Shorter chapter, less edited...I couldn't help but work ahead on next week's and also on a hyper-detailed chronicle of my gemsona fusion. Eat my shorts.

Note that I have changed YD's first name from Jaune (French for yellow) to Allnatt (the name of the most valuable yellow diamond in the world). Saw it off a headcanon on Tumblr and really liked it.


- I Am Not a Robot — Marina and the Diamonds -


About two weeks later after school on a Tuesday, Peridot trotted down Green Hallway with her backpack slung over her shoulder, her phone in her hand.

Last night's conversation bobbed in grey and blue message bubbles: So tomorrow for sure, rain or shine? - yeah whatevs - Okay, thanks. Rain or shine — did that include absence? Amethyst hadn't been at school today and Steven hadn't ridden the bus, but the biology unit test was next week before Thanksgiving break. Amethyst needed to study. She had only missed a couple days so far because of a bad cold a week ago, but had always been better before a meeting day. In desperation during lunch, Peridot had sent a frantic text along the lines of "do I still just come over or what where are you" and underneath it, the words Read 11:52 AM taunted her. She hadn't even thought to respond? The insolence. Peridot felt her cheeks reddening at the thought of the girl with purple hair and shook her head to clear it.

Inside classroom G10, Miss Diamond sat at her desk and Pearl stood at her side, murmuring something that stopped when both women noticed Peridot. Pearl glared at her in annoyance and opened her mouth probably to tell the girl to bug off, but without turning around, Miss Diamond asked, "What is it, Peridot?"

How did she do that, knowing who came in before turning around? It got progressively weirder whenever she did it. Peridot shifted uncomfortably. "I, ah, came to pick up Amethyst's reference materials for the test on Friday. We're studying together tonight."

"Good luck with that," Pearl sneered, but Miss Diamond told her to go disinfect the test tubes and beckoned for Peridot to come closer.

"I see you decided on a new cut," the teacher remarked icily.

Even while seated, her stature dwarfed Peridot and she felt like a lab animal under that pale gaze, at her mercy to be examined and dissected. Subconsciously the girl's hand floated up to her now blond hair. Yesterday, Vidalia had taken all three of her young protégés to the hairstylist's for biannual trims, and in a stroke of impulse, Peridot had gotten her hair bleached platinum and slicked up with a thick application of Sapphos Permafuse. The two older women who ran the place had been grinning and giving her thumbs up the entire time, and the one with the red headband remarked proudly that Peridot had just the perfect hair type for the stuff.

She couldn't say that she disliked the new look she had dealt upon herself, just that it detracted from the persona of intelligence and objectivity she had held for so long. But...a grand total of three compliments had come because of it — that's three more than usual — and she had noted the significant lack of self-deprecating thoughts that day. "It's just what I felt comfortable with," Peridot responded quietly.

As soon as the world "comfortable" escaped into the Clorox-thick air, the teacher's eyes narrowed slightly, but it was so subtle Peridot didn't know if it had just been her imagination. Miss Diamond slapped a paper folder on the desk between them, met Peridot's eyes for just a second, and then returned to her laptop.

"See to it that Amethyst receives this," and she had returned to her usual harsh but bored tone, but then she added, "and be careful."

Peridot wasn't stupid. She knew why the warning was tacked on. After leaving her in Purple Hallway outside the library, Miss Allnatt Diamond clearly had expected her to take the advice given to her, to turn her back on Amethyst's "riotous lifestyle" or whatever and return to the perfect little student that she was supposed to be. When she had seen Peridot's change of hairstyle, which admittedly did make her look like a punk, she felt as if one warning must not have been adequate.

Well, Peridot knew two things about adults: that they were to be feared until proven otherwise and that they were addicted to half-truths. The first one was still under scrutiny because Miss Diamond was certainly the type of teacher to call your parents and then tell you what you did wrong. The second was debatable. What was wrong with having a friend? About having a little fun? Was there something wrong with it?

As Peridot stuffed the folder into her backpack and scurried out of Miss Diamond's classroom, her mind pulled itself apart like so much cotton candy. According to Amethyst and Steven, fun was an important part of life and could benefit other aspects with its relaxation properties. But according to Miss Diamond...well, nothing had been outright stated, but she seemed to believe activities such as cosplaying, body modification, and...poor Peridot still cringed as she thought it...homosexual attraction led to lives of misery and ruin.

The thing was, Peridot didn't know who to trust. Hardwired as she was, distrustful of all until persuaded, she couldn't determine who would offer the better outcome — the bitter professor with the wasted degree and the potentials of long term success, or the hot girl with the pierced tongue and the adventures of short term pleasures? The technically correct answer was Miss Diamond, obviously, but she had trusted that life before and none of it had made her ever feel better about herself. All it had brought her was self-loathing and stress, an intense lust for perfection, a crushing defeat if she fell anywhere short of her goal. Could Amethyst be right — was it impossible to live like that? Was there a balance somewhere? Why couldn't she just...moderate the two?

The way things worked in Peridot's mind was all or nothing: either she threw herself entirely into school or expended her whole life with fun. And she didn't know how to change that. There had to be another way.

I'll just talk it through with Amethyst, she decided. If...if she's okay, at least.

As she walked out of the school to the buses, she was struck by a sudden uncertainty — should she go straight to Amethyst's? What if no one was home? Then she'd be stuck outside and...the biting cold of mid-November slapped against her exposed skin and even filtered through her sleeves. Her cute little pea coat was really getting too thin for this temperature reading. If she was stuck outside she could either walk home or call Vidalia and...no, that wasn't nice either. Hypothetically she could wait for Sour Cream to be done with band practice and then ride there with him but that would mean waiting until five thirty...ugh, why was this so complicated?!

There's a point in everything where you just have to say nope, a familiar girl's voice came to mind. I call it...the no point.

Perhaps now was a good time for a no point. To take a chance. Hadn't someone mentioned how the house was never empty…? If Amethyst wasn't home, or if she was sick, there had to be someone else. Perhaps Garnet or Pearl; as far as she had figured out, there was a twenty percent chance that the taller woman would be home because she worked volunteer shifts at the fire department alongside her martial arts classes. That would have to be good enough.

In addition to saying nope in her head as she took the empty seat on the bus (where was Steven?), Peridot made sure to text Vidalia and asked if she could possibly pick her up just in case.

The ride sure was long without someone to talk to — five songs long, in fact. Three games of agar. io (she hated the new update). As she got off at Rosewood Court alone and looked up at the wrought iron gate, the cold white sky glared down on her through the tangled canopy of bare branches. No one was around, no lights were on in the house; she couldn't hear the usual whispers of Pearl's piano or the slamming of Amethyst's drums or even Garnet's mixtapes, which she knew she played whenever possible. The fountains were off. The lone tire swing swung by itself. Somewhere, a crow cawed. Even the most integral parts of this mansion, all the moving parts and signs of life, were either gone or muted or just plain alone.

Tentatively she tapped the intercom, said "Ah...hello? This is Peridot" and waited with held breath.

After what felt like ages, the receiving beep responded and Garnet's voice replied, "The gates are open."

That was a relief. It was getting really cold out here too. Tentatively she tested the gates and found out that yes, in fact, they were unlocked, and gave easily at a gentle push. The front door similarly gave way and Peridot found herself in a very cold, uncharacteristically dark house. The silver mirror seemed to lag as she passed it, like her reflection responded a microsecond after she moved, and somewhere, two people conversed too quiet for her to hear. She never realized how loud the floorboards creaked under her shoes until she was technically alone. "Er...hello?"

The voices went quiet and then Garnet called, "We're in the kitchen."

Out of habit she left her shoes at the door and half-raced to the source of the woman's voice, where she was met by a scene she would not easily forget. A pudgy, middle-aged man was hunched at the kitchen table, gripping a cup of coffee as if his life depended on it, and Garnet sat adjacent to him with her hands folded and sunglasses on the table. When both adults looked up at her, she saw the shadows under their eyes, the rims of red, the emptiness. An emptiness Peridot knew too well.

"Are they okay?" she asked, although she feared she knew the answer. She hadn't seen either Amethyst's combat boots or Steven's flip flops at the door; if her text had been seen but not replied to...what could that mean? Her mind even flashed back to a police car that had screamed past the bus earlier. What if something had happened to them? Something...unspeakable?

The man didn't seem to know how to respond, just opened and closed his mouth mutely. Garnet hung her head.

"Amethyst has regressed," she snapped with uncharacteristic force. "I thought she knew better!"

Peridot had tensed up at the sharp voice but unfolded again with curiosity. "That she knew what?"

With no warning, Garnet slammed her fist onto the table, making both other people jump in surprise. Peridot watched her face in learned fear, but the rage had subsided — her clenched teeth turned to her usual deadpan, her heterochromatic eyes closed. The woman took a deep, calming breath. "Last year," she began again, softer now, "as soon as she gained independence, Amethyst began skipping school. That's why she's in all lower classes. This year we assigned her to take Steven to school to prevent her from doing it again, and we thought she had changed...but she just went and did it again, and took Steven into it."

She'd...skipped? But where had she gone? Had she done it just for fun — didn't she know how important today was? That her grades she'd worked so hard for were in peril?

Garnet lifted her head, met Peridot's eyes for a second, and then put her sunglasses back on. "You don't need to apologize," she said shortly a second before Peridot had begun planning an apology. "There was nothing you could have done."

"But she's my friend." The words slipped out just before she realized what they implied, but they had already hit the floor and shattered there. "I asked her before if something was wrong. She could have told me. Why didn't she tell me?"

"Because Amethyst isn't like that," the man spoke for the first time. "She doesn't forget anything and she'll never admit it either. Even to her friends."

Peridot was unbelievably confused. It didn't make sense...she didn't even know if she had heard everything in her daze, because nothing fit together. Amethyst was always so open about everything, why...no, it didn't matter! (Even though it did.) But it didn't matter. Amethyst was acting just like the punk she'd begun the year as, just like Peridot had thought her to be, just like she'd thought she'd been proven wrong about. If this was what came out when she cracked and if it seemed so out of character so as to be unbelievable, did Peridot really know her at all? Even worse, did this just prove a point? That Amethyst was the exact opposite of what Miss Diamond wanted for her?

Who had she fallen for?

A beep echoed in the kitchen, making a certain two of the occupants jump again. "They're back," Garnet said and got up — the two words lighting an impulse that took Peridot into a sprint for the door

They were back. They were okay.

Or at least — she would find out. Did she want to find out? Her immediate action told her that she did. A sick foreboding, however, told her that she did not.

Shoes on her feet, heels sticking out awkwardly, and she didn't bother with the coat, so when she vaulted down the front stone steps the icy wind bit her bare skin at full force. The white quilt of clouds had begun to spit sleet and she felt each biting crystal slap her face. Something about the situation just wasn't quite right — it felt dreamlike in that she felt like she was running as fast as she could, but going nowhere. How odd it was: if the talkative Steven and Amethyst had returned, then where were their voices? How quiet could a garage and yard get? Why, besides the literal, was it so cold?

Just as Peridot crossed the driveway behind an unfamiliar battered van and prepared herself the survivors of the unknown ordeal, a door slammed. Startled, she ducked — and missed her chance to inject herself into the scene. "Amethyst!" the voice of Pearl snapped. It was nothing like the motherly eccentricity that Peridot had heard before; rather, this was the voice that would make her shrink in her seat and pray for a miracle. This wasn't just irritation. This was fury.

There was a clanging like a kicked soda can, then Amethyst spoke with acid sarcasm. "What? Did I close the door too hard? Did I hurt its feelings?"

Oh no. Oh, no, no, no...Peridot had heard too many family fights to not know where this was going. A boy's voice cut in. "Amethyst, please!" Steven begged. He sounded so close to tears. "I know you're upset, but I can't bear to watch you guys fight!"

"Yeah, well, fighting's the only thing I know how to do," Amethyst snarled. "Right, Pearl? Aren't you right?"

"You — I — you just watch yourself, Amethyst." Pearl's smooth voice wobbled. "You're in enough trouble as it is, talking back for one, and then taking Steven to such a horrible place — "

"What? You mean to where bad kids live and do bad things and make more bad kids? Is that what you're talking about?"

Her voice was hoarser than normal, laced with a serrated edge. Peridot was subconsciously biting her fingernails and felt pain slash through her nerves as she accidentally ripped into the soft flesh, and she let out a gasp just as Pearl did. "Amethyst, this isn't about — "

"Oh, but it is!" A dangerous melody had slipped into Amethyst's voice — high, brittle. "You really don't get it, do you? You don't know what it's like to not have what literally everyone else in the damn world has, do you?!"

"Amethyst."

"You wonder why I'm so crazy, don't you, Pearl? You think I can't hear you?! I'm never good enough for you and you blame me for never knowing how to do things, and then you turn around and tell everyone how — oh, you and Rose and Garnet were sooo heroic for adopting me. Giving me ALL the support that a loving family never gave me BEFORE!"

"Stop this — "

"And I still never fucking got it," Amethyst growled. "Not from you, not from them — and I've tried my hardest at everything and I work my ass off for sixteen years trying to make you happy and — and it's never enough! It's never good enough to — to what? Pay for my rent? Make up for all the time you've wasted on sheltering a stupid little homeless kid? Maybe I only have a job so you won't have to see my ugly fucking face!"

"Amethyst!" They were both yelling now, their hoarse voices almost drowning out the sound of footsteps coming from the house. "Watch your language, Steven is — "

"Steven needs to learn about how crazy I really am," Amethyst half-laughed, half-choked. "So that you can tell him to stay away from parasiteslike me!"

A terrible crash came just then, echoed by staccato cries of pain and fear and Peridot felt sick to her stomach. Against her better judgment she allowed herself to look around into the garage — and regretted it. She saw Pearl on the floor next to a row of fallen bikes, her pants torn and staining with new blood. Steven had run to his surrogate mother, but stared at his sister, who stood between them and the car with her fists and teeth clenched.

"Admit it," yelled Amethyst. "I'm just a burden for you! You think I'm just — "

She blinked with a shudder but never finished, because it was then that she whirled towards Peridot and took a step back. Rather, to someone behind Peridot — a someone who strode past the van and up to the teenager without hesitation, her fists clenched. When Garnet said the name, it was different than the desperation of Steven or Pearl. Firm, unrelenting, and enraged. "Amethyst!"

The man from before had followed Garnet and ran to Steven, but Peridot paid no attention to them. When Garnet had appeared, Amethyst's expression had gone from fury to cold terror; as the older woman stepped towards her, she stepped back until she was pressed against the back wall of the garage. And Peridot would never think Garnet would harm Amethyst, but the fear was still there and it burned with familiarity. She squeezed her eyes shut — she couldn't do this, it wasn't her family — but she did. She jumped to her unsteady feet.

"Wait!" she yelped. Her voice cracked; all eyes turned to her. She felt a cold weight like a lead ball in her stomach and swallowed. What had she just done? She knew nothing more about the situation than anyone else in this situation.

"Peridot, go back inside," Garnet said. "Amethyst has to clean up this mistake on her own."

"I — but — " She already knew that Garnet was right. She couldn't just stick herself into a conflict that wasn't hers. There were many unspoken rules of the foster child and one of them, perhaps the most important, was to never insert yourself into familial conflicts, and if you happened to be the subject of one, to remove yourself in any way possible. Was it the right thing to defend Amethyst and ask to hear her case before punishment was dealt? Possibly. But was it safe? Absolutely not.

Desperate, frozen in her tracks, Peridot looked towards Amethyst, but just as she did, the older girl pushed past both Peridot and Garnet and took off running for the house with her head tucked down into her battered leather jacket. "A — Amethyst!" The name tore itself from Peridot's lips unbidden and before she knew it, she was running outside again, the swirling snow stinging her skin, chasing after Amethyst. The girl glanced over her shoulder once before running even faster and leaving her one friend and family in the dust.

Wheezing terribly and sniffling from a runny nose, Peridot caught up to Amethyst only after she'd slammed her bedroom door. "Amethyst...Amethyst, please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get involved, I just — "

"Go away," Amethyst sniffled, her voice muffled. "You don't understand. Just...don't talk to me."

Peridot was speechless. Then, in response to a burning in her chest, she snapped back, "You think I wouldn't understand?"

The second the words slipped out, she snatched at them again, trying to pull them back before they were swept along the irreversible current of sound. She had broken so many of the unspoken rules today and, for once, she couldn't imagine the retribution that might come from them. Especially not this one. You never, ever tried to make someone feel sorry for you. You were to never pity yourself, compare situations, even mention the Things That Happened To Make You Who You Were. Peridot had never before broken this rule. She did not know if she liked the way it slid off her chest, like a weight on the ground.

Involuntarily, she stepped back from the door and nearly tripped. The only break in the darkness of the empty hall came from the window at the end, placing a grey shaft of light between herself and a better apology. Something now held her tongue for her. Maybe it was the footsteps up the stairs as Steven, Pearl, and Garnet joined this bleak scene, maybe it was just the crushing sense of failure in her gut. But from that something that closed her mouth, there came one thought: I have ruined everything.

Numbly she turned, passed Steven, Garnet, and Pearl, and returned to the kitchen. Amethyst's folder from Miss Diamond lay untouched on the table. Outside the snow had begun to recede but the darkness of night came in, washing the warm-colored room with an icy blue-grey instead. The time was hardly late.

"Are you right?" Peridot whispered, and picked up the yellow folder. She said it again a little louder: "Are you right?"

Amethyst was not who she seemed. Amethyst was broken. Amethyst was unforgiving. Peridot suspected that she had only seen a part of a larger story, but it was enough for her, enough to push on the lead weight in her stomach and pull her down into a chair where she bent over and covered her face with her cold hands. There was so much to say and yet no place to say it, nowhere that didn't feel wrong at least. The others had not come down yet and she feared that they wouldn't for a very long time — the only other person downstairs was that man whom she took to be Steven's father, and at least he had family ties with some of them. Peridot was just the stupid little kid who stuck her head into everything and messed it up. The stupid kid in love with the girl who pierced herself for fun and ran away from home, to...to where?

Who have I fallen for?