CHAPTER FIVE

Steven dismissed his shield and spun around to face his girlfriend. "Peridot! Are you OK!?"

Peridot opened her mouth to reassure him she was fine, and promptly burst into tears. It wasn't the slap that hurt; Steven himself had hit her harder when he'd mistaken her for a construct made by his mothers room, and his healing kisses were already taking care of her split lip. No, what hurt was the way Pearl had spoken about her. She'd had stars on her default uniform for several years now, one purple, because color theory said that it was the opposite of yellow and one pink, because it was Rose Quartz's color, but she was well aware that even with the stars, the Crystal Gems still didn't really see her as one of them, and she'd cheerfully assumed that was just because she'd been living in the barn for so long. Now she was living with them in the beach house, surely that would change! The thought that they might still see her as a Homeworld gem had never crossed her mind. After all, they had all watched her turn on Yellow Diamond when she'd refused to spare the Earth. They'd trusted her to help Steven fight the Cluster. They'd even left her to defend Beach City in their absence. After all that, for Pearl to call her a Homeworld gem... that hurt more than any physical blow.

Off to one side, Amethyst shuffled awkwardly and averted her eyes. "Um, I'm just gonna... I'll go and talk to her," she mumbled, edging back towards the trees.

"Uh-huh," Steven said distractedly as he stroked Peridot's hair and made comforting noises. Amethyst immediately vanished, but he barely noticed. He was too busy fighting down a rising tidal wave of panic. He'd expected the gems to raise some objections, it was one of the reasons he hadn't wanted to tell them so soon, but he'd naively assumed that the worst thing they'd do was ask that they keep the door to Peridot's room open. He'd been completely unprepared for Pearl's reaction, even before she'd hit Peridot. How could he be sure Garnet wouldn't react badly too? And Amethyst hadn't said much, but maybe once the shock wore off, she'd side with Pearl. He really couldn't be sure any more.

Peridot's tears were slowing down now, and she stepped out of his embrace and wiped her eyes. "Sorry. I'm fine now," she lied.

"I know you're not really." He sighed and looked around the clearing. Connie was walking around, popping the bubbled candles, presumably because she had no idea what to do now. And neither did he.

As if she'd read his mind, Peridot looked up at him with worry. "What do we do now?" she asked in a small voice.

Steven shrugged helplessly. "Help Connie tidy up, I guess." It wasn't exactly the most reassuring statement he could've made, so he forced a smile onto his face and gave her hands a quick squeeze. "Don't worry, I'll figure something out."

xxx

"Pearl! Wait up!" Amethyst sprinted through the trees, ducking and dodging branches and bushes, trying to catch up to her team mate, but Pearl maddeningly managed to stay ahead of her. After crashing straight through a tree that had taken her completely by surprise, Amethyst gave up shouting at her and shapeshifted back into a bird and flew up above the canopy, keeping Pearl in her sights. When the other gem emerged from the forest and began heading back through the town, towards the beach house, Amethyst landed and started running again and finally caught up to her just as she pushed the front door open. "Pearl! Jeez, slow down a little!"

Pearl ignored her and stomped inside, coming to a halt in front of Garnet, who was sat on the sofa, reading a book. Garnet glanced up at her and smiled sweetly. "How did it go?"

"Did you know about this?" Pearl demanded.

"Know about what?" Garnet asked mildly. Pearl glared at her until Garnet sighed and put her book aside. "Let me guess. Steven and Peridot?"

"So you did know?" Pearl spat.

"I suspected," Garnet corrected her. "But I wasn't sure until now."

"Oh really!" Pearl scoffed. "You expect me to believe that!?"

"Yes, because it's true." Garnet adjusted her shades. "I try not to look at the future of Steven's love life. He deserves his privacy."

"Well, he's been getting plenty of that in her room!" Pearl spun around and jabbed a pointy finger in the direction of Peridot's room. "Right under our noses!"

"It's not exactly under our noses if it's in private, is it?" Garnet said cheerfully.

Pearl stamped her foot in frustration. "Why won't you take this seriously!? You can't really be OK with this, are you!?"

Garnet shrugged. "Yes? Should I not be?"

Amethyst, who'd been quietly watching the argument, finally spoke up. "It's a little weird, I guess, I really thought him and Connie were a thing, but I suppose I can kinda understand it? Steven's always been nice to Peridot. I mean, if it wasn't for him, she'd still be in a bubble. Actually, she'd be dead," she corrected. "We all would."

"Of course she likes him," Pearl said dismissively. "But I have no idea what he see's in her. She's... she's from Homeworld!"

Amethyst rolled her eyes at this. "So are you. Duh."

"Maybe so, but I pledged my loyalty to Earth long ago," Pearl shot back. "Besides, she's an inferior gem, she's a liability!" she continued before Garnet or Amethyst could argue with that statement. "Yellow Diamond's coming, you keep telling us that. And Peridot's powers are so weak, Steven's probably going to get himself killed trying to protect her!" At this horrifying thought, Pearl began to cry.

"You mean, instead of the other way around?" Amethyst said sarcastically. "You know what I think? You're just jealous. I'm not saying you want Steven for yourself or anything," she added as Pearl's jaw dropped in outrage. "I'm saying you did everything you could for Rose; you learned to fight, you gave up your home planet, and you took up a cause you don't really believe in because she believed in it. You threw yourself into danger for her hundreds of times and you would've died for her. And it wasn't enough. She fell in love with Greg and had a baby with him and left you to take care of him because she knew you would. And he's all you've got left of Rose, so you want the very best for him, but you also kinda want him to end up with someone who's as slavishly devoted to him as you were to Rose because then it'll be like you won, like you didn't waste all those thousands of years for nothing."

"How- how dare you-" Pearl spluttered.

"-So you groomed Connie because you could see how much she was dazzled by like, all this gem stuff, and it reminded you of how much Rose used to dazzle you too," Amethyst carried on relentlessly. "But that didn't work, and Peridot's in love with him instead. And you don't think she really deserves him because yeah, she probably won't go and needlessly sacrifice herself for him, but he loves her anyway, the way Rose didn't love you and that just kills you!"

Pearl stepped forward, her face a mask of fury, and Garnet tensed, ready to separate the two if necessary. Catching sight of the small movement, Pearl paused and took a moment to regain her composure. "This has nothing to do with Rose," she said coldly. "Nothing." And then she spun around and stalked off to the warp pad and vanished.

Amethyst glared after her for a moment and then slumped back onto the sofa next to Garnet. "Urghhhhh." She stared up at the ceiling for several seconds and then finally turned to look at Garnet. "Did I just make things worse?"

Garnet shrugged. "Probably not."

"That's not exactly reassuring," Amethyst grumbled. She stared at the ceiling for a little longer. "I can't believe you just let me say all that stuff. Why didn't you stop me!?"

"Well, partly because you're not wrong," Garnet admitted. "Pearl has an unhealthy fixation with Rose that still affects her relationships with everyone else around her. I had hoped she'd gotten better after that trip to Empire City," she added under her breath. "But mostly because I'm mad at you both."

"You are?" Amethyst looked doubtfully at the other gem's placid face. Garnet didn't look particularly angry, but them she rarely did.

"I am," Garnet said calmly, and then turned and looked up in the direction of Steven's room. "Furious, in fact."

Amethyst followed her gaze and finally spotted the bubble hovering over Steven's bed. "Oh. That." She gulped and then smiled hopefully. "Would it help if I said it was all Pearl's idea and I only wanted to help because I really thought Steven was heartbroken?"

"Hmm." Garnet considered that for a moment. "In that case, I suppose I do feel better about not sitting back and letting her punch you in the face."

"Thanks, I guess."

They sat in silence for several seconds, and then Amethyst spoke again. "So what do we do now?"

"Watch the Game Of Thrones finale while we wait for Pearl to calm down?" Garnet suggested, picking up the remote.

"It's not Pearl I'm worried about," Amethyst mumbled, but the show was starting and Garnet was reading her book again, so she shrugged and turned her attention to the TV. After all, Garnet was the leader. It was her problem now.

xxx

The three youngsters worked slowly, popping bubbles and packing away the picnic, taking their time and putting off the moment when they would have to figure out what to do next. But eventually the last candle was snuffed out and shut away in the basket and Connie picked it up and handed it over to Steven. "Here. You should probably take this. And this," she added, offering him Rose Quartz's sword.

"Thanks." Steven took them from her and made a mental note to put the sword in Lion's mane when he had the chance.

"So..." Connie shifted from foot to foot. "Do you two want a ride back into town? Or... somewhere?"

"Um..." Steven glanced over at Peridot, but she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the grass. "Thanks, but I think we'll walk back."

"OK." Connie took a few paces towards the edge of the clearing and paused. "Call me if you need anything, OK?"

As soon as she'd gone, Steven turned to his girlfriend. "OK..." he began hesitantly. "I was thinking-"

"So was I," Peridot interrupted. "It's me Pearl's angry with, not you, so I'm going to-"

"You're not moving into the Kindergarten," Steven said at once.

"But-"

"No buts!" Steven said sternly. "What kind of boyfriend would I be if I just left you in that place by yourself?"

"But it's my fault !" Peridot protested. "I was the one who wanted to tell them, I was the one who antagonized Pearl-"

"No, you were right." Steven shook his head. "You and Connie were both right, we wouldn't have been able to keep it a secret forever and Pearl would've been even angrier if we'd left it longer. We'll give her some space to cool off and go stay at my dad's for a little while, OK?"

Peridot bit her lip and then nodded slowly. "But Steven... what if Greg gets angry too?" she asked in a small voice.

"If he does, before we steal his credit card and run away to Empire City, I'll make sure to point out what a massive hypocrite he is," Steven said with a grin.

That made Peridot smile, and they started walking hand-in-hand back down the hill towards Beach City. But Steven couldn't quite shake off the worry that his father might not be as supportive as he hoped, and as they approached the car wash, he let go of Peridot's hand. "Um, maybe I should talk to him alone first."

Peridot, who had no desire to be hit again, readily agreed and so he left her at the edge of the lot and approached the van parked on the forecourt and knocked on the back door. "Dad? Are you in there?"

There was no answer, and he was almost relieved by that. Except they still needed a place to stay and there was no way they could go back to the house just yet, so he tried one more time. "Da-ad, where are you?"

There was still no response. Steven took a step back and sighed. He didn't really want to run away to Empire City, but it was beginning to look like the best option with every passing moment. He turned away, already planning their life there (they'd rent a cheap apartment in a bad part of town and he'd get a job in a coffee shop because it was the only sort of job he'd actually had experience with, and in the evenings he'd do underground wrestling for money, and Peridot would extra money doing online tech support and fashion blogging and they'd be poor and struggling but that would be OK because they'd always have each other) when he heard a shout from behind him.

"Steven! Hey, kiddo!" Greg waved from the doorway of the car wash office and jogged forward. "Sorry, the last customer had a fight with a muddy ditch and lost. Sandals were probably not my wisest choice of footwear," he added ruefully. "Had to do some serious clean-up. So what brings you over to this part of town today?"

"Uhh..." Steven quickly glanced around the lot. There were no customers around now, but still, he didn't like the idea of doing this out in the open, where anybody might suddenly show up. "Can we talk someplace private?"

Greg looked at his son's unusually serious expression and frowned with concern. "Sure. Come on inside and I'll close up for a bit."

He walked back into the building and waited for Steven to follow him inside before flipping the sign over to 'closed' and then locked the door for good measure. There was a kitchen in the back, and he busied himself for a few minutes, filling the coffee machine and grabbing a packet of cookies, because this looked like it might be one of those situations that called for cookies. "All right, he said few minutes later, handing Steven a mug of coffee. "Shoot."

Steven had decided that the best course of action now was to be as straightforward as possible, so he gripped his mug, taking comfort from the heat, and took a deep breath. "I'm in love." He paused for a moment. "With Peridot. We're dating."

"Oh!" Greg blinked, startled. "That's-" He paused, suddenly recalling the morning two weeks ago, when Steven had turned his room upside down, looking for something different to wear. It had been shortly after Peridot moved into the beach house and turned Steven's sleep schedule upside down, and now Greg was beginning to understand why. "Actually less surprising than I thought it would be," he finished slowly. "But I thought you and Connie...?"

"We're just friends. We've always been just friends." Steven sighed glumly. "But nobody ever listened to us when we said that, so we gave up arguing."

Greg squirmed slightly at this statement, knowing he was guilty of calling missions with Connie 'dates' on at least three separate occasions. "Sorry."

"It's OK." Steven gave him a small smile. "It wasn't just you. And I know I didn't really try very hard to set things straight, it was always just easier to let everyone think what they wanted."

"Mmm." Greg quickly changed the subject. "So, you and Peridot! Wow! Have you told the gems yet?"

"Uuuuugh." Steven groaned and massaged his temples.

"Oh. That good then?"

Steven laughed bitterly "Where do I even begin?"