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The night after they each re-form, she and Peridot find themselves together, strolling on the Beach, getting used to the way their new forms each leave footprints in the sand. The Bismuth had explained what had happened—that the fighting had stopped abruptly because Yellow and Blue Diamonds had realized that Steven was actually Pink Diamond (“Steven is Pink Diamond!?” Lapis had exclaimed, throwing her hands on her head. “Oh. Right,” Peridot had chimed in. “I forgot that you didn’t know.”), and that Steven and the Crystal Gems (well, the other Crystal Gems—she supposes that that’s now a label that equally applies to her) are now on their way to Homeworld with the (other) Diamonds.
Steven is a Diamond. Steven is at this moment going to Homeworld with the Diamonds. She herself is now a Crystal Gem, after the Crystal Gems were the ones who originally got her trapped in the mirror and stuck on Earth…if indirectly. And accidentally. As she’s eventually learning to accept.
It’s a lot to process, Lapis thinks, along with the fact that the very Gem who originally disincorporated her—allowing her to be placed in the mirror in the first place—is spontaneously back. And they’d fought together—were now somehow on the same side (though if Steven’s a Diamond now, are there even sides anymore?), even if the Bismuth doesn’t seem to have any memory of her.
But the prospect of thinking through it—all of it—doesn’t seem as overwhelming as it might have once. And, in any case, it doesn’t feel like the moment’s most pressing matter.
Her eyes shift to Peridot, pacing alongside her. She carries herself with a contentedness that Lapis doesn’t understand, and certainly doesn’t feel—though, then again, she always has…(at least until Lapis up and left, literally yanked the life they’d built together out of the ground.) As opposed to her own reluctance, Peridot seems to take visible pride in her status member of the Crystal Gems, adorning her new form with several star insignias like a badge of honor. Then, Peridot considered herself a member of the Crystal Gems already; it hadn’t required fighting a Diamond for her…
Or perhaps it had. Peridot used to revel with a particular flair in recounting the story of the day she disobeyed a direct order from Yellow Diamond, insulted her to her face, called her a clod. Perhaps that’s what it was to be a Crystal Gem; you become one the moment you manage to look your Diamond in the eye—literally or otherwise—and admit that they don’t have control over you anymore...or at least that something else mattered more.
Lapis’s confrontation with her own Diamond had been somewhat different than Peridot’s—Blue Diamond had always exerted a different sort of control over her, a less literal one—but fear was its own type of authority, no less daunting, and it had dominated her every moment for millennia. It had taken standing in front of Blue Diamond, looking her in the eye, crying her tears, to realize that that terror no longer controlled her. Not because she wasn’t afraid—but because she wasn’t only afraid. She felt other things too…and they mattered more.
(She wasn’t alone. After thousands of years in the mirror, she didn’t have to be alone…)
“Lapis?”
They’re standing at the pile of rubble that had once been the barn. Their barn. Shards of Diamond-ship litter this part of the beach too, but it’s this that seems to be the focal point: the life they used to have together, now in shambles…Peridot looks at it longingly, and Lapis tries to push away the knowledge that it was all her fault.
“Hm?” Lapis looks up.
“Do you think any of our Morps survived?”
“I…” she sighs. “No. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Peridot shrugs. “They became performance pieces.”
Lapis steals another glance at her. She seems to be speaking in earnest—Peridot always seems to be speaking in earnest, or at least she had—but just before Lapis had left, heaving their home with her, Peridot had admitted that there had been things she hadn’t said, lies of omission and appeasement she’d told for fear of upsetting Lapis. Was this another such lie?
(Had Peridot ever been happy? Or had Lapis sucked all of her joy into the vortex of her own terror?)
An earlier iteration of her would let this question fester in her mind, and she’s tempted to do that now. But something in her tells her that if she’s serious about changing—about building a new existence for herself as a Crystal Gem—then the relationship she has with Peridot has to matter more than the fear of what she might answer. She has to make it matter more. So she listens to the waves, inhales and then releases the breath, before turning to Peridot.
“Were you…happy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before. In the barn. In the countryside. With our corn. Were you happy?”
“Of course.” She hesitates. “Were you?”
“I…I think I was. It’s just…” A sigh. “Before I left, you said that there were a lot of things that you should’ve said, but didn’t because they would've upset me.”
Peridot sighs too, sits down on a plank of wood that had once been their front door. “Well…that’s true. You could be so volatile, and I—”
“Volatile?”
“No! I just meant…I know that communication is not something at which I am naturally skilled, and…I didn’t…I don’t…When I first got stranded, when I was working on stopping the Cluster with the others, I said something that really hurt Amethyst. I didn’t understand what I said, or why it hurt her…and when you and I started living together, you reminded me how I’d hurt you. And how many other things had hurt you. I…I liked our life together. And I cared about you. And I didn’t want to be another thing that hurt you. Again. Even if it was an accident. So it seemed safer to just…not…say some things.”
“But…didn’t that hurt you?”
Peridot shrugs again. “If it did, that’s irrelevant.”
“It’s not, though!” The ocean wave flairs in a larger-than-usual splash as Lapis throws her hands in the air. “I care about you too! And how do you think it makes me feel to know—”
“You…care about me?”
Lapis softens. “Yeah.” She flies up to sit next to Peridot. “And the things that happened to me…they’ve already caused me enough pain. I don’t want them hurting anyone else. Peridot, I don’t want them hurting you.”
“Lapis…”
“And part of it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have run away like that, and I shouldn’t have taken the barn with me. Sorry.” Her eyes flit away. “But Steven said that things could be different, when I came back…And so…if there’s ever something you want to say to me, Peridot, I want you to say it. And if it hurts me, I’ll deal with it.”
“Or…we could talk about it? You’re not alone anymore.”
“Right. Or we could talk about it.”
They fall into a comfortable silence. The waves crash. The moon glints off the water, off the pieces of the Diamond Ships. They’d fought here, only a day or so ago. But now all is quiet. Peaceful.
“Lapis?”
“Hm?”
“I’m glad you’re back.”
And just like that, the most pressing of the weights bearing down on her dissipates like water vapor into the night air. She smiles. “Me too.”