Note: Welcome to my new fic! I'm revising The Family Jewels as we speak, but wanted to start a fresh story to keep my creative juices going. This one is much smaller scale and a bit more personal, if not necessarily less angsty. Hope you enjoy!

March

When she arrived in Capital City, Peridot imagined herself emerging from hibernation. The last remnants of winter faded away, a few stubborn snow piles turned gray from dirt and cigarette smoke and car exhaust and hobo urine and other city refuse, along with lingering slick spots where ice had harassed pedestrians and terrified motorists for four months. The weather remained cooler than Peridot liked, but warm enough that she could get away with a green spring jacket and a hoodie.

She hadn't been in Capital City for nearly a year...since losing her job, since It happened, and her life, never completely stable or satisfying to begin with, descended into a bottomless black pit. The memories remained raw and fresh and painful. And the sight of the capital's familiar skyscrapers sent a nasty chill down the back of her spine, forcing her to remember everything unplesant.

But she reminded herself that she wasn't working there any more, and that pleasant things awaited her today. Like a shopping trip in the Strip District, where she could look for new computer parts and books and music to fill her life with meaning, or at least entertainment. And some riverside parks that, despite a preponderance of pigeons and surfeit of squirrels, were somehow way nicer than the rolling open fields of Jones Bluff or the beaches of, well, Beach City. the best restaurants in the city, including a fancy Italian place which once kicked her out for not dressing nicely enough...okay, maybe not that one.

And that neat coffee shop which served super-expensive but tasty and fattening smoothies. In college she'd practically lived there, enjoying doing homework and reading and hammering out what she told everyone would be her first novel on notepads and scratch paper (and her laptop, when she remembered to bring it). She wasn't the nostalgic type, but those were the fondest memories of the city.

Though, she reminded herself as she drove around through the Strip looking for a decent parking spot, memories can be deceiving. Your brain edits them like a dialysis machines, removing the impurities, the fears and the terrors and the lusts and the confusion that make living in the moment difficult. What remains points up things that are nourishing and good and, even if they're not good, make sense.

Besides which, things change. Nothing, as her young library friend Steven said with philosophy far beyond his fourteen years, is ever still. Least of all a city, which devours everything and everyone within it. So Peridot couldn't even be sure that today would go well, just like she couldn't be sure that she'd ever find a parking space, or if the coffee shop was even still open.

At least there was, if things went according to plan, an evening with Lapis Lazuli. Though she wasn't entirely sure about her, either.

Lapis's Saturday began like any other - sleeping in intermittent two hour spurts, catching a glimpse of her alarm clock during a break in her REM cycle, realizing that it was past 11:00 am holy shit and falling out of bed in a tangle of clothes and limbs and blankets and terror.

Cursing under her breath, she took a quick shower and tried to make herself presentable. She messed with her hair, cursing herself that her black roots were visible through the blue dye, wondering if she had time to get a haircut, or retouch the dye, or do something to make it decent. Then she wondered if Peridot would care, since she was always a nerdy mess.

Well, fuck Peridot, Lapis thought, brushing a frazzled, half-black strand from her eyes. *I* care.

So she popped by the local SuperCuts and just had them buzz off the bottom of her do, leaving a blue fringe atop a fuzzy pad of short black hair.

Very cute. Very gay. Just what the doctor ordered.

Now time to do laundry and clean and straighten out her apartment.

Fuck. She'd been hoping to finish reading the Don DeLillo novel she'd borrowed from her coworker. It had been months since she'd been able to read an entire novel from cover-to-cover, and despite DeLillo's best efforts with opaque prose and elliptical narrative, she was this close. But now, it didn't seem likely.

At least I have things to do today, she assured herself. And it might even be worth the effort.

After all, what's wrong with catching up with an old friend?

She wondered why she was so excited to see Peridot. Excited enough, at least, to spend hours folding laundry and cleaning sheets and washing dishes and vacuuming carpets and battling centipedes and cockroaches so that her apartment might be presentable to another human being.

The two women hadn't spoken much in years, aside from occasional "Happy birthdays" and perfunctory check-ins on Facebook. She hadn't even remembered giving Peridot her number until she received a random text message the previous April. From what she recalled, it seemed meant for someone else, or perhaps not even to be sent at all. Still, it wasn't a message Lapis could just ignore:

Hi - miserable. Need help. Seriously. - P

Lapis, who'd been working at the library when the text came in, pondered it for a long time for responding. She wracked her brains trying to remember who "P" might be. What was wrong, or why they needed help. Or if they might just be dramatic.

Finally, she remembered Peridot Forster, a colleague from her work study days in the Capital College Library. A short, awkward, bespectacled blonde girl with frizzy hair and frazzled nerves, who seemed obsessed with weird things: computers, cult movies, doorstop novels, space aliens, and a shit-ass Canadian soap opera, Camp Pining Hearts, which she suckered Lapis into checking out (Lapis, to her shame, briefly becoming addicted). They most frequently worked the night shift together, Lapis handing out reserve textbooks to insomniac students doing homework at 1 am, Peridot arguing with others about laptops and interlibrary loans. They made a decent team.

Still, Lapis...didn't consider Peridot a close friend. Heck, calling her a friend seemed a stretch, sometimes. She was just someone Lapis worked with, and very infrequently hung out with outside of work, usually with other librarians and a few beers separating them. (Peridot, she remember, didn't drink very much, if at all. Whereas Lapis was...a little wild in those days.)

So why would Peridot, five years after graduation, even have Lapis's number? And why would she text her something so desperate?

Lapis had to wait until her lunch break, of course. Then she took a deep breath and dialed Peridot's number.

"Hello?" that nasal voice, still unmistakable despite years without hearing it, albeit distressingly flat and morose.

"Uh, hi," Lapis said, hesitantly. "This is, um, Lapis Lazuli."

"...Lapis?"

"Yeah. I, um, got your text message earlier..."

A pause. "Oh...that's who I sent it to," she murmured. "Sorry, I mean to contact my friend Lars. Typical clod. I apologize for wasting your time..."

"No, no, wait!" Lapis interrupted, fearing for a moment that she might be the only thing standing between Peridot and...something drastic. But what could she possibly say?

"I called you because...it sounded like you needed someone to talk to. And, I mean...it would be nice to catch up some time."

Peridot sighed on the other end. Another pause, long and deadly.

"I could use a friend," she said finally.

"What happened?"

"Oh Christ, where to begin?" Peridot groaned.

"Just...give me the cliff notes version," Lapis interrupted. She knew Peridot had a propensity for monologues, and didn't have the time to hear one right now. "I mean, if it's serious, we can talk about it later."

"...I lost my job."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No, it's more than that. I left my job. I couldn't stand it any more. It was...driving me nuts."

"What job was it?" She racked her brain, trying to remember bits and pieces from Facebook. "Umm, was it a call center?"

"Yes. The most soul-crushing job on Earth."

"What happened?"

"It crushed my soul."

Unhelpful. "Maybe...be a little more specific?"

"Lapis, I'd love to chat, but...you don't wanna hear my sad story. I'm enough of a burden to enough people already, and..."

Wow, she was really serious, Lapis thought to herself. She remembered all the times when she had similar thoughts, and knew this wasn't a call she could just walk away from.

"Listen, Peridot...I'm here," she said. "Whatever's going on, I...don't want anything to happen to you. If you need to talk..."

God, she was bad at this. Usually it was someone else talking her down from a ledge.

"...What time do you get off work?"

"Oh! Um, 4:30. I'm usually home by 5:00, but...if you need me, you can call earlier."

"5:00 should be fine. It's not like I'm doing anything else..."

"Peridot, please...promise me you'll call."

"Why?"

"Because...like I said...I don't want to see you do anything...drastic. Promise me you'll call. And promise me if you have any other thoughts, you'll call someone else. Or go to a hospital. Or...something."

She hoped she didn't sound desperate. But mostly she hoped Peridot would listen to her.

Another long pause. Lapis heard her own heavy breathing and the sound of her heart beating in her ear.

Then another sigh on the other end.

"It might be nice to catch up," Peridot offered.

And now Lapis sighed. "Great. Talk to you later, then?"

"Yeah. I'm, uh...looking forward to it."

"Same here," Lapis said, summoning whatever cheer she could under the circumstances. "Sorry the circumstances aren't better, but...I'd love to hear what you've been up to."

"Hmm. Well, I'll call around 5:00. I promise. And Lapis?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for calling."

Peridot hung up. And Lapis put her phone down, wondering how she'd make it through the work day.

Peridot and Lapis spent almost three hours chatting that night, like they were sisters, or the oldest friends in the world. Peridot didn't disclose too many details about her current situation, but she did spew forth about how disappointing post-college life could be.

"Here I was, a textbook nerd with big hair and thick glasses and a thought that I had potential," she groused. "What a clod I was! No potential. No nothing! Either I didn't try hard enough or I'm a complete fucking clod. I should have followed my dad's advice and gone into computer science or engineering instead of liberal arts. There's no fucking place in this awful, rotten world for liberal artists like me."

"You're telling me!" Lapis responded. "I mean, I have a Masters in Library Science and it took me years to find a full-time job."

"Never pegged you for that kinda person."

"Why not?"

"I mean, didn't you want to be a fashion designer or something like that?"

Lapis smiled, impressed that she remembered. "Something like that," she said. "But it didn't work out. And what can I say, I liked working at the library. I still like it. I mean, the pay isn't great and it can be aggravating sometimes..."

"It had its charms," Peridot interrupted. "The slow pace..."

"Well...some nights."

"I hated the laptop desk."

"Truth. And all the students who would wait until fifteen minutes before we closed..."

"Who in hell would even want to study at 1:30 in the morning on a Friday? That's fucking ridiculous."

"I know, right?"

Lapis felt better, just having the conversation steered towards safer ground. They shared college memories and talked about a few relatively safe topics. Peridot seemed enthused and frustrated about her efforts to write professionally. "I've submitted articles on the history of the supervillain to a million sites, and none of them will publish them! Can you believe it?"

"Well, you could always do a blog."

"A blog? You mean a self-run site nobody reads? How empty."

"Nobody will read it if you never create it."

"Hmm. Lazuli, you have a point."

And Lapis didn't feel entirely comfortable disclosing her own difficulties. Her bouts with depression and self-loathing, her lost jobs and times wasted in grad school, constant whipsawing between residences, her shitty run of girlfriends since college...most of all Jasper, who was still nominally her partner even though they hadn't talked in weeks, and who hovered over everything she did like a dark cloud.

But Peridot didn't ask. She was just happy to talk to someone.

Finally, around 8:00 pm Peridot ran out of steam. Or else her phone battery was about to die.

"Sorry I have to leave you," Peridot said. "Of course, it's not all bad. Camp Pining Hearts is on Netflix now, and I'm ready to go through Season Three again..."

"Did you hear they're planning to reboot it?" Lapis asked. She heard a non-verbal moan on the other end.

"...Don't remind me."

"Well, you'll have to face it eventually..."

"No, I can steadfastly refuse to acknowledge its existence because there is no way it will match the original."

"I guess you're right," she said. "Well Lazuli, it's been a pleasure, but...anyway, I hope we can talk again soon."

Lapis smiled, relieved. "Yeah, it was nice. Glad to hear from you again, Peridot. And seriously, if you need someone to talk to..."

"I'm fine," Peridot assured her. "I can be a little dramatic sometimes."

"Losing your job is worth being dramatic about. Trust me, I know."

"Well...I've gotta go. Bye."

"Bye."

Lapis put down her phone. She laid back on her bed, staring at the ceiling in wonderment, hoping that she'd at least done a good deed for today. And maybe even renewed a friendship.

After a few minutes, she turned on her laptop. And clicked over to Camp Pining Hearts, just for a laugh and something to do while she made dinner.

Before she knew it, it was one o'clock and she'd fallen asleep halfway through the two-part kayaking trip to Vancouver.

It took Peridot twenty minutes before she finally found a spot. She parked at a meter near a bike rack, about two blocks from Lapis's apartment.

She took a deep breath. She rolled up her sleeves impulsively, looking down at the cuts and scars on her arm and wrists, mostly old and healed but still there, mocking her. And blushed, hoping to God Lapis wouldn't have occasion to see them.

Then Peridot reached into her pocket and pulled out a small bottle of medication. She popped a pill into her mouth and forced it down, hoping it would help any lingering anxiety towards her friend.

I mean, why should she be nervous about seeing a friend? Especially Lapis, who was probably the best friend she had any more, even though she'd moved away from Capital City last year and the two hadn't actually seen each other face-to-face in, what, six years? Maybe more? But then all of her friends from Jones Bluff and Beach City had moved away or were too busy to spend time with her. And Peridot wasn't the kind of person who felt comfortable going out and meeting new people.

Still, as she walked through the familiar neighborhood, watching a crush of college students heading out for dinner or drinks on the first warm Friday night in awhile, she envied them their youth and hopefulness, even as she resented their coarse language and the occasional vomiting on the sidewalk. Their easy friendship and simple happiness, something she hadn't had even in college, when she was a neurotic wreck whose one solace was that she had a lot of free time to indulge in fantasies and hobbies to make up for her relative lack of friends.

What lucky people they were.

But Peridot was many things that might make her nervous. She was a loser. She was interested in lame, loser things. She had no job. Very few friends. She lived with her parents. She had no money except what her parents were generous enough to give her. Only a part-time volunteer position and her writing, neither of which brought in any money. No hope, really, beyond a grim, instinctive determination to stay alive.

And these scars. And this broken, fractured brain that all the time and compassion could barely start putting back together.

And Lapis...well, maybe she had problems, too. She'd implied as much during their phone conversations and message chats over the past year. But she couldn't imagine them being as bad as hers. And Peridot worried that her baggage would remind Lapis of anything bad in her own life, and send her flying away.

These thoughts bounced around Peridot's head when she reached Lapis's home. A huge, two-story brick building with fancy windows and a large subterranean extension.

After hesitating another moment, she reached down and dialed Lapis's number.

"Hey, Peridot!"

"Hi, Lazuli. I'm here."

"Oh, great! I'll be down in just a minute. Meet me out front."

"Okay."

The conversation ended. And Peridot sighed, the first step completed without much pain.

Please let tonight go well, she thought. Please let me have this. I haven't had a win for a long, long time. And just seeing a friend would be...something.

If tonight wasn't a complete disaster...if her loserness and depression didn't scare Lapis away...then she'd count it as a success.

For now, she stood outside the door and waited.