I wouldn't have taken so long to update, but I had a long week filled with coursework and other problems. And I'm juggling four different stories at the moment, sorry for any inconvenience.

BLADE PHEONIX SEIFERT: Thanks, I've been told I'm good at dialogue before, but it's always nice to hear :)

Up this time; Steven tries to help and Lapis makes a friend.

Steven woke in the middle of the night, panting, a little sweaty. The crystal gems had agreed to establish a plan to find Lapis in the morning, starting with a thorough investigation of the barn. But Steven would have trouble concentrating tomorrow if these nightmares kept plaguing his night. He kept seeing Lapis, trapped somewhere, yelling for Peridot, for all of them, trapped again like she hated. And what was worse, he didn't know if these dreams were real or not, and wasn't sure if he wanted them to be either.

"Can't sleep?" Steven jumped a little and turned towards the kitchen to see Amethyst making herself a sandwich.

"No." Steven admitted. "I'm just really worried about Lapis."

"Doesn't stop some people." Amethyst gestured towards the couch where Peridot was cuddled up with Pumpkin wearing a face Steven hadn't seen since she moved back into the bathroom. "And she doesn't even need sleep."

"Then maybe my dreams are real then." Steven said aloud, looking out of the window towards the moon. Amethyst gave him a curious look so Steven came down to the kitchen and told her about his nightmares.

"Could be real." Amethyst said with a shrug. "You have seen this sort of stuff before, right? Back when we had Malachite?"

Steven nodded. Amethyst placed several chaps on top of her sandwich and shoved it into her mouth with triumph. "Maybe you should be talking about this stuff to Pearl, or Garnet. Or maybe even Peridot. I'm just... not very good at this sort of stuff, you know?" Steven nodded.

"But maybe you could try and have another dream!" Amethyst snapped her fingers. "Try and communicate with her? Do you think you could do that?"

Steven frowned. He looked over at Peridot, murmuring in her sleep. He thought about Lapis, all lost alone and scared out there and frowned.

"I can try."

...

The cell wasn't on a ship, but it was just as cold, plain and lonely with bare walls and no one else around. Lapis hugged her knees, slowly stiffening from the hours spent in that position. They hadn't poofed her when they had taken her, just restrained her, weakened her so she couldn't use her powers. It was a tool she knew they didn't make on Homeworld. This wasn't a diamond based mission. No, this was something else.

Lapis had been in this position before, but that was different. She knew who had her, that is was Jasper, and Peridot, that little green gem she had grown to love and to hide that love from. How she felt about Peridot was complicated, sure, and wasn't really the thing to be focusing on right now. Lapis knew where she was, the moon base, so close to home, yet so far. How ironic, the place that had once been her only tether to earth, now the only thing keeping her from it. Lapis wondered if her captors knew this.

And even worse, they kept messing with her head. It was just on the edge of her subconscious, but Lapis could feel a presence, a voice, calling out to her. It sounded so familiar, she almost wanted to believe it was him... No, she couldn't fall down that trap. Lapis stood up and lashed out hard at the wall behind her.

"SHUT UP!" She cried. The wall dented. Lapis stared at the dent she'd made in the wall. Of course! She'd spent weeks in this place and had occasionally vented her anger and self hate onto the walls that she had blamed for keeping her away from the earth. Lapis knew just how flimsy these walls were and where. Blowing softly on her knuckles, Lapis raised her fist. She had a lot of punching to do.

...

"It's not working!" Steven declared, sitting up in bed.

"Have you tried-"

"Yes I've tried that!" Steven sighed and swung his legs off the edge of his bed. "She just keeps shutting me out!"

Amethyst frowned. "Wonder why that is." She muttered, swinging her legs against the kitchen side she was sat on. "Do you think we should tell Pearl-"

"No." Steven said, coming down the steps. "I, erm, I don't want to disappoint them when they find out my powers aren't working properly. And I don't want to disappoint Peridot by making her think I can contact Lapis and help her. I guess I really am useless."

He instantly felt a hand on his back and looked up at Amethyst. She was looking sternly down at him from her seat on the kitchen side.

"Don't ever think that again." She snapped. "You are a great asset to the team and you know it."

Steven sighed, but smiled a little.

"I suppose so. Thanks, Amethyst, for helping me try."

Amethyst nodded. "Sure thing, little dude. We're gonna find Lapis."

Steven nodded and smiled, but before he could reply, the temple door activated to reveal a very annoyed looking Pearl.

"What do you think you are doing? Amethyst, I said no snacks after one AM! Steven, what are you doing out of bed? It is WAY past your bedtime."

"Sorry Pearl, I erm, couldn't sleep." Steven rubbed his neck sheepishly. "I'll, erm, go back to bed."

"Yes you will." Peal said sternly. "I'll talk to you two in the morning, but right now, we don't want to wake Peridot." She nodded towards the sleeping gem on the sofa. "Amethyst, go back into the temple."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Amethyst rolled her eyes. "See you in the morning Steven." Steven smiled at her as she left.

"Night Amethyst, night Pearl." Pearl smiled and nodded. Steven lay in his bed, the smile fading from his face.

"Night Lapis, wherever you are."

...

With aching knuckles, Lapis finally managed to make a hole that was a little wider than her gem. She smiled briefly at her success, but was still worried about the noise she had made in the process. If she was going to escape, it had to be now. Lapis took a deep breath. Now came the hard part.

Lapis Lazulis were capable of shapeshifting, of course. But Lapis disliked it, she liked her form as it was and has never found any use for it. Until now. Concentrating hard, she managed to change her form into something a lot smaller, barely bigger than her gem. Satisfied, Lapis sprouted tiny wings and flew towards the wall she had made, managing to scramble out and land safely on the moon's surface below. Lapis smiled brightly and shifted back to her normal form. She was on her way.

"You too huh?" Lapis jumped and turned around. There before her stood another Lapis Lazuli, almost identical to herself except for her hair being longer and more spikey and what she was wearing. Sure, they wore a similar outfit, but this Lapis Lazuli wore a scowl.

"What do you mean?" Lapis asked cautiously. Sure, she had been kidnapped by a fleet of her own kind, but this Lapis Lazuli didn't see a threat. In fact, Lapis didn't remember seeing her as one of her captors.

"I mean you punched the wall out and tried to fly away, right?" The Lapis Lazuli raised an eyebrow. "But now you're about to discover that it won't work."

"What do you mean?" Lapis demanded, a little desperately. The Lapis Lazuli gestured towards earth.

"Try it." Lapis frowned, but spread her wings and flew up, away from the moon. The closer she got to escape though, the harder it seemed to become to fly, like something was pushing against her. Eventually, Lapis stopped moving all together. Try as she might, she couldn't fly another inch. Giving a growl of frustration, Lapis flew back towards the other Lapis Lazuli, who was watching in amusement.

"See? They wouldn't just leave us in flimsy metal cells like that! They've got protection barriers and any minute they'll be coming to get us and put us away again." She sighed. "And I was so close too."

"Who are you?" Lapis demanded, still angry at her near miss at escape.

"I'm Lapis Lazuli." The gem said with a smirk. "Just like you."

"I'm Lapis." Lapis said. "My friends call me Lapis."

The Lapis Lazuli raised an eyebrow. "Then I guess I'll be Lazuli." She said. "Friends huh? They wouldn't happen to be that little orange blob and the green gem down on earth, would they?"

"Peridot and Pumpkin!" Lapis exclaimed. "Why, what happened to them, are they here-"

"Wow, you really are attached!" Lazuli exclaimed. "No, they're still back in that wooden shack as far as I know."

"Then how come-"

"They wouldn't leave me unguarded." Lazuli looked out across the galaxy. "I was forced to watch the fight from a distance. But I wouldn't take part. I would never do that."

"So how come you're not... like them?" Lapis looked back at the moon base. "The others."

Lazuli shrugged. "I've been asking them that question for months. Who are you, why did you take me, what are you planning/ No answer. I think they're under someone's control, but I don't know who." She rubbed her elbow sadly. "I just want to go home."

Lapis looked back towards earth, that glowing green and blue orb that she still wanted to be on, there was so much she hadn't accomplished yet, meep morps that had been planned, battles with corrupted gems that she always seemed left out of, Peridot...

"Where is your home?" She asked, trying to distract her from her pain. Lazuli turned away from her, away from the Earth, looking out across the galaxy with a pained expression.

"An abandoned colony." She said. "Something didn't go right there and all the gems left to start a new one. There's only me and a few other defects, but it's home." She smiled a little.

"Defects?" Lapis looked her up and down. "I don't see anything wrong with you."

Lazuli sighed and gestured towards the gem on her forearm.

"Something was always wrong with this, wrong with me since I popped out of the ground. I can't control water. I only have my wings. No other powers." She sighed. Lapis put a hand on her shoulder.

"I have a friend back on earth, an era two Peridot, who thought she had no powers." Lapis smiled faintly when she thought of Peridot. "Then she discovered that... she did. There was something about earth that brought that out of her. That's the thing about Earth and places like it. They really... set you free."

Lazuli smiled. "Just like Mellentarch. My home." She explained when she saw Lapis's confused look. "It's a lot like Earth, actually. Sure, no other species, but it's a colony the other diamonds decided not to bother with. Just like the gems left behind on it." She turned back to Lapis. "Of course, they didn't launch a full scale attack, but you get the idea."

Lapis nodded. "It sounds nice."

"It is." Lazuli cocked her head to one side. "Hey, what's say we team up, you know, figure out a way off this rock and such. Work together."

Lapis gave a small smile.

"Sounds good to me."