THURSDAY

Steven was the first to wake up, chilled by the cool night air on his naked body. For several seconds, he just blinked sleepily, wondering where he was, then he became aware of the arm draped over him, and it all came back to him. Paris. Peridot. He leaned over and grabbed his phone from the nightstand and checked the time. Two-thirty in the morning, which meant it was eight-thirty back home, and he might finally be able to get a response from the Crystal Gems. He unlocked the screen and brought up Garnet's contact details, and then hesitated, suddenly aware that it might be wise to wash first.

He rolled over, intending to wake up Peridot, but found himself just staring at her sleeping face instead. There was a serene smile on her face and her hair was mussed up, with sweaty curls forming around her face, and all the pointy bits had gone floofy. His phone was still in his hand, and he was sorely tempted to take a photograph of her. But that might be a little creepy, he realized. Even more creepy than watching her sleep, so instead he just gently shook her shoulder. "Peri… wakey wakey…"

Peridot's eyes snapped open and she sat up, clearly disorientated. "Was I asleep? It's a very peculiar sensation," she continued before he could answer. "You really do that every night?"

"I like sleep," Steven said cheerfully. "I like to close my eyes and think happy thoughts to sustain me throughout the night." And as he said that, it occurred to him that he was going to be sustained for quite a few nights now, and he smiled widely. "Speaking of night," he continued, holding his phone up, "it's getting pretty late back home, so I'm gonna have a shower and try calling the others again."

"A shower?" Peridot smirked and stroked his chest. "Do you want company?"

Steven considered that very carefully for all of 0.2 seconds. "Absolutely." He bounced to his feet and grabbed her hand and the two of them made their way into the surprisingly spacious bathroom. Steven stepped into the shower and fiddled with the controls, while Peridot examined the little bars of soap and teeny bottles of shampoo and shower gel lined up on the sink. "All right," he said once he'd managed to find the point where the water wasn't arctic cold or warmed by the very fires of hell. "Come on in."

Peridot stepped into the shower next to him and sighed happily as the warm water soothed her aching muscles. After a few seconds, she opened the little bottle of shower gel she brought in with her, but before she could make a move to use any of it, Steven took the bottle from her hands. "Let me take care of you now," he said softly.

"What do you mean?" She looked up at him in mild confusion.

He leant down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "I noticed you were kinda doing all the work back there-"

"I would hardly describe it as work," Peridot began to protest, but Steven cut her off with another kiss.

"Shh," he scolded, and squirted a blob of gel into his hands. "Just relax and enjoy yourself. And turn around so I can wash your back."

Peridot gave in and turned around. Immediately she felt Steven's hands on her shoulders, rubbing small circles on her skin, working out the knots in her muscles and she hummed with pleasure. "Mmmm, that's nice."

"I have healing hands as well as healing spit," Steven joked, leaning down and kissing her neck.

"Really? Is that a new power?" Peridot asked, turning her face towards him.

"No, I'm just joking," he quickly explained.

"Oh." She laughed as she finally got the joke. "Well, your hands do feel very good," she said, feeling his fingers slide down to her hips. "Perhaps you do have some form of healing touch after all."

Steven smiled and lowered his hands to grab her ass, squeezing the soapy, slippery cheeks and gently pulling them apart so he could rub a thumb against her little, puckered hole. Peridot inhaled sharply and pushed back against him, but he moved his hands away and reached up to cup her tits. "Then let me know if anything hurts," he murmured in her ear, and his warm breath made her shiver, desire pooling in her belly.

"Perhaps my breasts are a little painful," she said coyly, leaning back against him and rubbing her butt against his growing erection. Steven grinned and let go of her for a second. "Wha- Steven!" she complained, but then he squirted a little more gel into his hands and reached back around her to rub the slippery liquid onto her tits. "Ah, yes, that feels good."

"And how about here?" he asked, sliding his hands down to her belly.

"Yes, I like that," she cooed happily. "But," she added, turning her face and blinking up at him through the water with wide-eyed innocence, "there's a terrible ache in my pussy. Could you take care of that for me?"

Steven quickly washed the remaining shower gel off of his hands; experience had taught him that it didn't make a very pleasant lubricant. Then he reached down and cupped her pussy, teasing her labia with his fingertips. "Is that any better?"

"No," she whined, wriggling in his grasp and trying to get him to properly finger her.

"Oh no," he said in a deadpan tone. "My powers of healing touch have failed me." Then he spun her around and nudged her legs apart. "I guess I'm going to have to use my powers of healing spit instead." He dropped to his knees and ran his hands up her thighs before he grabbed her ass again and pulled her forward a little until she was close enough for him to kiss her mons; partly to tease her, mostly to make sure the position wasn't going to drown him. Once he was comfortable, he flicked his tongue out and gave her clit a quick lick, then placed a few kisses on her inner thighs. "How about now?" he teased.

"Steven…" Peridot whimpered, grabbing hold of his curls but valiantly resisting the urge to just push his face into her cunt. He was in charge this time. "Please…"

Steven finally took pity on her and put his mouth back on her pussy. He parted her folds and licked the entire length of her slit before curling his tongue into her. Peridot squirmed and moaned and gripped his hair tighter, and Steven had to grab her butt harder to keep her in place while he continued to eat her out for several minutes. And while his hands were there, he spread her cheeks and rubbed his thumb against her asshole again, and Peridot cried out and bucked her hips against his face.

But with his hands busy holding her in place, he couldn't reach down to give his own erection any attention, so he pulled away and stood up again, pulling her in for a deep kiss before she could vocalize her annoyance. Then, to her delight, he picked her up and carefully lowered her onto his cock and began to fuck her against the back wall of the shower. She wrapped her arms and legs around him at once and let out little gasps and squeals of pleasure every time he thrust into her. Then Steven felt her body stiffen around him. Her legs tightened, pulling him in deeper, and her fingernails dug into his back as she came. He wasn't far behind; he tightened his own grip on her as her muscles relaxed, and fucked her until he came as well, crying out her name.

For several seconds afterwards, he half-slumped against the wall, doing his very best not to squash Peridot in the middle even though she seemed find the predicament more amusing than anything else, judging from the smirk on her face. Eventually he regained enough strength to straighten back up, and he pulled out of her and placed her back on the floor. "You were- whoa!" He lunged forward and caught her just as her legs gave way. "Are you OK?"

"Y-yeah," Peridot said, struggling back to her feet in embarrassment. "I think my muscles are just temporarily weakened from all of our…" She blushed slightly. "Activity."

Steven nodded in understanding. His own legs felt kind of unsteady too. "Wait a second, I'll give you a hand back to the other room," he offered, and stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist. He picked up another towel and waited for her to shut off the water, and then when she'd wrapped it around herself, he swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the main room and deposited her on the chaise-lounge, before sinking into one of the other chairs himself. "Is that-"

Before he could finish the question, his cell phone rang. He groaned, really not in the mood to move again, but he recognized the tune as the one he'd assigned to Garnet, so with extreme reluctance, he stood up and staggered over to the nightstand. "Hello?"

"Steven."

"Ye-es?" Steven replied, not quite sure if she was checking it was him or just stating his name. "It's me."

"Where are you?"

Steven laughed a little nervously. "That's uh, that's actually a very funny story! See, I thought it would be fun to take Peridot to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, and um…" He closed his eyes briefly and then just blurted out the truth. "Lion vanished and now we're stranded in Paris and it's the middle of the night."

"I see." There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Garnet spoke again. "Are you in a safe place?"

"Yeah." Steven nodded as he spoke. "I booked us into a hotel for the night."

"Good. Send me the address and we'll come and get you." And with that, Garnet hung up.

"OK," Steven said, more to himself than anyone else, and he typed the name and address of the hotel into a text message and sent it. Then he stared down at the screen with a small frown as he belatedly recalled just how fast the Ruby ship could travel. "In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have sent that until after we got dressed."

Peridot, who was half-asleep on the chaise-lounge, forced her eyes open and sat up. "When are they due to arrive?"

"Uh…" Steven's phone bleeped to signal an incoming message. He read it, and then sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "In about four minutes."

Peridot groaned loudly and rolled off the chaise-lounge onto the floor. "Noooo…"

"Three of those minutes are going to be spent dragging the ship out of Amethyst's room," he continued apologetically. "So… we should probably hurry up."

Peridot groaned again, but as she had absolutely no desire for the other gems to see her naked again, she reluctantly climbed to her feet and began hunting for her underwear. The two of them quickly got dressed and ran down to the lobby to check out, and Steven was just handing the keys back when the door opened and Garnet walked in. "Ah, good, you're ready." She nodded her head outside. "Come on. We're double parked."

They followed Garnet out of the hotel and onto the ship, trying very hard to look completely innocent. Peridot bit the inside of her cheek and tried to walk normally, and when Steven found himself reaching out to take her hand, he caught himself and gripped the straps of his backpack a little harder. "Oh, hello, you two," Pearl greeted them when they entered. "Did you have a nice time?"

"Uh-huh," Peridot squeaked guiltily.

"The Louvre was fascinating," Steven gabbled. "We saw the Mona Lisa, and Victory, and the Venus de Milo-"

"If you put those last two together, you get an entire woman!" Peridot blurted out.

The three Crystal Gems all stared at her in bemusement and Peridot felt a bead of sweat run down her back. Or it could've been a drop of water from her wet hair, she wasn't entirely sure. Steven quickly leapt to her rescue. "Victory has no head, and Venus has no arms," he said rapidly.

Amethyst shook her head. "Man, I do not get art."

Before anyone could explain that the missing body parts had probably not been intentional, Pearl stepped forward and seated herself in the pilot's seat. "Is everyone ready?" she asked, turning to face the others. Everybody nodded, and she spun back to the controls. "Then let's go home. Clearly we've all had a very busy day and I really don't want to get stopped and questioned by the French authorities."

xxx

Once they were back at the beach house, Peridot warped back to the barn and Steven dropped his backpack on the floor and yawned. "Sorry about that. Thanks for bringing us back," he said to the other Crystal Gems.

"That's quite all right, Steven," Pearl said with a bright smile. "But perhaps it's time I taught you to properly fly the ship instead of you relying on that creature."

"Lion's usually so well behaved," Steven mused. "I wonder where he went?"

"He's under the house," Amethyst said at once. "Maybe he just got homesick. Or regular sick," she added. "Like, don't they eat frogs and snails in France? Eesh!" She shuddered dramatically. "And people say I'm a freaky eater.

"Seriously!?" Steven exclaimed.

Amethyst nodded vigorously. "Yeah, dude, didn't you like, grab a McFrog burger or anything while you were there?"

"No, I meant Lion!" Steven stomped towards the door. "I can't believe he was here the whole time!" He bounced down the steps onto the beach, and sure enough, there was Lion, curled up under the deck, apparently asleep. "Lion!"

Lion cracked one eye open and stared at him for a long moment before settling back down to nap.

Steven glared at him for approximately two seconds and then caved. "Aww. I can't stay mad at you." He stepped forward and snuggled his face against the huge animal's fur. "Don't tell anyone," he whispered, "but I wasn't even mad at you to start with. Last night-" He stopped for a moment as the reality of time zones hit him and he realized technically, everything that had happened in that hotel was sort of in the future, in a strange sort of time loop he was about to repeat. Then he decided the time travel technicalities really didn't matter and just made things confusing, and carried on talking. "It was the best night of my life." He stroked Lion's fur and gazed out across the dim ocean. "Did you come back here on purpose so me and Peridot could be together, hmm?"

Lion, of course, didn't respond.

xxx

That night, Steven slept soundly and woke up late in the morning, feeling much refreshed. He stretched happily and picked his phone up to see what time it was. Nine thirty-three in the morning, and he had three new messages from Peridot. He immediately unlocked the phone and smiled at the two next picture messages, one of Peridot in the Louvre doing a victory sign beside the headless statue of Victory, and one apparently of her that morning, in her room in the barn, dressed in a strappy little cropped top and shorts. The third message was a text.

I hope you slept well. What time would be optimal for visiting Funland? Xxx

Steven was unaware of the wide, goofy smile on his face as he immediately composed a text back. Just woke up! Thought I might do some chores this morning, wanna meet up outside Funland at oneish? He paused, wondering whether to add kisses to his text too, and then internally said 'fuck it' and did it anyway. Xxx

Moments later, she sent a reply. Sounds good, I'll see you there. Xxx

See ya! Xxx he sent back. Then he changed into some clean clothes, ate breakfast, gave the house a general tidy and began packing up his old clothes to give to Goodwill. Around mid-morning, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl came out of the Temple and told him about some of the more awful hourglasses that had been in the Sea Shrine, including one that had forced them to relive their worst moments over and over until Lapis managed to smack it out of their hands with a passing shark, and Steven shuddered in horror. "So are you all done there now?" he asked.

"Yup," Amethyst said happily. "Everything's all bubbled and chilling in Pearl's room. So now we're gonna chillax too until G-Squad finds some new monster to ruin my day."

Garnet smiled sweetly and stood up. "Speaking of which, I'm going to meditate in my room. See if I can find a new monster to ruin your day."

Amethyst groaned loudly at this, but Garnet ignored her and vanished into the Temple. Meanwhile, Pearl was rummaging under the sink, and eventually emerged with her arms full of cleaning supplies. "Well, I'm going to do a little tidying up," she said. "I've completely neglected the housework these past few days."

"But I-" Steven began, and then changed his mind. If Pearl wanted to clean the house he'd just cleaned, he was just going to let her go ahead and do it. "I'm about to make some lunch," he said instead. "Just… in case you were intending to do the washing up first."

"I was actually planning to clean the kitchen," Pearl said. "But that can wait." She disappeared into the bathroom instead, and Steven made himself a bowl of mac and cheese and made to leave.

"Whatcha doing?" Amethyst asked, raising herself up onto her elbows.

Steven thought quickly. The last thing he needed was Amethyst inviting herself along for the trip. "Gonna go visit Dad. I should probably warn him about the next credit card bill."

"Oh." She immediately lost interest and fell back onto the sofa. "I thought maybe you were gonna hang out with Peridot again."

"Wh-what?" Steven stammered, taken by surprise. "Why would you think that?"

Thankfully, Amethyst had closed her eyes and failed to notice the guilty look on his face. "Ya know, just, you two have been spending a lot of time together recently, that's all."

"We hang out a totally normal amount of time!" Steven said defensively.

"Uh, last week, you both barricaded yourselves in your room and watched all twelve Star Wars movies in a row," Amethyst countered. "And the week before that, she helped you design and build a full-scale sandcastle on the beach."

"Stupid zoning rules," Steven muttered, remembering how Mayor Dewey had immediately had their castle flattened.

"And the week before that," Amethyst continued as if she hadn't heard, "you took her to the north every day, for like, four days straight, so you could teach her to ice skate, and the week before that, you both just hung out in the barn and read all the Harry Potter books back to back."

"Well, today I'm just going to see my dad," Steven said firmly, and before Amethyst could say another word, he stepped outside and fled. But as he walked along the beach, he realized Amethyst was right. He had been spending an awful lot of time with Peridot over the last few months. But what else was he supposed to do with his time? Corrupted gem sightings were getting rarer and rarer. The Diamonds hadn't sent anybody else to Earth in three years, and they'd caught and bubbled the last of the missing Ruby squad shortly afterwards. And all of his human friends, Connie included, were at school or college. True, he could train with the gems more, or ask them more about gem history, or even enroll in school himself, but he'd much rather have fun with Peridot than do any of those things.

Before he could get deeply introspective about that, he found himself outside the car wash his dad still worked at. As he'd already told Amethyst he was heading there, he stopped for a few minutes and explained about the clothes and the hotel room before continuing on, past the old docks to the Funland Amusement Park.

He was a little early, so while he waited, he browsed some of the touristy booths that were set up outside to take advantage of the Spring Break foot traffic. There was the usual assortment of trashy souvenir clothes, novelty obscene candy, cheap beach toys and sculptures made out of driftwood, but one booth selling sea glass and jewelry caught his eye, and he stopped for a closer look and picked up a necklace decorated with several small stars. Peridot would love it-

His phone bleeped, pulling him out of his thoughts. He pulled it out of his pocket and unlocked the screen, half-expecting to see a message from Peridot, or maybe even Peedee, with more details about the double date.

What he wasn't expecting to see, however, was a message from Connie. Hi Steven! Peedee told me you and Peridot would be joining us tomorrow, looking forward to it :) feels like I haven't seen you in forever!

He suddenly felt as though somebody had chucked a bucket of ice-cold water over him. Somehow, despite the fact that this entire week of fake dating had been planned purely to make Connie jealous, he'd barely spared a thought for her since Tuesday. Because he'd been too busy fooling around with Peridot instead. A wave of self-loathing washed over him. Connie deserved better, and if he was ever going to be her real boyfriend, he was going to have to seriously rethink his relationship with Peridot. There could never be any repeat of what had happened in France.

"Steven!"

Peridot's voice jolted him out of his thoughts and a moment later, she glomped onto his arm and beamed up at him with a wide, sunny smile. "I apologize for my late arrival, it took me a little time to evade Lapis. It didn't think it would be wise to let her know exactly where I was going."

"Oh." Steven shook his head, trying to dismiss some of his muddled thoughts. "Right. Well, you're here now," he said feebly.

Thankfully, Peridot didn't seem to notice anything wrong, and simply let go of his arm and linked their hands together instead. "Shall we proceed?"

"Uh, sure." He let himself be pulled over to the ticket booth and brought some tickets. "Where do you want to go first?" He thought back to their plan for the day. Win an enormous toy. Perhaps if they hurried up and got that over and done with, he could cut this date short and go home and brood. "Do you wanna check out the game booths?"

Peridot scanned the attractions thoughtfully. "Not yet. A prize would be awkward to take on any of the rides. We should do those first."

Steven valiantly tried to keep his complete lack of enthusiasm from showing on his face as he also had a quick look around. "How about… the dodgems?" he eventually suggested. Maybe smashing into a few unfortunate tourists would cheer him up.

"OK," she said agreeably, and grabbed his hand again. "That sounds fun."

And at first, it was fun. But after a couple of rides, Peridot finally noticed that Steven didn't appear to be enjoying himself as much as she was. He was quiet and distracted, often staring blankly into space, and sometimes when she spoke to him, he didn't respond, forcing her to repeat herself. And he kept letting go of her hand. The first couple of times, it was just to hand over their tickets, but after a while, she realized she was always the one reinitiating contact.

Apprehension crept over her. She tried to pretend nothing was wrong, but she could hear her voice getting faster and louder as she tried to fill the silence that had fallen between them, and she couldn't seem to keep herself still. Even in the queues for rides, she found herself fidgeting and bouncing from foot to foot. She knew she was being annoying, but she couldn't seem to stop. It was a relief when Steven brought up the booths again. She could throw things at a target and get rid of some of her nervous energy.

"How about this one?" Steven said, letting go of her hand again as they stopped beside a game that involved throwing balls at a stack of tin cans.

"Sure!" she said, too loudly. "I'll go first." She stepped forward and handed Mr Smiley a ticket and received three balls in return, which she then threw as hard as she could, not actually caring if they hit anything.

Much to her surprise, she knocked over an entire pyramid of cans. "Congratulations!" Mr Smiley exclaimed, and waved a hand at the back wall. "You get to pick a prize!"

"Steven? Do you want the prize?" She turned to look up at him, only to catch him zoning out again. He hadn't even noticed that she'd won.

"Sorry, what?" he asked.

"Do you want the prize?" she said again, gesturing desperately at the booth. "I knocked over all the cans and won a prize and I thought maybe you'd like to choose? I mean, if you want to, you don't have to-" She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop talking and smile.

"Oh." He blinked and took another look at the booth. "No, that's OK, Peri. It's your win, you choose."

Her smile went wobbly, and she pointed randomly at the prizes. "That one."

Mr Smiley narrowed his eyes, trying to work out what she was pointing at. "You mean the green unicorn?" he checked.

"Yeah, whatever," Peridot said, half-heartedly. Why not. It wasn't like it mattered. She took her unicorn and stepped aside so Steven could play. "Your turn," she said loudly, just in case he'd zoned out again.

Steven took another look at the wall of prizes and shook his head. "Actually, I think I'd like to try the dart toss," he said, pointing to the next booth. For what seemed like the first time all afternoon, he smiled. "Look, one of the prizes is a pink lion."

"Oooh, that's a good choice," Mr Smiley said enthusiastically, hopping over the edge of the booth and into the next one. "But you gotta score more than 100 in only five darts to win a prize like that!"

"I'm a pretty good shot with my shield," he boasted, taking the darts from Mr Smiley. "Bring it on."

Peridot leaned on the edge of the booth and watched as Steven aimed the dart and threw it. To both of their surprise, it curved in midair, and landed in the three instead of the twenty he'd been aiming for. Steven frowned and adjusted his aim, but his next shot was no better, only ending up a little higher. Beginning to grow annoyed, he aimed a little to the side, landing on the seventeen, but it was too little, too late and his final score was a dismal forty.

"Oooooooh, bad luck!" Mr Smiley said cheerfully. "But you do win a slinky!"

Steven scowled in frustration. "I'll try again." He handed over another ticket and tried again. His score was even worse the second time around. "One more try!" he snapped. This time, well aware that the game was somehow rigged, he stopped aiming for the twenty and randomly chose other high numbers, but even a double thirteen wasn't enough to get his score above fifty, and he could feel himself losing his temper. "Ah come on! This is rigged!"

Mr Smiley heard this complaint at least ten thousand times a day and was completely unperturbed. "It's not rigged, it's just difficult. Lions aren't cheap," he said mildly. "If I gave one out for every low score, I'd go out of business."

Steven opened his mouth to argue that there was a difference between 'difficult' and 'how stupid do you think I am, the damn board obviously has magnets on the back' but paused when he felt Peridot's hand on his arm. "Try one more time," she said quietly.

He grumbled under his breath, but did as he was told. This time, his first dart landed solidly in the twenty. Then the second one. Suddenly suspicious, he watched Peridot out of the corner of his eye as he threw the third dart, and sure enough, her hands twitched, just below the edge of the booth and out of sight of Mr Smiley, and once again, the dart landed in the twenty. "Don't do that," he said sharply.

Peridot blinked, taken aback by his tone. "I-I just thought- I wanted to help," she stammered, as Mr Smiley looked at them both in confusion.

"Well don't! I don't want your help!" he snapped. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back, but it was too late. Peridot's eyes widened with hurt and she took a step back. "Peri-" he began, reaching out to her.

"Forget it, I don't want the stupid lion anyway," she interrupted, then spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

"Uh oh, trouble in paradise, eh?" Mr Smiley joked. Steven didn't bother responding, and ran after her, and after a couple of seconds, Mr Smiley shrugged and pulled the darts out of the board. If Steven didn't want his prizes, that was fine with him.

xxx

"Peridot!" Steven dodged around a group of slow moving tourists loitering beside the Ferris wheel and turned in a slow circle, looking for any sign of her. Seeing nothing, he moved on. After a couple of minutes, he began to seriously consider the possibility that she'd left completely, but then a gap opened in the crowd and he spotted her sitting on a bench, hugging her knees. He let out a small sigh of relief, and slowly approached her. "Hey," he said softly. "Mind if I sit here?"

Peridot's eye's flickered in his direction and she shrugged. "If you want."

He sat down next to her and opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could say a word, she spoke first. "Steven? Have I done something wrong?"

"No," he said at once. "No, it's not you, it's me." Then he smiled a small, self-depreciating smile, realizing how clichéd that sounded. "Really though, I've been a complete jerk today, I'm sorry. It's just…" He hesitated, trying to think of the best way to phrase things. "Connie sent me a text just before you arrived," he said awkwardly. "It's… kind of been on my mind."

"Oh." Peridot uncurled slightly. She was half tempted to ask what the text had said, but she wasn't sure she'd like the answer, so she kept her mouth shut.

Beside her, Steven sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I haven't been very good company today, have I?"

"No," Peridot said at once. "You sucked." She uncurled some more and leaned her head on his shoulder. "But I forgive you."

Steven couldn't help chuckling at that, and he put his arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. "In that case…" he began, "would you help me win a toy lion? Please?"

She bit her lip, still a little hesitant after the way he'd yelled at her, but as he did seem to be genuinely remorseful, she relented. "All right."

"Great!" He bounced to his feet and held a hand out to her. "But maybe this time, aim for some other numbers. If I get all twenties, Mr Smiley's gonna get suspicious."

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, they walked away from the booth with a score of one hundred and one, and a large, pink, stuffed lion. "You did good," Steven praised her.

"I did, didn't I?" Peridot said smugly. "So… what should we do now?" She glanced up at him. "We don't have many tickets left, we could leave now if you want."

Steven shook his head. He wanted to try and make up for being such an awful date before they parted company. "Let's get some ice cream," he suggested instead. "And then we could go on the Ferris wheel."

Peridot approved of this plan, so they strolled over to an ice cream truck and brought two cones. It didn't take long for Peridot to decide she liked ice cream, and she consumed the entire thing in less than two minutes, so Steven let her finish his as well while they queued for the Ferris wheel. Soon they were seated and the car slowly rose into the air until they could see across the entire bay. "The view is beautiful from up here," Peridot commented.

Steven nodded in agreement. "You know who else is beautiful? The Temple fusion statue," he teased.

Peridot snickered with laughter and then snuggled up against him. "It really is beautiful though," she murmured. "I'm glad you suggested this ride."

"Mmm." Steven stared across the ocean, deep in thought. "Peridot? Do you love me?" he asked abruptly.

"Of course," Peridot said without hesitation.

"Right," he said slowly. It wasn't exactly the reaction he'd expected, but then he reran the sentence through his head and realized he hadn't been specific enough. "Are you… in love with me?"

This time, he felt her stiffen. "Why do you ask?" she said warily.

Shit. He sighed and bit his lips, feeling guilty. "Do… do you want me to call off the double date tomorrow?" he asked.

"No? Why would you do that?" she said, looking bewildered.

"Because you were right," he tried to explain. "These sort of plans never work. And…" He swiveled around in his seat and looked seriously at her. "I don't want to hurt you."

Peridot frowned. "Steven, as I told you yesterday, I'm well aware that you love Connie and I don't expect that to change because of anything that's happened this week. I'll be fine, I promise. Besides," she continued, seeing that he looked unconvinced, "Connie and Peedee are expecting us to be there tomorrow, and we've put so much work into this charade! It would be completely illogical to throw it all away at this late stage!"

"I don't know…" Steven said hesitantly. He knew that logically, she was right. But he also knew that feelings weren't always logical. "Are you sure?"

"It's just one more day," she pointed out. "We can make it through one more day."

"All right," he relented. "One more day." Then he gave her hand a quick squeeze. "But I mean it, if you decide you want to stop, tell me."

"Yeah, sure," Peridot said vaguely, knowing perfectly well that she had no intention of giving up her final date with him.