to even see ahead of him.

Pearl was more worried than I was. "Shadow I think we should-"

Suddenly Jasper was in front of the car. Shadows eyes opened like saucers, he spun the wheel faster than he ever had before and the car spun out. Shadow couldn't figure out his lefts or rights. He did his best to correct the wheel and straighten out the car when something slammed into them, then silence.

His eyes opened slowly. Rain assaulted his face, mixing in with the blood that seeped from a cut on his forehead. His rested limply against a cracked window. Pearl… or where Pearl was in the passenger seat, reverted back into her gem. A large sturdy branch had punched through the side of the old car. It must have skewered her which caused her to retreat into her gem.

The door suddenly made an awful screeching noise. A sound of metal twisting and ripping made the banging in his head worsen by the second. Jasper ripped the door clean off letting the elements hit him. Before he could say anything her arms wrapped around his lower back and underneath his legs to princess style carry him out the crashed vehicle.

The rain hit him worse than before now but he welcomed the warmth of Jaspers arms around him. No matter how un-manly it was to be carried like a damsel.

"Jasper?" His voice couldn't hide his confusion.

Her hair was cut or modified. Just to the back of her neck giving her a whole new look. And her stomach was…

Jasper had tears in her eyes, no matter what amount of rain or what kind of situation he could easily recognize that she was torn. He had never seen her cry before.

"Shadow please please forgive me," Jasper shouted into his face but his eyes were still trained on Jaspers' stomach. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Words were lost to him and for once in a long time, he did not know what to do. the rain beating down on him didn't make things better. Jasper pulled him into a tight embrace that brought him back from the initial shock.

Still, he had no words.

His hand touched her stomach. Then a single tear came from his face.

Jasper looked at him scared but all he could do was feel her stomach. The bump that he felt under his hands so new to him.

"Please, Shadow I-" His mouth fell on her lips and warmth spread through his body again.

Between his kisses, she was laughing, hysterically even. "Jasper… this is…" Shadow continued to laugh and cry between breaths.

Jasper pulled him into her arms so that she couldn't see the tears falling down his face. They both knew what this meant, both of them knew what would happen.

Shadows laughter soon turned to sob. His whole body was shaking and his shoulders slumped almost to the ground. "What are we going to do! A baby!?" The word sounded foreign on his tongue. "A half-gem baby!?"

Jasper pulled him away and held his face with both hands. "No, say less. I know what this means, I accept whatever may come. No matter what you say or what you do, I will be doing what's right for this baby. We are pregnant Shadow no matter how hard you look at it."

Again his mouth hung open. Shadow looked into her eyes to find some trace of doubt about this, he found none. His head hung in defeat. There was no point in arguing. It would have been a losing battle.

Yet the rain did not discriminate and the battle it had against them wasn't of anger or hate. It was what it was.