Fruit Cup felt like she'd been doing a better job lately. Not a lot better job, but a little. She was careful around the baroque Pearls, speaking up more and more but still measuring her words to be sure they weren't hurtful.

With Clover, things seemed to be at a standstill though. She'd taken Fruit Cup's reaction as an indication that she should keep her distance, so often she and Coffee would leave a room soon after Fruit Cup entered. It was difficult, Fruit Cup thought, to learn more about a gem when she was hardly ever around. But at least this way, Clover wouldn't know if she messed up.

On the rare occasions when the seemingly inseparable pair didn't leave the common room when Fruit Cup came in, she let herself watch them from a distance. Inevitably, Coffee would take notice of her, offering no form of acknowledgment beyond a few seconds of eye contact, and then make up a reason to leave with Clover.

Fruit Cup would touch a hand to her lips and wonder if her expression had said more than she'd meant for it to. With her words held back, sometimes they leaked out in other ways.

But today, instead of leaving after making eye contact with Fruit Cup, Coffee murmured something Fruit Cup couldn't hear to Clover, prompting her to head in the direction of the training room. And Coffee herself strode over to Fruit Cup with purpose.

"You could at least be gracious enough to vocalize your disgust so that everyone can see it."

Fruit Cup wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't that. What did Coffee even mean? And why had she chosen now to call her out on it? She appreciated that Coffee wasn't being loud about it, so they hadn't drawn the whole room's attention, but she still felt like she'd been cornered all of a sudden.

Viri—who Fruit Cup had been talking to before Coffee approached—placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "Please don't say things like that. I know Fruit Cup's not quite as far along as some of the other gems here, but—"

"Viri, wait," Fruit Cup said, hand coming to rest atop Viri's to remove it gently but determinedly. "You said I needed to talk to gems to understand, right? I should hear this."

"But…"

"Can you give us a minute?"

"Sure," Viri agreed reluctantly, glancing worriedly between them. "I'll, um, just be right over there with Aura and Millie then."

"Okay." Fruit Cup waited for her to get a small distance away, then refocused her attention on Coffee, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. Could you start over from the beginning?"

Coffee gave her a long look, then nodded. "As I said, you could at least be gracious enough to vocalize your disgust so that everyone can see it."

"It's not dis…" She trailed off, shaking her head. "Okay. But I'm not going to do that. How is being more cruel to her meant to be gracious?"

"It would be gracious because what you're doing now, it's deceitful and—"

"I'm not trying to be deceitful!" she protested.

"You clearly put effort into being polite to the other baroque gems here. With Clover, you've practically stopped making that effort just because she has no way to know whether you are or not."

"That's…"

"You do not treat Viri the way you treat Clover."

"Viri's different," she said weakly.

"You do not treat any of the other baroques like you treat Clover," Coffee pointed out. "I would hope the sole reason for bettering yourself and your conduct is not because they are capable of seeing how you look at them."

Fruit Cup winced. "It's not."

"Then if it is not acceptable to treat those gems in such a way, it is not acceptable to treat Clover that way. It isn't fair to judge her—and only her—so blatantly from a distance."

"Yeah," she agreed quietly, "but wouldn't it single her out even more if I tried to say whatever this is I'm feeling out loud? I don't want to do that to her, or to anybody else. Those feelings are my problem, not Clover's."

"What you do now singles her out," Coffee argued. "You owe it to yourself and to Clover to take that wiggle room her sight gives you and do more with it, not less. I know you can do better—I've seen it, Viri's seen it, and surely you have too. So don't give in to that way of thinking because you believe she will never know. Then it really would be less cruel for you to make that exception and say it aloud. Ignorance is only bliss until that ignorance comes up to you and doesn't understand why you're rejecting her."

Like when I told her not to touch me, Fruit Cup's mind supplied, and suddenly she had to admit Coffee's words did make sense. She shouldn't have let herself get so lax in watching herself when Clover was around. It wasn't right, and it certainly wasn't helping her in her own growth either, was it?

"I'll do more," Fruit Cup said after a small pause. "I can do better, you're right."

"…Right." Coffee had seemed ready to continue her argument, but she left it alone.

"I'm sorry."

"Clover is the one you should apologize to."

"No, I know, but to you too." She cleared her throat awkwardly. "And thank you for calling me out on it. I'm not…I still don't want to make Clover have to listen to all that, but I can at least tell her why I've been weird around her. And apologize for taking advantage."

Coffee nodded, taking a half-step back like she was ready to leave.

"I can go now," Fruit Cup decided.

"What?"

"Go and apologize. Where's Clover at?"

"She went to talk to Silver," Coffee replied. "I'll come with you."

"Okay." Fruit Cup turned and headed off to the left instead, giving Coffee a quick smile when she noticed her confusion. "I want to bring her some fruit. She does eat, right?"

"She does…"

"Good, that's perfect then." She walked ahead, more than a little nervous at the prospect of having to explain herself to Clover. At least this way, with something in hand as a peace offering of sorts, she hoped Clover would understand her sincerity.

But when they reached the kitchen, she was shocked to find Clover there, kneeling down in front of one of the cabinets to feel around inside. "Coffee?" she asked, surprised. She turned towards them, smiling.

"Yes. We didn't expect to find you here. What happened to Silver?"

"Oh, she asked me to pick out a snack for us to share!" Clover gave a little shrug. "She said to choose whatever felt the most interesting, but a lot of it is boxes and noisy pillows."

It took Fruit Cup a moment to realize that pillows was meant to indicate the bags of chips she had pulled out of the cupboard. Should she correct her or just…?

"Those are the crunchy pillows," Coffee said helpfully.

"Oh! Those were nice last time." Clover opened up the bag nearest her and stuck her hand in to pull out one chip, turning it between her fingers briefly before popping it into her mouth. "Would you like some too?" she asked once she'd swallowed. She stood up and went to deliver the bag to Coffee, who murmured a thank you as she took one. "And what about you?" Clover added, holding it out to Fruit Cup next.

"No," Fruit Cup said quickly. "Or, um, no thank you."

Clover flinched, her smile faltering for a second as she recognized Fruit Cup's voice.

"Do you like fruit?" she blurted out before Clover could say anything. She needed to make sure she got this right.

Clover hesitated, turning her head towards Coffee inquisitively.

"I've tried some, but you haven't. The category consists of a variety of fresh foods that can be grown from plants on Earth."

"Oh, okay. It…sounds nice?"

Fruit Cup nodded. "Great, I'll make you some then!"

Clover looked rather baffled by her declaration but nodded.

Fruit Cup got to work right away, quickly gathering up all the fruit she could find. Luckily, she'd gone on a quick trip to Earth to stock up just the other day, so there was still plenty to choose from. An arrangement of apples, oranges, peaches, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries began to take shape on the plate, and she took extra time to carve them into cute shapes where she could. The strawberries could be sliced and splayed out like little flowers and the apples became tiny rabbits like she'd seen in videos. Hopefully Clover would like that?

"Here," she said, coming back over to Clover and Coffee, who had each taken a seat on either side of the small table. "This is for you." She slid the plate carefully over to Clover, taking the chair across from her.

"Um, thank you," she answered uncertainly. She hesitated a moment, then reached out to find the edge of the plate.

"That one is an orange," Coffee explained as Clover touched one of the slices. "The fruits are arranged in concentric circles. The next row will be grapes, the little round ones, followed by apples, and then…"

"Strawberries," Fruit Cup offered when Coffee didn't seem to know the name. "And then peaches after that."

Clover, who had been following along with their descriptions, recoiled when her fingertips skimmed over the peaches. "It's fuzzy," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Is fuzzy bad?"

"I didn't realize food could have that texture…"

"I could take it off for you!" Fruit Cup volunteered quickly, picking up one of the other peach slices. "I'll just skin it real fast and then it won't be fuzzy."

If anything, Clover just looked even more alarmed at this prospect.

"It's okay, fruit doesn't have pain receptors," Coffee said lightly.

"Oh."

Still, Clover didn't look any more comfortable even after Fruit Cup set down the skinned peach slice for her to feel. And in all fairness…she hadn't really explained why she was doing any of this, so of course Clover didn't know what to expect from her.

"You know, maybe we'll just save this for later," Fruit Cup said nervously, pulling the plate back when Clover's hands didn't move from her lap. "I'll put it in the fridge so it stays fresh."

"Okay." Clover seemed to track her movement to and from the fridge, waiting patiently but clearly on edge.

Fruit Cup had the sudden realization that she'd never made someone uncomfortable before. She didn't think she liked it very much, now that she had. "I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I was trying to apologize, I didn't mean to."

"You…didn't mean to apologize?" Clover repeated with an odd expression.

"Yes. I mean, no! I mean, I want to apologize. Please let me apologize."

"Oh," she breathed, her demeanor softening slightly. "For the other day?"

"Well, for that too, but also just in general." When Clover didn't answer right away, she added "Coffee came to talk to me about something and…and she's right. So I want to apologize."

Clover's head turned toward Coffee, who seemed to consider her next words carefully.

"Evidence you weren't privy to."

Fruit Cup could see Clover knew exactly what that meant, if not the actual content of said evidence. Guilt panged in her chest as she tried to find a way to express what she wanted to say. "I…I had an owner who was very…" Don't just blame her. "I picked up a lot of bad ideas from my owner about what gems should look like and never thought to question them until I got here. Which, um, really wasn't all that long ago, even though I wish it was."

She glanced up at Clover, then back down at her lap.

"It shows, sometimes, in how I look at people? Maybe a lot of the time. And I have been working at not showing it, but I let myself get lax around you because you couldn't tell the difference. So I'm sorry I took advantage like that."

"That's what Coffee wanted to talk to you about today," Clover concluded softly.

"Yeah." Fruit Cup waited, but Clover still seemed to be processing her feelings, so she continued on after a moment. "I'm sorry for saying no like I did the other day too. I-I just don't want you to see me yet, because the gem I'd be showing you, she's not someone I can be proud of yet. I hope that makes sense?" She got up and went back to the fridge, Clover's head turning along with her footsteps. "And it's okay if you don't forgive me for either of those things, but please at least accept this fruit?"

Clover tilted her head as Fruit Cup slid the plate across the table to her once more, then stood up gracefully and made her way around to settle in the chair beside Fruit Cup instead. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, thinking. Finally, she held out her hands in a cup-like shape. "I would be happy to accept it. Do you think you could teach me their names?"

"Oh! Um, yeah, of course." Fruit Cup hastily grabbed a few berries from the tray and placed them carefully in Clover's hand. She would have preferred a more direct answer, but…but this was enough. Clover wanted to move forward, in some way, and so did Fruit Cup. "These ones are raspberries," she began. "They're small but they grow on big bushes, lots of them all at once. They might feel like they have a hole in them, that's the part that used to be connected to big plant."

Clover nodded, rolling the berries around in her hand to get a good feel for them.

"They're red usually—if colors matter?"

"It doesn't really tell me anything, but it's fun to know," Clover reassured her. "Red like Crimson or…Quin, right?"

"Yeah, like that." Fruit Cup relaxed a little.

"And they're a little bit fuzzy? But different from the one you skinned."

"Yeah," she said. "Those are called pistils. Actually, each little one of those belongs to one tiny fruit. So each raspberry is like a whole little cluster of fruits!"

"Wow!"

Fruit Cup began to smile as she watched Clover take a small bite of one. "How is it?"

"It's good! It's a really unique texture."

Things seemed to relax after that, and the two of them fell into an easier rhythm of discussing and taste testing each fruit. After Fruit Cup gave as much of a description as she knew for each one, Clover would lean forward and eagerly repeat this information to Coffee, who seemed perfectly content and even enthused to hear it a second time.

"So which one's your favorite?" Fruit Cup asked curiously once they'd made their way through all the available fruit.

"Hmm…" Clover reached out, gently searching out what she was looking for from the tray. "These ones! The grapes." She picked up a handful and gestured for Fruit Cup to give her one of her hands. "They feel nice to eat." Four grapes created a small clover in Fruit Cup's palm. "But I liked all of them. Thank you for preparing them so cutely."

"You're welcome."

"And," she added with a soft smile, cradling Fruit Cup's hand in her own, "I'm sure all your hard work will be full of the happiness you're looking for one day."

"…Thanks, Clover."

"So how has all the investigating been coming along?" Crimson asked, letting herself into her friends' room and kneeling down near where Chroma was tinkering with a robonoid.

"Believe me," she said, "I would have come running to your office to tell you if we'd had a breakthrough." Chroma dropped the robonoid and sighed. "We've run out of things to try, honestly. Between me and Yellow and Lavender and Pearl, none of our theories have gone anywhere."

"None at all?"

Chroma shook her head. "I mean, you can go wild with speculation, but evidence of any sort? There isn't any. It genuinely looks like they just crashed and broke. No physical tampering we can find, internal or external, no sign that they had any contact with weapons, nothing. And we ran tests on the inner workings to try to get a history of electronic commands that had been sent to them. It didn't work on all of them, but the ones it did work on…there's nothing out of the ordinary. Not to mention, the Era 1 robonoids weren't connected to a network like today's are. They operated independently, so there's no way to mess with them without there being some physical sign of it in each individual robonoid."

"I'm sorry," Crimson said sympathetically, giving her a quick hug. "Thank you for working so hard to figure it out though."

"Thanks." Chroma gave her a tired smile. "Is it alright if we try asking Coffee and Clover about it? I know we wanted to be careful in case they're involved in something, but…it seems less and less likely, and in the interest of everyone's sanity…"

"Yeah, you're welcome to ask them," she laughed. "Let me know how it goes after?"

"Will do." Chroma picked up a mug that had been sitting next to her. "Hey, have you tried coffee yet?"

Crimson shook her head. "No. I didn't know you were eating now either."

"Mm, just a little bit. Lavender suggested I start with drinks, since she can have a tiny bit of them even without shapeshifting. Anyway, it's tasty. And it helps you stay alert—though maybe that's a placebo effect, since we don't work the same as humans? Either way, I like it."

"May I?" Crimson asked, gesturing to the mug. "Placebo or not, I could use some energy."

"Sure!" Chroma took a tiny sip and then handed it over without reservation. "You can take it and finish it if you want, actually. It's only my second day drinking, so I don't want to overdo it."

"Thanks." She accepted the mug and took a small gulp. "Oh, that's not what I was expecting at all! I think I like it though." She peered down into the drink. "It's interesting."

"Definitely," Chroma laughed. "Well, I guess I should leave you to it, so we can get some answers. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, why don't you guys come by my room this afternoon? It's been a while since we've all gotten to spend time together."

"That sounds great. I'll tell Aura and Sil."

"Okay, see you then."

Lavender was busy, so Chroma just took Pearl and Yellow with her to talk to the two new Pearls.

"We're not going to accuse them of anything," she added as they walked across base.

"Of course not," Pearl agreed. "But it is good to be cautious."

Chroma nodded. "Let's see, Sil said they were in the common room earlier so…oh, good, they're still here!"

"Hello, Chroma!" Clover said, turning around with a smile. "And…I'm not sure who the other two are yet, sorry."

"Pearl and Yellow," she offered, as Coffee acknowledged them with a hello too. "Are you two busy? We had something we wanted to ask you."

"We're not busy at all," Clover replied. "We've just been having snacks with everyone today, since Fruit Cup gave us a bunch of fruit. Silver was here earlier, you just missed her."

"I know, we ran into each other," Chroma laughed. "She told me where to find you."

"Oh, okay!" Clover settled back into place as the three of them joined her and Coffee in sitting amongst some pillows on the floor.

"What can we help you with?" Coffee asked.

"Well…"

"It's in regards to the robonoids we've been studying," Pearl began slowly.

"Studying?" Coffee repeated curiously.

"Yes, we wanted to understand why so many had broken down in that same area. Using the samples that Chroma and the others collected, we examined each individual robonoid by hand, then ran a number of computerized tests such as…"

To Coffee and Clover's credit, they both seemed to remain engaged throughout Pearl's long explanation of every single test they'd done on Chroma's collection of robonoids. Then, once Pearl had finished up, there were a few seconds of silence before Coffee cleared her throat.

"They crashed because of Clover," she said matter-of-factly. "You could have asked us sooner."

"Because of Clover?"

"Yes. The simplest way to explain it is luck." She pulled a few small objects from her gem, keeping them tucked into her hand as she explained. "Anything in close proximity to her has a higher likelihood of turning a situation in your favor. It isn't something that can be exhaustively tested when in a ravine, but I created some small number cubes from the rock to see what would happen. Watch." She briefly showed them the dice in her hand, each a cube of six sides that had numbers engraved into them crudely. "I want a total of eight," she announced, before shaking the three dice and then letting them fall to the ground in front of her.

They clattered loudly against the hard floor, the first one landing on a three, the second on a five. The third caught on a chip in the floor—which Chroma fondly recalled being due to Silver showing off one of Azalea's new weapons—and got stuck on one vertex, not landing on any number.

Three and five and nothing…

Pearl shrieked, startling Clover. "What?!"

"That's Clover," Coffee said calmly, putting her hand on Clover's shoulder gently to reassure her there was nothing to be concerned about.

"It worked?" Clover asked.

"As always."

"There's no way," Yellow declared. "It's pure chance."

"Would you like me to do it again?"

"Yes, please," Chroma said, fascinated. "I've never seen anything like that."

Pearl nodded in agreement.

"Alright." Coffee picked up the dice again. "Would one of you like to choose the number?"

"Oh, how about ten?" Pearl suggested. "Nice and round."

"Ten," Coffee repeated, giving the dice another shake.

The three dice landed solidly on one, four, and five.

"Oh my stars," Pearl breathed, picking one up to look at it. "Hmm…the die isn't perfectly balanced, but it's not weighted toward the number it landed on, so…"

"Of course they're rigged," Yellow said, snatching up a different one. "There's no such thing as luck. It's a figure of speech, not a quantifiable reality."

Coffee raised an eyebrow at her. "We were in the bottom of a ravine, not a Quartz cubby. How could I possibly have rigged it?"

"I don't know what evidence you have stored with you," she replied, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"Sorry, all I have is some scraps and paperwork." She watched, amused, as Yellow gave a little huff and continued to inspect each of the dice. "Look," she added after a few long minutes. "Why don't you give it a throw then, if you object? As long as you have a goal in mind, the evidence will speak for itself. Or sometimes, even when you don't."

"I'm not going to go along with this and test it like it's a real… Oh, fine, alright." Yellow gathered them up, looking distrustful of the little pieces of stone. "Three," she decided.

The dice clattered as she released them, two of them colliding and sending one skittering across the floor towards Chroma.

"One, one, and…"

"One!" Chroma said, holding it up.

"That can't be possible."

"Well, it just happened," Chroma said with a cheerful shrug. "Hey, Clover, can I bring a few things over here to see what happens?"

"Sure!"

"Thanks!"

"This is not how the universe works," Yellow muttered, gathering up the dice again to give it another try. "And witnessing a few coincidences doesn't prove anything."

Coffee watched her, clearly trying not to laugh. "Please, continue the trials then."

"I will."

To her dismay, each of her next three rolls was exactly right. On the fourth though, she got an eight instead of the seven she'd spoken aloud.

"Ha! See? It's not luck at all."

"Luck increases the possibility of success," Coffee said. "It doesn't guarantee it."

"That's not what you said earlier."

"I would have specified if you had asked."

Yellow huffed and continued her experiments, slowly increasing the distance between herself and Clover to test what would happen. Pearl tagged along too, clearly fascinated to see what the results would yield. There was no way, surely there was no way, but why did more and more of the results seem to point in the direction of Coffee being right?

"What kind of game are you playing?"

Yellow jumped, looking up to find Blue leaning over her curiously. "It's not a game!"

"What is it then?" she asked, unfazed.

"I'm attempting to prove that the existence of luck cannot be objectively confirmed."

"Huh. Well, sounds like fun, make sure you give everyone else a turn," Blue teased, poking gently at one of Yellow's hair clips.

A few minutes later, after Yellow, Blue, and Pearl had all tried throwing the dice at different points in the room, Chroma came back in. She had an armful of electronics with her, ones Yellow vaguely recognized as pieces that hadn't worked when they'd been brought in.

"Here, I'll just…like this?" She began spreading them out in a circle around Clover, who laughed happily. "What now?" Chroma asked when she was done.

"I don't really know," Clover said. "I've never really done anything on purpose other than wishing for Coffee and everyone else. I could try touching them if you want me to."

"Sure, whatever you think'll work!"

The small Pearl proceeded to turn slowly in a circle, brushing her fingers over each piece of tech. "All done!" she declared at the end. "I hope they work better for you now."

"If they work at all, it'll be an improvement," Chroma said with a smile. "Thanks."

"This is absolutely ridiculous," Yellow declared.

"I assume your results turned out differently than you hoped?" Coffee asked with a smirk.

"…There were some anomalies."

"Of course."

"You could look a little less smug about it," Yellow muttered.

Blue did a terrible job of stifling a laugh.

"But for example," she continued, ignoring her, "particular numbers seem to cause irregularities in the usual…luck, if we have to call it that."

"I had noticed that too," Coffee replied seriously. "I created a possible theory involving how probability prior to Clover's presence affects the outcome, if you'd like to discuss it."

"Oh, this one turned on!" Chroma exclaimed, holding up one of the parts she'd brought in. "Thanks, Clover."

"You're welcome!"

"Look, Yellow, we might be able to get this running again if we're careful."

"Sure," Yellow sighed. "Regardless of specifics, I suppose I do have to admit something is happening."

"May we take a look at your gem sometime, Clover?" Pearl asked politely. "It may or may not show anything, but I'd be interested to see if there's any hint there as to what this is."

"I mean…Coffee's seen my gem plenty so I think she would've noticed, but I guess you can?"

"Oh. No, I mean we could look inside at the structure. It's just a quick scan, we won't even need to touch it."

"Oh, that's fine too then!"

"Thank you. In the meantime…" Pearl looked over at Chroma with a smile. "I think since we've exhausted our tests and there's no particular way to determine how Clover may have affected the robonoids…"

"I can have fun with them now?" she finished eagerly.

"Well, I was going to say you could begin dismantling them to prepare the parts we need, but—"

"That is the fun!" Chroma grinned, already gathering up everything she'd brought in. "I'll get started right now, these can wait until later. Oh, and I'll go get Lavender first, she'll want to help. Have a good time arguing about luck, you guys!"

"Thank you," Pearl laughed. "Now, Coffee, about that theory…"