~Woo! And we have officially survived 2020. There ought to be fireworks...
Coming right up. Love ya guys.
The summer heat grows more intense as the days go by. The thickening of the air cannot harm you, but it can make you uncomfortable; in its close grip, sweat forms on your forehead and trickles down your back.
"It's too hot!" Dr. Drakken complains on a day that has no breeze at all. He pulls his ponytail from the back of his neck and shakes it back and forth, creating what breeze he can on his own.
"Agreed," Peridot says from where she sits on Drakken's lawn with Pumpkin in her lap. Lyle the Lion leans against her side, as he almost always does now. "What are we going to do about it?"
You keep quiet. The heat is the only unpleasant thing about this summer, and it is hardly worth the fuss.
A grin brightens Drakken's face. "I've got just the thing!" he says, and he turns around and runs into his house, leaving the front door swinging on its frame in his wake.
When he returns, he is wearing the striped blue swimming garment that covers him from his shoulders to his knees, the one he wore when you first met, and for a moment you smell and hear waves where there are none. On his arms and legs you can see the small pink welts from where Earth insects have nipped at him, amidst a gentle scattering of hair almost as fine as your own, though many shades darker.
You smile. Whatever he has planned, it involves water.
Drakken's eyes twinkle like the night sky as he walks up to what appears to be a section of pipe laid atop the ground rather than running beneath it. In its center sits a metallic circle, and holes no larger than a Pebble's hand speckle the dulled surface of the circle. "Ever seen one of these?" he says.
You almost roll your eyes. "I've seen them. I've used them. We watered our crops with them." Something like a sigh spreads through your gem as you recall the corn stalks, grown tall and straight like soldiers too beautiful for war. Nothing you said could dissuade Peridot from believing they would be her army when they rose out of the ground, so you said nothing, waited to let Steven explain it to her.
"Ah, yes!" Drakken says. "And for boring people – people who have lost their creativity and sense of whimsy," he adds when a scandalized look flashes through Peridot's eyes, "that's all they're good for. But not for us! No, sir!"
Drakken jogs to the side of his house and turns a familiar gear, the spigot beneath it covered by a wide green hose that slithers across the grass into the water-sprayer, and a sound with clarity like no other travels to you: the sound of water stretching and stirring. From every hole on the water-sprayer's circle springs forth a gush of water, pale and strong and not hesitant in the least. The sunshine lands on them, turning them to drops of light. "Now, watch this," Drakken says.
He lowers his head and charges straight into the water-sprayer, raising his arms to catch the water, then emerges on the other side moist and laughing.
"Ah!" Drakken says as water slips down his rounded chin. "Oh, that's just as wonderful as I remember it from last year! And the year before that, all the way back to my twisted childhood – but we shan't talk about that!"
He speaks as he usually does, in the broad clean voice of a human seeing magic for the first time, his wonder a type of magic of its own.
"That is so neat!" Peridot stands straight up, holding Pumpkin close to keep her from falling.
Drakken grandly wafts one of his long arms in the direction of the water-sprayer. "Care to try?"
"Okay," you say.
You walk up to the water-sprayer and eye it with admiration, its founts climbing toward the sky before bowing again over the earth. You let their dance continue for a moment uninterrupted before rushing forward and breaking through the middle of it. The water laughs as it splashes your face, pressing your fringe of hair to your forehead, and you feel wet beads trickle down either side of your nose.
On the other side, you slip on the wet grass and brace yourself with your arms. The sun, its glare appeased, hugs the drops of water on your skin.
"Wow," you say. "How have I never done that before?"
"Homeworld was sadly lacking in recreational activities," Peridot responds as she studies the water-sprayer, her small muscles tensing. "Now – it's my turn!" She cackles and dashes toward the spray.
You don't even need to move; you grab the water with your mind and hold it back, and the water-spinner comes to a dry stop.
Peridot marches to stand directly over the center circle and glares down at it through her visor. "Hey!" she says. "What's going on he –?"
You flick one hand upward, and the water bursts from the circle. Surging upward, it lifts Peridot several inches off the ground and forms a coiled spring shape beneath her as she shrieks in delight.
As soon as it sets her down, she zips forward and dives for your legs. You let yourself fall to the ground, where Peridot pins you with her knees and continues to cackle.
Pumpkin runs up, glistening with water, which she sprays all over you and Peridot by wagging from side to side. Peridot, too, immediately rids herself of the water as all Gems can with one quick twitch of the body, but you allow the droplets to dawdle on your skin, not eager for them to leave.
Again and again, the three of you sprint through the water-sprayer. Drakken best loves vaulting it in one great exaggerated jump, like an obstacle on a Training course, though his legs are short and he often has to scramble and hop to avoid falling. Peridot tries to run backward through the sprayer; her heel catches on the center circle, and she rolls across the lawn and onto the sidewalk.
You dance through the spray – not the dance that precedes fusion, which is now for you a hidden and private thing, but the way you have seen humans dance around on television: the pulsating beat like an excited heart, the quick choppy movements, the hips swaying, and the fingers pressed together and bobbing. The lead dancer on the television show called it "movin' and groovin'," and while you have never seen it wear grooves in anything, the name seems appropriate somehow. There is an inherent unfamiliarity to it, but one that glows from deep within you and keeps you in motion, as though healing a crack you were not aware you had received.
The planet is no longer facing the sun directly by the time Drakken lays a blue beach towel out on the driveway and all three of you collapse on top of it. Your best friend relaxes on one side of you and your boyfriend on the other, your pet curled up at your feet, the air wet with the presence of your oldest ally. The heat and the chill cooperate just as successfully as they do in Garnet.
"Oh, I almost forgot! Today's July third – which means tomorrow is the Fourth!" Drakken's words are a playful song.
"That checks out," you say, giving him a soft smile.
Peridot brings her head up. "But isn't the Fourth of July a hallowed-day?" she says with stiff importance.
"Yeah," you say. "The country's birthday."
Drakken's eyes shimmer with glee when they light on yours. "Absolutely correct. There'll be a big celebration after nightfall, and that means…" He ducks his head as if to avoid hitting something, the action almost unrecognizable on him, especially given how his normally spiky hair has been smoothed by the water. "That means…
"That means…I'd-like-to-ask-you-on-a-date-Miss Lazuli!" Drakken finally exclaims. "At my place? For the celebration? Please?"
You frown for a moment. You understand the concept of dating another person, yet you have not seen too many examples of the dates themselves. On Camp Pining Hearts, it seems to mean that a boy and girl sneak off into the woods, alone together, and spend a scene whispering and kissing. You can't recall Dr. Drakken whispering once in the time you've known him, and you would prefer his lips be free to smile.
"Probably," you say, hearing caution trickle into your tone. "What kind of date?"
"The kind where it's you and me, just us, at my house. In my driveway, actually. Tomorrow night. With a picnic!" Drakken's fingers flail around the words, shaping them as though with water. "Watching the fireworks! That is, you know, if you're okay with all of that."
"Isn't a picnic when you put food in a box and then eat it outside?" you say. At his nod, you add, "I might not eat much."
"Absolutely fine!" His grin nudges his cheeks upward. "More for me, then!"
You turn to Peridot, though you don't want to see her stooping shoulders when she realizes she will be left out. "Peridot? Is that all right with you? You'd get to spend time with Mama Lipsky," you remind her. She has taken a liking to Drakken's mother.
Peridot rolls onto her back and nods. "Affirmative. We will get some time to 'bond.'"
Her words titter with enthusiasm. You hope Mama Lipsky is prepared for an evening with Peridot.
The secretive meeting in the woods you had been picturing dissolves into an image of you in front of Drakken's spotted house, the stars above you and the hard packed stone of his driveway below you, and Drakken seated next to you, wearing the same expression he wears now, his cheeks full and stretched toward his eyes. It is as clear as anything you have ever reflected if not as smooth, yet you have become familiar with ripples, and they no longer concern you.
"Sound good, then," you say.
Drakken bounces up and down in place. The top scruff of his hair has fattened and lapped over itself like the curl on the top of an ice cream cone.
You close your eyes. The water stands between you and the sun, making its rays tolerable, even pleasurable. You turn over and show it your gemstone, allowing the light to spill across the most authentic part of you.
The towel smells of seaweed and something harsher, something more chemical in nature, and you find it lovely.
The ending of this day and the beginning of the next flow by on a current of games and television and Peridot's discovery of minute insects that live beneath rocks and curl themselves into delicate knots when you pick them up, which you do only a few times. Fear is an ugly display from any creature.
Dr. Drakken arrives to pick you up when the sky is taking on the desert colors it always acquires before darkening for the night, a picnic box hooked over one wrist, an excited shiver to his lips. "Shall we?" he asks.
You place your hand over his, the way Steven does to show his support. "We shall."
Drakken bends to kiss his mother on the forehead. "Oh, and whatever you do," he says, "don't let the little one there near any fireworks." He jerks his head in the direction of Peridot, who has picked up a stick and is using it to poke at what appears to be a slab of dried mud, chiseled as though by the hands of Pebbles, near the base of Mama Lipsky's house. You do not know what fireworks are, but you can imagine how Peridot could cause chaos with anything pertaining to fire, especially if you and your water are not there to watch over her.
"Heaven forbid," Mama Lipsky murmurs back. She pinches her son's cheek between her thumb and first finger despite his exasperated groan, and then she trots off in Peridot's direction, calling, "Leave that alone, honey!" in a voice as formidable as a storm.
You are too far away to see the curiosity enter Peridot's eyes and tempt her to defy Mama Lipsky, but you know it does. She does, however, drop the stick as Mama Lipsky approaches and folds the busy green hands in her own.
"Bye, Peri!" you call back to her as you summon your wings. "Have fun tonight!"
"You, too!" Peridot says and then returns her attention to Mama Lipsky. "So what are these 'wasps' of which you speak?" you hear her ask before you leap into the sky.
Drakken's house is only a short flight away, but the time you arrive the undersides of the clouds are already tinted pale Amethyst. He reaches into the picnic box and produces a blanket; like his house, it is patterned with spots, and he shakes it out with a concentrated set to his eyebrow and then lays it near the end of the driveway, several meters back from the street. You drop onto it, free of the dignified, courtly descent once required by your skirt, and fold your legs to the side.
You are surrounded by Earth ambiance: the sound of children screaming joyously in the distance, the smell of cooked meat hanging in the heat-sopping air, and the sight of fireflies showing their lights for the briefest of moments before winking back into secrecy again. You remember how it used to scare you that they could flash on and off so quickly just as you were beginning to adjust to the dark, back when Earth was just an abject planet where you had been stranded. Now they flit from place to place like Drakken's nervous gaze, rising and falling, lights bobbing.
Behind you, you hear a group of other insects, the black ones that you believe Drakken calls crickets, begin to click and chirp – a song that he once told you comes not from their mouths but from their legs. The sound, although thin and reeded, resonates through your wings and brings them to a peace around which your physical form relaxes.
You glance up at the night sky. It shines with the faces of tens of thousands of stars, poured out across a backdrop that appears as black as the centers of Steven's eyes, until your own eyes locate the deep blue and thick purple pigments at its brink, an opening that allows a peek into a different galaxy. You can just make out a planet tucked among the distant stars, a tiny glistening memory.
It is not your home anymore, but you still like to keep track of it.
Dr. Drakken's knees creak as he crouches beside you. "What are you so focused on?" he says.
Wordlessly, you point to Homeworld.
He stares upward with eyes that cannot see as far as yours yet still seem to understand. "Oh. Duh," he says with a chuckle. He lowers himself to a sitting position on the blanket, his shoulder in its embellished padding as close to yours as it can be without brushing it, and gazes around him. "Look at this. Both of your planets looking so pretty tonight."
You try to smile at him, but your face falters when you remember Homeworld's decayed soil and burnt white sky. "Do you think Homeworld will ever be pretty again?" you say. "Like, for someone actually down on it?"
Drakken's brow puckers, and a disconcerted sound seeps from his throat. "Eesh. Well, what I saw when I was there didn't seem too promising. But I know we have some very smart and powerful people working to fix it!" he says, his voice quick. "I believe in the Diamonds. And I definitely believe in Steven!
"Believe in Steven." He chuckles again. "That should be that kid's motto or something. Catchy, isn't it?" he says, turning to you.
You nod, his affable chatter filling the remaining hollows of your insides. "Very catchy."
Drakken's laughter lingers after it has stopped. He edges his fingers across the blanket, nearer to you, and when you do not protest, he covers your hand with his. Like all other life on Earth, it is warm and flexible, and even now that you no longer feel cold and stiff you keep holding it.
"Yeah," you say. "If anyone can fix it up, Steven can." You remember the impressionable softness of his eyes as he peered into your world of glass; you remember the touch of his pudgy hand, the first contact you had had for five thousand years.
"Absolutely! Why, just look at how he helped those Gems who'd been…poisoned – or – what was that you called it?"
"Corrupted," you tell him. "Nobody else thought there was any hope for them until Steven showed up."
"See! And look at them now – alive and well and –" Dr. Drakken nudges you with his elbow – "your new neighbors."
You think of the healed Gems, ranging from Larimars to Quartzes, whom you gave the Emergence Song, and you smile. "Steven did all of that. I'm so proud of him." The completeness of your honesty feels odd on your tongue, like ham you have only tasted once before, but you decide that you like it.
"Aren't we all?" Drakken reaches into the picnic box, pulls out a sandwich, and takes a substantial bite out of it. Contentment slops across his face. "So, when you think your new home will be –"
His words become nothing as you hear a harsh, accelerating sound from farther down the road. Something thin and clean streaks across the sky faster than the flight of a bird, and then it bursts, splitting into hundreds of white, interrupted dots that briefly hold a shape before they collapse and sparks cascade from the sky. Seconds later, you hear the explosion.
It does not shake the Earth, yet you fall anyway, the driveway rough against your knees. Pain registers for an instant before spiraling away as a shrill vibration fills every part of your hollow insides.
"Lapis?" someone says. You recognize the voice but you cannot answer it.
Instinct takes over and you push yourself to your feet. Your wings are out, your body turned away, when another bomb goes off from the direction you are facing, throwing light over the nearby houses and then disappearing, leaving them stern, angry forms in the night. The scent of smoke stings the air.
Why is Earth being bombed now, so soon after the truce with the Diamonds? Steven would never allow such a thing to happen and neither, for that matter, would Blue Diamond. You know you must stay and save Earth, not run away as you did last time. Another bomb goes off, a flash in the distance, and a shout of joy follows it. Surely humans would not rejoice while bombs target their homes.
Yet the writhing shadows the next bomb casts turn into your people: screaming, falling to the ground, and covering their gems. They are everywhere, shattering and Corrupting, losing themselves, while you watch helplessly from your circle of glass. You pull your arms around your middle.
"Lapis?" the deep voice repeats. The ends of it are frayed with concern, and Drakken comes to stand beside you, his eyes volunteering comfort if only he can figure out what is going on.
"Why?" you say. From the way his eyes tense, you know it was not a helpful thing to say.
Although fireflies continue to wink, children to giggle, and meat to cook, all you can see and hear and smell is the impact of destroyed lives.
"Why what?" Drakken asks. His hands flail; the sandwich goes flying from them and lands on the blanket, but he doesn't seem to notice.
"Bombs," you say. "Who are they fighting? And why now? Why – why are they setting off bombs?"
Drakken's mouth sags, as though sadness weighs on it. "They're not, Lapis! Those are the fireworks!"
You turn and gaze upward. Smoke hangs in a thick gray clot, the stars nowhere to be seen. Another object tears itself apart in the sky, this one the golden-yellow shade of Destabilizers. You shake your head.
Drakken's breathing comes nearer to you and picks up speed. He mutters the words, "Oh, snap," and then fans his arm around you, encircling you without touching you as he did that second day in the home-furnishings shop. He walks you up the driveway, onto the porch, through the front door, down the hallway, and into the bathroom, where he props himself against the wall across from you and smears a hand down his face.
"Lapis, Lapis, Lapis, Lapis, Lapis! I'm so sorry! So immensely sorry!" Drakken cries. "It never occurred to me that you would be afraid of fireworks, because I'm not afraid of fireworks, and I'm probably afraid of more things than you are, and my shrink says I'm still working on empathizing with other people –"
You hold up your hand. "Drakken, it's okay." Even though the bathroom has no windows, somehow you can still catch the smell of singed tree bark. Another bomb – firework – goes off, and you shake your head. "I mean, it's not, really, but that isn't your fault."
"Can I hug you?"
You nod.
Drakken gathers you to his chest, pressing your face into his coat-of-labs. The trembling length of his arms should not feel strong, yet it does.
"You're safe." Drakken's unsuccessful attempt at a whisper moves the hair on your forehead. "You are safe, safe and sound. I swear on the Periodic Table of Elements that you're safe here with me."
You snort; it draws your attention to a weakness you hadn't noticed beginning behind your eyes and in your throat. Another firework screeches and booms, and your fingernails dig into your pant legs. "I know that," you say, but there is something inside your gem lying to your senses, overpowering them, and you want it out. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"You don't?" Drakken says. "I do."
He would, you think.
"You've heard me mention PTSD before?" Drakken says.
You nod. To you, it is nothing more than a stream of letters, but from the way you can feel Drakken's back straightening, it must be important to him.
"It stands for an actual, diagnosable medical condition that everyone acknowledges as legitimate! People have written theses on it and spent millions of dollars researching it – why, Dr. Director alone has enough information on it to fill a psychological best-seller. And I know, you're thinking, 'Well, what is that condition, Drakken?', so I shall tell you.
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," he says. "It's a very fancy way of saying that something absolutely horrible has happened to you in the past and really messed you up, so now every reminder you have of that terrible something – even if the reminder is perfectly harmless on its own – makes you panic and freak out. It's extremely common in people who have been through war, or in abusive relationships, or in prison."
His voice swells on the last word, an attempt to cover fear. You look into his pained eyes. "You have it too, don't you?" you say.
Drakken nods. "Prison really took its toll on me. It jolted everything around inside of me, and I think only half of it ever got put back where it used to be," and you understand he is not talking about the many systems his brain operates without command, but the part of him that would be inside his gemstone if he had one. A shudder travels through his body, and he shakes his head. "Of course, a lot of that needed to be jolted around," he says. "A lot of it was just plain evil. I only ended up in prison because of horrible things I'd done to other people.
"Not like you," he adds. "You didn't deserve it."
You push your thoughts away from arguing and take his hand in yours. You remember the man your boyfriend used to be, a man defined by malice, being led away by Middleton's law-warriors, snarling and fighting against them because he knew what kind of life awaited him. If his suffering has led him to be this person instead of that person, you are grateful to it, but the thought of him in pain strikes the weak place in your throat.
Another firework crashes overhead. Your gem tells you to withdraw, to recoil; instead, you hold on tighter.
"I thought fireworks would just be…you know, fire," you say. "And I'm not too afraid of fire."
Drakken chuckles, a short skip of his chest against your head. "Ah. Yes, well, with your powers, you wouldn't need to be. Now, a chemist such as myself needs to have a healthy respect for fire, but he – or she – can't afford to be overly frightened of it. You see…"
The two of you sit there for what seems a long while to you now that you have adjusted to Earth time, him babbling about the nature of science and the span of his own brilliance, and for that time he is noisier than anything happening outside.
Peace, however, does not last. Another firework goes off nearby; from the size of the sound, it must have exploded directly above the house, and in the vacancy left behind after the boom, you hear a hiss like acid as sparks shower to the ground. You remember the bursting silence right before the Corruption Bomb and the empty silence right afterward, and you cannot stop your arms from shaking.
"Eureka!" Drakken calls, adding, "That's Greek for, 'I have a brilliant idea!'" when you lift your head to blink at him. He takes your hands in his and moves you aside so he can stand. "I'll be right ba-ack!" he sings.
He skitters down the hallway, and you hear a clicking sound as a small, furred form enters the bathroom and skids across the tiles.
"Hi, Commodore Puddles," you say, using on him the same voice Drakken used on you, one created to pacify. Drakken's pink dog is whining and panting, his back legs clutching his tail between them. You doubt Commodore Puddles would be aware of what bombs are, but perhaps any noise this loud is inherently frightening to him.
Commodore Puddles paces the length of the room as Drakken himself would do if unsure. You hold out a hand to him. He approaches you, his steps cautious, until his wet nose is near your chin. One ruffled paw rises and comes to rest on your leg. You don't back away.
A minute later, Drakken returns, and Commodore Puddles leaves you to go prance and whine at Drakken's feet. "Lookie here!" Drakken says. His smile is pride itself, unsullied by the arrogance that often visits his eyes.
He pulls his hands from behind his back; in them he holds what you recognize as the case for a music disc. The face that looks back at you from the cover is kind and ruddy, all the way up to the dome of his shining scalp, his hair a waterfall down his back. Beside it, glimmering letters form his name: Greg Universe.
"His son sings with him on a few tracks," Drakken says.
He pauses to let that sink more deeply into the layers of your gem – Greg's son, who laughed with you when you were nothing more than a talking mirror to him, who broke apart your prison.
"I was planning on saving this for our anniversary," Drakken says. "You know, one year since the day we first met. But – uh – I don't remember exactly what day that was. And now – well, now works, doesn't it?"
You open your mouth to wryly say, "Yeah, that might work," but instead you squeak and throw your arms around Drakken. His chest, his beating heart, is close enough for you to catch his scent, equal parts sugar, science, and safety. The padded coat of his labs gives enough to make up for the spareness of him.
"I love you." For the first time, you speak the words as a gift and not a reciprocation.
"I love you, too," Drakken says. His buoy-words wobble more than ever as he returns your hug.
The course of the evening changes like a luffing sail. Drakken walks you out to his living room, draws the palanquin-drapes closed over the windows, opens his radio, and slips Greg's disk into it. He picks at the buttons on the front of the radio, taking the same painstaking precision you have seen him take with chemical samples, and then Greg Universe's voice pours into the room, strong yet unassuming.
You can still wear the hat if you like, Lapis. You hear him talking to you on the boat that day you were brave enough not to return to Jasper. Wow – gee, thanks, but I think I'd prefer to fish the old-fashioned way.
At the chorus, he is joined by Steven's voice, younger and fresher than the youngest Gems, reassuring you as it always has, terraforming your cold colorless world into something bright and hospitable.
You close your eyes and lean back against the sofa, which is significantly thicker than Mama Lipsky's. Drakken sits beside you, humming as near to the tune as he can. When you open your eyes a slit, you see his left foot twitching along.
Halfway through the third song, his stomach begins to growl, and he puts a hand to it. "Heh. Would you – would you mind if I went back and got my food from out in the driveway? I promise I'll be right back unless I get flagged by a mob of adoring fans." He stops and sets his loose mouth. "Or – you know what? Even if I get flagged by a mob of adoring fans."
"Go for it," you tell him.
You hear the front door swish open and bang shut. Before the third song has ended, something bumps into the door again; you open your eyes once more to see Drakken propping the door open with one arm as a newly sprouted vine at his neck carries the picnic box. "Nice," you say, and he grins in triumph.
Drakken settles next to you again, chewing his dinner and grunting in contentment. Once he is done, he takes your hand, using his other hand to pet Commodore Puddles, curled at his side. Occasionally he turns a wistful face to the blocked windows, which now let in little noise and less light.
You remember his excitement for tonight, and you picture the Earth continuing to spin, turning the fourth of July into the fifth, the day left behind until next year. Something pinches in your gem. "I'm sorry," you say. "I know this wasn't how you wanted our date to go."
Drakken's eyes start, as though Peridot has poked him with her stick. His thumb whisks in rapid strokes across his lap, almost ashamed. "Yes, this is kind of a bummer. But!" he adds before you can respond, "but if this hadn't happened, that would mean I was dating someone without PTSD, and that would mean that I wasn't dating you, and that – that would be an even bigger bummer."
His eyes search for understanding as an anchor searches for rocks and secure to yours when they find it. You smile at him: at the contortion of his words, at the brightness of his expression, at the hopeful tilt of his head. "Are fireworks dangerous?" you ask.
"They are if you don't know how to use them." Drakken speaks with knowledge that seems to soothe him.
"Which is why you didn't want Peridot to have any," you guess.
"Which is exactly why, yes. And once or twice, someone's used them in an area that's too dry and caught the grass on fire. But on a global or cosmic scale – no, they're nothing like bombs. Believe me. I am something of an expert on such things."
He laughs, though the sound can't seem to catch its breath.
Outside, fireworks continue to blow up, explosions coming from three different directions, and your powers cry inside you and try to be of some use, yet you train your entire consciousness on the radio and push away reactions so old they did not even have to be Taught to you. You choose to instead hear Steven and Greg singing to you, letting you know of more than war.
The sound of the blasts begins to diminish. You think back to the enthusiasm on Dr. Drakken's face when he first told you about the fireworks. There must be something of beauty in them, you think, to make him smile like he did.
You slip to the window, between the drape and the glass, and crouch on your knees as you gaze at the smoke that films the stars. Another missile launches into the sky and bursts apart. The arc of falling light is red-brown, the color of Kim's hair: not white, yellow, or blue, unclaimed by the Diamonds.
The explosion arrives several seconds later, shaking the light that forms your arms. You turn and run back to Drakken, who watches you with a tender grin. From the picnic box, he pulls a square brown chunk with a sweet odor and a texture that appears as soft as Peridot's new ottoman, breaks it to pieces, and begins cramming them in his mouth. He holds another chunk out to you, but you shake your head.
Steven's voice begins the next song, cutting through the night and silencing the hiss in the crevices of your gem that accuse you of cowardice.
I don't need you to love me; I love me
I don't need you to respect me; I respect me
For a moment you see them as clearly as if Pearl has projected them in front of you, Steven standing on the beach with you after he released you. The image of the previous Lapis changes immediately, the skirt Homeworld assigned you replaced by the pants you gave to yourself. To your surprise, Steven's form grows hazy as well. It does not evolve into anything else; it merely flickers and ripples, like water that looks different from every angle.
But I want you to know you could know me, Steven sings.
If you change your mind,
If you change your mind
If you change your mind
You find yourself nodding, and you let your eyes fall shut and tug your thoughts along with them. The waves in your dreams are calm.
The first thing you see when you open your eyes are the glowing red lights on Drakken's radio – Greg's disk, having completed its orbit, now awaits permission to begin again. Outside, the fireworks continue to snap from a distance, still existent but not in the same plane you occupy. Commodore Puddles has dropped his puffed head onto your foot; he snores in meek little growls. You feel the weight of another head resting against your shoulder, Drakken's hair crushed against your neck, his snoring reiterating Commodore Puddles's.
You glance around you and stretch your legs. Commodore Puddles rises and gives his body a shake, his ears pinning back in a yawn. Drakken awakes with a start, his eyelids slouching, a crust like coral in their folded corners. "Radiation still above acceptable levels," he murmurs. His eyes find you, not clearing but settling. "Wait – wha?"
"We fell asleep," you tell him.
"Oh. Oh, it was a dream." A sigh gusts from Drakken. "Well, that explains a lot."
He stands and stretches, his back popping like the fireworks. His lips smack dryly as he says, "Gosh, we better get you back to my mother's place. They're probably starting to worry about us."
You nod immediately. You do not want to discover what happens when Mama Lipsky and Peridot worry at the same time.
Drakken blinks at you in surprise when you climb into the hovercraft seat beside him and belt yourself in, but you aren't sure you trust your wings to carry you through a barrage of bombs without remembering the vulgarities of war and pinning back, immobilized. He turns the key in the hovercraft's ignition and it rises to a height above the smoke. From here you can see the bombs are being fired from the ground and exploding in the air, the opposite of a Diamond's assault.
"I think the fireworks show at the park is over now," Drakken says. "That's usually where they set off the big-deal fireworks – you know, with a lot of open space and professionals there to make sure everything is safe. After they're finished, it's just the people in the neighborhood setting off fireworks in their driveways, and those don't tend to be as much of a spectacle. I mean, us citizens can buy big-deal fireworks, but we don't always because they tend to be amazingly expensive.
"Never saw the point in spending hundreds of dollars on something you're just going to blow up." Drakken gives a low whistle both disgusted and dazed. "Of course, if I say that, then Shego says that I'm one to talk, considering how many things I've spent big money on and then just blown them up. And of course, I tell her that is so not the same thing, because I don't intend to blow them up…"
You listen less to his words than to the vigorous bobbing of his voice. You allow it to encompass you, it and the hard human-made plastic of the seat beneath you and the thin strap of fabric across your chest and lap, which keeps you not from freedom this time, but from harm.
The hovercraft lands on Mama Lipsky's driveway. The intermittent flashing of a single firefly asserts itself from the grass, a more brilliant display than any of the fireworks that blasted through the sky tonight. Dr. Drakken leaps from the hovercraft, tripping over its rounded side, and dashes around to where you sit, his wrist atilt and his fingers curling upward, a request.
You take his hand in yours and swing out of the hovercraft, one leg at a time. "Thanks," you say. "For everything tonight. I'm sorry it didn't work out like –"
"Ah-buh-buh-buh-buh! No more apologizing – please," Drakken says. "Because you know what? I had a great night anyway!"
He cups your face in one hand. His thumb swishes back and forth across your jaw like the tail of a curious fish, uncertain where it should go. You like it where it is well enough.
"I had a great night, too," you say, and the smile he gives you is as warm as the first time you saw it.
The two of you climb Mama Lipsky's unsteady front stairs, which squall under your footsteps. Drakken taps on the front door with his fist, and a moment later Peridot thrusts the door open. "There you guys are!" she exclaims.
Mama Lipsky's face hovers over Peridot's shoulder, a deep line between her fine brows. As soon as she catches sight of Drakken, she speeds over and embraces him, nearly bending him in half.
"Sorry to be so late." Drakken's words are clay, flattened and constricted and reshaped by his mother's arms. "I think we ended up falling asleep."
Whatever Mama Lipsky says in response, you do not hear; you do not hear anything except Peridot as she drags you aside and fills the whole of the area around her. "Lapis! Tonight was amazing! I saw fireworks, and I think they're my new favorite Earth phenomenon – outside of rain and light-up bugs, of course, and maybe sunsets –"
Peridot pauses abruptly. You wonder what could have quieted her, and then you note your reflection, gilded in her visor: your eyes wary, your hair more of a tangle than usual, your arms crooked at the elbows in preparation for escape.
"Oh no," Peridot says. "Did you scare you? You were scared, weren't you?"
You nod. There has never been any purpose in lying to her.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't even think about that! Here I was, having a wonderful time –"
You take several steps backward. The living room's light glares off her vision, obstructing your view, yet you see yourself in her anyway. "That's a good thing," you tell her. "Peridot, I'm glad you enjoyed your evening."
Peridot inclines her head to one side, and you watch her eyes swallow what you have just said. "You sure? What about your evening?"
You cast a glance backward at Drakken, who has managed to wriggle loose from his mother's hug; you do not need to go rescue him. "Well," you say, "I don't tend to be miserable when Drakken's around."
Peridot wraps you in a hug of your own, the mountainous peak of her hair resting against the star on the flat of your chest, the star that shows everyone where you belong now. "Happy Fourth Day of July, Lapis," she says. She has not lost her nasal, factual tone and she probably never will, but it swims with the bevvy of emotions she has found here on Earth.
"Happy Fourth Day of July, Peridot," you say with a soft snicker.
Another firework booms from beyond the windows. In that moment, the world is a frightening place and you are not afraid.
~The song "Change Your Mind" is obviously not mine; it's property of Cartoon Network.~
