CHAPTER SEVEN
A few hours later, Peridot lay on the bed in Steven's room, staring up at the ceiling. Steven and his father were eating dinner, and although she had been invited to join them, she had declined so that she could be on her own for a little while and brood. Actually, if she were honest with herself, what she was really doing was hiding. Pearl had completely crushed her self-esteem and confidence and now even though she knew it was illogical, she couldn't help worrying that everybody else was just pretending to like her too. She couldn't bear the thought of sitting opposite Greg and looking up and seeing disdain in his eyes… or worse still, seeing it in Steven's eyes. She knew she was being paranoid and that Steven loved her just the way she was, even though she was a fairly weak era 2 gem, but until a few hours ago, she'd also thought Pearl liked her too and look at how wrong she'd been! No, she wouldn't risk it, she would stay up here on her own for a little while until her bruised ego had recovered, because that was an injury Steven's magic couldn't fix.
The thing her mind kept coming back to was Pearl's fixation upon fusion. She understood fusion a little better since coming to Earth and meeting the Crystal Gems, especially Garnet, but she still didn't understand why Pearl seemed to put so much value upon it. Then she remembered what Steven had said about fusion being a power rush and frowned. Pearl was definitely more formidable than any of the other Pearls she'd seen on Homeworld, and on Earth, she was treated with far greater respect and admiration than she ever could've dreamed of, but she was still a Pearl, designed to be pretty rather than powerful, and therefore objectively weaker than the rest of her teammates. Perhaps her complaints about Peridot's lack of power were driven in part by her own feelings of inadequacy?
Or maybe she just hadn't got over that time when Peridot had called her a shiny toy. That was possible too.
Peridot rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow and let out a muffled groan. She heartily wished she'd never asked Steven to tell people about their relationship. It had been so much less complicated when nobody else knew!
She sighed and rolled back over again. She knew that wasn't really true. Privacy had been a concern and several of their dates had been crashed. And she also knew they would've been caught eventually and she suspected the fallout would've been far worse in that case. But at that moment, sneaking around in secret was looking like it had been a much nicer option. But unfortunately, Steven had destroyed the only known time travel technology on the planet, so there was no way of going back and changing things to stop Pearl from freaking out, even if it was something as small as stopping herself from making that comment about Greg and Rose fusing.
Fusion.
Once again, she found her thoughts drifting back towards the subject. Pearl's biggest complaint seemed to be that Peridot couldn't fuse. But was that true? The only time she'd even tried had been when Garnet had offered her the chance, and she'd panicked and backed out. The elder gem hadn't asked again, presumably not wanting to put Peridot under any pressure, but Peridot had never really known how to approach the subject herself, especially after the Crystal Gems had all returned to the Temple and contact between them all had dwindled. And obviously it wasn't a subject she could discuss with Lapis Lazuli. So for the last few years, she'd continued to operate under the assumption that she couldn't fuse. But, she reminded herself, there had also been a time not so long ago when she'd been convinced that she had no powers at all, and that had turned out to be wrong. Maybe she was wrong about this too. It wasn't so difficult to believe that maybe the Diamonds had been lying about the limitations of era 2 gems in order to keep them under control. And even if it turned out she really couldn't fuse with other gems, she probably could fuse with Steven. Like he'd said, humans weren't supposed to be able to fuse either, but that hadn't stopped him from fusing with Connie.
She mulled over this for some time until she heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside and she sat up just as Steven entered the room. "Hey," he said softly, and sat down next to her. "How are you doing?"
"I'm all right. I was just thinking," she mumbled, leaning against him. "About fusion."
"Oh." Steven wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so he gave her a gentle squeeze instead. "You know, you don't have to-"
"I'd like to try it now," she said abruptly, turning to face him. "With you."
"…Right," Steven said slowly. "Um. OK. Uh, I would, but maybe not right now? It isn't exactly the best time-"
Peridot frowned and pulled away from him. "You wanted to yesterday," she said moodily.
"I know, and I still do!" he quickly replied. "But I want to do it for the right reasons, not to prove a point to Pearl or anything. I want our first time to be a good experience! Don't you want that too?"
The mutinous look vanished from her face and she sighed and leaned in closer to him again. "I do want that," she admitted. "I just… wanted to see if I could, that's all."
"Because Pearl said you couldn't?" he guessed.
"Well… yes." She blushed and lowered her gaze. "I suppose you're right though, it would be for the wrong reasons."
"We'll do it soon," he promised. "Together. And it'll be great. But in the meantime," he added, a twinkle in his eye, "do you wanna come downstairs and play Mario Kart with me and Dad? He's really looking forward to competing against people instead of the computer."
xxx
A few hours later, Peridot was alone once again. This time less by choice, and more because Steven and Greg had to sleep. She had no intention of going to sleep herself, she didn't trust her thoughts not to turn on her, but she would've quite liked to curl up in bed with Steven anyway. But she had a feeling that even though Greg had been extremely accommodating so far, climbing into bed with his son might be pushing things a bit – she wasn't completely ignorant, after all, she knew why he'd asked them to keep the door open. And so she'd chosen to stay downstairs with some mindless TV for company. She was just beginning to get invested in an old episode of Friends when she heard a sound behind her, and looked around to see Greg standing in the doorway.
"Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you," he said in a hushed voice. "I was just getting a glass of water." Then he paused thoughtfully. "All right, that was a lie. I kinda wanted to talk to you."
"Oh," Peridot said warily. She half expected him to offer her money to break up with Steven, like she'd once seen in an episode of Camp Pining Hearts, but instead, he just smiled benignly at her and closed the door.
"Yeah. It's weird, but I probably get what you're going through better than anyone else," he explained, dropping onto the sofa next to her. "From when I first started dating Rose."
"…Because Pearl was in love with her?" Peridot guessed.
Greg nodded. "She'd been in love with her for centuries, but of course, I didn't know that to start with. Anyway, she made it clear right from the start that she didn't like me and she didn't think I was good enough for Rose. But it was actually her meddling that made Rose and me closer. See, I'd kicked out my manger, Marty, and was experimenting with my music, and I asked the Gems if they'd be in a band with me."
"Pearl was in your band!?" Peridot blurted out in surprise.
"No, no!" Greg laughed. "No, she refused. Said it was ridiculous human nonsense or something. She used to stand at the side of the stage during rehearsals and glare at me to try and put me off. Anyway, one day I brought out a video recorder and taped us playing, and partway through the song, Pearl came on stage. I thought maybe she was gonna do something stupid like kick over the camera, but she just went over to Rose and whispered in her ear, and the next thing I knew, they'd both turned into a giant woman-"
"They fused?" Peridot interrupted in astonishment.
Greg nodded. "Rainbow Quartz. At first I just thought it was cool, but then Rose left and Pearl started taunting me, saying fusion was the ultimate connection between gems and that Rose would get bored of me because I was just a human and couldn't fuse. So… I decided to try it anyway, to prove her wrong."
Peridot tilted her head curiously. "Steven told me that you and Rose Quartz couldn't fuse."
"And he was right," Greg said simply. "I asked her to dance, but we didn't fuse, and when I said that was what I'd been trying to do, she laughed at me. But then we started talking, properly seriously talking, about us and our relationship and our future."
Well, Peridot thought to herself, that explained why Pearl had reacted so badly to her earlier comment. "But Pearl's not in love with Steven," she pointed out. "So there was no reason for her to act the same way towards me."
"True," Greg conceded. "But he is Rose's son. Rose is gone, but he's a part of her and so I guess Pearl's a little overprotective of him because of that. She just wants what's best for him. I'm not saying you're not good for him," he hastily added as Peridot bristled. "I just think maybe… after losing Rose, maybe Pearl was sorta subconsciously hoping that he'd end up with someone a bit like her, and you took her by surprise. She'll come around," he finished brightly, silently hoping that was true, because it had taken Pearl near enough 25 years to finally accept that Rose had chosen him. "Just give her a little time."
"…All right," Peridot agreed. But then really, she didn't have much choice.
xxx
At around the same time, on the other side of town, Pearl warped back into the beach house. She took a few steps forward and then paused as she caught sight of Garnet, still sitting on the sofa with her book. "Hello," she said warily.
"Hello," Garnet replied calmly.
Pearl's eyes quickly flickered around the interior of the building, and she immediately spotted Steven's empty bed. "Where's Steven?"
"Not there." Garnet turned a page in her book. "Not in there either," she added as Pearl glanced towards the door to Peridot's room. "They're both at Greg's house. After you hit Peridot, they weren't in that much of a hurry to come back here."
Pearl flushed and turned away. "I still stand by what I said earlier. I don't think Peridot is a suitable partner for Steven, and her lack of powers make her a liability." She paused and struggled to get the next few words out. "I do… regret the way I lashed out at her though." That slap had lost her the moral high ground and she knew it. She wanted to argue that she had been provoked, but somehow, she didn't think Garnet would be particularly sympathetic.
Garnet suddenly snapped the book shut, making Pearl jump. "Do you know what Steven and Peridot were doing today before you and Amethyst interrupted them?" she asked, turning to face the other gem.
Pearl opened her mouth to answer, then thought better of it. "I… I don't know. Why-"
"They were experimenting with bubbles," Garnet answered. At Pearl's blank expression, she continued. "Peridot worked out that the destination of bubbles can be controlled. Her and Steven were practising to see if they could move bubbles – large bubbles – so that they could remove the Cluster from it's current position to some place safer, so that if Yellow Diamond did come here and defeat us, the Earth might at least not be destroyed by the Cluster taking form."
"Oooookay?" Pearl said cautiously, not quite understanding what point Garnet was trying to make.
"While they were gone, Peridot's decryption program managed to decode another file," Garnet carried on, nodding towards the door. "Her door is locked, and I'm not going to break it down to find out what the file says, but I'm sure it will be interesting."
"Oh, well if you like, I could probably-" Pearl began, taking a step towards the room.
"Don't you dare." Garnet didn't raise her voice, but there was an underlying menace there that made Pearl freeze in her tracks. "You're right about one thing. Peridot is physically the weakest member of the team. And yes, she's weaker than Connie. But you of all people should know that you don't have to be a strong warrior to be a valuable member of the team, and Peridot has demonstrated many times now that she can contribute to the team in ways beyond simply fighting. Like this information she took from the Kindergarten." She jerked her head towards the door again. "Steven has made progress curing corruption, but we still don't have a real cure. Maybe some of that data will help."
"And maybe it won't," Pearl countered. "For all we know, those files could be nothing more than ancient battle plans."
"Maybe," Garnet conceded. "But it's still possible." She reached up and dismissed her shades and stared beseechingly at the other gem. "Think about it, Pearl! After all these years, we might finally get our friends back! Do you really want to jeopardize that by alienating Steven and Peridot?"
She stood up before Pearl could answer, and began walking towards the Temple door. "I can't make you accept Peridot any more than I could make you accept Greg", she said over her shoulder. "But for Steven's sake at the very least, can you try?"