Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lapis

  Endless void, star systems she doesn’t recognize, doesn’t care to recognize, whipping right past her. Each flap of her water wings carries enough compressed force to propel her to speeds just enough to reach FTL. The next galaxy is just within her reach, the last galaxy showing signs of Homeworld colonization. In the cold of space, she grimaces, her body having adjusted to the climate of Earth for far too long. But she’s a gem; her bodily construct was designed to explore the stars. So she adjusts again, yet she still feels cold all the same.

   ‘Just a little bit farther.’ She tells herself. ‘Just a little bit farther.’

oOoOoOo

  It’s only when she’s resting (an unnecessary process for her physical form,that just happened to ‘feel’ refreshing,) on some backwater planet with no Potential , does she realize she left the barn on the Earth’s moon.

  Well, it’s not like any of it helped to entertain her during her brief return to the Earth’s orbit.

oOoOoOo

   ‘Farther,’ she tells herself. She’s crossed into the edge of the fifth galaxy by now, and she’s relieved that she’s reached the limits of Homeworld’s expansionism until she remembers that the last time she saw a map of Homeworld’s interstellar territories was Era I. Before the mirror. Before everything.

   ‘Farther.’ She keeps telling herself.

   ‘And farther.’

   ‘Farther.’

   ‘And farther.’

oOoOo

 Lapis

  Lapis doesn’t bother keeping track of how long she’s been going. Not even considering to do so until she’s convinced herself that the Diamonds won’t be right behind her if she turns around. Her core was beginning to throb with a soreness; she was growing tired, despite her physical form’s inability to feel exhaustion, the void of space wearing away at her.

  A passing thought grows into a subject of speculation; did she ever feel anything before Earth? It’s hard to discern whether she didn’t feel anything before Earth, or if she had just flat out forgotten life before the mirror.

  She remembers holding a modest lot back on Homeworld, bestowed upon her by Blue Diamond for terraforming some disaster colony she couldn’t remember the name of. Blue Diamond had speculated on perhaps a Pearl of her own in the near distant future, but Lapis’s next excursion would be on Earth.

  Though it was only a modest lot, she remembers the galas and balls hosted on the Diamonds’ orders (who would never themselves attend) that she would always find herself at with her fellow Lapis Lazuli, where they would find themselves lavished with gifts and parties thrown in their honor . It was only fitting, since Lapis Lazuli were the gems that wielded the power to control entire worlds.

  Physically, Lapis Lazuli were never meant to feel anything, much like a Pearl, or a Sapphite. Despite their incredible potential , they weren’t made for fighting, or anything physical in that regard. Amethyst taught her how to shapeshift sensory receptors back on Earth, having taught Peridot before. A terraformer had no need for awareness of her immediate environment in contrast to say, an Quartz warrior.

  But even though she had been a loyal gem to the Diamonds before Earth, it hadn’t been too terribly difficult for Lapis to adjust to her new home. She had never particularly questioned the motives of her Matriarchs before Earth, never been taught to think. She was always satisfied with whatever attention and gifts her Matriarchs graced her with, and nothing more.

  “It was all social engineering,” She remembers Peridot musing with her, as they talked over season 5 of Camp Pining Hearts, what Peridot had declared to be ‘trash.’ They were cuddled up against each other underneath a blanket, with nary but the light of the television to make out their forms with.

  Peridot had been warm.

  The mirror taught her to think. It was all she could do when she was trapped inside a mirror, with nothing to do but scream at some sad parody of what she expected the terrifying, renegade Pearl to turn out to be.

  ‘And look where thinking’s led you.’ She muses to herself. Blindly fleeing the reaches of charted space, into the next galaxy beyond.

  Homeworld used to make sense. It was the only reason why so many gems would even bother following the Diamonds to the edges of the galaxy and beyond; introduce the idea of new worlds where they might be free, and suddenly, following the Diamonds wouldn’t be the obvious decision it had always been for so many for so long.

  It wasn’t Homeworld that had stopped making sense when she had returned. The same basic foundations of society under the Diamonds were all the same, millennia later.

  Her lot was bulldozed to make way for some other pompous gem, her sister Lazuli unreachable one way or another.

  She doesn’t remember any of their facets, or her own for that matter, and she’s certain they don’t remember her either.

  But she remembers Earth. And Steven. And Peridot.

  It was funny, really. The last thing she wanted to do back on Earth was think about everything she was, and now that she’s lost herself in the void of space, all she can do is think, without anything else to think about.

  One Earth cycle.

  Two Earth cycles.

  Three Earth cycles.

  Four Earth cycles.

oOoOo

Lapis

   She’s finally discovered a planet with Potential, the form of energy required for the spark of life.

  Very early forms of life , it turns out. Her only company on this dismal gas giant she’d discovered were amoebas.

  She briefly considers waiting for an evolution, before her patience frays again. Another habit that’s stuck to her from her time on Earth.

oOoOo

Lapis

  It took twenty-four Earth cycles for her to detest the Earth’s moon.

  It took a considerably longer time for her to detest space.

oOoOoOo

 Lapis

  Slackening her back against the leaf hammock she’s found herself taking taking shelter from the acid rain in, she’s found herself taking refuge on a planet with potential, only this time, a little bit further down along the evolutionary chain, as Peridot used to call it.

  She frowns, before her attention rejoins the natural fauna of her current habitat, something she used to do with-

  Clods, she was-

  DAMN IT!

  An exhausted groan escapes her lips, a frustration carried since her departure from the Milky Way. The twin pulsars radiate in the sky and the system beyond, painting the atmosphere with an almost neon-like sky blue. The weather on this planet was roiling; within hours, she’d been thrown into a thunderstorm, a dust storm, and now an acid rain storm, each bringing with it a different skyscape. Greys, whites, and azures; it was almost Earth, without the intelligent life.

  As annoying as some of the humans on Earth were, at least she could talk to them. Here, she was restricted to staring at multi-colored arthropods and winged hominids or whatever Peridot had called them. Simple life, yes, but in some sense, it was beautiful, an asthetic perspective she had learned during her time on-

  Stars, she was bad at this. She forces her attention to return to the fauna once more.

  She wonders how long it would take before they would evolve into something more intelligent.

  She wonders how long it would take until Homeworld’s reach found it’s way here.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

   Something’s caught her eye when surveying the surface of some overgrown flora world; like Earth, it hosts a diversity of environments limited only by the miniscule size of the rock; approximately only half of what Earth was.

  Within in the depths of the temperate rainforest inhabited only by insects and megaflora; lied a glimmer that had caught her eye. She allows herself to descend underneath the canopy; she allows herself the dream of finding something of interest in this miserable galaxy she’s passed into.

  Perhaps a fire, indicating signs of organic life. Maybe a crystalline formation, where she might be able to find another gem. Her speculation runes wild, though she doesn’t know what she’d do upon coming face to face with the anomaly; the point is, she’d have something to do.

  But awaiting her was a cavern, empty and devoid of anything of interest.

   The cavern seems to taunt her.

  “Why did you leave?”

  For the first time since leaving the Milky Way, Lapis began to cry.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  Two-hundred and ninety-five years after the Treaty had been signed between Homeworld and the Crystal Gems, Pearl took notice of a blue figure in the sky, descending to Earth in the general direction of the Temple. Towards her.

 It became unmistakable who it was.

  “Lapis?”

  The forgotten blue gem’s descent towards the Earth is without incident, though Pearl’s gaze remains frozen to her form. Pearl, as with all gems, was never good at change, much less explaining it, but by the time Lapis’s form had closed the distance, she could only bemoan that she would be the one to receive her.

  Making an entrance as she always did, though not from any effort from Lapis’s part (her carried history and scars doing all the work for her,) the blue gem kicks up a small cloud of sand upon arrival, one which Pearl wills away.

  Lapis wears a scowl Pearl had grown all too familiar with whenever they had the off-chance of accidentally being in the same area with each other back then.

  “Oh. You.” Lapis shifts uncomfortably, looking around the temple, likely for… Steven. And Peridot.

  Pearl uselessly swallows. “You’re back.”

  “Where’s Steven? Where is everyone?” Both to the point, and avoiding the subject.

  An expected question, but one Pearl wished hadn’t been coming.

  “Lapis…”

  “Where’s Peridot?” Lapis stares at her, wanting Pearl to just get to the damn point already.

   Lapis freezes in terror. “Did Homeworld-”

  Pearl shakes her head, gesturing with her fingers for Lapis to follow. She does, and lets Pearl lead her to the alcove the temple, with the lighthouse atop still standing, unchanged, like the skyline of Beach City.

  It isn’t until they reach the very edge, does Lapis’s impatience shatter.

  Waiting for her atop the temple, were three small headstones.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Steven’s home hadn’t changed for the most part, save for the right section being bizarrely torn up and remodeled. Also catching her attention were the pictures of Steven dotting the walls; each capturing a moment from his life, in a different physical form.

  Right. He had grown older. He had changed. Humans did that. “How long was I gone?” Lapis asks, taking her seat at one of the couches.

  “Two-hundred and ninety-five years.” Pearl answers, mechanically making her way towards the kitchen. There’s not much energy in her movements, Pearl must be going through the same motions whenever she’s forced to receive visitors.

  One picture catches Lapis’s eye in particular; that of Steven, withered and aged, though still as bright and cheery as she remembered him. Surrounding him, were the Crystal Gems; Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot, and a motley of some other gems and humans Lapis couldn’t recognize.

  And Jasper.

  “How long is the average human’s lifespan?” Lapis asks a busy Pearl, who’s preparing… something in the kitchen for the two of them. Her listening hones in, and she detects a kettle. Pearl’s boiling water. Tea, probably.

   “When Steven was alive? Seventy-two years. Now, it’s almost doubled, thanks to gem technology.” Pearl brings out a set of porcelain, plating two delicate cups for the occasion.

  “I’m surprised you like drinking tea.” Lapis’s mouth is faster than her self-preservation instinct. “I thought you didn’t like putting anything in your body.”

  Pearl’s retort is quick, and as careless as Lapis’s mouth. “I’m surprised you remembered anything about me, given-” Pearl stops herself, instead opting to walk back into the kitchen, like a chicken running to her flock for protection. Lapis is only grateful her company proves to be as socially inept as her. The house is a delicate calm, so very much unlike how she remembers it. It wouldn’t surprise her if it’s been like this for the past century or so Pearl’s been here. Lapis looks to the outside, only to catch that the weather’s changed again, now a grey downpour.

  “So nobody’s here anymore?” Lapis asks her, trying to defuse the tension. Again, her mind catches the unintended slight. “Except you?”

  Pearl comes out, teapot in hand, either choosing to ignore Lapis, or having it go completely over her nose.

  “Garnet still visits every decade or so.” Pearl pours Lapis a serving of tea, handling the teapot with care; her movements Lapis observes, are as mechanical as ever. “The last I’d heard from her, she’d invited me to join her in some campaign against some Homeworld stragglers in the Expansion Quadrant.”

  Lapis accepts the tea with care. She’d forgotten about the… aesthetic qualities of a hot cup of tea Steven had taught her alongside Peridot. It was strange that tea had such an aesthetic, given it was just some polluted water that happened to taste good. “Stragglers?”

  Pearl pours her own serving, though refusing to bring her cup to her lips for now. Instead, she opts to produce a photo she had brought from the kitchen; Steven, at a younger age than the previous photo. His form was bulkier, his features more buffed out, and shaking hands with him was… Yellow Diamond.

  “He actually did it.” Lapis sips at her tea, the once unbelievable having now turned impotent in her absence.

  “Steven always had a way with people.” Pearl sighs, stirring at her tea. “It was… shortly, after you left.”

  Lapis resists the urge to laugh, allowing for Pearl to carry on. “Blue and Yellow Diamond signed The Treaty with us, which formally ended hostilities between Homeworld and the Crystal Gems.” Pearl sullens, before continuing. “White Diamond never approved.”

  “The Diamonds were divided politically, and Homeworld never had a political system for voicing internal dissent. The Diamonds quickly divided amongst themselves, and years later, White Diamond excommunicated Blue and Yellow Diamond from the Authority.”

  “So it was a civil war.” Lapis surmises, to which Pearl confirms motionlessly.

  She had come to Earth all this way to face her greatest fear, only for the front door to be kicked down, revealing it to be all some big joke.

  Except noone was there to laugh at her, save for herself.

  “It was a coup. Billions of gems under Blue and Yellow Diamond’s allegiance found themselves… deeply uncomfortable at this sudden change of policy. White Diamond tore the treaty up, and ordered a second decimation of Earth, with billions of gems formerly sworn to Blue and Yellow Diamond defecting to her rule. In the chaos, Yellow Diamond was shattered, and White Diamond disappeared to parts unknown.”

  Yellow Diamond, once the mighty enforcer of The Great Diamond Authority, the one who she had feared would shatter her personally if she were to ever be captured, had switched sides and was now a pile of shards spaced out into a black hole somewhere. White Diamond, founder of the empire, the most feared of them all, now in exile.

  “On Earth, we would finally reveal ourselves to the humans, Steven, Connie, and surprisingly Amethyst taking lead. It took time, but as the first of White Diamond’s legions began to land on-planet, the humans began to put their inter-species quarreling aside. It took decades, and help from Blue and Yellow Diamond themselves, but humanity managed to prevail.”

  Lapis furrows at Pearl in disbelief. “The humans? Defeated Homeworld?”

  Pearl sighs, a weary smile on her lips. “The civil war meant Homeworld couldn’t bring it’s full attention on us. That, and several other miracles, really.” Pearl frowns. “You saw it didn’t you? How much Earth has changed since then?”

  Lapis nods, having taken notice of the sudden appearance of traffic in the Sol system, the incredibly rapid expansion of Earth’s ‘night lights,’ agglomerations of urban areas, once isolated, connected by lines of settlement, now having evolved into a singular mass, covering the land surface whole.

  “Did Earth always have rings?” Lapis finishes her tea, motioning at Pearl for more, who acquiesces, her tea still untouched.

  “They’re shipyards. The second century you were gone, they spent mastering their own solar system, and other nearby stars while the civil war still consumed Homeworld, it’s ability to project power shrinking further and further. This century, they’ve spent building an empire of their own, amongst the stars. Remarkable isn’t it? I hadn’t predicted that humans would be able to adapt to the revelation of Homeworld so quickly, but Earth carries with it so many surprises, even now I suppose.”

  “Garnet’s taken a leadership role amongst the Earth expeditionary forces, helping to clear out Homeworld diehards and straggler remnants, alongside Bismuth.” Pearl hesitates before continuing, opting to finally sip at her now cold tea before scowling in dissatisfaction. “Jasper disappeared.”

  But Lapis fails to have any reaction. Maybe it was a part of Jasper that had stayed inside of her speaking, but the thought of shattering Jasper was a fantasy she had found herself toying with on occasion, even during her brief stay on Earth. That if Jasper was ever relieved from her captivity, that she’d shatter her without a second thought.

  “You can't lie to me. I've seen what you're capable of. I thought I was a brute, but you... you're a monster.”

  Now she was in space. Without her.    

  “What about Jasper?” Lapis spits out.

  Pearl shifts defensively, though her gaze still manages to avoid Lapis, who’s boring into her with her own gaze now. “Steven helped her.” Pearl’s aware enough to know that Lapis doesn’t want details on her. “After the treaty, Jasper said that she needed to find her own path, and so she did. She’s in unknown space now, though she left behind a one-way beacon for us to contact her if we ever needed her help.” Pearl stifles a laugh, “Maybe she’s with Hessonite now.”

  “What about Peridot?” Lapis pops the unanswered bubble that’s been hanging over the conversation since it’s inception. Pearl stirs at her unsatisfying tea, before adding another useless sugar cube. “Pearl, I need to know.”

  The pale gem picks at her tea, having only brought the porcelain to her lips once or twice. Lapis knows Pearl’s stalling out of reluctance; the torrent of rain waiting for her outside seems to invite her. A proposition that looks all the more attractive with each passing second.

  Pearl’s eyes flicker at Lapis’s own. It’s the first time, ever, that Pearl’s opted to look in her general direction.

  “She left Earth for one of the colonies. With Amethyst. They’re in a relationship now.”

oOoOo

Lapis

  A month at the temple goes by, without change or anything of note in their daily routines, Pearl working maintenance for a house that looks ripped straight from one of the catalog magazines Lapis used to read, with Lapis working out the same internal battles in her mind over and over again.

  She hasn’t bothered leaving the premises of the Temple yet; she’s not yet willing to adjust to Earth a second time, as riveting of a conversation starter Pearl proves to be.

  The idea of leaving for the stars again is briefly played with once or twice, only to be quickly shot down. She’d spent the last three centuries wandering from star to star; it wasn’t as if another century would let her find what she was looking for, whatever it was.

  So she’s settled for staying on Earth for now, the planet her destiny or whatever tied the universe together always ended up dragging her back to, one way or another.

  Pearl leaves out food for her every now and then, Lapis having raided the fridge only to surprisingly discover fresh food still in there; she muses it’s for any surprise human guests, but can’t picture the sight of Pearl inviting humans over.

  Watching Pearl go about her daily routine becomes tiring though; in a rehash of what they used to be, meaning they’ve returned to not talking on a daily basis, except when one of them gets in the other’s way; which is often.

   “Lapis, please move. I need to vacuum Steven’s loft.” Pearl orders, vaccum cleaner in hand.

   Lapis is busy flipping through all the movies available on the holo-set, which is another way of saying she’s staying because she doesn’t feel like moving. “Why clean? Noone has to live here anymore.”

  “Dust will collect.”

  “I say let it; maybe one of the dust bunnies can develop sentience, so there’s something to converse with.”

  Lapis is absolutely terrible and she knows it, but watching Pearl try to recompose her image is far more entertaining than watching her act go unimpeded, especially given that she knows how utterly messed up Pearl’s compartments are.

  It’s been three centuries, but it wouldn’t surprise her if Pearl was still like that; Gems are slow after all, and the most mileage she ever got out of her captivity inside Pearl’s gem was watching Surface Pearl cry about Rose for ten months straight.

  “I’m out.” Lapis announces to a Pearl, whose nose is firmly invested in her e-text on engineering.

 “You’re leaving?” Pearl asks after her, hint of worry in her throat.

  Lapis shrugs. “Only for a short flight around. I just need some time to think. You thought I was going to leave Earth again, weren’t you?”

  Pearl, caught in the act, wordlessly answers her with just the flustered expression on her face.

  Unfortunately for the both of them, it’s Lapis that Pearl’s dealing with. “You’d like that wouldn’t you. It’d be like putting me away, so you didn’t have to deal with me.” It takes Lapis a few too many seconds for her to register what just left her mouth, though given her, it’s a miracle it even registered at all. “Pearl, wait-”

  Pearl irritably brushes her off. “It’s fine Lapis. Take your flight.”

  “Pearl, I’m sorry,”

  Pearl looks a bit stunned that Lapis is offering to apologize in the first place, but it’s not enough to soften the blow. “Lapis, it’s not necessary. Please.”

  “Just go.”

oOoOo

Lapis

  Beach City proves to be mostly deserted; populated only by tourists who gawk at her, and sentry-bots that try to capture her for processing; her visit ends with around three of them decommissioned into the ocean.

  Pearl explains that the city’s been turned into a historical monument, protected by the military; resulting in the town’s preservation, and exorbitant housing prices.

  “I’m sorry for not warning you about the military presence.” Pearl apologizes, having brushed yesterday’s incident under the rug, as expected of Pearl. “If you’d come with me, I can have you processed-

  “I’m sorry for being a little shit.” Lapis wants to say, but doesn’t have the metaphorical guts to say it.

  The rest goes over her head; and Pearl confirms she hasn’t learned in over three-hundred years how to detect when people just aren’t listening.

  “What are you making?” Lapis ignores her, referring to the plethora of food ready for preparation on the kitchen table. A twitch of irritation pops up from Pearl. For a gem that regularly disparaged the entire process of feeding, the pale gem sure had a lot of food out on the kitchen counter, with waffle mix, popcorn bulk, whipping cream, strawberries, and maple syrup on hand.

  It takes Pearl a moment to respond. “I suppose we all have our exceptions.” It’s clear she’s struggling to say this with a straight face.

  Lapis scrutinizes the food, unsure whether Pearl is about to have guests over, or perhaps is expecting Amethyst. Perhaps it’s a special occasion, so she inspects the calendar app on the fridge screen, carefully marked-

  Oh.

  Oh.

  It was Steven’s birthday.

  “You… want me to help?” Lapis quietly voices, indicating her grasping of the situation at hand.

  Pearl, as always, is unreadable; she affirms Lapis it’s okay, but Lapis isn’t sure whether it’s to kick Lapis out, or if she’s just a better chef solo. Whatever it is, it doesn’t stop Lapis from following her when Pearl finishes making the food, and heads outdoors, up towards the lighthouse.

  For what it’s worth, Pearl doesn’t seem to mind Lapis’s presence.

  “Is this a dish Steven made?” Lapis asks about the breakfast platter.

  “Yes. Together Breakfast, to be exact.” Pearl lets herself smile. “Oh! Did you want me to make you a serving?”

  “No.” She doesn’t feel like delaying Pearl now, after yesterday. “Thank you.” She adds.

  The two continue with their silent trek onwards to the top of the hill; Lapis isn’t sure her reason for following.

  Maybe it’s for Steven, but she can't say that to herself without feeling guilty; it’s her fault she's feeling whatever she's feeling right now, and it'd be unfair to place another one of her problems on a child she never got to see mature and is now in a hole in the ground, as humans liked to do.

  Maybe it’s to see Pearl eat these waffles. A sight to see nonetheless, but her game with Pearl is becoming tiring; she’s drilling through the cracks, but she’s certain all she’ll see when she’s finished with her is a mirror.

  The two reach the cliff’s edge; the three headstones still there, and Lapis has to wonder just what she was expecting to see, both now and the first time she was here.

  Pearl sets down a picnic blanket from her gem; it takes a moment for Lapis to realize she’s allowed to sit down with her.

  The two sit in silence for some time, leaving Lapis to wonder whether this was a mistake or not and maybe she should just summon her wings and make for Empire City or maybe another star system. She wills herself to stay and ask Pearl whether it’s okay for her to be here at least, until she catches the sight of a very pale Pearl, uncertain of what’s before her.

  “Pearl, are you… having trouble with those waffles?”

  “Absolutely not!” Pearl incredulously objects, staring at the Together Breakfast as if she was trying to form some sort of attack plan for dealing with the breakfast treat. “It’s just taking me time to properly form a human digestive system, that’s all!”

  “Pearl, you don’t need a human digestive system. You just need to turn the food into mush then expel it from your-”

  Two fingers enter Pearl’s ears, her head shaking in denial. “Lapis, I can perfectly do without this disgusting explanation!” Pearl protests, still glaring intently at the Together Breakfast as if it were some foreign entity to be dissected. Brushing a wary finger at the whipped cream, she tepidly brings it towards her blue tongue, before warily licking, and shuddering in clear revulsion.

  Lapis fails to conceal her amusement. “Pearl, do you need for me to take this off your hands?”

  “Absolutely not! I don’t need any help.” Pearl puffs predictably.

  “Pearl, you’re being stubborn-”

  “It’s you, who’s being stubborn!”

  “If you’d just listen to me-”

  “I can take care of this myself, thank you very much!” Pearl puffs like a hen protecting her nest, and crosses her arms, setting the Together Breakfast behind her.

  Lapis realizes what they’re doing, and against it all she bursts into incredulous laughter on Pearl’s expense. Pearl flusters, a defensive blush elicited from her. She predictably scowls, crossing her arms and turning her back on Lapis, until her defenses eventually break down, and the laugh becomes infectious.

  “We’re ridiculous.” Pearl admits, before taking a moment to recompose herself.

  The laughter tapers off uncomfortably, and Lapis isn’t exactly sure how to follow.

  Maybe it was the fact that this is the most mileage she’s ever gotten out of Pearl, who’s always kept to routine whenever she didn’t know what to do; In Lapis’s case, to pretend like she didn’t exist.

  Or maybe it was all those decades of isolation on Lapis’s part, and she’s just happy to have at least someone to talk to after three centuries of space and void. Maybe it’s the same for Pearl; she hasn’t asked how long Pearl’s been all by herself at the temple yet. Or why.

   “I was so terrified of the Diamonds coming to Earth.” She finds herself admitting. Lapis fails to meet Pearl’s gaze as answering the question Pearl couldn’t ask. “I didn’t want them to destroy my new home, but in the end, I did it myself. I don’t know how long, how many galaxies I passed by before I felt so lonely.”

  Lapis looks up at Pearl, who’s listening with all sincere intent. She briefly wonders whether Pearl was just waiting for a breakthrough with her, like another one of Steven’s ‘projects,’ but she’s probably overthinking it. Probably.

  “Why are you here?” Lapis asks Pearl as the latter recomposes herself. It takes Lapis a moment to correct herself so that Pearl doesn’t take it as a sign to leave. “I mean, why aren’t you with the other Crystal Gems? In space?”

  For a second, she wonders whether she’s being paranoid; the answer is probably, on her part. Maybe Garnet foresaw her return, and ordered Pearl to attend to her, maybe it was bad luck on their part Pearl had to be the one to see Lapis’s return. Lapis stares into the horizon to keep avoiding her gaze. “I… supposed I needed a break from it all.”

  Pearl joins her in staring off into the horizon, into the skyline the direction of what Lapis remembers to be Empire City in the distance. “Let humanity and the others take charge for a couple of centuries or so. I don’t know where Garnet gets her energy-” Pearl frowns, before shaking her head. “Forget that thought.”

 Pearl points at the Empire City skyline. “All of that wasn’t visible two centuries ago. Humanity’s moved so fast in the past three centuries since we had Steven, that I figured it’d be no harm to take a breather for a couple of decades or so.”

  Lapis frowns at the silhouette, it’s image flickering, like a sort of parody of what she once remembered. “Everything’s changed again.”

  “Yes, it has.” Pearl doesn’t get it. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?”

  Lapis looks up to the stars, toward the heavens above. She’s back in familiar galaxies again, but she realizes she can’t make out Homeworld’s star. “You saw it, didn’t you? Homeworld?”

  “Yes. Before the war, at least. It was shocking at first, but-” Pearl falters, probably realizing who she’s talking to.

  “Was it really three centuries? Only three-hundred years?”

  Pearl looks up from her train of thought, catching the sight of Lapis fixated on Homeworld’s star. “Two-hundred-ninety five, to be exact.”

  Lapis tries to stop, she really does. “Why did I leave?”

  Pearl shifts closer to her. “Lapis…”

  “It's like I'm back inside the mirror again, only I put myself in there.” It’s all repeating.

  Two arms suddenly snake their way around Lapis, who’s slow to realize she’s being encompassed in the warmth of a hug, awkward as it is. Who’s been slow enough to realize she’s been crying this entire time.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true isn’t it? I don’t understand why you’re still listening to me.” Lapis stands, breaking the embrace. “I stole Earth’s ocean, I nearly killed Steven and his friends, I tried to shatter the three of you! I tricked Jasper into fusing with me so I could take everything out on her, I threw Peridot away like she didn’t even matter!” She glares at Pearl. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m wrong and I didn’t deserve all of this to happen to me.”

  Pearl refuses to break from Lapis’s gaze, instead opting for a story of her own. “Before we freed you from Malachite, we were looking for Peridot, and Garnet thought she was repairing the communications hub to contact Homeworld; it turned out to be me. I was tricking Garnet into fusing with me so I could experience what it was like to be her .”

  “That’s pretty shitty.” Lapis isn’t sure whether which one of them that’s meant for, but she’s pretty sure Pearl can’t read into it.

  “It was. I was found out, and it upset Garnet to the point where she couldn’t talk to me for days.”

  “The point is, as awkward of an analogy as that was… you’re not alone. In mistakes.” And in running away from them.

  Lapis might have retorted that none of her mistakes involved locking a gem up inside her head for thousands of years, but she’s getting slightly better in not fucking herself in the mouth. “In tricking other gems to fuse with you.” She replies with the obvious instead.

  “Amongst other things. When she forgave me, I had so desperately wanted for things to go back to the way they were, but it wasn’t like that at all. She told me I had to be strong so I could move forward, but instead it felt as if I was counting down the days before I would repeat another Sardonyx. I found myself questioning whether I could even become what she saw in me; even wondering what Rose saw, in all of us, could ever really apply to me.”

  In another recent addition to surprises Lapis gives herself, she’s listening.

  “Then we captured Peridot, and she… was difficult, to say the least, because of my being a pearl. Infuriating to the point where I ended up punching her. I hated being brought back down to that level so much, that it felt cathartic when we fought. And when it was all over, what Garnet said to me felt just within my reach.”

  She sighs. “Sometimes I can feel it getting closer, day by day. Sometimes, it’s as if it’s just beyond the horizon, covered in some distant fog.”

 “When we freed you from Malachite,” Pearl diverts shakily, “we didn’t know what to say to you.” Pearl frowns. “I didn’t know how to apologize for what I had done to you, for keeping you inside my gem all those years.” Pearl takes a breathy pause, Lapis’s back still turned away from her. “But you seemed to be moving on, and you were working with Garnet and Amethyst, and I thought that maybe it would have been for the best if you didn’t need me after all.” Pearl shakes her head. “When you left again, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. What might have happened if things had gone differently, if I had freed you when I found you, if I had actually made the effort to apologize properly, I-” Pearl’s eyes are watering, and she tries to wipe at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry Lapis. I’m not sure what else to say.” A relatable statement, given Lapis always ends up screwing that portion of life up.

  “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please.”

  She couldn’t stop herself from despising Pearl in that moment. Or some other emotion.

  Lapis lies her back down against the grass to face the stars again. “I still hate you, you know.” She admits.

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t!” Lapis groans, having added to the headache that is dealing with Pearl, she’s only just returned to Earth, and here she is, spilling her heart out to the gem she never thought she’d be talking to. “I’m tired of feeling this way. Look where it’s gotten me!” She gestures to the heavens above to make her point clear.

  Pearl chuckles. “Space isn’t so bad-”

  Lapis snickers. “Are you kidding? Space sucks. There’s nothing up there, except for stars… and void.”

  “You didn’t try to find another planet you could call your own?”

  “And what? Talk to a bunch of rocks and ameobas that need a couple more eons along the evolutionary line before I can communicate with them?”

  Pearl sighs, conceding defeat. “What about now? You don’t have to stay on Earth, I can go with you to find Peridot-”

  “And do what? Beg for her apology? Hope she forgives me for taking away the barn and all of her morps?” Peridot deserved better, despite Lapis’s inability to give her otherwise.

  Pearl’s gaze turned into one of pity and just for a moment, Lapis finds herself glaring at her. She's disgusted with herself, because she couldn’t stand Pearl wearing that same expression that she found Steven wearing so often when she had been around him.

  “I wonder what she’d think of me now.” Lapis shuts her eyes in defeat, as if it would all go away. “What Steven would think of me if he were still alive.”

  Pearl blinks. “Steven never stopped worrying about you Lapis. He always hoped you were still out there somewhere, and that you were okay. And that if you ever needed him, you’d come back.”

  It was a predictable answer, but one that feels somewhat more cathartic and less like an excuse when said by someone else. She casts a glance at Steven’s tombstone once more.

Steven Quartz Universe.

1992-2187

A heart of Crystal, unshatterable. Part of our Universe, and yours.

  She had told herself she wouldn’t become a Crystal Gem upon being freed from Malachite; only to end up on the other side of the universe trying to get away from it all. That she’d never forgive Pearl for keeping her inside her gem, even when all she could do was stare through the mirror at Pearl’s compartments, crying over Rose and unable to function. She tells herself that a few hundred years of stars and void humbled her to the point of apotheosis, but it anything’s certain in her life, it’s that Lapis Lazuli can sink deeper.

  Maybe she’ll try to get out. For Steven’s sake, the one who she believed in most.

  But Steven could never her savior; no matter how many times he could free her from whatever prison, she'd always end up getting sucked back in. And to pin everything on the life of a human who just happened to be heir apparent to the biggest clusterfuck to rock Homeworld in Lapis Lazuli’s existence... it was unfair. Steven may have deserved all of the world, but not the namesake he was attached to.

  Her gaze returns to Pearl, who’s still staring off into space, eating up the stars while her Together Breakfast remains untouched. To Lapis’s surprise, she’s actually smiling, and Lapis frowns in return. That she might have to let go for once, and actually try to talk with the only gem left on the planet her destiny seems tied to... it scares her.

  She wonders if Pearl knows that Lapis knows so many of her secrets. And she wonders how many secrets are still left in Pearl, the pearl who shattered Pink Diamond.

  “Pearl?” Lapis voices, to which Pearl is quick to turn to her.   

  “Your waffles are starting to sink.” True to Lapis’s word, the platter of pancakes are starting to go soggy under the now sinking mass of syrup and whipping topping. The strawberry garnish has long sunk below the whipping, leaving the once eloquently designed Together Breakfast a far cry from it’s original presentation.

  Pearl goes pale again, stuck staring at the now wilted Together Breakfast with an apprehensive gaze. She grumbles something under her breath, a sight that Lapis finds herself oddly smiling at. Pearl, suddenly caught off-script and forced to ad-lib for words.

  At the very least, she was learning to smile.

  “Want me to help you out?”

Chapter Text

Lapis

   “Well, I suppose this was a difficult mission… if I were a simple-minded Pearl. Hear that Agate? I’m giving you credit!”

  Green Moss Agate bows to Aquamarine. “Yes, my vice.”

  “LET US OUT! PLEASE! I MUST GO SAVE MY TERMINALLY-ILL MOTHER!” One of the prisoners of Aquamarine cries out, his face contorted with poorly acted-out desperation. Laughter roars off-stage still, so either this must be an incredibly easy audience, or the producers are using a laugh track.

  Aquamarine glares in his direction. “Would you stop!? You’re ruining my moment!”

  The laugh track plays again, broken only by a weary sigh on Lapis’s part, before she changes the channel again.

  She tries, she really does, but it doesn’t take Lapis long before she devolves into what the humans call a “couch potato.” She’s probably left a Lapis sized imprint in the fabric of what used to be Steven’s couch. If only the others were here to see this, but most of them were dead or gone; a few days on that ocean planet orbiting a black hole ended up being seven years on her end. (Funny how time dilation works, it was if the elements of the universe were all conspiring to fuck her.)

 Tens of thousands of entertainment channels on the holo-net, and absolutely nothing to watch. Save for reruns of Camp Pining Hearts, but hell if she’ll watch that. So it’s back to Inside Aquamarine: Homeworld’s Greatest Defection.

   If anything, watching the three or four programs where Gems and Humans are so awkwardly trying to collaborate is somewhat entertaining in itself. Humans had no idea how to write Gems, but neither did Gemkind, so watching the script in action would be interesting, at the very least.

  “Aquamarine still has her own show?” Pearl tries to ignite a conversation, hovering above her couch. A gesture, to which Lapis responds with another shrug. She can hear the faintest of sighs on Pearl’s end before Pearl returns to whatever Pearl does.

  The more potent question pressing on Lapis’s end, is how in the stars did Steven get an Aquamarine on his side, of all the gems. Aquamarines were specifically designed to be arrogant, haughty, and proud. Proud of their status as the Enforcers, the Agents of the Diamonds’ whims. Opposed to the Amethysts, who found social cohesion through sisterly bonds, or the Lapis Lazuli, who would be showered with gifts to keep them in line; an Aquamarine reproduced the Homeworld’s caste system through sheer personality alone.

  Of all the gems that were saved by Steven; an Aquamarine somehow made the cut, but not her.

    The delicate plattering of some tangy lemon cake and some frozen chocolate drink shakes her from her thoughts. The culprit (who else?) being Pearl.

  “I’m sort of sick with eating.” Lapis admits. It comes to her in waves and crashes; some days, she was willing to try foods outside of the ‘sweet’ range, and some days she ends up channeling her inner Pearl and remembers it’s a repulsive, unnecessary process she doesn’t need to partake in.

   (If eating is off the list, what does that make watching holo-vision, breathing, sleeping, sitting, and being a burden on Pearl-

  “Okay, this is enough.”

  Lapis blinks from her thoughts, only to be met by Pearl, making that face she still couldn’t stand to see her wear. Blasting it off of her smug face with water is out of the question; so she’s settled for trying to sink deeper into the couch.

  “What?” Lapis shrugs.

  “You.” Pearl tries to avoid eye contact. “You’ve been slouching on that couch for the past few weeks or so, watching those insufferable programs of yours.”

  “Give me a few more thousand years, and you’ll know what it’s like to be-”

   What are you saying, idiot!?

  Pearl winces, trying to reach an accord with her; she treats Lapis like broken glass which is both exactly what Lapis does, and does not need right now. “You’re right. I suppose I’ll never understand.”

  She hates this. Pearl trying to diagnose what’s wrong with her like one of those medical shows; Lapis isn’t a case. “I don’t care what happened for you in the three centuries I was gone. For me, you’ll always be that sad gem who always broke down every time Rose found someone else more appealing than you.”

  Pearl doesn’t notice the fact that Lapis knows about her and Rose; she probably wallows in too much self-pity on the subject to effectively notice. “I know that. I just want to help-”

  “Why?” Lapis shifts defensively, her eyes narrowing on her. “So you can feel better about yourself?”

  “Even if that were true,” Pearl responds without missing a beat, “would that somehow mean you don’t want anyone to help you?”

  Lapis can’t formulate an effective reply to that, so she ends up with some e-texts on human psycho-therapy and mental health in her lap seconds later; they’re the type of books she figures Pearl’s read over and over in the past.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  ‘Lapis Lazuli are made to be withdrawn, introspective, and naturally depressive; the internal cohesion of a Lapis Lazuli formation achieves a state very similar to that of an imbalance of Norepinephrine and Serotonin.

  Furthermore, the Lapis Lazuli can be stated to be ‘wired’ a certain way when it comes to social cohesion; because Lapis Lazuli were meant to function in their terraforming duties alone, they have a natural tendency to shy away from the company of others, and deny assistance when they can. This social phenomena can be explained through an imbalance of the Sero-’

  Lapis josses the medical e-book onto the floor. Apparently, the fact that she feels sad is because of some imbalances in her gem. And she can fix that by taking drugs and converting them to a usable form by her to reestablish her balance. Something like that; she skimmed over most of it. It was an intriguing read in some parts, but felt as if it were written by amoebas in some other parts; the human tendency to explain everything psychotherapeutic through chemical imbalances turning her off most of all.

  “I’m not sad Pearl.” Lapis spits at her one day, when Pearl has the unfortunate position of wandering in the living room while nothing interesting’s playing.

  “You certainly look sad.” Pearl responds, and Lapis nearly has a migraine. The last gem she needs to patronize her is Pearl.

  “I’m not a project Pearl.” Lapis sighs, not even bothering to pay attention to the holo-vision screen.

  “You need help-”

  Lapis glares at her. “Why?”

  “You’ve been like this for-”

  “No, not that! Why do you think I need help!? Why do I look sad to you?”

  “I-It’s because…” Pearl falters, frowning at the question and very well communicating to Lapis that she just doesn’t understand . “I see…” Lapis frowns at her, trying to get her to realize she’s just looking into a mirror.

  “Why do you even bother keeping me around?” Lapis sighs, slumping back down. The question seems to catch Pearl by surprise, because it takes her a while to properly reply.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do.” Pearl dodges. Damn it, she needs to hone in.

  “I mean, why even bother trying to help me? Don’t you have your own life already?”

  Pearl freezes up; checkmate. “If you just want me to leave,” Pearl deflects, “then say so.”

  Lapis is the most wishy-washy gem there exists in all the stars, because for whatever reason she tries to walk it back. “I do like your company Pearl.” She admits, quietly. “You’re just really annoying sometimes.”

  She just wants Pearl to crack. To break down and cry and to show actual, real emotions for once in her life; yes, she had tried pouring her heart out to Lapis back on the cliff’s edge a month earlier, but something about her was still held back. Unauthentic, and not nearly as enjoyable as it could have been.

  “I just wish you would display it more often then.” Pearl says, it comes off as an almost grumble. Pearl is cracking, but she always has somewhere to escape to once the show’s falling apart.

  She can only imagine how disappointed Steven would have been in her had he been here to witness just how much of a jerk she’s being to Pearl right now.

  She wonders how long it would have taken for Steven to tire of her had she chosen to stay back then.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  “She’s the one you should be afraid of.”

  “That’s not true.”

 “You can't lie to me. I've seen what you're capable of. I thought I was a brute, but you... you're a monster.”

   “I…”

  “Lapis doesn’t want anything to do with you!”

  The waves are more gentle from what she remembers back so long ago; according to Pearl, the shipyards across Earth’s orbit and their gravitational pull are responsible for this phenomena. The ringworlds reflect across the surface clear as day, but her own reflection is dimmed; musky, unclear.

  Somewhere out there, Malachite still rests at the bottom of the sea. Calling to her. Waiting.

  For a moment, she’s finally free, left to sink to her own devices.

  Beyond the briny seas, beyond the gentle skies, beneath the waters.

  She missed her.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  “I’m going to take a little walk around the landscape. Do you wish to join me?

   Lapis stares at Pearl with none of the emotional engagement Pearl is so able to produce on demand; whether it’s genuine or not eludes her.

   She briefly contemplates snubbing her invitation by burying her head in the sofa pillows, but acquiesces anyway. If she stayed longer on that couch, she had no doubt her physical form would develop some magical scoliosis, as the humans suffered from frequently a century ago. (According to that medical e-text from Pearl; it was a somewhat interesting read for three days or so.)

  Pearl invites her to walk right beside her and Lapis is stiff and meek. Beach City is a slice of Earth frozen in time, as far she could tell contrasting the current townscape from the handful of excursions Lapis undertook to the small town with Peridot whenever they felt like it.

  “Steven said that part of life here on Earth was change.” Lapis says once they reach the town premises.

  “Garnet taught that to him, to be exact. But yes, everything here changes. That must be obvious, from what you’ve seen of Earth outside Beach City.”

  “What about here?” Lapis gestures to the Big Donut, some food dispensary that held Steven’’s affections for some damn reason, though she couldn’t deny that donuts were easy on taste-buds. “If life here on Earth is change, why preserve all of this? I don’t understand it.”

  Pearl contemplates her question, a slight chuckle escaping her lips. “I suppose that sometimes we work to preserve what’s close to us. And humans can be stubborn, short-sighted; they just can’t see that eventually everything fades in the long run.”

  The image of Homeworld, turned rubble, without light comes to mind.

  “Give some natural disaster, some eventual mistake on maintenance’s part, or just simple time, and eventually everything will crumble.” Pearl sighs, melancholic. “Even this.”

  The image of Steven’s tombstone, the marker on Earth that let all who passed by know; ‘He Lived,’ crumbling to ashes, comes to mind.

  A question that’s bugged Lapis but hasn’t actually motivated her to ask it until now comes to mind.

  “How did Homeworld die?”

  A quick online search on one of the tablets available in the house presented her with the ugly truth of what used to be home; Homeworld’s Star was now a black hole, absorbing everything living nearby and taking the entirety of the system with it.

  “A lot of energy.” Pearl jokes darkly. “That, and a gambit by White Diamond that didn’t go well for anyone involved.”

  “You think the Nursery’s still intact?” Lapis snickers, a first.

  “Most of the planets have already fallen past the Event Horizon. Perhaps a chunk broke off and escaped when White Diamond stopped holding the planet together, but…”

  Pearl glances at Lapis, realizing she missed the joke. So very Pearl. “Oh.”

  Wherever Pearl takes her, it diverges from the main path and up towards some alcove overlooking the town. They don’t stop to admire the scenery or anything sappy like that; thousands of years of life here must have drained any of Pearl’s enthusiasm for the landscape here, as much as Pearl probably drinks that sort of stuff up.

  It doesn’t take Lapis much time to figure out Pearl doesn’t really have anywhere in mind she’s taking her. It’s peaceful really, but Lapis isn’t in the mood to be left to contemplate, given her tendency towards negative spirals.

  “Do you really think this is helping?” Lapis asks suddenly.

  Pearl glances over at her disapprovingly. “Would you rather I didn’t bring you out here?”

  Lapis resists the temptation to say yes. “Right. So I’ll just walk up some other majestic view so I can get all emotional over it and suddenly start spilling your heart out to you.” Lapis scoffs. “Got any better plans?”

  Pearl sighs. “Must you be so paranoid?” Lapis grants her a mocking grin. “If you must know, I was wondering if you were interested in attending a small festival held in Beach City coming up next month.”

  “Who’s planning that?” Lapis groans. “I thought no one lived here.”

  Pearl sets herself down on the grassy plain, inviting Lapis to sit down beside her, to which she surprisingly acquiesces. “Historical/cultural committees mostly. But it’s quite a large festival, since they have federal funding.”

  “Are you interested in this shit Pearl?” Lapis turns the question on her; Pearl avoids her gaze.

  “That blasted television can’t be the only thing you’re interested in.” Pearl avoids. “Shouldn’t you be extending your hand towards other interests?”

  At this, Lapis grows smug. “I could ask the same question to you really. You’ve been cleaning, organizing, and sticking your nose into engineering for the past few thousand years; isn’t it time you tried something new?”

  Pearl’s gaze is for a moment, far away, dazed.

  “Why are you still here?” Lapis asks, without reserve. “On Earth, stuck with me .”

  “I’ve told you already,” Pearl sighs, tired with the same question, “I wanted a break from it all. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t earned my fair share of peace, Garnet had other thoughts on the matter it seems.”

  “Then why not with live with Peridot and Amethyst?” Lapis follows, gesturing to the distant heavens above. “Might not be as quiet, but it’s probably just as peaceful over there, wherever they are.”

  Pearl’s eyes dart over for a quick moment; eyes briefly meet, and Lapis knows all that she needs to know. That Pearl’s stuck here on Earth for the exact same reasons she is.

  “You wouldn’t be able to stand it.” Lapis realizes. “Watching them laugh, and flirt, and be with each other. Stars, you’re just as bad as me.”

  Pearl oddly refrains from blinking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  At this, Lapis rises up to whisper in her ear. “You’re jealous.”

  Poor little Pearl, having drifted so far away from her Homeworld. Only to end up with an empty home, a planet that she could never learn to love. Friends that would never speak to her, and a form that would never escape the limitations imposed onto her. But knowing all of this, she would try her hand at love, only to be left with her child at the end of it all.

  And now even he was gone, in a hole in the ground. Dust, dirt, ashes. However humans liked to uselessly treat their dead.

  “It’s not fair, isn’t it?” Lapis follows. Pearl’s hands ball up into little fists; her form, lithe and pale seems all the more fragile. Breakable. Shatterable. They’ve already been broken once before, after all.

  “Life isn’t fair Lapis.” Pearl growls, just barely keeping her voice in check.

  At this, Lapis stands up. Today’s been fun and all, and she does genuinely hope that Pearl will feel the same catharsis Lapis gets from poking at the cracks in her foundation soon after she leaves.

  “Sounds to me like you have plenty of experience with that.”

  Pearl doesn’t try to call her back.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Pearl doesn’t even bother venturing into the Beach House for an entire day after that.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Make that a week.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

   “Yo, can we talk about Peridot?” Amethyst sits down right beside her without waiting for an invitation; the topic was serious enough for Amethyst to toss niceties out of the window.

  Peridot was currently out on a morp gathering mission, away from the barn, and Lapis was lounging around, slouching as always (funny how some things always stay the same), meaning she didn’t have any legitimate excuse to brush her off. Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try though

  “What about her?” Lapis asks, not even bothering to glance at her.

 Amethyst groans in a way that communicates what Lapis needs to know; she’s sick of her at this point. “Can you just stop being like this for ten minutes? You know what I mean!”

  “Maybe I need a little bit of explanation. I wouldn’t want to assume anything, after all.” Lapis sighs, eyes still shut.

  Even while pretend sleeping, Lapis can feel the daggers Amethyst is glaring at her now. “You like her, I like her, she likes the both of us. Problem is, she needs your confirmation that you like her back before she wants to start anything with anyone.

  “Can’t we both just have her together?” Lapis tries to brush her off.

  Amethyst facepalms, gritting her teeth. “Missing the point here Lappy. That’s what she wants! But she needs to know if you want to be with her, before she starts anything serious with me.”

  Lapis looks at her incredulously. “Why?”

  Amethyst glares at her. “You are seriously thick-headed as fuck dude. You’re important to her! More than I am.” She admits, hurt. “For whatever fucking reason.” Shapeshifting a lighter from her fingers, Amethyst looks around before breaking out some sort of hand-shaped box filled with thin cylinders, holding some foreign material of some kind. Placing two between her lips, she sighs in relief as she uses the lighter to ignite said cylinders, the material burning to give off some deep, musky, yet choking odor.

  “Why doesn’t she tell me herself?” Lapis mumbles under her breath.

  “Dude, she’s literally the only one doing all the lifting in your relationship. She just wants to know if you’re as committed as she is.” Amethyst sighs, blowing smoke out of her nose. “That, and she said she wants to make you comfortable.”

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Somewhere out there, beyond the stars, Peridot was with Amethyst.

  Together.

  Without her.

  Amethyst could actually make her happy. Smile. Laugh. Relationships are supposed to be two sided conversations.

  Something Lapis could never return.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  A week passes by, and Lapis notices something enticing; an old electronic communication device left behind in the house.

  A ‘phone,’ Steven used to call it. Now the humans all used ‘tablets,’ if what she’s learned from watching endless hours holo-vision is something to go by. ‘Antiquated,’ is the word that comes to mind just from it’s make, at least when compared to new trends in design today in contrast to… back then.

  Nevertheless, the make has aged remarkably well; not even showing a single day of age. There must be a simple explanation, and it’s one she can easily see Pearl’s character cooperating with; it’s Pearl’s phone. Captivity in Pearl’s gem has treated it well; it’s make is completely intact and sterile, devoid of disgusting particles, as the humans liked to spread onto their technological devices.

  And to Lapis’s surprise, when she fiddles with the finicky device, it works.

  More of a surprise to Lapis is the phone’s backdrop; some antiquated picture of Pearl. And a human girl, with her arm around her, Pearl flushing teal, as a result.

  Pearl seemed happy.

   “It’s hard to not see why,” she reminds herself. Long, flowing pink hair, a large build, and the works; this human obviously didn’t know she was walking into what virtually might have been a ‘Needs Work’ sign.

  Pearl didn’t give her phone a password; under different circumstances it wouldn’t have mattered, Pearl being the most boring gem this side of the solar system.

  But now, now she’s curious.

  Pearl hasn’t used her phone in centuries; the millions of notifications left on her phone’s home screen serving as a testament to it’s inactivity. Nevertheless, she has some experience handling devices like these (thanks Peridot) and locates the pictures app quite quickly.

  To her irritation, the phone takes eons to load anything, and she keeps getting some damn notification indicating the device wouldn’t find ‘wi-fi,’ whatever that was. She groans, having no option to wait patiently until the pictures pop up and hope that Pearl wouldn’t walk in on her soon and-

  “Whoa.”

  Lapis blushes. Hard.

  The phone is dropped, clattering to the floor in Lapis’s shuck.

  Uh-

  Um-

  Uh-

  Well.

  Uh.

  She didn’t need to see that.

  Composure regained, she decides to scour through her messages app, making sure to close the pictures app effective immediately. She’s half-way into locating the text box logo when the eternal hinge of the screen door announces Pearl’s return from wherever she was, granting Pearl front row seats to Lapis’s complete and totally consensual violation of her privacy.

  Pearl flusters, panicking.

  “What are you doing with that?” Pearl puffs. “G-give it back, now.”

  Lapis, ever tactful, decides to ignore the fact that this is wrong (but when has that ever stopped her,) and instead ask questions. “Who is it?”

  Pearl furrows at her. “No one of your concern.”

  “You two don’t seem concerned about anything in this picture.” Lapis spits back, showing her the incriminating wallpaper.

   ‘Incriminating of what exactly?’ She wonders. ‘Actually having the strength to try and move on?’

  “Hand. It. Over.” Pearl orders, and her sudden show of force makes Lapis just want to go on further.

  “Tell me who it is first.” Lapis teases.

  “By the stars Lapis, no one important!”

  Lapis huffs. “If it’s no one important, then I suppose you won’t mind if I keep this as a memento. Of the time I managed to royally piss the terrifying renegade Pearl off.”

  At this, Pearl nearly snaps, like on of her tea kettles, ready to pop. She must be used to being brought to the breaking point, Lapis figures, when Pearl pinches her beak-like nose and seethes calmly for several tense moments.

  Disappointing.

  “An old friend.” Pearl gets out.

  “More than a friend?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Didn’t end well?”

  “It’s,” Pearl huffs, “none of your business. If you wish to be treated like a petulant child, then so be it.”

  “I’m not Steven.” Lapis glares at Pearl.

  “I think that would be obvious.” Pearl tries to avoid her gaze. “Steven was more mature.”

  It’s a low blow from Pearl, and Lapis couldn’t be happier. “No, it wouldn’t be obvious. You think I didn’t see what was inside that head of yours Pearl?”

  “I had figured.” Pearl grumbles under her breath.

  “You definitely don’t show it.” By the stars, she’s asking for it now.

  “Why do you insist on being this way?” Pearl finally returns Lapis’s glare.

  She’s finally taken the bait. “Because I’m a terrible fucking person, and it’s fun watching you squirm. Is this literally all there is to you?” Lapis gestures to the house around her. “Cleaning and organizing and always going around like you misplaced a sword up your ass?”

  Pearl’s eyes water. “You wouldn’t understand anything about-”

  Lapis bitterly laughs at their role reversal. “I’d think I know a little bit about you Pearl. Those centuries I spent stuck inside your stupid gem, I had front row seats to probably the saddest gem in this sector of the galaxy. I knew when Rose had found someone else way more appealing than you could ever be, because your creepy little surface Pearl would always cry over it.”

  Pearl balls her hands up into tiny little fists.

  “Maybe you aren’t stuck here on Earth because you want to be away from them.” Lapis continues. “Maybe you’re stuck here because they don’t want you with them.”

  She wonders if Pearl knows how cathartic it is for Lapis to drill into her cracks, she can’t stop it, she can’t help herself. She hasn’t talked to anyone in decades (centuries, on Pearl’s end,) and she can’t help but take all of Pearl’s goodwill and grind it into dust.

  Stars, it just feels so good.

  “Steven hated you when he was older, didn’t he?”

  She knows she’s staring into a mirror; that’s why it feels the way it does.

  “Stop it.” Pearl growls through barely clenched teeth.

  Lapis sighs, before handing over the photo. “I don’t get you. Why does this even matter to you anyways? Everything to you is just a replacement for Rose, isn’t it? The house, the temple; it’s the only reason I can come up for you doing this that doesn’t involve you being some version of a hollowed-out defective maintenance drone.”

  Pearl’s form shakes, fragile and lithe, as if she’s just struggling to keep hold of her physical form, much less her propensities. None of this must be new to her, Lapis figures, otherwise it all might have come as some sort of epiphany to Pearl. But instead, Lapis is just reciting everything Pearl already knows about herself; she might as well have told her that she fucking failed.

  Lapis’s form also shakes; part of her tries desperately to dial it all back and tells her she’s gone too far. But Lapis already knows she’s going too far; that’s the entire reason she’s talking to Pearl in the first place!

  The correct answer would have been not going any-fucking-where in the first place.

  The couch tears under Pearl’s attempt to keep herself in check by gripping the fabric. For a second, it’s as if Pearl will finally snap, but instead a breathless cough escapes from her lips.

  “Look,” Lapis tries again, “I-”

  “Go away.”

  Her voice is shaky and tired as she says this, but Lapis hears the words clear as the moon.

  “Go away Lapis.” Pearl manages as she stands, done with this conversation. Turning her feet, she storms out the temple door, slamming it with enough force that it feels like a (well deserved, mind you) slap to the face for Lapis.

  Pearl’s adherence to routines and order usually pisses her off; now that it’s all gone, Lapis doesn’t know what to do.

  She couldn’t even talk to Pearl, who had the social aptitude of a lifeless rock, without consistently ruining every step of progress they had made together.

  She was… She was...

  Damn it, why was she crying!? Wasn’t this what she wanted!? She… she didn’t care about Pearl! If… if she had already fucked up her relationship with the first being to talk to her in centuries then…

  Then…

  “Argh!” She screams, without an audience to laugh at her, at the very least. What frustrates her eludes her yet feels so obvious; Lapis is frustrated by Pearl being frustrated by Lapis’s being frustrated with Pearl!

  None of it makes sense, especially Pearl! It was her fault she was so stars-forsakenly frustrating, then Lapis wouldn’t be tempted to be like this.

  don’t you dare lie

  What infuriates her most of all, is that eventually, Pearl would waltz back on in, pretending nothing would ever happen. She definitely won’t stand for that; she’d leave before Pearl officially kicks her out, but stars if she’ll just let Pearl keep letting Lapis do this to her…

  She…

  She…

  She needs to go.

  Right now.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  Hastily scribbled and taped onto the food hydrator, was a note written in some archaic language she had not had the pleasure of addressing for quite some time now.

Pearl,

goodbye

-Lapis

Chapter Text

Pearl

  Pearl isn’t very good at taking her own advice.

  She’d briefly considered running after Lapis (like a mother bird, Amethyst and Steven would have teased,) but her own sanity convinces her otherwise. It seemed Lapis was convinced outright to arrogate Pearl’s nerves with each passing word the two exchanged with each other, and by this point in her existence, Lapis had established a penchant for self-exile.

   ‘No need to interfere with that,’ she wants to tell herself.

  That, and the note possessed no hint as to where Lapis was fleeing towards, and given the two days Pearl had taken to herself after that infuriating provocation on Lapis’s part, and she could be anywhere by now.

  Nothing to do now but retreat into her room. As she’s been doing for these past century since the Crystal Gems faded into history. Same as it’s been all these years, like her. Her room is timeless flow, endless cascade, a seemingly eternal peace, in an elegant harmony, allowing her a privacy where she can sulk as she pleases, whilst noone else could take notice and laugh at her own misery.

  There’d been only one person in her life that had the gall to outright tell her flat that she was miserable.

  And she’d just driven her away, off into space.

  With a resigned sigh, uncharacteristic of her older part, (the affair with Lapis bringing up more uncomfortable memories than she’d like to have brought up,) Pearl gently rests a frail cheek against the surface of the water, and falls asleep for thirty-seven hours.

  She never thought she’d adopt sleeping as another of one of her many habituations sticking to her from Earth. But it helped pass time once everything that could be dusted had been dusted. A respite from herself, if she would call it that.

  And as much she doesn’t want to admit it, the privacy of her chambers lets her think the forbidden thought.

  That she quite honestly doesn’t want to care much for humanity, despite being one of it’s anointed ‘saviors.’ Apathy wasn’t the right term to describe this inscrutable despair she felt when contemplating her time on Earth with the humans. Nor hatred, nor love, nor acceptance.

  More like a perfect fusion between disdain, concern, and curiosity. That as much she didn’t want to care for it,

  It was all she had left.

  A nostalgia for an unrealistically idyllic ‘before’ washes over her, when she had something else to care about and preoccupy her mind. Before the resumption of the Gem War, before everything, now she doesn’t want to care much for the humans’ fleeting, insignificant lives, no matter the heights they’d reach.

  Her star burnt out on the second intergalactic war she’d joined; no need to join up with a third.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  BREAKING NEWS: LAPIS LAZULI GEM INFILTRATES THE ATMOSPHERIC BARRIER, QUICKLY DETAINED. ESPIONAGE SUSPECTED.

  She couldn’t help but laugh at the headline, reverting back to her seemingly unconditional concern for her well-being seconds later. What it stemmed from, was to be a question she would have to ask herself, after the matter was addressed.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  All unlicensed travel in the atmosphere was effectively grounded in force by the United Nations Joint Resolution AB-153, an ordinance that was to be imposed on all unmandated air travel effective immediately through force . In Lapis’s case, doubly so considering she was a gem.

  Paranoia against all of gemkind had been struck up out of nowhere since the Epsilon Eridani warpath had been declared by the Remnant forty-three or so years prior; internal security was now a top concern in the affairs of human liberal democratic politics.

  Knowing all of this beforehand doesn’t prepare her for Lapis’s body, unconscious, restrained by a motley of electrical wiring, IVs pumping in cocktail after cocktail of chemicals which her physical form would have no choice but to convert into usable form, inducing unconsciousness for the duration of her incapacitation.

  Adaptor: Two million volts. Cell watch: Four THETA VI-Class guard drones, each functionality set to Shatter if the prisoner in question would show any hostility.

  It was a miracle really, Lapis already hadn’t been poofed beforehand before Pearl’s arrival.

  The setup aroused some pretty obvious implications as to the intention of humanity towards gemkind. Though it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known beforehand the treatment Lapis would have been subjected to, the conditions of captive gems imprisoned on charges of insurrection having been exposed by whistleblowers somewhere around 2279, by a team of insurrectionist gems whom Pearl never heard of in the news again shortly after their arrest.

  It was surreal, watching Lapis’s attempt to escape the orbit of the earth rendered grounded by the swarm of wasp-drones surging her form mid-air, rendering her powers nil. Plastering her body in a thick solution aimed at the ‘humane’ capture of conscious beings. Namely gems like her.

  Surreal, when Pearl’s back on the Alpha-25 Luna Installation more than a century after her leave. When Pearl has to explain to everyone who she is, what she’s here for, who their freshly captured Lapis Lazuli is, confirming that no, she isn’t a spy from The Remnant, and that she doesn’t need testing. Yes, her identification is legitimate. Yes, she is the Terrifying, Renegade Pearl from millenia prior. No, she won’t be giving out autographs today.

  She’s not sure why she’s going out of her length to save a gem who’d spent the entirety of their time together being, well, infuriating, obfuscating, provocating towards her, but not many of Pearl’s decisions have ever held up well  in self-reflection really.

  Wondering whether or not she’s a fool when she’s signing the forms for Lapis’s release, she’s already known that answer for so long really.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  Lapis comes to sometime after the shuttle touches down in Atlantic, Jersey, sometime after the near permanent grey drizzle afflicting the state touches her lips. Stirs in Pearl’s arms; her caretakers just left Pearl to carry the damned ocean gem by herself, without assistance, or any tools of the sort.

  Part of Pearl contemplated just flat-out poofing her and storing her gem inside her gem. Her sincerity in contemplating this option is followed by her just realizing how broad she could be.

  “You... you came back for me.” Lapis mumbles, just as they’re crossing the revitalized Neon Valley Street. Still lively with consumerism, flashy schemes of advertisement either marked with excessive neon or live performances. Her pace is slow, and she keeps walking with Lapis in her arms even with everyone staring at the unlikely duo.

  “I suppose I couldn’t stay mad at you.” Pearl admits in a whisper. They’re talking so quietly now; their whispers are as clear as day in the midst of urban life.

  “I can.” Lapis pouts, nuzzling against Pearl’s frock. She couldn’t deny that it came off as a bit endearing, seeing Lapis in such a passive state. That didn’t involve stagnancy. “I’ve been mean recently.”

  Pearl resists the urge to quip a retort. “Admitting it is the first step.”

  “I can’t stay stuck at the first step forever Pearl.” Lapis yawns, nearly knuckling Pearl by raising her hands; she really should find a bench now, but recent urban initiatives abolished the contraptions in an effort to ‘end vagrancy, and encourage fitness’. “I think...humans have a word for that; they call it the cycle of abuse.”

  How long has she been stuck where Lapis was?

  “So you did read that E-text I gave you.” Pearl quietly smiles, Lapis taking notice.

  “Not like there was much else to do.” Lapis croaks, vision dilating in and out. “Seriously though, you don’t have anything better to read back there?”

  “So you’re presuming I’d allow you back at the temple.” Pearl quips, a false threat. Lapis mumbles something unintelligible under her breath, deciding to pick her next words carefully, so as to not start another fight between them.

  Lapis’s grip on Pearl tightens, she’d like to pretend that Lapis was finally having an epiphany of some sorts to make her easier to deal with. Not that the anesthesia was still on her. “When I was in the mirror. I couldn’t say anything, but I saw almost everything.”

  Pearl’s grip on Lapis wavers, before tightening back up.

  “Everything about you; I saw the war, your creepy little surface self, everything. And Rose.”

  Pearl fails to notice her useless breathing mechanism has ceased.

  “You crying over her whenever she found someone else to play with, I’d know because your surface pearl would just start crying, and the catalog became a mess of things.”

  Lapis’s weary smile fades. “Sometimes, it was funny. It felt sort of like revenge, for you keeping me in there all those years.”

  On the neon valley street they found themselves an odd sight on, the once terrifying renegade Pearl had found herself carrying the Lapis Lazuli who had once stolen the Earth’s ocean. The life of the city still vibrant, though it’s sounds having faded into a periphery, the light morning drizzle obscured alongside it. The daily fog of Atlantic City, though thick and obscuring, could not change the fact that Pearl still had Lapis in her arms. And that they were okay.

  Their breaths were so close, outlined by the cold winter fog. Pearl hadn’t taken notice of her own breathing until she took note of Lapis’s.

  “But eventually,” Lapis continues, shaking Pearl from her romantic stupor (something that S. had teased her about so often,) it got tiring. Watching you cry over and over again over Rose got so boring, but I couldn’t stop watching. Well, it’s not like I had a choice physically, but something else changed inside of me.”

  Pearl nods, her gaze still failing to meet Lapis’s; they were better without eye contact, she figured.

  “In watching me fall?”

  “One way or the other. I guess I eventually realized something about myself once I was out of that mirror.”

  It takes Pearl time for her to realize that Lapis is waiting for her to ask.

  “What?”

  Lapis waits until Pearl’s eyes meet hers. “I felt sorry for you.”

  Five words she would have never let past her from anybody else, but from Lapis just ends up irritating and confusing her relationship with the ocean gem even more. Pearl’s a fool really; she’d detested to hear those words coming from anyone all her entire life, yet coming from Lapis, makes her just want to just drop her and join the ground alongside her.

  “Then you’d be right then?” Pearl whispers instead. “In that looking at me was a reflection of yourself?”

  “What’d make you think that?” Lapis yawns. “I’d think I’m looking great so far, given that i’ve been drugged up and tazed and you dragging me out into the acid rain. You’ve looked like shit for the past thousand years.”

  At this Pearl laughs. Laughs at herself, laughs at Lapis, how sorry they must both look right now, soaked under the rain and worn by time. Lapis shivers, her physical form still unable to self-regulate her temperature. Pearl takes an umbrella out from her gem; Lapis wills the water off of their forms to dry them.

  At the very least, they complemented each other.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

   Sometimes, when she looks up at Rose, she can see it.

 That look in her eyes that reminds her of who she was, and who she was meant to be.

  “This is,” Steven looks back at her as if remembering something, “was, my mom’s pearl. Well, before Pearl, I mean our Pearl, I mean our Pearl before mom’s Pearl who was also mom’s Pearl but ours came after the other-”

  Unlike the remainder of her secrets that were unearthed post-mortem one by one, each with varying distress to Pearl’s mental health, she’d learned of this one secret from the other pearls themselves, whenever they’d have time to each other.

  “Good luck.” Blue Pearl had whispered over to her before meeting Pink Diamond for the first time.

  Destiny. Fate. Love. War. Glory. Reinvention.

   Sometimes, when she looks up at her, she can see it.

  Successor. Next-in-line. Stand-in. Ersatz. Imitation. Replacement.

  ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’

  Sometimes, when she looks back at him, she can see it.

  That unconditional love that never was enough for everyone around. That always ever-present curiosity, affection for the world and everything around him.

  Sometimes, when she’s alone, she wishes she could go back. Go back to when he hadn’t held the weight of the world on his shoulders. Before Homeworld. Before his first weapon. After Rose. Go back to when it felt as if she could have him all to herself.

  Ah, she was losing him, just like she’d lost her.

  She couldn’t think that.

  It was wrong.

  She keeps telling herself. She’d gotten over it now hadn’t she?

  Get over it. Put it away. Bury it if she had to, did she really need another one of what those humans call ‘Character Arcs?’

  She can’t.

  Not when the little daggers inside her heart watching Steven grow close to Pink Pearl cut deeper and deeper into her flesh.

  Not while her own relationship with S. crashes and burns.

  Not again.

  “My Pearl…”

  “You’re wonderful…”

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  One day, she manifests the actual will to follow Pearl out to one of her little excursions. She thanks the stars Pearl doesn’t venture out much further than the distant shore. Pearl lets her follow without mentioning a word; a mutual understanding built upon a shared awkwardness they knew they both possessed.

  Underneath the midnight sky, upon a beach cast by the briny sea, two blades are manifested from her gem. A hologram is cast out; Pearl maneuvers perfectly around it before closing in onto the brutal kill. Two signs of the same coin; elegance, and war.

  And again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Eventually it becomes repetitive.

  “How long are you going to keep this up?” Lapis eventually asks, tired of attempting to count the number of rocks on the jagged coastline.

  “Not long enough.” Pearl answers quickly, as if having expected the question to be fired off eventually. A near empty gaze; her movements have turned tired and predictable, whilst simultaneously tactically sound. A combination that well suited Pearl, if anyone else.

  Lapis sighs, audibly. Pearl relaxes her gaze, looking at Lapis longingly.

  She doesn’t like this focus on her, so she shapes a wisp of saltwater and splashes Pearl in the face with it.

  It’s not her most creative work, but the indignant look on Pearl’s face is well worth it; enough to send Lapis into a cackle.

  Pearl indignantly groans, willing the saltwater off her visage before turning her back on her. “If you really are that bored of the single-module, I can move onto multiple enemies at once-”

  “The war’s over Pearl.” Lapis states bluntly, as if revealing some all-important revelation. “But you’re still stuck here like White Diamond’s going to just jump out from the ocean any minute now.”

  “And?” Pearl objects. “What would you instead have me do?” Pearl asks, mocking.

  Too easy. “Anything but this.” Lapis sighs. “You have any other hobbies? Other than,” Lapis pauses, “nerd junk?”

  Another longing look from Pearl, this time more distant, looking past Lapis even. Tempts Lapis into splashing her with water again. “Amethyst really wore off on you, didn’t she?”

  Lapis doesn’t say anything, too embarrassed to answer yes.

  Also not knowing what to do with the knowledge that Pearl quite literally had an entire repressed compartment of her own ego which repressed her… ‘choice emotions,’ towards Amethyst.

  Yeah, best not to get into that mess.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Pommery Cuvée Louise Brut Millesime, 2194.

  “So you do drink!” Lapis is quick to tease Pearl, dusting off a now ancient bottle of Champagne. Found in an entire cabinet of assorted drinks and mixes, hidden from view, and for whatever reason, clearly having fone undusted.  Her impetus to assist Pearl in the chocolate mousse cake she’d announced she’d be making for Lapis had quickly sputtered out into a one-off burst of energy she was now using to explore what’d changed about the kitchen since she’d last seen it.

  Pearl turns an eye over to her from her mix, giving off a look of stiffness. She does her best to return to the task at hand, though her movements stiffen. “Not necessarily.” She’s uncomfortable. “Most of that wines in that collection are from long before you came back.”

  “Sounds like you all had some wild times here without me.” Lapis muses, without skipping a beat.

  Pearl shifts in discomfort, nearly misplacing an egg.

  “I would just like to clarify the myth I driiiiiiii-” she nearly fumbles the sugar when Lapis pops off the cork and immediately begins drinking direct from the source. A tired sigh escapes Pearl’s ever-so impenetrable facade. “Lapis, at least get a glass.”

 “Hmm?” Lapis brushes the sour drink from her lips. “Thought you weren’t drinking with me.”

  Pearl rolls her eyes, before directing them back at the bottle at hand, as if remembering something. She then sighs, dejectedly, mumbling something unintelligible from where Lapis’s is sitting before returning to her overbeaten cake mix.

  “What was that Pearl? Didn’t hear you.”

  Pearl doesn’t even look up at her. “It’s, nothing , Lapis.”

  “Who’d even get wine anyways in this place? Garnet seems more like a cocktail type of gem, Amethyst probably doesn’t have the patience for wine. Peridot would probably love sweet drinks as well, but who’d be sappy enough to blow…” She inspects the pricing, “seven-hundred and fifty dollars on a bottle of wine? Did Connie-”

  The glass bowl is slammed down with a sharp crack. “Lapis, it was me.” Pearl snaps.“I bought the damned bottle of wine, are you satisfied?”

  Ah. Oh.

  Pearl moves to leave, faster than Lapis can realize how royally she’s screwed up now.

  Shit.

  “Pearl!”

  Lapis is just fast enough to fly over before Pearl can make her way out the door.

  “Pearl, look, I’m sorry, for whatever that bottle of wine was, and for drinking half of it even though you were yelling at me, and,” she groans when Pearl doesn’t respond back, “Ugh! Just, talk to me damn it! What did I do wrong this time!?”

  “Lapis.” Pearl breathes, clearly struggling to not snap back at her like she did before, as she’s about to slam the door shut right in Lapis’s face, “I’m not mad.’

  “Yes, you are Pearl.”

  “No, I’m not. What reason would I have to be mad at you?”

  “Well,” Lapis grabs her own hair in frustration,“that’s what I’m wondering! Maybe… maybe, you’re not the only one mad at yourself, you know!”

  Lapis shuts her eyes closed, as if pretending the mess she’s just made wasn’t actually real could make this entire disaster she’s concocted just go away.

  Instead, she holds her breath for a door slammed shut that never comes. When she opens her eyes, she’s instead greeted with the familiar sight of a sulking Pearl, stuck on the steps just off of the patio stairs.

  Tepidly, Lapis joins her, sitting down on the steps right next to her.

  “Mad at myself.” Pearl murmurs to herself. “I suppose that’s a new low, even for me.”

  A deep silence settles in between them. Pearl seems concentrated, angry, furious at something, and for some reason, Lapis can tell it isn’t her for once. And for some reason, she questions if it was ever her. The waves crash violently on the distant shore; her supposed element ever so calming.

  “I’ve been ridiculous.” Pearl mutters darkly, creases forming under her worn, giant blue eyes.

  “No, you’re not. I’m being an ass-”

  “Yes, you are.” Pearl sighs, to which Lapis flusters, flushes, and balls her hands up at. “But you’re also right. I suppose I’m also mad at myself as well.”

  A teal luster overtakes Pearl’s pale complexion. Lapis fights the the urge to just break with these complicated emotions around her and just flee, but she’s even grown tired of herself at this point. Just for once, she’d like to surprise herself.

  “The bottle.” Pearl nearly whispers. “I bought it for Amethyst.”

  It takes Lapis a second to make a guess why a bottle of whine for Amethyst would rile Pearl up so much. “You two were…”

  “Yes.”

  And from how Pearl blew up, says it all as to how it all crashed and burned.

  Just like everything else in Pearl’s life.

  “Are you happy, Lapis?”

  “No.” Lapis rings hollow. “You’re mad at me.”

  Pearl scoffs, before darkly smiling. “Oh, I can’t stay mad at you.”

  “But you can stay mad at yourself.” Lapis mutters. “Trust me, I have a lot of experience with that.”

  A temporary frown turns into a laugh on Pearl’s part, and Lapis is glad for those few times she can actually make Pearl laugh, even if it’s at their own self-inflicted saudade.

  “I make you feel terrible.” Lapis states, bluntly while gazing into the creamy orange-colored sky.

  Pearl sighs. “A lot of things make me feel terrible nowadays.” To which Lapis snorts. “Everything’s gone. Rose, the Crystal Gems, Steven, Connie. It’s all supposed to be stuck in the past, but I’m still here. Stuck on Earth. Where does that leave me?”

  For once, Lapis’s gives an answer that feels truly honest. “Stuck here on Earth with me.”

  It takes a few seconds, but Pearl’s laugh when her answer finally connects is truly crystalline, ringing out, both to the sea out beyond, and towards the city gone. For once since Lapis’s returned, even if it’s just for the briefest of moments, Beach City sounds like it’s normal self, back three centuries ago.

  When the laughter falters, Lapis realizes that they’re stupidly staring into each other. Pearl staring at her full of trust with as warm a smile as she can manage, with her huge, stupid blue eyes...

  For some reason, she can’t stand it when Pearl looks at her this way, sharply jerking her eyes away before flushing blue.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  A month or so later, and the Beach City History Festival approaches. As grateful she is that she hasn’t been approached for a speaking position by the festival committee, that she hasn’t been invited as a “historical consultant” for the past few decades or so is highly suspect, considering humanity was so prone to forgetfulness between generations.

  That she’s hoping to take Lapis along with her on the day of the festival drives her into witnessing the festival preparation. Structures and rides for the town carnival are airlifted into the town on demand, and for just a few weeks each year, Beach City sounds alive, if not like it’s former self.

  Historical re-enactors try their best to recreate the conditions of the town centuries ago in vain. Near perfect replications of the culinary diversity of the town before, scrutinized down to the source of the ingredients. Hiring professional cosplayers to completely reenact the life stories of each resident whom had the honor of living here years ago. The effort was certainly commendable, if not unsettlingly obsessive.

  Her tour of the town before the day of the festival goes by quickly and unnoticed; she hadn’t had the heart to deal with dozens of organizers demanding that she be on a panel to answer questions for several accursedly long human hours straight. An impulse speeds up her trip on the way back home, fueled by the realization that he hadn’t seen Lapis at all in the temple whilst leaving.

  An irrational fear that Lapis had left her (really, where would she go?) disways itself once she locates Lapis gazing upon the moon at the cliff’s edge. On a whim, she joins her up the worn path.

  Lapis pretends not to notice her on the approach. When she lays down on the grass right beside her, she doesn’t bother taking notice of how long it takes for Lapis to break the awkward silence between them.

  “Question.” Lapis bats out, without even looking over to her.

  “Answer.”

  “You don’t have to answer this Pearl, if you don’t want to.”

  “ Now , I’m curious.” Pearl teases, to which Lapis snickers.

  “Who was the girl you were sending nudes to?” Lapis asks.

  Pearl nearly chokes on the air she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  “M-must you be so crude?” Pearl glares at her, recomposing herself.

  “Told you.”

  Pearl groans.

  “You, don’t have to share this with me if you don’t want to.” Lapis suddenly blurts out, before re-establishing the distance between them.

  Pearl gives her a look of disdain, before sighing. As much as she doesn’t want to share S. with her, Lapis of all gems, something about her makes her feel safe in choosing her as a confidant, as insane her rationale might be.

  Everyone had long known that their relationship had crashed and burned, but at the end of the millenia, the only gem who’d asked her what had happened, was the last gem she’d wanted to share it with.

  And for some reason, she feels okay with that. No sense of condescending superiority like Garnet had, no sense of mocking repetition that Amethyst gave her.

  Lapis was just as low and as pathetic as she was, and it made her feel…

  Perfect.

  “Three centuries ago,” Pearl shakily begins, “while you were still here, I met a human girl, who astonished me with her beauty. With help from Steven and Amethyst, I got the courage to talk to her, and we entered a courting relationship. It came as such a shock to me, that I couldn’t find the courage to talk to her for several more months, but when I did, I thought I had fallen in love, all over again.”

  Pearl opens her mouth as if to say something, but the moment escapes her; she's only had herself to hold up the world these past few decades, so she couldn’t ask the same question she should have asked herself so long ago.

  But Lapis can ask for her.

  “Why did she leave?”

  Hundreds of different answers, excuses, lies bubble up in her throat like tea leaves choking a drain; none of them rise to the occasion.

  What was she supposed to say?

  That she’d failed, and there was really no simpler way to put it?

  “I don’t know Lapis. I don’t know.”

  Then, Lapis does something she hadn’t been expecting.

  Two arms wrap around Pearl, encompassing her in the warmth of a hug. As pitiful as they must be, she can’t deny it. They’re warm together, however cold they must be on their own.

  “I thought you would cry.” Lapis whispers.

  At this, Pearl scoffs.

  “I thought I’d be over it by now.”

  “Do you hate her?”

  Pearl goes quieter than usual. “For leaving me? Love isn’t conditional like that Lapis. No one’s obligated to love one another, nor do we have right to make people obligated to love us.”

  “It’s not a question of whether it’s right or wrong Pearl. I’m just asking if you hate her.”

  “That’s ridiculous. What reason would I have to hate her?”

  “You’re a pearl. You have every right to hate every star in this Diamonds-forsaken universe from end to end.”

  “Garnet said it wasn’t healthy to be that way.”

  “I’d think it’s more unhealthy to keep everything bottled up the way you do.”

  She could repeat what Garnet and Steven’s taught her about life and love but she’s been regurgitating these repetitive mantras for decades on end. That she’s still stuck at square one even after all that time and that distant shore Garnet and Steven had so desperately wanted her to reach was a myth she’d never believed in.

  “Like you?”

  Or maybe she did believe during a time of ideals, only to have her dreams all come crashing down on her at the end of it all.

  “Why did you come back for me?” Lapis suddenly changes the subject, discomfort showing on her features. Pearl is happy to oblige with the sudden paradigm shift, certain that she’ll be back in her room by the end of it all, wondering why in the stars she decided to share so much… intimate information about herself with Lapis, of all gems.

  Pearl expects the answer to be as longwinded and disappointing as her love life, but finds the answer coming quickly to her lips. “I felt sorry for you.”

  Lapis scoffs. “Is that all we’re good at?”

  “Apparently.” Pearl sighs.

  “I’ve been trying to figure things out. Be more open. Try not to be a dick to you.” Lapis mumbles, Pearl recoiling at the vulgar language. “I guess that’s the same reason why I’m still here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You. When I was stuck inside your gem, every time you cried. Everytime you broke down because of Rose. I hated you, I wanted you to be shattered. Every time you cried, I wished I could reform just so I could laugh at you, yell at you, scream at you for keeping me inside you all those years.”

  “And then… I realized it. I felt sorry for you.”

  Another blasted uncomfortable silence between them that over time, that over time, dissipates into a mutual discomfort. They were so close to understanding each other, so far, Pearl realizes. Eventually notices that Lapis has been staring into Pearl’s eyes for far longer than comfort dictates, and teases her by tilting her head questioningly.

  To Pearl’s delight, Lapis flusters and flushes blue, quick to re-establish the distance between them once more. Looking away to the now very interesting distant stars, the endless void staring back at them. For a brief moment, they felt an undeniable peace with it all.

  “Is this all we can do together?” Lapis tries joking, but ends up hanging their mutual staleness over the both of them. “Stargazing?”

  At this, Pearl smiles, though melancholic. “I’m a boring person. Like you said. Same hobbies. cooking, cleaning, the same interests over thousands of years. Uninteresting.”

   No wonder why Rose and S. had left her.

  Lapis shifts her head in Pearl’s lap, the neon gaze of the distant city in the foggy mist far too bright for her liking.

  “Well, I’m a boring gem too.” Lapis reassures her, sighing. “Is that why you won’t let me go? So we can be boring together?”

  At this, Pearl smiles. “That sounds lovely, if you’d let it be that way.”

oOoOoOo

Lapis

  Pearl’s tears manifest in her dreams; the stubborn gem having grown more adept at hiding her emotional state with centuries of practice.

  To Lapis’s surprise, Pearl’s the one who falls asleep first; maybe she’s exerted herself trying to hide a century’s worth of tears. But she can’t deny that the pale gem looks so serene while she doesn’t have to deal with the constant bullshit thrown at her on a daily basis.

  That Pearl’s actively adopted sleeping as a regular part of a routine comes as a surprise. That Pearl’s demandingly affectionate in her slumber is another matter entirely, and that Pearl’s gem projects her unconsciousness into reality comes as one she should likely inform Pearl about one day, if only to see the look on Pearl’s face.

  Wandering hands grab onto Lapis’s right arm; her eyes are firmly encapsulated on the vision before her.

  “I need help Garnet.”

  “I know what you’re going to say Pearl.”

   Pearl flusters, and hugs herself uselessly; it’s a question she doesn’t really want to ask, to which she already knows the answer to. A question that comes from a place of desperation, desperate enough to make her say it anyways, despite knowing the answer beforehand.   

  “I, I know, we’ve discussed this before,”

  “So you’re aware of what I’m about to say as well.”

  At this, Pearl shrinks under Garnet’s gaze; funny, how even through a projection Garnet had that ability to make you want to knock the visor off her face, despite knowing how right she was.

  “You’re,” a nervous gulp of useless air, “such,” another stutter, “a perfect relationship,”

  “Not true Pearl.”

  “-and, I just need advice,”

   “I can’t give you that love. Not me, not Amethyst, not Peridot. You have to find it for yourself Pearl.”

  A single tear escapes Pearl’s eyes while Lapis watches her form. Slender fingers claim the teardrop as her own, and she lies down her head gently, so not to wake her, on Pearl’s lap. Letting herself be lulled to a thick sleep.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

  When she stumbles out of her slumber, an incredible urgency grips Pearl’s faculties, her hand reaching into her gem and pulling out her once misplaced phone.

  Lapis’s arms are still wrapped around her form. Phone in one hand, the other’s fingers found stuck tangled in Lapis’s mop of blue hair.

  The mess and tangle of limbs would be embarrassing, but there’s nothing to indulge her embarrassment at the situation at the moment, and Lapis is surprisingly… warm.

  In spite of everything that they’ve said together, lo, likely because of everything they’ve said together, Pearl opts to rest the phone down on a nearby tuft of grass and opts to scoot further into the embrace, preserving the heat between the two. Telling herself that this is just a matter of preserving warmth between them, and most definitely nothing more.

  She kids herself.

  The warmth between them comforts her from the embarrassment of everything she’s laid bare; once she begins recollecting more and more of the confessions of the past few weeks or so, she wishes that the warmth could swallow her whole.

  Lapis stirs, and Pearl realizes she’s been unconsciously playing with her hair, messy and unkempt as it is. A groan, and an unceremonial flopping over her side later, and Lapis has successfully untangled herself from Pearl’s embrace, whilst impressively remaining asleep all the while.

 It’s much too cold to brave the weather out on her own, and she doesn’t feel like turning off the temperature receptors she’s grown so used to over a generation or two.

  Sighing, she remembers the impulse she woke up for, and finds both her phone, and the cliff’s edge. Resolving to resign her phone to the ocean below. With a steady arm, her old phone is cast out to sea, and she makes no attempt at retrieval. Dragged out to the deep by the retreating tide, it sinks to the bottom of the seafloor, never to be seen again.

oOoOoOo

(8/28/2023)

  I’m going to be frank with you. I don’t want to see you anymore.