Pearl screamed as the two hit the floor, Amethyst cursing and Stephen gasping. It took all of them a minute to realize that Garnet had actually defused over all of this. They didn't know it had bothered her that much; Garnet never defused. How bad was it for her to come to this point?
Both having been stunned from falling like that, Ruby was the first of the two to stand. She immediately looked over at the other with concern, waiting for her to get up. After a few seconds, Ruby started to grow impatient with her. "What are you doing, Sapphire? Get up!" She put her hands on her hips, hunching over the blue woman. Ruby was too aggravated to think straight, not even questioning why Sapphire hadn't stood up yet. "Come on, why are you just sitting there?" Ruby started to nudge her gently, slightly losing her temper. It was stressing her out as to why Sapphire wasn't moving. Was she hurt? Ruby was about to yell at her again, when she started to hear soft sniffling. "S-sapphire..?" Ruby finally noticed that something was wrong with her. She turned Sapphire over to face her, noticing the tears falling down the center of her face.
"Oh, my stars!" Ruby pulled Sapphire up to get a better look at her. "This is all our fault..." Sapphire spoke through a small, broken voice. Ruby almost dropped her out of shock at what she just said. "What? Our fault?! What did we do, when Steven's the one out there killing everything he sees!" "We should've raised him better..."
"It doesn't matter what we did. Look what HE did! He killed seven people already, and maybe more!"
"Because we weren't there for him! We should've been more supportive..."
"But look at what he did to us. To you! None of this was our fault; we didn't tell him to do any of this!" Neither of them seemed to be paying any attention to what the other had to say.
"I saw this as a possible outcome! I thought if I, if we, could raise Steven right, we could avoid this. I thought we could change the future, and raise the child that Rose Quartz had wanted. None of this would have ever had to happen, and no one would have been killed. But- but, it didn't work!" Sapphire burst into tears and fell onto her knees, loudly sobbing before Ruby. Her tight fists squeezed the torso of her dress as she practically yelled up to Ruby. "We didn't try hard enough!"
"Listen to me, Sapphire," Ruby cupped Sapphire's face into her hands, trying to get her to look up at her. To her dismay, Sapphire actually pulled away from her. "No, Ruby. You don't understand." She sounded hurt, and Ruby was only trying to comfort her.
"Sapphire-" she reached her hand down to her, ready to pull her up into an embrace.
"NO!" Ruby retracted, surprised at hearing Sapphire actually scream at her. She couldn't grasp why Sapphire was acting like this; why would she blame herself? To Ruby, it was obvious that Steven was just being a little shit and needed to be disciplined, but Sapphire didn't think like that. To her, it felt like they had failed Steven in his upbringing, probably from exposing him to the horrific ideas of Homeworld and facing corrupted gems at such a young age. It felt like desensitizing him to such traumatic events in the past had stirred violent tendencies within himself recently. Or at least, that's what Sapphire believed.
Still, it didn't make any of his actions less damaging. Having gotten used to always being able to know what to do next, the past few days had taken a toll on Sapphire mentally. By now, she wasn't sure what to do next. One thing was clear: she wasn't in the mood to talk about her feelings. The rising guilt from Stephen pushed her patience to its end, and she needed some time to herself to cool off.
"I think you're the one that doesn't understand!" Ruby interrupted Sapphire's thinking, clearly not ready to back down from the argument. "How does it make any sense that we're the cause of what Steven did? Think about it-"
"Ruby..." Sapphire really didn't want to talk.
"-we're as much victims as those humans that Stephen killed were! It's almost as if-"
"Ruby! Please, not now."
"Why not now?" Ruby started to get angry with her. "What's wrong with now?! Why do you never want to talk about this sort of stuff when we actually need to?" As Sapphire saw it as a time to reflect alone, Ruby saw it as a time to act together. Sapphire was acting ridiculous, Ruby thought, and needed to see the bigger picture. She needed to know that they had done all they could as Garnet, and she shouldn't blame herself for any of this. "What reason do you have for holding everything back?"
"The same reason why you never know how to control your temper." Sapphire fought back, now getting angry as well. She wasn't trying to be directly rude, but dealing with Ruby's anger issues was seriously draining her at the moment. She just wanted a break. "I don't understand why you need to talk about this so suddenly. We've been acting fine for days now."
"But, we aren't fine! NONE of this is fine! We can't even stay fused over this, and you want to just push all of our feelings aside?"
"No! That's not what I want, Ruby. This just isn't the right time to discuss these things, especially in front of Steven." Ruby looked awkwardly at Stephen, having forgotten he was there. It must have been pretty uncomfortable for him to hear this whole thing, but Ruby didn't really care.
"If we don't talk now, you and I both know that it's never going to get brought up again! This happens every time we argue; I just want to talk things out, while you just want to sit quiet and act all mature while you only hurt yourself more by not talking about it. I admit, it's not the best time right now, but it's not my fault you just wanted to hold everything in until neither of us could take this anymore!"
Sapphire stared at her for a moment, not sure on how to take that. It hurt to hear, but Ruby was right. She did put too much pressure on them as Garnet to keep everyone else sane, while they felt trapped within themselves. She just thought if they acted strong, everything would be okay for everyone else. But that clearly didn't seem to work out. She looked around the room at everyone else, just noticing that they weren't alone for the first time.
She first discovered Amethyst, who was sitting on Steven's bed and texting to Vidalia about what was currently going on. She was facing away from the living room, not wanting to have to listen to Ruby and Sapphire argue. She had just come home after discovering her friend's child had been turned into human pulp by the same thing that made Garnet defuse in this first place. She was trying to block out what was happening after the Onion incident, sort of feeling responsible for what happened between Garnet.
Sapphire had also forgotten Stephen was still in the room, who was just awkwardly trying to find his clothes, pretending he wasn't the cause of this. He didn't feel like interjecting, so he just rummaged through the house while listening to what the two were yelling about.
While Sapphire was looking up at Amethyst, something about the room caught her attention. The front door was open. Out on the porch, Pearl was standing with her back to the living room. She was facing the ocean, resting her arms on the railing. Pearl had silently left the room to give them some privacy while Ruby and Sapphire were arguing. If she had stayed in the room, she almost definitely would've started crying upon hearing the two actually fight, and she didn't want to be a nuisance. They needed to sort things out without any distractions, and her having a breakdown would have only made things worse. The two had been so encased in their own disagreement, though, that neither of them had even noticed the front door being opened.
While the two were fighting, Pearl slipped out without anyone noticing her, much to her relief. When she was outside, she had tried to block out the screaming by looking around at her surroundings. Distracting herself would surely help to ease the tension. As the sun began to set over the beach, she watched the hypnotic rhythm of the waves crashing on the beach's shore. The waves were coming in less and less, a signal that low tide was approaching. It calmed Pearl down in a way to watch the therapeutic water, distracting her mind from everything else that had been going on. Being outside helped her to cope with what was going on inside. She could still hear the two, but it was much less overwhelming to deal with now that she felt she could actually breathe. It was sights like these that made Pearl truly appreciate the Earth that she'd spent thousands of years protecting. But, the waves hadn't been the only thing that caught her attention.
As Pearl was resting out front, Peridot suddenly burst out of the living room, running out down onto the beach pretty quickly. She saw the open door as a chance to get away from Stephen and the defused Garnet, having slowly sneaked off the top of the fridge when no one was looking. After everything that had happened today, having Garnet split and start arguing with herself was too much to handle. She couldn't even make sense of the fusion beforehand, and now that Garnet was defused and actually yelling at herself, it was too much to even try to understand. Peridot just wanted to get away from the Crystal Gems, and especially away from Stephen, thoroughly at her limit with all of them.
Pearl watched her as she ran towards the ocean, trying to get as far from the house as possible. Strangely enough, Pearl actually envied the little gem. Peridot had the freedom of running away from her problems with no one to stop her, while Pearl was bound to the others through the title of 'family'. How ironic that word felt now. It's like they weren't even a family at this point. Stephen had broken almost everyone apart. Even Garnet wasn't okay after all this, and Pearl knew things were only going to get worse. Stephen wasn't going to let up; she knew that for a fact. But there was nothing she could do, and it scared her to realize that. She felt useless. Pearl sighed in despair, and continued to watch Peridot struggle with herself on the beach shore. At least it was reassuring to watch somebody else feel distraught about the same thing.
Pearl sighed again, this time out of pity, as she watched Peridot trip and fall on the ground a few times, her entire body being heavily coated in sand. Still, she kept on running, her vision blurred from a combination of sand and tears covering the front of her visor. To Pearl's surprise, she had ran directly into the ocean water, apparently not realizing where she was going. Mostly running aimlessly, she hadn't acknowledged that by running in a straight line she'd be coming into contact with freezing cold water. What was less surprising was seeing her quickly run out of the water, tripping again and falling into the wet sand on the shore's edge. For a moment she lay there and accepted fate, crying into the sand. Pearl could relate to that.
After a moment of self-pity, Peridot stood up and angrily threw her visor into the sand behind her, deeming it to be the partial cause of her increased sorrow. She plopped back down and faced the water, tightly hugging her sand-covered legs. She stared at the water angrily, hating it for making her wet and soggy. Spitefully sitting in front of the ocean, she began to question how she even got in this mess in the first place. She didn't ask to be stranded on Earth or be endlessly tormented by an uncaring, maniacal sociopath. It felt unfair.
As she was sulking to herself, she hadn't noticed a rather large wave coming straight at her. Before she knew it, Peridot was sucked under the water, beaten down into the sand. She choked on the water, not realizing to shut her mouth when the wave overtook her. She was washed up on the side of the beach shore, being dragged by the ocean's current.
She cringed as she spat out water and groaned from the scrapes that the sand had left on her. This day was really becoming too much for her. After almost being killed, exposed to a distorted human corpse, listening to an aggressive argument she didn't even understand, and now being beaten down by a wave, Peridot had just given up. Using her last ounce of energy, she told off the ocean for attacking her. She didn't know what else to take her anger out on, the ocean being the only thing there. Even from such a far distance, Pearl could hear her shouting. It would've been funny, but she wasn't in the mood for laughing.
"WHY DOES EVERYTHING ON EARTH HATE ME!?" Peridot finished, before falling on her back and sobbing. Her yelling turned to crying as she curled into a ball on the ground and started to fully sob. Loudly, too. Even from in the living room, Ruby and Sapphire could hear her screaming slightly. Both of them were silently staring at each other, the only sound coming from the muffled crying in the distance. Ruby looked down to Sapphire, who was still on her knees and spacing out.
"Well, I guess I'll leave you alone, then." She broke the silence and walked out the front door, Sapphire not responding at first. She didn't stop Ruby when she walked out.
Aggravated at Sapphire for ignoring her, Ruby stepped out onto the front porch where Pearl was.
"Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it." Pearl didn't even make eye contact as she bitterly spoke. She wasn't in the mood. Ruby looked up at her, offended. "I wasn't even going to say anything, but fuck you!" She stomped off the porch, leaving a trail of scorched footprints behind her. Pearl felt a little bad for snapping like that at Ruby. Knowing she was going through a lot right now, it probably wasn't the best to push her away. But Pearl needed to worry about herself right now.
Now also aggravated at Pearl, Ruby started to walk on the beach, leaving blackened footprints in her stead. It was annoying how nobody wanted to listen to her. All she wanted was to rant to someone, to vent her frustration about the whole thing, but it was clear Pearl was being standoffish right now. It didn't make sense to Ruby as to why Pearl was feeling bad when it was her and Sapphire that defused, not her. She threw her arms in the air out of annoyance and sulked her way down to the beach shore, close to where Peridot was. Although she'd technically never met the other formally, maybe Ruby could take comfort in her. She seemed to be pretty bad off as well, so maybe they could talk things over together. Ruby sat down beside Peridot, who was now sniffling into her knees, and tried to break some of the tension.
"So, I guess you're not feeling too hot either, huh?" No response. "Ha, get it? Hot? Because I'm a ruby?" She lit fire under her feet to emphasize the joke. Still, nothing. Not even a chuckle. This was becoming more awkward than Ruby initially planned. She was debating about just turning around and leaving, but she still wanted somebody to talk to. Even if it meant talking with the enemy.
"So, uh, what happened to you, anyway?" She thought maybe talking about Peridot's feelings instead of her own first might help the conversation take off.
"The ocean slapped me." Peridot finally said dryly. She wished Ruby would leave her alone, still angry with her and Sapphire for arguing in first place. Why couldn't Garnet have just stayed together longer?
"Oh, yeah. The water can be unpredictable at times." Ruby tried to keep the conversation alive, figuring small talk might help. "It can be pretty violent too, some days."
"Like the Steven." Peridot hissed, still curled up. She was crying less now, more angry with Stephen than anything. "Why do you even keep him around? What's his purpose even for? He's not useful for anything besides hurting things, but I thought you were supposed to be against that kind of thing." Her voice then softened, dropping its satirical tone, "How do you deal with him?" She spoke softly, still hugging her knees. She'd only been around Stephen for around a month now, and she could barely handle it anymore. How were they able to control him for years, and only now be fed up with him?
"He's never been like this before! Steven used to be really nice. I don't know what happened!" Ruby tried to defend Stephen, but a part of her acknowledged his recent actions. It was hard to overlook the murder of almost half the town and aggressive nature towards everybody else.
Peridot snorted, not believing in Ruby. How could someone so hospitable have been any form of 'nice' at one point? It was impossible, she felt. "Do you just keep him around as like a weapon or something?" She snapped her fingers upon realizing what that could mean. "So, that's how the Crystal Gems created so much anarchy so quickly; they used the Stephen to destroy the authority, just like with the leader of this area's civilization! It all makes sense now."
"No, no!" Ruby shook her hands, trying to dismay that theory. Peridot was way off. "Steven's only been around for fourteen years. He never even saw the war!"
"That thing's existed for fourteen years and already caused that much damage?! That's just impressive."
"But that's the thing, though! Steven's only been acting strange for like a week or so, for whatever reason that could be. It's all been so sudden... And look what it's done to us! And yet, we're all just supposed to act like it's fine and nothing's wrong and we're all just one big, happy family!? It's not fair to have to hold in so many feelings, you know? But, it seems that's what Sapphire believes is right!" Ruby was steaming, the ground beneath her feet sizzling once more as she screamed with anger.
"Just ignore her, then." The other shrugged, not seeing it as a big deal.
"I can't just ignore her; that would be rude! We're supposed to be there for each other, and we're supposed to be there for Steven!"
Now Peridot seemed more confused than aggravated. "But why would you want to assist the Steven? The calculations don't add up: if he doesn't serve a purpose and only makes you feel worse, then why do you keep him around, much less willingly allow him near you?"
For a second, Ruby blanked on a response. She had been so worked up that she couldn't even remember what reason there was to love Stephen. "We want to help him because..." she started, at first not sure how to counter Peridot's argument.
Ruby had to admit that she wasn't sure how to actually defend her point. But then, she took a moment to really think about Steven, the real Steven, and all of the previous memories with him came flooding back to her. Good memories, too, of how loving and honest he used to be. And that was why she cared about him; he had loved her and the rest of the gems as his own family, even if he didn't seem to be showing it recently. "It's because we care about Steven, I guess. I mean yeah, he's been pretty awful lately. But you don't just 'get rid of' the people you care about, even when they're being mean to you. That's what a family's about; being there for each other."
"If you're definition of being 'family' to someone is actively trying to threaten and kill each other whilst yelling and screaming about it, then I can see why you all are so dysfunctional. You know, I'm actually glad that I'm not a part of this family; you guys are crazy!" She crossed her arms and turned away from Ruby, having enough of this conversation.
Ruby really wanted to put Peridot in her place, but she restrained herself. The reason she came down here wasn't to start a fight with her; she was just looking for somebody to talk to. But it seems the two didn't see eye-to-eye at all, and now Ruby was only feeling more frustrated than when she came to talk in the first place. She was getting nowhere with talking to Peridot about this; she just didn't understand where she was coming from. She didn't know Steven for too long before he was switched out for his brother, so it made sense that she wouldn't acknowledge his complete change of character. She never met him when he was good. But, her view of Stephen was still much different than that of the others, which proved to be difficult to have this discussion about him with her.
Ruby sighed, realizing this wasn't working out, and clenched her fists. This had only made things worse. She mumbled to herself and sat down on the ground with a thud. Just as she was about to fall into despair, she heard a faint voice calling her.
"Ruby!" Sapphire came running out onto the beach, sprinting towards the two on the shore. "I'm sorry, Ruby!" She stopped directly behind the other, Ruby getting up to face her in complete shock. "Sapphire?" She hadn't expected her to come back so quickly, much less be ready to reconcile.
"Listen to me, please," Sapphire was huffing as she spoke, having run from the house in a single sprint, "I shouldn't have pushed you away like that, when you only wanted to talk. I was just so absorbed in my own thoughts, that I forgot to remember that you were in pain, too. And I was only making things harder for you, I realized, which is something I never meant to do. I just thought if we could be strong, for everyone's sake, then everything would be okay. But it's not, and now I've only made things worse!"
"Sapphire-"
"Let me finish first, Ruby." she put her arms on Ruby's shoulders, looking up at her with a single eye that had been reddened from previous crying. "I was wrong about us. We hadn't done anything to cause what had happened. Looking back on it, I realized how foolish I'd been acting, but at that moment in the living room I wasn't thinking straight. Steven's behavior is more than strange, and I couldn't understand why. I tried to dodge the possibility that it was his deliberate choice, and instead, I put the blame on us, which was wrong of me. No matter how I tried, I couldn't change Steven. I see that now. You were right, Ruby: we are in trouble, and I was just trying to cover it up. I wanted to avoid the responsibility we were facing instead of addressing it, but I never thought about how that would make you feel. We're both a total mess right now, all because I forced us to be silent for so long!" A lone tear fell down her face, Ruby gently wiping it away. "I just wanted to make things right, Ruby. I wanted to fix things. But I can't, can I?"
"No, you can't." Sapphire looked up, disheartened at Ruby's bluntness. "But it's not your fault. Neither of us can fix this, nor could all of the Crystal Gems combined. This is something we've never faced before. This isn't just fighting in a war or capturing a corrupted gem, this is about Rose's son. And yeah, things are scary right now. None of us know what we're doing, you're not alone in that. But I know that whatever Steven has to offer us, we can face it together. We can't keep hiding our emotions anymore, we have to be in this together. As a family." Much to Sapphire's surprise, Ruby was smiling softly. She returned the smile, wiping another tear from her eye.
"I think you're right, Ruby." The two smiled for a brief moment before going in for a hug at the same time, causing both to giggle slightly. They began to dance around on the beach shore for a minute, holding each other in a loving embrace. After a few minutes of laughing and dancing, it wasn't a surprise to see Ruby and Sapphire refused into Garnet. The fusion was smiling as she came into being, hugging onto herself whilst she was still laughing. Garnet was delighted to be back, no longer worrying about being controlled by her feelings.
Ruby and Sapphire had been so happy to finally share some time with each other that they hadn't even seemed to notice a large storm rolling in when they were carrying on. Swollen grey clouds began to overtake the setting sun's dimming rays, replacing them with an ashy layer of fog. A single droplet of water landed in the sand, another one soon following. Several tiny drops began to fall, gently landing around the gems on the beach. It was quite peaceful as Garnet looked up and watched the dark clouds roll in, feeling a sense of serenity within herself. She was finally starting to feel better.
Only, her thoughts were interrupted by loud yelling from nearby.
"W-what is that?" Peridot, who had remained surprisingly silent the whole time, was now looking around frantically. Several rain drops had begun to pour down on her, leaving her concerned about the beads of foreign liquid making contact with her skin. Garnet had completely forgotten she was even there after Ruby and Sapphire made up, since she was so abnormally quiet.
In the distance, a small bang of thunder could be heard. Peridot went pale and froze for a moment, looking up at the sky. She was going to ask out loud what the ominous sound could be, but no sound was omitted when she tried to speak. The rain started to come down harder now, soaking her rather quickly and turning the sand into mud. At first, Peridot didn't even notice the buildup of water on her because she was staring at the direction the sound came from, until another snap of thunder roared across the darkened landscape. This one was much louder than its predecessor, causing Peridot to scream. Now she was sure that the sound meant doom, coming to only one conclusion of the sound's source.
"I-it's the Cluster!" Peridot shrieked breathlessly, beginning to tremble violently as she looked in the direction of the thunder with fear. "The C-Cluster's emerging!" she partially whined the last phrase as she whipped around, desperately searching for somewhere to take shelter. Much to her dismay, nothing was there but sand, water, and more sand and water, leaving her completely vulnerable. The only thing that stood out amongst the murky background was Garnet, who was still facing the sky. Panic-stricken with nowhere else to turn to, Peridot ran to the fusion as fast as she could, taking cover behind her. She gripped Garnet's shins tightly, firmly fastening herself onto her legs.
Garnet immediately gasped as Peridot grabbing hold onto her leg brought her out of her thoughts. Of course, it took her by much surprise. She hadn't been paying attention to Peridot's reaction to the rain, aside from when she glanced over at her initially. Garnet was too lost in her own reconciliation to really pay much notice. That is, until now, when Garnet found her focus on the tiny green gem clinging to her for dear life. Initially, Garnet was going to shake her off and tell her to go inside, but something about this display seemed to peak her interest. She looked down at Peridot, who was bawling and mumbling barely audible phrases about her assumed impending death. She was shaking like a leaf while clinging to Garnet.
Garnet looked down, ironically feeling pity towards her. She thought it strange to feel sympathy for the same person that had tried to kill the Crystal Gems on numerous occasions, but still, the feeling of concern was present. Although Peridot was supposed to be the enemy, it hardly even felt like that anymore. Garnet and the others had actually been ignoring her as a problem for a while now, focusing their energy on the Stephen problem instead. She wasn't a threat anymore, so she mostly went unnoticed by the others as the worry over Stephen grew. Still, the tension from everyone being forced to live together left the party's mood in a sort of grey area, an area right between the feelings of oblivion, passive-aggression, and bizarre neutrality. Garnet hadn't really been sure how to feel about the situation with Peridot before, if anything, feeling more annoyed than concerned, but after everything that's happened with Stephen recently, her opinion had begun to change about their new house guest.
Out of everyone still alive that Stephen had afflicted, Peridot seemed to have been one of the most affected by it. She'd already been stripped of her defenses and trapped under enemy lines to begin with, but dealing with Stephen's incessant torment and death threats was just brutal. Even someone like Peridot didn't deserve that. Although Garnet hadn't really paid much notice to that before, being more concerned with her own personal issues, something about what was happening now had shockingly moved her.
Every single one of Peridot's defenses had been ripped away from her, until nothing remained but a scared child without her armor. It partially reminded Garnet of Steven when he was younger. She fondly remembered when he was smaller, so small that he was just below her knee. Whenever he was upset, he would cling to her leg and cry until she would scoop him up and gently tell him that it would be okay. She would tell him over and over again, a thousand times if she had too, until he finally believed that she was right. And soon enough, his crying was replaced with a soft smile and a warm hug.
Bringing her thoughts back to the present, the line between enemy and friend seemed distant and blurred. Before she actually realized it, she found herself wrapping her arms around the tiny gem and pulling her into a hug.
"It's okay." Garnet cooed to her softly, "It's only the rain." Peridot looked up confused, but was too tired to really question what she was talking about. She couldn't help but enjoy the softness of the voice spoken to her, with such care she'd never really heard before. Instead of focusing on the rain, she instead looked up to Garnet with interest. "T-The rain?" Her voice was meek and rather hoarse, but she hoped she could get Garnet to speak again. Something about her tone was soothing.
Garnet looked down and smiled. "Yes, the rain. It can't hurt you." Garnet's reassuring smile only reinforced the feeling of safety. Garnet gingerly lifted Peridot up into her arms, the other not refusing in the slightest. She was still shaking a bit, but a warmth of comfort seemed to wash over her. For Peridot, the line between enemy and friend seemed blurred as well as she subconsciously leaned into Garnet, finding herself wanting to be as close to the other as possible.
Garnet started to gently comb her fingers through Peridot's wet and matted hair, maternally avoiding any knots. Peridot leaned her head against Garnet's chest, closing her eyes slightly as Garnet started to explain what the rain was exactly, keeping her voice soft and almost motherly. Something about Peridot starting to calm down brought Garnet her own comfort, in a way. Being able to help someone else gave her a greater sense of inner peace. When Ruby initially thought that talking to Peridot might help, she certainly did not expect help in the form of this. Garnet smiled to herself as she carried the tiny gem inside, the two sharing a similar sense of serenity.