Pieces

Chapter 21

Kitatanya

A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!

So this chapter is another shorty. Sorry about that. I won't keep you here, though. We can talk at the end. Read on, Loves!

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"Just let me get my phone." Lapis said as they entered the barn. She walked quickly towards a corner where a piece of fabric was suspended between two support beams.

"You have a phone?" Jasper asked, surprised.

Lapis hummed as she rummaged through a cloth bag on the floor. "Yeah. Steven gave it to me when he came. He said that Greg actually bought it for me. They wanted me to have a way of contacting the others." Her voice was sad. "I was really thankful, even if I wasn't planning to use it any time soon."

Jasper didn't like the sound of sadness in her tone. "Why weren't you planning to use it?" She asked softly, walking closer.

Lapis sighed. "I didn't really know what to say. I didn't even know what to say while he was here... I know he wants me to come to the beach house, but... I wanted to come back here and put the barn back where it belonged. Even if it's not the same as it used to be, I like it here. I like being away from the sea." Her tone was dark.

Jasper stopped walking as a jolt of pain hit her heart. "I'm sorry." She said, knowing that Malachite was likely the reason.

Lapis looked up at her with a pained expression. "It's just something I have to live with."

Jasper looked down. "I missed the sea. I wanted to go back and see it like I didn't before. But I never could. I couldn't make myself do more but look at it." The admission hurt.

"It's the same for me." Lapis' voice was still heavy with sadness. "Water has always been a part of me, but I can't make myself go back."

"And it's my fault." Jasper sighed.

A sharp inhale of breath made her look up to see Lapis staring at her wide-eyed. "I was the one who dragged us under, Jasper. I'm the one who did that to us."

Jasper hated to hear her shoulder all of the blame. "You were trying to protect Steven. If you hadn't stopped me, I'd have destroyed him and you know it. You saved him by doing what you did."

Lapis' eyes filled with tears. "That wasn't the only reason and you know it."

Jasper felt tears enter her own eyes. "I deserved it, Lapis. I was a bad person. Jaspers never give up. You know I'd have gone straight back after him if you'd let me go. You felt it. I was full of so much hate... you were just doing what you had to do." She said earnestly, wishing she had the power to make Lapis believe her words so that she would stop hating herself about their fusion.

But Lapis shook her head, a crazed light entering her eyes. "You felt what I was feeling. You felt how much hate was in me. I'm... evil." The last was wrenched into a painful sound.

Jasper's heart stuttered painfully as Lapis said that word. "You are not evil!" She shouted. A part of her registered Lapis' shock at her sudden outburst, but she didn't stop. "Don't ever say that! You saw some of the things I did under the rule of the Diamonds. You felt how justified I used to feel about the destruction of others. How I reveled in the pain of gems I thought were weaker than me. I've taken hundreds of lives for a cause I hated! That is evil, Lapis. That was never you."

Lapis moved towards her in a flurry of motion and Jasper couldn't help but to flinch away, afraid she'd said something horribly wrong. Lapis stopped when she did, her breath catching in a sob. "I could also feel how much you hated yourself for it, Jasper." She cried. "You hated yourself even more than I ever could. You wanted me to hurt you. And I did. I hurt you. I could feel how terrified you were of me, and I still did it. How is that not evil?"

Jasper couldn't bring herself to look at her. "I deserved it." She repeated.

"No one deserves what I did to you." Lapis said firmly, voice thick with tears.

"And no one deserved to be treated the way I treated others." She said, finally finding the courage to look up. Lapis' agonized expression cut her to the core. She had to make Lapis understand. "What you did to me, changed me! I can only be the person I am now, because of you!" She cried. "I would never have changed if you hadn't broken me. Never."

Lapis looked away, hugging herself, tears rolling down her cheeks. "You don't now that." She whispered.

"But I do." Jasper said firmly. "You validated what I always knew was true. You showed me that I really was worthless."

"You aren't worthless!" Lapis shouted, her sad expression morphing into anger.

Jasper did not flinch away from her anger. "Maybe not now, but back then I was. I was a horrible gem, a horrible person. I always knew that the time would come when I would have to face myself. It was like you held up the universe's largest mirror. I couldn't run from what I was anymore and fight you at the same time."

Lapis' eyes were full of pain. "I had to accept myself too." She whispered. "I had to accept that I had darkness inside me. A darkness deeper than the ocean."

Jasper smiled and knew it wasn't a good one. "A darkness that matched mine." She whispered back. "But even as dark as you were, there was still light inside of you. I could see it. Like a star. That light was a guide for me, but I didn't know how to reach it." Her heart burned with the need to finally express to Lapis her greatest truth. "I remembered that light, long after we were apart. It was why I tracked you down on that boat. It was why I asked you to fuse with me again. Without you, I couldn't see it anymore." She couldn't fight the sob that ripped from her throat, or the tears that fell as she looked deeply into Lapis' eyes. "I didn't know how to say it. I was so cruel to you, because I didn't know another way without you. You showed me that there was kindness in this universe, but I didn't know how to find it for myself."

Lapis sobbed with her. "I didn't know." Her voice cracked. "I couldn't see how you got any good out of being with me. I thought you were crazy." She admitted.

"I was." Jasper agreed with her. "I was crazy. Malachite would have been just as bad as she was the first time. I see that now. And I'm glad you said no. Even if it hurt, it was the best thing you could have done. Even if I went crazier afterwards, it led me to be here today. I understand so much now, Lapis. So many things I didn't before. All because you showed me the way." She smiled again, trying to express her gratitude through her tears.

Lapis sobbed again. "It still doesn't make what I did to you right." She whispered, looking away.

Jasper reached for her, cupping Lapis' teary cheek and lifting her head so that she could look into her eyes. "Steven told me something once. He said that focusing on where the blame lies and the wrongs we've done isn't what we should be focusing on."

Lapis blinked at her. "Then what should we focus on?" Her voice was a breath of sound.

Jasper smiled as Lapis repeated her words from that night. "Making the wrong into a right."

More tears sprang into Lapis' eyes. "How?"

"By trying." She said firmly, because now she knew it was true. "That's what we're doing, Lapis. We're trying."

Lapis laughed softly, surprising her. "Trying hurts."

Jasper's smile tugged bigger. "It does." She agreed. "But doesn't it feel good too?"

Lapis sighed, blinking her tears away. "It does." She echoed.

Jasper sighed, relieved. "Good." She did her best to push away her lingering sadness. She had told herself to stop looking back, and that was what she wanted to do. She wanted Lapis to be able to do the same. They needed something else to focus on. "What did you want to show me?" She asked.

Lapis blinked, and Jasper swore she saw gratitude in her navy eyes, before Lapis turned and walked back to the bag. She rummaged inside it for a few more moments, before pulling out her phone. It looked exactly like the one Steven had.

"He said it was charged, but I don't know if the battery drained while it was off." She said absently, her voice wavering slightly, as she pressed a button on its side. Jasper walked to her and waited patiently as the device came on. "Oh, good. I won't have to immediately put it on charge." She looked up at Jasper. "Did Steven teach you about the internet?" She asked.

Jasper shook her head. "Peridot sort've explained it, though. She showed me things on it sometimes. Places on Earth. Like forests and mountains and animals. I don't really understand how it works, but I know what it is."

"Great! We can jump right in then." Lapis said, sounding happy. "Let's go sit on the couch."

Jasper nodded and walked with her to the loft. Lapis easily flitted up and Jasper climbed up beside her. They sat together on the small couch, only this time, Lapis leaned towards her, tapping the screen. The warrior gem hadn't really paid much attention when the others had used their phones, but she watched as Lapis opened a program.

"Okay." She said. "This is TubeTube. It's a video site that lets humans all over Earth share videos of things that they create. You can find instructional videos on almost anything on it. Peridot and I used it a lot on her tablet."

Jasper's brows furrowed as she tried to follow what Lapis was saying. "So you can watch people doing things? And it teaches you?" She asked.

"Yep. That's how I learned how to make the frame for the morp outside. Some of them are a little vague, but they give you enough to go on to get started." She smiled. "So. What do you want to learn?"

"Learn?" Jasper asked.

Lapis nodded. "You said you wanted to try a craft, right?" Jasper nodded. "So which one would you like to see?" She asked.

Jasper blinked. "I'm not really sure." She said tentatively. "I don't really know what crafts there are, so I don't know how to pick." She admitted. "I know Steven and his friends make music and you made your morp, but I don't think I'd be good at those. Is there anything else?"

Lapis frowned and hummed thoughtfully. "Well. My meep-morps are only one kind of art. And they're never the same. I think the closest human term for them would actually be sculptures, but there are infinite ways to make them. You can make them out of almost anything, like wood or stone or random objects like those." She said, pointing down to the strange objects Jasper had only noticed in passing; a stacked pyramid of white, glassy objects, a leaf attached to a mound of clay-like dirt, and a few others that were scattered throughout the barn. "Sometimes you make them from nothing, or other times, you shape preexisting objects into a shape that you want to see." Jasper blinked at her in confusion. She really did want to understand, but she really didn't. Lapis seemed to understand how she felt and smiled gently. "Why don't I just show you?"

Jasper felt a sense of relief and nodded eagerly. Lapis was so passionate about her creations and Jasper very much wanted to understand it. She remembered feeling this same sort of eagerness when Steven had taught her about imagination. She had enjoyed learning about it and it had helped her to fill many long hours instead of leaving her with nothing but her thoughts. She felt like learning this would be a similar experience and looked forward to it. Lapis' smile widened and she tapped the screen. Letters appeared along the bottom half and she tapped them with her finger to type in a few human words. Jasper still wasn't familiar with the written Earth language, but she decided not to mention it for now and simply waited for Lapis to select something for them to watch.

"Wood is probably the easiest material to obtain, so maybe we can start there and see if you like it."

Jasper simply shrugged, still a little lost, but also still eager to understand. "Okay."

Lapis glanced at her as if reading her expression. A moment later she was smiling again, seeming satisfied with whatever she saw there. "We'll start with something simple and go from there." She promised, before tapping one of the pictures.

It expanded and a video began to play. Jasper settled a bit more comfortably on the couch as Lapis held the screen where they could both easily see it. They were closer together than the last time they had sat like this, but Jasper felt no discomfort at their proximity. She wondered at how quickly she had grown accustomed to being so close to Lapis and how easy touching her had become. It came without thought now, and she was grateful. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind and focused as a human voice began to speak. She would do her best to learn, because she wanted to understand the passion of the gem beside her and because it felt important for her to try something new. She had done nothing before but destroy. Maybe learning to create would help her quell the darkness she knew still resided in her heart.

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And there we go. Jasper is getting to learn about art! Squee!

Thank you all so much for your continued support! I lerv you guys! And thank you to my anonymous guest reviewer who pointed out that I had forgotten to actually list Jasper as a featured character in the tags. Oops! My bad. This has since been rectified. Again. Thanks.

So, I've hit a little bit of a wall inside my head, because there is a LOT going on with life. I've recently changed careers and am hyperly focused on succeeding at my new workplace, so my creative juices are being redirected into my workaholic nature. Yay for adulting. Until I get the swing of things, updates might be a bit more sporadic, but they will, by no means stop and I'm going to do my best not to let more than two weeks go by between chapters, even if they have to be slightly shorter for the time being. I really, truly am passionate about finishing this story. It is, to date, the longest thing I have ever written and has been the most consistent writing I have ever done.

I have always let myself become distracted in the past by trying to write several stories at once and have tons of abandoned and half written stories besides the others I have previously posted and have realized that I am simply not brainy enough and don't have the attention span to tackle multiple projects. Thusly, as I have probably already said, I have literally abandoned every other project but this one for the time being. I do plan on going back and finishing all of them at some point and have a few more stories that I would like to write, but I want to finish this story. It has become a tiny bit (okay, maybe more than a tiny bit) of an obsession. It's important to me and I am extremely determined for this to be my first completed multi-chapter work. I refuse to to let it die. I'm not stubborn, you are.

So to summarize, things may get a bit slower, but they are by no means coming to a halt. I apologize for this, but adulting is a thing we are all forced to do at some point. Cause life. Anyway, that's all for now. Thank you again so much for your continued support!

Until next time, Loves! Stay safe and read on! Ja!