Spinel

The setting is on Homeworld, 23 days since Spinel and the Diamonds left Earth after the funeral. Spinel is standing alone in an empty room in the Palace. She spent all of the last 23 days playing games with the Pebbles (while no longer slaves, they've mostly chosen to continue working in the Palace), bouncing and stretching around the rooms of the Palace while juggling them as they giggled and she sang; but while she was able to do a good job pretending, such games didn't bring her joy as they once did. Now after a little over three weeks, she's accepted that she has to stop putting things off and try to process what happened.

Upon her request, the Pebbles have left her (with sad, knowing looks upon their faces as they departed) so she can be alone to think. She stands thinking all alone, just as she once did for so very long; but this time around, rather than spending thousands of years thinking optimistic and cheerful thoughts, she's spending minutes and hours weeping while trying to come to terms with her pain and grief, like she did after seeing Steven and White's "message to the universe" in the Garden.

She knows they don't mean to, but the Diamonds are currently making her feel alone and abandoned just as Pink once did. But Spinel eventually came to understand why Pink never came back for her, that even if the Galaxy Warp had still been functional, Pink couldn't risk doing so without jeopardizing everything she had fought for and built on Earth. And now, Spinel understands why the Diamonds are isolating themselves (truly alone like her, as they won't see or speak to each other, let alone to Spinel) and not making time for her; she knows that they can't really process what happened.

Normally the Diamonds would use their powers to help her work through her feelings and heal, just like they helped her 82 years ago. But Yellow is in no mood right now to play around with shape-shifting. Blue needs to isolate herself; her powers have reverted to their former state in which she spreads her misery to all nearby Gems, and those powers are raging completely out of control with Blue unable to reign them in. It's a testament to her immense willpower that she was able to control her powers while in the medical tent; Spinel knows that must be why Blue couldn't speak more than a few words to Steven and Connie. And White, well, she's in no state to utilize her power of "connection," or to do much of anything for that matter other than sulk and weep.

Even before Yellow's "billions of years" reveal, Spinel knew the Diamonds are old, much older than her; so old that it took them months to comprehend the idea that for her, six-thousand years was a long time and that being abandoned for that long was a traumatic experience. They spent millennia (not nearly enough time for them) mourning their sister's demise, only to discover that she didn't actually die until much later to become the Gem-half of her son. Now, only 84 years later, they're suffering the pain of loss once again; only this time it must be even worse, since now they've developed empathy and compassion and understand the true meaning and value of family. Family like their nephew and his human wife.

That's the thing, isn't it? Spinel's thoughts always keep coming back around to the same subject: Steven. Her history with him and her thoughts on him are complicated, to say the least. When she first learned of his existence, she felt nothing but bitterness, rage, and resentment; she felt pain and misery from her abandonment by Pink that was so deep, so all-encompassing, that she spontaneously poofed out of grief and regenerated in a newly inverted, "darker" form. And yet, even after her desire for revenge drove her to commit terrible crimes against Steven's family, his planet, and Steven himself, he forgave her and extended his hand in friendship, just as he always did with his "enemies" (even if the "forgiveness" part sometimes took him a long time like it did with the Diamonds).

This pain now, this grief, is even worse than what she felt when she realized Pink abandoned her; yet somehow she doesn't poof like she did 82 years ago in the Garden. She wishes she would poof; retreating into her gemstone to regenerate would give her a break, a much-needed reprieve, from her depressing thoughts. But of course, such a train of thought is merely the desire to procrastinate, to put off dealing with her emotions, and she already spent the last 23 days procrastinating.

Yes, her emotions. Like her emotions towards Steven. Like the others who mourn his loss, she loved him. But unlike them, she didn't just love him, she was in love with him. She thought she'd kept her feelings secret, but apparently he always knew and had told Connie, who somehow never held it against Spinel at all. In hindsight, it makes sense that they knew; she didn't do a good job keeping her feelings secret until she improved her social-skills over the decades.

"For stars' sake," she says aloud to herself, "82 years ago when he visited Homeworld and I saw him for the first time since I attacked Earth, my eyes turned into hearts and I kissed him full on the mouth... well, more like on his entire face. Ugggh, just thinking back on that, it's so embarrassing and humiliating; just how much more obvious could I have been?"

"Come to think of it, I never did apologize to him for that, did I? I really should have," she says to herself. She knows that Steven didn't fully enter into a romantic relationship with Connie until after those events. Spinel has a sudden, horrible moment of realization; for the first time in 82 years, she realizes that she may have stolen Steven's first kiss. She can't be sure, and now it's too late to ask; she has no idea what he and Connie had already done before that point, and it isn't her business. But the mere thought that she might have thoughtlessly done such a thing, without asking first and with no regard for his feelings at the time, fills her with shame and guilt, as if she didn't feel enough of that already due to the crimes she committed when she first met him.

"Even if that wasn't his first kiss that I stole," she says, "I still basically... sexually assaulted him. Sure, I didn't know enough about human culture at the time to realize that... but that's really no excuse. No wonder he got so angry and asked what was wrong with me. Some 'friend' I was, huh? I always hurt him."

First she hurt him through malice, through hatred, through violence; terrible, wicked acts of violence that she can't ever fully forgive herself for even if Steven and everyone else forgave her, even if White thinks Spinel should just shift all the blame for everything onto her by proxy through Pink. Later, she only continued to hurt Steven. First she hurt him by disregarding his feelings and consent, and then by being an idiotic goofball who was too silly to realize that he needed a real friend, not a jester, which was the exact same reason why Pink grew tired of her. Sure, she apologized to him a long time ago for the violence, and upon his deathbed for everything besides the stolen kiss, and he forgave her for everything, just as he always eventually forgave everyone.

But just because Steven forgave her and Connie did as well, just because their family the Crystal Gems forgave her, just because White thinks nothing is truly Spinel's fault, doesn't mean that Spinel can just forgive herself. She begins to feel tremendous self-loathing. She speaks aloud to herself once again: "What right did I have to love Steven, to feel... romantic affection towards him? Just how sick, just how terrible am I that I would dare to feel anything beyond a bond of friendship with the man who was kind enough to forgive me for all the awful things I did and offer me his friendship?

She knows on some level that she's being unfair to herself, because people can't just choose who they fall in love with. Isn't that why Spinel never hated Connie (and even grew to like her), why despite being jealous she long ago accepted that Steven would only ever have eyes for Connie alone? But regardless of what she knows on a logical level, Spinel still feels dirty, wrong, and evil. How can she be so awful as to have such feelings for a man who she hurt so badly?

It isn't fair, none of it is fair. Her love for him wasn't fair, neither was Connie's finite mortal lifespan, and neither was Steven's choice to age and die as a mortal with Connie. She begins to think, "if only Connie had never been around, then maybe I..." only to mentally cut herself off before boarding that incredibly toxic train of thought again. Hadn't she already gotten past those thoughts many decades ago, when Steven and Connie got married and she attended the wedding? The "what ifs" don't matter, because they were always impossibilities.

Spinel isn't such an oblivious idiot, at least not anymore; she can clearly see that Connie was Steven's soulmate, the one he was destined to be with. There's no point pondering different "possibilities," because none of them ever really were possible. She's absolutely positive that if she asked Garnet, she would only confirm what Spinel already realizes; that there was never any timeline, never any statistical outcome or probability, in which Steven didn't spend his life with Connie and die as a mortal, let alone any timeline in which he had feelings for Spinel extending beyond friendship.

But oh, how lucky she was to even be granted that much, wasn't she? She had the privilege, the honor, of being able to call Steven her friend, and Connie as well. Jealous or not, Spinel could never dislike the other woman. Connie was just too amazing (so amazing that the most amazing man in history fell for her) for Spinel to not love her as a friend. Even after everything Spinel did, after all the ways in which she hurt Steven while sometimes being too oblivious to even realize it, he and Connie were more than willing, happy even, to be her friends. They really were the best people in the history of the universe.

Even Pink/Rose, as "good" and "heroic" as she apparently was, was deeply flawed; rather than addressing the issues she had with Spinel by having a proper conversation, she chose the easy way out by abandoning her, and by the time Pink may have realized she should return and talk things out, it was already too late. But Steven was not like his mother. He had some flaws as well, and some major issues (but it's not like Spinel of all people can judge someone for changing their form due to trauma and having an aggressive, monstrous outburst), but unlike his mother he stopped hiding his issues; he chose to address his flaws with the people who cared about and supported him. The same was true of Connie.

Steven and Connie really were the best. After working past their issues (although Spinel knows all too well that no one ever completely gets over C-PTSD), one could say that despite how "nobody is perfect" as the saying goes, those two came as close to being perfect as anyone ever did in all of history. So Spinel thinks, wasn't it incredible, wasn't it grand, wasn't it a stroke of the most amazing luck, that someone as flawed and awful as her was able to to call those two her friends? Sure, maybe Steven never did reciprocate the kind of feelings she harbored for him, but she will forever be grateful for his and Connie's friendship.

But she's still avoiding the real, deeper issue here, isn't she? With the only major change being the new realization of yet one more sin (that awful kiss) that she can never quite forgive herself for even if Steven did, she's mostly only rehashing trains of thought that already long ago arrived at their destinations, that she supposedly already processed while those two were alive.

The real question is: How can she move on now that they're gone, now that she has to finally accept the reality of Steven's "choice" (not that it was a conscious choice to be with his soulmate) of mortality? How can she accept the fact that like Yellow said, she'll probably live on without him until the universe itself dies?

"This can't be real, can it," she asks herself as tears stream down her face, "it just can't be." But oh, it is, it's so very real, and it hurts too much to bear.

As she told Steven and Connie on their deathbed, a part of her was always in denial as Steven grew old alongside Connie, always hoping that even if Connie died (and even then, she would still grieve for her friend Connie), Steven would somehow feel and become young again, that he would somehow live forever like a Gem so they could always be friends. What she didn't actually tell them, what she lied (even if only by omission) to them about, was that she entertained some far darker thoughts than those, and that up until the very end she selfishly hoped for more than friendship.

First, as the decades wore on until the point at which Connie and Steven grew elderly, she always had secret thoughts of a scenario in which Steven extended Connie's life so that even if Steven would die with Connie someday, Spinel would at least have much more time with him and Connie. After learning about Lars and Lion, it was so easy to entertain such thoughts, and so hard to shake them off. Her thoughts on the matter were on the surface much like Lars' own (not that Spinel knew of Lars' thoughts, but she always suspected them): "What if Connie got killed with Steven nearby," Spinel would think, "then Steven would revive her and she'd live for centuries instead of decades."

But below the surface, her thoughts on the matter were far worse than any of Lars', because Spinel entertained the thought of doing it herself. She suspects that out of everyone else, maybe Jasper might perhaps have had similar thoughts. It would've been so easy after all: Just one quick stab or one quick motion to snap Connie's neck, then Steven would cry his healing tears and voila, Pink Connie. Until Steven and Connie were well into their fifties, it was often very hard for Spinel to suppress those thoughts.

Even now, a small part of her, a toxic part of her, says that she should've just gone ahead and done it back when Connie was in her late teens or early twenties. After all, Steven and Connie would've forgiven her for doing such a thing. She learned a lot from Steven about "mental health" and "diagnoses" over the years, so she knows that for someone with "psychosis" and "Borderline Personality Disorder" co-occurring with abandonment-triggered C-PTSD like she has, such "intrusive thoughts" of violence were "normal"; Steven himself even apparently had such an intrusive thought once about shattering White. She knows that Steven and Connie would've understood and forgiven her if she'd ever snapped and acted on those thoughts.

She doesn't feel too guilty about those thoughts, though; Steven taught her enough about the "intrusive thoughts" thing that she knows the important thing isn't whether one has terrible thoughts, but whether one goes ahead and acts on them, and she's actually somewhat proud that she always managed to restrain herself. At this point, what she mostly feels guilty about is the fact that she's still having such thoughts in hindsight, and the fact that she never told Steven and Connie about those thoughts.

But no, there's something else, the second thing she lied by omission about, that she feels far, far more guilty about, and that's her truest desire. Spinel's true hope, in her denial and selfishness, was that Connie would pass on while Steven would remain, and that perhaps someday, whether it took a hundred years or a hundred millennia, he would grow to return the deeper feelings she held for him, that maybe, just maybe, she could have a "chance" with him. And she hates herself for how she held onto such an incredibly selfish hope.

Spinel knows on some level that the way she's cycling between feelings of self-forgiveness and self-worth and feelings of self-loathing is probably a "symptom" of her "Borderline Personality," but as usual being aware of her issues doesn't necessarily help to make them stop. It certainly doesn't help that the Diamonds, who usually act as her "therapists," have left her alone with her own thoughts for the last 23 days.

Speaking aloud once again, she says in a tone full to the brim with self-directed venom: "I really am the worst, aren't I? I just kept thinking in a self-centered way until the very end. Even there in those last few minutes, I secretly hoped that Connie would die while Steven would turn young again... so that someday I could take him for myself. Who am I to ever have been mad at Pink for being selfish, when I'm at least as selfish as her?"

Spinel chokes out a deeper, heaving sob, full of her grief and self-hatred, as she continues pondering her final goodbyes to the couple. They knew; she may not have voiced her true thoughts aloud, she may have told them that she only wished Steven would live to continue being her friend; but she could see in their eyes that they knew her true thoughts even as she told them a stupid lie about desiring eternal "friendship." Those two were always so good at reading others' emotions, and those eyes of theirs could see right through her just as they always did. She may have fooled everyone else (except perhaps Garnet and Padparadscha), but she couldn't fool Steven and Connie.

She lied about the true nature of her denial and selfish feelings, lied right to their faces while they were on their deathbed. They knew that she was lying. And yet like they always did, as was in their nature, they forgave her, not holding it against her for even a moment. In those two pairs of knowing eyes she saw no grudge or resentment, nothing negative at all. All she saw in those eyes was compassion, understanding, acceptance, and the love they felt for her as a friend.

Spinel wonders what someone as stupid, selfish, and awful as her could have possibly done to deserve friends as amazing as Steven and Connie. Could it be the universe's way of repaying her for the six-thousand years of abandonment, for the pain and suffering she herself endured? But no, that's a silly thought, and she knows it. The simple answer is that Steven and Connie were wonderful people.

Spinel wasn't surprised at all that Steven forgave her for lying about her selfish thoughts and denial; Steven always forgave her and everyone else for everything. What truly amazes Spinel, making her choke up with further sobs the more she thinks about it, is that Connie immediately forgave her for the lie and responded with friendship and acceptance.

It shouldn't really be surprising; like Steven, Connie was always a great person, a true saint. The issue is that Spinel can't help but feel like Connie should have hated her, should have resented her, should have called her out on her lie, her jealousy, her selfishness. She feels that she deserved for the other woman to despise her.

After all, Spinel stood there as Connie lay upon her deathbed with Steven, and lied to Connie's face while harboring thoughts in which she wished for Connie to pass on alone so she could steal her husband for herself. Connie was her friend too, and that wasn't the kind of thought that friends were supposed to have! Spinel knows, she always knew, that it wouldn't be fair to either of the two if Connie were to die while Steven lived on without her, that it would cause both of them nothing but pain. Spinel told herself she wouldn't think about "what ifs," but here she goes; she never was good at being consistent.

Even if such an impossible hypothetical scenario as Steven living forever had come to pass, and even if Spinel's idiotic and even more impossible hope for Steven to eventually return her feelings could become reality, he would still always grieve the loss of his soulmate, his first love, and forever be in pain. Even worse, if such a thing as the "afterlife" exists, then such a scenario would have doomed Connie to eons of terrible loneliness, the same thing that Spinel once experienced and which traumatized her so deeply. To have harbored such thoughts up until the very end, for a part of her to still harbor them even now, is something that Spinel can't help resenting herself for.

Even though her thoughts were as toxic as that horrible Injector with which she once tried to kill the Earth's biosphere, Steven and Connie still offered her the truest of friendship. That's why she hugged them like she did, even though she knew it was stupid, that Connie was "elderly" and fragile as humans eventually become. That's why she held on to them for dear life and didn't want to let go. To the very end they were the best friends that any Gem could ever have. Sure, the Diamonds are wonderful to her, but even the three of them know that they can never be as great at the whole "friendship" thing as Steven and Connie were.

Spinel collapses to the floor upon her haunches and buries her face in her hands as she heaves out ever-louder sobs of pure agony. This really is worse, so much worse, than when she realized that Pink abandoned her. She wonders again how she isn't poofing from grief like she did then. Perhaps she's mentally stronger than she used to be? She doesn't feel stronger. She feels lost, confused, and oh so alone.

Gems aren't like humans; Gems don't age and grow frail, and they can't die of natural causes. Spinel and other Gems have learned to change and grow far beyond their original "programming," but regardless, they were never designed, never meant, to deal with this kind of loss.

Spinel loved Connie dearly as a friend, and loved and desired Steven as even more than that. How was she supposed to move past this, to ever feel happy, to ever feel even the least bit okay or whole again? It's just so unfair that humans are mortal, and that their lifespans are so short! The period of time for which those two were in her life wasn't much longer than one percent of the amount of time she spent standing all alone in the Garden!

She once again wishes that Connie had been killed while she was in her teens or her twenties so that Steven would've had to revive her. Spinel is savvy enough by now to know that while she's the only one who was ever crazy and violent enough (besides possibly Jasper) to entertain the thought of doing it herself, that Lars and all the Gems who cared for the couple have surely thought about the "Pink Connie" what-if scenario as well. In such a case, even if they weren't around forever, her friends could at least have been around for long enough that it wouldn't feel like it wasn't enough, like it will never have been enough, like it was no time at all.

Spinel thinks once again, but now with even more empathy for her three friends/therapists/family members, that if this is how she feels about how short that period of less than a century was, then the Diamonds, who are so old that six millennia standing in one place would be "nothing" to them, must be hurting more than words can begin to describe. She wishes they would stop shutting her out and would hang out with her, not just because she needs her friends right now but because she knows they probably do too.

Spinel doesn't even mind that being around Blue would amplify her own misery right now. Whether it was so she could cry together with them or so she could force herself to do a silly song and dance to cheer them up, she just wishes the Diamonds would stop isolating themselves. Maybe then they could get back to being themselves, to helping people.

As she continues to heave out broken sobs, that last thought of hers seems to bring on a sense of déjà vu. "Back to being themselves," Spinel thinks, "why does that sound familiar? Wait. WAIT!" She remembers now. How could she have been so forgetful?

Maybe on a subconscious level, she deliberately forgot so she would have an excuse to spend 23 days in denial and then some more time degenerating into self-deprecation, pointlessly beating herself up over something that Steven and Connie forgave her for, something that was a product of subconscious feelings that she couldn't control, while also beating herself up over dumb mistakes from decades past. She suddenly realizes: who cares if she never apologized to Steven for that dumb kiss, because he obviously already forgave her because he realized she was super-oblivious at the time.

What she's suddenly remembered now, as if it were a divine revelation, is what Steven told her upon his deathbed as Connie nodded along: "Promise us you'll try to move on and keep being the same funny, upbeat Gem you've always been," he'd said. And then again, right before the end: "Please try to move on and keep being yourself." And she managed to reply, to promise them that she'd try to move on and remain true to herself.

Steven and Connie were the best, and because they were the best, they never would've wanted her to descend into self-loathing and madness over a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter because they were her friends and they forgave her. She may have trouble forgiving herself, but she's always had issues with self-worth.

Yes, she has issues. While the exact nature of her issues has varied over the last six millennia, what remains true is this: Just like Connie harshly (and justifiably) told everyone on that beach 82 years ago, she needs to get over herself and stop making everything about her, whether that be with her desire for "play" that drove Pink away, or her current desire to descend into horrific self-loathing and depressing speculation on impossible, hypothetical scenarios.

Grief and mourning are normal, grief and mourning are healthy. What isn't healthy is to allow that grief to lead to all this pointless self-deprecation and speculation when the friends whose loss she's grieving would never want that for her. Those two wanted Spinel to pull herself together and not beat herself up or regress back into madness.

Spinel is still crying, still heaving out broken sobs, but that's simply due to grief, because she needs to mourn the loss of her friends. One of those friends was the man for whom she felt deep, unrequited love, the other was that man's soulmate, his wonderful wife who never held any grudge against her despite Spinel's jealousy and desire for the woman's husband.

Of course she's sad, of course she's crying, because they were great people, the best friends anybody could ever have, and her time with them was all too short. "But dang it, I'm not gonna go throwing some stupid self-loathing BPD pity-party," she thinks, "not now, not after I made a promise to Steven and Connie, a promise I plan to keep gosh darn it!"

With tears still streaming from her eyes but a look of determination beginning to grow on her face, Spinel stretches her arms out all the way to the walls of the room, then allows them to snap back to their normal length and slaps her cheeks using the momentum from the recoil. She says aloud, "it's about time I slapped some sense into myself" (ha, Steven and Connie would've laughed at that), and she rises to her feet once more.

She's Spinel, the "funny, upbeat Gem," and she made a promise to Steven and Connie that she would try to keep being herself! So grieving or not, crying or not, she has work to do, and that's to be there for her other friends, the ones who are still around and always will be, and slap some sense into them too!

She'll be funny and crack jokes if she has to, or she'll get serious and talk about feelings if that's what her friends need from her, because unlike 82 years ago she knows how to be serious when it's truly necessary. She'll remind the Diamonds of what Steven and Connie were always about, which was to live freely and enjoy life to the fullest! She'll remind them of what Steven and Connie would want for them, which is to try their best to move on just like she's now going to try! Moving on might take a few years, a few millennia, or countless eons, but she and the Diamonds have literally all the time in the universe to figure this stuff out.

Now that she's broken out of her funk of self-loathing and thinking about stupid what-if scenarios, Spinel realizes something: Entertaining such toxic thoughts is exactly what the Diamonds are doing right now! Knowing them, during the last 23 days that they've spent holed up in their rooms they've surely been beating themselves up over all their past misdeeds against Steven and Connie who already forgave them for everything, while thinking about pointlessly impossible scenarios like "what if Steven hadn't fallen in love with a human." That's why they're isolating themselves; the three of them are totally the types to think they're so awful that they deserve to be all alone with their anguish.

Well, Spinel won't allow the Diamonds' own self-loathing pity-party to continue, not if she has anything to say or do about it! She doesn't care anymore that they told everyone, including her, to stay away and leave them alone; they're her friends, her family, and they need her! The three of them really are like family to her, although since Gems like her don't have actual relatives, she can't exactly pin down whether they seem like her mothers, her aunts ("well okay not aunts," she thinks, "because that'd make Steven my cousin or brother, ewww"), or her much older sisters.

Connie was a great friend, and Steven was a great friend who helped Spinel. Well, the Diamonds are great friends, great family, who helped her too! Sure, when she first joined them on Homeworld things got off to a rocky start thanks to their issues with empathy at the time. But once she was honest with them about how six millennia was most of her lifespan and felt like a really long time for her, about how Pink hurt her really badly, the three of them began to learn true empathy. In the process, they learned how to use their powers to help Gems rather than to hurt them, and they used those powers to help her become healthier and happier.

While they soon decided to use those powers for the benefit of all Gems who needed them (especially those who they once hurt), the fact is that they first turned themselves around for her sake, to help her specifically! She takes back her previous thought about them not being as good at friendship as Steven and Connie. Because really, what Gem could ever hope for better friends, better family, than people who would invert their entire nature, learn empathy, and turn their moral compasses around just to help her?

Now it's time to return the favor. So what if the Diamonds say they want to be isolated and alone? Spinel of all people knows that loneliness isn't healthy, and she won't allow it! Sealing themselves in their rooms means nothing to her; Spinel is a powerful Gem who can punch the doors down if she has to. But it won't come to that unless they physically throw her out of their rooms; for now, she can just contort herself to slip through the tiniest of cracks or passageways. She's going to go visit all three of them and help them process their grief healthily, without idiotic self-loathing or pointless speculation, whether they "want" it or not! And maybe by helping them process their grief, she can help herself do the same. She certainly hopes so.

Spinel was made to be a friend, a companion who would bring joy to others. In the past she wasn't very good at her "job," which was why Pink left her and why Steven grew frustrated with her inability to take things seriously 82 years ago. Now in Era 3, Gems get to decide what they want to do with their own lives. Spinel has learned how to take things seriously and actually connect with people, and like many Gems has decided that she does in fact want to be exactly what she was designed to be in the first place. So she's going to be a friend, a companion, a family-member, and cheer up the people she cares about!

And she's not going to take no for an answer; she won't let those three push her away again. So with tears still trickling from her eyes but a look of newfound purpose and immense determination on her face, she slaps her cheeks one more time before yelling, "YO PEBBLES, YA GUYS STILL AROUND?! I'm done needing my privacy or whatever, so could ya help me out with something?"

After a few seconds a tiny hidden door opens in the wall through which a Pebble appears and says, "yes, we're here Spinel. Are you... okay?" The Pebble is surprised when Spinel replies in a positively chipper tone that contrasts sharply with the tears still trickling from her eyes: "Heh, no way, of course I'm not okay, but I think that someday I will be! Anyway I was wondering, ya think I could use your little passages to get to Blue's room? I can stretch reeeally thin, so I won't get in your guys' way or anything!"

The Pebble doesn't look surprised, in fact she looks like she expected this to happen eventually. But she's still a bit hesitant, and before agreeing to the request she asks Spinel, "are you sure you want to go see Blue... right now? You're already crying and she's... well... her powers ar-"

Spinel cuts her off by saying: "Yeah yeah I know, she's dropping sadness-bombs left and right, that's exactly why I've gotta go see her! I'mma do Steven and Connie proud by cheering Blue up whether she likes it or not, and then I'mma get her to help me cheer up Yellow and White! So whaddya say, can I come in?" The Pebble replies: "Of course Spinel, go right ahead. I'll show you the way to Blue's chambers through the walls."

And so, keeping her promise to Steven and Connie by managing to crack a mischievous smile in spite of her pain and her tears, Spinel stretches into the shape of a long flat noodle and slips through the tiny doorway, following the Pebble to Blue's room.

TO BE CONTINUED in Blue's chapter

Notes: At first glance it may seem as if Spinel "got over" things too quickly in this chapter. But here are a couple points to consider:

First, she's not actually over her grief yet, not by a long shot. She's just finally beginning to process her grief in a healthy way. You may have noticed that I've portrayed her grief using the "five stages" model, and this chapter featured a whole lot of the "denial, anger, and bargaining" stages. She just worked past the most toxic aspects of those three stages, and now needs to work on the "depression" and "acceptance" stages.

Second, it's canon that Spinel has an uncanny ability to process vast shifts in her reality and new emotions remarkably quickly; it took her only a few hours to go from discovering Pink's betrayal and breaking down from the trauma of 6000 years of abandonment, to warping all over the place to gather equipment to go on a roaring rampage of revenge. Then in the span of less than a day, she was able to let go of her desire for vengeance. So it's actually very in-character for her to spend 23 days in deep denial, only to then work through things very quickly to the extent she does in this chapter.

Yes, Spinel pretty much sexually assaulted Steven and stole his first kiss in "Homeworld Bound." Since Rebecca Sugar and I love to torture these characters (I make no apologies just like Rebecca doesn't, haha), I had Spinel only come to realize that now that Steven has died and it's too late to apologize to him.

Yeah, I'm writing Spinel as being aware of her mental issues (BPD, C-PTSD) as well as how the Diamonds are basically her therapists, because it's been over eight decades and I like to think that Steven helped her figure herself out like the great friend that he is.

Also, I myself have Borderline Personality Disorder (although in my case not tied in to any PTSD or anything) and have experienced various issues stemming from that, including occasional near-psychosis and intrusive violent thoughts (although not on nearly the same level as Steven's or Spinel's thoughts) and a tendency to rapidly cycle between self-worth and self-loathing. Spinel is a super-ultra-insanely-extreme example of BPD, but nevertheless when writing the parts about Spinel's various psychological symptoms, I was at least on some level basing it on my own personal experiences with mental health.

In case anyone is worried after the last paragraph: Have no fear everyone, I'm fine and will likely continue to be fine! I see a very good therapist who helps me a lot :)