Author's Note: to avoid confusion, I want to clearly say that I'm writing this with my headcannon Peridot reform in mind. I didn't want to slow down the story describing it now, so you can see it on the cover for this story or my deviantart.
Sorry for the wait, writer's block has been an issue but I'm determined to finish this thing so hopefully I'll be able to get more chapters out soon.
Peridot has had some… confusing encounters with humans before, and she's been mistaken for a child many times. But this has to be the most baffling situation so far. Apparently, this 'police' kind of human has the authority to 'arrest' her for simply demonstrating her gem weapon's power. They had been incredibly rude about it, too: using crude metal restraints, confiscating her gun (although it was easily retrieved through dissipation once their backs were turned), refusing to take down the first two digits of her age, and not acknowledging that Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG is a real name. And now she's been locked in a small room to wait, unsure what she's meant to be waiting for.
But Peridot has no intention of just sitting around here. She witnessed the Crystal Gems escape from imprisonment on the hand ship in the past, and now that she's one of them she figures that she ought to try and stage her own escape.
Her first idea is to use the arm of her glasses as a lock pick. She doesn't know much about picking locks, but has heard that it usually involves a thin piece of metal and reckons that the hard light frame will do the trick. However, she encounters a flaw in the plan when she realises that there's no lock on this side of the door. Refusing to give up on the tactic, she opts instead to shove the glasses' frame into the crack between the door and its frame, squinting as she jiggles it around with no real clue about what she's supposed to do with it. Eventually giving up on this, she throws the glasses to the floor in frustration, immediately regretting it when she hears the smash as they hit the ground. As she stoops to pick them up, she sees a wink of white light as one lens dissipates completely. The other, whilst still in the frame, now has several cracks in the surface. She concludes that this was a terrible idea and she should never again consider any plan involving using her glasses for anything other than correcting her vision.
Not quite ready to give up on the lock, she begins to formulate a second plan. The gem places her hands on the surface of the door, trying to feel out the metal components of the lock with her powers, randomly flicking around the small pieces that she manages to grip. But her pure lack of understanding of the lock's inner workings puts her at a disadvantage, and eventually she has to admit that she has no idea how to open it. Not wanting to destroy her glasses completely, this time she opts instead to throw one of her boots across the room in frustration.
"Muddy clods, can't cope with a simple gem weapon," she mutters as she makes her way over to retrieve it, not wanting to risk it dissipating. Although she has been finding that the homeworld resource shortage hasn't affected her as much as she first thought, shapeshifting is still way out of her league and as a result even fixing a rip in her clothing is near impossible. Last time she lost a shoe she had to wear one of Steven's for a week until her boot reformed of its own accord. She rubs her eyes, dreading how long she'll have to wait for her glasses to fix themselves.
Deciding to avoid using her gun in order to prevent getting into more trouble, she sits straining her brain for other solutions. None present themselves.
Throwing herself onto her back in frustration, she figures that maybe she should take a break from escaping. After all, the first Crystal Gem jailbreak was conducted as a team. She has no doubt that they'll figure out where she is and come to assist her.
"Maybe they'll think it's not real?" Steven suggests desperately, sweating heavily as he, Connie and Amethyst half-walk, half-run through town, trying not to panic, "people have mistaken her for a kid before, they could easily think it's a toy."
"Yeah, but she'll probably tell them it's not. She's proud of it," Amethyst points out.
"Hey, I think I see Lapis coming back this way!" Connie announces as the blue gem flies into view, having gone on ahead after becoming impatient with everyone else's speed.
"Has she got Peri with her?" Steven asks, squinting upwards.
"I don't think so," Amethyst answers.
Soon enough, Lapis once again lands alongside them.
"Guess," she says, exasperated, "guess what she's gotten herself into now!"
"Alright," Steven says to the small group gathered outside the police station, "anyone got any ideas?"
"Maybe we should just wait for Pearl or Garnet to sort it out," Connie suggests, "actually trying to break her out would be against the law."
"Alright, anyone got any non-boring ideas?" Amethyst asks.
Lapis raises a hand. Amethyst gives her a knowing look.
"Any ideas that don't involve drowning several people?"
Lapis glares at her, slowly lowering her hand. After a few moments of thought, Amethyst speaks again.
"How about I shapeshift into a stick of dynamite?!"
At first no one responds, sharing uncertain glances. Could that work? After a minute Steven breaks the silence.
"Any ideas that don't involve Amethyst potentially shattering herself?"
"Steven, half the things I do on a daily basis involve potentially shattering myself."
"How about we take a vote?" Connie cuts in. "All in favour of Amethyst not blowing up?"
She and Steven raise their hands, silently begging Lapis to copy them. She sighs and joins them.
"Sorry, mate," she says, seeing the look of utter betrayal on Amethyst's face, "either it'll kill you or Pearl will kill you."
Pearl's mind is racing as she stands in the police station, waiting for the man to come back with Peridot's case notes. How can she explain this? Would they believe that Peridot is just a confused alien? She doubts it. Finally, the man comes back to the desk.
"Pearl, yes? I'm sorry, but the kid wasn't making a lot of sense when she explained how you're related. She said she doesn't have parents, so I assume you're some other relation, or a guardian?"
"I- I am her guardian, yes," Pearl says, deciding to play along. Maybe she can get Peridot out of this if they think she's a troubled child. "We… adopted her a couple years back."
"So when she was ten? We assumed she's twelve, although she claimed to be three thousand six hundred years older than that."
"Yes, how… ridiculous. She is twelve, yes."
Perhaps if the truth wasn't so odd, the man would have seen through Pearl's terrible lying. But as it is, it's much easier to believe her. So he proceeds to ask for the girl's full name.
"Oh, it's- uh- Peridot…"
"Perry Dot?"
"Uh... yes? Yes. Spelt P-e-r-i."
The man tries to keep a straight face as he writes this down. This is certainly a very strange woman, but he was expecting this; 'Peri' is a very strange kid.
"Alright. We want to talk to her about what she did and why she did it."
"Ok," Pearl says nervously. She's just about managing to play along; getting Peridot to do the same might be difficult.