CHAPTER TWENTY

The gem hung in the air for a moment, and then Bismuth reformed. She looked around, confused and disorientated, until she spotted the two unfamiliar figures standing nearby-

Her eyes narrowed. No, her suspicions were correct, one of them was familiar. "Rose- I mean, Steven?"

"Uh, yeah." He smiled nervously. "There's even a third option now too, heh."

Bismuth ignored that comment and continued to stare at him. The general overall appearance was still the same, but he was taller and broader than he had been, as if he'd fused with another couple of Stevens (and then been slightly stretched to give him a neck), except she was pretty sure that wasn't possible. Humans grow, she suddenly remembered. "How long has it been this time?" she asked in resignation.

"About four years," he admitted.

Bismuth mulled over that information for a moment. "I guess it's better than five thousand three hundred. So what's changed? Why did you let me out?" She tilted her head slightly to get a better look at the other gem. "And who's your friend?"

Steven decided to answer the safe, easy question first. "This is Peridot," he said, gesturing proudly towards his girlfriend.

Peridot stepped forward and held out her hand. "Greetings, Peridot Facet 2F5L, Cut 5XG. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oooooh dear," Bismuth laughed mirthlessly.

"It wasn't all bad," Peridot hastily assured her. "And if it makes you feel any better, I tried to kill Steven as well when I first met him."

"You? Really?" Bismuth's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"I seem to inspire that reaction in a lot of people," Steven said, only half-joking.

"And I was a lot more intimidating back then," Peridot confided cheerfully.

"But that's not why we've unbubbled you." Steven said, suddenly serious. "You remember how you fought with Mom because her war strategy didn't make sense? You were right."

"It made sense to her though," Peridot added ominously.

"What?" Bismuth looked blankly at them.

Steven hesitated for a moment and then steeled himself. "She didn't want a weapon that could shatter the Diamonds, right?"

"...Right," Bismuth said slowly.

"That's because she was one of them. Rose Quartz was Pink Diamond in disguise."

"...What?" Bismuth asked again. "She- what?" She waited for them to start laughing and let her in on the joke, but when it didn't happen, she had to accept the horrible possibility that they might actually be telling her the truth. "But- our soldiers, she just- and they-" She shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. "Was it sabotage? Did she make us lose on purpose?"

"No, no, she really did wanna save the Earth," Steven quickly confirmed. "She tried when she was Pink Diamond, but they wouldn't listen to her, so she tried again as Rose Quartz and faked her own shattering to show them how serious she was."

"No wonder she always knew what the other side were up to," Bismuth muttered.

Steven nodded sadly. "Except for the final weapon. That one took her by surprise."

Bismuth mulled over that for a moment. "I don't get it though. If Pink Diamond wanted to save the Earth too, why didn't she get both armies to work together instead of fighting each other?"

"She didn't want anyone to get hurt," Peridot explained.

"She didn't-" Bismuth stopped. And then she began to laugh.

Peridot was momentarily startled, then she smiled slightly in return. "Yes, well, I have yet to hear anyone describe Pink Diamond as being particularly smart."

"Nah, she was smart. Smarter than me," Bismuth said ruefully. "I was so excited to show her the Breaking Point too. Can you imagine it? Hey, Rose! Check out this cool weapon I made, I'm gonna shatter you with it!" She sighed and turned away. "I really thought our problems would disappear if we could just shatter a Diamond."

"No, you would've needed to shatter all of them," Peridot said.

"Peridot!" Steven gasped.

"Not that I endorse such tactics," his girlfriend quickly clarified. "Steven and I have already agreed that simply poofing and bubbling them to remove them from power should be sufficient. Even though Yellow Diamond did personally attempt to have me shattered," she pointedly concluded.

Steven laughed. "Fair point, I'll give you that."

"Yellow really tried to shatter you?" Bismuth looked at Peridot with new respect. "How'd you manage to piss her off?"

Peridot blushed, recalling the proudest, most embarrassing moment of her life. "I called her a clod. To her face."

Bismuth let out a shout of laughter. "You've got guts, tiny! I like you!"

Steven grinned proudly. "Me too." then his expression turned serious again. "So um, sorry. About all of this."

Bismuth nodded. "Thanks. For talking to me."

"You're taking this very well," Peridot commented.

"Well, Rose already betrayed me once before, remember?" Bismuth said with a bitter smile. "So what's a little more betrayal between friends?" Then she paused as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, so how did the others take it?"

"Garnet took it really badly," Steven said, wisely omitting the part where Pearl has known all along. "She unfused over it."

"What!? Noooo!" Bismuth cried, looking genuinely distraught. "They're my favorite couple!"

"They've reconciled now," Peridot reassured her. "They just haven't fused yet. There's something they'd like to do first."

"That's the other reason why we unbubbled you," Steven added. "We want to invite you to Garnet's wedding!"

"Garnet's wedding, huh?"

"Yeah!" Steven said enthusiastically. "It would be great if you could attend."

Bismuth laughed. "Yeah, OK, sure. I don't have any plans, so I guess I can come."

Peridot and Steven cheered in unison.

"Quick question first," Bismuth said once they'd quietened down. "What's a wedding?"

xxx

"-So that's when we had the idea to invite you," Steven finished.

Peridot glanced up at the sky, did a few mental calculations and frowned slightly. "The wedding's the day after tomorrow and there's a lot of work to do. If you're attending, we should start heading back. I still need to choose a flower girl dress before they try and force me into that ruffled monstrosity they had their eye on," she finished darkly.

"You'd look adorable in it," Steven said soppily.

"I'd rather wear a potato sack."

"You'd look adorable in a potato sack too."

Bismuth cleared her throat. "Shall we head back then, so I can say 'hi'?"

"Oh! Yeah!" Steven bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. "This is gonna be great, they're gonna be so surprised to see you!"

"Surprised?" Bismuth took a step backwards. "Wait, they don't know I'm coming? I can't do this."

"Right, yeah." Steven dug his hands into his pockets and yanked out his phone. "You gotta have a gift. They were setting up a registry this morning, so there should be- ah, here!"

"What? No!" She took another step backwards. "I mean... what am I gonna say to them?"

"You could do one of your signature catchphrases," he suggested obliviously. "Like, 'let's get down to Bismuth', or 'anybody wanna start a small Bismuth'? Ooh, or 'did any of you Bis-miss-th me?"

Peridot, who'd been watching the exchange with increasing second-hand embarrassment, saw a flicker of hurt cross Bismuth's face and suddenly understood. "They did miss you, Bismuth," she said quietly. "They're going to be delighted to see you again."

"Yeah?" Bismuth turned away. "If they were that eager to see me, they would've let me out already."

"It's only been four years-" Steven began.

"Four, four thousand, does it matter? They were never going to let me out," she snapped. "You told them what happened and they made their choice. They don't want me on their team any more. And why would they? I attacked you."

"So did I," Peridot butted in. "Do you know why I'm still here?"

Bismuth paused and turned back around to look at them both. "Because... because Steven likes you," she said slowly.

"Precisely!" she answered. "And Steven likes you."

"Plus they like you," Steven added. "See, when I unbubbled Peridot, she uh, she was kinda... like a bit-"

"You can say it. I was evil," Peridot said dismissively.

"Not evil. Just... you didn't know anything else. But she was kind of our enemy," he explained to Bismuth, who was looking very confused by this turn in conversation. "So if she had to be poofed and bubbled again, it wasn't a big deal to them, you know? One or two of them might've even been looking forward to it," he muttered under his breath. "But you," he continued in a louder tone. "You were their friend. And they knew you had every reason to be mad after what Mom did to you. They were scared that if they unbubbled you, they might have to fight against you, and they didn't want that." He stepped forward and held out a hand to her. "So if we can show them that's not gonna be an issue, everything will be fine."

Bismuth looked at his outstretched hand and then into his eyes, which shone with sincerity. "Hm. Well... I guess when you put it like that, it does kinda explain things... "

"Great!" Peridot exclaimed. "Let's head back to the house immediately!"

"Actually..." Bismuth smiled hesitantly. "Could we go to my forge first? There's something I wanna do."

xxx

"1040 teabags?" Amethyst frowned. "Not that I'm complaining, but wouldn't you guys prefer a nice teapot instead?"

"No?" Ruby gestured towards the kitchen counter. "We already have a teapot."

"Yeah, but it's like, two hundred years old. And ugly. And Pearl's."

Pearl's head popped up from behind her magazine. "It's a communal teapot," she said primly. "And there's nothing wrong with it."

"If it's communal, how come you never let me use it?" Amethyst challenged.

"Because it's two hundred years old and you'd break it."

"See?" Amethyst turned back to Ruby and Sapphire. "If you had your own teapot, nobody could ban you from using it."

"But we're not banned from using it," Sapphire said mildly. "So a second teapot would be redundant. We'd never use it."

"But we will use a thousand teabags," Ruby happily added.

"There's nothing to stop you from putting a teapot on your own wedding gift registry though," Pearl teased.

"Hilarious. You should be on stage."

So absorbed were they in their discussion, that they failed to notice the incoming warp until Steven cleared his throat loudly. "AHEM."

"Hey Steven, 'Dot, Bismuth," Amethyst said absently. "Anyway, like I was saying, once Yellowbutt dies, me and Vidalia-" She stopped, belated noticing the hush that had fallen over the room. "I said too many names there, didn't I?"

"Nope," Peridot said smugly as Pearl, Ruby and Sapphire stared speechlessly at them. "You said exactly the right number of names."

"Hey everyone." Bismuth smiled nervously. "Did you guys... Bis-miss-th me?"

"I invited Bismuth," Steven said brightly as the gems continued to stare silently at them, hoping his rapidly rising panic wasn't showing on his face. "I hope that's cool." And if it wasn't, he really was gonna go to the Sea Shrine and find a time travel hourglass to undo this so Bismuth didn't have to remember being rejected by her friends.

Thankfully, it turned out that wasn't going to be necessary as Sapphire jumped to her feet, threw the wedding book aside and flung herself at Bismuth. "Bismuth!"

"Wha-whoa, Sapphire!"

Bismuth staggered slightly, only to find herself with her arms full of even more gems as Ruby and Pearl tackled her too, knocking her to the floor. "Biiiiismuth!" they wailed in unison.

"You wouldn't believe what we've been through!" Sapphire sobbed. "I'm so sorry! We should've-"

"Look, I'm right there with you. Steven and Peridot filled me in," she reassured them, climbing back to her feet and carefully placing her friends back on the ground. "Oh! Ruby, Sapphire, I heard you're supposed to bring gifts to these things." She opened her hand to reveal two beautifully crafted rings. "They're not weapons, but Steven seemed to think they'd come in handy."

Ruby and Sapphire smiled in delight. "We love them!"

xxx

A/N: My biggest problem with including major events from canon is figuring out how much to work off the episode transcript. Too much, and you might as well skip over the whole thing. Too little, and you risk making the characters OOC because of course, you already know how they'd act in character, you watched it on screen! So that's why I skipped over Steven explaining his adventures in Pearl's gem a few chapters ago. It was the same characters and settings and there's nothing I could've added to it to make it stand out. But hopefully adding Peridot and moving things to the desert has made it different enough that you all didn't just skim this chapter. But next chapter, we'll hopefully be getting back to totally canon non-compliant smutty goodness. :D