CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Goats were domesticated ten thousand tears ago," a ruddy-faced farmer declared, gesturing towards the three goats in the pen. "All except for Wenna there, who's still convinced she's in charge. And well, mebbe she is," he said with a rueful chuckle, and a few tourists laughed politely.

Peridot laughed as well, but then she heard a faint chime and groaned internally. Not again...

But sure enough, she spotted movement in the corner of her vision. Steven was checking his phone again, a troubled expression on his face. She hadn't been expecting this trip to be a happy fun date time, not with the news they had to break and who they had to break it to, but even so, she had hoped they might be able to get a brief respite from all the Pink Diamond nonsense while they were out of the house.

Unfortunately, the tractor ride, hay maze and butter churning activities had all been interrupted by breaking news alerts about freak storms and Steven had been fretting over them all afternoon. She leaned against the fence and let her gaze drift towards the goats as she tried to think of some way to distract him. Use her metal powers to break his phone? Or a little public humiliation? Public humiliation, she decided. After all, it wasn't as if she was ever going to see these people again. "What's it this time?" she asked, leaning casually against the fence and letting her arm dangle over the edge. "Another tornado?"

"Yeah..." Steven muttered, scrolling down the page. "It's a small one, like the others, but it's wiped out several islands-"

"Uninhabited ones, yes?" Peridot quickly checked.

"Well... yes, as far as I can tell," he admitted.

Peridot relaxed again and discreetly shook her arm. "Then we do the same thing as we did last time – leave her alone to get it out of her system," she said firmly. "Getting in her way will simply give her a new target to lash out at."

"But-" Steven began.

At that moment, Peridot felt something tug at her sleeve. Finally. She glanced down at the goat nibbling curiously on her clothing and let out a dramatic shriek. "Gah! Steven! Help! The Great and Lovable Peridot is under attack!" She made a halfhearted attempt to pull her arm free and the goat, sensing mischief, dug its hooves into the ground and yanked her back. "It's going to eat me!" she wailed, throwing her free arm across her face. "This is the end! Steven!" She uncovered her face and stared mournfully at him, ignoring the smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Before I die, I want you to know, I have always loved you. Please leave a suitable period of mourning before you move on. Thirty years should be adequate."

"I don't think that'll be necessary," Steven assured her with a laugh, and stepped forward and grabbed her around the waist. There was a brief tug-of-war, a tearing sound, and the couple staggered backwards. On the other side of the fence, the goat bounced around in triumph for several seconds until the simulated fabric sparkled and vanished. It left out a bleat of annoyance, turned around and stalked away.

"Hah!" Peridot gloated. She waved her arm, and the torn sleeve reformed. "Take that, you vicious beast! None of you are a match for my Steven!"

"Yeah. None of you," Steven repeated, letting go of her again. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "It's weird though. That's like, the third animal that's tried eating your clothes."

"W-well... they must be attracted to the light particles," she stammered.

"Must be," he said solemnly, although the corners of his lips twitched upwards again. He looked at his phone again and frowned thoughtfully. "This place closes soon. What do we do?"

Peridot hesitated, guessing he probably wasn't referring to their next choice of farmyard activity. "Well... our mission objective was to update Lapis on the new information we'd learned about Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond, and to invite her to the wedding, and we have completed both of those tasks successfully."

Steven's frown deepened. "So... we just go home?"

Peridot shrugged helplessly. "There's not much we can do if Lapis isn't actually here," she pointed out. "And there's no guarantee she'll return here when she's done... you know." She waved her hands vaguely in the direction Lapis had flown off in. "Unleashing her pent-up rage. We can continue to monitor her movements back in Beach City," she continued, seeing that he still looked unconvinced. "In fact, I can write a program to do so much more efficiently," she couldn't help boasting. "And from there, we can easily reach a warp pad if Lapis's behavior escalates or endangers the people of this planet, but I don't believe that will be necessary, she isn't trying to hurt anybody."

"Except herself," Steven muttered. He glanced up at the sky for a moment and then sighed and nodded. "OK, you're right, I guess. We can't really do anything else here."

"Except maybe visit the gift shop," Peridot suggested hopefully. "Perhaps we could pick up a wedding gift for Ruby and Sapphire. Or..." she continued, seeing that he didn't look particularly enthused by that idea, "we could just collect Lion from the barn and go."

"Collect Lion," Steven agreed at once.

The farm staff had generously allowed Lion to stay in an old hayloft during their visit; his unnatural pinkness and a peek inside his head (plus a generous financial contribution) had convinced them that he was not a normal lion and thus... well, not exactly harmless, but that he probably wouldn't try and eat all the sheep. But as they approached the building, it quickly became clear that Lion wasn't the only strange lifeform hanging around.

"Lapis!" Steven ran forward and waved wildly at the figure pacing back and forth on the roof. "Over here!"

Lapis snapped to attention and unfurled her wings, landing heavily in front of them a few seconds later with enough force to made the ground tremble. "Hey."

"Hello," Peridot said warily, keeping a safe distance. She had a sneaking suspicion Lapis hadn't quite finished working through her anger.

Even Steven, who was usually oblivious to other people's bad moods, couldn't help but pick up on it, and had also stopped a few steps away from her. Then he steeled himself and walked closer. "So, um... how are you feeling now?" he asked carefully.

"I'll be honest, I've been better," Lapis said flatly. She stared at his stomach for a moment, making him squirm, and then turned away and folded her arms. "So. Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond."

"Um, yeah." Steven's hands unconsciously moved to cover his gem. "She uh, she wanted to stop colonizing the Earth, but the other Diamonds wouldn't let her, so she shapeshifted into Rose and started the rebellion instead."

"Against... herself." Lapis's lips curled into a sneer, as if she found the entire story too ridiculous to take seriously. Which, Peridot had to admit, was fair.

"We know it seems like an extremely illogical decision to make," she said, edging protectively in front of Steven. "But there was some reasoning behind her actions. Not much, admittedly, but a little."

Lapis let out a derisive snort, but she didn't press any further. Instead, she continued to look out across the rolling fields of the farm. "She was there," she said quietly. "Pink Diamond. When I was in the mirror."

"Oh, yeah, Peridot figured that out," Steven said, giving his girlfriend a proud smile.

"Of course she did," Lapis muttered, and rolled her eyes. "Anyway," she said in a louder tone, "she questioned me. They all did, of course, but she questioned me the most. I always thought it was just because, y'know, the rebellion was happening on her colony, but now... she knew I wasn't a Crystal Gem, obviously, so she must've been trying to find out why I was there and how much I knew, even stuff I didn't know I know." She scowled darkly. "Explains why she just left me in Pearl's head all that time even though she could've healed me at any time."

"Pearl didn't know, did she?" Peridot guessed.

Sure enough, Lapis shook her head. "She'd have bubbled the mirror at once if she knew. I think the only reason Rose Quartz didn't was because Pearl handed me over in front of Garnet and Amethyst and she didn't want to freak out in front of them." She laughed dryly. "Maybe she even really believed I was too badly damaged to be a threat." Then she paused as a thought occurred to her. "She knew Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond, didn't she?"

"Uh, yeah," Steven said sheepishly.

"Figures." Lapis snorted. "So much for the 'Terrifying Renegade Pearl'. Turns out she was a perfect, loyal Diamond servant all along."

Peridot frowned. She had plenty of her own issues with Pearl, but still, she didn't like the mocking edge in Lapis's words. "She didn't have a choice."

"She did try telling me before," Steven added as Lapis shot them a skeptical look. "But her hands kept covering her mouth so she couldn't get the words out, 'cause Mom ordered her to never tell anyone."

"Like an Unbreakable Vow," Peridot piped up helpfully.

"Really?" Lapis blinked.

Steven nodded. "I had to go into her gem in the end just so she could show me what had happened."

"Huh. Well, that's gross."

There wasn't really much Steven and Peridot could say to that, so they simply shrugged and watched as Lapis looked out across the fields again, mulling over this new information. "I'll consider coming to the wedding," she said finally. "I'm not saying I'll definitely be there," she warned as a wide smile spread across Steven's face. "But... I'll think about it."

And with that, she spread her wings and took off again. As soon as she was out of sight, Steven turned to face Peridot, looking far more cheerful than he had done a few minutes earlier. "She said she'll come to the wedding! Isn't that great!?"

"She said she might," Peridot cautioned. Then she smiled ruefully. "I will admit though, it's more than I expected."

"One more cupcake for the guest list." Steven laughed and started walking towards the barn with significantly more enthusiasm than he had a few minutes earlier. "That makes what, six now?"

"Mmm." Peridot tried to smile back, but somehow, six guests didn't feel like all that much to celebrate. Especially when they were more Steven's friends than Ruby and Sapphire's. "It's a pity we won't be able to cure any of their old friends in time for this," she said aloud. "I mean, we could try, we could spend tomorrow testing the song on Centipeedle and her crew, but I doubt there'd be enough time to- Steven?"

Steven had stopped several steps back and was staring at her open-mouthed. "Not all of them," he breathed.

"What are you talking about?" Then all of a sudden, she understood, just as he opened his mouth and confirmed her suspicions.

"I wanna unbubble Bismuth."

xxx

A few minutes later, the couple stood in the Burning Room and stared up at the rainbow-colored gem floating above them in its glossy pink bubble. "Are you sure about this?" Peridot finally asked. It had seemed like a logical enough suggestion back at Butts Farm, but now they were back in the Temple with Bismuth's bubble just inches away, doubts began to flutter through her. "Maybe we should talk to the others first."

"No." Steven shook his head firmly. "You heard Garnet, they've already talked about letting her out before and decided not to." He gestured up at the bubble. "I was kinda hoping they'd do it in the future when, y'know, I'm not around, but now with all this Pink Diamond stuff to deal with too..." He trailed off with a sigh. "Don't get me wrong, I love the gems, but their way of dealing with stuff is to... not. Lapis's mirror, the Rubies, you... they just ignore it all until they have to deal with it." Then he smiled ruefully. "Mostly because I got in the way. And even then, I didn't bother doing anything about the Rubies until Navy literally landed on our doorstep."

"It wasn't one of our finest moments," Peridot admitted.

"Yeah. I can't even be mad at her for taking the ship and ditching us in the ocean. We just left them in space! After one of them got cracked!" He steeled his shoulders and stepped forward. "So if they're not going to do anything about Bismuth, I am. She deserves to know why Mom really bubbled her."

"Wait!" Peridot blurted and grabbed his arm. She understood his motivations, but she also hadn't forgotten Garnet's original reasons for leaving Bismuth bubbled. "What if she attacks you?"

Steven hesitated. "Well... I guess I'd have to fight her again. But at least she'd know the truth."

Peridot shook her head impatiently; she already knew he'd want to unbubble Bismuth anyway, just as he wanted to cure Jasper, that wasn't the issue. "No, I mean, perhaps a room full of corrupted, bubbled gems isn't the best place to have this conversation."

"Oh!" Steven took a hasty step backwards. "Yeah, good point. Especially as she doesn't even know why they're bubbled."

"You didn't tell her!?"

"It was a busy day!" Steven said defensively. "We didn't even have time to introduce her to you and Lapis! Plus we'd already told her Rose was gone and we'd lost the war, that was quite enough bad news for one day."

Peridot pursed her lips, but she had to admit, he had a point. It had taken months for anyone to tell her what had happened to Lapis and Jasper, after all. A day was certainly not enough time to give Bismuth all the bad news she'd missed out on. "Where should we do this then? I'm guessing maybe not Mask Island," she added darkly.

"Ah, no." Steven shuddered. "The Cluster is definitely something else I want to put off for a bit longer." He drummed his fingers on his chin for a moment, deep in thought. "What about the Strawberry Battlefield? She's already been there, so she knows how much it's changed."

"What about all the weapons?" Peridot said doubtfully.

"It shows we trust – or that we want to trust her enough that we're willing to risk it," he explained. "Plus she doesn't know about your metal powers, so if we do have to poof her again, you'd take her completely by surprise. Or we can go somewhere else," he suggested, seeing that she still didn't look convinced. "Like the desert, there's nothing there for miles."

"I would be more comfortable in a more neutral environment," Peridot said with visible relief.

"Desert it is then." Steven stepped forward again and carefully plucked Bismuth's bubble out of the air. "Let's do this."