~Let's get back to the misadventures of our little lovebirds. I'll be trying to catch up with reviewers over the next few weeks - the site's doing a weird thing where it won't send me e-mail updates so that's going to make things a little harder to keep track of, but I love and appreciate you all. :) ~

When you ring Dr. Drakken's door-chime the next day he answers within moments, as if he has long since stationed himself at the door to await your arrival, which he may very well have done. Overhead, dense gray clouds pack the sky, but it does not matter to you – seeing his face is tantamount to seeing the sun's rays peeking through. Though his cheeks are still puffed from sleep, the rest must have done him good; he seems invigorated again, like he has regenerated into a fresher incarnation of himself.

The corners of his eyes lift when he sees you. "Good morning, Lapis! You know, I –"

Confusion slows his words just enough for you to raise your hand, the one with the ring on it, and speak before he can say anything more. "No, it wasn't a dream," you say. "We're really getting married."

Drakken lets out a shout of triumph, bending his arms and driving them downward until they almost collide with his stomach. His hands reach out and settle on your bare shoulders, and he peers down at you with a gaze shaking yet not frightened. He smiles at you, and you remember the way he smiled the first time you saw him, hopeful and cautious and kind. This smile is all of that and more, relentless joy and confidence, as though a question that puzzled him has been answered.

"Wow," he says, and while the word is deep, it is not strong, just a scratch in his throat.

"Yeah. Wow." You smile back at him and let the warmth from his hands seep into your skin. "So I think we had some plans to make, right?"

"Yes! Oh, yes! Oh, yes, of course!" Drakken's nod is not contained to his head; the thin length of his body bobs like a cork as he sweeps you inside. The waters within your gemstone churn harder than usual, but you are calm compared to him.

He rushes up the steps, almost tripping over Commodore Puddles as he skids across the kitchen floor. Both of them yelp, but the dog still takes a faithful place at Drakken's feet when he sits down at the table, you in the chair next to him. A sheet of paper, looking to have been folded and unfolded numerous times, lies in front of Drakken's seat.

"Yes, yes, yes, plans, plans, plans! And we'll need to take notes!" Drakken glances at the paper, his smudged-bark eyebrow lowering into a frown. "Or rather, it might work better if you take the notes. I tried to jot down some thoughts last night, and look how well that turned out."

The paper does have marks on it, places where his drawing-stick hurried over it, but their lines are so misshapen you cannot tell if they are meant to be letters or sketches. "They look pretty cool," you say, "but I don't think they'll help us much."

Drakken gives you a grateful look, and you realize that part of him still expects everything he does to be answered with an insult. "What I did remember, though, was that our first order of business is to call my formerly-teenaged ex-arch-nemesis Kim Possible –"

"I know who Kim is, Drakken," you say with a giggle.

"– and her husband! The, um, the boy, err, ggrrgh…Stan?"

"Ron," you supply. "Ron Stoppable."

"Yes, yes, yes, of course, Stoppable! Why does that name always elude me?" Drakken stands up, one hand clutching the table and the other patting the wall behind him as though searching for a port where he can dock. "We should go over to their house right away! No…on second thought, we should probably call them first and make sure they're going to be home."

He pulls his phone from his pocket and flips it open, and then, to your surprise, he thrusts it dramatically at you. "No – you do it, Lapis!

"Errrr, that is to say," he corrects himself, shame edging his eyes, "would you mind too terribly being the one to call them and see if they're home? I know I'd blurt out that we're getting married right over the phone, and we can't have that! I want to see the looks on their faces when we tell them! You, you can keep a secret better."

Most people can.

He watches with an entreating expression, and you take the phone from him. "No, I don't mind," you say.

You parse through Drakken's list of humans whose phones are connected to his until you find Kim's name and give it a firm tap. The phone begins to vibrate, jangling like the warp pad, and then you hear a voice. It is Kim's voice, but a past version of it, a recorded message that explains her absence:

"Hi. You've reached Kim Possible-Stoppable. I'm probably off on a mission right now. Sorry to have missed your call, but if you leave a message I'll call you, beep you, as soon as the world is safe again."

"Hi, Kim," you say. "This is Lapis, on Dr. Drakken's phone. Um, we were really hoping to see you and Ron sometime today. So call me back when you get a chance. Good luck saving the world."

You hang up and turn to Drakken, whose head is tilted. "I got the recording saying she was off saving the world," you explain.

"Funny," Drakken says. "The world has never felt safer to me."

He says it vaguely, almost as though he is still asleep, and a warm current douses your back. You smile at him.

"So while we're waiting, don't we have some other plans to make?" You slide the paper from his place to yours and select the ink-stick he must have been using last night, tapping the knob on the base until its black tip emerges.

"Yes! I meant to write those down, too! People will have a lot of questions – and, let's see, we can already tell them it's going to be on the beach! And that we'll be dividing our time between Middleton and Beach City! Oh, and…what was that other thing? Oh, yes!" Drakken says once again. "People will want to know if you're going to take my last name."

You blink at him. "Why? Don't you need it?"

Drakken chuckles as if you have said something delightful and wags his head. "Oh, no, not like that. Do you remember when I was first explaining to you about human families, how I said that traditionally when a woman gets married, she changes her last name to match her husband's? It was just supposed to make it easier to keep track of who was married to who, but a lot of women are keeping their own last names nowadays – or just adding on their husband's last name, like Kim Possible-Stoppable – and I don't want you to feel like a piece of property! Nobody –"

He stops and knocks one fist against his chest as though trying to free his voice. "Nobody should make you feel like that anymore."

Drakken studies you, his face sincere, its solemnity broken only by the petal, as bright a yellow as the star on Steven's shirt, that unfurls behind his hair. You gesture to it and giggle as he grunts and struggles to remove it.

In the pause where he is momentarily preoccupied, you think for a moment of his last name – his surname, he called it once – and graft it to your name. "So I would be…Lapis Lazuli-Lipsky?"

Drakken cringes. "Yes. You can see how that's kind of…"

"No, let's do that," you interrupt him. "I want to make Peridot say it."

It is Drakken's turn to blink at you, and then he bursts into laughter again. "All right. Why the heck not?"

You write Lapis Lazuli-Lipsky on the paper in your most even letters and turn back to him. "What else?"

"Well, there's the question of who's going to be in our wedding party…"

You glance at the paper and then back to him. "And when you say 'party,' you're not talking about, like, a ball, are you?"

"Yes, I am not." Drakken's forehead pinches. "That is a strange combination of words, but – FOCUS, DRAKKEN! The 'wedding party' in this case just means the other people who are in the wedding with us. The bridesmaids, the groomsmen…"

"The little girl who throws the flowers," you add.

Dr. Drakken glances at you, and you see a gleeful shine in his eyes. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Peridot?" you say.

"You are!" Drakken cackles and slaps the table. "I know she did that for Ruby and Sapphire, too, so she has some experience! Although…" He taps the tips of his fingers together. "We might want to offer to let her be Maid of Honor."

"Maid of Honor?"

"You remember those women at Kim Possible's wedding who came down the aisle before her? Their dresses were pretty, but not as pretty as hers?"

Although you do not remember comparing their dresses, you nod for him to continue.

"Those are bridesmaids, and the one who comes down first is head-honcho bridesmaid, otherwise known as the Maid of Honor. She's supposed to be someone who's very, very close to the bride."

"Like a sister." You smile, remembering your conversation with Peridot in the night.

"Exactamundo!" Drakken bounces in his seat. "So Peridot would be perfect for that. But I think she'd also love to be flower girl…"

He trails off, his face dimming with bafflement. You shift the ink-stick in your grip and say, "How about we let her pick which one she wants to be?"

"Brilliant idea!" Drakken's expression brightens again. "Offer her both positions and leave it up to her what she wants!"

You write Maid of Honor on the paper and add Peridot's name. "Personally, I bet she picks the flowers, because that's the more fun job," you say.

Drakken grins. "Ah, yes. Flowers are fun." A green offshoot slithers from his neck as he says it, and he scowls but gives it an affectionate pat anyway. "No, that wasn't an invitation for you guys to come out and play. It's all right, go back to sleep, I'll call you if I need you."

When the vine has retreated, his grin returns. "So…who else would you like for your regular bridesmaids?"

"Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst." You write their names as you speak them. You pause. "And Bismuth."

Drakken nods. "Sounds like a wonderful group!"

You pick the ink-stick back up and move over to the words Maid of Honor, draw a slash beside Peridot's name, and write down a second name.

Drakken's breath shoots in sharply when he reads it. "Her?"

"Yeah. In case Peridot wants to be the flower girl instead."

Dr. Drakken gazes at you, seeing, you know, all of the places where you are broken, and yet his eyes manage to locate something he finds good amidst the shards. "You, Ms. Lazuli, have a very forgiving heart."

You shrug. "No more than Kim and Ron." Drakken as you know him would be nearly impossible for someone to dislike, but you have seen glimpses of the man he was when Kim and Ron first knew him, and that man was decidedly less embraceable.

Drakken's mouth softens as he nods.

"And that leads us to the question of the best man. Like the maid of honor, but on my side." He frowns as he says it, though you hear nothing problematic in his words. "It's traditionally the groom's best friend."

"So…Shego, then," you say.

Drakken's frown deepens. "Yes, but – but – it's called the best man!"

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, well, it's a dumb name anyway, because if you don't think the groom is the best man, then aren't you marrying the wrong person?"

Drakken exchanges his frown for a smile, one that curls to its very outmost edges, pressing the flesh of his cheeks higher and thicker. "That," he says with a chuckle, "is an excellent point. I think I'll go ahead and ask Shego if she's willing to play that role…with the stipulation that she can change the title to whatever she prefers!"

You nod and write Shego – Best man (or something).

"And with that, I believe, we move on to considering…. oh, doodles!" Drakken interrupts himself, slapping the palm of his hand against his forehead. "Who's going to walk you down the aisle?"

You do not need any help walking down an aisle, yet neither did Kim and she still allowed her father to accompany her across the church. You remember his arm linked through hers and the tears tracking his face. "With Kim, it was her dad," you say slowly.

"Exactly. That's who it usually is – the bride's father." The word father sounds askew in his voice, as though it is as foreign a concept to him as it was to you in your life before Earth. "And therein lies the problem!" Drakken scowls at the tabletop. "Blue Diamond could be your mother if I turn my head and squint, but I have no idea who we could get to be your father. Opposite-gender clones have never been successful, and I doubt you have DNA to begin with…"

It does not trouble you much either way, but you know the observance of these rituals is important to Drakken, as Homeworld customs once were to you, and more important still to his mother. "Well, we can think of something else," you say. "I mean, it's not even going to be a real aisle, since we're on the beach and everything. It's symbolic, right?"

Drakken nods.

"Then if we can figure out what it symbolizes, we'll know who we should choose instead." You look over at Drakken. "Any ideas?"

Drakken stacks one fist atop the other and props them beneath his chin. "Hmm. Well, let's see. There's a lot of different ways to interpret it. A lot of bunny trails we can go down. But we shall not! Let's simplify, like Shego's always telling me to do! The easiest way of looking at it is probably – hmmm – that it symbolizes the transition from childhood to adulthood. The person who took care of the bride when she was little walks her up to the person she's going to spend the rest of her life with and who'll try to protect her too." His eyes widen as though he thinks he has made a mistake. "Even if she is extremely strong and powerful and doesn't truly need protecting!" he adds quickly.

"I am strong," you agree, curving your thumb around his. "But strong people need protection sometimes, too." An image hits your mind like a raindrop, breaking open and spilling across your thoughts, leaving no crevice dry. "And only one person ever protected me before you. Steven."

Drakken blinks several times and then tugs his thumb free from yours to wipe at the black places beneath his eyes. "Steven," he says, his voice like paste. "Of course."

You smile back at him. You could carry yourself down that aisle of sand; you survived by yourself for so long, but survival is only a fragment of life. It will be a comfort to have Steven's thick arm beside yours.

Steven walks me down the aisle, you write.

"Oh, double doodles. Doodles with cheese whiz!" Drakken exclaims. For the first time today, his spirit slips, his body nearly deflating across the tabletop.

"What is it?" you say.

"Well, I think we can justify not having seating set aside for the bride's parents. But what am I supposed to do about the section for the groom's parents?" Drakken stares hard at his hands, as though trying to discern his fingerprints through his gloves.

You are quiet for a moment, picturing Mama Lipsky in her chair, her feet swinging above the ground, and then the seat beside her, crass in its emptiness. Drakken so rarely speaks about the man who collaborated with Mama Lipsky to create him. You wonder if he remembers his father at all; you wonder at the cruelty of a man who could take flight from his son's life and not look back.

"You mean…your dad?" you finally say.

Dr. Drakken drags his head up and down. "I don't even have an address for him. Not that I would want him to come even if I did know where to send an invitation!"

His voice tries to be cold, and it fails; it is rough with pain, all crags and hollows like an ocean grotto.

You stand up and let your hands rest above his shoulders, not touching them. No touch would drown out what predominates inside him right now, and you would feel disingenuous if you tried.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I'm so sorry that he won't be what you need. But is there anyone else who could? If I can get Steven to walk me down the aisle, then you should be able to pick out someone else, too."

"You mean, who would I pick for a father if I had the choice?" Drakken's eyebrow folds as though in concentration, but an instant later he shakes his head, his ponytail thrashing like Amethyst's whip. "Well, du-uh. There's only one possible answer to that. Senior. Senor Senior, Senior."

To you, it sounds like he is repeating the same word numerous times, yet you know to whom he refers. "That old guy who used to be a supervillain, too? And he was always so nice you?" you say. Drakken always speaks the man's name with warmth and reverence, as if talking about a Gem who once saved his life on the battlefield. You did not know the connection went that deep, but knowing Dr. Drakken as you do, you should not be surprised.

Drakken's eyes blur again, but this time you see light shining below the tears. "Yes! Him! He's been the best – he's been the closest thing – he just always – one time I tried to set him up with my mother – and – and – and –" Drakken gropes for the end of that sentence, then abandons it and leaves it dangling, the sounds of exasperation fading fast. "He's the one!" he finishes, poking his finger into the air.

Groom's parents, you write down. Mama Lipsky and Senior. Drakken watches over your shoulder with another face-rippling grin. He sighs in exhaustion and satisfaction, and you recognize how it feels to have a family build around you.

"What's next?" you say.

"Well, branching off from that…there'll be dances after the wedding." Drakken darts a look at you, his eyes apprehensive. "Not those dances. Not fusion dances. Just people dancing with other people because it's fun and they love each other, okay?"

"Okay," you say with a smile. You have experienced this form of dancing as well, now, and it is still clean inside you, unviolated, your limbs free to move and explore.

"There are three special, specific dances to start with, and then everyone is free to pretty much do whatever they want," Drakken says. "Within the bounds of law and reason. The first dance is for us – the bride and groom – their first dance as a married couple! Then the mother-son dance, and then – hmm. Then there's the father-daughter dance. Or maybe that's second and the mother-son dance is third. Gaah, why does the sequencing have to be so blasted difficult?

"But I digress!" he adds before you can even shrug. "The point is, there's a father-daughter dance sometime early on, and we'll need a game plan for that! Would…would you want Steven to do that for you, too?"

There are times when Dr. Drakken hurries through a question, skimming its surface, like when he asks you what flavor of ice cream you want to order. That is not how he asks this question now. He gives you time, even as it makes his fists tremble.

You take a moment to think. Steven will walk you down the aisle; of that you are certain. Yet when you picture a man dancing with you and looking upon you as a daughter, only one face comes to you and it is not Steven's, although it has the same small slanting nose, the same full cheeks, and the same round, truthful dark eyes.

"No," you say with a shake of your head. "I want Greg. Because he's the best father I know."

"He definitely raised the best kid, that's for sure." A shine passes over Drakken's eyes, and they seem to float away from yours. "Even as a giant pink rage-monster, he was still more polite than any teenager I've ever met." When you press your hands to your mouth, he blinks back into focus and says, "Oh – so sorry! Too soon?"

You shake your head again and shrug. It strikes you only as too soon to joke about it, but while Drakken's statement was humorous, something tells you it was not meant as a joke.

Father-daughter dance, you write down. Greg?

"What's with the question mark?" Drakken leans over your shoulder, his breath warming your skin. "I know Greg would love to do it!" He sends out a hand and drags his phone closer, flipping open its hood to reveal a screen that, from the look of consternation on his face, does not display what he wants to see. "Yeesh, I wish Kim Possible and her husband would hurry up and get back to us already. I'm going out of my mind!" A thrill streaks across his voice like sunlight over water.

"Why don't we go to Little Homeworld and ask Peridot and the others to be in the wedding?" you say. "I bet that'll be fun, too, even if you don't know them as well."

"Yes," Drakken says. "Yes, yes, yes, of course it will." He gives you a smile both tight and appreciative, and then his gaze falls to his fingers, which clack against the uneven wood of his tabletop. "Is this really happening?" he says again.

It is the same question he has been asking, repetitively, since the night before, and yet it is in some way different. His smile, too, is not the bold, arrogant grin he is typically so quick to show the world; when he smiles at you now, it is soft, almost shy, entrusting you with its vulnerability. You can see in his eyes what you have heard in his story: he is accustomed to coming to love people and then having them depart.

You rest your hand beside his on the table on the chance that a touch would be too much for him right now. "Yep, it's really happening," you say. "Because I love you."

The corners of Drakken's lips vibrate. "You're not just saying that to make me happy?" he says.

You give him a blank look. "If I care about whether me loving you makes you happy or not, wouldn't that still mean I love you?"

Drakken makes a startled sound, something between a gasp and a guffaw, and the back of his head glances off the wood behind it. "Lapis," he says, "you are just the best."

And while you still believe his words are an exaggeration, you do not rebuff them.

Amid the cacophony of Little Homeworld, you pick out Peridot's voice and follow it to the wellspring of light in front of her greenhouse, where she kneels before a dried-clay pot and tucks small mounds of dirt around the green life that grows within. Dr. Drakken taps her head with one of his own vines at the same moment you say, "Hi, Peridot."

Peridot jumps into the air and, to your relief, retains her hold on the pot. She sets it with care on the ground before leaping from your arms to Drakken's and back again.

"Lapis! Drakken! My OTP!" she says. You cannot fathom what OTP must stand for, but from the speed at which she speaks, you know it would be useless to ask for an explanation now. "Have you begun to consider tactics for your upcoming wedding?"

You snicker at her. "We've started planning, yeah."

"That's why we're here, in fact!" Drakken exclaims. He bobs upward on his heels, and Peridot bobs with him; they are two wires humming with electric energy. Yet an instant later he goes almost still, placing one foot behind the other and nodding you forward. "But – this was really Lapis's idea, so she should be the one to ask you."

It sounds like he is trying to swallow something that will not fit down his throat, but he sets his teeth and still manages to beam at you.

You step toward Peridot, looking at her closely. "We were wondering if you'd want to be the flower girl – which we know you already know how to do. Or if you'd rather be the maid of honor. That's –"

"I know what the honorable maid is," Peridot interrupts you, a glint in her eyes that is probably meant to seem wise. "She is the bride's second-in-command. Her best friend. But…" she frowns. "Does she get to throw things?"

"Told you," you mutter to Drakken and then turn your attention back to Peridot. "No. I don't think she does."

Peridot squints at the sky for a moment, a tiny finger resting on her chin. "In that case, I would prefer to be the girl of flowers. As you said, I am already fabulous at that job."

"That's not exactly what I said," you say with a scoff.

Peridot ignores you and widens her arms at her sides as though making room for a skirt, rotating in a slow, precise circle.

"That's fine with us," you say, and you know this to be true from the laughter in Dr. Drakken's eyes. "I just wanted you to know that you had first dibs if you wanted it."

The skin around Peridot's gem folds. "Who has second dibs?"

You turn to scan the various crowds of Gems, and you find her unexpectedly at the edge of a group of Quartzes, a slender wand among their larger forms. You point to her.

"Hmm. Yes." Peridot nods her approval. "I can see that."

You leave her to prattle on to Drakken about how your decision makes, as she puts it, "logical and emotional sense." Your wings spring forth and deliver you to the patch of grass within a pace of your second choice. Despite the size disparity between her and the Quartzes, she does not appear out of place, though you can tell she feels so, her shoulders angled high and her face careful in its expression. But something in her eyes, something that has been forever hidden from you and from herself, has begun to pull free.

Her colors shining through.

"Hey," you say quietly, placing a gentle hand on Lisa's shoulder. She spins around. There are times when you see yourself reflected in her face, and there are times when she seems as distinct from you as any other variety of Gem. "Um, would you like to be in my wedding?"

You sound exactly as she did when she asked if she could join the school, if you could help reTeach and rePurpose her. This similarity you do not mind.

"Wedding?" Lisa's eyes widen, then travel behind you to Dr. Drakken, who is currently hoisting Peridot into the air with a vine on either side of her as though they are ropes for her to swing from. "Is that when you guys are going to do…that thing you said you were going to do?"

"Get married? Yeah."

A smile flickers across Lisa's mouth and disappears more quickly than morning dew. "But…isn't that just for you and him, then? How could I be part of it?"

"Because there's going to be this big party. This big ceremony at the beach. We'll have all these chairs set up so that all the people we love can watch, but they'll leave a gap in the middle that's big enough to walk through. Drakken will stand up front – he's called the groom. I'm the bride, and I'll come in from the back and walk down the gap to meet him, but there are a bunch of people who get to walk down before me. Peridot's going to spread flowers, but the others I think are called bridesmaids, and they're people who are special to me. And the bridesmaid who walks down first is the maid of honor. She's really special."

"Oh. Okay." Confusion still swims in Lisa's eyes, but you watch them track your words as best they can, and a shine enters them. "Are you saying – you want me to be one of those bridesmaids?"

"No," you say, and you feel a grin you did not anticipate drift across your own face. "I'm saying I want you to be the maid of honor."

Lisa gasps and takes a step back. "You're serious?"

"Ye-ah." You roll your eyes and rest your hands in the pockets of your pants as if the request is a trifle, though part of you hopes you are not fooling her. "I mean…technically, you are my oldest friend here."

Lisa lets out a giggle, a high pure sound that endeavors to separate itself from terraforming, and throws her arms around you. Her head bumps against your jaw, her thick mussed hair almost the same texture as Dr. Drakken's, scratching yet somehow soft. Of the many hugs you have received since last night, it is not among the most comfortable, and yet you allow yourself to stay inside it for a brief span of time, the core of your gem sighing with a nostalgia that is at once false and true. You are not sorry when she embraces you, and you do not miss it when she lets go.

Several of the Quartzes have turned from their conversation and now watch you with smiling eyes. You smile back at them, and you have the same thought you had on the day of Pumpkin's Emergence when you sat among Gems you once considered enemies and traitors: that you are, all of you, connected as if by underground waterways. Some channels course at an easy pace, in liberation, while others dribble through narrower passageways; but the water between each of you is warm and settled, unworried. There is no one in Little Homeworld who frightens you anymore, even at your shyest.

Lisa abruptly pulls away and stares at you with wide eyes, like an animal preyed upon. "Sorry. Was it okay that I did that?"

You find yourself smiling at her, the motion independent from her expectations. "Yeah," you say. "It's okay."

"Well…good." Lisa gives you a timid wave in response and turns back to catch what the nearest Quartz is saying. You stare at her back, at the empty spot between her shoulder blades that reminds you the two of you are entirely different, though you both began and grew in Homeworld soil, only a few hundred meters from one another. Peridot could tell you how the variations in the surrounding stone allowed pyrite to creep into Lisa's face and left her skin and hair a darker tint than yours, but it is more difficult to explain how your lives became so far apart from one another, even when you were both on the same planet.

Dr. Drakken follows you to the warp pad, and as you ride it through the sky, you can feel yourself getting closer to the measures of the ocean, singing as it cavorts with the shore. You call a soundless hello to it before your physical body has even finished solidifying, and then you step aside so Drakken can rap against the front door of the temple.

It is Garnet who answers, standing in the doorway with her usual stoic comportment, as subtle as Drakken is gaudy, a pool so deep you cannot fathom whether or not she already knows what you came to ask. If she does, she does not voice it; she simply steps aside and beckons you in with her arm. Your shoes cross the wooden floor, and from above you can hear a series of beeps, like the ones Peridot's inventions often give off, that indicates Steven is playing a game on the television in his room. Pearl and Amethyst sit on the couch with a book open between them. Amethyst leaps up and knocks it to the floor when she sees you.

"Hey, lovebirds!" she says.

"Hi," you say. "Um – we've started making plans for the wedding."

"We're getting married!" Drakken exclaims, yet again. The fact, to him, is light scattered through the warp pad, and he must feel the need to keep repeating it so that it too can solidify.

You nod. "And if it's okay with you, I'd like you guys to be my bridesmaids."

Pearl's hand darts to her chest, as though an organic heart beats inside. You remember how she looked in your silvered vision, the fear in her eyes as you smacked the three of them with a hand fashioned from water after all those years you spent imprisoned in her gem, mistaken for an artifact. She sits straighter now than she did then, washed in confidence and peace.

"Heck yeah!" Amethyst jabs her fist into the air and then frowns. "Dude, do I have to wear a skirt?"

In your peripheral vision, you see Pearl nibble on her lip, trying not to give the answer that has no doubt come surging up her throat.

You shrug, unable to picture her in a skirt or dress. "You wear whatever you feel comfortable in," you say.

Instead of cheering again, Amethyst turns a serious look on Drakken. "Will your mom be all right if I don't wear a skirt?"

Drakken shifts nervously from foot to foot. "Well, I think she would expect it. She's very…traditional. But I think maybe I can help her broaden her horizons a bit. It would probably be fine, whatever you wear, as long as…you know…"

He gestures first at his coat-of-labs, then at the pants beneath, and a blush runs across his sharp cheekbones.

"Got it, bro. Not gonna show up half-naked," Amethyst says. The color in Drakken's cheeks deepens from the pink of Steven's gem to the pink of Lion's nose.

Garnet has unsurprisingly said nothing for the length of this conversation. You look into her opaque glass lenses, the ones that so easily hide so much of what she thinks. "Garnet?" you say softly.

There is a pause that would be silent if not for Dr. Drakken's faint humming, a sound he probably does not realize he is making. Garnet turns one palm upward and then the other one.

"Would you like one large bridesmaid or two smaller ones?" she says at last.

You can't help but giggle. "I don't know. We'll have to think about that."

"Is now a good time for Steven to receive visitors?"

The words seem to explode from Dr. Drakken's mouth, and his voice rings clear and broad up the stairs. Seconds later, you hear Steven call down, "Yeah, it is! Especially those two visitors!"

Drakken wraps his arms around himself and gives a little hop. Pearl and Amethyst exchange amused looks.

You follow Drakken's pounding footsteps up to Steven's room. Steven perches on the edge of his bed, fingering a black box with indented sides, a moveable version of the controllers at the arcade. He tosses it aside; he has a hug for you when he sees you and a high-five for Dr. Drakken. You are relieved to recognize pieces of your friend, even if they do not quite form a whole.

"Hey, Steven." You sit beside him on the bed. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty good." Steven's eyebrows bend in what looks like embarrassment, and he shrugs. "I mean, well…pretty good for these days."

"We'll take what we can get," Drakken says, his tone suddenly somber and almost wise.

"And I've been coming up with all sorts of ideas for your wedding! I wrote a bunch of them down and even illustrated some of them," Steven says.

"Oh," you say. "That must have been what Pearl and Amethyst were looking at."

Steven nods. "I mean, it's a lot of ideas. You can take or leave any of them; it's not gonna hurt my feelings any."

You hope he is not lying. You do not wish to damage his feelings any further.

"What's your favorite one?" you say.

Steven grins, a sight so familiar you feel its warmth down your back. "I think…probably the one where we take the bride and groom that people usually put on top of the cake, right? And then we use food coloring to dye them blue."

Drakken roars with laughter. "I actually love that!"

"Me, too." You tilt your head at Steven. "I was wondering if you could do me a favor, too."

Steven's brow wrinkles again. "Well, I'll sure try. What else do you need me to do?"

"Walk me down the aisle," you say.

The room once again goes still, save for Drakken. Steven does not question your sincerity. He knows you well enough to search your expression, and you know him well enough not to guard it.

Steven blinks and swallows several times. The ocean swims in his eyes when he opens them. "Of course, Lapis. I'd love to do that for you."

Drakken hops again. You feel water in your own throat, and you slip your hand over Steven's.

"Thanks," you say. "It'd mean a lot to me."

Steven wraps his thumb around yours, and his other hand squeezes the control-box. You notice the screen in front of his bed has had its image frozen, a blurred figure suspended in midair, its foot poised to make contact with some other kind of creature drawn to look more monstrous.

"I'm so glad you guys found each other," he says. He is glad; you can see it in his smile, though a trace of melancholy floats atop it like a plastic bag in a lake. "You guys belong together. I don't know where I belong anymore."

Your back aches. You want to turn him to look at you; you want to insist that he belongs where he has always belonged, here in Beach City, among the Gems who owe their lives to him, yet something warns you that you do not have the authority to declare this.

You put your arm around his shoulders, feeling the places where they have hardened and the layer of softness that still clings to them. "That's all right, Steven. I mean, not really, 'cause it sucks, but I know you can find a place again. And you don't have to do it on your own, either." You nudge him playfully in the side. "You taught me that, remember?

"So – how's your game going?" you ask, nodding toward the television.

Steven's hands flutter over the turned-in sides of the black control box. "I'm getting a lot better at it. It's part of my therapy, actually."

"It is?" You squint at the smears of color on the screen, curious as to how any of them can help Steven reconstruct his life.

He gives you a smile that almost looks too small for Steven's chubby lips. "Yeah. My therapist said it's totally normal for me to have a lot of anger built up inside, especially with all that scary stuff I went through when I was little." You feel pressure where the outline of your gem meets your skin, remembering what he witnessed when he was still fresh and new, knowing some of it involved you. "And he says it's a lot healthier to vent it out on some video-game character than it is on real people."

"Oh." You blink. "I guess I can see that."

"Hmm," Dr. Drakken says. "And here my mother always said that video games made people more aggressive." He seems to think through this, but then he turns his head away and shakes it, and you know he is not going to contradict his mother. You do not blame him.

Steven turns the box over in his lap. "The other day I started thinking about White Diamond again and what she did to me – to all of us – and how easy it feels like she got off, so I got on here instead and smashed the meanest guy on this level into the dirt. And then I felt better." He looks at you, and you notice not what is in his eyes, but what is missing: the fear that he might have frightened you. He knows by now that your soul has been shaped by war, too.

"That sounds like a step forward to me," you say.

Steven falls backward onto his bed, his arms spreading, his jacket's pink sleeves winging across the seaweed-green of his thick, puffed blanket. "I just wish it wasn't such a small step forward. I feel like I've been working and trying like crazy, and I've still barely moved from where I started."

You are quiet beside him, but you feel your eyes shifting over him. You know how it is to feel that reparations are always beyond the horizon, always just out of reach.

"Some things are meant to be taken slowly, Steven," Dr. Drakken says. "You know how the continental drift works, right? How those tectonic plates underground move by infinitesimal increments every year?"

You nod along with Steven. Their movements are so slight that the position of Earth's landmasses now hardly differs from the look of the hologram Blue Diamond first showed you before your Assignment.

"Well, one time back when I was still evil, I got the idea that I should pull all the continents together into one gigantic supercontinent – you know, the way it used to be? – so that it would be easier to conquer! It was a wonderful plan, but…ngggh, there were some seismic difficulties that I somehow hadn't foreseen. The continents don't like being moved, and they threw a tantrum that was probably an eleven-point-five on the Richter scale, and that doesn't even go up past ten! They shook apart the weapon I was using to pull them together in the first place, and Shego wouldn't shut up for the next week and a half about how idiotic I had been not to realize that shuffling the continents around causes earthquakes. And my lair was destroyed, of course, and I was really proud of that lair! I built it to look like a very posh university. Even put up a statue like that famous one called The Thinker, only with me as The Thinker, which made it even better –"

Drakken stops and folds his arms, letting his fingers beat against his sleeves. "There was a point to all of that," he mutters. "And it was going to be something encouraging."

You glance at Steven. "I think what's he trying to say is that sometimes progress has to be slow if you don't want to tear the planet apart."

"Exactly!" Drakken says.

It feels like it has been a long time since you last heard Steven giggle, but he does it now. He pushes himself upright again and studies Drakken. "I still can't believe you were ever a supervillain," he says.

You wait to see if Drakken will take that as an insult, but while his face creases, he does not appear offended. "It's certainly not a career path I would advise," he says in a faraway voice, though his eyes are alert and fixed. You suspect he is reliving more than the occurrence he just spoke of, and you wonder how many times he had to be humbled before he came to accept that Earth was not meant to belong to him. "But I did meet a lot of cool people along the way. Shego, Kim Possible and her husband What's-His-Name, the Seniors..."

Drakken gasps and his arms drop to his sides. "Senior!" he says. "Senior, Senior, Senior!" He sounds like a toy you once saw on display in a shop, the button controlling its speech mechanism jammed so that it sang the same four notes without variation.

Steven turns to you. "Is he stuck like that?"

"Not sure." You walk across the room to Drakken and give him a gentle thump on the back. "Hey, Drakken?"

"Senior!" Drakken yells one more time, and then a shudder moves through his chest as though shaking other words free. His hand dives into his pocket and resurfaces with a precarious grip on his phone. "I meant to call him and ask him if he would be my father! I mean, if he would sit on my father – I mean, in the chair for my father – my father's chair – the father of the groom – just for the wedding!"

You sit down beside Steven once more and cover your mouth to hold back a laugh, but Steven watches Dr. Drakken intently, nodding along as if what your boyfriend says makes perfect sense. Steven is smiling now, his face still heavy yet beginning to reawaken. You remember how that feels too: the first hushed moment when you realize that you are not a Kindergarten, that your damage is not so deep that life cannot stir again.

"He doesn't even know that I'm getting married yet!" Drakken continues. "I'm going to have to call him right away!" He flips open his phone and his fingers stab at the keys, birds hunting for seed, before he darts apologetic eyes your way. "Um – is that okay? If I call him right away?"

"Knock yourself out," you say, using an expression that you know he understands.

Drakken returns to his phone, and you face Steven again, letting your legs hang like icicles over the edge of the bed beside his. "Where's your dad?" you ask him. "I want to ask him to be part of the wedding, too."

"Last I knew, he was out on the beach getting the soundstage set up," Steven says. "Sadie and the band are going to have one last concert tomorrow night."

Sadness steals back into his voice when he speaks the words: one last. He has never been one for endings, you are aware, and there is nothing you can say that will make this less of one. You only edge closer to him, your shoulder under his, bearing his body weight.

After a moment, Steven straightens again. He raises his hand – to wave to you, you think, yet instead he places it firmly over his mouth and exhales loudly and rudely into the thickness of his palm, producing a noise that is at once rubber and static. The clouds in his eyes break apart, and you see the innocence of a little boy once more.

Before you slide open his glass door to find his deck and take to the sky, you blow on your own palm back at him.

You find Greg several feet away from the temporary shale-gray stage that has been assembled on the beach, rubbing a rag around the tires on his van. He is the same tree in a different season, his hair shorter than the first night you saw him and his sleeves longer, yet he is still familiar with the ring of whiskers around his mouth and the swaths of skin the color of dry sand standing out against those a heated pink color, as though cooked by Earth's sun. When he turns and sees you, the skin around his eyes crinkles with a kindness even more recognizable.

Suddenly you feel shy again, the way you did that day on the boat. You place your hands behind your back so he will not see the news you wear on your finger. "I have something to ask you, Mr. Universe," you say, politely.

Greg raises the rag from the metal and inspects it. "Look, Lapis, if this is about the leg again, for the last time, all is forgiven."

Your cheeks warm and darken, but your smile is anchored, immovable. "Oh. No. I mean, I'm glad to hear it," you say, "but that's not why I'm here."

You pull your hands from behind your back and spread them before him. Daylight reaches for the ring and sinks beneath its surface as though layered through water.

"This is an engaging ring," you tell Greg. "Dr. Drakken gave it to me because we're going to get married."

The playfulness rushes from Greg's face, swept aside by a current of something deeper and sweeter, something as soft as Dr. Drakken's petals. "Oh, my gosh, congratulations," he says. He clasps his hands; his eyes look even more like Steven's with the moisture swimming through them. "I take it this means I'm invited to the wedding?"

"More than that," you manage to say, and then shyness swamps you again, turning your gaze to the open toes of your shoes. "Drakken told me there's supposed to be a father-daughter dance, and I was wondering…if you would mind doing that part." You find yourself swallowing, though you do not fear his response, and you wave a hand through the air. "I mean, not that you're my dad, but you're a dad, so you would probably know what to do…"

A thick silence hovers. You lift your eyes to Greg's, and his are spilling over, glowing beads tracing the cooked pink cheeks.

"Oh, Lapis," he says, in a whisper that also sounds wet, "I would be so honored."

A breeze runs through the inside of your gem as you play with the ribbon cinching the waist of your pants. "Thank you," you say.

Greg lets out a breath, a laugh. "Are you kiddin' me? Thank you for thinking of me." He makes no attempt to reorder or wipe his face. "Did Drakken tell you about getting someone to walk you down the aisle, too?"

"Yeah," you say. "Steven's going to do that."

A sound catches in Greg's throat even as he beams at you. He reaches out a hand to you, and you do not hesitate to slip your palm over his. His hand is all warmth, comfortingly tacky with perspiration, the skin untoughened except for the small white nubs that his instrument's strings have carved into the tips of his fingers.

You have never known what it is to be loved by a father, and you have refrained from asking Drakken, thinking he may not have the answer either. But now as you stand here with the ocean on the breeze and in Greg's tears, you begin to understand.

You only hope it is becoming clear to Drakken as well.

When you next see him, about an Earth-hour later, Drakken has exited the beach house and come to sit on the bottom step leading from its deck to the sand, his phone lying in one curled hand as though he has forgotten to put it anywhere else. His eyes burn red around the rims, but he is smiling at you: a precious, young smile.

You sit beside him on the step. "Did Senior say yes?" you say, for his mouth lists open at a skewed angle, not yet ready to ask its own questions.

Drakken nods, his lips struggling. All of his brashness has disappeared, and you see the man underneath who startles whenever he is shown love.

"Did he say he'd be honored?" you say.

"Uh-huh." A vine erupts halfway down Drakken's neck, and he strokes it with trembling fingers. "He said that. And that he was proud. Of me. He was proud of me."

His entire body shivers, and you know he feels those words as you once felt Steven's hand press against your back, guiding the sharpened edges of your gem until they met and filled one another again, brokenness fitting against brokenness and negating it, the wound closing and your wings flowing forward to stand in its place.

"Did he cry?" you ask.

"Of course not!" Drakken says with a huff. "Senior doesn't cry."

You shrug. "I don't know. I think you might be underestimating him."

Drakken lifts his head to look at you. He still smiles, his teeth salt-white and shaking with his intensity. You expect him to ask you, yet again, if this is truly happening to him, but instead he says, "He said he'd like to meet you. You know, sometime between now and the wedding." His voice wobbles as he speaks, but something behind those words has been secured and does not fear where the tide may take it.

"I'd like to meet him, too," you say, and you mean it. You want to meet the man whom Drakken envisions filling the seat beside his mother. "He sounds pretty great."

"Oh, he is. He is. He really is!"

Drakken leaps from the step and stumbles over his feet; you catch his hand before he can land in a sprawl across the sand. "Would you mind if I just jumped and danced for joy for a bit?"

"Go for it," you say with a smile.

He springs forward in a series of hops, his knees jerking, his arms paddling through the air as though treading water on dry ground, his feet stamping prints into the sand with no particular pattern. If this is a dance, you have never seen a less fluid one, but there is something appealing about it that matches the shine imbuing his face as he half-sings to the sky, notes also disorganized and crashing.

After a time, Drakken returns and bows to you, and almost without thinking you rise and offer your arm to him. He takes your hand between his as if handling something of great value and twirls you around, a motion that you should coat your gem with ice to perform again on this beach, yet you feel the spare, lanky arm that you fall against and the clumsy tremble of his touch and you know with whom you share this dance. Beyond him, you feel the ocean relax, too.

At last Drakken exhausts himself, and you return with him to Little Homeworld, to the house that is yours and Peridot's. Drakken drapes himself across the sofa and attempts to rest with his eyes closed, though they keep flying back open as he remembers something else to add to your report of the day's progress for Peridot. When she hears Steven will walk the gap between chairs with you, she squeals and hugs a throw pillow to her chest.

A leg like a stump rubs against your ankle, and you look down into a grinning mouth, its orange tongue studded with seeds. You pull her into your lap and hold her the way Peridot holds the pillow. "Do you think there's any way Pumpkin could be in the wedding?" you say.

"Pumpkin the…pumpkin?" Drakken twists on the sofa to face you, wincing as his back crackles.

"Yeah," you say. "I know she's not, like, a person or anything, but she's still one of my first Earth friends."

Drakken's eyes pinch almost shut, his forehead puckering. "Well, it'd be a touch…unconventional. We'd have to think up a role for her – but that shouldn't be too hard!" he adds hastily, as though he can see Peridot's face collapsing. "Hmmm…maybe she could carry your train in her mouth."

"What 'train'?" Peridot demands. "Why would we ever need a 'train' when we are perfectly capable of traveling by warp pad?"

"A lot of the guests are human, though, Peridot," you say. "Maybe they'd need to come by train."

Dr. Drakken chuckles and shakes his head. "No, no, I don't mean a train like –" he raises his fist and pretends to tug a line like the one on Greg's boat – "woo-woo! A train is also part of a wedding dress. The long part."

"Long?" You glance at your legs. Even when you wore a skirt, it stopped just above your toes, as Lisa's does now. You cannot imagine a dress long enough to be named for the vehicle that has taken Steven to Amethyst's Kindergarten.

Drakken lets out a grunt of annoyance; you can't tell where it is aimed, but you somehow know it is not at either you or Peridot. "Mehhh. I'll just show you a picture!" He snaps open his phone and runs his fingers over the keys, bubbles of noise still squeezing between his lips.

"There we go!" he says at last. He passes the phone off to you, and you lower it toward Peridot so she too can gawp at the image on the screen.

You see a woman holding a collection of flowers directly beneath her nose and wearing an extravagant dress, whiter than the one Steven's mother wore as Rose Quartz and perhaps more voluminous than Blue Diamond's cloak in proportion to this woman's much smaller frame. It reminds you of every dress and skirt you have ever seen Homeworld's Elite wear fused atop one another, clasping tightly over the chest and stomach in straps that do not quite intersect, the spaces between strung with crinkled ribbons and fragments of gauze, before widening into a palanquin-drape at the bottom, hiding the woman's legs from view. Behind her it continues heavily, the fabric on her shoulders and below pushed back and dragged out, thickening as it descends until by the time it touches the ground it is a trail of undulating white material that seems broad, like a passageway, as though Pumpkin or Peridot herself could walk through it to the other side.

It is this which Drakken points to now. "See? This part. That's the train."

"Pretty fancy," you say, your voice growing smaller.

Peridot drags the screen closer so she can study it from behind her visor. "I predict many incidents where people trip over that thing and fall."

To your surprise, Drakken nods. "Sometimes they do. That's why the women wearing the really ritzy dresses usually get someone who means a lot to them to follow behind them and hold it off the floor. I mean, they don't do as much anymore, but I've seen it in a lot of old movies, and boy did it ever look pretty! And with Pumpkin, of course, it'll be too adorable for words…"

Dreams begin to light his eyes, and you take another look at the dress. It is beautiful – arresting, even – but you can imagine it locking around you and then fanning wide and white as rapids beyond your control. Straps also cross the woman's back, and you try not to feel them lacing over your gem, burying it.

"There's a lot happening on this dress," you say quietly. "I'm not sure if I could keep up with it."

Drakken appears to understand. He rests a hand on your shoulder, a clumsy consoling touch. "That's okay, Lapis. We don't have to get one that fancy. We can find one that'll you love."

You shift your weight. "Would your mom be okay with something less fancy?"

"I'll guess she'll have to be." Drakken's jaw juts even farther forward than usual. "I want you to have the happiest wedding day ever. Well, us – I want us to have the happiest wedding day ever. But you're half of us! A very important half!"

You cannot help but smile back at him.

"So, what do you say, Pumpkin?" Peridot lies on the rug that used to be a beach towel and holds Pumpkin above her, speaking with dissonant somberness as though Pumpkin is about to make a life-altering decision. "Would you like to clamp your jaws around the excess fabric of Lapis's dress and greatly reduce the risk of injury for everyone involved?"

Pumpkin wags her vine-tail and yips happily into Peridot's grave face, which immediately releases into a satisfied smile. "I believe that counts as a yes," she says.

"Well, when you put it like that," you say with a giggle, "how could she say anything else?"

Sunlight spans the sky, the motions of the Earth seeming to turn and bend the sun itself. It has come near to the horizon when Dr. Drakken's phone begins to hum and vibrate, its screen filling with the name Kim Possible. He almost drops it as he holds it out to you, his eyes as pleading as a lost animal's, and you remember: he will not be able to keep the secret if he is the one to talk to her.

You take the phone and tuck it under your hair. "Dr. Drakken's phone, this is Lapis Lazuli speaking."

"Lapis. Hi." Kim's voice is weary but bright at the other end of the connection. "I was just calling to say Ron and I have been home for a while now, so if you guys want to come over for a little bit before dinner, that'd be great."

You glance at Drakken and turn your thumb skyward. He folds his knees and hops in place, the glow on his face almost as vivid as the Jasper-orange sunset.

"Okay. We'll be right there. See you soon." You press the red button that disconnects you and turn to Peridot. "Can you manage without us for a bit, Peri?"

"If I have to." Peridot wraps one arm around your right leg and the other around Drakken's left, tying you together like the ropes the campers on Camp Pining Hearts use to conduct their three-legged race.

An unexpectedly high-pitched sigh rises from Dr. Drakken, the sound of water steeping, about to boil. "We have to go tell our friends we're getting married! Ohhh, I can't wait to see the looks on their faces!"

"Then do not wait!" Peridot drops her arms. "Go forth and spread the news of your great fortune unto your friends!"

You take a moment to snort and mutter, "Unto?" and then you are lifting Drakken and flying him to the warp pad.

Kim opens the door of the house where she and Ron live, her Chalcedony-red hair swept up in a snarl at the back of her head, her usually bare middle covered with a lax pale pink top and stretched with the baby she carries. Her expression is tired, but it quickens when she sees you and Drakken side by side on her porch, you with your hands once more behind your back while Drakken's chase each other in circles, unable to remain still. Ron stands behind her, his chin level with her head; they do not need to touch each other to be linked.

"Come on in, guys," Kim says. She takes a step back and Ron fumbles to clear the way, Rufus tittering from his pocket. "How are you doing?"

"Great-fantastic-wonderful-amazing!" Drakken blurts. His fingers are a blur in front of him. "Yourselves? Also good, I suppose? Great? Great!"

"Have you and Ron had a good day?" you say, nudging Drakken with your elbow.

You link one arm through his, keeping the one with the ring out of sight as you lead him into the living room and sink down onto the spot on the couch that Kim offers. Drakken's legs bounce several inches above the floor, his bramble of hair stiff behind him and his face contorting to hold back.

"We have. Thanks for asking," Kim says. "Ron snagged this big job catering for some kid's Bar Mitzvah, and Wade and I – you'll be interested in this, Drakken – knocked some wannabe hackers off Global Justice's encrypted network. Dr. Director's been talking to me about working there, which hopefully wouldn't be too weird, would it?" She gives Drakken a gentle smile. "I mean, we'd be in totally different departments and everything."

"Yep. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh." Drakken's head bobs like a cork, and you doubt he is aware of what Kim is saying to him or what he is saying in response. The skin over his cheekbones stretches until it looks as taut as the swell of Kim's midsection.

Ron grins. "I think we better let him tell us whatever he came to tell us, KP. He's about to pop."

"Ya think?" Kim says. "I'd recognize that please-let-me-tell-you-everything look anywhere." She dips her head in Drakken's direction. "Go ahead, Drakken."

"Your good day is about to get a whole better!" Drakken speaks exuberantly, and yet somehow he sounds fragile, hesitant, a Gem about to venture off-planet for the first time. Whatever troubles he has had with these two young humans in the past, their opinion is of such great merit to him that he is almost frightened.

Ron narrows his eyes. "What'cha mean?"

Drakken's mouth opens again, yet what comes out are blunted sounds, helpless to take form. He looks to you, and you are already sliding your hand forward to reveal the ring, which feels firm on your finger in spite of its frailty.

Ron's eyebrows leap to the top of his forehead. "Dude, is that what I think it is?"

"What do you think it is?" you ask, and though you sound like you are teasing him, you don't believe that you are.

Ron does not direct an answer to you. He instead grabs the collar of Kim's shirt, his fingers twisting in glee. "KP, they're gettin' married!" he says.

"Yes, that's it!" Drakken cries, his tongue unbound at last. "We're getting married!"

Ron cheers and throws his fist into the air, already moving his neck as if to a beat only he can hear. His eyes glow, and he wears a grin that almost equals Drakken's.

But it is Kim whom you watch as the news creeps like dawn over her face, igniting her gaze and settling on her lips bit by bit until they too are smiling. It is the first time you have ever seen her struggle for words.

"No. Way. I can hardly believe it," she says. She glances at Dr. Drakken, and apparently finding his giddy expression all the confirmation she needs, she fixates back on you. "I…wow. That's so awesome. Congrats! Lapis…can I hug you?"

You surprise yourself by nodding. The friendship in her voice is compelling, and you choose to let her close the gap between you and wrap her warmth around your chill. She does not feel as hard and lean as she once did, but she is still powerful; she has found strength in her few decades of life that you did not have for thousands of years in yours.

Rufus covers his face with his paws. You think he might be crying.

"You're both invited to the wedding, natch," Drakken says, his tone almost smug.

"Natch," Kim repeats. She eyes Drakken with a soft smirk, and you marvel again that she can look at him in this way when her first glimpse of him showed the face of a man who felt so inadequate he thought he needed to destroy anyone who stood between him and ultimate control, a face diametrical to the one she sees now.

"We're not sure when it'll be yet," you add, "but we've already decided to have it at the beach. So the ocean can come, too."

Kim throws back her head, and her laugh is sharp yet untouched by Shego's harsh edges. The last sprinkles of daylight mill about the windows, slipping away into dusk, and even without them the room you are in brightens, becomes a ballroom. You lean back against the couch with a smile.

"Is Rufus invited, too?" Ron says. The small pink creature crosses his front paws at Drakken as though in supplication to his commander.

The frayed ends of Drakken's ponytail arc farther upward. "Well, of course," he says with surprising swiftness. "Can hardly forget Rufus." He rubs Rufus's head with one finger, and thin though it may be, it scarcely fits into the space between Rufus's eyes.

"It's going to be fantastic and wonderful and boggling to the mind!" Drakken says. "You'll get to meet all of our friends in Beach City, and they'll get to meet all you guys and the Seniors and everyone…" His voice grows uncharacteristically brittle. "By the by, I have already spoken with Senior and he's agreed to – ehhhh, mgk – stand in..."

Kim gives him a sympathetic nod, although from what you know, she has never gone without the love of a father.

You reach over and fit your hand into Drakken's, feeling the sadness in his grip. Fortunately, his mind is easily led down other passageways. "You know who I bet would love to come?" you say. "Probably more for you than for me? Spinel."

Drakken's smile somehow finds space to grow, his cheeks crowding beneath his eyes.

Ron gives both of you a blank look. "Who's Spinel?"

"A friend of ours," you say, "who still lives on Homeworld." You pause, unsure how to explain the rest.

Dr. Drakken takes the helm, his buoy-words barging forward to fill the places yours left empty. "She also tried to destroy the Earth because her best friend betrayed her." He nods. "We bonded."

"Of course you did." Kim laughs again and leans toward you again a moment later, still smiling. "So, Lapis. I take it you don't have a dress picked out yet?"

You try not to imagine the weight of fabric restricting your wings, holding you to the ground. "No."

"Perfect. I can call Monique and see if she'll make one special for you. You remember my friend Monique, right? The one who organized the baby shower?"

There were many new faces at Kim and Ron's house that day, but you vaguely recall rich brown skin and jewelry of equally deep shades, and you nod.

"She's a fashion designer in New York," Kim says, and you nod again with your eyes wide; you have watched enough television to know that New York is a very important place to work. "She would absolutely LOVE to do a custom wedding dress for friends of ours." Her face sobers. "I mean, if that's what you'd like."

"It depends," you say. "Can she make one that's maybe not so big and scary-looking?"

Kim grins, unoffended. "She can make it however you like."

You sigh with relief. "Thanks."

Drakken is now on his hands and knees on the sofa, the cushions jostling beneath him as excitement rages in his eyes. "This is going to be the absolute most perfect wedding ever!" He stops and waves an unconcerned hand toward Kim and Ron. "No offense to you guys' wedding, of course."

Ron folds his arms, thinking so intensely he nearly scowls. "Actually, us guys' wedding was the absolute most perfect wedding ever! For us," he adds, the scowl vanishing from his face. "Yours'll just have to be the most absolute perfect wedding ever for you. Capiche, right?"

"I would wholeheartedly capiche if I weren't so doggone excited!" Drakken shoots back. Petals have bloomed under both ears, as though to extend his smile still farther.

"Fair enough," Ron says with a high-pitched chuckle.

He reaches over and slips his fingers between Kim's, and she gazes at him with eyes that have known him for almost as long as she has known herself. A look passes between them, simple and profound, and you know that you have seen what it is to entrust your life to someone and come out stronger for it. They have managed to combine their strength while retaining the outlines of themselves, the defining borders that keep their shapes separate even as they come together.

The thought is like fresh water spilling over a wound, cleansing it, and you edge closer to the sky-skinned, bouncing man who is so excited to marry you.