CHAPTER THREE

"What!?"

The other gems quickly left the room, leaving him alone with Lapis, but quite honestly, he probably wouldn't have noticed if they'd stayed. "What do you mean, you're not staying?" he asked in dismay. "Aren't you happy here? I thought you were happy here!"

Lapis sighed and looked down at her feet for a moment before raising her eyes to look at him. "I have been happy. It's not that, really. It's just…" She paused to think. "Do you remember when I first came to the barn? We spent that night flying around, looking for some place for me to stay, and I told you I'd barely seen any of the Earth and I wanted to. But then… I didn't." She moodily scuffed her feet against the floor. "I've been free for four years now, and that was the first and last time I went anywhere other than Beach City! It's like… I was trapped for so long, I've forgotten how to be free."

"Well…" Steven said tentatively. "I could show you some other places, like where all the warp pads lead. You wouldn't have to go away then."

Lapis shook her head firmly. "No. I appreciate the offer, but it's something I've got to do for myself." She gave him a small smile. "I've actually been considering doing this for a while now. Me and Peridot talked about it, and I've been looking at travel guides and stuff, but I've been putting it off because I was scared. I guess the barn falling down is just the motivation I needed to finally do it."

Steven's shoulders slumped as the fight went out of him. He hated to admit it, but everything she was saying made sense. "You're staying on Earth though, right?" he asked in a small voice.

"Of course!" she exclaimed in surprise. "And I'll call and send postcards, and I'll come back afterwards. And who knows," she added, her smile widening, "maybe a bit more distance from the Crystal Gems will help me get on with them better." She reached over and gave him a gently nudge. "Don't blame yourself for plan B not working. It's not your fault. Every time I closed my eyes to concentrate, all I could think was how much I did not want to live in the same building as Pearl, not after years of living in her head!"

Steven couldn't help laughing at that. The tension between them disappeared, and they began to head out of the Temple. "You should make a travel blog," he suggested as they walked through the door. "And post pictures on it every day."

"Sure. You can help me set it up before I go," she said cheerfully.

In the kitchen, the other gems were waiting for them, and trying very hard to look like they weren't. "Hey, Steven," Amethyst called. "I made some food if you're hungry."

"Thanks." He sat down at the counter and accepted the dish of chilli she pushed towards him.

"All cool?" She asked in a lower tone, sliding onto the seat next to him.

"Yeah." He glanced across the room to where Lapis and Peridot were quietly talking as they searched through Lapis's belongings. "I'm gonna miss her, but I guess I understand why she doesn't wanna stay."

"So you're actually going ahead with this then?" Pearl's disapproving voice broke through the quiet of the room and Steven looked up in surprise. He hadn't expected Pearl, of all people, to be upset about Lapis leaving.

"I am," Lapis said serenely, tossing a guide book into a backpack.

"You could visit majestic sites of gem culture, or exquisite areas of natural beauty, or even interesting and historical human cities," Pearl lamented. "But instead, you have chosen…" Her lip curled in derision. "To visit places with rude names."

Lapis grinned. "Yep. First stop, Bum Bum Island."

Steven's spoon dropped into his bowl of chilli. Beside him, Amethyst started to giggle. "Are you serious!?"

"Uh huh." Her grin grew wider. "I'm going to take a photograph of each road sign when I get there. I'll put them on the travel blog. It'll be awesome."

"Here's that solar powered charger you were looking for," Peridot interrupted, tapping Lapis on the shoulder.

"Whoa, hang on a minute!" Steven finally noticed the packing going on. "You're going now? Like, right now!?"

"No, I am not going right now," Lapis replied, looking deeply offended. "I'm going when you've finished eating and helped me set up a travel blog. Duh."

Steven opened his mouth to object some more, then a hand fell upon his shoulder, making him pause. "Let her go, Steven," Garnet said softly. "If she lets herself get settled here, she may not get the courage to go through with it again."

A very selfish part of him was ready to keep objecting for exactly that reason, but he knew it wouldn't be fair to Lapis, so he allowed himself a wordless grumble, and resumed eating. By the time he'd finished, he'd began to accept the situation, and after spending half an hour looking at blogging apps while she told him about some of the places she planned to visit, he was almost as excited for her trip as she was. Then, just as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, they all stepped outside onto the deck and waved goodbye as she flew off across the sea.

"Well," Pearl said once Lapis was nothing more than a dark speck on the horizon, "shall we give the ceremony another try, or leave it for today?"

"Leave it," Garnet said at once. "If Steven and Peridot are happy to give plan C a try, there's no rush."

"I'm happy to give it a try," Steven said quickly, jumping at the opportunity to put off room-making for a while.

Peridot nodded in agreement. "If Steven is happy with the arrangement, I have no objections."

"In that case then, I'm going to go and clean the kitchen." Pearl spun around and began heading back to the house.

Amethyst quickly straightened up. "I'd better go and make sure she doesn't try and throw out the leftovers."

"And I'm going to my room," Garnet stated. She smiled down at the two younger gems who were still staring out across the sea. "I'll see you both tomorrow."

Steven's eyes followed her as she stepped back inside, closing the door gently behind her, and then snapped back to Peridot. Was it his imagination, or did she look a little wistful? He'd been so fixated on how much he was going to miss Lapis that it hadn't really hit him until now that Peridot had lost her roommate too. "Hey," he said softly. "You OK?"

She finally tore her gaze away from the ocean and gave him a small smile. "Yes, I'm fine. I'll miss Lapis, but she has been restless for some time now."

"You weren't tempted to go with her?" he asked, suddenly curious.

Peridot shook her head vehemently. "Absolutely not. I'm a Crystal Gem. I'm staying right here."

Cheered by her response, Steven pulled her into a one-armed hug. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Well…" Peridot blushed and coughed self-consciously. "To be entirely honest, I saw quite enough of Earth when I was on the run. I have no interest in any more aimless wandering of that sort."

Steven had to laugh at that. "That's fair enough." Then he yawned widely. It wasn't particularly late, but his bad night's sleep had finally caught up with him. "I'm gonna head inside, see what kind of bed mom's room can magic up for me." And with that, he turned his back on the ocean and went back inside. His eyes flickered around the interior of the beach house as he idly wondered what he would need to move into the Temple, but that could wait until the morning. For now, he just wanted to sleep.

This time, when he stood in front of the Temple door, only his own gem lit up and the door opened to reveal the pink clouds in his mother's room. His room. He stepped inside and let the door close behind him. "All right room, I need a bed," he said aloud. He thought for a moment, trying to summon up a mental image of exactly what kind of bed he'd like. Did he want a giant four poster bed with drapes? Or a hammock? Or a water bed? He opened his mouth to begin trying to describe what he wanted, but before he could say a word, there was a faint pop and a bed appeared. It was a strange-looking thing, a large and wobbly mattress that seemed to be suspended in mid-air, with drapes at the corners. In fact, he realized, it was as if the room had read his mind and given him the best of all the beds he'd been thinking off. "Neat!" he said happily, and took a step towards it before he realized he was still fully dressed. "Oops. Better go back out and grab some pajamas-"

Almost before he'd finished speaking, there was another pop and a set of neatly folded pajamas materialized in the middle of the bed. Steven's face broke into a wide grin. "All right! I'm liking plan C now," he commented aloud, scrambling out of his clothes. "Plan C rocks!"

The pajamas fit perfectly and he crawled between smooth, cool sheets and settled down on the comfortable bed. The light in the room dimmed. He found the perfect sleeping position at once, without any tossing and turning. The temperature was perfect, not too hot and not too cold, and somehow he knew that in this room, he would have the best night's sleep of his life. He sighed contentedly and closed his eyes.

Immediately, his brain started replaying the little fantasy of kissing Peridot, but this time, he didn't try chasing it away. It would just be a nice, harmless little daydream to lead him into his regular dreams, and he smiled to himself as he imagined moving slowly forward and pressing his lips against hers. Her injuries healed at once (and in his fantasy, they'd been much less bloody and painful to begin with) and in gratitude, she kissed him back. He imagined pulling her closer, feeling her body pressed up against him as her lips parted. He could almost feel her breath on his face-

Wait. He actually could feel something brushing against his face.

His eyes snapped open and he found himself looking into Peridot's bright green eyes. "Thank you for healing me," she murmured, reaching up to stroke his face again.

"Gah!" He recoiled in shock, and promptly fell off the bed. "H-how- what- how-!?"

"Are you all right?" She peered down over the edge of the bed, her eyes wide in concern.

"I- I-" He scooted backwards, and his hand brushed against his discarded jeans and the phone he'd left in the back pocket, and suddenly it hit him. She wasn't real. If he looked at her through the camera right now, there would be nothing there. Just like the room had known what bed he wanted, and what pajamas he'd wanted, it had also read his mind and decided to make his little fantasy a reality.

For a split second, he was almost tempted to just get back into bed and see what happened, but then a far more sensible part of his brain took over. If the room was reading his mind and creating the things he thought about, what would happen when he actually fell asleep? He might have a completely harmless dream about eating a lot of cheese and wake up and throw up, or he might dream that Yellow Diamond had come to Earth to find out why the Cluster hadn't emerged and wake up to find that the room had destroyed all life on Earth.

It really wasn't a risk he was willing to take. In one swift move, he scooped up his clothes and bolted for the door, not daring to look back.

xxx

When Steven had left, Peridot had stayed on the deck for a little longer, gazing thoughtfully at the sea. She hadn't been lying when she told Steven she hadn't been tempted to go with Lapis, but at that moment, she almost wished she had. Not because she particularly wanted to go traipsing across the planet to take photographs of places named Middelfart and Bob's Knob, but because over the past few years, she'd gotten used to having Lapis around. The other gem wasn't exactly sociable and spent more time holed up in her room, reading books than hanging out with Peridot, but she'd always known that if she needed her for any reason, she was close by. And now she was gone, and so was their home.

Still, it didn't do to dwell on what she'd lost. And anyway, it wasn't as if Lapis had been kidnapped or corrupted, she was just travelling and she'd come back when she was done. And while the barn might be gone, their possessions had been saved and now she had a new home here with the rest of the Crystal Gems.

There was an excited squirmy feeling in her stomach at that thought. After that awful time when Steven and his friend had been taken to Homeworld, the Crystal Gems had made a bit more of an effort to involve her and Lapis, especially with anything that might involve Homeworld or the Diamonds, but she knew perfectly well that there were still many other low-stakes missions that she was being left out of. She wasn't sure if it was because they didn't think she wanted to be included or if they didn't think she'd much use with only her metal powers, or if they just didn't think about her and Lapis much at all, but this was her chance to change that.

With that happy thought, she stepped back inside the beach house and looked around her new home.

It was, to be blunt, a bit of a mess. Amethyst had just kind of dumped their things all over the floor, and Lapis's search for the few things she wanted to take with her hadn't improved the situation. A lot of their furniture had been broken, so all of her clothes were heaped in piles on the floor and on the sofa, while Lapis's books were stacked upon every available surface. She knew she really ought to begin tidying up… but quite honestly, she didn't want to. She'd spent the last twenty-four hours dealing with the aftermath of the barn's destruction and all she wanted to do at that moment was grab her tablet, put some music on and go back to writing her fanfiction.

Besides, she reasoned with herself as she grabbed her tablet and began climbing up the steps to Steven's old room, it would make more sense to clear up after Steven had moved his stuff into his mother's old room. She made herself comfortable on Steven's bed, opened her playlist, and scrolled down to the end of her fanfiction and reread the last few lines.

'"You know," Percy admitted breathlessly, "I only asked her out to make you jealous."

Pierre had to laugh at that. "Well, it worked."

They stared into ea'

Of course, that had been when the truck hit. So she wiggled her fingers and prepared to resume typing. But before her fingertips could touch the screen, the Temple door opened and Steven ran out, looking more than a little freaked. And for some reason, he was dressed only in his underpants. "Steven? Are you all right?" she asked. To her surprise, his first response was to hold up his cell phone in her direction.

"Um…" Satisfied that this was the real world again and not an extension of the room, Steven lowered the phone again and self-consciously hugged his bundle of clothing a little tighter as he wondered where to begin. "Yeah, I'm um, I'm OK." He gestured vaguely back at the door, which had now closed behind him. "It's just, I realized it's probably not actually a good idea if I sleep in there after all."

"Oh." Peridot looked blankly down at him. "Why?"

"Well…" He licked his lips, wondering how to explain it. "You know how my mom's room makes stuff out of nothing when I ask it?"

Peridot nodded. She'd never actually been in the room, but Steven had once told her how he'd tried to talk to her in it. "I do remember you mentioning that."

"Well, it seems it's also kinda… reading my mind," he explained awkwardly. "Like, I told it to make me a bed and some pajamas, but I didn't actually describe what kind of bed or pajamas I wanted, but it knew what I wanted anyway. And then…" He trailed off, trying to think of a suitable lie, because there was no way he was going to tell her the truth. "I um, I was about to go to sleep and then… I suddenly thought, what if it makes my dreams come true too? And something bad happened?" He was suddenly reminded of a horror movie Sadie had once told him about. "Like, what if I had a dream where I died!?" Peridot looked suitably horrified by that statement, so he carried in with relish. "I could be dreaming that a corrupted gem had cornered me and was about to bite my head off, and wake up just in time for a real corrupted gem to really bite my head off!"

"Oh!" Peridot gasped. "I see! Of course, you can't possibly sleep in there!" She hastily grabbed her tablet and jumped to her feet. "I'll be out of your way at once!"

"Thanks." He waited as she scurried down the stairs and started clearing a space on the sofa, and quickly zipped up into his room and pulled on his (real) pajamas. "You don't mind if I turn off the light, do you?" he called down.

"No, that's fine," she called back. So long as she could see her screen, she was happy. She curled up in the small space she'd managed to clear and began typing.

She'd typed exactly one word when Steven spoke again. "Peri? I don't mean to be a bother," he said apologetically, "but um, would you mind turning the music down or wear some headphones or something?"

"Sure! Sorry!" She quickly hit 'pause' on the music player and scrambled to her feet again to look for the headphones she knew were… somewhere.

Up in his room, Steven flinched as green light from her gem suddenly lit up the room, but he kept quiet and waited patiently until she finally found her headphones and went back to her spot on the sofa. Now, in peace and darkness and a room that probably wouldn't kill him in his sleep, he finally relaxed and closed his eyes. Then he immediately opened them again. Once again, his brain, clearly determined to see this thing through to the end, had hit 'play' on his little kissing Peridot fantasy, but there was no way he could relax and enjoy it when she was right there in the same room. Imagine… imagine you're in a TV show. You're the lead character in Under The Knife.

That worked. He pictured himself striding down the hospital corridors after another successful surgery, flicking through a patient chart and barking orders at nurses. "Doctor Universe," one of the nurses called over to him. "The patient's mother is in the waiting room."

"Then I'll head there now and give her the good news," Steven called back. He strode over towards the waiting room and pushed open the door. "Good news, the operation was a complete success," he boasted.

Peridot jumped to her feet and threw herself into his arms. "Oh doctor! How can I ever thank you?" She gazed up at him and licked her lips. "I'll do anything…"

Noooooooooooooo!

He grabbed his pillow and held it over his face, trying to muffle his growl of frustration. This was even worse than trying to sleep with Ronaldo in the room. At least he hadn't had any weird daydreams about him.

Of course, as soon as he thought that, his brain obligingly summoned up a scary mental image of Ronaldo leaning in for a kiss. Steven immediately shot out of bed and ran to the kitchen, almost as if doing so would put some distance between himself and his overactive imagination.

Peridot, who'd managed to write a whole entire sentence, clutched her tablet protectively to her chest as he passed by. "Steven? Is everything all right?" she asked warily.

"Yup! Everything's fine!" he lied, pasting a smile on his face. "I just…" He looked quickly around the kitchen and then grabbed a glass from the sideboard and held it under the tap. "Needed a glass of water!"

Peridot watched him gulp down the water and climb back up the steps to his room before she dared lower her screen again. She reread the single sentence she'd written, and then started typing again, trying to get herself back in the zone.

'They stared into each others eyes, drinking in the sight of one another, before moving in for an'

Steven's bed creaked as he rolled over, and Peridot froze and pulled her screen closer, just in case he happened to roll out of bed, across the floor and peer over the edge of the loft to read what she'd written. Admittedly it was an unlikely scenario, but it could happen. But after three minutes, she accepted that it wasn't going to happen, and began typing again.

'another kiss. Pierre moa'

Steven groaned and rolled over again, and once again, Peridot clutched her tablet to her chest.

Nothing happened.

She reread the last sentence again and finished typing the word. Then she deleted it. Then she typed the exact same word again. And deleted it again.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't write Percy and Pierre making out and heavy petting with Steven in the room. In desperation, she turned up her music to try and drown out the sound of his movement in an attempt to capture the illusion that she was alone, but she couldn't concentrate with the words blaring in her ears, and a few seconds later, she heard Steven calling her name in a loud whisper. "Yes?" she asked cautiously, removing one of the earbuds so she could hear him better.

"I'm really sorry," he hissed apologetically, "but could you turn the music back down again? It's really loud."

"Sorry." She turned the music back down and listened to him toss and turn some more. A thought suddenly occurred to her; perhaps he was finding the presence of another person in the room as distracting as she was? "Steven?" she said in a low voice.

"Yeah?"

"Would you like me to find someplace else to work tonight?"

There was a pause as Steven considered her offer. "You wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all," she reassured him cheerfully, and without waiting for a reply, she jumped to her feet and marched off to the bathroom.

Steven listened to the door click shut, and then finally, silence fell over the room, but it was still a long time before he was able to fully relax and go to sleep.