Sky Blue, Ocean Blue

by purplegirl761

When a reformed mad scientist befriends a stranger to Earth who's also haunted by the past, neither of them suspects that their blossoming relationship will carry them through everything from ice cream to intergalactic warfare. Welcome aboard a little ship I like to call Drakkis.

12. Healing

~I live!

Switching back to Lapis's POV here.

Mega-thanks for all the reviews, faves, and follows. I know I've said I'm amazed before, but just - wow. You guys rock.~

You watch as Dr. Drakken's eyes fall shut and his body goes limp.

For a moment, you are taken aback, and you pad on your palms over to study him. He does not appear to be in pain – you have seen how his face crumbles at even the slightest of pains: the banging of a toe, the bite of some small Earth insect. This expression looks peaceful, and yet you have never seen him so still.

It is then that the white Pearl bustles by, and you reach up and tug on her hem. She has much experience with humans and, even more so than most Pearls, she loves to be helpful.

She turns and looks straight at you, which sends ripples across your confidence. You have never seen direct eye contact on a Pearl before.

"He's just asleep, right?" you say, pointing to Drakken.

There is a softening around all of the Pearl's piercing angles. "Oh, yes. This is normal," she says soothingly. "It's always a little alarming to see them fall asleep the first few times, but he is perfectly fine, I assure you."

You giggle – an inexperienced, halting sound – and say, "Thank you." A "well done!" and a brisk clap would complete the dismissal of a Pearl, yet for some reason you are not compelled to add these.

Instead, you pull your knees up close enough to rest your chin on them and glance once more at the inactive Drakken. How young he is – some Gems don't even make it off-planet in their first forty-two years – and he looks even younger in his sleep; he could be Steven's age. His pliable cheeks have pillowed up around his eyes, erasing the dark circles, and every now and again his lips pucker or his small nose with its seashell-like curl twitches.

It is a face that speaks more of softness than power. But after what Jasper did to you - and what you did to her in return - you're taking a break from power, too.

Warmth rests between your shoulders. "He's kind of cute when he sleeps," you say.

Pearl's smile is understanding, her "Mmm-hmm" filled with wisdom.

She turns and glides away on lissome legs, the tallest of the grasses only whispering around her ankles. It dims the reflection, already yellowing and curling with age, of her attacking Blue Diamond's base, hacking away at Quartz guards with a sword in either hand.

Tarnished or not, it is still not an image you treasure. You shiver and face forward again, bringing your head down into your usual slouch. After so many centuries spent in cramped, silver-rimmed captivity, stretching out feels almost as forbidden as needless fusion. Were Steven here, his childish courage would equip you to laugh at any limits. But he, too, sleeps, and so you only manage to lift your gaze to the darkened sky.

Distant stars glitter. Beyond that, you can see the swirl of another solar system. Beyond that is the luminescent form of your Homeworld, so close you can see what stage of orbit it is in, but just out of your reach.

Just like it was when…

Darkness squeezes in on you.

There is no metal trapping you on any side; you know this, and yet the fear is identical. When you turn your head, close your eyes, you feel the roiling current in the hollows of your manifested form – lapping, bullying, always retreating right before it would hit you. You remember the sensation of chains swallowing your wrists. You recall breathing breaths that were not yours. So much confusion, so much bitterness…

You were furious when you dragged Jasper, yourself, and the new monstrosity the two of you created down to the ocean floor and pinned them there, and that made your powers even more potent than usual. Jasper could take your freedom, your dignity, or your very life – but she could not take your friend, could not take the one Gem who shows the promise of carrying on everything you once loved about your people.

Jasper herself was all flails and screams and threats, empty ones now. She projected angry, vengeful thoughts that stunned you with their intensity. You could hold her down; it required fierce concentration and a gritty feeling that scraped at your consciousness, but you would never let go, not ever.

Then came the first falling. The angry, vengeful thoughts slid into you and for a scarlet instant, they began to make perfect sense. You could hear Jasper's laughter rasping in triumph, and you jerked her back down.

It didn't stop her. Or you – or what you were becoming. As if Jasper had spit Centipeedle acid on you, she began to bleed through you and eat away at your insides.

You, the Gem whose step had never before faltered in water, were drowning.

The ocean was scarcely recognizable. Dark. Cruel. Absent of any of the sea creatures whom you can relate to, such as the octopus – smarter than it looks; halfway playful, halfway shy; temperamental only when cornered, and even then its preferred defense is to blind its enemies with ink and slip away.

No, all the creatures at the bottom of the ocean are more like Jasper – ready to bite and rip for any scrap of food, sharp-toothed, bloodthirsty, and so accustomed to it they have probably never known any other way to live.

How easily one becomes the other, though.

Your fingers clench in the soil, so tightly that you rip up several blades of grass. The edges of you lose feeling and begin to float. In a matter of moments, you know, you will be numb save for the cold terror in your gem, every body part quivering.

It is Dr. Drakken's soft breath against your hand that brings you back. You cannot be at the bottom of the ocean; he would not be breathing if you were; humans cannot breathe underwater. And you cannot be stuck in the mirror, either, because even now the energy of the universe flows into you.

You are safe. You are safe.

The mantra repeats in your head as you struggle to believe it. You lie back down and inch over onto one side, and you collide with something softly hairy.

Plastic Lazuli.

The panic has squeezed off nearly all feeling by now; your thoughts will be next. Before that can happen, you reach down and scoop Plastic up and wrap your arms around her.

And Dr. Drakken is right: it feels good.

Plastic's weight gives perfectly under your clutch, and her supple, squishing arms rest with the ultimate gentleness on your forearms. She smells of things you cannot identify, perhaps fabrics, perhaps different species of the cleaners Pearl loves so. Her sweet bear head meets your skin and calms its rigid bumps.

You can feel your feet again.

Still unsteady, you pull Plastic into your lap and bury your nose in the pleasant new scent until you no longer smell rotting fish and sharp saltwater and Jasper's anger. The stars do not console, but at least they do not mock you.

From the farthest reaches of your memory wafts an ancient Homeworld cadence, which circulates over and over until you can recall the words that have always brought you comfort.

Welcome to your life, dear friend

Welcome to your home

Your future's bright; stumble you might

But you'll never be alone

The stars will keep you safe, dear friend

Their light's far more than warmth

Let them guide your way; watch them dance and play

Constantly being reborn

We are one, born from the ground

Eternal unity

Our reach extends, horizon without end

Far beyond our galaxy

So do not fear, my newly made

There is no need to cry

We must move ahead, but wherever we tread

You'll not be left behind

Drink the stardust now, dear friend

Wrap our sun around your skin

There's a whole new sky inside your eyes

You have so much to give

Welcome to your life, dear friend

Welcome to your home

Your future's bright; stumble you might

But you'll never be alone

It is the song that was once sung to you, newly emergent, when you might have actually been the innocent, delicate creature whom Dr. Drakken clearly sees you as. It was sung to all the emerging Gems for thousands of years.

Strangely, the next place at which your mind chooses to dock is Peridot. She never would have heard that song; by the time she was made, after the War, production had already increased to the point where a welcoming ceremony was impractical.

Or would they have bothered with it anyway, for a Peridot?

No wonder she was so cold, knowing neither love nor hate. No wonder she's rampaging like a corrupted lunatic over her own-newly discovered emotions.

From a scientific perspective, as Drakken would say, it is probably a good thing that Peridot has Steven to show her the way. But there is something in you, something hard and deep, that yearns to be Steven's only special friend.

For the time being, though, you are happy to pity Peridot. It keeps you from pitying yourself.

You glance at Dr. Drakken again. Occasionally, small snorts of breath will catch in his throat and you watch him closely to ascertain they will surface again. They always do, and you catch yourself on the edge of a smile. You have missed him: his ramblings about science, his pronounced hand gestures, his gawky kindness. The kindness that is so easy to return.

With Peridot around, this is a very important thing.

"Lapis…why are you being so mean to Peridot?"

Those words, from your Steven, broke over you like a tidal wave out of your control. Mean is one of the few things you have never been accused of being. And while his voice was confused, not accusatory, you can still see yourself shrinking in his esteem.

And Peridot perhaps by comparison rising?

You tighten your arms around Plastic until the hem of her skirt presses against your wrists and grounds you in the present. The sky lures your gaze back with its depth. If Drakken is right, there is a higher authority than the Diamonds. You are not sure if you believe that, but you like the idea of them answering to someone, someday.

Drink the stardust now, dear friend…

You think of the kindness, still there in Steven's eyes as you dropped the hose and left the barn, still glad – even after all the consequences – that he freed you. Even as you sway back and forth, fists clutched, Dr. Drakken's exhalations across your fingers feel like a promise that this planet will face the sun again.

And by the time it does, you have decided on a last name for your teddy bear.

It is then, also, that Steven wakes and emerges from the barn, even pinker than usual, his hair a scrambled mass of fuzz, his eyes behind a type of mist, like the one rising from the earth, clouds on the ground. One look at him banishes all of your unspent anger, anger that has no place in your new surroundings. Only one other Gem can understand what it is to experience that level of anger.

How can you miss someone you never wish to see again?

Steven yawns and greets each of his caretakers in turn. "Good morning, Garnet. Good morning, Amethyst. Good morning, Pearl. Good morning, L –" And with that, the clouds disperse, and he smiles to match the dawn. "Good morning, Lapis! It really is you! I thought I just had a really good dream that we saved you!"

This is welcome, if undeserved, and you return his smile weightlessly. "Hey, Steven."

Steven scrambles over and settles himself, cross-legged, next to you. "I like your bear," he says. "Where'd you get her?"

He and Drakken border you on two sides, and you are touched by a sensation you have never felt on the soils of Earth – one fleeting but urgent. You point the bear's arms toward Drakken. "His mother made her for me," you say.

Steven's face glows still brighter. "Oo-whoa," he breathes. "That's sooo nice."

"It really is." You clasp Plastic to the narrow strip of exposed skin between your top and skirt, wanting to retain the feeling within – the feeling of being, somehow, complete. "Everyone's being so kind, and I really don't –"

And you stop. You cannot say the rest, not to Steven, not with his glow at the prospect of lavishing still more kindness on you.

"Does she have a name yet?" Steven asks.

"Her name is Plastic Lazuli, because she has a lapis gem, but it's plastic," you explain, rotating the bear to show Steven the stone in question. "And her last name is…Hope."

In your mind, Jasper recoils from the word as if it is a corruption bomb, twisting and writhing on the ground, unable to overcome it.

Steven throws his arms in the air. "That's a great name!" he says.

"Thank you," you say. You pause a moment to wade in his compliment before adding, "Steven…can I ask you a question? It's about Dr. Drakken."

"Yes, of course I'll be the ring bearer at your wedding!" Steven cries, leaping to his feet as though he has been lashed with Amethyst's whip.

You blink. "What's a wedding?"

"Oh." Steven's cheeks turn yet another shade of pink as he lowers himself back down. "I guess I jumped the gun a little there. Umm – what's your question?"

You find yourself uncoiling, find yourself stretching one leg in Drakken's direction. "He invited me to come and visit his town for awhile. And I really want to go." You prop up on one elbow to gaze down at Steven. "Would it be all right if I did?"

Steven squints at you, deep in thought, and not for the first time you can almost see a wobbling rope bridge connecting your gems. "Welllll," he says, "I know you were having some trouble being around Peridot and the others. It might be good to go to a place where you can be the only Gem for a while.

"As long as you promise to come back," he finishes. His forehead folds so far down over his eyes; he is a portrait of Drakken, in a pink pigment rather than blue, with the crack-scar erased along with any likelihood that he could do harm to anyone.

It takes all your willpower not to laugh – to pretend, rather, to be gravely considering that, tapping one finger against your chin, saying, "Hmmmm….let me think about that." At Steven's first symptom of horror, you burst out, "Of course!" and reach into the crevices beneath his arms to practice more of the – tickling, Dr. Drakken called it when he introduced it to you.

Steven does not disappoint. He shrieks in untarnished happiness, and his giggles drown out the snarls still alive through your head.

A gust of wind zips through the trees with a high whistle like a comet, mingling with Steven's low-pitched laughter: together they fill you, pressing against you until you are reminded of those "lizard" animals Drakken told you about who can grow too big for their skins. You do feel as though the skin graded onto your physical form might burst at the seams. It is so close to pain, yet so sweetly different.

Dr. Drakken awakens then, with a yawn, clenching and unclenching his entire body. His eyes are faraway, too, the black parts not quite centered. When they do come together in a focus – on you – he breaks into a sloppy smile. The shine across his face cannot possibly be deeper than the abyss where you spent the past few Earth-months, but it seems it.

He does not appear to mind you being the first thing he sees.

"Good morning, Lapis," he says after a few more hazed seconds. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," you say automatically. "Did – did you have any more bad dreams?"

Drakken shakes his head. "Not that I remember, anyway."

Your experience with dreams, torturous as it was, was also brief. You do not know how dreams work and so can't take the credit for crouching over him all night, keeping the bad ones at bay; you feel a wave of pride anyway.

Drakken reaches over and lightly squeezes your hand. It is slight and blue and unshared by anyone else.

A mixture of relief and loneliness pulsates across your entire back.

Steven and Drakken rise and eat cereal – small grain flakes, in colors you never knew they could be, drenched in cow's milk. Drakken offers you a bite, which you agreeably accept and stick between your lips. The taste is profoundly sweet, on the verge of excessive without actually meeting it.

You crunch the cereal between your teeth, using them for the first time in months, and that's when you see Jasper's: white and pointed as the salt cliffs on one of the Kindergarten Bases whose designation you can't remember, gnashing in your face. Threatening, demanding, coercing. Before you can shapeshift your taste buds away, your mouth fills with a flavor similar to low tide.

There is a way to expel food from your mouth, but you can't recall it now. You simply swallow, hard, and you are sure you can hear it land with a hollow splash in your manifested stomach.

"Are you okay?" Steven and Drakken ask together, Drakken a beat behind so that his words are an imperfect echo of Steven's. They wear identical expressions of concern. They have both already spent far too much time worrying about you. It is not their fault this still haunts you.

Your weakness is no one's responsibility but your own, Lapis, the memory of Blue Diamond's voice chides you.

You nod. "I'm fine."

"I've got a great idea!" Steven says when the cereal has been finished and Drakken is licking the last few drops from a bowl – is eating such a messy business for all humans, you wonder? "We should teach Lapis how to play tag!"

Drakken's tied-back bramble of hair lifts as though in an updraft. "Yes, that'd be wonderful!"

"What's tag?" you ask. It does not sound frightening, especially not from these two.

"It's a really cool Earth game!" Steven says. His arms flap like two flags in the breeze. "You're running away from someone called It, who's trying to tag you!"

"'Tag' you?" you say. You remember walking planets soon to be colonized, reading the identifiers stuck to selected specimens, though you doubt this is what Steven is referencing. That was no game.

"Touch you with their hand and say, 'Tag! You're It!' Then you have to be It," Drakken says.

"What's 'It'?" you say.

"It's just what they call the person who has to chase the others," Steven says, his voice giddy but patient. "Then when you touch somebody else, you say, 'Tag! You're it!' and then they have to chase you. Etcetera, etcetera."

"Oh." You nod at Steven. You consider asking what, exactly, is the point of playing this game, but that seems more a question Peridot would ask.

And you already know what Steven's answer would be – "It's fun!"

It is fun. Steven is quicker than you remember him, and he easily catches up with Dr. Drakken, whose elongated torso and diminished legs make you picture those long skinny scissors you saw at the barbershop attempting to run on their stubby handles. Steven jams his outspread palm against Drakken's chest and crows, "Tag – you're it!"

Drakken scowls good-naturedly and takes off after you in turn. He runs with exertion and stubbornness, and at one point is close enough that you can feel the heat of his fingers about to brush your arms. Without even a conscious thought, you leap into the air and catch an updraft with your wings. Drakken looks small from the ground.

"No fair! You're not allowed to fly!" he says.

"Yes, I am!" you laugh down to him.

Drakken lets out another nonsensical mumble, one that does not last very long. Within a matter of seconds, he has produced a vine, accompanied by the yellow petals around his face, and it extends upward and taps you gently.

"Tag! You're it!" Drakken says.

"Okay," you say. You land and chase him the opposite direction, your longer legs swallowing the distance between the two of you.

Steven squeals. "Oh! We can do superpowers, too? Well, how about THIS?"

A pink protective bubble flows in from all directions and encases Steven. Drakken stops to gawk and in that span of time, you land a tagging finger right above his belt. "Tag! Now you're it!" you say. Though the refrain doesn't make much sense, there is a certain strand of celebration running through it.

Drakken doesn't turn around and try to tag you. Instead, he concentrates all his effort on Steven, pummeling the bubble with flowers and growling when they bounce off and their momentum crashes them back against his chin. Steven's husky giggles reverberate off the walls that appear hearty and strong now, worthy to succeed his mother's – until he tips over backward and they blink apart, leaving him flat on the ground. He kicks his feet in mock frustration.

You've forgotten that you snort when you laugh this hard.

It's far too soon when Peridot's arrival breaks up the game. Steven, she claims, has promised to teach her baseball – a rather dull Earth activity, as far as you are concerned.

Peridot doesn't seem to care. She springs on her heels as Steven tucks his arm through hers, stopping only to look back over her shoulder and grin at you, the type of grin Amethyst has described as "cheesy." And while you see no connection between that grin and the yellow melt that tops Drakken's pizza, you are pretty sure you understand the meaning.

"Have fun, Lazuli," Peridot says, as if she is trying to shatter you with pleasantness, tugging Steven down the path. "You, too, Drakken."

You dislike her saying Drakken's name, so much so that it smolders. Steven has told you that on Earth, some types of stones can produce fire if you repeatedly strike them against each other.

The fact that non-sentient lapis and peridot were not among them is only a slight comfort.

Your wonder pulls back; your smile, like driftwood, goes with it. Disinterest, distrust, and fear wash ashore, folding your upper lip over itself.

An organic presence hovers near your elbow. It can only be Dr. Drakken, and you immediately let your lip fall back into place. You hate that he had to see you that way.

Steven looks back and studies the two of you with approval before his expression turns momentarily solemn. "I just thought you guys oughta know right now – Gems can't have kids. Well," he shrugs one shoulder, "they can, but the mom has to give up her physical form."

Drakken turns a bright, sunset shade of pink, and he can only seem to glance at you from the very corners of his eyes. Your own corners retreat into shyness. You can guess at what makes Drakken blush, but you don't know the particulars.

"Ummm…yes…thank you, Steven," Drakken says, perhaps a key or two higher than normally. "But I don't think we've reached that – err – stage in our relationship yet."

You rush to support him. "Yes! No! I mean, we don't flirt. We haven't even parallel parked yet!"

Steven stares at you in a mishmash of confusion. Drakken falls into happy howls of laughter that continue long after Steven has followed Peridot off toward the horizon.

You don't quite understand, and when Drakken turns back to you, you wonder if the embarrassment is still in him.

Yet all he does is spread his arms and ask, "Permission to hug?"

He speaks as if you are a commander, and it shakes a small giggle from you. "Granted," you say.

You are still steeped in lukewarm fear. But his touch is as tender and undemanding as ever. And you ache with the fact that you don't know how to be with him. These past few months have purged you of all knowledge of how to be anything other than lonely – or with Jasper.

Still, you press in tightly to him.

"Are you doing all right?" Drakken asks.

Your neck stiffens against the folds of fabric draping him. "You keep asking me that," you say, rather too testily.

"Because you keep saying you are, and I don't see how you could be!" Drakken exclaims. You feel the instability in the chest beneath your head and, startled, you back up a few paces.

Drakken takes in a breath so big it should secure him for the next hour and drops to the ground right where he stands, arranging his legs so that the feet are hidden below the knees. "Lapis," he says, and it is much softer this time, "will you do me the honor of telling me how you're really doing?"

If you had organs, you feel as though they would be plunging to an oceanic abyss. He is asking for a truthful account, and you are quite out of practice with those.

But he is sitting there, so earnest and the same shade as your wings, and you feel you owe him something. You sit beside him and form the same bow with your legs. "I'm a little scared," you admit cautiously.

Drakken nods as though he were expecting that. It would give him a wise look if his eyes hadn't drifted so far inward they could latch onto each other. "Me too."

This is not the response you anticipated, and it squeezes down the length of your back. "I know it probably sounds silly," you say, "but you know what I'm most afraid of?"

Drakken twists his mouth to one side. "Well, you said it sounds silly, so I'm guessing it's not that we'll all die?"

You drag one finger through the soil, carving a tunnel. "I'm afraid I'll have to fuse again," you say.

"That doesn't sound silly at all," Drakken says, eyes bulging wide. "Not after what you just went through."

You feel your face crumple.

"Lapis? Are you going to cry?" Dr. Drakken's buoy-words sound as though they're being rattled around in a storm, angling themselves for the eye of calm.

"No," you say, both as reply to him and as command to yourself. "No, I'm not going to cry."

"Oh." Drakken seems to sag. "You know, you might feel better if you do. Studies have shown that people who hold their feelings inside are more likely to develop…brain tumors…or depression…or cold sores….or something."

You do not know what any of those things are, and none of them frighten you as badly as the sting you feel taking shape behind your nose. "Well, I can't cry," you say.

"Physically can't?"

"No!" You crush your hands together. "It's just that – if I start crying, I'm never going to stop."

Drakken shakes his head, his tied-back hair flopping like a beached fish. "I know it feels like that, but the average length of a crying spell is only about seven minutes."

Of course he knows that. Of course he has researched it.

The anxious play of Drakken's fingers invites you to relent. You only wish he were talking aloud, so he could drown out Blue Diamond, that harsh tone you strove so hard to never provoke:

"By the Moon Goddess, you are a Lapis! Act like one!"

She does not need to expound on that; you already know. You have never distributed the weight of your burdens. This has made you stronger, but strength is not everything.

You thrust your gaze to your lap. "I didn't know when two different types of Gems fuse, they both disappear into the fusion," you say. "I'd never fused like that before.

"And I don't want to do it again. I don't want to disappear again." You can see it now, spinning before you – the violence with which your wings were forced through your gem; the merciless hijacking of powers reluctant to be used for something other than self-defense; you lying mired on the bottom, nothing more than a handful of sand that finally grew too waterlogged to stay afloat. "I don't want to fuse."

A piece of yourself already left with Jasper. You aren't planning to give away any more.

Drakken gives a sympathetic grunt.

It feels as though the liquid centers of your eyes are splitting. One droplet breaks loose and falls down your cheek. You brush it away, surprised at its warmth.

"I don't think anybody here is going to make you fuse if you aren't ready," Drakken says at last. "Steven definitely wouldn't – he adores you – and look at Garnet. She's all about only fusing for love."

Yes, she is. Her flouting of Homeworld customs has given her the most stable relationship you've ever seen before two disparate Gems, and for an unreasonable moment you resent her for that; you even resent the ghastly pink creature that won you your freedom.

Slowly, you shake your head. "I'm not afraid that any of the Crystal Gems will make me fuse. I'm afraid that they won't – and then we'll all lose." A strange quaking begins in the hollows of your insides. "I don't – I don't want to let them down."

Drakken's eyebrow springs straight up, more flexible than the bark-smudge it resembles. "Are you serious?" he says. "Do you not realize the depth – no pun intended – of what you've already done for them? And, as a very wise woman once told me, if you're brave even once, you're not a coward."

You squint, puzzled. "That was me, actually," you say.

Drakken's face continues to glow so brightly, it could almost sustain its own miniature solar system. "I know."

Oh. You have been paid a compliment. The blush across your cheeks is not unpleasant.

"Listen to me, Lapis." Drakken leans in, and his eyes cease their nervous flickering to stare solemnly into yours. "You won't let them down."

It is the same voice he has used to talk about scuba gear and high-fives and mothers, things that just are. The cold space between your shoulder blades longs to believe him in place of everything you've been Taught.

"How do you know?" you say. It comes out harshly by newly-formed habit, harsher than you intended.

In the dirt, Drakken's fingers have carved a substantial recess, but his gaze never swerves from yours. "Because – I can be a great big scaredy cat. But there are some people in my life – not a lot, but a few – that I would do absolutely anything for, no questions asked.

"You have that for Steven. I can tell," he finishes.

Praise of that magnitude is not what you were expecting. It crashes just above your center, right where the black diamond on your shirt interrupts the blue into separate streams, and it hangs there, beautiful and terrible and full of so much pain. It is tight, very tight. You allow your lower lip, rigid and resolute, one brief quiver.

It is the wrong thread to pull; you come unspooled completely.

The fire in your eyes turns to Earth lava and trickles down your face. You are wondering if there is a way to retract it again, and that is when the choking starts – hard, bitter chokes that slam your shoulders together and then wrench them apart again. The bare patch of your stomach becomes a black hole, a void into which everything spirals. You are on the verge of – and you hate to use this word; it sounds so weak –sobbing.

For someone who has been wanting this to happen, Dr. Drakken does not wear the look of a champion. His fingers coil around the loose chunks of earth, his face awash with its own sadness. One hand, rickety with bone, extends to you and then retreats as though you are an ancient object long rumored to be cursed. Drakken does scoot, on his knees, closer to you and offers a few thin phrases: "Yes, there we go." "It'll be all right." "Yes, let it out."

After a few moments, he adds, "Do you need a tissue?" His pitch shoots upward, helpless, leaving the word you don't understand to roll into your clenched lap.

"What's a tis –" you start to ask and then stop yourself with a shake of your head. Your wet cheeks grab a few strands of hair and hold fast. Vile memories are piling into your chest, so numerous there's no room to manifest lungs. "No. No, I don't need a tissue. I – I need to talk about it."

"About what?" Drakken says.

"About being her," you say.

The air goes as dead as it did at the first fusing of two different Gems. When it comes alive again it, it is not with chastisement and threats of violence; it is only Drakken, gulping at nothing until the knob in his throat jostles.

"All right," he says. "I'm listening."

How, though, do you describe the indescribable? Down at the bottom with the silt and grime, where you never knew darkness could be that dark and cold could run that deep. Your soul entwined with your most hated enemy's, so full you were empty. The pressure of concentration you thought would burst you. Binding Jasper in chains of your own choosing, made of all the things that have been simmering beneath your crust for so long.

"At first," you begin, "all I had to do was hold Jasper down. And that was easy when I was so angry. I kept that picture of Steven with a black eye right at the front of her mind so that Jasper would always see it, too."

A low noise rumbles from Drakken's throat.

"And then – then it stopped being just about Steven. That was when I started slipping." You swipe at a tear. "It was about that Crystal Gem whose name I don't even know destroying my body, and my own people taking me prisoner and then abandoning me when I wasn't useful, and finally going home to a place I didn't recognize, and the only time someone acknowledged me was by throwing me in an interrogation room and treating me like a criminal."

Drakken gives you a stricken look. If he had a gem, you'd fear it was chipping away, one broken bit at a time. You've never known anything else to sketch that type of pain across someone. And yet then he nods, his eyes distant with his own reflections, and you know he understands.

"One day, Malachite looked at the memory of Steven with his black eye – and she was pleased. Then I knew I'd lost control."

"What was that like?" Drakken blurts – and then he draws back as if aware that he has, indeed, requested something far outside your communication scope.

You don't know; there is only the watery pull of the tides and a languid coaxing to release and a comfort that should not have been. You don't know; you can scarcely differentiate between the battle that followed and your own ensuing nightmares –

You attempt to curl your arms, strung as taut as the bow wielded by the fusion of Pearl and Amethyst, around your knees. "It was like…being in a dream," you say slowly. "Like you're there, and you know what's going on, but you're not really part of it. You just float along, and something's not right, but you can't put your finger on what.

"Then, just for a minute, everything's clear, and you know who you are, and you know what doesn't make sense about what's happening. But before you can do anything about it, you're…you're swept under again."

Two lines appear like sentries on either side of Drakken's mouth.

It rips the remainder of the truth from you, a truth you've spent the past several days avoiding. "I formed Malachite to protect Steven. But Jasper used her – used me – to try and destroy him and the rest of the Crystal Gems. My water powers – my wings – everything!"

You pull your voice down from the heights it has reached and deaden it. "If anything had happened to them," you say, "I would have been a part of it."

Drakken's fists jitter on his knees. "How could you have known that, though, Lapis? You can't see the future." He squints one eye at you. "You can't, can you?"

The sweetness of it lifts your spirit and, paradoxically, causes a new round of tears to bubble over. "No," you say, snorting again. "That's a Sapphire trait."

Drakken appears satisfied with himself.

"I could feel how much Jasper hated me," you say. "It wasn't a surprise – I knew she did – but to feel it?"

"Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh," Drakken says.

You can sense your arms locking down still tauter. "Now…now I kind of feel sorry for her."

"For Jasper?" Drakken gawks, eyes doubling in size.

"No. Not for Jasper." You shake your head. "For Malachite. She was so confused. All she knew was hate."

Drakken nods, all solemnity once more. You suddenly wish to see his smile again, that vivid gleam that proclaims Earth a place worthy of exploration and delight.

"And in the end, she couldn't tell what came from Jasper and what came from me," you say. "In the end, Jasper and I were the same."

Drakken's neck arches indignantly. "You and Jasper are not either the same!" he protests. "For one thing, you're different colors…"

He trails off and smacks the flat of his hand against his forehead. "Ngggh, that was the dumbest thing I could have possibly said!"

You know what he means, though. "Look," you say, "it felt good to hurt Jasper." And that, you think, is how you know you went too far. It did not feel good to hurt Steven, Greg, or the Crystal Gems, but hurting Jasper was like the thrum of universe energy itself. "I know when you look at me, you see sweet little Lapis, and you don't think I'm capable of that kind of thing. But I –"

Drakken holds up both palms, as if he is one of those signs standing on corners that halts Earth vehicles. You let it halt you, too, because you can feel yourself drifting out of control, and you do not know what might come next. "No, no, no," he says. "I know what you're capable of. You've told me. I believe it. But you regret it – Jasper doesn't." Then, as if in deference to a facet of himself he no longer uses, he says, "Not that that means she's doomed, because I didn't regret it for a long time, either."

"You?" you repeat – before the words supervillain and prison and conquest ripple across your mind. You peer at Drakken, trying to fuse his rounded jaw and his askew proportions with the severe cut of a Quartz warrior and simply cannot do it; you cannot picture him as fearsome even though you trust his word.

One of Drakken's lips tweaks upward. "Forgot what I'm capable of, didn't you?"

It is another question where the answer is not required. You paddle away from it.

You yearn to be a creature more like Steven, merciful and generous. But you are not; you are a Lapis, angry and thrashing around in anger that's so far removed from your Purpose.

"I don't want to be like this," you say, more to yourself than to Dr. Drakken. "I don't – I've never wanted anything more than I want to not be like Jasper. Even if that means I can't hate her anymore."

Of all the potential reactions, Drakken's "Yes! Yes! YES!" never occurred to you. Before you've even begun to sort it out, he encircles your wrists and leans forward, grinning, flashing those gemstone teeth at you. Outside of Blue Diamond's stringently controlled expressions, it takes you several seconds to identify pride.

You blink. "What did I do?"

"You want to stop hating people so you don't become like the people you hate!" Drakken speaks as though you have renovated the Sea Spire one brick at a time. "Lapis, that is always, always, always the first step! I remember the first time I realized that, and ohhh, it was such a wonderful moment! I'm so happy for you!"

There can be no arguing that. You try to smile back at him, yet your skin is so stiff with dried tears it feels as though it might crack. They are no longer fluid enough to whip away with a toss of your head; instead, you lick the corners of your mouth and come away with a surprising flavor. You've also forgotten that tears are salty, like the sea that was once yours.

It is that thought that recalls the clamp of shackles on your limbs. "But I don't know if I can manage not to," you say.

Drakken's forehead frowns. "Wha?" As usual, he misplaces the t at the end. You are too brittle to smile right now, but you store it away to savor later.

"Not to hate Jasper." Even the feel of her name is more stinging than the cuts and bruises you received in the crash. "She – she – well, I heard what you said yesterday about triggers, right?"

Drakken nods. The grin is gone; you miss it already.

"And I was – we were – under the ocean for so long. Down there at the bottom, in a constant war. It was –" You grope, blindly, realizing you are depending on the memories of another, a tortured fusion who saw things that may not have been real, who experienced peace only by winking out of existence. The words "cold" and "dark" and "scary" seem inadequate, yet you say them anyway, adding, "It was like I could feel the entire ocean pressing down on me. And it's never had a weight before."

Another nod, and the understanding dawns in Drakken's eyes like an unhappy, mangled sunrise.

The silence is suddenly bothersome. The silence and everything else, and you grip in your hands the ends of your hair.

"Don't you get it?" you say. "The ocean is one of my triggers now. I don't want to hate Jasper – but she made me afraid of the ocean! And it was the only place – "

You are unable to finish your sentence. You can only tip your face toward the sun in the hopes that it will evaporate your tears before one of the Crystal Gems stumbles upon you in your moment of weakness.

It is Dr. Drakken who picks up the line you have let go slack, the strings of his buoy-words tangled together. "The Kelp Forest was your science lab," he says. His hands flap. "Oh, Lapis, I'm so – that's such a – I mean – can I just bake you some cookies?"

"Yes." Your nose feels clogged like a pipeline sabotaged by the rebels, and you pinch it, the place where it dips before the upturn at the end. "What are cookies?"

"Cookies are small, sweet things that people bake, and they are delicious." The dainty fingertips tap together in the pattern you know so well. "And when you eat one, it always seems to take away your problems…unless your problem is that you've eaten too many cookies….which has happened to me more times than I care to admit…"

You let his voice drift and blabber like an indecisive wave. When he speaks and you watch him, the convulsive sobs leave, though tears still drain from your eyes.

"Maybe we need to just forget about Jasper for right now," Drakken says.

"Forget about her?" you repeat.

"Put her aside, at least. My psychiatrist says that as long as you don't close the door to it, forgiveness will come in time." Drakken's tone is one of wisdom, so much so that you do not question what a psychiatrist is. "Right now we need to focus on getting you healed."

"Oh. But my gem's fine," you reassure him. You point your back toward him for confirmation.

"No-o," Drakken huffs. He taps a finger lightly, right below your collarbone. "I mean, in here."

You blink at him. "I don't have organs."

Drakken rolls his bottom lip in, bites it. "Okay – let me try this from another angle. Sometimes we get hurt in places that aren't…physical. And they hurt so badly that if it were physical, you guys would –" It is his turn to finish early, looking your way to fill in the blank.

"Regenerate," you supply.

"Yes, precisely!" Drakken claps his hands together, neatly by his standards. "Now, we humans don't have gems to retreat into, so we retreat into other things.

"I tried to conquer the world." Drakken pauses, head cocked slightly, much as Peridot used to when consulting the information feed on her visor. "That's not typical. Most people just try to get a lot of boyfriends or girlfriends, or earn a lot of money, or drink a lot of alcohol."

You cut in, the finger closest to your thumb raised to show you have a question rather than simply a discourteous desire to interrupt. "What's alcohol?"

"It's a…it's a drink," Dr. Drakken says. "If you drink a little of it, it can make you happy, and then if you drink a lot of it, it makes you act stupid, maybe mean, and fall down for awhile."

"Oh." You shudder, imagining a fluid that can corrupt through ingestion, and hope that it does not occur in pools that an unsuspecting human could fall into by mistake. "So – it's bad, then?"

"Can be. Not always," Drakken says. "They say a little of certain types is good for your heart. Not that you need to worry about that, because you don't have a heart – oooh, that sounds terrible – of course you have a heart!" His fingers click off each other. "Yes! That's it! That's what we need to heal right now."

His gaze brushes across yours. "And we'd better get to work on it," he says huskily, "because, I – err – I really like that heart that you have."

Oh. He is being symbolic.

You do not know what composes a symbolic heart, but you want to keep whatever it is that's making him look at you like that.

And you certainly cannot do that with this rage simmering behind your tears. "The ocean isn't the only thing Jasper ruined for me," you mutter.

"What else?" Drakken says. And yet his eyes are already heavy with pain – pain you gave to him. Your pain is not something you can hand off to someone else, the way the Diamonds would burden a Pearl with an object they tire of carrying.

You shake your head. "No, it's okay," you say. "You don't need to know all that. It'll just make you sad."

"Laaa-aaapis!" Drakken groans. "Yes, it will, but the thought of you walking around holding all this in because you think you can't talk to anyone about it will make me even sadder!" He flounces his arms across his chest and throws his head back, and you discover smiling is not impossible. "So – tell me what else Jasper ruined for you. If you would, please!" he adds in a haste.

As you roll the word please around in your mind, a drop of moisture falls from your chin and lands in the dirt. Even that is softer than its counterpart on Homeworld. You pat it down to the grass's roots in awkward gratitude to this planet that, for all its inferiority, has willingly granted you asylum.

"Fusion," you say.

Drakken nods, his expression solemn, far removed from the twinkle that usually lives there. Although you know he's incapable of fusion, it seems as though he understands.

"The Crystal Gems," you continue, finding that a far less charged term than rebels, "talk about fusion like it's so wonderful. But it's something ugly to me. I keep telling myself that that's okay, that I don't need fusion, but then when I see what Ruby and Sapphire have, I know –"

It is Drakken's turn to politely interrupt, his first finger raised. "Excuse me – who are Ruby and Sapphire?"

"Garnet," you explain.

"Ah." Drakken once again seems to be cataloguing that, and you let yourself ponder if a human's physical brain stores reflections the same way yours does. You remember hearing that the organ is full of folds – are the memories kept in those? Can he feel them? Does it hurt if there are too many? "Gotcha."

"I know I'll never have that," you say. The words are weighted as they leave you. "If I ever have another Gem inside me, I'll always think of Jasper. She stole that from me, too."

The ocean's reflection may be streaked and unfriendly now, but fusion's glass is so deeply discolored that it may never again produce an unsullied image. The small of your back still burns with the memory of Jasper's hand as she forced you backward over it. Fear swells in you – careless, enraged, susceptible, everything you are not supposed to be – along with disgust that is perhaps not your own.

"Well," Drakken says, "I can personally guarantee I'll never ask you to fuse with me." He attempts a smile; it drops to the ground, a wingless thing.

Dr. Drakken's image smears in your dampening vision. But you are no longer her – you are not in danger of fleeing reality, and no matter how blurry Drakken is, you want to see him.

Another hand – only marginally bigger than yours; not Jasper's – comes down on the fists you didn't realize you had coiled. "Oh, Lapis," Drakken murmurs. "You know, I never managed to invent a memory wipe…at least, not that I remember. And even theoretically, such a machine could have many medical side effects, not to mention the ethical debate over deleting others' memories. And then there's the whole business with your experiences helping you grow and making you who you are…." He takes a pause for air. "All that to say, I'd take it all away if I could."

His speech is bright, as it always is when he talks of science, and yet you can't miss the soulful note in it. Amid a dusting of birdsong and an abundance of multicolored leaves and all the other small, imperfect workings of Earth, a few more reluctant tears spill over. You expect your eyeballs to shrivel in their sockets, for surely you have cried enough to fill Peridot's silly little smaller-than-average lake. Instead, they nearly groan their relief, with the same breaking-through as when you release your wings.

Act like a Lapis! Blue Diamond's voice hisses in your mind.

I am, answers another voice. You think it might be yours. I'm acting like me.

Drakken plucks at the button on his belt and glances up toward the sky. "You know what?" he says, clearly not expecting an answer. "I am going to go get you a tissue."

He skitters off like a shore-bird into the barn, where you hear him rummaging through the black, oversized plastic sack in which he brought his things – and your teddy bear. Your curiosity has just begun to blossom when Drakken reemerges and places in your hand a flat, thin object. It appears to be made of some sort of paper, though it is soft as a feather and cushioned with something that soothes and soaks, reminding you of Steven's healing saliva.

"This is a tissue," Drakken says grandly.

You glance at Dr. Drakken and then back down at the tissue. You suspect its purpose is to help get the water off your face, but you are unsure how to proceed. Do you place it over your face like a mask and let it seep up the tears? Do you rip it to shreds and place each speck on a drop? Do you roll it up and slide it down your cheeks?

That is when Drakken's fingers curl around yours again, folding the tissue inward so it crumples into a nice wad, which he then guides toward your face. His clumsy grip now steady with the task, he tucks in corners and doubles over sections until the wad is situated comfortably around your pulsating nose. "Now blow," he instructs.

"Blow?" you ask.

"Breathe out really hard through your nose."

You do, staring in awe at what follows.

"Oh," you say, somewhat sheepishly. "I forgot about that part."

Drakken takes the now-sticky tissue from you, chuckles at the sight, and folds it back over on itself, using the dry patches to blot at your cheeks. Every one of his dabs whispers against your skin, You are worthy.

For the moment, you are unafraid to believe him. There is, after all, certainly no risk of you ever returning to the Gem you once were on Homeworld, not after all that has transpired.

You blink, your eyelashes wet. "Thanks. I – I haven't cried in a long time."

"I can tell." Drakken's eyes turn downward at the corners. "You were all plugged up."

With that, he reaches for your forehead fringe of hair and hooks a strand between two fingers. He slides it back and forth several times, whisking it to your temple and then swinging it back, a stutter taking physical form.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

Drakken's mouth makes a popping noise and then says, "I have no idea. I think it's supposed to be comforting."

You can't imagine why it would be, and yet you can't deny a certain, safer sensation like a wreath around your head, even after he lets go. "Well," you say, "it sort of works."

Dr. Drakken's grin returns as if it, too, has simply been waiting for the thumb's-up from you. It's a most welcome sight, and your attempt to return it is no longer quite so painfully stiff with salt.

"I hate crying," you say.

"It's a real draggler, isn't it?" Drakken agrees.

Although you don't think that's a word yet, you see no reason why Dr. Drakken is any less qualified to add to his native language than any of the others who have invented words throughout the centuries. You just nod and say, "I guess I must be a full-fledged Crystal Gem now."

"How so?" Drakken says.

"They cry all the time." You have reached the point of collapse, in a wholly different way than the months you spent dominating Jasper; while you can still feel the exchange of the universe's energy inside your gem, you have no strength to roll your eyes, and the ground feels like clouds beneath you. "As soon as there's a crisis, and as soon as it's over, win or lose."

Drakken rolls over to his belly, his face aglow in the presence of facts he wants to study further. "Fascinating," he says, without a hint of derision. "Does Jasper?"

"Does Jasper what?" you say, rather stupidly, because you cannot reconcile the two concepts. "Cry?"

Drakken nods.

"Never."

The answer comes easily. Remembering Jasper is not simply a reflection; it is an invasion. You are intimately acquainted with everything about her: her venom, her strength, her brutal tenacity. You are aware where every piece fits around you and in you.

You shudder.

Drakken tilts his head again. "Well – who seems more emotionally healthy to you?"

It is as though you're a fish, and he is dangling a baited hook in front of you. You know what he is doing, and yet you have no choice but to respond, "Well – ugh – obviously the Crystal Gems." They are not powerhouses as Jasper is, but they are strong even when weak, and they never seem to feel the need to resort to banging other Gems against walls and bellowing threats down at them. And certainly anyone is healthier than Jasper.

Except, possibly, you.

You squeeze your eyes shut for a brief instant. No, Earth has never been your home; you have never belonged with the Crystal Gems. But it would be far better than belonging with Jasper.

Dr. Drakken is looking at you with the firm belief that you don't.

You repay him in the only way you know how.

"I hate crying," you repeat. "But – you were right."

"About what?" Drakken says.

"I'm not fine yet."

Dr. Drakken does another of those empty-mouthed swallows, only this time you recognize that it is the words I KNEW it! that he is shoving back down. You are not too broken to appreciate it, especially when he coughs – as a subject-changer, you gather, rather than a critical symptom.

"You know, your talk about fusion reminds me of the way I feel about kissing," Drakken says. He turns closer to you, a frown resting on his eyebrow. "Do – do your people kiss?"

"Not in public." You feel your cheeks scorch a darker shade of blue; the embarrassment is halved when Drakken also breaks into pink splotches.

"Well," Drakken says, "human beings will kiss when they really, really like each other. It's supposed to be….very special and romantic and sweet." A pause that lasts too long. "That's not been my experience." The spasmodic movements of his hands confirm his words.

Despite your hesitance to pry, you have to ask – "What's been your experience, then?" You wonder, worriedly, if he felt the kiss you placed upon his cheek last night. It was meant as an honor, one of the few you could still give; you hope you did not take something away from him as you did so.

"You see, the first time a woman ever kissed me on the mouth –" Drakken says.

Against all your Teaching, you interrupt: "On the mouth?" You've never heard of it. If such a thing ever has ever taken place between two Gems, it was done in the utmost secrecy.

"I know, right?" Drakken's face is glassed with fear, looking back at something from which you cannot defend him. "Anyway, the first time a woman ever – did that – it was Shego."

Your jaw springs out of the careful clamp you have yet to perfect. "Shego?" you say. Dr. Drakken speaks of his friend Shego often, and it is clear he cares for her very much, but you never thought of them as having that kind of relationship.

"My reaction exactly. Except – come to think of it – I was much less calm. At first, I thought she'd developed a crush on me," Drakken says. He must detect your puzzlement, because he adds, "A crush is when you fall in love with someone really fast and not always for any real reason. I think they call it that because that's what it feels like."

You envision one of Garnet's gauntlets coming down on a hated object, and you nod.

He cringes, as if the memory bruises him. "But it turned out she was only under the influence of an emotion controller."

Were it someone other than him – and were you not picking your way back from the edge of crying – you might reply with, "Oh, of course. Don't you hate it when that happens?"

As it is, you merely motion for him to continue.

"So it wasn't really her fault at all. I don't hold her responsible in any way." Drakken's eyes appear to overflow their sockets for a moment, as though trying to bulge their way into yours, frantic for you to understand. "But it still happened. She dragged me to the mall and cornered me –"

This time you have to ask: "What's a mall?" You are envisioning a torture chamber, unused before the War, stocked with acutely-pointed instruments for precision cracking.

"It's like down on the boardwalk," Drakken says. "You know, where all the shops and restaurants are? It's just all of that together in one big building."

You attempt to picture such a place, the same tight mass of people and the noise level encased without a glimpse of your sky or an opportunity to feel the fresh sea breeze that even now rattles the limbs above your heads. It sounds stifling, not a romantic place even by Earth's standards. Your gem ripples like a tide pool, a feeling that slinks outward to the layer of skin you wear.

Drakken's voice brings you back. It rattles, too, as though it is also at the mercy of the wind. "Ohhh, Lapis, it was terrible. I never knew that lips could make heat like that…and she was holding me hard enough to hurt….and I couldn't squirm away…and there was her mouth right there…and she'd always been like family to me. I almost forgot how to breathe."

This is quite an accomplishment. You remember being Taught that humans' breathing was automatically regulated by the brains, which had always struck you as being somewhat advanced for creatures who still needed to rely on standard organs.

No, you cannot picture a mall. But it takes no effort at all to imagine – or remember – how it is to be barricaded on all sides and caught in a grip that will never relent, repugnant and yet irresistible.

"I just felt so…dirty." Drakken stabs his fingers into the earth with the bitter purpose of an Injector, though they barely scratch the surface.

You nod again. "That's a good word." That is the sensation exactly: of being soiled by filth to which you are unaccustomed, filth you cannot flick away with one snap of your body.

"And that was my first real kiss," Drakken says. "Not exactly the type that makes you look forward to the next one."

Those words could be delivered wryly, but the corners of his mouth hunch downward.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you," you say. The politeness was part of your Teaching; the slice of sorrow was not.

"Me too," Drakken says. "Now it scares me to kiss anyone ever again…even someone that I really, really like."

You do not miss that the corners of his eyes point toward you and then glance away. Your cheeks warm again.

"My psychiatrist says it's because my first experience was about power and not love. So I figure that must be how fusion feels to you. Actually, it probably feels even worse, since fusion is so much more…involved, you know." Drakken groans. "Nngggh, Drakken, you're probably not making her feel any better!"

"No – you are," you say. "It makes sense – you understand – it helps." It helps simply to see that another living being knows what it means to be ravaged by another's presence, even after she has been evicted.

A cloud stretches thin over the sun, sending down diaphanous rays that match the inkling of a smile on Dr. Drakken's lips. Gold stripes your feet, and your head knows the peace that the innermost curves of your gem cannot grasp.

Drakken's black eyelids slip shut, then open again. You can see the awe on his face, the love he feels for his home planet, and are momentarily, deeply envious. When he blurs this time, it is like viewing him through the film of your own wings rather than the distortion from when you were her.

"Right, now, where was I?" Drakken mutters. "The nervousness, the kissing…ah yes!" He clicks his fingers together again. "The nervousness about kissing!

"There are some people that just don't get it, you know?" Drakken tries to scoot toward you on his knee and instead tumbles to his elbows in the dirt, his humanity ungainly and feeble and so very welcome after Jasper. "They say things like, 'Oh, come on, it's just kissing! Get over it.'"

You have not had that problem. The Crystal Gems, you realize, are far quicker to fuse than Homeworld would accept, and yet they don't take it that lightly.

"You can't be with those kinds of people," Drakken says. He levels his gaze at you, somber above the sweeping circles. "They may not be trying to hurt you, blah-blah-blah, but they don't understand. And that's no help at all!" He plants his curled wrists on either side of his green-buttoned belt, the only landmark on his flat, thin body.

You acknowledge him with still another nod. "How do you get better?" you ask.

You need to know. You need to be able to look at the sea again and not be struck with equal parts fear of it and yearning for Jasper's questionable companionship – a strange, backward mixture that leaves you feeling like no more than a shard.

Dr. Drakken's chuckle is as rich and thick as ice cream, nearly as cold and not as sweet. "You ask me like I'm there yet. It takes a long time. Months. Years, even!"

He says years with the dramatic evocation of one who has never spent thousands of them in captivity. You can no longer scoff at time, however, not with every second spent shackled to Jasper an eon in itself.

"And there's not really a set formula, either. Which is too bad, because I'm great with formulas! I'm a scientist." Drakken allows a hint of braggadocio to touch him, a refreshing sea change after so much anguish.

Another denser cloud throws the area into soothing shade. The dappled darkness across Drakken nearly hides his remnant of a wound – the one that you know he must have been so courageous to live through, no matter how much he cried when he got it.

"So what is there?" you ask.

Drakken chuckles, the sound like an unexpected burst of thunder breaking apart a drought. "Well, what is there always in science when there aren't formulas? There's theories and experimentation and hypotheses…" He frowns and taps the sides of his head where the hair thins. "I was going somewhere with that. Got a little lost in the metaphor…"

"It's okay. It was a good metaphor," you say. He makes science seem as wide with possibilities as space is, not the tight squeezing strip that binds Peridot to her recordings. "But I'm ready to hear what it actually means now."

"Ah. Yes." Drakken taps his chin and then says, "Well – you have to keep trying, for one thing. You have to never, ever, ever, ever give up hope. You have to find out what works for you. And you have to find people who love you – who you can trust – and never let them go. People like Steven."

And you.

"Garnet says that love is the answer," you say. There is a thickness bobbing inside you, and your words split to either side of it like a stream forks around a boulder.

"Well, scientifically speaking, it doesn't answer everything," Drakken says. The cloud metes out portions of sunlight; he squints against it and then peers back at you, his gaze soft and glistening as wet clay. "But it's always a good place to start."

Drakken reaches over and places his hand atop yours. Even through his black glove, you can feel the shakiness of his fingers and the nervous dampness of his palms. He is a shard, too – and together, you almost make a whole.

And then you know something, in the deepest crevices of your gem, with the same clarity that long ago memorized each potential route to and from Homeworld. You cannot go through life cowering, like the damaged Gem you once were, from things which no other Gem fears. If you do so, you will always be a part of Malachite, dictated by Jasper's whims.

"Dr. Drakken, will you do something for me?" you ask.

"Anything!" Drakken blurts. Then his face scrunches up and he adds, "Will it hurt?"

Your giggle rubs against a spot sore from the exertion of your only recent sobs. "No. I mean, it shouldn't."

Drakken waves you on.

"Will you dance with me?" you say.

Drakken's eyes startle somewhat, though not in the way human swimmers' do when they spy a shark or a stingray. "You mean… your special dance? That one? Take your hand and twirl you?" he says, with a lot of extra letters babbled in between.

His loudness expands until you can no longer imagine all the admonitions Blue Diamond would pelt at you, and you nod at him. "Yes," you say. "I want to remember you twirling me – not Jasper."

The only one you trust more is Steven, but if you danced with Steven, you could fuse with him, and you are not ready for that yet.

For a bare second, Drakken only stares, and then his full cheeks fluff into a smile that you'd readily believe could guide ships to shore. Nothing comes from his throat except for a couple more of those empty swallows, and his nods come in such rapid succession you wonder if perhaps he is stuck.

"Lapis – I would be honored," he says at last. His voice has done some thickening of its own.

Honored. Such a term is almost impossible to use casually.

Dr. Drakken stands up and brushes loose earth from his lab coat, his fingertips gyrating. "It's…it's been a long time since I danced with a real girl."

You consider telling him that, technically speaking, you are not "real" but are stopped by the reflection of Peridot's tape recorder lying mangled on the ground. You have disrespected enough gifts for the week.

Drakken reaches a hand down to you and helps you to your feet. "I might step on your feet," he warns.

"I'm not going to break," you reassure him, smiling. You scrub the backs of your hands across the last few dried tears, as if picking at plaster, and you let the wind have its way with your bob and your skirt and the ribbon-tie on your top.

This time, Drakken's laugh has a snuffling, wet edge. "No…you've proven that," he says, so quietly he might be speaking only to himself.

Still, as you release your hand and step back, he handles you with the utmost consideration, and you cannot be annoyed because you're too grateful, grateful that his is not Jasper's grip, a crushing weapon to rival the abyss itself.

Although timidly your shoulders want to roll forward to meet each other, when the air touches your face you can thrust them back with confidence. It has the feel of a transition, of all things crisp and fresh, of regenerating and starting over. Instead of sand set aflame, silken grass yields beneath your feet, and you face a toothy grin that has not been honed to a point.

When Drakken's chest begins to dent inward, you rush a pair of lungs and take a mouthful of Earth's air with him, breathing out only when you see his chest expand again, just to ensure your bodies are in sync.

You begin.

Tiny flits carry you across the grass, playing with Earth's gravity. Your leg arcs toward a sky clouded by vapor rather than smoke. You leap forward, your hand extending upward. Right on time, other fingers, scarcely bigger than yours, catch and curl around yours. You can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips as they clumsily gentle themselves, spin you in a semicircle, and then ease you into a dip across one gangling arm.

And this time, you leave your eyes wide open.