~Spring! Easter! Allergy season! Well, two out of three ain't bad. . . :P

Thanks to everyone who's been reading!~

Spring has come again, new green life unfurling from the ends of tree branches, by the time Steven and Bismuth tell you that your new house is finished. Your first winter on Earth distressed you as you watched everything wither and disappear, despite Steven's reassurances that it would all come back again in time. This winter, you simply stood against the cold and waited for it to pass.

At Steven's request, you close your eyes and slip the ends of your wings over them to ensure your vision will be blurred even if you should open them by mistake, the fluid relaxing texture cool against your eyelids. He takes you by the arm, the one Peridot isn't already clutching, and begins to lead you forward. Peridot's hand squirms in yours, and you hear her grunt in annoyance as she trips over something, likely the Beetle Crossing.

"Sorry for the long walk, you guys." Bismuth's careful voice floats in the darkness. "But it's gonna be worth it, I promise!"

You surprise yourself by believing her.

At last, you feel Steven's hand lift. "All right. You can open 'em now," he says.

You retract your wings and open your eyes. A cool ocean breeze hits your bare arms, and your gem feels more like clay than stone.

Peridot's gasp sounds painful. Your own breathing stills, oxygen slow and forgotten as you take in the building before you: long and square; colored in a tender familiar fusion of brown, red, and pink; black shingles laid evenly on the roof, as orderly as Pearl's hair; windows spread wide, aqueous green shutters framing them like eyelashes, welcoming the sun even as it reflects it back.

You blink for a moment and almost expect it to shrivel and vanish in the breeze, as homes so often have for you. Yet when you open eyes again, it is still there, gazing back at you.

"Oh, Steven," you whisper. "It's so –"

"SO THE MOST AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL HOUSE I'VE EVER SEEN!" Peridot's words cut into yours, stopping them. Her knees buckle beneath her; she is jumping without leaving the ground.

Bismuth ducks her head, her ropes of hair sliding forward over a shining face. "Shucks, you haven't seen anything yet."

It is all the invitation Peridot needs. She charges for the front door, made from straight lines and eased into the wood, and flings it open. The door bends back on itself, crashing into the wall, and you wince at the sound. The walls must be sturdy enough to support the house, but they look somehow as fresh and vulnerable as the soft green beginnings of grass that surround it.

Pumpkin hops up and down, barking gleefully, as she turns in circles between you and the doorway. You straighten your shoulders and walk forward, and you step into the next era of your life.

The room you enter is large, warm, and deep. Everywhere you glance, from the beams shoring up the ceiling to the boards that stripe the floor in horizontal streaks, you see and smell clean, young wood – wood that nearly gleams as the light hits it. Peridot grins at you from a couch dark as mud sitting in the center of the room, enclosed with a tiny table at each arm like a story between covers. When you sink down next to her, the couch's firmness surprises you; you are accustomed to Mama Lipsky's sharp, sparsely-padded sofa.

"Isn't this the best?" Peridot cries. "Look! That must be the area designated for our television set!" She points at a wooden box directly across from the sofa, its side doors open, its insides empty, and its top flattened.

Bismuth steps through the doorway, which is just wide enough to admit her, and nods. "That's what I had in mind. But, I mean, you can arrange things however you want. It's your house."

You shut your eyes for a moment.

Peridot continues to speak, but her words dissolve into seafoam before they carry to you. You think of the back of the truck where the television was stored in the barn and wonder what it will be like to watch Camp Pining Hearts without sitting on metal that absorbs heat and chill both and responds to Peridot's moods. The thought is too heavy for the occasion, stone against sand, and you cast it aside.

You turn on the couch cushion and take in the room to the right of the sofa. It runs along like a current for several meters, ending in a flare at the far wall. Behind and beyond the television box, sunshine covers the floor, beckoned in by two neighboring windows that take up the majority of the front wall, granting just enough space for you and Peridot to sit below, invisible to someone peering inside.

Your knees will touch, and it will be the closest thing to fusion you can stand.

You shake your head and let Peridot's words regain substance. She stands on the couch now, gesturing with her hands as Dr. Drakken does, though her movements are considerably more adroit. "Just think of it, Lapis! All of this! All for us! Just waiting for us to fill it up!" she says.

"How are we gonna fill this place up?" you ask, glancing around the unfurnished room once more. The emptiness seems to take up space itself, as though it is too profound to be banished so readily.

"With our 'stuff,' of course, Lapis!" Peridot holds her fingers in the shape of a lens, the closest they can now come to detaching and creating a screen, and moves it across the room. "Let's see – we can put the rug right there between the sofa and the television set! And my bagged-bean chair can go here, right off to the side, and of course the ottoman will go right in front of it! Hmmm. That still leaves us with a lot of empty space on the other side, but I'm sure our meepmorps will be sufficient to fill it, even if we have to make a few more!"

Each new idea is accompanied by a bounce on the couch. She has decorated the room with only her imagination.

If you hold your eyes partway shut and stare straight ahead, you can almost see it.

You rise and walk to the left side of the room, which pulls into a corner and remains tucked there, windowless, a hesitant question where the other side is an assertive statement. You step around a table that stands alone on the floor and run your gaze over the surfaces of the shelves and cabinets, speckled white and tan like shorebird eggs, interspersed on the walls. It reminds you of a section of Steven's house.

"Is this a kitchen?" you ask.

Bismuth gives a sheepish chuckle. "Kind of, yeah. 'Course, you two don't need to eat, but Lapis's boyfriend does, and so does Steven. So I thought it might come in handy."

You picture it for a moment: Drakken at this smooth wooden table eating the multihued oak flakes that he loves to dump into a bowl and drench with milk in the mornings, and you sitting across from him, telling him about the rivers you cleaned today, snorting when he sends the conversation sailing to subjects only thinly related to the ones before them. You dance with that vision as long as you can before Peridot hurdles over the back of the couch on her next bounce, a delighted shriek coming from her before she has even hit the floor.

"There's more!" Peridot points behind the couch, across a line in the wood that separates this vast room from a corridor that marches to the outer limits of the house. Two doors sit along the corridor, one on each wall, positioned just crookedly enough that they do not quite face each other. "What's in these rooms?"

Bismuth taps the closer wall with her knuckle. "This one's a bathroom. As requested."

Peridot lets out another shriek and throws the door open, leaving small sticky handprints all over the bronzed knob. You recognize the features inside from Steven's bathroom at the temple: a basin with sheer cloth draping its short partition, anchored to the rod on top, where humans can wash themselves in peace; the sink for when only the hands need to be washed; and the toilet like the ones in the barn, though not yet yellowed with age. Peridot throws open the lid, drops into the bowl, and jerks down on the handle, spinning as the water drains, her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Just like old times, huh, Peridot?" Steven says. You laugh.

The second door is now within reach. As though moving through wet cement, your steps confused but far from lost, you approach it. "Is this…?" You know the word that ends this question but somehow it eludes you, your voice barely shifting the air in front of you, even though your laugh was clear and strong a moment ago.

Bismuth smiles, the kindness in her eyes no longer seeming out of place. "Yours? Yeah. It is."

A shiver moves through your gem, and you remind yourself she is not honoring an Elite with her gift. That is one thing Bismuth would never do.

You grasp the doorknob between your fingers, push it to the side, and walk into your room.

A sleek, liquid scent layered over the wood welcomes you as the door falls open. One glance and you can see why. The walls have been painted a serene blue the same shade as Dr. Drakken's skin, the only calm thing about him. This room stands as vacant as the others, yet unlike the emptiness in the main room, this emptiness doesn't feel harsh; it floats in vague wisps, fully prepared to lift and scatter when you bring in the items that will fill it. The rafters are high enough for flight, the dimensions great enough to prevent what Drakken once called claustrophobia.

Golden light pours through the window on the back wall, settling in a pool on pale brown floorboards. In the center of the room, just beyond the scope of the sunlight, one board catches your attention with its aged, fading red, a relic of your old life that somehow does not clash with the newness on every side of it.

You walk over to it, every motion now easy and free, and stop just short of it. Bending down, you slip off first one shoe and then the other.

When your bare foot touches the seasoned board, a summer night swirls around you, and you remember hearing Peridot's laughter careen out of her nose and feeling your anger and fear back down as they confront something more powerful than both of them. The center of your gemstone becomes a crystal pond, and you sigh out loud.

You put your shoes back on and drift to the window. It is lower and broader than the ones in the main room, taking up nearly the entire wall, and it faces backward to what remains of the meadow. In place of a regular windowsill, its end elongates into a sweeping bench longer than you are tall, braced on either side by pieces of wood that hug the walls and rise to meet in a scrolling pattern at the top. While the wood in every part of the house has had its rough edges trimmed away, the wood on this bench is smoother still, like warmer, more open marble. It commands the light's attention, though some sneaks past to glide over a desk on the other side of the room and a wooden block pushed against the wall across from it.

"What is this?" You point at the bench.

Steven joins you in your room, his cheeks nearly as pink as his jacket. "That's a window seat! The main character in the History Diaries books that Connie likes so much has one where she sits and reads all the diaries after she finds them. It sounded like the coziest and most amazing thing you could put in a room, and I thought, you'd know who would love more than just about anybody else in the world? Lapis would!"

His smile draws out your own. "So this was your idea."

"Yeah, I passed the word along." Steven glances at Bismuth as though awaiting something.

"And we got down to Bismuth," Bismuth says. She holds out her hand, and Steven chortles as his knuckles crash into hers. Already, he laughs at her jokes; already, she is a book he has read through until he understands.

Your insides feel uncomfortably hollow. You skim your hand over the window seat, trying to fathom that it was made by the same hand that drove into your stomach and blew you back into your gem. "Thanks, Bismuth," you say, your voice like water droplets. "It's beautiful."

"Well, that's good to hear." Bismuth pins back her shoulders, modesty and pride warring on her face. She has reason to be proud, you think: this room is more striking than the most opulent chambers of Blue Diamond's palace. "Glad you like, Wings."

The silence that falls between you reminds you of the molten steel she has pulled from her forge's fire, cooling and still capable of being molded into an entirely new form.

Steven tilts his head. "You know what? I think it's time to move on in. Right, Peridot?"

"Affirmative, Steven!" Peridot appears in the doorway, the toilet water still dark and heavy on the legs of her pants. "Exploration is complete, and now the decoration phase must commence!"

You roll your eyes, grinning.

Bismuth glances from Peridot to you, her forehead pinching. "Where is you guys' stuff?" she asks.

"In storage. In Middleton." You take Peridot's hand and nod toward the front door. "Come on. Let's go get it."

Peridot darts to the door, and you bounce along behind her the way you have seen humans on riding pegs leap in the wake of a boat. The two of you fall out into the spring air, and her fingers come loose from yours. "Race ya to the warp pad!" Peridot calls. "One…two…"

As soon as she calls, "Three!" you thrust out your wings and pluck her from the ground as though she is a flower, and soar through the air before dropping both of you on the warp pad. Peridot is giggling too hard to protest, and you let her be the one who pushes her hands out to the sides and transports you to the glen of trees that shade Middleton's warp pad. From there you fly her to the house with the blue spots and the shining hovercraft parked in the driveway.

Peridot tears up the front steps and slams her hand against the door-chime three times. Excitement moving in fine fiery sparks down your back and your own feet poised to sprint, you don't even bother stopping her.

Dr. Drakken throws the door open wide. His chest rattles a little in surprise when you run into it, but he breaks into a grin once he recognizes you and Peridot. "Well, if isn't my two favorite Gems! What's the ruckus today?"

Peridot opens her mouth, and then she stuns you by closing it and motioning to you.

You step forward. "You're invited to our housebreaking party. No. Wait." You frown. "That's not the word."

"Very close, Lapis," Peridot says. "But we are not 'breaking' the house. We are 'warming' it."

"Oh. Right." You press the heel of your hand to your forehead. "Housewarming party. Weird expression."

Drakken strokes his thumb across his chin as he does when sifting through his thoughts. "Hmmm, yes. I believe the phrase originated in days before you could central-heat your house, so everyone relied on fireplaces and body heat – the more people you invited into your house, the warmer it got!" He stops and blinks. "Or I might have totally just made that up. Not quite sure."

You take his hand in yours and give him a gentle tug forward. "Well, if that's what it means, then we definitely need you."

"And our stuff!" Peridot adds, her hands on her hips. "Let us venture forward and retrieve our stuff!"

"Yes, ma'am." Drakken's body grows sharp and tense as if frightened, though his dark eyes don't fear her.

He leads you into his garage. In the absence of a car to store when not in use, the space has become cluttered: piles of crates, the labels on their lids blank; odd lumps of broken technology, some of which he invented himself; and a spherical object that does not shoot upward when his toes hit it as most balls would, unmoving while he yelps in pain and hops around. You imagine Pearl staring at it with the same resigned determination you remember seeing in her eyes when she stared down Corruptions, but the mess suits him and his home. Earth is, especially in places frequented by Dr. Drakken, one large repository of imperfect beauty.

Despite the chaos, it does not take long for him to find the treasures you and Peridot bought at Smarty Mart, in stacks of boxes, each with a bag at their base. You have only moved aside a few of the smaller, lighter boxes when Peridot grabs the one that holds her bagged-bean chair and hoists it above her head with both hands, her spurts of laughter not needing words to boast. Drakken eyes the great wide box with the picture of the banana hammock on the side, but before he can lift it, you casually walk in front of him and pick it up, not wanting him to pain the fragile bones in his back.

You and Peridot warp back to Little Homeworld. Peridot continues to cackle as she hops down the warp pad's steps, drawing the attention of a neighboring group of Quartzes, blue and yellow and deep orange. Their stares are not hard but direct, and you blink back at them, uncertain how to respond. Your comfortability around them is a fickle sandbar, constantly eroding, shifting, and regrouping before sections of it crumble away again. Peridot, of course, chirps a greeting to them when she runs by.

"Hey, Peridot!" every Quartz calls back, their raspy voices in harmony. You don't need to force the smile that relaxes your mouth as you pass them.

Bismuth's eyes crease happily from where she stands in the doorway of your new house. "Here, let me take that off your hands," she says. She crouches in front of you and transfers the box from your arms to hers, arms that do not swing the box backward or pitch it forward with the recklessness you knew before. They slide under it and balance it, like a ring of flower petals cupping a pool of water, as though she has guessed its value. "There. Now you can make another trip."

"Thanks, Bismuth," you say.

Peridot sprints forward, sets the bagged-bean chair box at Bismuth's feet, and turns to you. Her hand catches your arm, her eyes round as satellites, and she delivers a question, not a command: "Fly me back?"

You toss her onto your back and take off for the warp pad. Soon you are back in Dr. Drakken's garage, where he sorts items into piles, muttering under his breath. He startles when you say, "Hi again," and you have to grab his arm to keep him on his feet.

"Lapis!" Drakken presses a hand to his chest, right over the area best for listening to the waves of his heartbeat. "You…heh…startled me." Embarrassment skips across his cheekbones, but he shakes his head as if tossing the feeling aside.

"Sorry about that." You pat the hand that still clutches the front of his lab coat and then bend down to pick up the box that holds your compact fountain. You study its picture: the tiny stream of water rolling over a set of stone steps, the black spaces between the leaves as their limbs bend over the water the way Dr. Drakken bends down to kiss your cheek. Your arms wind around the box and you pull it to you, a rest you would not have granted yourself two years ago.

Peridot has already broken into the plastic bag full of stuffed animals, which no longer seem quite so stiffly perfect with a coating of dust on their meticulous fur. "Let's see. I know the 'dolphin' was yours, Lapis, and I'm pretty sure the 'squirrel' was mine. But what about the –?"

"Per-i-dot." You wave a hand in front of her visor. "How about we figure out who owns what once we're settled in, okay?"

Peridot blinks. "Yes. Excellent plan, Lapis."

Drakken throws the rug that used to be a beach towel over his shoulder and winks down at you.

The three of you traipse back to the warp pad and return to Little Homeworld. You shield your eyes from the sun with your fingers and glance once again at the fountain's box while Peridot turns in circles, making noises of impatience. Dr. Drakken staggers behind you, still unused to warping, but his eyes are aglow.

"That," he says, leaning one hand against his forehead, "was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had." His words sound hazy and informal, as though he is not quite aware they are coming out. He trips over a thatch of grass and catches himself on his hands and knees, arching his back so the towel doesn't drag in the soil. You hurry over to help him up.

On your third trip, you carry the toy barn under one arm and the box full of your new books under the other. This time you see Steven before Bismuth as he runs out to meet you. "Hey, Lapis! What's in the box?" He no longer needs to stretch onto his toes to peer into the box. "Ooh, neat! Books!"

You nod at him and jerk your head in Peridot's direction, tapping a finger to your lips.

"Oh, I get it," Steven whispers. "It's a surprise."

He wiggles his eyebrows, which seem to have thickened along with his voice in the past few months, and runs his finger across his own lips as if stitching them shut. He is getting bigger, and smarter, remarkably fast, a video disk sped along with the remote.

You nod again.

Peridot's face is buried somewhere inside a heap of boxes as high as Pearl's head. They wobble back and forth as she picks her way across the meadow. The largest box, which holds her ottoman, falls from the top of the pile and hits the ground.

Drakken, still wearing the towel over his shoulder, brightens at the sight of the box and bends down to tug it from the ground. While you are not close enough to hear the noise his back makes, you can read it in his tight, clenched expression. Bismuth gets there before you do and hefts the box with hardly any effort. "Let me get that," she says. "Lapis would not be happy with me if I stood by and let her boyfriend get crushed."

Anger begins to descend on Drakken's face, an anger that pulls inward like her gem.

"What's the frowny face for?" Bismuth turns to look back at him and shrugs. "I can't grow plants out of my neck."

New lights come on in Drakken's eyes, and for a moment you genuinely like Bismuth.

Inside the house, in the main room, Peridot has already begun unpacking the bags and boxes. She tosses the throw pillows onto the couch: the Garnet-colored pillow on one end, the pillow the color of Amethyst's hair on the other, and the pillows with all the colors of the rain-arches in the middle, propped up by Lyle the Lion. Steven helps her dig her purple bagged-bean chair out of its box, littering the floor with strange crinkled pods that squeak when you step on them, and Bismuth, with Peridot directing her, sets the red ottoman below it. The ottoman is taller than the chair, and they do not match, yet somehow they look right together.

"It still looks awfully…empty," you say, glancing around the open space.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Peridot says with a flick of her wrist. "We'll have plenty of room to fill up with all our new meepmorps, right?"

You smile at her; you have rarely known her optimism to waver. "Right."

While Bismuth and Peridot continue to arrange the objects in the main room, Steven and Drakken walk with you down the corridor back to your room. You nudge the door open and step into the sidelight and the scent of painted wood without making a sound, though your gem gasps at the sight of this room, created for you. Cautious and not yet familiar, it receives you like a friend of a friend.

"Whoa." Dr. Drakken gazes at the room as you have seen him gaze around research laboratories. "It's…blue. How perfect!"

He glances out the window overlooking the meadow, his eyes misting, and you wonder if he remembers that day several years past when he brought you here to run in freedom.

You reach into the box of books at your feet and retrieve all but the one meant as a surprise for Peridot, and you lay them on their backs across the window seat, midway between the window and the bench where you will perch. Sunlight splashes across their covers, and the book whose covering curves around its sides like the sleeves of Steven's jacket glimmers, silvered and bright. The last book remains sunken patiently at the bottom of the box. You imagine Connie nodding in approval.

"Aww." Steven lies on his stomach on the floor, chin propped in his hands as he looks over the plastic barn's box. "I didn't know you had a pretend barn! It's so cute!"

His tone warms the room further, and you smile at him as you bend down and pick up the box. "Gotta remember the good old days somehow, right?" you say. Your eyes meet Steven's, and his know so much more than they did when you first saw him. It is an odd thing to see, though the current that flows from his eyes to yours continues unobstructed.

You carry the box to the desk in the corner and set it down. The top folds pull back easily and the toy barn slides out into your hands, its light weight and glazed sides true to the sight and false to the touch. You place it on the desk and undo the clasp that holds its walls together. They spread apart, and you stare at every burl, knot, and crevice in the artificial wood: the barn's fingerprints. The edges of your gem grow rough, as though they have only now been carved from the ground, and then you almost feel someone dragging a hand over them, smoothing them as Bismuth did with the floorboards.

You slide the clasp back into place, close the barn up, and walk away, still fighting the thin incredulous feeling in your back that denies any of this can be yours.

Drakken has already opened the largest box and begun to draw out the components that will become your banana hammock. He now speaks in more of a grumble than a mutter. A sheet of paper flies from the box and floats to the floor like an autumn leaf; Drakken grabs it with one hand and scrapes the other through his spiking hair. "Ah! Yes! The instructions!

"Gkkknnh…these are in Japanese." You know this to be an Earth language that Drakken does not speak, although Ron Stoppable can understand a few words in it. Drakken flips the paper over and his face brightens. "Here we are: English."

As it turns out, assembling the hammock requires instruments that neither Steven nor Drakken have with them. Steven, however, is fairly certain his father does, and he warps Drakken back to town so they can borrow the instruments from Greg. The sun has scarcely traveled in the sky when they return with several tools: one that can be extended into a measuring stick to ensure the hammock's poles are properly spaced; one with one long, serrated tooth that chisels holes at the bottoms of the poles; and one that comes to a point sharp as Shego's jaw and slips spiraling nails into the holes to fix them in place. Fortunately, you move Drakken's sleeve aside before it too can be twisted into the hole and held there.

When they are done, your banana hammock sways slightly, zipped up to the top, vibrant yellow and green.

"Phew!" Drakken pants and dabs at the sweat running down his nose with the back of his hand. "Let's take a moment and appreciate what an amazing job we did! Yay, us!" He chuckles to himself. "Okay, now, Lapis – where do you want this?"

Rather than answer him in words, you lift the hammock and survey the room, and his mouth lists open. "I keep forgetting she can do that," Drakken says as you position the hammock in the middle of the room, just to the right of the older crimson floorboard. Whenever you step or fall out of your bed in the morning, you will land on a piece of the barn.

Drakken's eyebrow furrows as he tilts his head; then he stoops and gives the floorboard a tap, and his eyes soften almost to liquid.

If he does not understand, you can explain it to him later. Right now, though, something is missing, something that keeps you farther away that you want to be. You unzip the banana hammock and rifle through its sheer layers until you come to a thicker, whiter material meant to support your weight.

You let it support Plastic Lazuli's instead, centering her in the hammock and stepping back to watch the familiar divot form in the fabric. She swings back and forth, her black seed eyes watching you peacefully. She is where she belongs.

"And now for the fountain." Drakken lifts its box and hands it to you, and you can see his back stiffening in his effort to hold the fountain with care. "Where do you want this?"

"Right next to my bed, if that's okay. That's the sound I want to fall asleep to every night."

Drakken grimaces. "Seems like it would make you need to pee." When you turn a blank look to him, he shakes his head. "Right. I forgot I was talking to a non-human for a second."

For the first time in a long while, you pity humans, that the steady and dependable flowing of water at their bedside would create in them anything but peace near perfect.

"I gotcha, Lapis!" Steven drags Bismuth's wooden block across the room with one hand as though it is made of paper. It comes to a stop next to the hammock.

"Seriously, does everyone here have superstrength except me?" Drakken says, on the edge of a whine.

You remove the fountain from its box. It sits small and still on top of the block, and you remember that you will need to supply it with water before it will flow for you. You let your eyes wander, and the room rushes at you, clear and understated and impossibly real, impossibly yours.

A silent sigh travels down your spine.

You hear a commotion from the front room and hope Peridot has not dismantled some of Bismuth's furniture already. Yet the room around you is quiet and contented. You close your eyes and look at the life you will fashion in this place: the sleepovers with Steven where only he and you sleep; the meepmorps yet to be created from items discarded by the humans of Beach City and Middleton; the neighbors whom Peridot will invite here so the two of you can make friends with them. To think of it is to stand in front of an ocean that even you cannot harness and to decide to trust it anyway.

"This…" You stop and blink before you begin again. "This completely rocks. Thank you, guys."

"You're welcome, Lapis!" Steven hugs you, his fingers lacing around your neck rather than behind your waist as they used to. "Happy housewarming day!"

You giggle. "Thanks."

Drakken steps forward and puts an arm around your shoulders, a few strands of hair that have fallen from his ponytail sticking to your cheeks with his perspiration. "Well, I suppose there's only one thing left to say. Welcome home, Lapis Lazuli. Welcome home."

His voice does not hush, but you can still hear that the words are precious to him. You stand there in that room with the two people who understand you best and wonder if they can fathom how long you have waited to hear them.

Drakken breaks into a stiff chuckle. "That's from a TV show, actually. But I really did want to say it."

"I know you did," you say, grinning up at him.

The commotion outside enters your room. Peridot appears, Pumpkin yapping and circling her legs. "Lapis!" Peridot cries. "Lapis, Lapis! We've got company!"

"Oh," you say, hoping you don't sound too unenthused. Most of your favorite people are already here. You glance at Drakken, who shrugs, and with his hand fitted in yours, you follow Peridot down the tiny corridor.

Something clicks and a light flashes in your face as soon as you walk into the main room. "All right, everyone, smile!" a familiar voice lilts. "This is definitely a day you'll want to look back on, wouldn't you say, Garnet?"

You lower the arm you had used to shield your eyes. The front door of your house has been pushed open, and Pearl stands in the doorway, holding her cell phone in front of her. As you watch, she swivels to aim it at Peridot and presses another button that you suspect is for capturing pictures. On either side of her, Garnet and Amethyst hold sticks of hard plastic topped with bulging foil spheres that read "Congratulations!" When they smile at you, it is not because Steven has told them to do it.

"Lapis and P-Dot got a new house! Woo!" Amethyst thrusts her fist in the air; she is chewing something even now. Next to her, silent and firm as a mountain, is Garnet – Garnet who gathered you up in her arms after you and Jasper unfused on the beach and carried you home.

You step aside. "Come on in, guys." Behind them, through the open door, you can see the infinite sky and hear the faint lapping of the ocean that never mourns its limits.

Peridot runs to give Amethyst a hug. Pearl takes a picture of them and then snaps her phone in your face once more. "Oh, this is so exciting!" she says. "The first house completed in Little Homeworld! And you two finally have a place all your own again!"

She continues to gush, excitement running from her white lips like water from a spigot.

"Garnet!" Steven appears at her side. "Did you bring the you-know-what for you-know-who like I asked?"

Wordlessly, Garnet hands you a compact box of color-sticks and an enormous pad of lineless paper. You stare at them for a moment. "Are these…for us?" you ask.

She gives a nod as slight as human breath.

"Thanks, Garnet." You turn and wave to Peridot. "Hey, Peridot, look what I've got! Meepmorp time."

No sooner have you laid the pad on the floor before Peridot springs onto it, down on four limbs like Pumpkin, who examines the paper with a curious sniff. You snicker and hold out your hand. Without hesitating, Peridot rips a sheet from the pad and shoves it at you.

"This is going to be so amazing," she declares, folding her fist around three different shades of green.

You gaze down at the empty piece of paper before you. You know what message you want to send, but not how you want to send it, the idea a tangled fishing wire in your head. In many of the television shows you have seen, disagreeable children will hang black signs on their doors that read, "KEEP OUT – THIS MEANS YOU," and you would hate to dim this brilliant house with something so surly.

Your hand passes over the box of color-sticks and finds its way to an Aquamarine shade. Its tip touches the paper, and with soft untroubled strokes you begin to draw the sea. Unlike Gems of a similar color, it has always accepted you just as you are.

The room grows quiet around you, and there is only the pounding of the surf and the swishing of the crayon-stick across the page. Your ocean spans the entire bottom of the paper, alternating gradients of blue and green to capture its spirit: ever changing yet never capricious. Other colors join them, a dusting of yellow for sunlight on the surface, hints of blacks and grays sheltered in the curl of a wave approaching the shore.

You fill the top of the paper with sky, pastel blue shot through with streaks of light. Your clouds are slightly misshapen, but you decide you don't mind.

The center of the paper stares up at you, waiting for your message. You tap the black color-stick against your chin and consider the days when you secluded yourself in the corn stalks outside the barn only for Peridot to find you and toss Pumpkin into your lap; the days when you laid in your hammock gazing at the ceiling only for Peridot to shove her face near yours and send the hammock spinning; the days when you huddled in the corner with a book only for Peridot to sneak up behind you and demand to watch an episode of Camp Pining Hearts. You begin to work each scene until it no longer makes you cringe. To your surprise, this does not involve eliminating Peridot, merely moving her backward several meters and making her mouth smaller.

You write:

Having Lapis time. Check back later. Your name is in blue.

Dr. Drakken hums gleefully beside you as he sketches figures with bodies like planks and heads like bulbs. You tap him on the shoulder and pull in closer to him. "I'm done with mine," you whisper. "Can I show it to you?"

He nods, urgency blossoming on his face and a couple of petals from his neck.

You sweep your paper over in front of him. His eyes sail over it. "What do you think?" you ask him.

Drakken nods again, in thought this time rather than affirmation. "It's quite pretty. Nice dimensions and very pleasing with the ocean and the sky. The font is easy to read, and somehow you managed to get it right in the very exact center of the page! I never could do that, even when I measured…"

You laugh at him, but you don't call him a nerd because that will never be a kind word to him, no matter how affectionately you say it.

"Not that," you say. "What it says. It's not too harsh, is it?"

"No. It is not."

The voice is not deep and thunderous; it is the sound of a tin can being opened.

You turn to see Peridot hanging over Drakken's other shoulder, studying the paper with her head tipped to one side. "It effectively communicates the desired intentions without projecting hostility. Due to the playful nature of the colors and the warm feel of the piece, it even has some 'cuteness,' which makes it even harder to perceive any insult," she says. She glows in the puddle of sunlight, her eyes flashing golden.

They are both such nerds.

You stand up and hold the paper to your waist. "Phew. It's perfect for the door of my room, then. I'll try not to leave it up too much." You lock your eyes to Peridot's. "But when it is up, I need you to respect that."

Peridot bobs her head. "Acknowledged."

"You know, it truly is fascinating to see the differences between your two personality types," Drakken adds. "Humans have names for those. Peridot, you're an extrovert, and Lapis, you're an introvert. Now what that means is…"

You lean back against his chest and let him talk as the sun slips out of sight and the stars appear. Crystal Gems drift away until gradually only you and Peridot remain with Drakken. When you go to kiss him good night, you say, "Will you mind if Peridot and I spend the night here, just the two of us? This is kind of a big deal for us."

"Miss you – yes. Mind – no." Drakken grins at you. "Pleasant dreams, ladies!"

You walk him down to the warp pad and take him back to Middleton with the promise to return for him in the morning.

When you return, one of the wooden tables next to the sofa has been moved closer, and atop it are the ruins of Peridot's tape recorder, the blue ribbon trailing off like a thought left uncompleted. She smiles when she sees you eyeing it. "It doesn't make me feel bad anymore," she says.

"I'm glad," you say, and you mean it.

Peridot falls back onto the sofa, her arms winging out to either side of her. "We're home, Lapis."

"Yep. Home at last," you say, and you mean this, too. You remember it taking much longer for you to grow used to the barn when you first resigned yourself to staying on Earth, and it puzzles you for a moment.

A far-off expression settles in Peridot's eyes, as though she too is recalling her first and second homes. You wonder what her life was like on Homeworld and if it was anything like yours, surrounded by Gems whose faces mirrored yours and with whom you could never quite be yourself except for the times you were united in destruction. For all that the two of you understand each other, she has never volunteered this, and you have never asked. You remember only seeing the Era One Peridots, still tall and imposing without the need for limb enhancers, as they trooped back and forth from the Academy to Yellow Diamond's subordinate quarters. After your return, you never interacted with any of them until the day one grabbed you and demanded answers to questions about Earth and Steven – all so quickly, as though a wind had blown her into your life.

You never imagined you'd be grateful to that wind.

"Oh, that reminds me." You stand up from the couch and turn toward your room. "I've got a surprise for you."

The dreaming eyes pop open when you come back with the book in your hands. Peridot scrambles onto the couch beside you and runs her fingers over the cover where the girl tries to fit one long, lanky leg over her bicycle seat. "A book?" she squeaks. "For me?"

"For us," you say, holding your neck rigid as Peridot does when she corrects someone. The words flow easily from your throat. "I was saving it until our house was finished. I thought we could read it together."

Peridot's eyes grow starry like Steven's. "Will you…will you do the voices?"

"Uh, ye-ah. Of course."

Peridot claps. She isn't sitting, you realize; she is crouched on her ankles, watching you with anticipation. You push back the book's stiff cover, open your mouth, and begin with the first sentence.

Instead of sitting down, Peridot crawls across the couch and wiggles beneath your arm, her head resting against your bare middle. You stroke the top of her angled hair. It is softer than it looks.

You know something then, something you did not know when you first moved into the barn: Home is permanent, enduring inside a gemstone no matter how many times its outer shell is destroyed and rebuilt.

~Note: I deliberately left Lapis and Peridot's book unnamed so everyone could kind of imagine their favorite childhood read. But I do feel compelled to share now that in my mind, I was seeing the Ramona books by Beverly Clearly. . . who, I just found out, passed away (at the age of 104!) while I was writing this chapter. :( Rest in peace, Ms. Cleary. I look forward to meeting you in heaven.~