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Pearl first became familiar with the amazing powers of sleep when Steven was a young child and she took care of him. Usually, it was quite simple. Dim the lights, place him somewhere fluffy, wait a few hours, and suddenly Steven is energized. Sort of like charging this…”phone,” she recently acquired. If Steven was resistant to sleep, it became much more complex, a whole rigamarole of singing, reading stories, and bringing him glasses of water. However, it was always worth it. Because no matter how grouchy–or sad–he was before falling asleep, he always felt better upon awakening. Best of all as Amethyst got into the habit of sleep, Pearl saw the same phenomenon occur. Amethyst was happier, more engaged, and more cooperative after a nap. It applied to both gems and humans.
All that to say, Pearl just put Sapphire down for a nap, wrapping her in a blanket burrito and turning off all the lights and informing her that it would pass time quicker, thus reuniting her with Ruby faster. From her perspective, not objectively. Pearl abstained from mentioning that detail. The last thing she needed was for Sapphire to say something like oh, objective, I remember how we used to pick up objects when we were fused and then cry for another hour.
Which is why Pearl is now sitting at the kitchen bar, looking at the countertops and drumming her finger against it and. Ruminating.
Everyone knows, now. She feels lucky no one is mad at her. She's never been quite able to kill the part of her that expects to be reprimanded for things outside of her control, no matter how many leather jackets she wears and red lights she blows off. All in good time, she tells herself. All in good time. Of course her friends wouldn't blame her for keeping this secret. She had no choice, after all.
…She had no choice.
The past seems to play in front of her in clips. She is the terrifying renegade Pearl, leaping into battle to protect Rose Quartz. She is a new Pearl, looking up at her diamond and unable to figure out how to make her happy. She is offering a plan to visit Earth. She is parrying a sword strike from a Homeworld soldier. She is sitting on Earth watching the sunset with Rose, funny feelings shining in her gem, hands just barely not touching. She is being regaled with the crazy and beautiful and idiotic and brilliant plan to fake the shattering. She is being handed the distressingly realistic fake shards. She is having her hands placed on her face, trapping her knowledge forever within with no way to fight it.
“Would you STOP that incessant tapping!?!?”
Peridot’s aggravated shout snaps Pearl out of her thoughts. She grimaces. Right, yes, Peridot has been living in the bathroom. Again. Her annoying voice grates at Pearl.
…How much did Peridot overhear, anyway? All of it, Pearl assumes. Should she go and talk to her? Is she…the right person for that?
The two aren't really close, emotionally. They're both Crystal Gems, of course, and that counts for a lot, but their relationship is built more on mutual respect and cooperation than close connection like Peridot is with Garnet and Amethyst.
Pearl reminds herself that Peridot doesn't have nearly as many emotional stakes in this as the rest of them. She was recruited by Steven, not Pearl.
Still, it might be stressful information to acquire. So Pearl should go. Check in. Offer to answer questions. (Yay, she has a very distracting task to complete!!!)
Pearl stalks quickly to the bathroom door. It’s open a crack, and she takes the initiative to open the rest of it herself. “Peridot? May I have a moment of your time?”
“Ughhh.” Peridot is lying in the bath tub on some blankets Steven must have retrieved from the linen closet. She isn't as lethargic as she was her first several days after moving in for the second time, but she still looks displeased. She sits up and rests her chin on the side of the tub, scowling. “What do you want from me?”
Pearl tries not to take the tone personally. “I was just wondering how much you heard from the living room earlier.”
“Nothing,” she bites off. “I was listening to twenty-four hours of ocean sounds.”
Pearl quirks an eyebrow. “Don't be silly. The ocean makes sound for much more than twenty-four hours. It has for millions of years and will for millions more.”
“Not the beach outside.” Peridot rolls her eyes and points at the sink where the, what did Steven call it, right, iPad sits. Pearl looks at it.
“...Why would you listen to ocean sounds on the iPad when you could go outside and get the same effect?” Pearl questions.
Peridot flops down to lie on the blankets. “UUUUUUUGHHHHHH.” Her groan is truly impressive. One of the most effective Pearl’s ever heard, and she spent thousands of years with Rose Quartz.
“It's a simple question, Peridot. If you didn't want to answer, you could have informed me more civilly,” Pearl scolds lightly.
“‘Could have informed me more civilly’,” Peridot mocks, lifting her hands to do those ‘air quotes.’
“Peridot…” Part of Pearl misses when they were enemies and she could stab her for her insolence without Steven making sad puppy eyes at her and Garnet disapproving. Though that second one isn't a problem at the moment. Which is its own problem. And Pearl entered this room to fix problems, not create more. She glances at Peridot and forces herself to soften. To look past the insufferable disrespect to the emotional problems hiding behind it. Goodness knows Peridot has been through a lot recently.
“Do you want to talk about your feelings?” Pearl offers.
Peridot's eyebrows shoot up. “What?” she demands flatly.
“You're clearly upset, and since I don't like being treated like your emotional punching bag–”
“Sorry,” Peridot mutters, so softly Pearl almost misses it, but undoubtedly sincere.
“Oh, uhm, apology accepted.” Pearl is caught off guard. “In that case, I'll offer my advice simply to see you happier.”
Peridot sits up consideringly. “Hm…” she looks at Pearl evaluatingly. “Yes, well, I suppose I could use a fellow intellectual to run some of my theories by.”
A fellow intellectual. Pearl can't help but smile. The two of them have come a long way since the robot fight. “Sure,” Pearl agrees readily.
Peridot nods, and then, switching from poised and calculated to exaggerated and silly in typical Peridot fashion, she burrows into her blanket and pulls out a blue notebook. Then she hands it to Pearl. “Read through some of these and give me your thoughts,” Peridot requests.
Making a conscious effort not to correct her into saying please, because she just started being cooperative and Pearl doesn't want to ruin that, Pearl opens the book to a random page. Usually she'd start at the beginning, but she's been trying to be more spontaneous lately.
SCENARIO B26
P: I THINK WE CAN FIND A WAY TO HIDE WITHOUT LEAVING THE PLANET. IF YOU USE YOUR WATER POWERS TO PUT THE BARN UNDERGROUND WE CAN BE SAFE WITHOUT DESTROYING EVERYTHING.
L: WOW, PERIDOT, GREAT IDEA. I WILL DO THAT NOW. YOU ARE VERY SMART AND HONEST.
Pearl hms to herself, puzzled. Something about this interaction doesn't feel…realistic? She continues reading and it's filled with many other scenarios, just the same, Peridot saying something that convinces Lapis to not leave.
Pearl shuts the book. She regrets not starting at the beginning. She feels itchy and wrong.
“Well? Which ones do you think had the potential to work??” Peridot leans out the side of the tub, eyes wide, expression eager and…something else? Something else, yes, something that resonates with Pearl, that she feels she'd understand well if she could just identify it.
“Peridot…” Pearl frowns. “None of these would have worked.”
Usually when her work is refuted without a specific reason why, Peridot gets riled up. Right now, though, she just looks frustrated. “Okay, fine, what would have? What do I need to change? What should I have done differently?”
“I–” Pearl feels like she missed a step on a tall flight of stairs. “I doubt there's anything you could have said or done differently, Peridot,” Pearl finally says.
“Nonsense!” Peridot glowers. “You're being ridiculous. Every situation is filled with dozens and dozens of different factors that can change the outcome. It's basic math. There must have been something I could have done to keep her here with me!”
“Peridot…” Pearl shakes her head. “Lapis made her choice independently. I know it's distressing to, er, more controlling personalities, such as you, and, and me! But people's choices are their own.”
Peridot’s glare deepens and darkens. Her hands are shaky, and her eyebrows keep twitching like she's trying to keep herself from crying.
…Ah. Pearl finally recognizes that feeling.
Desperation.
“Peridot…I'm sorry.” Pearl’s heart feels heavy as lead, and she doesn't even have a heart. “Sometimes people hurt us and there's nothing we can do to stop it.”
Peridot’s expression breaks into fury. “DON’T SAY THAT ABOUT HER!”
Pearl finds herself getting angry in return. “Why not!? It's true! She left you! She took away your safety and control! You're missing her and cleaning up the mess she left!!! She hurt you!”
Peridot slams a fist against the tub. “I LOVE HER!”
“GREAT! Wonderful! I'm happy to hear that! SHE STILL HURT YOU!!!”
Peridot pauses. Pearl realizes she's stood up and balled her fists. She loosens up, embarrassed.
Moments tick by. The iPad buzzes. Sapphire snores in the next room.
“But…” Peridot tears up. “I love her,” she repeats.
Pearl thinks of fighting side by side with her best friend and inspiration and whole universe. She thinks of the two of them catching lightning bugs, starting fires, feeding animals, enjoying the glory of Earth. She thinks of fusion, how it was to be one with such a loving, creative, and sweet mind. She thinks of thousands of years of care and comfort and companionship. And she thinks of two hands, clamped over her mouth, of being told to do something and having absolutely no control, no choice in it.
“I know you do,” Pearl chokes out. “You can still love people who hurt you.”
“I…” Peridot's eyes widen. “...Oh. Oh.” She lies down on the blankets. “She hurt me, but I love her,” she whispers. Then she repeats, gaining confidence, “I love her, but she hurt me.”
“Right.” Pearl whispers. Her throat is painful. The sound of Rose’s laughter comes to her memory.
“Why?”
Pearl's heart cracks along with Peridot's voice. “I don't know. Maybe she was so used to doing whatever it took to protect herself, she forgot she had someone else she needed to keep in mind this time.”
“But…” Peridot swallows. “If she hurt me, doesn't that make her…bad? She's not bad,” Peridot adds determinedly. “She's good. I love her.”
And here's the moral quandary that Pearl has spent thousands of years trying to ignore. She can figure out the solution to complex math and engineering, but this…is still a mystery to her. Thus, she gives the last advice she has. “We can sit here and run hypotheticals and try to find some loophole, to–to justify what she did, or find a reason you deserved it, or it had to happen, but…I don't think that'll help.”
“But…I don't know how to categorize her anymore,” Peridot says almost pleadingly.
Pearl sighs, sliding against the wall to sit on the floor. She did not sign up for this when she entered the bathroom. “I don't have a satisfying answer for you, Peridot. Maybe she's still a good person because she didn't hurt you maliciously. Maybe there's some invisible line she didn't cross. Maybe good people and bad people don't exist, and it's just good actions and bad actions, though even that doesn't seem right. Does it matter? You love her. You believe she's good. Now you have to let go.”
“Relationships are complicated,” Peridot marvels. “Much more so than I first suspected when I volunteered to be her roommate.”
“Do you regret it? No judgement, of course,” Pearl asks.
“...Logically, I should. But I don't.”
Pearl thinks of nearly six thousand beautiful years on Earth, fighting and growing and loving and just existing. “Me neither,” Pearl echoes.
“You don't regret that…I had a roommate?” Peridot narrows her eyes.
Pearl laughs. “No, silly. That's not what I meant.” She stands up, and pats Peridot on the head, who hisses half-heartedly, still lost in speculation. “I hope I helped. Did I?”
“You made it worse, but you did it in a way that helped somehow,” Peridot answers, tapping a confused finger against her chin.
Pearl remembers what Steven said back at the vacation house. Bad things had to happen so good things could kind of happen. “Right,” Pearl nods. “I'll leave you to it.” And she exits the bathroom.
She leans against the wall for a moment. She closes her eyes, pictures Rose’s face, and smiles. What an illuminating conversation…she certainly could have used these lessons way back when. In those confusing days after the war where the love she felt and received seemed to be at odds with the new freedom and morality she was exploring, leaving her troubled.
It's too late now, though. Too late for her and Rose.
She wonders if it's too late for Peridot and Lapis. It might be. She hopes not.
…Hm. She actually never completed her original task for that visit.
She calls, “By the way, Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond!”
There's a thunk and a shuffling sound. Then, “WHAT!?!?!”