Hey guys! Things have been a bit rough for me lately so if you're following any of my other stories, I apologize for the lack of updates. One of my uncle's just passed away, a week after my cousin. Literally same day, and almost the exact same time, just a week later. So dealing with that has been...fun, to put it mildly. I won't go into too many details, but it's been easier to just work on smaller, shorter things for the time being, like 'Feel' and this one shot.

Last night's episode killed me. I was literally just a sobbing mess of feels on my couch, and I was grateful to be home alone so only my dog could see my weakness. But this is not a one shot about that, sorry if you were hoping.

This is just a brief one shot touching on some of the things I was rethinking as I re-watched Alone at Sea and the subsequent Jasper episodes, as it occurred to me just how terrible it must have been to be fused as Malachite, and not just for Lapis. So, this is just an angtsy sort of character study that came from that. It's complete, but I am always willing to write more if someone wants more.

*I do not own Steven Universe, those rights belong to Cartoon Network and the lovely Rebecca Sugar*

*I also do not own the cover image. All rights to their respective owners.*

I hope you guys enjoy! Reviews give me life.

- Raven

It was dark at the bottom of the ocean. She'd never thought of it before, but it was hard to ignore now. Dark, completely. Not simply an absence of light; this is a darkness that feels, a darkness that is so thick and absolute that it is almost as imprisoning as the chains she is bound in.

It's also cold, this far down. There's no sun to warm the waters, barely any movement to stir up any heat that may have existed. Just wet. Yeah, she'd forgotten about the wet, strangely enough. When it fills her very being so completely, her lungs constantly aching for something to breathe, when the salt stings so thoroughly….

She'd forgotten that it was also wet. A funny thing to forget. So obvious, so there, and yet so abstract that the feeling itself was difficult to place.

Like a name.

Names didn't matter, this far down. But she knew. She thought she knew. Who she was. Who she used to be. There had to have been something before, right? It hadn't always been…this. Had it?

She doesn't know. She thinks, there might have been someone who did, but the more she tried to think on it, the more water presses her down. The more the salt fills her lungs. The tighter the chains constrict and bind.

It hurts. But it was a necessary hurt. She isn't sure why she thinks it's necessary, but a part of her…part. That's…also a thought that brings pain. She thinks she might cry. She wants to scream, though. Is it possible, to want to scream and cry at the same time? To do two things…to. Be. Two. Things.

She is two. She is one. She…doesn't want to be…but she does. She has to be.

Why? She wants to scream it. Wants to cry it. Why did she have to?

There's something now, tickling at the back of her senses. It's dull, it's sharp. It's a flicker of something bright, and it's so beautiful, so solid so real. Color. It's a color. She wants to know, wants to see it, but to reach for it brings so much pain that she doesn't dare.

But color! There's no color here. Fish. Dangerous fish, the kind that can only thrive in a darkness like this. And it makes her wonder, what did that make her? A part of her…no, stop that! She isn't parts, she can't be parts, she can't fall apart!

The chains tighten, and there's pain, there's pain, there's water and salt and pain and a feeling. A desperate longing ache from deep inside. Death. This is death. Isn't it? Because what kind of a life is this, bound by…the ocean. The ocean was her death. But she still longed for it. Craved it, needed it. It was there, just out of reach, hovering just like the color had, mocking her in her torment.

There was something, buzzing in her mind. She drew a breath and it was cold, bitter as it stabbed into her lungs. It wasn't air, it wasn't. But she breathed again and tried to reach inward, to understand what it was that she was here for. And there's the color again! It's bright, so bright but she forces herself to look anyway. It's only there for a moment but she manages to identify it. It's like blood. No, it's softer than that, gentler. It's paler, too. Not like blood. Like…like a blush. A soft tinge of pink.

Pink.

The color brings so many feelings, but there's one that is heavy. It's almost as heavy as the water crushing her body, but it's inside, a suffocating weight that manages to still her, if only briefly. Grief. It's grief, and both parts…she winces at the stab of pain but she is parts, and both of them are feeling it.

The pink is gone, but there's a shape, now. It's bright, too, but a different kind of bright. It's like the sun that she hadn't seen in so long, so long she had feared she had forgotten what it was like. But this shape is the sun and it's so…so…close. It's a star. A star like the sun, like the sun, like the…son?

She digs, clinging to thought, prying it loose and ignoring the pain it brings because she wants answers now. This pink sun is the reason she is here so she would bear the pain this time. And it comes loose, the thought, the memory, the flickering afterimage of a figure. A human child with wide, fearful eyes, clothed in the pink and with the sun embedded onto his form.

This child was the reason she was here. She had to protect him. She had to destroy him! Destroy him, crush him, bind him and make him know the pain she felt. She fought, in vain, but she fought regardless. There was screaming, she was screaming, the water moving, churning with the force of her efforts. And pain, so much pain, but it was worth it. Would be worth it if she could just…reach…the pink.

Something breaks through. It's intense, and so startling in its suddenness that she freezes. It's warm. The water is warm around her. She stills, and it is gone, but it had been there, and she thrashes again, the chains constricting to the point where she is sure there'll be marks. But it's warm! Warm for the first time and she has something now, something to fight for. To fight against.

It didn't matter who she was.

It didn't matter if she was two, or if she was one.

She would make the pink child pay for what he'd done.

Even if she had to boil the entire ocean to do so.