Floating within the bubble that Steven held in his hands was a shimmering mass of orange shards. With the way they twinkled underneath the Boiling Room's reddish atmosphere, you could almost believe they still held some form of life inside them.

But Steven knew Citrine was dead.

And beside him was the one who murdered her.

"Steven . . . I didn't know what I was doing . . . once I poofed her, I was so overwhelmed and then I remembered all the things she said to me . . . all those times she threatened me and made me flinch . . . rage consumed me and once I came to, it was already too late and—"

"Yellow . . ." Steven whispered. "It's okay."

"IT'S NOT OKAY!" the former servant shrieked, and once Steven finally turned to her, he saw tears crawling down her face, falling into a puddle beneath their feet.

"Yellow . . ."

"This is what I was afraid of, Steven," Yellow's voice trembled. She choked back a couple of sobs before continuing. "Back on Homeworld, I saw things like this all the time, Gems being shattered for being disobedient or rebellious, and back then, all I thought was how glad I was that it wasn't me that was beneath the blade. But now . . . I now realize no one deserves to be executed like that and that the death penalty shouldn't be reserved for anyone . . . that no one has the right to decide whose life is more valuable than others and that taking another's life is something no one should have to do."

A chuckle suddenly slips past her lips. Yellow's teeth clench as more laughter bubbles up. The streams of tears grow heavier as Yellow's laughter grows more and more creepy.

"Yellow!" Steven cries.

Choking with both sobs and laughter, Yellow cried, "Look at what a hypocrite I am! I don't want you to forgive me! I never want you to! Stars, please promise me you'll never forgive me, Steven. Promise me you will hate me for the rest of your life. Please promise you'll never let me forget my sin! Let the other Crystal Gems know that as well. Let Pearl know that I won't ever burden her with my sinfulness ever again. You'll do that for me, right Steven?"

Steven immediately wrapped his arms around Yellow when she dropped to her knees on the floor, sobbing hysterically. Yellow shuddered as she kept howling her apologies. The young boy's shirt grew wet and stained from his friend's hysteria but he didn't care one bit.

"You know I can't do that, right?" Steven whispered.

"You should. You really should," Yellow managed to squeak. Her voice was understandably hoarse after her huge fit.

"Yellow, I've been learning a lot of things about the Crystal Gems that I never bothered to know when I first moved into the Temple," Steven murmured. "I learned that even if the Crystal Gems are supposed to be protectors of this Earth, they've not complete heroes. At least, not like the kind of heroes I first believed them to be . . . not the kind that I believed my mother to be."

"Steven . . ."

The young boy's grasp grew tighter. "I learned that there are some really bad people out there, those who are far worse than the monsters the Gems fight every day. Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do and no one is simply born evil . . . even if someone hates everything and everyone around them, there is something they must treasure and want to protect. I know that. And ever since I learned that, I wanted to able help them, to keep them from going down a road of destruction. But even if I hope, even if I try all I want to, sometimes people become so corrupted that they refuse to change. They refuse to listen to me and they refuse to let me help them.

"And none of that is my fault. I shouldn't beat myself up over things like that. It's not in my control.

"Sometimes really bad people have good motives. Sometimes really good people need to do bad things so they can keep doing good things."

"Steven . . ."

Yellow could feel Steven's grip grow deathly tight. She wanted to tell him that it hurt but the boy seemed to be very overwhelmed at the moment. In fact, she could tell that he was plagued by terrible things, too. His eyes were clenched shut, with tears forming at the edges. His arms were trembling as they tightened around her.

"Steven . . ."

"Yellow, you're not the only one of us who had to do bad things. Don't you remember what Pearl had to do in order to fight for her freedom? Do you think the war was all glory and revolution? Sure, neither of us was there but the Crystal were forced to do . . . things. And that certainly hasn't changed. Even if you know we're the good guys, there's no such thing as completely good. I've been forced to learn that over the years."

"B-but Steven, you shouldn't just forgive me all that easily! It's not right. It's not fair! Just because we're friends doesn't excuse anything! I'm a murderer!"

"SO WAS MY MOM!

Everything suddenly went silent. Yellow of course knew that Rose Quartz killed Pink Diamond; she knew it was the real reason that Yellow Diamond was fighting against Earth. Back when she worked for her . . . Yellow sympathized with her over that. She valued all the times her former Diamond was vulnerable around her, it made her feel important. But now she knew there was another Pearl taking her place, doing all the same things she once did. She wasn't important at all.

Yellow also knew that it would mean death for her to bring up Pink Diamond. It was the same on Homeworld as well. She didn't think the Gem who once tyrannized Earth was such a fragile spot for Steven, though. He didn't even know her.

"She was forced to kill someone. She took a life and sealed it away forever. But at the same time, she saved thousands of lives on Earth. She committed a single sin for so many people, in order to keep this entire planet alive. I know it's awful to say and everything but . . . she saved this planet and killed only one Gem in the process. That was what she had to do. You killed one Gem, but she was going to claim all of our lives. One life for eight lives, including your own, and I know it was terrible to do, and I don't think I'll ever completely forget it . . . but it was what you had to do. And maybe one day, it'll be what I have to do. But this is a war we're fighting, and there will be sacrifices. And I'll need to be prepared to do what we have to do."

"Steven . . ."

The boy's tight embrace grew stronger, but at the same time, it grew softer. His gentle hands ran through Yellow's disheveled hair and he nuzzled his face into her neck. His skin felt so warm compared to hers.

"Steven . . . are you actually forgiving me? Didn't I tell you not to do that?"

"Hey, since you don't have to follow my orders, I don't have to follow yours. I know you're going to say you don't deserve forgiveness, but I know that's not true and soon enough, you're going to forgive yourself. You'll find the courage to do that, like you found the courage to fight."

"Steven . . . will it be horrible for me to say that I might not be able to fight for a while? I'm not sure if I'll able to hold my weapon knowing that it . . . you know . . ."

"Don't worry, it is okay. Take all the time you need. I know it will happen eventually, that you will heal from all of this, and once it happens, I know it's going to be great."

A Few Months Later

"So let me get this straight," Sheena blurted out as her bright green gaze switched between both Pearl and Yellow. "You two are both Pearls? When you first mentioned this to me, Pearl, I kinda thought that it meant Gems are separated into categories like humans sometimes, but . . . I did not expect this."

"My stars, humans can come with pink hair?" Yellow cried. "If I knew that, then I would be more eager to meet them!" She quickly brushed her fingers against Sheena's arm, eliciting a small shriek from the surprised human. "How come your skin doesn't seem to coordinate with your hair?"

"Hey, as much as it would be cool to have my entire body match my hair, I can't do that," Sheena chuckled. She reached out and lightly poked Yellow's nose. "For the record, though, even if you're almost identical to Pearl, you really can't beat her cuteness. That's something that only belongs to my Pearl."

"Since when did she let you claim her?" Yellow shrieked, quickly turning to Pearl. "Do you know how hypocritical that is? And you said you belonged to no one!"

"I don't," Pearl cried, raising her hands to defend herself. "That's not what she meant!"

"Wait, what does she mean?" Sheena inquired. As calm as she tries to act, she really couldn't wrap her head around everything Pearl tries to explain to her.

"I'll explain it to you later," Pearl reassured her girlfriend, which had to be at least the 200th time she said that at this point.

"I never knew that you and Pearl would look so much alike," Greg chuckled, nervously scratching his hair. It took Pearl so long to get used to him, he can't expect Yellow to do the same, right?

"You are the 'Dad' Steven talked about, right?" Yellow asked.

"Right," Greg replied, his initial anxiety wearing away. "Steven told me so much about you. Isn't Pearl teaching you how to fight like her? You know, be a Renegade and everything?"

"She was doing that initially but . . ."

The middle-aged man immediately flushed bright red. "O-oh man, I can't believe I said that! Please forget that! I shouldn't have said anything! Man oh man, looks like I messed up my first impression already. I might have an unlucky streak with Pearls, now that I think about it. P-please forget I said that, too! I didn't mean to be racist—um, Gem-ist, something like that, anyway . . ."

"It's okay," Yellow squeaked, blushing from embarrassment as well. "Besides, that happened countless Earth rotations ago, I don't know why I can't seem to let that go . . ."

"Hey, I know sometimes you can't forget the terrible things you did in the past," Greg said softly. "I know that it might not matter to you since you never knew her or anything but . . . Rose went through the same thing you did—even after thousands of years had passed, she worried that she was unworthy of being around such wonderful people when she had done such horrible things, but I told her that it didn't matter. I loved the person she was now, not the person she was thousands of years ago."

"Thanks . . . I really needed to hear that," Yellow whispered.

Interacting with humans proved to be an easier task than it seemed to be and eventually, Sheena and Greg waved goodbye and left the Temple, the pink-haired woman speeding away on an motorcycle and Steven's father heading back to his van.

"You made a great first impression," Pearl sighed happily. "Better yet, you warmed up to them faster than I ever did. Perhaps one day, you'll be comfortable with exploring more human areas."

"Not immediately, r-right?" Yellow squeaked.

"We'll take things slow," Pearl chuckled in response. She felt relieved that Yellow was just as socially awkward as she was.

"Pearl . . . talking with Greg made me realize something," Yellow said slowly.

"What?"

"I don't want to spend thousands of years dwelling on the same thing over and over, I want to able to move forward like you all did," Yellow said softly. "I know that I'll never be able to forget what I did, and neither will you and everyone else, but we need to progress onward, especially since another battle might be brewing soon and I want to be useful again."

"Are you actually going to—"

"Yes. I hope I can, at least."

With a sharp exhale, Yellow cupped her hands around her gem. With a bright flash of light and an audible gleam of sound, her fingers wrapped around an elegantly carved hilt and with another deep breath, slowly pulled it out.

The thin blade tapered towards the floor beneath Yellow and Pearl as both of them stared awestruck.

"It's beautiful, just like I remember it," Pearl sighed. She took a deep breath before adding, "Blue would be very proud."

"Yeah, I guess she is. After all, we're adding onto the Renegade Pearl legacy, aren't we? And we won't it end without a fight."

A/N: And that concludes the Renegade Pearl duology. Thank you for following this story all the way through, even though it certainly no longer follows canon. And look, Blue Pearl is alive (sorry for killing you, Blue, I promise I won't do it again)! And Yellow Pearl knows her, they might be friends (or girlfriends, if you wanna hope like me)! Let's keep on hoping that's not their last appearance and let's hope that I'll be able to write them again (with Blue Pearl alive because I truly regret what I've done).