It was night-time. The rays of the uprising moon finally hit the slowly moving waves of the never-ending ocean. The reflection of the moon could be seen by the windows of the house which led to the Temple's entrance. The person living in that house was none other than Steven Universe, lying in bed, waiting for his eyes to close and sleep to take over.
It didn't happen. His eyelids stood open, not being pulled down by the forever-trying force of the bags under his eyes.
He didn't understand why he couldn't sleep. The conflict between them has been pretty much solved, and the team got a good step forward to completing one of their most important missions. Not even foot puns could make Steven laugh now.
Was it the memories of the times when Garnet was still mad at Pearl?
No, he slept in the nights where they we're still avoiding each other.
Was it the constant sound of the pod sitting on the middle of the floor, surrounded by loads of tools taking off and making a bright light every hour or so?
Peridot, he thought.
Steven didn't see Peridot as a bad Gem, but rather a Gem that doesn't want to be bad but is considered to. He wanted to be friends with her, even by trying to brighten the mood whenever he and the Crystal Gems run up to her.
He really didn't want to be bad with Peridot, but seeing the rest of his team react so… badly whenever he tries to be nice with her, he just feels miserable. He just feels left out, looked at as an outsider, with a glance of disgust and confusion.
Steven shivered at the thought of that.
He held Sir Bearington as tight as he could ,covering himself with the sheets.
What is wrong with being kind?, he thought.
It then shined again. Peridot must've used the warp system again.
After a little while, Steven decided to turn on the TV to the CBFANN –Crying Breakfast Friends at Night Network – to get his mind off the thought. Besides, the network-exclusive Part 31 of the second sub-movie was premiering at that time.
After watching the 2-hour special, Steven looked around. The pod hasn't activated during that time.
He went back to bed, trying to process the movie's happenings.
After an hour or so of crafting convoluted theories and memes being posted to Gumblr, he tried to sleep, but by that time, the rays of the sun made him open his eyes.
It's only been a week since the foot was set at the spaceship incident, but he couldn't think about it anymore. He didn't get much sleep this night.
Or the nights before.