Connie Swap Episode 38: Reap What Was Sown

by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts, NeonJohn

Summary:

The Cluster must be stopped, but first it must be reached and studied. Meanwhile P2 and Amethyst are still at large with goals of their own, the most urgent of which is finding a way off this doomed planet. And to top it off, it's Harvest Festival and the Beach City evacuees are returning home. Everyone and everything is coming back for the holidays, including the errors of the past.

Chapter 1: Garnet Prologue

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Garnet stood on a rise, the thin dusting of snow that'd fallen overnight slowly melting in the wan sunlight. The landscape here was dynamic --rolling hills, rivers, dense vegetation in some places and others where only hardy weeds clung to the face of rocky outcroppings-- and in the distance, if you looked carefully, you could see a canyon where very little grew.

It was a view Garnet would have appreciated in a different time, but not now. Instead, all three eyes were trained on the figure slowly approaching from below.

Its progress could be described as painfully slow without exaggeration, its every movement accompanied by a labored gasp that sometimes rose into brief wail. There was a line in the snow marking its advance, where the figure had dragged itself inch-by-painful-inch across the ground, a line which ran unbroken to the distant canyon whose walls were riddled with holes.

The figure was long, almost snake-like, with five feet, four arms, and no discernible head, though Garnet had glimpsed a quartet of eyes along the bottom of the truncular body. The appendages were clustered to either end of its 'body' while bands of five different colors competed for space under what appeared to be a partially formed shawl which wrapped poorly around the figure.

How it was wailing was a mystery Garnet desperately didn't want answered; just contemplating it caused her form to ripple, red and blue gemstones bobbing in a pool of magenta light. She kept herself together, if just, and wavered, staggering back a step.

As the atrocity heaved itself slowly closer, Garnet first looked to the future for solace but the branching river of time was replete with multi-limbed monstrosities; this was hardly the first, nor would it be the last. Instead, Garnet cast herself back, memory rising to the fore as her third eye closed, a tear escaping it and trickling down the center of her forehead.

---

"I sense something coming," confessed Garnet, mouth forming a line of worry. "Something so enormous in impact that no branches escape it." A disapproving 'hmm' was added at the end, the fusion very ill-at-ease despite her outward composure.

The last time she'd encountered something both too big for her Future Vision to miss and too mysterious to be discerned, it had been on the verge of the Corruption attack. For that she'd had precious little warning, barely time enough for Ruby and Sapphire to escape. Here she had weeks, maybe even months, which only heightened the yawning sense of dread within her form.

Deeper in the cave, Pearl looked up from her work, some device taking form which might allow her to circumvent the restriction on warp pad usage. The pale gem glanced to read Rose's expression and then returned to her work, a servant intuiting that she wasn't presently needed.

Rose nodded, the former general's presence seeming to fill up the cave. The effect was not unlike standing in the presence of a Diamond. Half a Diamond, perhaps. Citrine had possessed the same effect, though usually only on the battlefield. Outside a clash, the yellow Quartz had been the Moon in orbit to Rose's Earth. For the hundredth time that day Garnet could only marvel at what the two of them had been when in harmony... and grieve for what they'd become apart.

"What you sense, my lieutenant, is the Cluster's emergence," said Rose in her sonorous voice.

"The Cluster," said Garnet, tasting the word and finding it bitter on her tongue.

Since Rose's return to Earth, during her every conversation with the former general, Garnet had asked about the doom looming beyond her seer's sight. Or rather, at least one version of her had asked in at least one future. In each such future she'd received no satisfying answer, and so Garnet never chose that branch. But now, shortly after their deception at the Sanctuary, with Garnet in the Crystal Gem's confidence, she asked and chose the branch where she asked. Because now... Rose was willing to speak on it.

"It started as a curiosity of Yellow Diamond's," explained Rose. "Shattered gems are wasteful, unable serve as shards and too unreliable to serve when inhabiting a garment of some kind. But what is a gem if not a sufficiently large and intact collection of shards? Logically, Yellow Diamond reasoned, there must be some state of cohesion between whole and shattered where a useful subject of the empire still existed. And so she set her Peridots to the task, grafting shards together and observing the results."

Garnet's mouth opened, the word 'grafting' on her lips, but she dare not speak it. She didn't remain together in most of the futures where she did and so remained in horrified silence.

"It wasn't until Pink Diamond was shattered-" and Rose's left hand grasped for the handle of a sword stored within her dutiful Pearl. "-That the curiosity became a weapon of spite."

"Those shattered in the war," said Garnet outwardly while inwardly she was screaming. Like a droplet of water held together only by an unbroken surface, her appearance of calm was flawless... and a breath away from collapse.

"All of them and hundreds more," said Rose with grave authority. "It, the Cluster, is incubating deep within the planet and when it emerges, it will burst from the Earth like a gem from her hole. Little will remain save debris and a colossal geoweapon."

A pause, and then, "You don't mean to stop it," asserted the fusion.

There were sparks and a faint tang of ozone as Pearl continued her tinkering.

Rose shook her head. "It would be fruitless to try."

"Fruitless," said Garnet slowly, her third eye seeing the shape of many things that may yet come, "but you wish to harvest it."

The Quartz gave a melodious chuckle at the wordplay and offered a slight smile. "Yes. It is too large and too close to maturation to be destroyed; it would only emerge sooner and angrier. Besides, the horror that created the Cluster has already been committed." She shrugged. "Better it be put to my use than the Diamonds'."

Pearl did not look up from her work, did not give any outward sign of eavesdropping, but a part of Garnet that desperately wanted to focus on anything else noticed the pale gem was working very meticulously. Very quietly.

"You'll need help," answered the fusion after long seconds passed, her inner horror undiminished.

"Yes," agreed Rose. "I have assembled specialists who can help me reach this weapon and communicate with it." The empathic gem crossed her arms as if she were cradling something small and pitiable. "Show it that it is understood and cared for." Her arms dropped and her expression hardened. "Show it who its true enemies should be."

Rose huffed a sigh, prompting Pearl to look up openly and make sure her owner wasn't in need. With visible reluctance, the pale gem returned to her work.

"But first I'll need to reach and repair the Galaxy Warp," said Rose, a hint of frustration to her features. "Still no sign of Peridot?" she pressed.

Garnet shook her head. "I know she travels with Amethyst, however-"

And Rose bobbed her head, waving off the rest of the statement. "Yes, that swath of the continent you are restricted from warping to."

The former general peered at Garnet intently. In a number of futures, Garnet saw hard questions asked.

"In many futures soon to come I will have the credentials needed to reach Peridot and Amethyst," assured Garnet. "In others they travel somewhere I can visit. The Galaxy Warp will be repaired."

The hard questions vanished down branches not traveled. But looking ahead, there was a subject, and if she didn't raise it then she wouldn't remain together. The millennia had instilled in Garnet a deep aversion to coming apart; Asmi hadn't known the... trust extended to them when Ruby had shared her story by the fountain.

"The Cluster shouldn't be," said Garnet and if there was the briefest flicker of magenta across her form, Rose pretended not to notice.

Rose reached out, gently, intuiting Garnet's fragile state. She placed one warm hand on Garnet's arm, looked her in the eyes, and said, "It won't be. Not for longer than it must. But supplanting the Diamonds requires leverage, either internal or external. Preferably both at once."

"It is a monstrous lever," and Garnet couldn't hide the disdain in her voice, not without coming apart entirely.

"Reform is a beautiful word," said the gem. Her tone was gentle at first but grew harsher as she spoke, "but never a peaceful one. Not in a universe such as ours."

Then her tone softened and she smiled sweetly at Garnet, the grip on her arm firm and friendly, a tangible promise from general to lieutenant. "We will weed our garden after, when all else is done, so that only beautiful things may grow there. This I swear."

And in every future, every branch that Garnet explored, she found only disquiet. If Rose's distant future was true, the seer could not see it. If she followed, it would be from faith, not foresight.

But she could see the shape of the near future now. Information gave clarity. Clarity afforded insight. It would serve and everything else would come with time.

Garnet had work to do and bid Rose Quartz and Pearl goodbye to do it.

---

The present sometimes felt so insignificant compared to the past and future that it could be hard for Garnet to focus on it. Other times what lay ahead and behind was too painful to bear, too bleak to contemplate, and so Garnet lived only in the present, alone but always together.

When Garnet snapped to, the figure was less than a yard away, multiple hands grasping for her as it wheezed and flailed.

"I'm sorry," she said, though whether for the atrocity before her or for herself even she couldn't be sure.

It scrabbled at the cold ground and dying grass, narrowing the gap between them by a couple of inches painfully gained.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "What has been done to you is a violation so deep and so horrible that it is beyond words to express."

It answered in a wail, a wordless cry of torment that sent another flicker of magenta through Garnet's form.

She summoned her gauntlets. "There is a plan. A way forward, and I will see you get your future, for all that your past and present have been desecrated."

The impact of the blow made the ground shudder. A multi-colored cloud erupted out and Garnet's form shuddered again as she reached out to bubble the torturous tangle of victims.

With a tap the bubble vanished and Garnet looked around, looked with all three eyes. She saw where the next was likeliest to emerge and began to jog in that direction.

The future was coming but until it was ready for her, Garnet would do her best to stay focused on those who needed her in the present.

Notes:

I'm pleased to say that there's been an influx of new Connie Swap fan art that I'd like to share with you! These and other CS fan art can be found in the Discord's #cs-fan-art channel.

These first three are by CatOreo, depicting Connie and Steven from Steven's debut in Episode 3.

These next two are by NeonJohn, the first showing Nova being her usual charming self and the second showing one of BurdenKing's favorite ships (joking or not, I still can't tell), Nova and P2 also known as Novadot.

These last two are by Darkspirit (a.k.a. Tusquets on the CS Discord), the first is entitled A Tale of Two Rebels while the second is a reference to the CG-Rose 'truce' talk from Ep36 and is entitled Homo Homini Lupus.

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 2: Steven Prologue

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Steven woke up cradled in Connie's lap on her couch. Which was okay, Steven wasn't complaining, but he couldn't understand how he'd gotten there.

"Whumfgah?" he said blearily, feeling like he was still waking up from a deep, deep sleep.

"Steven? Steven!" and Connie curled up around him, kind of smothering him though he wasn't about to object. Plus her grip was surprisingly light so he was only being very gently choked just then.

Slowly some of the dream fluff cleared out from his head and he managed to mumble something which got Connie to help him up. Or try to, at least, because after he was about halfway up her strength gave out and the two of them kind of flopped into each other. It didn't hurt but it was kind of uncomfortable.

Also, Connie's gemstone was glowing. What had happened?

Gradually helping himself and then his girlfriend up, Steven pouted with concern. "[Are you okay?]" he signed, still feeling a little woozy and fuzz-brained. He reached over to wiggle her ears, repeating the question in their own special way.

Connie smiled with relief, one hand raising up to softly cup his hand against her ear. "I am now," she said.

Then she held out her other arm and noticed it was shaking, like she'd just been through a super hardcore workout. Frowning, she glanced down at the slowly dimming light of her gemstone. "Although I think hitting Rose with that new power really took a lot out of me."

A beat passed, Steven's eyebrows going way, waaay up as the words 'Rose' and 'new power' collided behind his eyes and exploded into fireworks of surprise and curiosity.

"Did I miss something?" he asked, his voice coming out clearer now.

Connie gave him a slow shake of her head. "You kind of missed a lot."

---

First, Connie told him. He fell over in surprise, but only a few times. Then they told the gems, finding Miss Lapis in her room and Miss Peridot in Connie's mother's room and then them going out to find Jasper and Bismuth so they could come back and hear too.

There was a lot of shouting, and clutching, and clutching while shouting, but at least Connie wasn't all kitten-weak anymore.

Then they'd gone to the bus. Everyone... well, except Wolf, who wasn't back from wherever he'd gone after running away from Rose? Rose-Steven?

Mom had been in a worried conversation with Arnold, the cleanup worker with the really huge beard Steven was supposed to be helping. Had been helping before he'd woken up on Connie's couch. Mom kind of worry-glared at the gems but didn't shout at anyone, which was good. He'd been a little concerned she might.

Then she'd gotten Dad and everyone had gone inside the house because there wasn't really room for everyone on the bus, not when everyone included Jasper and Bismuth.

Then he and Connie told Mom and Dad what had happened.

There was more shouting, and clutching, and clutching while shouting, but apparently it wasn't as bad as when he'd been on his secret team mission and Mom had stormed the Beach House.

"He was chosen at random," insisted his girlfriend while squeezing his hand for comfort. She hadn't really let go of him for more than thirty seconds since he'd woken up and even though he tried to give Mom and Dad lots of extra hugs, everyone kind of accepted that one of his hands belonged to Connie right now. "It was clear Rose didn't know who she was possessing until partway through the conversation."

"And that's better?" countered Mom, arms crossed and super worried.

"It means your family wasn't targeted specifically," said Miss Peridot, who was making sure not to stand next to Miss Lapis for some reason that was making Miss Lapis frown a lot. "Had the town not been largely depopulated, the statistical likelihood of this happening to one of your family unit would have been smaller still."

"What can we do?" asked Dad. He'd been sipping coffee at the start of the talk since it was still pretty early in the morning, but it looked like he was plenty awake now. "Do we need to leave town? Do we need to wear tinfoil hats?"

Wait? Doesn't Ronaldo have, like, a dozen tinfoil-lined hats? Maybe he could sell some to Dad. Maybe he could open his own store! thought Steven, making a mental note in case Peedee's older brother was about to be the next big hit for Beach City fashion.

"I don't think anything like that would help," said Connie. "Our best guess is that Rose is somewhere on the other side of the planet and I'm pretty sure she's been doing this to people for days. So distance isn't going to help."

"No," said Mom, her voice kinda tight. "But being close to you did."

Connie fidgeted at that and Steven gave her hand a squeeze of comfort.

"Citrine was greater than Rose," insisted Jasper. "Connie is too."

"And I doubt Pink is gonna come snooping around again with Alloy here to ready to hit her again," said Bismuth with evident cheer.

"Also-" Connie's voice wavered and she had to swallow and try again. "Also, I'm pretty sure Rose isn't going to be a threat for a while. Really sure, actually." She shuddered, clutching Steven for support. Something about what she'd done to Rose had really upset Connie; she was hesitant every time she talked about it. "What I... did to her won't be permanent, but it should take weeks to heal on its own."

Miss Lapis and Miss Peridot both moved to comfort the girl, then paused when they saw the other moving. They settled on Miss Peridot giving Connie a waist hug on her non-Steven side while Miss Lapis patted her on the shoulder.

Mom nodded once, clearly not happy, but also not arguing. Then she gave Steven a mom-laser glare and said sternly, "I don't want you away from Connie any more than you absolutely have to, mister. If you're going to be caught up in all of this and there's no getting out, then she seems like the only one who can keep you safe."

Dad pulled Mom into a half hug and said with a chuckle, "I think that's the sort of punishment Shtu-ball can live with."

Steven nodded vigorously.

Then Mom pulled him into a tight hug and in a forceful, carrying whisper said, "Win this. Win this so it can all go back to normal." She broke the hug and stepped back, looking him in the eyes, then Connie, then the others. "Whatever we can do to help, we'll do." She took a deep breath as she pulled Dad in for support. "Please."

Dad met Mom's gaze and nodded as well, looking a little sad. "Yeah," he said. "Whatever you all need."

There was a beat then Miss Bismuth walked over, eyeing Mom appraisingly. "I'm thinking broadsword. Or maybe a war hammer. Hey Green? Mind if I borrow Yellow's room for a bit? That way I can run her through the options, because this looks like a woman in need of a weapon."

Chapter 3: Wolf Prologue

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Pinging him didn't help, not that Connie had really expected it to.

Connie and the others checked some of the obvious spots next: the clearing in the woods where Steven and she had left treats for him, that spot under the docks he sometimes liked to nap, the back of the fry shop. The owner of that deli in Empire City hadn't noticed any stock going missing, nor had he heard any wolf howls, though he kept giving Connie and Steven funny looks as they asked.

Nothing, and no sign of him anywhere.

It wasn't until it was getting late that Connie realized, and then she felt pretty dumb for not thinking of it sooner.

Unfortunately you couldn't warp there and Lapis flying her and Steven there both would be all kinds of awkward. With visible reluctance, Connie stepped clear of her boyfriend and promised she'd be back as soon as possible.

She had to suppress a flinch every time she saw him by that coffee table, the memory of him pointing a screwdriver at himself and speaking like her...

Still, she hadn't been the only one there when Steven- When Rose had come into the Beach House. Something had happened to Wolf and he needed help too.

Lapis warped them as close as they could get, a warp pad built onto a ledge on a windswept cliff overlooking a dark ocean below. At least it was summer here in Chile. Then, picking Connie up into a bridal carry, she flew the pair of them over to her mother's hidden archive, up along an anonymous peak in the Andean range.

It was a good thing the gems had all visited during her time grounded, otherwise she'd be relying on Jasper to lead them there, and the Quartz only knew the way on foot... inasmuch as a trek up a mountain could be called 'on foot'.

Lapis used a blob of water from her canteen to clean the wall of glass that sealed the Archive off to everyone who couldn't go insubstantial or travel via howl portal; the constant wind caked the surface with grime surprisingly fast. Connie made a mental note to bring a squeegee and some glass cleaner to leave behind the next time she visited.

"Ready?" asked Connie.

Affecting a Scottish accent for some reason, Lapis said with a grin, "Go ahead, lass, and do yer thing. Just don't go readin' my mind between four and five. That's Lapis' time!"

This was met with a look of incomprehension.

"Ugh! The Simpsons? It's from a Treehouse of Terror episode, you have to have watched those," insisted Lapis.

Connie gave a helpless shrug and by the time the sounds of the world vanished, it took with it the latter half of the tirade Lapis was delivering in a heavy Scottish brogue. She stepped through the glass and into the Archive's interior.

She found Wolf in what had formerly been the laboratory. Specifically, he was crouched under a long table on which were scattered a handful of empty pink vials near a basketball-sized globe with an oily, black, tar-like residue caked on the bottom.

The large hound looked particularly unhappy as he watched Connie approach. In the Beach House, Rose had told him to 'get back'. Was this him getting as far away from Rose as he could, going to a remote location the pink gem wouldn't be able to enter without siege weaponry? Was this like home base for him, back where her mother had once planned the post-Schism Rebellion? Whatever the case, he was here now and hadn't been able or willing to leave.

"Hey boy," said Connie soothingly. Crouching down and inching forward, she held out her hand for him to sniff and lick. Scooching up beside him, she gave his ears and chin a scratch. "Are you doing okay?"

The sorry look he gave her was answer enough.

After probably ten minutes of quiet pettings, Connie asked Wolf if she could look at his mental landscape. He answered with a nod, no Scottish accent needed.

His 'scape looked fine, obvious signs of distress aside.

There were no injuries or weird markings on him. Steven had told her about how he'd gotten super yellow and then kind of orange or pinkish while hauling the family bus out of a ditch during the evacuation. Fortunately his coloration was its normal, sunny yellow.

It wasn't until she entered his pocket space --that curious, airless expanse accessible through the fur around Wolf's neck-- that she noticed a difference. The ground was a grass-like carpet, irregularly-shaped stretches of yellow or pink extending as far as the eye could see, a strange patchwork where the two colors never mixed, instead separated by lines of oily blackness. The only landmark was a hill hemmed in by vines and some kind of black material, the stump of what had once been a tall fir tree at the top.

There had always been a scattering of ink-stained, pink flowers growing around that tree, but from a distance Connie could see a riot of rose-colored flora.

Connie had taken to storing a number of useful items near the entrance to Wolf's pocket space, including a breathing mask and air tank, the sort that firefighters wore into burning buildings. Slipping it on, Connie took a deep breath and advanced warily toward the new growth atop the hill.

The flowers, though pretty, were tough and wiry, with thorns to discourage removal. Walking back to the 'entrance' Connie rummaged about until she found a saber, a small hatchet, and some gardening shears, all of which she gathered up and carried towards the hill.

There was a lot of room inside Wolf's pocket space and she couldn't fit everything she might need for a mission inside her backpack.

It was slow and difficult work, and Connie made frequent trips out to make sure Wolf was doing okay. It was only after she had thoroughly cut back the growth that she emerged to find Wolf had crawled out from under the table.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

He snorted and shook his head softly before nuzzling her hand as an invitation for head scratches.

Being sure to get behind his ears, she asked, "Are you able to go but want to stay for a little longer?"

This earned a soulful look and small head bob.

A few minutes later Connie stepped out to tell Lapis she could head on back; waiting out on the (for want of a better word) porch of the Archive wasn't any fun. Hurrying back in, Connie waved to the blue gem before she departed, snapping back to tangibility once the hydrokinetic left her CP power's range.

Then she was back with Wolf, petting his flank, letting him know he was a good dog, letting him know it was safe to come back home. She even poked her head back into his pocket space to grab some jerky and bottles of water for them to share.

The two spent almost an hour in the Archive, a girl and her hound.

Notes:

The promo image was drawn by BurdenKing.

In case you're curious about Lapis' Simpson's reference, here ya go.

Some weeks are better for writing than others, and then there was this week. Honestly, it was a near thing that all the prologues were completed in time. However, come back Wednesday, October 2nd, for the next exciting installment of Reap What Was Sown. Why, we'll even get out of the preliminary chapters and start the episode proper!

An omake went up between Ep37 and today which I wanted to mention:
*) It's Not Too Late To Try Again by Darkspirit - "After learning that Lapis went by the Universe household to talk about Connie’s grounding over fusing, Steven looks for more relationship/fusion advice from the other mature source he knows: his parents."

Here's the episode bingo card, courtesy of BinaryGeek and other delightful theorists from the Connie Swap Discord, armed only with the episode summary and their own speculation. On a related note, bingo speculation/suggesting is open to all, not just the regulars on the CS Discord. If you want to get in on the fun, or want to join the ongoing theory discussions, feel free to drop by the Connie Swap Discord.

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If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 4: Library Science

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

As Beach City was gradually being reopened and people were returning home, town hall was the first to reopen. The post office and other government buildings were soon to follow... and not just because Sadie, suffering a severe Barbara Miller overdose, had literally begged the mayor to get her mom back to work.

This was exciting for Connie because it meant the library was open once more!

It hadn't technically opened for the day but a librarian, seeing Connie, Steven, and Lapis loitering outside in the cold, had unlocked the doors and allowed the three to wait in the warm lobby instead.

Connie was eagerly looking at the contents of a bulletin board and Lapis was lounging like a cat across one of the couches when a swell of music came from Steven's pocket, a dramatic three-second clip of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries cutting through the book-hallowed silence.

Steven received looks from the library staff ranging from surprise to narrow-eyed disapproval. "Sorry!" he said loudly, still trying to wrest his trumpeting phone from his pocket. Flinching, he said again, but more quietly, "Sorry," and answered the phone.

Connie, for whom the library had been a sanctuary for as far back as she could remember, felt sharp second-hand embarrassment. Respect for the library staff was something so ingrained in her it was practically instinct; their disapproval carried considerable weight. On the other hand, the fact that her boyfriend had assigned custom ringtones to each of the gems --who'd only received their phones recently-- was just so adorably him.

"Hi Jasper," said Steven in a hushed voice and Connie mentally added that, while she hadn't known that was the Jasper ringtone, it'd fit the warrior so well that she'd intuited it regardless.

She awarded Steven another point for unintentional (but insightful) cuteness.

Pulling out her own phone, Lapis tapped with graceful fingers and a moment later Connie's pocket buzzed.

* LaLa - 09:54am | 1 box of pocky says oj breaks that phone by harvest festival

An emoji of a cartoon phone with two Xs for eyes and a cracked screen followed.

In the background, Steven was saying quietly, "Yeah, I think you'll really like it," his eyes roving the library interior for signs of further bibliophilic umbrage.

Today was November 24th, which put Harvest Festival less than a week out. Considering what her own phone had survived, Connie was willing to take that wager. However, Lapis was a shameless cheater and so ground rules needed to be established first.

* CoMa - 09:55am | To be clear, if the phone survives to the 28th, I win.
* CoMa - 09:55am | Ditto if you 'accidentally' knock Jasper into an ocean trench before then.
* LaLa - 09:55am | sheesh its just a friendly bet concon
* CoMa - 09:56am | (;¬_¬)
* LaLa - 09:56am | no ocean trenches and 11:59pm on the 28th
* CoMa - 09:56am | Dawn
* LaLa - 09:57am | end of harvest festival dinner
* CoMa - 09:57am | Deal.
* LaLa - 09:57am | deal

There was a sound of muffled violence from Steven's phone, the teen hastily covering the speaker with his hand.

* LaLa - 09:58am | i can already taste that pocky
* CoMa - 09:58am | ʕ •`ᴥ•´ʔ

There was a snort from the couch and then Connie received another message.

* LaLa - 09:58am | how are you so good at those?

Connie's response was interrupted when Steven walked over and said that Jasper was going to be here soon, she just had something come up suddenly during her patrol. Connie nodded and on impulse gave Steven a peck on the cheek.

With a deepening blush, her boyfriend pulled the two of them over to an unclaimed couch. Both of their phones vibrated at the same time, Lapis grinning a Cheshire smile in the near distance.

* LaLa - 09:59am | cuteness overdose! its too strong
* StUn - 10:00am | ( ˘ ³˘)♥
* CoMa - 10:00am | ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

---

From the loft came the swells of epic music as Jasper and Steven watched The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of Rings movies and what the pair had checked out from the library. Wolf was up there too, though Connie suspected it was for the headscratches more than the cinema.

Despite the Cluster being tip-top priority, there wasn't much for Connie, Steven, Lapis, or Jasper to do on that front, at least not until the drill they needed to reach the Cluster left the design phase. With Bismuth and Peridot sequestered in Citrine's room working on the design right that moment, Jasper and Steven were free to Peter Jackson it up.

Despite a friendly invitation to join them, Connie and Lapis were seated on the couch below, hunched over what Connie had gotten from the once-more-operational Buddwick Public Library. The cover showed a vase cracked nearly top-to-bottom, with more cracks spidering out near the middle, all sealed with burnished gold.

Connie opened the book to one of the glossy illustrations, running a finger over the mended porcelain pictured. "This is kintsugi, which is the practice of fixing broken ceramics with gold- or silver-infused lacquer."

Lapis nodded, looking at the picture quizzically. "Seems kind of strange to make an art out of showing off just how broken your plates are," she said wryly.

Above and behind them, Steven had started to say something over the sounds of what was presumably a battle on Middle Earth but was shushed by Jasper. In her mind's eye, Connie imagined the Quartz leaning forward intently. Well worth the depression the large warrior would inevitably leave in Connie's mattress.

Shaking her head and focusing on the subject at hand, Connie said, "Actually, that's intentional." She flipped back a few pages then traced a sentence while she paraphrased. "The philosophy behind kintsugi is that the breaks and repairs to the pottery are part of its history, something to be highlighted rather than hidden."

The blue gem's lips pursed, perhaps sensing Connie's true motive behind showing her the book. Despite being aggressively zany at times, Lapis was really observant. The only reason Connie had gotten away with half as many fibs and antics growing up as she had was because Lapis approved of mischief in general.

She'd even given younger Connie lessons.

Connie continued. "Things get damaged. That's just how the world works. So rather than be embarrassed about imperfections, this embraces them and the effort that went into fixing them." She paused, flipping to the page she'd thought of when she'd been plummeting to Earth alongside Lapis and Mom, the specific picture that'd blazed in her mind while witnessing a certain 'scape. "They make the bowl or pot truly special."

There was a pause and silence (discounting the epic fantasy cinema above).

Then, "Kind of like someone showing their old war wounds?" asked Lapis. Her tone was lightly mocking, like she was teasing the girl for a transparent ploy, but her expression was earnest, gaze traveling from picture to Connie.

Connie nodded and pointed to the picture again. "When we were skydiving back to Earth, I noticed that your mindscape had changed from before the battle. You have a lot of regret and sadness, which in your 'scape looks blue."

There was a tightening around Lapis' eyes but the gem didn't otherwise flinch or object.

"But what changed were these lines, yellow-gold, that ran through some of those parts."

Lapis glanced at the picture again then asked, "What's that color mean?"

"My power gives me an understanding but it's not always easy to put into words-"

"Puh-lease. A word nerd like you, raised by an even wordier nerd like Dot? Out with it, Lexiconnie."

The girl smiled and said, "Bravery."

Lapis drew an involuntary breath.

"Bravery mixed with confidence."

The moment was interrupted, or rather, accented by Jasper giving a sudden cheer at some victory on-screen. Steven cheered too a beat later, with Wolf barking his own approval, the 'thump-thump-thump' of his tail hitting the wall adding a percussive accompaniment.

Gem and hybrid both craned their heads back then shared a look, Lapis rolling her eyes over a smile. Then she pulled Connie close, appreciation conveyed via firm embrace.

Looking down, Connie found the book had jumped from her lap to Lapis'. So too had the spare change in her pocket and the pack of fruit snacks she'd been saving for later.

Clearly Lapis had kept a few tricks to herself when she'd been instructing a younger Connie.

"What?" protested Lapis with feigned innocence. "Nothing up my sleeves," and she raised bare arms mottled by corruption scars.

Against her will, Connie snickered. Shaking her head, she swiftly pocketed her change and moved the book so it was draped across both laps. She shared the fruit snacks with Lapis.

The hurrah above died down and the movie continued. Lapis, popping a blue raspberry in her mouth, gave a hum of approval and bent over the book, flipping through and looking at more pictures. She reached out and pulled Connie into a half-hug, the two of them reading together.

She kept the partial hug going even after Connie swatted her hand away from the phone in her pocket.

---

"-must vehemently object!" cried Mom, jolting Connie out of her shared book haze with Lapis.

She glanced first at the temple door, surprised to see it suddenly open (the yellow of her mother's room visible beyond), then at the time, surprised to see almost an hour had passed.

"You must?" asked Bismuth, a grin audible in her voice.

"I must!" answered Mom.

Overhead the sounds of Tolkien vanished, the movie paused.

Bismuth walked into the room, shaking her head. Connie was still getting used to the gem's new look but she couldn't deny the armor covering her left arm from wrist to shoulder was really cool.

A sharp intake of breath overhead meant Steven had noticed the Breaking Point holstered on the gem's hip and Connie's stomach sank slightly. That... That was still a point of contention, a wrinkle they'd never truly ironed out between Steven and Bismuth. Honestly, she was still feeling conflicted on the matter herself.

"I'm telling you, Green, you're overcomplicating things," said the smith, though not unkindly. "Make the drill strong enough, the chassis robust enough, add torque, and you'll be through the mantle before you know it."

"Problem?" asked Jasper from the loft, her earlier glee shelved and her tone serious instead.

"We're having trouble hammering out a design we agree on," answered Bismuth before giving the rest of the group a casual wave hello.

Mom walked out of the temple, the door closing behind her. The short gem was holding the boxy device she used to do a lot of the stuff she used to do with her limb enhancers, like direct the robonoids or produce holographic displays. Apparently, unlocking her mother's holodeck and finding a way to communicate with it wirelessly had allowed Mom to tap into its computing power, opening up all sorts of functionality in the ersatz terminal.

The gem crossed the room and set the device on the coffee table. Unlike Bismuth, she was clearly agitated, though Connie noted that she wasn't hobbling nearly so much. Maybe she was finally getting used to walking on shorter legs.

"That is a gross simplification of what's needed for a mission of this complexity. And significance!" Mom threw her arms wide, as if trying to encompass the entire planet threatened by the Cluster with a single gesture. "Actually boring through the mantle is only the initial hurdle. We know precious little about the Cluster itself so our drill must be capable of scanning it, discerning its structure and rate of maturation so that we can plan our next course of action."

For a second Bismuth examined her armored sleeve, as if checking for scuffs. Rubbing a spot with a gray thumb, she looked back at Mom and replied, "What's to plan? The Cluster is going to destroy the Earth so we've got to destroy it first. The only question is what kind of ordinance to pack inside the drill head. I'm thinking we maximize the concussive blast, but I'm willing to be sold on shaped charges instead."

"No!" exclaimed Mom. She paced in a circle, head shaking vigorously all the way. "No, no, no! Firstly, we could very well prompt the Cluster into forming if we use blind force; premature or not, wounded or not, it will still be more than capable of tearing apart the planet. Secondly, a design as simple as that would need to be piloted and that would be enormously risky to those onboard, both in tunneling to the Cluster and in surviving the ensuing detonation-slash-death-throes. Thirdly, lethal force would be monstrously unethical except as a last resort-"

There was a cry of "Yeah!" from the loft, Steven's voice silencing the room for a beat while all eyes turned his way. She was at a bad angle to watch, but Connie saw her boyfriend blanch at the sudden attention and sit back down.

Regaining her momentum, Mom finished with, "-So we must assess before we aggress. I'd only- only slap an injector drill on a chassis, pilot the craft through the mantle, and attack the Cluster directly if I was genuinely convinced the Earth could be destroyed at any minute!"

Bismuth rolled her eyes, one hand going to the hip absent a holstered shatter-weapon. "Can we at least agree to use some real materials here? I know you've got a whole warship's-worth of salvage you want to use, but, no offense, Green, it's all flimsy Era-2 dross. Other than the hull plating there isn't a single truly sturdy component in there, and the hull plating is just Era-1 durasteel. We can do better than that."

All the non-engineers in the group watching the exchange like spectators at a tennis match.

"Not if we use Era-1 materials," barked Mom. "It would interfere with the necessary, Era-2 circuitry. We'd have to make the drill an order of magnitude larger, at least, if we confined ourselves to using only Era-1 computational substrates and sensory devices. That would take an unacceptably long time to construct, and anything less wouldn't deliver the needed automation, scanning, or diagnostics."

Peridot and Bismuth stared at one another from across a divide at least an Era wide.

"Why can't you do both?" asked a soft voice and Connie was a little surprised to realize it was her own. She hadn't meant to speak, the words had just tumbled out.

Mom looked her way, expression perplexed. Bismuth cocked her head to the side, her ponytail of rainbow dreadlocks swaying with the motion. "How do you mean, Alloy?"

It took a beat for Connie to hastily order her thoughts. "M- Peridot rebuilt a lot of the tech in her garden to use Era-1 materials after you taught her how to make them," she said to Bismuth. Turning to Mom, she added, "Remember? We went there back in August. We even had a talk about how Era-1 and Era-2 differed."

They'd shelled pecans together while they did. It had been peaceful in a way a few things had been since and Connie realized she'd held tightly onto the memory.

Before anyone interrupted, Connie continued by pointing to the TV currently showing a paused scene of Rivendell. "The two of you rebuilt the TV using Era-1 and Era-2 parts back in mid-September." She remembered that because it'd happened the same day Steven and she had gone on their first date. "I'm pretty sure you did the same with the refrigerator too." It had been something in the kitchen.

"The dishwasher," corrected Mom and Connie gave an 'oh, right' nod in agreement. "And that's true, Bismuth and I did manage to reconcile Era-1 and Era-2 technology on those occasions, but to do it for a device as complex as the drill, and on that scale..." She trailed off, not looking at Connie so much as into the middle distance around her.

Bismuth's right hand shifted into an awl which she used to tap her chin. "I mean, it'd be tricky, but we've solved that problem before. Well, I say 'we-'" and the smith chuckled. "-But it was mostly you. I still can't understand how the heck that papier-mâché the empire builds stuff with these days works." A beat, then, "Again, no offense."

Still staring into space and the realms of thought beyond, Mom answered in a distracted voice, "Very little taken." Then, blinking owlishly, she said, "I will confess that using an Era-1 chassis and drill head would massively simplify certain design elements." She glanced at Bismuth. "It is robust in the face of pressure and temperature extremes," she conceded with begrudging respect. "Which might be a large enough time savings to compensate for the added work of me integrating cross-Era components."

"Then it's settled," said a grinning Bismuth. "Now we can get to the fun work of actually building the Breaking Bit!" and she clapped a large hand on Mom's shoulder.

After staggering from the friendly pat, Mom looked up at Bismuth and asked incredulously, "The Breaking Bit?"

The smith blinked. "The Shatter Point?" she offered.

Mom grimaced.

Bismuth's face lit up and she clapped her hands together exuberantly. "The Cluster Bomb!" she announced.

The green gem and Steven both looked like they were going to argue when Lapis jumped in. "You know what I think we should call it? Lunchtime. I'm pretty sure a couple of places around town are open again. Plus, I could hear Pinkie's stomach growling over the sounds of that big-budget renfest they're watching."

"Hey," objected Steven and Jasper at the same time, though probably to different parts of Lapis' statement.

The blue gem winked at the group on the loft. "Or, to quote Herodotus, 'Hey, you guys wanna get something to eat?'"

“I’m quite confident that is not on record as a quotation from that Greek philosopher,” countered Mom.

Already setting the kintsugi book aside and rising to her feet, Lapis replied casually, “He would have said it at least once.”

“Not in English,” said Bismuth over a grin, always happy to play the pedant if it got a rise out of Lapis.

“Αφήστε το σχολαστικότης στους φιλόσοφους,” answered the blue gem in what Connie assumed was Greek.

This earned a snicker from Jasper.

Then the hydrokinetic concluded by blowing a raspberry at the smith, a statement which required no translation.

Connie and Steven exchanged confused glances. Turning to the Quartz, Steven asked, "What-"

Jasper rose, the loft creaking slightly from the shift in weight, helping Steven up as she did. "'Leave pedantry to the philosophers,'" she translated.

And with that, the group was heading toward the door, Mom being sure to retrieve her boxy terminal so she and Bismuth could refine the drill design as they walked.

---

The Big Donut wasn't open yet, but Connie saw Sadie hard at work within, dustpan and broom in hand as she cleared out the donut debris and canary feathers littering the interior. A visibly dejected Lars was moping about, working but in an even more desultory fashion than usual for him. According to Steven (who'd heard it from Peedee, who'd heard it from Sadie during a gaming session in the hotel), Lars had been rather fond of being evacuated to the hotel. The same governmental aid that was paying for everything else paid the wages lost while the rebuilding effort was underway, which meant Lars was getting paid to sleep in and loaf around.

Connie had pointed out that that wasn't terribly different from what Lars did while actually working at the Big Donut but apparently even the pretense of work was more than Lars was willing to suffer with dignity.

This had prompted Bismuth to pull out a vial of fire flakes and say that she couldn't do squat about the dignity, but if Alloy ever felt like Lars needed more suffering, that she could help with.

Steven's mouth became a flat line and Connie made a point to change the subject swiftly.

Fish Stew Pizza was one of the first restaurants in town open and enjoying brisk business for it. Not long after passing the Big Donut, Connie saw Jenny drive past, bass thumping from the pizzamobile with a stack of pizza boxes visible in the passenger seat. Then, while Steven was holding the door open for everyone, Kiki came out holding an order in an insulated carrier. The polite twin thanked Steven, greeted everyone, and jogged away.

While Kofi eyed the group warily from behind the counter --the Fish Stew Pizza chairs not built to support the likes of Jasper or Bismuth-- Bismuth and Mom were arguing over where to do most of the work of actually building the drill. Bismuth wanted to do it from the area around her forge, but Mom thought the volcanic activity and general remoteness would complicate her half of the work.

Just as Connie and Lapis finished placing orders for those members of the Crystal Gems who ate, Connie heard in the background, "Steven has an idea!"

Making a quick call to his parents, Steven explained the situation in his usual, rapid-fire way and then asked if the gems could build the drill thingy outside the family barn.

Mom pointed out that that would be conveniently near both a warp pad and the warship salvage piled up in the abandoned quarry.

Then Steven's mom --she was on speaker phone-- asked if this was something he and Connie were going to be working on too. When they said they would be, Mrs. Universe seemed very insistent that they use the barn after all, given how convenient it would be to have all this taking place nearby. Why, she and Mr. Universe could even come by from time to time to see how they could help, she added with a firmness in her voice that was in no way subtle.

While she hadn't outright said that she wanted to keep an eye on the teens, she may as well have.

Then Mr. Universe settled the matter by joking that the barn had already been used by gems to build a spaceship, so them building a drill there put him that much closer to a 'science fiction bingo.'

Quietly Bismuth asked if that was a real thing and Lapis had to stifle a laugh.

Notes:

Connie did make that mental note back in Ep35 to check out that kintsugi book for Lapis.

And since it's come up again, I would be remiss if I didn't say that I came across the original idea of using kintsugi as a metaphor for Lapis' character development in the fic Putting Yourself Back Together, written by the oh-so-talented SilverScribe, who you may also recognize from some sterling omakes gracing the Omake Collection. PYBT is the second fic in a three-fic series called Changing Tides, with the following description:

A collection of stories chronicling Lapis Lazuli's healing process from her past traumas. Also lots of fluff. And some angst. :)

It's a great series from a great author. I strongly encourage you to check it out if you haven't already.

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 5: Assembling

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

The Universe family barn was in the distance, the warp pad was glistening nearby, it was a bright, cold day, and Asmi was loving it!

Peridot and Bismuth had spent the rest of yesterday engineering it up in the holodeck and had declared before bedtime that they had a design and would be ready to start work at first light. This had been enough to get Steven out of cleanup crew work though he'd made a point to bring Arnold, Tabitha, and Josh coffee that morning on his way to Connie's house, what he dubbed a ‘caffeinated apology.’ Reunited, Connie and Steven had gobbled their breakfasts at the Beach House and warped over soon after.

Then, in the bracing cold of a nice November morning, the two had danced, spun, laughed, and then shone with light until Asmi remained, giggling happily at being.

"Yo! Asmi! Can I get a platform over here?" called Bismuth.

The fusion was carrying a hunk of something away from the warp pad --Jasper was warping back and forth from the forge, hauling all the raw materials Bismuth had been able to produce there-- and toward where Peridot was busy directing Tik-Tok and the other robonoids working in an assembly line. Even Wolf was helping, using his long tail to brush loose materials off the components just after Gort etched an intricate circuit-shaped filigree onto them.

It would have been awkward for Connie and Steven to carry the heavy material between them, but together it was much easier! Handing it over --"Thank you, Asmi." "You're welcome Miss Mommadot!"-- Asmi bounded over to where the large smith was hard at work. "Sure! Where do you need it?"

Bismuth grinned, one hand shaped into a set of heavy duty shears for cutting sheets of metal like paper. "Right here." She raised her non-tool hand up to indicate where.

Asmi willed the horizontal field into existence at the desired height.

"Great. One more thing," added the smith, her tool hand reverting as she started lifting stacks of silvery sheet metal and piling it atop the field. "It'd be handy to have a vertical field running along this side at a sixty degree angle."

"Can do!" enthused Asmi, once again willing a field into being.

Bismuth crouched, eyeing the field discerningly. A moment later she shook her head. "Nope, that's closer to seventy-five degrees." She shifted a hand into a speed square, a triangular-shaped device used by carpenters to mark angles and draw straight lines, and pointed at the desired angle.

With a mental sleight of hand, Asmi unsummoned the field and crouched so the horizontal field was eye-level, squinting at the smith's shifted hand.

Another field appeared and after a moment's check, Bismuth gave the pair a thumbs up. "Perfect. I'll need another at thirty degrees but it can wait."

"No problem," cheered the fusion, bouncing on their heels.

They'd been helping and carrying heavy stuff for more than an hour now and were hardly even tired! Being able to spread the effect out across their entire body made a huge difference because that meant all of them got only a little tired instead of, say, their arms getting super noodly from hauling things around. And when the spread around tiredness got to be too much then Asmi could split, Connie could transfer all of Steven's fatigue to herself, and then spend ten or twenty minutes insubstantial to recover.

They could keep this up all day!

Just as Bismuth reformed the metal shears and got to work, Asmi heard Connie's phone chime in the distance.

The teens had made sure to empty their pockets before dancing just in case their phones disappeared or, weirder still, also got fused... magic was weird.

Bounding over, Asmi accidentally tapped in half of Connie's and half of Steven's unlock codes. They hummed a little tune as they tapped in the correct password, seeing that Connie had received a new text message.

* LaLa - 09:17am | got more rubble for wolfy
* LaLa - 09:17am | also this place must still smell like umbra because last time he was over he spent 30 minutes sniffing around here
* LaLa - 09:17am | which means im working in a quarry that smells like monster butts since thats what dogs sniff

Giggle-snorting at the mental image, Asmi typed back:
* CoMa - 09:18am | Asmi here. I'll make sure Sadie names a donut in ur honor after we save the world.
* LaLa - 09:18am | good. also hey asmi
* CoMa - 09:19am | The official Lapis monster-butt-flavored donut. Just 4 u.
* LaLa - 09:19am | ...
* CoMa - 09:20am | ᵔᵕᵔ
* LaLa - 09:20am | ...
* CoMa - 09:20am | (｡◕‿◕｡)
* LaLa - 09:21am | those two are a bad influence on you

The fusion had a nice laugh at that and finished the exchange by saying they'd send Wolf over ASAP.

In the distance a giant column of seawater was visible and slowly rotating. The structure was wrapped in a spiraling blade of water, making the whole thing a ten-story-tall auger. An unused section of the quarry had been designated as the point where the completed drill would launch and Lapis was using her water powers to get the hole started while the drill was still being built. Apparently past a certain depth her water drill wouldn't work, not without 'making a Beach City-sized sinkhole and also messing up the water table something awful.' However, pre-drilling even some of the hole would make the trip to the Cluster go that much faster.

“Wooolf,” cried Asmi, making a running jump, summoning a force field to bound off of, doing a double flip, and landing with a roll while unsummoning the field… just because they could. Popping up and laughing with glee, they shouted, “Lapis said she needs you to portal more rocks away!”

The large hound perked up and didn’t even finish his sweeping duties before bounding away and vanishing into a howl portal. At the quarry Wolf would open up a howl portal and then super-bark the excavated rubble through it, dumping it out somewhere over the Atlantic. And because Lapis had been entrusted with a sack of sausage links from that deli in Empire City, he’d do so swiftly.

Not that they’d feed Wolf an entire sack of sausage links --that’d be unhealthy… possibly; who really knew with magical wolves-- but any less and they risked Lapis’ snacking habit finishing off the sausages before the job was done. Especially if she’d smuggled over any cheese and crackers.

Picking up a broom kept nearby for just this occasion, Asmi took over where Wolf had left off, allowing the assembly line to continue mostly unimpeded.

The last time Wolf had left and Asmi had taken over his job, the fusion had started singing Row Your Boat in time to the labor. It hadn't taken long for new and more appropriate lyrics to come to mind, with Asmi inventing the first two verses and Peridot, the last two.

"~Build build build the drill, one piece at a tiiime~" sang the fusion, sweeping in time to the tune. "~Carefully carefully carefully carefully, effi-cien-cy's subliiime~"

They started the first verse over again ("~Build build build the drill~") and as they moved into the second ("~One piece at a tiiime~") Peridot started singing "~Build build~" as well. By the time Asmi was at "~Carefully~" and Peridot at "~One piece~", a chirping choir of robonoids joined in turning the whole thing into a round.

Bismuth chuckled and shook her head, busy shearing through panels made of the same material as the Beach House’s nigh-indestructible coffee table (which was itself the lesser-but-faster-to-produce cousin of what the Citrine Shield was made out of). The smith resisted for three renditions of Build The Drill but was singing along by the fourth.

There was a chime and Jasper appeared at the warp pad, the crystal stacked high with materials from the forge, and Jasper's arms stacked higher still. The Quartz hummed a basso counterpart to the tune while transferring everything off the warp pad but Peridot, with a wave of her boxy terminal like a conductor's baton, concluded the ad hoc musical number, Tik-Tok holding a deep, sustained note for another four beats after everyone had gone quiet.

Asmi clapped, as did several of the robonoids.

Jasper paused in her work to face Peridot, a wordless question on her face.

Peridot smiled. "I'm glad you've returned. Our operation here would benefit from a resupply of high-quality conduit from the salvage in the quarry. That's in addition to a list of other sundries I've compiled for Tiger's Eye to retrieve."

Jasper's expression went from 'stoic' to 'carefully neutral.'

"No," and she resumed unloading the warp pad.

"No?" Peridot blinked, clearly surprised. "No, as in not those items, or no, as in you vetoing the resupply entirely?"

"No, as in no Tiger's Eye," graveled the Quartz. "Give me the list and I'll get the pieces myself."

"But whysoever would you-" Peridot's expression remained bewildered until she turned and noticed the rotating column of water in the distance. Then her face scrunched up like she'd bitten into something bitter. "I take it Lapis spoke with you," she ground out.

Jasper set something down. "She did." She returned to her work for another second before pausing again. "It's not good. For you. Not now," and with that she turned back to her task.

"I see," hissed the tiny technician, her demeanor best described as caustic.

An argument, or whatever you'd call Peridot yelling at an unengaged Jasper, was narrowly averted by the warp pad flashing. That would have been supremely messy, with Jasper and any other displaced materials ejected violently off the pad, had Garnet not managed to arrive in the one clear spot on the warp pad precisely large enough to accommodate her.

"Garnet?" said Asmi, eyes wide. The field at a sixty degree angle vanished and the horizontal one holding up Bismuth's materials would have disappeared too if they hadn't been quick to refocus on it.

"Asmi," greeted Garnet, her voice warm. Then, expression becoming serious, she said, "In a number of futures, Amethyst and Peridot will attempt to reach the Galaxy Warp if they aren't intercepted."

"The Galaxy Warp?!" squawked Peridot at the same time Bismuth said, "But we broke that."

"You did," agreed Garnet, looking at the smith, "but it would be bad if they went there, regardless."

Jasper had dropped her armful of materials as soon as the warp chimed and was now in a stance that screamed 'ready for action.' "How?"

"The futures are unclear. They are using unfamiliar technology which makes it difficult to predict." Garnet's third eye blinked. "But bad," she reiterated.

"I could call Blue," said Bismuth, already patting her pockets for the phone she'd, to the surprise of many, not already broken. "If what Green and I did a couple months ago wasn't enough, Blue can break it for real."

"No!" cried Peridot, alarmed. "Terrestrial warping requires an extant Galaxy Warp to function! The pad for interstellar warps need not be intact --as we saw to immediately following the enemy Peridot and Novaculite's departure-- but to demolish the entire warp would cripple our force projection capabilities on Earth!"

A beat and then Jasper inclined her head in agreement. "No destroying the warp then."

That seemed to help diminish some of the tension Peridot was radiating.

"Come with me," said Garnet to Jasper. "I know several areas they might be. It improves the outlook if we search together."

Jasper nodded, first to herself and then to Garnet. The Quartz gave a curt nod farewell to the others and then fusion, warrior, and the unloaded materials all vanished in a beam of light.

After the warp chime diminished, silence reigned

"Makes you glad she's on our side," murmured the smith.

Asmi, Peridot, and several of the robonoids all bobbed in agreement.

---

As Garnet had foreseen, she and Jasper patrolled in search of the gems for several hours. It took that long because Jasper would have been unwilling to accept her explanation, that they had come to inhabit a future where the gems weren’t found, any earlier.

It had never been a sure thing, she added, but necessary regardless.

The Quartz gave her a suspicious look, one Garnet met with unflinching calm, before offering a curt nod of agreement. The work the others were doing on the drill was too important for the Quartz to search endlessly and she would need to return to it.

Garnet even said as much, though she refrained from offering to assist as well; she could see the offer would be declined and so eschewed making it.

What Garnet also declined to say was that the reason they were in a future where the gems went unfound was because Garnet had steered them into it.

For amusement's sake, she looked at the branch where she did confess that to Jasper. The result was exactly as eventful as she anticipated.

Once Jasper warped away, Garnet returned to the here-and-now. The present was still passing through a particularly turbulent stretch of time’s river, a ship that required a very firm hand on the rudder if it was to enter the desired branch.

That was why Garnet hadn't invited Asmi to patrol. As deeply gratifying as that beautiful, impossible fusion was to Garnet, they were half-Connie. Humans could be tricky to predict sometimes, certainly moreso than gems, but Connie was something else altogether. A seer's nightmare, a wandering fog bank which rendered Garnet's vision all but useless within it. She'd had to take pains since Rose's return to remain outside Connie's causal influence as much as possible; if they intersected on the river of time she could very well lose her grip on the rudder during this crucial period.

Was it because Connie was something wholly unique and unprecedented?

Was there some latent power that had flared to full strength in the transition from mother to daughter? Even as a gem, Citrine had been more difficult than most to predict.

Was this even an accident? Citrine had ever been the champion of choice; perhaps there was more to that than rhetoric, the gem becoming, through her fusion with a human, a being unbound even by the powers of prescience.

Whatever the case, here, now, Garnet's vision was clear and she had work to do. Walking to some thick bushes, the fusion reached in and pulled clear a mostly empty jug of industrial deodorant. She then jogged the half-mile to where a burrow had been dug beneath the roots of a large, old tree.

The burrow was wide, but not exceptionally so. There were animals which inhabited this region which could have dug it, though none had. And if you had especially keen eyesight, which Garnet did not despite possessing more than the typical number of eyes, you would see a faint glow like a visor might cast.

Garnet stopped a dozen paces back, casually set down the jug, then retrieved a small rock and tossed it through the burrow opening. There was a bonk, a muffled exclamation, and then a stream of muttered invectives.

Nearby and a little behind the fusion, there was a small disturbance in the soil. A mole poked its head up --purple and with a shock of fur obscuring one of its two large, intelligent eyes-- then exploded out of the ground, shifting into something gorilla-like, arms outstretched to grapple. "En garde!"

Garnet allowed herself to be grabbed without resisting, stoic even as a purple whip appeared and was used to tie her up. Instead, always staring stoically at the burrow a certain shapeshifting savant had dug for her shapeshifting-incapable companion, Garnet said, "Glorious quadrilateral."

Amethyst paused in binding Garnet with yet another purple whip, blinking her one visible eye when Peridot burst from the borrow --"Amethyst! Wait!"-- soil deepening an already mottled complexion.

"Quoi?" asked Amethyst, bewildered.

Peridot, meanwhile, was practically vibrating with excitement. "The passphrase! That was the passphrase! Rose Quartz warned that it may be difficult to distinguish friend from foe on this mission, especially once we reached Earth space, so she insisted I create a passphrase to identify the former from the latter." Ignoring a snail leaving a glistening trail as it slowly fled down her shoulder, the green gem said, "Amethyst, you can release her, she's on our side!"

"Then how come she was running around with Jasper?" challenged the short Quartz.

"The Crystal Gems think I'm on their side," said the fusion evenly.

Amethyst looked from Peridot to Garnet, fixing the fusion with a one-eyed glare. "You try anything and I'll put you down, hard, entendre?"

Garnet nodded, smiling a little. "I know better than the fight back."

This earned a pleased nod from the purple gem and a moment later the binding whips vanished into sparkles. Garnet rose to her feet and looked from gem to gem. "I am Garnet. Rose spoke of me."

Bits of dirt were falling off Peridot as she hopped from foot to foot, grinning widely. "Yes, your clarity! You're the deviant perma-fusion!" She paused, blinking, floating fingers moving autonomously across her form, clearing away the soil. "Actually, your clarity, I am unsure of the protocol here. I have greeted Sapphires before, as well as their Ruby guards, but never concurrently. Nor have I addressed one disgraced and cast out from her Diamond's court. Is there an appropriate honorific in this situation?"

Garnet kept the frown off her face, though red and blue eyes both narrowed slightly. "Garnet will do."

"Great!" Peridot paused, looked around, then asked as a floating finger scratched the side of her head, "Where is Rose Quartz? I have much to report."

"Injured," was Garnet's one-word answer.

Returning to the cave the other day and finding a weeping Rose held by a frantic Pearl had been profoundly surprising, which was how Garnet knew instantly that Connie was somehow responsible. She'd told Pearl what she could, or rather, what she should, and then departed. There was much to do and she would accomplish little of it loitering near Connie's influence like that.

"Sweet," muttered Amethyst with relish.

Peridot's confusion deepened. "How is that possible? Rose Quartz should be able to swiftly recover from anything short of a shattering."

"She crossed Connie."

Amethyst laughed with equal parts awe and schadenfreude.

"The hybrid abomination?" Reaching up, she plucked a mouse that had gotten trapped in her foam-like hair. She idly stroked its fur. “Fascinating.” Then, gently lowering the animal to the ground, she said, "It is mission-critical that Amethyst and I reach the Galaxy Warp. Will you escort us?"

"Wait!" exclaimed Amethyst. "How do we know this isn't an ambush?" Her partially obscured glare intensified, deep anger smoldering within. "That's exactly the sort of thing les Cons would do."

With her foot, Garnet tapped the metal jug beside her. "This is how."

The mottled Peridot and Amethyst both peered forward. "The industrial deodorant?" // "Le cruche of stuff that made us stink less?" they said over one another.

Then the green gem jolted. "You were the one that left it for us to find?!"

"I foresaw that you were being tracked by Connie's wolf and the human," intoned Garnet with lofty certainty. "Your mission would have failed if you were found too early."

It had been a near thing, regardless, but it would have been impossible if Steven had involved Connie as well. Sometimes, even with Future Vision, it all came down to luck.

This time it was Peridot's eyes that narrowed. "But our mission wasn't wholly successful. Steven escaped and we were forced to flee the command center before I could finish releasing all of the prototype fusions!"

Though her composure remained flawless, just mention of the forced fusions caused a flutter of instability within Garnet. There had been no other way, no branch which led to the Kindergarten being visited without also unleashing some of those victimized atrocities. It still made Garnet hot with anger to think about it.

After a mindful pause, Garnet said, "Without Steven alerting the Crystal Gems, you would never be able to reach the Galaxy Warp at all. Now their attention is... divided."

Peridot considered this, expression thoughtful. "Yes, your clar- Garnet. And..." She gasped. "If you had used your fused war-form to fight the mobilized Crystal Gems, you would have crossed the hybrid as well and suffered the same fate as Rose Quartz!"

Garnet hadn't expected that precise response --Whatever Connie had done to Rose, the mere fact of it happening was introducing small irregularities in her Future Vision-- but she kept her expression stoic, unsurprised.

Thoroughly convinced, Peridot turned and used a beam of green light to guide a scuffed up escape pod laden with warp crystal fragments out from deeper within the burrow. "My cl- Garnet, lead on and we will follow." Sparing a smile to Amethyst, she said, "To the Galaxy Warp and off of this delightful but doomed planet!"

"No."

Peridot and Amethyst both staggered midstep before looking her way.

"You can't go now. You will be detected and you will be defeated."

Amethyst looked around warily for threats, a whip partially emerging from her glowing gemstone.

"Three days," said Garnet.

"I..." Peridot cocked her head to the side. "What?"

"You must wait three days. On the evening of the third day you will be able to successfully reach the Galaxy Warp."

"Why?" asked Amethyst, expression skeptical.

"Humans celebrate a holiday then. Steven is human. Connie is part human." Garnet said no more, mainly because she didn't actually know why the Crystal Gems would finally be willing to let her and her alone watch the Galaxy Warp during that time. That future traveled too closely to Connie and so all but the broadest details were hidden from her. Fortunately that would be enough. The ship of the present was on course still.

"Yes, I see," answered Peridot. "I understand. Thanks for your wisdom. You’re far less irrational and violent than I expected a hetero-fusion to be!" she added with a generous grin.

Garnet’s long stare in return could only be described as… frosty.

"I must go. Remain hidden," she said eventually.

Garnet turned to leave when Peridot called out, "Will Rose Quartz recover? She needs to evacuate before the Cluster's emergence." Sparing a meaningful glance at her companion, the green gem added, "Her Pearl too."

The fusion used her Future Vision reflexively even though knew from past glimpses what she'd see: a cacophony of futures, too many to follow or steer, the telltale 'fog' of possibilities that trailed in Connie's wake. The seer had no idea, would have no idea unless and until the river of time carried them past the girl's temporal shadow.

"It will all work out," she said. It wasn't a lie because she didn't know the truth. Instead, it was a hope.

She left without looking back.

---

Connie pulled back the blanket and slid under the covers. The depression Jasper had left in her mattress wasn’t as pronounced as it’d been last night, a fact which the girl was grateful. Then, finding a good, not-too-lumpy spot, Connie settled in and let the events of the day wash over her.

With the right combination of powers, Asmi really could work all day. And had! It'd made what should have been a tedious day much more fun. Which made sense because when you got down to it, that's what Asmi was all about.

Mr. and Mrs. Universe had stopped by a couple times to check on things and drop off a meal or snacks. The first time Connie had gotten nervous and Asmi had come apart, but after that the Universes had gotten to spend some time with the fusion and it had gone... well. A little weird, but well.

And they'd made a lot of progress on the drill! If they had another day or two like this, the drill could be tunneling down to the Cluster in no time.

What hadn't gone well was Mom. Half the time she’d been like her old, limb enhancer-having self, content to be deep into a technical challenge and proud of her central role therein. The other half of the time she’d been needy, surly, or both. Especially when Lapis had taken a break and flown over.

Asmi couldn't peer at mindscapes, but it was clear her Mom was in a difficult place still. Connie didn't quite understand what was driving Mom's tiff with Jasper about Tiger's Eye, but the warrior had been gone for hours looking for P2 and Amethyst so they'd been spared the worst of it.

Whatever the case, it'd finally gotten late enough that Steven's parents wanted him home. And without Steven there, Connie was both less able and less motivated to stick around as well. Mom and Bismuth were going to be working nonstop, Jasper having hauled several generators and large flood lamps out of both Mom's room and the Universe family barn. Jasper was splitting her time between patrolling, helping, and general construction site security detail. By dusk, Wolf had warped away to do Wolf stuff. Lapis had gone home with Connie and was now lurking in her room, drained less by the work and more by, as the blue gem had dramatically put it, 'this terrible curse of maturity you've hexed me with!'

Connie fired off a final 'goodnight' text to Steven --they'd been going back and forth for about twenty minutes because her life really had become that schmaltzy-- before setting down and plugging in her phone to charge. She switched off the lamp at her bedside, out of habit making a quick check for the hearing aids she no longer wore.

With a final yawn, Connie laid down, her head heavy on the pillow.

There was a noise, whisper-quiet, and Connie looked up, blearily. The sound had come from the bathroom, or maybe one of the closets they kept training supplies in for easy access. It wouldn't be the first time a weight or training saber had settled with a faint sound in the night so Connie wrote it off and laid back down.

A quip of Jeff's came to mind, earning a chuckle and minute headshake from the girl: Occam's Shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas. That the adventuring party had been ambushed by kobold rogues soon after had cemented it in the gaming group’s lexicon, a phrase that was often repeated any time a character failed a perception check.

Looking at her loft wall in the dimness, Connie saw the tackboard covered with postcards, a relic of her dad's previous years of travel. Beside it was her Spirit Morph Saga poster, Lisa looking out with a mix of wonder and steely determination.

"Goodnight postcards. Goodnight Lisa," said Connie, sleepily. Shifting slightly, she said, "Goodnight TV. Goodnight ominous bird at the foot of my bed."

No sooner did her head return to the pillow then Connie’s eyes snapped open. "Wait, what?"

There was movement at the base of her bed and, with a surge of adrenaline, Connie responded by grabbing the saber beside her mattress and springing to her feet.

A figure so pale it almost glowed in the dimness stood before her, hands clasped in front of it.

"P- Pearl?" stammered Connie, and it was standing-room only for the crowd of emotions packed inside Connie's chest just then.

Was this a distraction? A visit? Was Pearl defecting away from Rose? Was she here to try and abduct Connie?

Pearl bowed deeply. "Hello Connie," she said primly, her voice scarcely louder than a whisper.

Was she here to very politely try and abduct Connie?

"It is good to see you again," said the pale gem and there was a hint of a smile before it disappeared in another bow. "I apologize for startling you, but there is something urgent of which I must speak with you."

Connie swallowed, the sword in her hand lowering, though only a little. "What about?"

Another bow and her voice, still whisper-quiet and proper, came out a little tight. "About what you did to Rose."

Notes:

The in-chapter art was drawn by BurdenKing.

We'll see you Wednesday, October 9th for the next exciting installment of Reap What Was Sown!

Also, I am super pleased to share this sterling bit of fan art. Dante did a redraw of Stevonnie as Asmi and it looks fantastic!

You can see the original Tumblr post here, including a side-by-side comparison with the original frame from the show. You can find more of Dante's art on their Tumblr page.

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 6: Pearl Prologue

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

---Days Earlier---

Pearl hummed quietly to herself, her latest device, an attempt at bypassing the warp pad restrictions imposed by Peridot of the Crystal Gems, slowly taking form as she worked. She was humming the melody to a song she'd sang to Amethyst many times during their time together on Earth, before they'd returned home. She had even sung the song to Connie once during one of the precious few visits the girl had been able to make to Amethyst's and her barn hideout.

To her mild surprise, Pearl found herself wistful of those days. They'd been stressful, she'd been busy beyond even her ability to manage, she'd been hopelessly in over her head designing and assembling a ship in secret from such parts as Amethyst was able to smuggle her. However, the menace of Crystal Gem discovery had been an abstract one while spending time with Amethyst and Connie had been very tangible joys. And while a proper Pearl was humble, she couldn't deny the glow of pride that came from recalling what she’d done, what she’d built.

Strange, stressful, beautiful days, thought Pearl, a smile rising to her lips.

Then she focused on the task at hand and her smile dimmed, the hum fading away. She paused and looked from side to side, examining her device. She shook her head, silent so as not to disturb her slumbering Rose but mentally making a tutting sound of disapproval. It was an ugly, untidy prototype, components attached to other components however was convenient at the time, with wires and bare circuitry visible in places. Thin lips pursed as she resisted the urge to beautify and organize what was in front of her.

No. A dutiful Pearl would attend to her task before all else. After the device was working and her Rose was awake once more, then she could-

A large, pink bubble engulfed the sleeping form of her Rose, shoving a chair and folding table aside. Data pads clattered to the floor of their cave hideout, flung off the toppled table. Her majestic owner was supine on a bed of layered rugs and blankets, several pillows propping her ringlet-framed face. A frown and furrowed brows marred her lovely features, as if she were experiencing a nightmare.

Carefully setting her tools aside, Pearl rose smoothly from her workbench. She opened her mouth but hesitated, saying nothing. Should she ask after her Rose or should she leave her undisturbed?

Her slumbering owner was using a power to visit places of interest across the Earth, all while asleep in their hidden lair. Pearl didn't understand the particulars of the power in question, her Rose hadn't deigned to explain, but between naps her Rose had spoken of many fascinating sights across an Earth that was much changed in the millennia since the Rebellion. She'd also spoken of locations of interest, where she and Pearl should go once they had free reign of the warp network, places where they could accomplish important things or gather powerful tools for use against their enemies.

There was a gasp, muffled by a bubble, and then a shriek. Pearl jumped in fright, all her decorous bearing entirely forgotten. Her Rose was screaming! In anguish!

"Rose! My Rose!" Pearl shouted, pounding on the bubble ineffectively with slender hands made for service, not strength. That terrible, dreadful cry continued, Rose writhing in anguish, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Rose!" Pearl gave a final shout before thinking past her shock. Her owner was in the direst of need. The bubble. The bubble was keeping her from her Rose. With a flash of recall, Pearl sifted through the items in her gemstone, located the destabilizer, and summoned it into her hands. Engage power, press the activator --the long tines crackled with yellow energy-- and apply.

The bubble dissolved into motes of pink, all while one of the most terrible sounds Pearl had ever heard echoed throughout the cavern. Pearl was so flustered, she nearly forgot to disengage the destabilizer before she returned it to her gemstone. If that didn't poof her, the shame would have.

She rushed to her Rose's side, checking her form for injury, her gemstone for cracks. Gently at first and then more roughly she shook the shrieking Quartz' shoulders. "Rose! Rose! Wake up!"

Rose's eyes were moving under her eyelids, a veritable river pouring from her eyes and soaking the bedding below. It was clear something was wrong but she would not, or could not awaken.

"Rose!" and there was a hysterical edge to Pearl's voice.

There was something called 'smelling salts' in her gemstone that were alleged to wake an unconscious human. She withdrew one, fumbled it in her shaking hands, and simply drew another rather than try and find it among the bedding. As expected, the salts did nothing for gems, nothing save release a noxious smell into the air.

Moving on, she grabbed everything even remotely medicinal in her gemstone: vials of healing tears, vials of the stolen fountain water, bandages, adhesives. For gems or for humans, it didn't matter so long as something helped.

A corner of Pearl, a most indecorous voice with a penchant for wry and irreverent observations that she'd never managed to silence, suggested that she could retrieve one of the cartons of milk she'd stored before fleeing the Earth with Amethyst. When she'd opened one for Connie back on the warship, the odor had been worse than anything Pearl had ever experienced. If any smell could wake her, that sardonic voice of hers thought, it'd be that.

After more terrible, scream-filled minutes passed and Pearl was starting to seriously consider the idea of curdled milk-based resuscitation, Rose's eyes snapped open. Her expression was wild, her gaze darting around manically. Then a moment of lucidity returned to her Rose, which seemed to only deepen the fear on her face, and she stared directly at Pearl.

Help. Me, she mouthed wordlessly before her eyes fluttered shut.

Crying her own tears that were lost in the rivulets flowing down her Rose's cheeks, Pearl tried.

And tried.

And tried.

---

"I held her in my hand."

Pearl, whose mind had entered a kind of despairing haze, was shamefully slow to react to Rose's voice. Nothing she had tried had worked, the cave was littered, literally littered, with the stuff of her failures, all soaking in the pool of Rose's tears that was claiming more and more of the cavern floor with every hour that passed.

Lacking any better idea and being quite at the end of her emotional tether, Pearl had endeavored to make Rose as comfortable as possible. As Pearl didn't have a luxurious lap like Rose, she'd instead gotten seated, draped the least-damp pillow over her lap, and then maneuvered her insensate Rose so her head was resting upon it. Pearl had been stroking her hair, caressing her cheek, and sometimes whispering soothing phrases, all while Rose suffered in varying degrees of silence.

Finally, the fact that her Rose had spoken penetrated her stupor and Pearl looked down. "My Rose! I'm here, your Pearl. What..." but her words trailed off.

Roses eyes were open but her gaze was unfocused, her eyes wandering the ceiling of the cavern aimlessly. Pearl had seen that kind of eye movement before, but always while her Rose was sleeping. Now, caught in some kind of twilight state of waking nightmares, her Rose was here but not, seeing but blind, speaking but not for Pearl's sake.

Pale fingers traced a gentle line from Rose's ear to her jaw. "Held who?" Pearl asked softly.

A moment passed and no answer came. Rose, still weeping, stared up at nothing.

Just as Pearl was about to ascribe it all to insensate babbling --yet another symptom of this mystery malady that had laid her Rose low-- Rose said, "Citrine. She tried to let me come back. She begged me to come back."

The flow of tears from Rose's eyes redoubled, her face scrunching up in anguish. "Why did she do it? How could she forgive? She shouldn't- She shouldn't have been able. She was the cruel one, the wrong one. I was- I was-" and there were no more words, only sobbing and eyes staring through the stone ceiling at something impossibly distant.

Pearl made soothing noises of the sort she'd overheard Peridot make while comforting a distressed Connie. She'd overheard a great deal while resting on Connie's bookshelf, some precious to her service to Rose, some precious only to Pearl. "Shhh," she whispered, caressing Rose's brow.

Then, partly because it was a relief to hear Rose talking at all but also partly because she was deeply curious, Pearl asked, "What did she beg you to come back to?"

She did not say 'Citrine.' Only 'she'. Pearl had learned early into her service to Rose not to mention Citrine by name. Her owner made no secret of her aversion and anger toward the rebel general who was also Connie's mother.

"The Rebellion," said Rose after long seconds had passed. "Her forces had defeated my forces. All who still rebelled, all save Garnet, were under her banner. We fought, on that pretty alpine field we fought and destroyed all the pretty flowers in our fighting." Rose's response was swallowed up for a time by more weeping.

"We fought," resumed her owner. "She beat me because she always did and I hate her so because she always did and then- And then-" A gasp followed by Rose's teeth clenching in a rictus of anger. "She spared me. Begged me to return. Forgave me for the Schism, for sharing secrets to our Diamond; with a look she forgave me all if only I'd return to her side."

Rose shook her head. "No." Sadly. "No." Then angrily. "NO! You don't get to forgive! You're the bad one, the cruel one, the terrible one. Not me. You! You don't get to have it all! You don't get to win, win at any cost, and forgive!" Sobbing. "I st- I st- st-a-a-abbed her. She was reaching out to me, to help me to my feet and I stabbed her and she poofed."

Pearl summoned a taffeta handkerchief from her stone and used it to wipe Rose's face, being sure to get around her eyes and nose where her outburst had left her especially... uncomposed.

Rose's tone softened and she spoke in a voice that was almost awed. "I held her in my hand. I squeezed, gently at first, and then tighter. I could have ended it. Ended it all, then and there, but I didn't. I dropped her, left her, left my scabbard, left that meadow of ruined flowers. I ran from her even when she was poofed. I ran back to our Diamond."

For a second it looked like Rose was looking at Pearl directly. "Why didn't I shatter her?" she asked. "Why didn't I shatter her?! She was in my hand. In my hand."

Her eyes grew unfocused and she stared at nothing once more. Pearl asked more questions, gently, softly, but Rose answered none of them. In time her eyes closed, though the tears continued to flow freely.

Tucking a stray, pink curl out of Rose's face, Pearl thought, analyzed her owner's words. Why didn't I shatter her? she'd said. But try as Pearl might, she couldn't tell if Rose had been saying that in confusion... or regret.

---

Pearl didn't need sleep. At Amethyst's insistence she had tried sleep on three occasions. It had been... strange. Not altogether unpleasant, but it felt slothful and wantonly opulent to spend hours doing nothing productive, to not be making her owner happier or her environment more harmonious.

But here, after more than a day of fruitless, emotionally-taxing vigil over her beleaguered Rose, Pearl, for the first time in her long and storied existence, felt like she could really use a nap.

"Will I be safe?"

The pale gem whose eyelids had been drooping snapped awake in an instant. Looking down at the pink-haired figure in her lap, she saw Rose's eyes open once more. And once more Rose was staring into some middle distance vision only she could see.

"When I rule, will I be safe? Finally?" asked Rose. She blinked which sent a fresh surge of tears down her already damp cheeks.

The floor to the cave was flooded, though not deeply. That was because there was a small stream trickling out through the hologram-shrouded entrance. Down the side of the mountain this trickle flowed and wherever there was the tiniest patch of soil clinging to the rocks, flowers and brambles had grown.

Pearl had briefly left her Rose's side to see how conspicuous their hiding place had become. The answer was extremely.

Pearl had done what she could, pulling at wiry stems and thorn-girded stalks. She had a pair of gardening shears in her gemstone which she put to good use, but by the time she'd reached the end of the carpet of green that was as good as an arrow pointing to their hideout's entrance, she'd turned to see that most of the growth was swiftly growing back.

Too exhausted, in mind and in form, Pearl had returned to Rose's side, where she waited now.

"Safe, my Rose?" asked Pearl, a part of her clinging to the sound of Rose's voice like it was the only source of warmth in an icy world.

There was no recognition in those eyes, those beautiful eyes marred by tears and anguish. Rose blinked again and said, "My Diamond wasn't safe. She found her. Came to her and shattered her. My Diamond said I would betray her even as she took me back. I swore I wouldn't, not again, not with her out there, but my Diamond only laughed."

"You're safe here," answered Pearl. "With me."

It was a lie, or at least a gross exaggeration. Sooner or later they would be found and unless Rose was recovered, they would be swiftly captured and separated. She should do something about that, something clever, something so she could dutifully protect her owner, but right now she couldn't bring herself to think beyond keeping Rose's face clean and her head comfortably propped up.

If Rose found comfort in those words, she didn't show it.

"Never safe," she murmured minutes later. "She'll find me. I need protection. More recruits. More agents. I need my figurehead, so no one can ever find me and threaten me. Is that why my Diamond laughed? Did she know that I would never be safe? Never be- never..." Rose mumbled, her words slurred beyond recognition and then she was gone again, eyes closed but stirring rapidly behind her eyelids.

Slowly Pearl lowered her head, her gemstone resting in the pillowy (if damp) mass of Rose's curls. It will help her feel comforted, she told herself and knew it to be a lie.

Pearl did not sleep, but for a time, in the flooded cavern whose location was clear as day to any who looked at the mountain beneath the Sanctuary, she was only slightly more alert than her weeping owner.

---

It was almost a relief when she heard the splash of footsteps approaching.

Rose was still unconscious, or semi-conscious, or whatever term was appropriate here. Words had long been a friend to Pearl, a tool that worked well in her hands, spinning tales of heroines or polite answers like 'Yes, I will see to it immediately' or 'This servant thought you might ask that and so I have it done, awaiting your inspection in the next chamber.' But here, now, her words and thoughts were graceless.

Then a memory came to her. That hulking, unstoppable Jasper was wading through all of her defenses, her traps and countermeasures little more than distractions. Dear Amethyst fought bravely and was bowled aside. Jasper! I command you to stop! shouted Connie, the heroine leaping to the companion's defense like something from her story. But the Jasper only paused. No. You're not Citrine. She's gone, said the gravelly ogre and advanced.

It wasn't until Connie was bathed in the crackling yellow light of her sword that Jasper had truly stopped.

"Pearl," said a calm voice.

Pearl blinked and realized she was standing in the middle of the cave, standing between the advancing figure and her supine Rose, bathed in the crackling yellow light of the destabilizer in her hands.

"Pearl," repeated Garnet, what looked like a few components for Pearl's tinkering held in her hands. "I won't harm Rose or you."

Pearl took a shuddering breath and then felt a fierce flush of embarrassment as she realized what a deranged sight she must look. With swift efficiency she stored the destablizer (making absolutely sure she turned it off before returning it to her gemstone) and did what she could to compose herself.

"Hello Garnet," she answered, feeling very foolish standing in an ankle-deep pool of tears in this messy, messy cave.

"Rose is hurt," said the fused lieutenant.

"Yes. She was sleeping, using a power to engage in reconnaissance from hiding. And then suddenly she cried out and has been incapacitated ever since." Pearl clasped her hands tightly in front of her. "Garnet?" she asked. "What has happened?"

"Rose crossed Connie," answered the three-eyed gem.

Pearl drew a sharp intake of breath, a corner of her mind chiding her for comporting herself so indelicately. "You foresaw this?"

"No." Garnet frowned. "I didn't. Which is how I know Connie is responsible."

For a split second Pearl felt herself pulled in half. She could only too easily envision Connie: smiling or looking thoughtful or with bright eyes asking to hear another story. Likewise she could see Rose in her pitiable state; could see little else, even when Pearl closed her eyes. But equating the two was proving difficult, like trying to force water and oil to mix.

"What do we do?" she asked and was surprised to hear the plaintive words of her thoughts spoken aloud.

Two eyes closed and, if Pearl wasn't mistaken, Garnet's third eye looked like it was squinting. Was the future somehow hard to see? Could that happen, and if so, why now of all times?

The silence stretched on before Garnet's gaze returned to the present, three eyes looking at Pearl. "I must go. Things are happening and I must be there to guide them down the right branch." She walked forward, her footsteps casting ripples out across the pool of tears. She handed the components to Pearl. "These will help you. Finish your device. Then use it."

The fused lieutenant turned and strode purposefully for the hologram-shrouded exit.

"Wait!" cried Pearl, nearly dropping one of the components in the process. On instinct she hastily stored everything in her hands, scarcely bothering to note their location in her gemstone. It was sloppy of her, but she seemed incapable of her usual poise and purposefulness.

Garnet went without slowing, without looking back, as though she hadn't heard Pearl at all. Whatever was happening, the seer seemed very intent on getting away from her and Rose quickly.

Pearl stared at where Garnet had been. A minute later she checked her gemstone for the new components just to be absolutely certain she hadn't hallucinated the whole thing. She even summoned a small mirror to inspect her gemstone for cracks, then sprinkled it with a scattering of Rose's tears to be on the safe side.

It's not as if she had any shortage of tears, after all.

It had all happened. Pearl was really standing ankle-deep in a pool of healing lacrimal essence. It really was just her and her Rose. It really was just a matter of time before someone less helpful-

Less friendly- she amended.

More hostile, (she amended again) than Garnet arrived.

Pearl drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders, suppressing a flinch at the terrible posture she'd been maintaining before. Yes, there was work to be done. Rose had rescued Pearl from the bleak life of a castoff Pearl, or worse, being harvested and embedded. Now her Rose needed rescuing and if her only rescuer remaining was Pearl then so be it.

First she returned to Rose, ensured she was comfortable, gently dabbing her face with a peach-colored handkerchief with delicate needlework done along the edges. A corner of her observed that if she didn't find time to do some laundry soon, she would run out of clean handkerchiefs in a few short days.

Then she returned to her workbench, withdrawing the components from her gemstone. Yes, these would help, aesthetic concerns be poofed. She even felt a thrill of the audacious when she spliced two wires together that were different shades of green.

Finally she gathered up everything not ruined after more than forty-eight hours soaking in Rose's tears. Whatever came next, there would be no returning to this place. She had fallback locations, destinations of strategic interest that Rose had told her of before her last nap turned to calamity.

Pearl climbed up the mountain face, up away from the cavern, sparing a hope that her Rose was well and comfortable where she’d hidden her before the aura of the Sanctuary made such worries impossible. Of the two prototypes Pearl had managed to create since she and Rose had gone into hiding, one was by far the stealthier option. She retrieved that one and stepped onto the Sanctuary warp pad.

There was no flash, only a wave of heat rolling off the warp crystal as Pearl vanished. Pearl speculated that obscuring the warp beam like that put terrible stress on the warp crystal. Once was probably fine, but many more and it would damage it for sure. Still, between that and the holographic camouflage she'd conjured, Pearl would hopefully be able to arrive inconspicuously.

The Beach House was seemingly empty and for a moment Pearl could only stand and stare in wonderment.

It was so different from how she'd envisioned, and yet she could instantly spot the details she knew would be there. Connie's loft. The Spirit Morph Saga poster Connie had described across a hundred overheard snippets. The violin case propped up in the loft's corner. The weapon rack holding the girl's training sabers. The bar stools where Connie liked to take her breakfast. Lapis' reading nook. The groove in the leftmost cushion of the couch where Jasper liked to sit. The fireplace where Connie and Steven had sat and shared stories while it snowed outside.

It was with a sense of surreal detachment tinged with giddiness that Pearl crept from the warp pad and hid in the closet she knew was rarely opened.

There had been a month, long ago, when Connie had been feeling more insecure and vulnerable than usual and had taken to hiding in that closet. She’d sneak in there and read Pearl's story to herself with (judging from the click Pearl had heard) a flashlight or electric lantern. Before Connie had met Steven, before her father had moved back to Beach City, Connie had had only Peridot, Jasper, and Lapis.

And Pearl.

Pearl had never seen the inside of the Beach House before but in a way it felt like she was coming home.

She waited with silent anticipation. Hours later the warp pad chimed and then she heard Connie and Lapis speaking to one another across the living room. Finally Lapis went into the temple. Finally Connie did her bedtime routine (reps, stretching, light cardio, shower, and brushing her teeth) and Pearl heard her ascend the steps to her loft. Finally Connie set her phone down on her bedside, the mattress settling beneath her.

As silently as she could, Pearl opened the closet door and emerged.

Chapter 7: Truce or Dare

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Connie stood unsteadily and not just because she was maintaining a defensive stance atop her mattress.

Pearl was here.

Pearl was here.

Wait. Pearl was here?

"Um, how did you get in here?" asked Connie, taking in as much of the darkened Beach House as she could without ever looking away from the potential threat in front of her.

"My Rose bid me to devise a means of using the warp network despite being locked out from it," explained Pearl softly. "I used one such device to arrive here, then waited for you to return and be alone so that we could speak privately."

"About what I did to Rose," added Connie.

The pale gem bowed deeply, hands clasped in front of her. "Yes. My Rose is injured and suffering grievously. Her healing powers are unable to help, and I am likewise helpless." Rising once more, the gem's posture remained perfect but somehow the angle of her chin conveyed frustration and sadness in equal parts.

Connie wondered briefly if there was some class gems like Pearl and Jasper attended to learn about being wordlessly expressive.

"It is my hope-" and there was a faint tremor in Pearl's voice at the word. "-That you can mend my Rose. I understand this is an unorthodox request given the conflict between us, but perhaps fair terms can be reached."

What Connie wanted to say was, 'There is no conflict between us, Pearl. Just the Crystal Gems and Rose.'

She wanted to say that, but what tumbled out instead was, "Rose was possessing Steven!" The deeply unsettling memory came unbidden to her memory. "She threatened him, would have hurt him badly if I hadn't- Hadn't-"

If I hadn't reached into her mindscape and used my will as a weapon, wrenching her 'scape so hard it ripped.

She'd never known she was capable of it, though her mother's treatment of Lapis and Jasper's corruption hinted that there was a more... destructive usage for her power out there. At the time she'd felt only fear and rage and a desperate desire to see Rose stopped no matter the cost. Connie didn't regret what she'd done but she still found the memory of the power deeply unpleasant to relive. That it had rendered her feeble as a kitten for most of an hour after hadn't helped either.

Pearl flinched at each statement, her head drooping as if she were entering a bow of contrition one halting increment at a time. "I'm sorry that happened," said the gem so softly it was almost beyond hearing. "I don't say what you did was wrong, or unjustified. But-"

If Pearl had some counterargument it never left her lips. Instead, a beat passed and Pearl's composure cracked, shoulders drooping, clasped hands raised into a pose of pleading, eyes wide and sad. "Please?" she begged in a fervent whisper.

There was silence as Connie blinked, Connie HQ thrown into momentary disarray by the situation. In effect there were two schools of thought within the girl. One was sad that Pearl was sad and wanted to try and use a negotiation for healing as a way to pry Pearl loose from Rose's orbit.

The other had heard the request to heal Rose and immediately gone, Oh HELL no.

"I- I-" Connie's tongue couldn't seem to articulate words just then. The girl shook her head. "I need to make a phone call," she finally managed, already retreating across the mattress toward the phone on her bedside table.

Then a terrible worry rose within her and Connie paused. She licked her lips. Pearl had acted like Pearl, and it should be impossible for Rose to do that again or anything else for a long while. Besides, Pearl had announced herself instead of going for a sneak attack against a half-asleep Connie.

Still, not checking would be exactly the sort of mistake she'd yell at the heroine for making if she were reading her own life as a story.

"But first I have to look at your mindscape. To make sure it's really you."

Pearl bowed low in agreement. Or supplication. It was hard to tell.

When it was clear the gem wasn't going to say more, Connie set her saber down carefully and said, "I'm starting now."

An already quiet world grew silent and Connie felt the concrete-hard mattress below her feet rise as her weight vanished. Before her mind's eye was a fractal tapestry, beautiful but circumscribed, aspirational heights and depressive lows, sadness and hope, love and hate, all tightly bound within bands of devotion. The bands were woven together in a lattice-like structure, one that was straining as if pulled in two or more directions.

It was lovely... and a little sad.

It was absolutely not Rose.

The sensations of the world returned. "Thank you," said Connie. "I'll make that call now."

Pearl rose from her bow and offered a sincere, if apologetic smile.

Connie had considered calling Mom, Bismuth, and Jasper. Lapis was in the temple and so beyond reaching by phone, but it would be easy enough to will the temple doors open and holler. If Connie had seen anything, even an iota of something wrong about Pearl, if Pearl hadn’t been utterly sincere then Connie would have called in all the reinforcements.

But Pearl was being Pearl. And that wasn't something the Crystal Gems had a great history of handling well. So instead-

"Hello?" answered a sleepy Steven.

"Hey. Sorry to wake you up," said Connie, eyes still trained on the pale and plaintive gem in front of her. "But I need to call an emergency Destiny Partners meeting."

"Oh, okay," said her sleepy beau. "What-"

Pearl, meanwhile, smiled and offered a small wave. "Hello Steven. I hope you're well."

There was silence on the line. Then, "Just let me change out of my pajamas."

---

Connie and Steven were sitting on the couch in a huddle, whispering. Mr. Universe was sitting at one of the bar stools looking a little tired but otherwise content to wait. Pearl had asked if she could prepare them refreshments and, after familiarizing herself with the kitchen layout, found mugs, tea bags, and honey.

Connie wasn't sure why Pearl had made four mugs of tea since, according to the gem, she didn't care to consume food or imbibe liquid. Instead, the elegant gem stood behind the kitchen counter, mug wrapped in delicate fingers, seemingly enjoying the smell.

She'd exchanged a few words with Steven's dad but had let the conversation drop after observing social niceties. Instead she split her attention between watching Connie and Steven with a wistful smile on her face and looking around the Beach House with open wonderment.

It had staggered Connie to realize this was Pearl's first time to actually see the Beach House despite having spent more than a year in it.

The Destiny Partners exchanged some more whispers. Then Steven reached over and wiggled Connie's nose and then the two broke huddle.

Pearl and Mr. Universe both turned their way, the latter saying, "What'd you two come up with?"

"We-" and Connie gripped Steven's hand tightly. "-Are willing to negotiate the following terms with Pearl."

Pearl gently set her full mug aside, never spilling a drop, and gave Connie her complete attention.

"Steven and I are willing to propose a truce between the Crystal Gems and Pearl for the next three days. At the conclusion of this truce, I will examine Rose Quartz and make a good-faith effort to help her," said Connie, the words feeling a little tight in her throat. "I will do that conditional on Pearl doing the following: she turns over the warp pad device she used to get here, she tells the Crystal Gems what Rose's actual goals are on Earth, she makes no effort to spy, steal, sabotage, or harm anyone while the truce is in effect, she remain under supervision of at least one of the Crystal Gems during the truce. And that she... keep an open mind about what the Crystal Gems have to say."

Connie's eyes were wide and entreating as they gazed at Pearl.

Pearl didn't smile but there was a softness to her demeanor that wasn't there when she was acting as the straight-backed and proper servant of Rose Quartz. She inclined her head. "I will abide by the terms of that truce provided it extends to allowing me to depart without issue at its conclusion."

"I mean, you'll be able to stay at the end if you want!" said Steven, voicing what Connie was thinking loudly.

Pearl did smile at that and lowered her head demurely. "That I have the option to depart without issue, then." A beat. "And when you say 'three days', does that mean something specific? I would hate for there to be conflict because of a misunderstanding."

"Oh, yeah," said Connie quickly, eager and a little giddy in that way she got around Pearl. "Thursday is Harvest Festival, which is a holiday where friends and families get together for a feast. I want you to go with me and the Crystal Gems to the Harvest Festival party at the Universe's house-" and she gestured to Steven's dad, whose face was shifting through different expressions of surprise. "-After which I'll... help her if you still want me to."

The Universes had waited until they were confident their home was going to be repaired in time, but once that was a sure thing they'd made it known to Connie, her dad and Priyanka, as well as the Crystal Gems that they were all invited to their place for Harvest Festival. Connie knew her dad and Pri had already RSVP'd. Mom had been less committal, what with the drill construction and the Cluster, but Lapis had assured them that Connie would make it along with as many Crystal Gems as they could spare.

Pearl looked briefly stricken before she regained a measure of her composure. "I-" she started.

Connie was surprised by the reaction but Steven understood in an instant, saying quickly, "You don't have to actually eat or drink anything, by the way. Just being there and having fun is enough." A beat and then Steven looked anxiously toward his dad. "Oh, uh, that's okay for Miss Pearl to come, right?"

Mr. Universe was grinning and shaking his head. "Sure, Shtu-ball. The more the merrier." He took a sip of his tea and stifled another chuckle. Swallowing, he said, "Actually, I think it'll help. Vidalia's family is coming too and Sour Cream is bringing Marty along; Pearl might be just what Marty needs to make it out of Harvest Festival in one piece. Can't beat up my old manager in front of company, after all."

Pearl was looking from Steven to Mr. Universe and back, bemused but also visibly relieved at not being required to eat. Inclining her head politely in Steven's dad's direction, she said, "Thank you for the invitation." Then, looking at Connie and Steven directly, she said, "I accept your terms, provided you're able to bring the rest of the Crystal Gems into agreement."

Connie was just about to jump up in excitement when Pearl held out her palm, expression somber. "However, I knew I was taking a terrible risk coming here. I would be a wayward servant if I did so heedlessly so I must caution you all that there is something I brought within the limits of Beach City that would prove very bad to the city and its inhabitants if I didn't remove it in time."

Connie blinked, aghast. "You planted a bomb in Beach City?!"

Pearl stepped back from the counter and bowed deeply, hands clasped in front of her. "My sincerest apologies, Connie. I can assure you that there will be no cause for concern within the timeframe of your truce."

"But- What if someone found it?" Connie's already wide eyes widened further. "What if Onion found it?!"

Another bow. "It is very well hidden, I promise you. Provided I am allowed the option to depart on time, I will see it removed and there will be no issue." She bowed a third time and her expression was low indeed. "Time and again I've met you worried there would be conflict between us and each time you receive me with open arms. I'm sorry for misjudging you, Connie, only, with Rose, I was so worried that..."

Connie waved the worried gem to silence. "No, I understand. If our roles were reversed, if someone was hurt-" She very specifically didn't say 'Steven' or even look at him but the vice-like grip on his hand probably gave it away. "-And I had to go to negotiate with Rose for healing, I'd want similar leverage to ensure good-faith negotiations."

She fixed Pearl with a stare, not stern because she just couldn't seem to be stern towards Pearl, more like forcefully hopeful. "You promise everything will be fine if everyone abides by the truce?"

A fourth bow. "I promise."

Connie nodded, staring at nothing in particular. "Alright. Lemme go get Lapis. We'll tell her, get her onboard and then we can bring everyone else home to talk it out too."

Then, without consciously intending to do that, as though some part of her body was doing so on auto-pilot, Connie walked across the living room, around the kitchen divider, and pulled Pearl into a tight hug.

---

Lapis, goggling at Pearl as Stevie and Con-con finished their spiel, finally picked her jaw up off the floor and said, "You three can't be serious, right?"

Papaverse just sat in the background and chuckled.

---

"You can't be serious," said Jasper, the warrior still standing on the warp pad.

Bismuth, meanwhile, was leaning against the kitchen counter and laughing. "They actually are. Ha!"

Jasper blinked, eyes never leaving the pale intruder standing proudly in their midst, and addressed Bismuth. "You're okay with this?"

Another laugh from the direction of the counter. "Oh, if Pink were standing here, we'd be looking for the tweezers to pick up the pieces of her."

The Pearl didn't flinch but Jasper could read the tightness of her posture.

"But the Rebellion takes all comers. I don't see why a Pearl would be any different," finished the smith.

Very politely, Pearl said, "For clarity's sake, it is not my explicit intent to join the Crystal Gems."

Bismuth nodded. "Sure, but that's what Alloy and Meatball's explicit intent is. They can be pretty convincing. Besides, if the message of the Rebellion was meant for anyone, it’s for gems like you." The smith walked over and patted Pearl on the shoulder affably, the delicate gem jostled by the heavy touch.

Then, strolling past the Pearl's field of view, Bismuth turned and shot Jasper a wink. Ah.

"Jasper, remember that Amethyst and Pearl are only our enemies because of how we opened with force when they were first dealing with us," said Connie, standing slightly ahead of the Pearl.

Leaving her back exposed to the potential enemy was as good as an admission of trust, one Connie could only be making deliberately, one Jasper was sure to see. Whatever Bismuth had planned, Connie was sincere in supporting this truce.

Citrine had received enemies under truce. Sometimes those enemies had become allies by the end. Rose deserved no such consideration, that potential for respect had been obliterated back at the Sanctuary, but Jasper recognized that Pearl was doing what she thought best for the gem she was dedicated to.

The Quartz could understand that.

"Alright," and Jasper gave a curt nod in agreement. "I'll get Peridot."

---

Jasper and Bismuth had been called away for something or other but Peridot had insisted she not be interrupted unless it was truly vital. Her work had entered a delicate phase and required her complete concentration.

Combining Era-1 and Era-2 components was one of the most engaging technical challenges Peridot had experienced in centuries. The obstacle to be overcome wasn't difficult to understand but conceiving of the solution, the elegant solution, rather, required a level of creativity and lateral thinking she didn't often get to employ.

Simply put, Era-1 components caused signal fluctuations in any adjacent Era-2 components and vice versa. Every point of contact was like an imperfect linkage between pipes of different sizes, causing some of the water, which in this metaphor was the data being conveyed/computed, to leak in or out where it shouldn't.

If a component was sent the numbers 2 and 3 to be summed, the fluctuation might result in the numbers 1.8 and 3.3 to be summed instead. Then you get a result of 5.1, a subtly wrong output which the next component would convey and fluctuate to, say, 5.5. This would compound for every component in the sequence, turning the result into something effectively random and therefore computationally useless.

The warship Rose Quartz had attacked in had solved this problem in a very direct manner by including a thick strata of insulative material between the Era-2 internals and the Era-1 armor plating: it was effectively an Era-2 ship wrapped in a layer of insulation and then a layer of protection. This was why Lapis had been so capable of demolishing interior components during their prelude to escape from the vessel.

The drill, however, was of a more nuanced design. The chassis, including a number of internal supports, would be made of rugged Era-1 materials. If all of those were layered in insulation, there'd be precious little room left for any Era-2 computational substrates at all!

The insight Peridot had made back in September, when Bismuth and she were rebuilding household appliances with a combination of Era-1 and Era-2 pieces, was in designing Era-2 circuits hardened against this fluctuation. The work she'd done then had been crude, but so too had been the applications and so it had been acceptable: the fate of the planet wasn't resting on the Beach House dishwasher's smooth functioning, after all.

At least, not that Peridot was aware of.

She briefly turned her attention away so she could address a request for direction from Robinson. She entered the desired instructions into her ersatz terminal, the robonoid returning to its place in the assembly line. If it hadn't been for the glimpse of her small, bare hands she wouldn't have even recalled her reduced stature, such was the extent of her engagement in the work.

It was a welcomed escape, doubly convenient since it was of such obvious significance that she could justify focusing on it to the exclusion of all else.

Where had she been? Ah yes, refining her earlier cross-Era compatibility efforts.

The Era-2 components she'd made for the television and the dishwasher had been encased in hardened shells of a composite of her own design that had reduced the fluctuations to a tolerable level for so simple of appliances. It was a fine proof of concept but wholly inadequate for the current project.

No, what was allowing the drill as designed to have any hope of functioning, the breakthrough that had Peridot practically glowing with pride had been the inclusion of reverse computation into the Era-2 component designs.

If you were tasked with summing 2 and 3 and all you had was water and measuring cups, you would fill one cup with 2 units of water, another cup with 3 units of water, pour both into a third cup, measure the result of 5 units as your conclusion, then pour the fluid down the sink and tidy up.

But since you were working with cross-Era components, you couldn't trust that you received the proper amount of water for your inputs, or that there'd be enough water left to perform the next computation given that energy was leaking at every point of contact. You might twist the faucet and only hear the pipes rattle, a computation rendered impossible.

But instead imagine you had a jug containing as much water as you could reasonably expect to use. You receive instructions to sum 2 and 3, verify these instructions, and then pour 2 and 3 units into your cups. You combine them in a third cup, note the result of 5 and then... follow the instructions in reverse. From your third cup you pour 3 units of water back into the second cup. 2 units go into the first, then both of those are poured back into the jug. You get the correct result with no water lost. The whole kitchen is that much more of a closed system and therefore more reliable.

Then you add significant error detection in your input and output channels, ensuring the 2, 3 are received correctly, and the 5 reliably sent.

That design meant trading computational speed for reliability, but that was a trade they could afford to make: even slow Era-2 circuitry was blazingly fast compared to the Era-1 alternatives.

Peridot had explained all this to Bismuth but the smith had waved her off mid-lecture. Just as the deeper mysteries to Era-1 material sciences remained opaque to Peridot, the intricacies of Era-2 computer science were elusive to Bismuth. Which meant...

Which meant, the fate of the Earth was resting on Peridot's unique brilliance. It was a form of satisfaction that reached deeply, a balm to Peridot's much-abused sense of self-worth, which was why she was so affronted by the others’ continued interruptions!

"What?!" shrieked the technician, delivering a withering gaze to the orange Quartz that refused to be ignored.

"Connie has made a truce with Rose Quartz' Pearl. She'll be staying with us for three days and attending the human holiday at Steven's house," said the unflappable Jasper.

Peridot blinked owlishly, her train of her thought derailing so hard it was unlikely there were any survivors.

"She can not be serious!"

There was a hint of a smile on Jasper's lips as she handed Peridot an unfamiliar device, components grafted together haphazardly though with an underlying purpose which spoke to her of being warp network-related. "Here."

Peridot turned the object around in her (small, weak) hands. "And this is?"

"How Pearl was able to warp into the Beach House."

That sent a jolt through Peridot's entire form. That was a significant- If Rose Quartz weren't injured and had access to this then-

Peridot blinked again, her mind quite thoroughly blown. "They really are serious," she said in hushed disbelief. With an absent-minded gesture, she used her ersatz terminal to send the abort code to her robonoids: they would complete their current task and then desist.

"Yeah," agreed Jasper.

Peridot went unresistingly as Jasper helped her up from her work and led her in the direction of the warp pad.

---

Everyone was gathered in the living room. Pearl was standing beside the kitchen counter and looking rather vulnerable and alone. Connie wanted to walk over and sit on the bar stool beside her, but given the subject under discussion, she stayed on the couch.

“Rose told me that there were two prizes on this planet that made returning to Earth justifiable to her.” She paused, drawing her shoulders straight as if proper posture would make this feel like less of a betrayal. “The Cluster…” and there were several sharp intakes of breath. “-And the remainder of Pink Diamond’s shards.”

Connie’s eyes flickered to Jasper and then the temple door.

Then she realized what she might have just given away if Pearl had been watching her and was really observant and she said some very nasty words in the privacy of her thoughts while trying hard not to look bothered.

Steven managed not to react to the crushing his hand received just then save to kiss the side of Connie’s head comfortingly.

“What’s she going to do with a bunch of shards?” asked Bismuth.

Before this talk, while Pearl had been listening to music with Steven and Mr. Universe and facing away from the group, the gems had huddled up and tried to come up with a strategy. Part of that was asking questions they already had answers to so that Pearl (and, by extension Rose) wouldn’t be able to infer anything.

“She hasn’t told me what precisely,” answered Pearl, audible hesitation in her voice, “but in the spirit of our truce agreement I will share my suspicion, namely that it involves the other Peridot’s expertise in shard sculpting.”

“She wants to treat a Diamond like a jigsaw puzzle?” quipped Lapis. “If Blue Diamond sees a copy of Pink Diamond that looks like it got caught in a paper jam, she’s going to be picking bits of Peridot and Rose Quartz shards out of her robe for a month.”

Mr. Universe, sitting on the loft stairs and looking like he felt terribly out of place, gave a single chuckle and then choked. “Oh. That wasn’t a joke.”

Lapis and Mom both shook their heads no.

Pearl bowed. “I can only convey what I know which, on that subject, is minimal.”

“What are her plans for the Cluster?” asked Mom, her voice dark but restrained.

“She wants to communicate with it, to convince it to support her in-” Pearl’s words faltered.

A beat passed and then Steven asked, “Support her in what, Miss Pearl?”

“In forcing the Diamonds to reform the empire,” and it was clear those had been hard words for Pearl to vocalize.

Bismuth’s impressed whistle filled the silence. “Wow,” she said eventually. “I didn’t figure Pink had it in her.”

“Could she do that?” asked Jasper, the first the Quartz had spoken in the debriefing/interrogation.

“The Cluster would be a geo-weapon of unparalleled size and destructive potential,” answered Mom.

“Still, that’d be risky,” said Lapis. “Let that sink in. I think that’s risky. Me.” She shook her head, long hair swaying behind her. “There’s got to be more to it than that.”

Pearl bowed. “That’s all I can say.”

“Can? Or will?” pressed Jasper.

Pearl bowed again and said no more.

Notes:

This chapter summarized in one gif:

Chapter 8: A Girl and her Pearl

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Connie was sitting on the giant, pillowy cushions of her mother's room and trying not to yawn. It was late, very late, but Pearl was here so no way was Connie going to bed.

The same wasn't true for Steven. After the adrenaline rush had passed, he'd been on the verge of nodding off. Mr. Universe had taken his son home, promising that Steven would be over as soon as possible after a good night's sleep.

Connie had quietly offered to transfer his exhaustion and then go insubstantial but her boyfriend had turned her down, saying that his mom and dad would be a lot happier if he was sleeping at home at night instead of pulling magical all-nighters.

Magical all-nighters were still an option for her, though, so now Connie was sitting in her mother's room watching quietly while Mom studied Pearl's warp bypass device with Pearl's own assistance.

She’d go insubstantial as soon as things stopped being interesting for a while.

Mom was sitting at a Peridot-sized workdesk, conjured by the holodeck, hunched over and examining Pearl’s warp device with her glasses on maximum magnification.

"So by diverting the transport column inward rather than outward, the warp crystal absorbs a tremendous amount of energy, heats up, and you complete your warp," said Mom in a tight voice. "Am I seeing the high-level view of your device's function accurately?"

Pearl, whose gaze sometimes would drift to the pink scabbard lying on the sandy yellow floor nearby, gave a modest bow. "You do. A side benefit is that the warp is considerably less conspicuous than normal, which was a useful benefit given the clandestine nature of its intended use. The warp column inversion is accomplished by this component here, in conjunction with this here and here," and she pointed with agile fingers at the chunk of gemtech.

Mom hummed thoughtfully. "Yes, I see what you mean. And in its way, this is exceptionally clever."

Pearl smiled. Connie did too. They’re getting along!

Then Mom's demeanor flipped entirely, going from praising to berating in a heartbeat. "However, this device functions by diverting so much energy into the warp crystal that built-in overrides engage, forcing an emergency warp for fear that the warp pad will explode! This is the sort of cunning that leaves a body count. And craters!"

There was silence for a long second. Connie's eyebrows were trying to climb up and off her forehead. Pearl bowed deeply. "I was aware there were risks-"

Mom scoffed.

"-but given the circumstances I'm laboring under, I thought that if there was a safe and easy way for me to bypass warp interdictions, you would have already preempted it."

Mom opened her mouth but no words came out, her expression flabbergasted.

"That..." she said eventually, "is a frighteningly good rejoinder."

Another modest bow. "Thank you."

"I don't suppose I could have your promise not to make further clever-yet-horrifically reckless devices?" Mom asked.

"Certainly," answered Pearl.

Mom blinked. "Really?"

Pearl nodded magnanimously. "Give my Rose and me warp access and I will forswear this entire line of tinkering."

Mom sagged. "Ah. I take your meaning. Well then, for everyone's sake I hope this conflict can be concluded swiftly." She nudged the device a little further back on her workbench as though fearful it might detonate.

Another nod from Pearl, this time with a wry smile. "I quite agree."

Mom swiveled around so suddenly it caused Connie to jolt. "And you, young lady, are expressly forbidden from being within a twenty yard radius of any usage of any device crafted by Pearl!"

The pale gem bowed. "That would probably be for the best," agreed Pearl with a hint of sadness.

Connie looked from gem to gem, a little bewildered, but finally she nodded.

She'd never gotten double-mom-glares before and she was a little shaken by the experience.

---

Instead of getting eight hours of sleep, Connie had spent seven hours with Pearl and thirty minutes insubstantial. Which meant that, with a frankly gratuitous amount of magical cheating, even someone like Connie could be a morning person!

The sun was just a glow on the horizon and Connie and Pearl were walking across town together. They were walking because, for some reason, Wolf had loped into the Beach House around 3am, taken one look at Pearl, snorted, and loped right back out.

Connie was dressed warmly, in rugged clothes she didn't mind getting dirty. Insulated work gloves fit snugly over her hands. Pearl had pulled gloves and safety goggles out of her gemstone and was now wearing both.

"Connie! Pearl!" cried Steven, her boyfriend bounding over toward them. He pulled Connie into a tight hug, then turned and gave Pearl a lighter hug during which the gem looked slightly lost.

"Come on, I can't wait to introduce you to everyone!" Steven, relentless in his early morning energy in a way even magic couldn't match, hauled Connie excitedly forward while Pearl walked swiftly behind them.

They rounded a corner and there were three cleanup crew workers busy in front of a damaged store front. They paused in their work as Steven led Connie and Pearl over.

"Guys! I want you to meet Connie and Pearl. They're going to help us this morning." Steven made a sweeping gesture at the two, causing Connie to give a meek wave and Pearl to bow primly.

Steven's smile was ear-to-ear. He gestured to a lanky teen, older than Connie, tall, and rail-thin, like a scarecrow in winter wear that was trying (and failing) to grow a mustache. "This is Josh. He's cool!"

Josh offered a sheepish wave and a smile.

Next Steven pointed to a short woman whose perpetual scowl was in contrast to the yellow Hello Kitty scarf around her neck and vibrant, lime-green hair visible beneath her winter wear. "This is Tabitha. She knows about all sorts of things, like about ductwork and roofing and electrical wiring."

The woman fixed Connie and then Pearl in turn with a gimlet-eyed stare. "If you see any exposed wires, flag me over and then stay away from them."

Pearl bowed. "I will be vigilant and swift in alerting you."

Tabitha made a sour expression as she raised to her mouth what looked to be a cup of coffee that had gotten ambushed by a mountain of whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sugary sprinkles.

Then Steven gestured to a man with an enormous, black beard, an orange beanie covering a bald head, and smiling eyes. "This is Arnold. He's the team leader and he's really nice."

The bluff man walked over, smiling and clapping Connie affectionately on the shoulder. Then he offered an outstretched hand at Pearl. Hesitantly the gem extended her own and had her small hand pumped exuberantly.

---

Pearl had a habit of holding doors open for Connie so Connie had needed to be extra quick 'claiming' this door for herself. Propping it open, she gestured for Pearl, who walked demurely into the deliberately cluttered office of Dr. Becky Brooks.

The old window into the office had been fogged glass, only letting in diffuse light from outside and making the room cosier in Connie's opinion. Of course, that window hadn't survived the handship crash and the replacement was clear, not fogged. Connie pursed her lips in mild disapproval but didn't say anything: having spent all morning working with a cleanup crew, she was disinclined to critique them... plus mentioning the handship might put Pearl in an awkward position.

"Hello Connie," said Jeff's mom, the woman dressed in a riot of bright colors. Despite the cold weather, she was wearing a sunny, floral-pattern dress, though she did have leggings on and a long winter coat hung off a hook by the door.

"Hi Dr. Brooks," said Connie with a smile. This was their first therapy session since the crash, but she was mainly excited because of who was accompanying her.

The doctor gave her bright, scar-marred smile in return then turned to the gem standing politely nearby with her hands clasped in front of her. "And you must be Pearl. Hello."

Pearl had gotten a little better with handshakes by now (plus, unlike Arnold, Dr. Brooks didn't shake your hand like she was trying to unscrew your arm from your shoulder) and accepted the extended hand gracefully with her own. "Hello. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance," she said politely.

Dr. Brooks gestured to a couch and Pearl sat, the doctor sidling over toward her shelf of teas and her electric kettle. "No, but I've heard about you in my sessions with Connie. Plus, she called ahead while confirming the appointment so I'd know to expect you. Would you like something to drink?"

"No thank you," said Pearl, "but a mug of tea would be lovely."

Dr. Brooks quirked her head at the seeming contradiction before shrugging and busying herself with her amusingly eclectic mug collection. A few minutes later, when everyone had their piping hot tea to sip (or sniff appreciatively as the case may be), she sat opposite the couch Connie and Pearl were sharing.

"What would you like to discuss today?” she asked Connie. “I know it's been some time between sessions so is there anything you'd like to update me on, or something you'd like to make our focus?"

Connie fidgeted a little with the mug resting in her lap. Of course, she'd already filled Dr. Brooks in on her plan for the session back when she'd called earlier, but there was a flutter of nervousness in her at saying it aloud.

Taking a quick sip to let her order her thoughts, Connie said, "I summoned my sword for the first time in August, when I was trying to buy Pearl and Amethyst enough time to escape from my- from the rest of the Crystal Gems. I was in a really unpleasant mood at the time, angry at the others for not listening to me, and I have to reenter that mindset to summon my sword, which has caused... friction with others. I'm an angry person when I summon my sword and that's a problem."

The recap was for Pearl's benefit since Dr. Brooks had already known all of this. Looking at Dr. Brooks, Connie could only see Pearl in her peripheral vision but that was enough to make out the look of surprised concern on the pale gem's face.

"But I realized something recently,” continued Connie. “August wasn't actually the first time I'd summoned my sword, nor was I angry when it happened."

There was a faint gasp to Connie's right. "When you read my story outside. Before I was released."

Connie nodded, a somber smile and a faint blush rising to her cheeks as she looked at Pearl. "Yeah. It was fourteen months ago. It was the first magical thing I ever did. And what I realized recently was that, even though Jasper and Lapis and Mom spent months and months trying to train me to summon my sword after that, the two times it did work were always because of you.”

There had even been that time before the launch, when Pearl had put on the play for Connie, where she’d come this close to summoning it, but she didn’t mention that just then.

Pearl's hands had risen to cover her mouth and her eyes were watering.

Connie ducked her head slightly, trying to keep her own composure in the face of Pearl's bared emotions. "So I was hoping, since you're here, that maybe the three of us could talk about it. Together."

"Oh... Okay..." Pearl summoned a mint-colored handkerchief from her gemstone and dabbed at her eyes. "If that's how you feel..."

Clearing her throat around a smile, Dr. Brooks set her mug down on the coffee table. "Okay, so, first I'd like Connie to give a feelings timeline of when she first summoned her sword. It doesn't have to be exact, just what comes to mind.” She picked up her notepad and a mechanical pencil, clicking it twice so it’d be ready to write. “Then, Pearl, I'd like you to give the same. Maybe with two complementary perspectives on the same event we can..."

---

Steven flipped the top card of the villain deck and he and Connie groaned in unison.

It was day two of their truce with Pearl and the day before Harvest Festival. Connie had wanted to do some gaming with Pearl and Steven had, quite wisely in Connie's opinion, decided to bring only cooperative games over. Bismuth, Mom, and Jasper were busy with the drill construction, hence why the four of them had the Beach House to themselves.

They were playing Sentinels of the Multiverse, each in charge of a superhero collectively trying to stop an invasion by the diabolical Grand Warlord Voss and his horde of seemingly limitless minions. They felt especially limitless given that a reinforcements card had just been revealed, causing another five minions to reenter the game.

Pearl followed the game with narrow-eyed concentration, her deck of cards held primly in her hand. Lapis, however, seemed pleased by the sudden surge of enemies.

"Boom!" exclaimed the blue gem with a cackle. "The Mighty Haka goes on a rampage. Five damage to all the baddies, and two damage to all the goodies."

Steven, who was playing the tinkerer Unity and so had constructed a legion of adorable robots to fight the bad guys, whimpered as most of his helpers were trashed.

"Lapis!" scolded Connie. "This is a cooperative game!"

"Yeah," answered the hydrokinetic with obvious relish. "And I'm winning!"

She cackled again as Connie buried her face in her hands.

Pearl, playing The Wraith, a stealthy and gadget-heavy heroine, said, "The rampage did remove all of Warlord Voss' minions from play, leaving the villain vulnerable. I use my Razor Ordnance and, in combination with my utility belt, unleash a volley of throwing knives. That brings Voss' health to four."

Connie blinked. "I have Tempest strike Warlord Voss with lightning for three damage-"

"-And as Grand Warlord Voss is Tempest's nemesis-" continued Pearl, looking very self-satisfied.

"-I do an extra point of damage, taking Voss down!" finished Connie.

"Woo!" exclaimed Steven, arms thrust skyward. "The heroes win!"

Connie and Steven leapt up, and even Lapis was rising to her feet, albeit with a casual lack of haste.

Pearl, who was already in the process of neatly putting away all the cards, looked confused.

"Come on, Pearl," said Connie. "Obligatory victory boogie!"

Pearl's thin brows furrowed. "I don't recall reading that in the game's manual."

Lapis rolled her eyes. "House rules. They're even unwritten. In triplicate," she drawled. "Now come on up and dance like your stone's cracked."

---

According to Peridot, Connie's power might keep her feeling physically refreshed, but it was unknown if the psychological benefits of sleep were also conferred. The girl had gone two sleepless nights in a row, determined to wring every minute out of her truce-time with Pearl, but Peridot had finally put her foot down. She'd insisted that Connie get some actual sleep that night, an order Jasper had conveyed when she'd warped home to relieve Lapis from Pearl-watching duty for the night.

Jasper was leaning casually against the countertop, reading, when Pearl walked with quiet grace down from Connie's loft. The Quartz had been outwardly relaxed, but she'd been watching veeery carefully as Pearl tucked the girl in, ready to spring to action in a second if anything threatening happened.

With Pearl in the living room, though, Jasper allowed herself to relax very slightly, moving over to her usual spot on the couch. This was good because she enjoyed this part of the novel.

"I don't know that I'll ever personally indulge in sleep - I'm afraid the appeal is largely wasted on me," said Pearl with a wistful smile on her face. "But I can't deny how utterly precious Connie looks while resting."

Jasper gave a curt nod of agreement, carefully turning the page. “I know what you mean.”

Then, partly because she’d read it recently, and partly because she felt like it, Jasper said, "'And so it was, late into the night, that the companion did try to divert the hero to happier times. Battles won. Innocents saved. Machinations thwarted. The companion labored under their geas and so could not speak freely, but even so inhibited they did their best to impart what comforts they could,'" the Quartz quoting from the book in her hands, the passage leaping easily to mind. "'As the hero succumbed to her exhaustion and found such succor as there was to be had in sleep, the companion resumed her vigil.'"

She laid a thick finger down to mark her place and glanced to her right.

Pearl, meanwhile, had a strangled expression on her face, like that time Peridot had accidentally gotten a whistle caught in her throat while testing Connie's force fields.

"It's from a book of Connie's," explained Jasper when the gem's bewilderment didn't look like it was going anywhere.

Slowly Pearl relaxed, coming to sit daintily on the opposite end of the couch. "I'm... familiar with that book, actually."

Jasper angled her head in acknowledgement. "Connie shared it with you too then."

Pearl didn't really answer, she just made another kind of choked sound, managing a nod. Perhaps she was still emotional from the sight of Connie sleeping. It could be a special sight, Jasper knew.

Jasper returned to her book, though a part of her was paying very close attention to Pearl and everything else within her situational awareness.

"Do you... like that book?" asked Pearl after a couple minutes had passed. She'd scooted a little closer, but was still most of a couch away.

Jasper marked her spot with her finger once more and faced Pearl. "Yes. This is my second time reading it. Connie won't tell me who the author is yet but I'd like to meet them someday." She frowned. "If they're alive. It's annoying that I didn't learn about Tolkien until after he was already dead."

Pearl inched a little closer, peering forward as if to get a better look at the book cradled carefully in Jasper's lap.

Jasper raised the book so that the title on the spine was visible, The Tale of the Hero and the Companion. The fancy gem made another strangled noise at that.

"Tolkien?" asked Pearl eventually.

Jasper only nodded, still irked that she'd discovered something created by humans that she liked only for the human in question to have died a scant few decades ago. At least, according to Steven, Peter Jackson was still alive.

"What would you say to the author of that book if you did meet them?" asked the fancy gem a little later.

"That I like their book," answered Jasper. "They know a lot about devotion. How right it can feel to dedicate yourself to someone worthy of you."

Jasper wouldn't normally have been this candid but she wanted to draw Pearl out in case she gave up some detail Bismuth could use later to track down Rose. And although this was a rather personal subject, it was also a safe one: they were just two gems who liked the same book, after all.

"It's comforting," Pearl agreed with a quaver in her voice, scooting a little closer. "Being a part of something greater than yourself."

Huh. Jasper hadn't considered it before, but it made sense that a Pearl would know something about that. She gave a grunt of agreement.

Several more minutes passed in silence and Pearl seemed to feel unsure of something. Self-conscious, maybe? She inched a little away from Jasper, retreating into her thoughts.

That wouldn't do.

"Also how lonely it can be," added the Quartz. "You're there, you're at the heart of everything going on..."

"...But you're never the heart," finished Pearl. Her posture improved but her chin drooped, as if she was trying to be proper about feeling sad. Jasper had never seen anything quite like it. "Yes, I know that very well," added the dainty gem.

Jasper wasn't fully aware of what she was doing until she was doing it, but she held the book out to Pearl. "Were you able to read all of it?" she asked. Pearl and Amethyst hadn't been hiding in Steven's barn all that long. Plus, they were building a spaceship at the same time, so even if Connie had loaned her the book, Pearl might not have had a chance to finish it.

Pearl took the book, retrieved a bookmark from her gemstone (a laminated rectangle of paper with a bright flower in bloom printed on it), and used it to mark Jasper's place. Jasper should have warned Pearl to be careful with the book, like Connie had warned her, but there was something about Pearl that radiated care and precision.

She ran a delicate finger across the cover, expression unreadable. Then she gracefully handed the book back to Jasper. "Yes, I've finished it, but thank you for the offer," and she smiled warmly.

Jasper opened the book to her spot and was reaching for the bookmark when Pearl said, "No. You can keep it." A beat later she gestured hastily to her gemstone, her cheeks flushed slightly for some reason. "I have plenty more."

The Quartz met her gaze for a moment and then nodded. That made sense. Then, once again not fully aware of what she was doing before she did it, Jasper set the book carefully aside, rose from the couch, and strode across the room over to Lapis' bookshelf. She grabbed Fellowship of the Ring off the shelf and strode back the way she’d came.

"Here." A beat. "I think you'll like it."

Gingerly, Pearl took the book, the dainty gem favoring Quartz and novel both with a curious expression. "Thank you," she said eventually.

Jasper sat down, retrieving The Tale of the Hero and the Companion. She opened it back to her spot, the bright flower bookmark waiting for her. She'd have to ask Peridot sometime what kind of flower that was.

Confirming in her peripheral vision that Pearl was reading, Jasper returned to her own story. Then she turned and said, "Pay special attention to Samwise."

Pearl's eyes were wide glancing back at Jasper, then she nodded primly. "I will," and she favored Jasper with a smile.

The two of them returned to their reading. They spoke little, but Jasper could tell from the gem's expression that she was enjoying herself. That she read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single night was impressive too.

---

When Connie awoke the morning of Harvest Festival, she found Pearl and Jasper sitting quite close and talking softly, the works of Tolkien spread out across their laps.

Notes:

The unused version of Lapis' line to Pearl:

Lapis rolled her eyes. "House rules. They're even unwritten. In triplicate," she drawled. "Now get up and shake what your Diamond gave ya."

We'll see you Wednesday, October 16th for the next exciting installment of Reap What Was Sown!

The talented and ever excellent NeonJohn has drawn not only Lapis' imagined shoulder angel Connie from Ep37Ch9, but also a shoulder devil Connie to match! Truly, he is a gentleman and a scholar. [salutes]

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 9: Proselytizing the Pearl

Chapter by br42, BurdenKing, MjStudioArts

Connie, Pearl, and Steven were in her mother's room. They were in there because Connie had access to a holodeck. This was already amazing, but when you combined a holodeck with a gem with Pearl's theatrical and storytelling abilities, it became AWESOME!

"And then Carella reached for one of her lightning arrows and said- and said- Oh, shoot, how did it go, Connie?" asked Steven. He'd wanted to recreate some of the highlights of their Lutes and Loot game for Pearl, complete with life-sized Carella Serpenthelm, Roland Peggio, Samwise Éowyn, and Todd the Evoker.

Connie flushed a little at being put in the spotlight like that. But seeing Pearl's bright-eyed smile directed her way --Pearl was loving this every bit as Steven, that much was obvious-- Connie squelched her own nervousness.

"It was something like," and she adopted what she called her heroine voice, louder and more confident then her normal voice, "'You planted only lies and wickedness. Now reap what was sown!'"

Then the holographic Carella fired a crackling bolt of lightning from her bow, all while Pearl applauded from the sidelines. "Bravo! Splendid!"

Connie flushed deeper. "Or something like that. I don't remember exactly."

The ebullience was interrupted when they heard the door to the room open and Bismuth strode through. She waved and smiled at the three. "Hey. Blue said you were in here. Sorry to interrupt but I wanted to let Alloy and Meatball know that we launched the project-"

That was the code phrase everyone used to refer to the drill around Pearl. It seemed silly to Connie since she'd mentioned the drill to Steven when he'd actually been possessed by Rose, so their enemies already knew about it. The others were insistent and Connie had begrudgingly admitted it was a reasonable precaution, though they'd all be feeling a little silly when Pearl finally broke from Rose and became an open ally and took up a room for herself in the temple.

Not that Connie was hoping that with every fiber of her being or anything.

"-just before I came over here," finished the smith.

"Really?" gasped Connie and Steven in unison.

Bismuth grinned. "Yeah! We made great progress. Plus, that thing Green can do with her tech and my tech working together?" she shook her head. "Tell Garnet I'm sorry but there's a new kind of fusion out there and I like this one even better."

"When will the d- the project..." Words were tricky for Connie just then. "When will we know more?" she managed eventually.

Bismuth shrugged. "Late tonight maybe? Tomorrow morning? The project has a long ways to go, even with the headstart Blue gave it. The good news is that we're all free to go to Meatball's party."

Steven perked up with a cheer. "Woo! Oh gosh, I'll text Mom and Dad. This is gonna be such a great Harvest Festival! I get reception in here if you leave the door open so-" Bismuth's gemstone sparkled and the door whooshed open. "Thanks!" and Steven already had his phone out, thumbs flying across the screen.

"Sure thing. And since I'm not busy for once, I wanted to take the chance to talk with Pearl. All the others have gotten to gab with you and I'd hate to be the odd gem out." Bismuth sauntered over to the far wall and gave the group an easy smile, Citrine's tiki masks and other keepsakes visible behind her. "Mind if we get down to bismuth?"

Steven chuckled as he pocketed his phone and Bismuth shot him a wink.

Pearl looked to Connie as if for permission. Not that Pearl needed it, but Connie offered a small nod anyway. With that, Pearl offered a bow at mid-height and rose with a polite smile on her face. "I don't mind at all. And if I have any pearls of wisdom to share, I won't hesitate to speak them."

Bismuth's smile widened, eyes twinkling at the shared moment.

With a last, voiceless chuckle, Bismuth asked, "Have you been having a good time with Alloy? I don't have to ask her that question since the only way it could be any more obvious is if she was literally glowing."

Connie flushed a little, half-hiding behind the frozen figure of Carella without realizing it.

Pearl's bow was lower this time. "My time with Connie, with Steven, and the rest of the Crystal Gems has been extremely pleasant, I can assure you." She favored both of the teens with a warm smile before turning her attention back to Bismuth.

"How'd you like for this to be your new normal?" offered the smith.

Pearl's earnest grin dimmed, becoming less 'beaming' and more 'polite.' "That's a beautiful dream. However, it’s only because of exceptional circumstances that this is possible. Exceptional in both meanings of the word, for they are the exception from the norm. Though a part of my thoughts will always be on the time I've spent here, I can't remain overlong." A shallow bow. "I hope that answers your question."

"Lemme guess, White," and Bismuth shifted one hand into a chisel and rasped her exposed elbow before shifting back. "You have all these duties and obligations pulling you away, right?"

"Quite so," answered the pale gem.

Bismuth shook her head. "That's how they want us to live. But here's the thing: on Earth, it's your life and no one gets to tell you how to live it unless you let them."

"That may be true for rebel gems," countered Pearl diplomatically, "But I am no rebel."

"You are, though," answered Bismuth instantly. "Now, Bismuths don't normally spend much time with Pearls --we're too low-caste for that, plus building is messy work and no upper crust wants their pretty Pearl getting smudged up-- but it's my understanding that Pearls don't usually build spaceships from scraps or piece together warp bypass devices as part of an invasion turned guerrilla warfare campaign." Bismuth spared a glance back to be sure she'd found a bare stretch of wall to lean on. "Lemme know if I'm wrong," she invited, eyes bright with the light of rebellion.

Pearl spent a second organizing her thoughts and Connie was watching the gem with wide-eyed attention, only casting a glance at her boyfriend to confirm that he was rapt as well.

"It's true that I have been compelled to act in ways atypical of Pearls. However, though my activities have been unorthodox, it has all been done in service of very orthodox ends: I constructed the ship so I could return to the side of the master I had been separated from during the Rebellion and I am acting now on behalf of my new owner. It is in that service that I am here now, though I am fortunate and grateful that Connie and Steven have seen fit to make my visit here such a joyous one," and she ended with a smile to the teens and a feather-light caress of Connie's arm.

Bismuth shook her head, rainbow dreadlock ponytail sweeping the yellow sandstone wall as she did. "But that's the thing, White: even though you were just trying to be a good Pearl, you were still rebelling the moment you deviated from the blueprint Homeworld has for proper Pearl behavior. Yellow and Pink --yes, your new boss-- didn't start the Rebellion by waving a flag and kicking Pink Diamond in the shin. They started the Rebellion by thinking of better ways to do things and then doing them even when their Diamond told them to stop. Because what those upper crusts want aren't results. What they want is control. A place for everyone and everyone in their place." A beat. "With them at the top, of course," and her hand became a battleaxe, though only for a moment. "You're already a rebel, White, so you might as well enjoy the perks. Perks like being your own owner, doing whatever job you want to do, and keeping whatever friends you like, like those two squishies," and she favored Connie and Steven with a friendly smirk.

In contrast to Bismuth's increasing animation, Pearl had gotten more and more statue-like, posture straightening and her hands clasped at waist-height. Several seconds passed before the slight gem said a touch stiffly, "A dutiful Pearl's first loyalty is always to her owner. Rose is far from a typical gem and far from a typical owner." She allowed a slight smile to grace her expression. "Is it not so implausible that she would have an atypical Pearl as well?" Her demeanor became serious once more. "My point is, I don't serve the Diamonds except in the most abstract sense, and even that is questionable given my Rose's agenda. Instead, I serve my owner. I always have and it is my intent to continue to do so. So if I have strayed outside the boundaries of conventional Pearl behavior, that matters only in how my owner feels about it, and she's made it quite clear-" and Pearl's cheeks flushed slightly for some reason, "-that she is very much in favor of my broad skill set."

Connie and Steven had drifted closer to one another, something Connie didn't realize was happening until she felt her boyfriend's fingers twine through her own. A part of her wanted to argue, shout, plead, or otherwise lend her voice to Bismuth's argument, to do everything in her power to convince Pearl to stay... but she recognized that she'd risk muddling the message, risk stepping on Bismuth's toes by butting in. Getting to grasp Steven's hand for support helped Connie remember that so she stood there, mouth shut and chewing the inside of her cheek anxiously.

Besides, if anyone could ignite the fires of rebellion in others, it was Bismuth.

Bismuth squinted at Pearl as if she was surveying a structure, trying to get a feel for the layout and identify the load-bearing walls. "Who says Pink gets to own you?"

Very primly, Pearl said, "The role of the servant is a Pearl's lot, and there can be no servants without someone to serve."

The smith shook her head, expression disagreeing though not unkindly. "No, I don't buy it, White. That's an arch without a keystone. Jaz served Yellow, dedicated herself to Alloy's mother like no other gem I've ever seen. But you can't tell me Jaz was made to serve, or that it's a Jasper's lot to be owned."

That seemed to reach Pearl, the gem's flawless posture curling in slightly, her eyes growing distant. Connie remembered that she'd woken up to the sight of Jasper and Pearl talking quietly about The Lord of the Rings trilogy that morning; maybe the two had talked about more than hobbits.

"Yes," said Pearl eventually, the gem still abstracted and not looking at anything in particular. "Jasper does seem to be a very... devoted sort of gem. I must confess it was quite a surprising discovery. At a distance I always took her to be rather prideful, but I see now that exterior appearances and interior character need not always match to be appreciated."

Bismuth's smile had grown into a rather broad smirk, eyes half-lidded in what looked like a very smug, Lapis-like expression. "Oh, Jaz' exterior appearances got all kinds of appreciation during the Rebellion. The gal had a fan club a mile long, and that's not even counting the Rubies."

Pearl blushed deeply and was visibly flustered for a couple of seconds. Connie wasn't sure what to make of it, exactly; maybe Pearl wasn't used to the sort of teasing Lapis and Bismuth liked to get up to.

Eventually Pearl regained her composure, fighting down the flush in her cheeks and squaring her shoulders anew. "Jasper chose to devote herself to Citrine and from what I can tell she served with grace and dedication to the very end. It's impressive and rare to see outside of Pearls. But I don't think anyone is arguing that she shouldn't have done what she did. The only difference between her and me is the choice."

"Why?" insisted Bismuth. When Pearl looked confused, the smith clarified with, "Why should she get a choice about it when you don't? You and Jasper can't swim through lava; that's inherent to her being a Quartz and you being a Pearl. But not this. You're smart. Determined. Clever. You've got a mind and a good one from where I'm standing, so why don't you get a choice?"

Pearl withdrew in on herself once more. Like everything with her body language, it was subtle, a slight hunching of her shoulders, a downward cast to her chin, but it spoke volumes. "I'm not sure if you know the full story of my return to Homeworld space."

"I'd like to hear it if you'd like to tell it," invited the armored smith.

"The gem I once served vanished during the Rebellion. She left on an assignment elsewhere on the planet, as was her wont, but she never returned. I thought she was waylaid, captured and ransomed back, or otherwise compelled to return to Homeworld without notice. With my own capture and embedded confinement, coupled with the chaos of the conflict-" and Pearl's hands had unclasped and slowly traveled up her arms, resting at her elbows like she was cold and clutching herself. "-I thought us merely separated. And I strove, so long and so hard, to return to her. And when I finally did, when Amethyst and I stepped off the ship and onto the station, I learned that she never made it off the Earth, that she was presumed shattered before the war was even half over."

In a mirror of Pearl clutching herself, Connie's grip on Steven had turned into the two holding one another while awash in the sad tale of Pearl's past. Were they fused just then, Connie had no doubt Asmi would be sobbing and blowing their nose on a holographic hanky.

"I was quite... uncomposed when I first heard that news." Pearl did in fact retrieve a blue-and-white striped handkerchief from her gemstone and dabbed her eyes before returning it. "And then, after the initial shock and... disappointment wore off, I was gripped by a new fear."

She looked up at Bismuth directly. "Do you know what usually happens to an ownerless Pearl?"

The broad-shoulder smith shook her head in silence.

"It is déclassé to possess a second-hand Pearl. Sometimes we are given over to esteemed subordinates, a gift to an Agate or maybe a particularly accomplished Zircon. But that is optimistic. I've known Pearls given over as the communal property to a barracks of favored Topaz guards. Theirs is not a delicate or dignified service, but even those Pearls are counted among the fortunate. No, most ownerless Pearls are embedded. After only just escaping such confinement, the prospect of entering it anew... I have known fear many times in my existence but nothing so deep and terrible as the dread I felt contemplating such a bleak turn of fate."

Pearl was shivering like a leaf in the wind. Bismuth, meanwhile, had shifted one hand into a warhammer seemingly without realizing it and her face could only be described as belligerent, a revolutionary willing to reduce an entire empire to rubble if that's what it took to protect the powerless from the powerful.

Then Pearl's expression and face lifted like a sunflower rising to track the sun. "But then Rose came to me. Elevated by Pink Diamond herself, she holds considerable authority within the empire, perhaps second only to the Diamonds themselves. She could have had any Pearl in her service. She could have had a dozen Pearls if she'd wanted it. And yet she came to me, wretched and tearful though I was, and she offered me the choice to serve her." Another handkerchief, this one cream-colored, appeared to dab at decidedly happier tears. "I guess you were right, Bismuth. There was a choice after all."

Bismuth's face scrunched up like she'd bitten into something bitter. She shook her head. "A choice between embedding and service is no choice worth the name. That's coercion pretending to be compassion."

Pearl shook her head in answer. "That's where you're mistaken. The decision wasn't mine because, as you say, it was no choice at all. No, it was Rose's. She saw in me that spark that you call rebellion or role-breaking and she embraced it. She rescued me and there are a thousand Pearls who would trade places with me in a second if they somehow had the choice."

She sniffed then gave Connie a wan smile. "I'm not as humble as is proper. You and Rose saw to that and I love you both for it. I have done impressive things and I am more creative than most in my determination to see my service done.”

Turning back to the other gem, she said, “And as you point it out, Bismuth, I agree that perhaps I have become rather un-Pearl-like in the course of events. However, all of those qualities are ones that, for a conventional owner, would be a mark against me rather than in my favor. But not Rose," and her smile brightened. "Lost and defective, she saw me and chose me and I will do nothing less than my utmost in my service to her. Whatever I am, exceptional or improper or some kind of renegade Pearl-" and she laughed, a giddy, airy sound but with a manic edge to it. "-I am not ungrateful, and Rose has earned nothing less."

Bismuth's sour expression had only soured further.

For several long seconds the smith stared not so much at Pearl as through Pearl and into the space behind her. Her hand shifted between a few shapes, some weapons, others tools. It looked like the smith was going to say something but eventually and wordlessly shoved off the wall and paced out the open temple door. She disappeared into the house beyond while Connie, Steven, and Pearl all exchanged confused looks.

The armored gem reappeared a little later, the telltale golf bag of weapons slung over her shoulder. The temple door closed behind her as she unslung it and started rummaging through. "Not an axe," she muttered. "Flail?" She looked up as if seeing Pearl anew and then shook her head. "Spear? Glaive? Ooh, maybe. No, where is it? Aha!"

Bismuth rose from the bristling bag and, gripping the flat of the blade in two thick fingers, held out a sword. It was longer than one of Connie's sabers, with a thinner, straighter blade and a square guard. "Here, White. Take it," offered the smith with a pleased look.

Once again glancing to Connie for permission --the girl giving a confused shoulder shrug in response-- Pearl tentatively reached out, gripping the sword lightly. For a second she studied the weapon, angling it to catch the light and seeing her reflection in the flat of the blade. Then her arm drooped, the weapon pointed to the floor and Pearl said, "Forgive me but I am at a loss for how to interpret this situation. Should I examine the blade? Remark on its design? Is there some Crystal Gem tradition at play here?"

The twinkle was back in Bismuth's eyes. "You're supposed to take it, White. It's a gift. I made it a little after I first figured out that Alloy was, well, Alloy: part-gem and part-human. Humans do that thing where they get bigger so I thought she'd need a bigger sword some day. Then I find out she can summon her own and in the bag this went. But I think it's a good fit for you."

Pearl once again swept a bemused look across the others in the room, the sword hanging loosely in her hand. This time she asked Connie explicitly, "This won't constitute a breach of our-"

Connie shook her head. "No. It's fine. It is a gift. Bismuth likes to give weapons out to people."

"It's kind of her thing," added Steven and Bismuth bobbed her head in agreement.

The sword was raised to Pearl's forehead where it disappeared in a glow of white. Then the lithe gem bowed low in Bismuth's direction. "Thank you for the gift. You are generous with more than words."

Bismuth waved her off, lugging the golf bag over and propping it up against the wall. "No thanks needed. See, I realized something from what you said. You haven't had a choice because you're not empowered. But people underestimate you all the time. You're a Pearl. You're decorative and helpful and harmless, right? Wrong!” and Bismuth’s impassioned declaration echoed off the walls, her grin a fierce one. “You’re strong and capable too! And now you're a Pearl with a weapon. Use it, catch 'em by surprise, make your choice and make it count!"

Pearl met this rousing call to action with confusion tinged with alarm. She started to bow then faltered, instead rising to stare searchingly at Bismuth. "Are you suggesting that I- that I ambush Rose?"

Bismuth crossed her arms and smiled affably, but there was steel in her eyes where earlier there had been a twinkle. "I'm saying that if you have someone worth following, then follow them... until you shouldn't. Remember, I served two generals once, then one. And then..." Bismuth's hand went to her gut as if remembering an old wound. Connie couldn't help but notice it was the same side she wore her armor on. "Well, people aren't always who you think they are. Besides, Rose is going down-" and she flicked the Breaking Point holstered at her hip, "-and there's no reason you need to go down with her."

Connie goggled and Pearl was aghast. Steven inhaled so sharply he choked on his own spit and started to cough.

Bismuth continued. "I’ve been looking around when I could get away from the project for an hour or more. I found your cave, the one hidden below the Sanctuary. That was clever, by the way. I looked it over real carefully and I couldn't find Pink. I might not before we all go to Meatball's get-together, so I wanted to be sure to chat with you."

Pearl retreated a step. "That's what this all was? A warning? A threat?"

Bismuth shook her head, expression firm but a little sad. "No. I was on the level with everything I said earlier, White. You deserve better than you got and you really would be welcome here." She looked thoughtful. "I know Pink has a real pull to her, like the stars burn just to shine on her and we're all just caught in her reflected glow." A sad smile crossed her face and she said, "It was her more than Yellow that got me into this rebellion bismuth in the first place, after all."

Then she shook her head once more. "But think about it. She challenged her Diamond for the survival of a planet then turned on her own rebellion? She became this scary enforcer of the upper crusts and now she's going to let this planet get harvested so she can use the weapon inside to try and strong-arm the Diamonds? Whatever she's doing, it's paved with broken promises, broken gems, and maybe even broken planets. She'll break you too, sooner or later, if you don't break from her first.” Had drifting to her holster, Bismuth added, “Or if I don't break her myself."

Steven’s faint sounds of distress aside, the silence in the room was deafening.

Bismuth sagged a little, as if saying all that had made her deflate some. She wasn't looking at anyone just then, but rather the space Pearl happened to inhabit. "If you say that Pink saved you on that station then I believe you. But Homeworld made it so you needed saving in the first place by saying Pearls could be owned or thrown away. Pink saved you from a system she works for, which makes that ring a little hollow to me. But most of all, someone saving your life doesn't mean you're obligated to die for them, or die with them."

Drawing herself up straight, Bismuth gathered up her golf bag and started for the door, pausing on the threshold. "You're on Earth, White. No one's going to stop you. You really could just... stay. If you never had a choice before, you do now."

The door opened. Bismuth paused like she might say more... but she walked out instead.

Steven, who had been holding his breath, succumbed to his coughing fit from earlier, Connie patting his back and Pearl summoning him a bottle of water from her gemstone.

The Lutes and Loot reenactment stalled out after that. A couple of other activities were suggested, a few more games played with the help of the holodeck but the mood only partially rekindled when Pearl asked if there was any appropriate mode of dress to be worn to the upcoming gathering.

"Holiday sweater," said Steven immediately.

Connie nodded in wordless agreement.

"I... see," said Pearl a beat later, being led out the temple door by the pair so they could ask Lapis for a selection of loan sweaters.

Notes:

This week. Thiiis week. [shakes head] I really wanted to finish up Ep38 this week even though that'd require an update as large or larger than last week's three-chapter addition. Then I got sick and I scaled back my ambition to getting all the scenes up to and including the Harvest Festival party; a necessity but one I wasn't happy about because of how extremely excited I am to share some of the scenes waiting near the end of this episode - they're going to be so cool!

Then I got sicker and found I could barely finish this scene at all. Which is every kind of frustrating, for you and for me, but here we are.

Fortunately I'm on the mend. I don't know if I'll be able to actually finish Ep38 by next week, but I'm going to try not to stress about it. I've gotten in a habit lately of thinking of Connie Swap like a race -wanting to sprint to the next big, exciting thing in an especially eventful part of the narrative- but I should be treating it like a marathon instead and pacing myself. So I'll see you all next Wednesday, October 23rd, for the next exciting installment of Reap What Was Sown!

Also of note is a new collection, like the Omake Collection or the Peridot What-If collection: the Connie Swap Art Collection. This contains chapters dedicated to organizing and displaying the official art, audio, and fan art for the whole of Connie Swap. It's meant to allow readers to check it out without having to sift through literally hundreds of chapters across dozens of episodes.

I can assure you that clicking on that link won't give you a faceful of spoilers or make your browser implode from trying to load several hundred pics all at once. The first chapter of the collection is a small introduction, with later chapters dedicated to various sections of the CS artwork. Consider checking it out!

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 10: Food for Thought

Steven's house had always seemed spacious to Connie. Not large, exactly, but more like there was room enough for everyone without being crowded. The Beach House could be crowded. Heck, the arbitrarily large temple interior could be crowded, but the Universe family home, music store, recording studio, etc. always seemed to accommodate however many people were in it.

Seeing as there were sixteen(!) people in the house just then and Connie wasn't feeling claustrophobic, she was starting to wonder if gemkind really had the monopoly on magic.

Jasper was surveying the room and occasionally talking with another gem or one of the Universes. Onion had decided she was a living jungle gym and was determined to scale the large Quartz, a fact Jasper had accepted with surprising speed and solemnity. Bismuth had mingled for a while but then left to go check out the instruments in the music shop; having meticulously crafted tools for neither war or construction had left the smith openly curious. Lapis was splitting her attention about fifty-fifty between the guests and the snacks.

Mom was wearing an old, baggy sweater that was far too large for her absent her limb enhancers, the sleeves drooping over her hands whenever they became unrolled. It was from some tech conference she'd attended as Dot Matrix back in the day and it showed a meditating figure chanting 'Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω', which Connie knew from lessons to be the electrical symbol for an Ohm. Below that was the name of a superconductor manufacturer and the slogan, 'Unresisting.' She was in a conversation with Yellowtail about something Connie couldn't understand. Literally. Mom's universal translator gem power meant she was speaking in the same impenetrable 'muhmuhmuh' accent as the fisherman.

Mr. Universe was busy in the kitchen wearing his infamous cherry sweater and an apron that read ‘Starving Artist’. Connie recognized both from New Year's Eve. Leaning across the kitchen divider was Sour Cream, the two tossing ideas back and forth about the DJ's next album.

Mrs. Universe and Steven were both busy performing whatever form of social alchemy it was that kept this cauldron of personalities from bubbling over. Near as Connie could tell, it involved short, smiling conversations with everyone and making sure the refreshments stayed omnipresent, though she suspected there was more to it than that. The former was wearing a sweater from a past charity concert: 'Big Hair Rock Care 2008' was printed on it just below a picture of a turkey with an Elvis hairdo that was playing electric guitar. The latter was wearing the jacket he'd gotten working with the cleanup crews that showed a flexing arm and the words 'Beach City Tough' printed on the back.

When Connie and Pearl had joined Steven on the cleanup crew that one morning, she'd been surprised by how... distracting seeing Steven working hard had been. Seeing that jacket was already making Connie's eyes go a little unfocused at the thought.

Sour Cream's mom had immediately asked Pearl if she would like to model for a painting, saying something about her bold profile, and while the gem had demurred, the two were still talking about matters of art and composition. The blonde artist was wearing a sweater, faint and faded paint stains visible in the fabric, with a photo realistic turkey on the chest and the words 'Ceci n'est pas une dinde' printed in flowing cursive beneath in a reference to the famous work by René Magritte. That combined with her slippers and yellow socks featuring smiling slices of toast made for a bold look. Pearl, meanwhile, had tried on many different sweaters before Bismuth had whispered something in Lapis' ear and Lapis, grinning widely, had dug the victorious sweater out of her room. It showed a honeycomb dripping honey into a steaming pot of tea, the words 'Hot and Sweet' printed below.

For some reason Pearl in her baggy, tea-themed sweater seemed to frequently draw Jasper's eye.

Priyanka and her dad had been taking turns talking with Marty, Sour Cream's biological father and manager/promoter. If the Harvest Festival gathering was a science experiment, Marty would be that really reactive chemical that had to be carefully isolated from most others lest it catch fire or explode.

Absent her social anchors, Connie had found herself drifting toward an inobtrusive corner. Priyanka had joined her at first, the doctor offering a comforting presence and light conversation, but it was her turn smiling and nodding at Marty and so Connie was standing beside her dad, the two Maheswarans keeping the corner from feeling lonely.

"Don't worry, cute lass," said Dad hearteningly. "Things will be a bit more your speed when the food is served."

Connie took a sip of her drink and nodded, leaning into her dad for comfort and watching the amicable chaos of the gathering before her. The dining room had a long table that could seat ten arranged and laden with food. A cornucopia centerpiece dominated the table --the fruits and vegetables spilling from it were real, harvested from Mrs. Universe's greenhouse and winter garden-- though that would change as soon as the massive turkey made the journey from kitchen to table.

The living room had been rearranged into a second dining area with a table that'd seat six hemmed in by couches and chairs. A smaller cornucopia decorated that table, this one plastic and with the Beach City motto printed on it; one of those had been in the gift basket each Beach City family had received from the mayor that week.

"It's kind of impressive, isn't it?" asked Lapis, the blue gem drifting over to their corner, a plate of snacks in one hand while she gestured to the gathering as a whole with a cup of Mr. Universe's bright red party punch in the other. "There's at least four people who hate someone else here plus another couple who are miffed over family drama, and yet the whole get-together is all smiles and finger food."

At the word 'finger food' a pale hand deftly reached up and swiped a biscuit off Lapis' plate. Connie and Doug both struggled to keep from showing their amusement.

"I'm just saying, the Universes are some next-level hosts," breathed Lapis as a gingersnap was abducted by Onion.

As the Maheswaran poker faces weren’t entirely perfect, Lapis stopped and looked down at herself. "What? Did I spill some punch on me? That stuff stains, doesn't it, Dougie?" she said, causing Dad to sputter into his drink a little, memories from Steven's birthday party rising to the fore.

The blue gem was wearing a bluish-purple half-sweater, the kind with long sleeves but an exposed midriff, with an image of a nametag on it. At the top of the name tag was 'Call Me:' and then the name 'Butter' was printed in cursive below. Seeing nothing out of sorts, Lapis turned in a tight little circle -- Onion deftly moving to stay in Lapis' blind spot behind her, a plate of purloined treats in his hand. Pivoting like that revealed the back of her sweater, on which a cartoon square of butter was wearing sunglasses and reclining on a large wheat roll as though it were a lawn chair. Below that were the words, 'Because I'm on a roll!'

Coming back to face the Maheswarans, Lapis shrugged. "Anyway, I know it's supposed to be the bride's side that plans the wedding-" Connie choked on her drink while Lapis completely missed a pig in a blanket (with turkey sausage) being swiped off her plate. "-But maybe we play to our strengths here and let the Universes take the lead."

Lapis reached for a snack and was surprised to find her plate empty. "Huh," she muttered. Then there was a throat cleared nearby and she saw Onion holding out a plate laden with food. "Sweet! There's even a little butler at this party," said Lapis, grinning. "It's like that show! What was it called again?"

"Little Butler," supplied Dad in a bone dry tone.

"Yeah!" Lapis reached for the plate but Onion pulled it out of reach, his other hand rising up and making a beckoning gesture. Lapis rolled her eyes and pulled a bill from her pocket, laying it in Onion's hand and eagerly taking the full plate. "Keep it coming, Tiny, and you'll be able to retire by dessert," she called after the fleeing figure.

She offered a little wave to Doug and Connie before drifting back into the crowd, Onion already circling through the group to take up his surprisingly lucrative spot in Lapis' blind spot.

Connie was the first to giggle though that set off her dad and before long the two were a snickering heap in the corner.

They hadn't stopped by the time Priyanka had walked over. "Hey you two," she said, a confused but happy smile on her face. "Did I miss something funny?"

Dad shook his head. "Yeah, though I'd be laughing harder if it wasn't ultimately my money she was spending."

Before either of them could explain, though, there was the crash of a falling cymbal from across the house. All eyes turned that way (save Onion, who took another three items off Lapis' plate in quick succession) and Bismuth's voice called out, "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry," answered Steven, weaving deftly through the crowd. "I'll help." He flashed a good-natured smile at the group and then vanished down the hallway.

"I must admit," said Priyanka as the ambient murmur of conversation returned, "the Universe's are very good hosts," and was surprised when that set Connie to choking on her drink for some reason.

---

Steven knew too well how fiddly drum sets could be, having knocked over plenty himself, and so was quick to help Bismuth set it back up right.

"Thanks Meatball," said the smith as she tightened a wingnut with thick fingers that were surprisingly nimble. Pausing to look over the set, she asked, "I didn't break anything, did I?"

Steven shook his head. Then a thought occurred to him and he dropped low, making sure the large drum at the center, the foot tom, hadn't been ripped or the foot pedal squished by the large gem. Confirming that was all fine, he popped back up and said, "Nope. It's a-okay."

Bismuth's answering grin was wide. "Good. I went to get a closer look and didn't realize this-" and she gestured to the Breaking Point holstered on her hip, "-got snagged on something." She shook her head. "I'm still getting used to being armed with something that's not my arms," she quipped, one of her hands shifting into a hammer and back.

Steven's eyes stayed fixed on the weapon for a long moment, his mouth becoming a line. He should probably go back out to the dining room and make sure everyone had enough to eat, or that Connie wasn't too overwhelmed or lonely, or that Aunt Vidilia and Mom didn't get too close to Marty without Sour Cream also being there, or that Miss Lapis didn't try and talk with Miss Peridot too much, or that Onion didn't do, well, most of the things Onion did... but there was something important he wanted to talk about that never seemed to get talked about.

Noticing his gaze, Bismuth looked up from the hi-hat she was inspecting. "Something up, Meatball?"

"Yeah," the word popping out of Steven's mouth without him telling it to. He frowned walking clear of the drum set so he could half-lean, half-sit on a large, black amp. "Bismuth, I don't think you should try to shatter people."

The smith's eyes narrowed slightly and she rose from her crouched position. "Is that so?" she said. "People like Rose Quartz, you mean." She didn't look angry or mad, really, but there was something about how she was standing that made Steven think she was... battle-ready.

"People like anyone, Rose Quartz included." He saw himself reflected in the metal of a sousaphone and was reminded that he was wearing his 'Beach City Tough' jacket. He tried to stand a little taller, living up to the slogan. "It's wrong."

Bismuth shook her head but she cracked a friendly grin. "It's wrong to you. And that's okay. It’s a big Earth and there’s room for everyone. No one's going to make you shatter anyone, Meatball."

Steven's mouth quirked into a frown. "No. I mean, yes, that's good, because I wouldn't shatter anyone. But I mean it's wrong. Really wrong. Capital-letters wrong. It's Wrong for anyone to shatter anyone else. And that includes you." He licked his lips. "I'd really like you to stop suggesting it. Or telling Pearl that you're going to shatter Rose. I mean, I guess you can keep wearing your weapon if you want --Connie said you were able to use it to break Rose's bubble and shield and stuff-- but you have to promise not to shatter anyone with it."

"I'm not doing that," said Bismuth plainly, thick arms crossing her chest. "Do you want to know why?"

Steven started to worry his lip a little then stopped himself. Beach City Tough, he thought, trying to meet the large gem's eyes unflinchingly. "Why?"

"Because I'm done leaving wars unfinished," she answered. "Pink wanted to win without getting anyone's hands dirty. Yellow wanted to win without getting anyone else's hands dirty. But that's the wrong way to think. That's worrying about making too big a mess when you win. No, what you do is you win, you win so hard that it sticks, and only then do you worry about cleaning up the mess you made."

"The war is over, Bismuth," insisted Steven.

"I thought so too." Again, the gem didn't sound mean, just... very willing to fight. "When they let me out I thought the war was over. I'd thought Yellow had won, that I'd been wrong and she'd been right and that was that. But then Homeworld came back. And it turns out they never actually stopped fighting, they didn't actually turn tail and run, they just set a time bomb and ran outside the blast radius. That's the kind of enemy we're dealing with, Meatball. The kind of enemy who'd shatter thousands and then use their remains as a weapon of spite. You don't negotiate with an enemy like that. You end them."

"You keep saying 'enemy' like they're some kind of video game monster that can only attack people and- and do evil stuff." Steven didn't really know what he was saying before he said it, the words just kind of poured out of him, out from a part of him that really disagreed with what Miss Bismuth was saying. "But that's not true. They're people. Miss Pearl is working for Rose Quartz, or was -- Connie and I really, really want her to stop doing that-- but the fact is you could call her the enemy and you could shatter her and then you'd be murdering that wonderful person that everyone has been talking to and playing games with and hoping does the right thing. Monsters are monsters and they can't be anything else but people aren't monsters, they can change, and you can't just kill them. Not even when you disagree with them. Not even when you, like really, really disagree with them."

Miss Bismuth drummed her fingers on her biceps. Steven may be Beach City Tough but she was super-alien-blacksmith tough. She even had bigger arm muscles then Jasper, which Steven had once thought was impossible. "They told me that Rose Quartz was puppeting you." Her voice had grown quieter but not necessarily softer. "They said she made you hold a blade to your throat."

It had been a screwdriver, not a knife, but Steven swallowed and nodded all the same. He didn't remember anything but he could tell from how the others reacted, Connie especially, that it had been really scary. He was scared by it too but it wasn't as real for him as it was for his Destiny Partner.

"You were just a tool to her. Or ammunition, maybe. Something to use and discard. You weren't a person to her."

Steven wasn't entirely sure about that. It could have been a bluff. Rose Quartz had done a lot of scary stuff, threatened a lot of people, but she'd never actually followed through. Even when she'd been able to, like after poofing most of the gems and taking them captive on her big handship, she hadn't actually, permanently hurt anyone. "Maybe," he said. "We don't really know that."

"And there's only one way to find out for sure, Meatball. Is that what it'll take for you? For someone to come back in pieces? Then will it be okay?" pressed Bismuth.

Steven tried to swallow, failed, then tried again. He shook his head. "No. Not even then."

"If Pink killed Alloy, you wouldn't want to see her in pieces?" asked Bismuth with terrible hardness in her voice. "She nearly did what with leaving her on that warship to crash."

For several seconds it was all Steven could do to shake his head. It was the kind of super scary thought he didn't like to have but couldn't not have sometimes. People thought about other people dying even when there weren't scary, powerful aliens out there to fight. Finally, in more of a croak than anything else, he said, "No." His mouth dry, he really wished he'd brought some of Dad's punch with him. "Because killing Rose wouldn't bring Connie back. Killing someone doesn't help anything. It just... leaves another person dead."

Bismuth stared at Steven from a distance of a few feet and a yawning ideological gap away. Long seconds stretched out and then the smith shook her head. "I don't think we're going to be able to build this bridge, Meatball. Because there's no way- after what they did to-" Another headshake. "They might all be people, but some people are also monsters."

"What does that make you?" asked Steven, surprised to hear his own words.

"A monster slayer." Bismuth chuckled. "Someone has to be."

"Like Citrine was?" challenged Steven.

"Yeah. The difference is that I don't think I'm a monster for doing it," answered Bismuth.

Steven narrowed his eyes. "Crystal Gems don't shatter. They're heroes and heroes don't kill. You're really cool and smart. Why don't you make a non-lethal weapon instead?"

"Because," said Bismuth, a note of anger finally entering her voice, "I. Am done. Leaving wars unfinished. If Alloy and the others want to play heroes, that's on them. No one should shatter if they don't want to, especially not when there's people like me who'll do the job better and not feel guilty over it after. That'd be like trying to hammer a nail in with a chisel: the wrong tool for the job. But I won't keep a weapon out of the hands of anyone who wants one, least of all myself."

"You can't." Steven's voice was trembling a little but he was still proud for staying tough. It was really hard just then. "You're a Crystal Gem and it's against the rules."

Bismuth leaned in close and it was all Steven could do not to flinch. "Do you see a star on me?"

Steven blinked, surprised. "Wh-What?"

"Do you see a yellow star on me, Steven?" and it sounded weird hearing Bismuth say his actual name.

He looked her over. There had been a big one right in the middle of her outfit before, it had even been part of her belt. But she'd reformed after getting poofed by Rose and now she had that rainbow pattern on her shoulder armor instead. The same as she had... on her Breaking Point.

With a sinking feeling in his tummy, Steven shook his head. "No."

Bismuth took a step back, no longer looming. "That's right. No one gets to tell me how to win a war anymore. Not the others. Not Alloy. Not you. Not even Yellow, if she were here somehow."

Steven remembered something just then, a part of Connie's mother's journal about how she was worried Bismuth might split the Rebellion or something. And he very specifically didn't say any of that out loud just then, not because he was worried Miss Bismuth would hurt him, but because she might end up hurting some of the instruments and derailing the party if he did.

She'd smashed Connie's old coffee table, after all.

Though she had built a new one out of super metal and a part of Steven was just starting to wonder what a sousaphone made out of space metal would sound like when he saw Dad walk over to the door to the shop. He had a foil-wrapped plate in one hand and was holding a heavy bag by the straps with the other.

"Shtu-ball showing you the instruments?" Dad asked Bismuth.

Bismuth turned and flashed a smile. "He was helping me make sure I don't accidentally break anything." She glanced at Steven and said, "No worries there. If I break something, you can bet it'll be on purpose."

Bismuth and Dad laughed. Steven didn't.

Dad waggled the plate in his hand. "Dinner's about done. You said you wanted to run some goodies out to Wolf and Garnet first."

Steven nodded. For some reason Wolf didn't like being around Pearl and so was waiting outside and a little ways down the street. And Jasper had originally planned to miss the party so that someone was on patrol, but he'd been told that Miss Garnet had warped over and volunteered to look after things while everyone was away. The others hadn't completely trusted her around the drill, but since the drill was now, like, several miles underground, they'd agreed to let her take over. Of course, he'd learned about all of this afterwards since this had all happened while he, Connie, and Miss Pearl were playing with the holodeck, but he still wanted to make sure everyone got a hot meal for Harvest Festival.

"Thanks Dad," said Steven. He looked at Miss Bismuth and didn't feel the earlier pressure of words trying to pour out of him. This... hadn't gone how he'd expected. Trying not to frown too much, he walked past the large gem and over to take the food from Dad. "What's Connie doing?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure I saw her talking to Pearl and Vidalia." Dad ran a hand through his thinning hair. "You want me to go get her?"

Steven signed 'no' to that. "No, that's fine. I'll just run these out to the others and then be back real soon." Honestly, it was something of a relief given how... complicated things had gotten with Bismuth. Bringing people Harvest Festival dinner was good, period, no arguing needed.

"Later, Meatball," called Bismuth. Then, to Dad, she asked, "What's the name of the fella with all the gold and, follow-up question, did he forge all that jewelry himself?"

With Dad holding the door open for him, Steven hustled outside to call for Wolf.

---

Most futures agreed it was best to wait until Steven had delivered the food before she acted, so Garnet had waited outside the barn for Steven to arrive, wish her a happy Harvest Festival, and depart, all without dismounting from that enigmatic animal of Citrine's.

The futures didn't say one way or another about Garnet loitering long enough to finish the berry cobbler but she'd done that anyway. She wasn't overly fond of blueberries or raspberries individually, but they went very well together.

Warping over, it wasn't hard to find Amethyst and Peridot. The two had been laying low in the sense that no one had spotted them, but that was more from there being no one to spot them than any actual stealth.

Walking into the clearing they'd claimed, Garnet held out the plate just as Amethyst sprung from hiding. Rather than accost the fusion like she'd planned, the Quartz instead snatched up the plate with a cry of, "Gimme! Gimme!" and leapt into the bushes to enjoy her snack.

Peridot looked up from hologram she was projecting and smiled. "It's time?" she asked.

The hologram showed a Holly Blue Agate suffering pratfall while a number of Quartzes in pink uniforms snickered from hiding. Judging from the noises she'd heard approaching, Garnet guessed this was Peridot amusing Amethyst with footage from whatever they'd been doing before they'd left Homeworld space.

Garnet watched until it looped back to the start before saying, "Yes. You have until the terrestrial warp pad hums."

Peridot blinked. "Why would it do that?"

Garnet didn't know why, only what, but didn't say that. Ignoring the question, she said, "Once it starts to hum, you and Amethyst need to be on the warp pad. Have a destination in mind and it will warp you there soon after, allowing you to avoid a Crystal Gem patrol." Peridot opened her mouth to ask a question and Garnet said, "You won't be traced."

The green gem blinked. "I see." She didn't but Garnet didn't correct her. "Very well. Amethyst!" she called.

There was the sound of food, a plate, and foil wrapping being chewed with audible satisfaction. "Oui?" said a slightly muffled voice.

"We depart at once!" Peridot gave a little squeal of excitement, dancing in place. "Ooh, this is so exciting! I have so many reports to deliver!" She gestured with her limb enhancer and levitated the crystal-filled escape pod that was somehow, Garnet didn't understand how, important to what was going to come next.

"I must be where the Crystal Gems expect me or they'll go looking for you too early." Garnet turned to leave. Already looking ahead, she saw herself rummaging through the barn for a plate to replace the one that'd been eaten. The foil she'd claim had gone into one of the trash cans present at the former build site.

"I don't mean to question your wisdom, your disgraced Clarity-" said Peridot.

Even knowing the statement was coming didn't stop that little flair of simultaneous heat and icy cold within Garnet.

"-But Amethyst and I will be warping off-world. Wouldn't your components like to warp away from this doomed planet? The Crystal Gems destroyed the interstellar warp before; they could do so again."

Garnet glanced ahead. It was hazy, the river of time moving into Connie's temporal shadow, but if she looked carefully...

"Don’t worry. We'll meet again," and with that Garnet strode away.

Notes:

A big thanks to BurdenKing for drawing up the silly sweaters worn to the feast.

Also, more wonderful fan art! Dante did redraws of Connie and they look fantastic!


You can see the original Tumblr post here, including a side-by-side comparison with the original storyboard frames. You can find more of Dante's art on their Tumblr page.

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

Connie Swap has an official Discord for the fans. Come check it out.

As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 11: All Together

Connie was at the main table, her dad (and then Priyanka) to one side and her mom and (and then Steven) to the other. The Universe's had discreetly placed a phone book under each leg of Mom's chair, making the seat rise up a little throne-like above the table, but it'd preserved her dignity more than if she'd used a booster seat like Onion had. Priyanka had pulled safety pins from her purse and used them to secure Mom’s sleeves so they’d stop rolling down, which had been a nice gesture.

Marty had claimed a seat at the main table which meant Sour Cream had to also or there'd have been a family feud. Vidalia hadn't been willing to cede the main table or her long-touring son's side to Marty, so she'd sat beside Sour Cream, the DJ acting as a buffer between two very unhappy camps. Mrs. Universe had started to sit across from Marty but Steven and Mr. Universe had quietly ushered her to another seat instead. That the hostess had changed into heavy-duty shoes, good for delivering kicks under the table, might have had something to do with the fact.

Marty pulled a hip flask from somewhere on his person and was raising it surreptitiously to his lips when Sour Cream put a hand on his dad's shoulder and shook his head. With visible reluctance, the aged promoter returned the flask to whatever pocket it'd come from.

Onion, Yellowtail, and the rest of the gems had claimed the other table. Given the gem translation ability and Yellowtail's talkative nature, it'd meant Connie had been treated to the brain-bending experience of hearing a chorus of familiar voices all muhmuhmuhing from the adjacent room.

Sometimes there'd be a 'muhmuhmuh' followed by a wave of laughter that would spread to Vidalia, Sour Cream, Steven, Mr. Universe, and no one else. Steven's dad had translated the one about the pirate captain and the steering wheel for the rest of the table but declared the pickerel and the lady captain joke not at all family appropriate.

That hadn't stopped Vidalia from laughing until she coughed while Steven flushed beet red and tried not to choke on his candied yams.

The meal had been delicious. Of course, Jasper hadn't eaten anything but this time she had Pearl there, the two sitting together and talking quietly while everyone else was digging in.

Marty had brought in several cases of that terrible avocado soda that he promoted/was sponsored by. Several people had tried it to be polite but only Onion seemed to like it. In fact, Jasper had had her phone out --Lapis had been texting her under the table just to annoy her; the large Quartz preferred talking on the phone to typing a message one letter at a time with too-small buttons-- when Bismuth had taken a large swig of Guacola only to spew the apparently unpalatable beverage all over a third of the table... including the Quartz and her phone.

That was when everyone learned that while the RagnarTök could boast surviving crushing force, extreme pressures, submersion in water, power surges, and exposure to vacuum, even a splattering of Guacola was enough to make the screen lockup and not even Mom had been able to get Jasper's phone to recover from the avocado-based attack or, as Lapis had dubbed it, 'the guaca-melee.'

* LaLa - 08:15pm | hey concon guess what?
* CoMa - 08:15pm | What?
* LaLa - 08:16pm | harvfest dinner isnt over yet
* CoMa - 08:16pm | And?
* LaLa - 08:17pm | and oj is down a phone without even a single ocean trench involved

It was a long second and then Connie surprised the table when an 'Ugh!' escaped her.

* Coma - 08:18pm | (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Lapis' cackle could be heard throughout the house.

* LaLa - 08:19pm | somebooody owes someone else pooocky
* Coma - 08:19pm | щ（ﾟДﾟщ）
* LaLa - 08:20pm | dont worry. ill save you some. you know a bite. maybe two
* LaLa - 08:20pm | ಥ﹏ಥ

"Connie, you shouldn't text at the table," whispered Dad while Priyanka glared warningly beside him.

"Don't worry," said Connie in a carrying voice as she pocketed her phone. "I wasn't talking to anyone important."

She could hear Lapis' raspberry in retort.

When the meal was finally winding down the omnipresent house music --currently playing the seasonally-appropriate Alice's Restaurant-- was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell.

Pearl rose from her seat with smooth grace and started for the door when Mrs. Universe called out, "I'll get it," hurrying from the dinner table to keep from being preempted as hostess.

Pearl sat back down looking a little confused. She had a whispered exchange with Jasper while Lapis made some quip about Hostess cupcakes coming in packs of two.

Soon after Mayor Dewey came in along with two of his security detail and Buck, each bearing a boxed pie. "A little Harvest Festival treat from the Dewey family to yours," exclaimed the mayor magnanimously.

Seeing Pearl he did a double-take, slicked back the wisp of hair atop his head, and said, "Hello. I don't believe we've met. Mayor Bill Dewey," and he extended the hand not balancing a rhubarb pie.

Pearl smiled politely, rising and accepting the handshake, following it with a prim bow. "Pearl. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Lapis' snickering was ignored by both parties.

"You must be visiting the Crystalline Gems. Any relation?" asked the mayor. "Lupus' younger sister, perhaps?"

Lapis' snickering turned into open laughter, head down on the table and buried in the crook of her arm. Jasper's eyes had narrowed.

Buck and the security duo ignored the mayor's conversation as they delivered five pies total, setting them on the kitchen counter per Mrs. Universe's direction. To Connie, Buck said, "Sorry, the Sagan pie is still baking. Though cherry's a pretty good substitute," and he gestured to the box he'd set down.

Then he walked over and gave Sour Cream a tight hug and chaste kiss on the cheek. "Are you going to make it to the after-party?"

Sour Cream smiled. "Wouldn't miss it. I'll text you after I see music-Dad off."

"Jenny will be glad. So will Buck," said Buck.

Everyone said their goodbyes to the mayor, Buck, and the two helpers -- except for Lapis, who was still guffawing from her seat. Then Mr. Universe went into the kitchen, gathering plates, forks, and several pie servers and said, "It wouldn't be a Harvest Festival food coma without pie. Anyone else want a slice?"

This prompted a general rearranging of seating and a resumption of mingled conversation, with Connie and Steven drifting over to the other table after Yellowtail and Onion got their pies and rejoined Vidalia.

Marty went for his flask again. Sour Cream, who'd just gotten back from seeing Buck off, came up from behind and placed a hand on the flask. Marty whipped around, expression going from surprised to indignant. Then Sour Cream shook his head and Marty slumped, grumbling something while the flask disappeared once more.

Satisfied, Sour Cream left to get himself some pie. As soon as the DJ was away, Yellowtail reached into the recesses of his rain slicker and pulled out a flask of his own, waggling it in invitation in Marty's direction. The aged promoter hesitated, spared another glance back at the distracted Sour Cream, then took it and poured a generous serving into an empty cup. Handing the flask back, he took a sip, his eyebrows jumped up, then he took a larger drink and nodded in appreciation.

Onion tapped his mom on the shoulder then whispered something in her ear. With visible reluctance, the woman turned to Marty and asked if he had any more of that soda. Reaching under his seat, Marty retrieved a can and passed it across. By the time Sour Cream was sitting down, Marty was sharing an anecdote with Yellowtail and Onion was licking his lips as he doused his pie in a thick layer of Guacola. The smile on the DJ's face was different from the one he'd worn when Buck dropped by but it was every bit as bright.

Despite being told that she didn't have to, Pearl had taken quiet pleasure in clearing people's places and retrieving seconds (and, in Lapis' case, thirds and fourths) on the pie. Connie wanted to object and was left in the strangely conflicted state of wanting Pearl to be happy and not wanting Pearl to be subservient.

Any flashbacks to Steven's 'm'lady' period were quashed with extreme mental prejudice.

She'd started to pick up on some kind of unspoken tension between Bismuth and Steven --Had something happened that she'd missed?-- when she realized Pearl wasn't around. Where had she gone? For a split-second Connie worried that Pearl had slipped away without telling anyone, the end of their truce fast approaching. But Connie banished the thought, unwilling to accept the notion that Pearl was going to actually leave for good.

Maybe she'd see Rose healed out of lingering loyalty but surely, after seeing how good things could be with Connie (and everyone else) at the Beach House, she'd decide to stay. Right. Right?!

Connie was jolted out of her thoughts when her phone vibrated. Then Steven's phone played a one-second clip from She Blinded Me with Science, meaning he'd gotten a text from Mom. Bismuth and Lapis' phones all buzzed or chimed as well, only Jasper's deceased phone staying silent. In the main dining room there was a 'woop-woop' klaxon noise coming from Mom’s pocket.

Everyone checked their phones, seeing a text which read:
* Peri - 09:07pm | Crystal Gems alert. Significant events transpiring. Report to Peridot immediately!

An identical text was received thirty seconds later. All conversation had stopped, all eyes were on the Crystal Gems.

Mom had mentioned in passing that she'd programmed her ersatz terminal to broadcast certain data to her new phone --honestly, Connie assumed the only reason her phone hadn't already been thoroughly Frankenstein'd via tinkering was because of how overwhelmingly busy Mom had been with the drill-- and this looked to be an extension of that.

"Dot?" asked Lapis, winging up out of her seat and floating into the main dining room.

Connie squeezed out from the crowded table and followed after, seeing her mom staring wide-eyed at the data streaming across the inside of her glasses, likely broadcast wirelessly to them from the phone gripped tightly in her small, green hand.

"Problem?" asked Jasper, the Quartz' gruff voice cutting through Mom's data haze.

"In a manner of speaking. I have received data from the project. There is more analysis needed but..." She trailed off, blinking as she focused on the people around her. "We need to return to the Beach House. Without delay."

Priyanka looked concerned as she stood to receive Connie's hug goodbye. Her Dad, however, managed a wan smile and a 'go get 'em' in parting, though his hug was noticeably firmer than usual.

Stepping back from the pair and still not seeing Pearl, Connie walked through the kitchen and down the hallway, looking around for the wayward gem.

"-can help her after what she did to Steven is beyond me," Connie heard Mrs. Universe say in a hissed voice from within the music shop.

Pearl's response was even harder to make out --There were some voices that just carried, that you could make out even across a noisy room. Mr. and Mrs. Universe both had it while Pearl (and Connie) did not-- but Connie caught the sounds of an apology and the familiar cadence of Pearl saying, "-as I was bid."

Connie rounded the corner to the shop a little sheepishly. Pearl and Mrs. Universe were standing between a drum set and shelves of sheet music, the former looking aggressively apologetic, hands clasped low in front of her, while the latter just looked aggressive.

Both turned her way and Connie offered a nervous smile. "Sorry to, uh, interrupt." The girl jabbed a thumb behind her. "Some Crystal Gem business came up. We all have to head back." A beat. "Steven too if it's okay," she said to her boyfriend's mom.

Mrs. Universe's mouth was already in a frown but her expression shifted from confrontational to concerned. "Is it anything dangerous?"

Connie shook her head. "No. Just- Mom got an update from-" She glanced at Pearl, catching herself from saying 'the drill.' "-From something important. We're going to talk about it. We probably won't actually do anything until tomorrow. Well, Steven and I won't, I mean. Probably. Mom is going to be busy, plus some of the other gems. I guess." Part of Connie was yelling about how dumb she sounded. All of Connie was cringing. "Steven will call or text when we know more," she finished in a hurry, cheeks flushing.

Mrs. Universe's frown deepened slightly but she nodded her head. "That should be fine. Thank you for telling me," she said. As Connie was beginning to flee the room, the hostess said, "Also, feel free to take any leftovers home you want."

"I can help with that," offered Pearl primly.

Pearl looked at Mrs. Universe to see if there was anything else but the tall woman just shook her head. The gem gave a bow and glided swiftly out of the room, trailing in Connie's wake.

Several servings of pie and a selection of side dishes all vanished into Pearl's gemstone after Mr. Universe showed her where the tupperware was kept and then Connie, Steven, Pearl, Lapis, Jasper, Bismuth, and Mom all stepped out into the clear, chill November night.

---

Amethyst made good time bringing them to the Galaxy Warp and P2 told her as much. The site was small for a colony this size, having only a single terrestrial warp pad and a single, shattered interstellar warp pad, but the records had indicated this was a hastily assembled replacement when the original had been destroyed during the misguided rebel upheaval.

Steven's communicator was still in her possession. She'd thoroughly disabled its ability to broadcast its position or otherwise communicate with any terrestrial networks, so it no longer posed a threat to their operational security. As such, she'd discovered a new and highly useful function for the device. Steven had loaded quite a bit of terrestrial media onto the phone's databanks and so, a few quick taps of its charmingly primitive interface and an animated entertainment reel played. P2 was unsure what a Looney Tune was, exactly, but Amethyst found them endlessly entertaining which freed up P2 considerably for the work at hand.

While her Quartz escort giggled at simulated slapstick, P2 examined the shattered galaxy warp, shaking her head. Yes, it was thoroughly ruined. Any attempt to channel warp energies would see those same energies leaking right back out. Or worse, they'd accumulate and a portion of the pad would detonate.

Fortunately, the warp pad was, for all its impressive engineering and function, really just a giant crystal. Repairing something like that was no challenge for a gem trained in sculpting crystalline structures like her.

She hovered her escape pod laden with intact warp pad fragments, carefully excised from numerous warp pads across the colony. Where the warp pad itself was damaged beyond repair, these would be the raw materials she would use to make this a working Galaxy Warp once more.

She awarded herself a point for cleverness --literally: there was an electronic tally stored in her enhancers-- at having the forethought to collect these fragments in advance.

According to the disgraced Sapphire's war form, she would have ample time without risk of Crystal Gem involvement. P2 hummed a merry melody while she set to work.

---

The large, interstellar warp crystal gleamed in the reflected moonlight. P2 smiled and awarded herself another point for cleverness. A glance showed that Amethyst was still enjoying her entertainment and so P2 declined to interrupt.

With a final diagnostic check passed, the warp pad came online, coupling with warp space, searching the wider warp brane for a connecting vertex, verifying the connection, and then broadcasting a ping to the destination programmed into by Novaculite back when she and P2 had warped here more than two months prior.

A few minutes passed. P2 sent an additional ping. A few more minutes and P2 pinged the destination once more. Another minute and, fearing that some disturbance was interfering with the transfer of information across the warp, she began to send a ping every second. Then every millisecond. Then nanosecond. She was about to up the frequency to every picosecond when the warp pad brightened, a great column of light spearing the structure.

"Arrgh! Stop pinging! I’m here! I’m reporting! Novaculite Facet-" The grey Era-1 gem looked at P2 and scowled, hand already summoning a bow and arrow from her gemstone. "Oh, it's you." Looking over the Galaxy Warp, Novaculite spotted Amethyst, the purple gem offering a distracted wave before going back to her entertainment. "It's you and whoever the heck that is," corrected Novaculite sourly. "Where in the empty sky is Rose Quartz?"

Before her arrival, P2 had been considering offering Novaculite a hug. While hugs weren't unknown in the empire, they were far more prevalent on Earth and P2 had found them a rather pleasant way to greet another and be greeted in turn. Given that Novaculite wasn't praising P2's warp reconstruction skill or conveying her relief at P2's condition on a rebel-held backwater, she decided to refrain from hugging. For now.

Maybe if Novaculite dismissed her gem weapon.

"Rose Quartz suffered unspecified but lasting injury at the hands of a gem-organic hybrid abomination. This was after the same hybrid and her deranged but comely rebel associates escaped capture and sabotaged our warship, causing it to be destroyed crashing back to Earth. Her disgraced fusion lieutenant, however, is a double agent who has infiltrated the Crystal Gems and so Amethyst-"

"Yo!" called Amethyst.

"-And I have made a seer-assisted cross-continental trip, quickening the Cluster's emergence, capturing and subsequently losing a rebel-affiliated human servitor named Steven due to a hitherto unknown species of yellow, portal-capable canid, and then returning here to seek evacuation," said P2, silently awarding herself another point for clear and efficient reporting.

"Also, roller coasters," added the purple gem.

P2 nodded. "Also, roller coasters."

Novaculite stared at P2 for a long time, mouth hanging open slightly. The bow remained in her hand, however, so P2 delayed her hug initiative, setting a silent notification to reevaluate in two minutes’ time.

Then the Quartz chuckled, the laugh growing in intensity and volume until it reached guffaw proportions. P2 smiled and laughed a little as well, unsure of the precise, inciting humor but resolved not to procrastinate by waiting until after she got the joke to laugh.

Several seconds passed and then P2 asked, raising her visor so she could wipe under one eye and then the other, "You enjoyed my report?" she hazarded.

Another chuckle and then Novaculite slowly managed to regain her composure. "No, it was terrible! I'm laughing because I'm not the one janked here! For months --months!-- I've been waiting, all of us on high-alert for the signal from Rose. You ever spent months waiting in an undisclosed location with a group of creepy shard-fondlers, a bunch of dumb old rebels, a bunch of even dumber new rebels, a slew of twitchy agents on standby, and a Spinel literally bouncing off the walls ready for some revenge served a millennia cold?"

P2 opened her mouth to answer but Novaculite cut her off. "Rhetorical question, half-gem. Waiting with that group is like sanding your gemstone but I just knew that I'd step off this warp pad and find Rose Quartz here in all her scary-ass glory and she'd tell me to go do a bunch of dangerous coprolite on this Diamond-forsaken rock that'd get me shattered."

"But- Rose is incapacitated in an unknown location on this colony!" objected P2. "And the Cluster will destroy this planet and all life, organic or otherwise, in an unspecified but comparatively short span of time! We have to get off this colony and warn Yellow Diamond!"

Novaculite's bow was raised in an instant, pointed at P2's center of mass. "Whoa there. 'We're' not doing anything. The leash I'm on is measured in nanometers, that's how much Rose 'do exactly as I tell you, Nova, or you'll envy the shattered' Quartz trusts me."

P2 looked up and down the gem's form. Of course, if their claim of nanometers wasn't hyperbole then she'd need a high-powered scanner to detect-

"It's a figurative leash!" barked the grey Quartz.

"Ah," answered P2.

"Point is," growled Novaculite, "I have very strict orders to act on Rose Quartz' personal command or not at all." A smirk returned to the Quartz' face and she said, "Which means I'm in the 'not at all' category and warping the heck off this rock. And then I'm locking this warp space endpoint so that it responds only to Rose Quartz' gemstone, per orders. And after another three months being cooped up in coo-coo coup command on high-alert, we're all supposed to go back to our cover identities instead of getting shattered for someone’s ambitions. Yeah, that sounds good to me." She paused. "'Cooped up in coo-coo coup command?' Hmm, I bet Rutile will like that one."

"But what can Amethyst and I do?!"

"You can suck gravel is what you can do," and before P2 could even try to rush the warp platform, Novaculite vanished in a beam of light.

"Wow. And I thought the Crystal Gems were jerks," said Amethyst while a pair of anthropomorphic animals argued whether it was duck season or wabbit season on the device in her hand.

Slowly, with stiff motions, P2 lurched over to Amethyst and pulled the gem into a trembling hug, desperate for even a modicum of comfort.

---

True to Novaculite's word, the interstellar warp was locked down, utterly unresponsive to either P2's gemstone or Amethyst's.

P2 tried everything she could think of but she could not overcome Novaculite's interdiction.

"What are we going to do, Peridude?" asked Amethyst, finally finished with her terrestrial entertainment.

The mottled gem paced, floating fingers swirling around her like a cloud of angry hornets (a metaphor P2 understood first hand after her time in the colony's wilds). "We have to escape. But we can't. No avenue of egress remains. So we must- we must-" A query to her Earth colony records pulled up the location of the derelict structure she'd sought, one of many antiquated relics from the planet's pre-Rebellion days. "We must call Yellow Diamond for help!"

The terrestrial warp pad started to hum, growing gradually but steadily brighter. P2 didn't understand what exactly was transpiring but she didn't wait, grabbing Amethyst in a tractor beam and sprinting for the warp pad and the last, narrow avenue for their continued survival.

The hum reached a wailing crescendo and then P2 and Amethyst vanished.

---

The hum died away. A minute passed and all was silent at the Galaxy Warp. Then the terrestrial warp lit up and Garnet stepped clear.

A glimpse of her surroundings with two eyes and her future with one revealed that the coast was clear. Garnet approached the interstellar warp, summoning massively oversized gauntlets to her arms.

With brisk efficiency she demolished the interstellar warp pad in what she assumed was similar to how Bismuth had left it months ago.

Garnet warped away.

Chapter 12: Drilling to the Truth

Everyone filed into the Beach House, those previously wearing sweaters having doffed them. Pearl first set the folded sweaters on the stairs to Connie’s loft, second transferred the leftovers from her gemstone to the kitchen counter, then looked around nervously.

"Is it your intent that I should overhear this?" asked the pale gem who was either a stickler for honesty or taking the terms of her truce very seriously.

Mom ignored her, moving with nervous energy across the Beach House and into the bathroom. There was a sound of movement, a clank, and then Mom emerged holding her boxy terminal. Not even sparing a glance up from its screen, she said, "No. You should remain. It might be advantageous if you did."

There had been a haze of curiosity shrouding the group beforehand. It now seemed to press in on the living room at that.

"News from the-" Bismuth caught herself. "News about the project?" she corrected.

Connie and Steven had only just gotten seated on the couch when Mom walked briskly over and sat on Connie's right. "Yes. I've received a broadcast from the drill. We can cease with the pretext, by the way. What I need to disclose to the group, Pearl included, would be stymied by the deception. In short, this is more important than the threat Rose Quartz poses."

Jasper was standing at a parade rest past the kitchen. It wasn't obvious, she looked like she'd just claimed an open area for herself, but if Pearl happened to make a run for the warp pad then she'd have to go through a wall of orange to get there. At least one Crystal Gem was always vigilant.

That Bismuth had taken to leaning casually against the door made Connie revise that number upward a tick.

Lapis moved over to her window seat, legs folding under her as she sat upright. Pearl drifted over and stood beside one of the bar stools, too anxious to be seated.

All eyes were on Mom.

"Approximately one-hundred-and-fifty minutes prior, the drill breached the maturation hollow for the Cluster." A holographic display dominated the middle of the room showing a cross section of the Earth with a little blinking light deep below the mantle. Zooming in, the image resolved into a hollow around a glittering sphere, a stylized drill icon blinking at the edge. "Clinging to the hollow's ceiling, the drill completed a full sensor sweep and analysis, which it then relayed to me near the conclusion of the consumptive festivities."

"And?" asked Lapis, leaning forward. "Don't leave us in suspense, Dot."

"The Cluster is ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine percent complete in its maturation," she said.

There were sharp inhalations of breath from the teens and eyes widening across several of the gems around the room.

"Even though it is within one one-thousandth of a percentile of completion, it will still be weeks or months before the Cluster matures completely." Mom fiddled with the controls of her device, the holographic image rotating to show the colossal fusion from different angles. "It is a millennia-long process, after all."

The door creaked as Bismuth shifted her weight. "Did you get a good scan of its structure and size? It's easier to break something when you know how its built."

Steven opened his mouth like he was going to say something but Mom beat him to it. "I have. And I can tell you that destruction of the Cluster will not be feasible."

"How big is it?" asked Connie, with Steven adding, "Bigger than Beach City?"

Mom fiddled with her controls and a scale appeared. A logarithmic scale.

"It is larger than Delmarva," answered Peridot to a chorus of gasps. "And its projected form will almost certainly dwarf the Moon in total volume."

"Okay, it's big. So we bring a bigger boom," countered Bismuth. "More drills. Exotic explosives. Have humans figured out nuclear fission yet? Maybe we can see if they have some nukes to spare."

Peridot shook her head. "You misunderstand me. I don't mean that it is physically impossible for us to do sufficient damage to the Cluster to make it non-viable. Rather, the Cluster is so near maturation that it will spontaneously form to defend itself if we made the attempt." Whatever Bismuth was going to say was preempted by Mom. "If the opening strike was anything less than completely fatal, the wounded Cluster would form and tear the planet asunder. And I can assure you-" and she fixed the smith with a hard stare. "-That given the scale of the Cluster and limited window of time we have to work with, a sufficiently potent and precise alpha strike borders on the impossible."

Bismuth scowled, not in anger but in thought, an expert assessing an unexpected obstacle.

There was silence, the only movement being the rotation of the holographic cross section of the Earth in the center of the room.

"Well," said Steven after a little bit. "This does mean that you really saved the day, Miss Peridot."

"What?" answered Mom, clearly thrown.

"Yeah," said Connie, picking up on Steven's point and running with it. "You pushed for a cautious approach, designed an entirely new paradigm of hardware to meet this need, then worked extra hard day-and-night to make it happen in time." Connie scooched over and pulled Mom into a side hug. "That's really impressive!"

"I- Well, that is-" stammered Mom.

"Hear, hear!" cheered Lapis.

Jasper inclined her head in agreement and even Pearl, feeling distinctly unsure of her place in all this, offered a congratulatory smile.

Bismuth blinked out of her thousand-yard stare and said, "Whatever you did with the drill, Green, you did the heck out of it. I can agree with that." Then her expression crashed back into a scowl and she said, "Though this is a Diamond of a problem. Can we move it? Have Blue make an opening wide enough so that we shove it into space before it forms?"

Lapis flinched as if she'd been slapped. "Pump the brakes, Skittles. If I dig a hole like that, we're not talking a new great lake, we're talking a sink hole the size of North America and earthquakes like you wouldn't believe. It'd be so bad, by the end you'd be lucky to find two rocks still stacked on top of each other, and that's if you're over in Australia. We'd disrupt things less and not do as much redrawing of the map with one of those dinosaur-killing asteroid hits instead."

"It's better than letting the planet get torn apart," countered the smith, some heat rising in her voice. "Our only option is to destroy the Cluster before it destroys us."

"No!" cried Steven, jolting Connie and Peridot both with the forcefulness of the statement. "You always go for the lethal option and it's wrong! There has to be another way!"

There was a moment where Steven and Bismuth were locked in an intense stare, the rest of the room mere spectators. Then Bismuth scoffed. "What do you think we should do instead? Ask the Cluster to bubble itself?!"

Steven blinked. "Would that work?" he asked, looking across the other faces in the room.

Bismuth rolled her eyes. "Of course not!"

Mom had looked on the verge of saying something but for some reason had gotten a very distant, contemplative expression on her face during the argument.

Steven and Bismuth continued to bicker for a little longer until a voice cut through them.

"You want to ask Rose for help."

It took Connie a few seconds to process that the remark had come from Jasper, the Quartz having been silent until then. It took another second to realize she was talking directly to Mom.

As if pulled from a realm of thought so distant, so deep it was difficult for her to return to the world in front of her, Peridot shook her head and stammered, "Could- Could you repeat that please?" She blinked owlishly and looked at the Quartz.

"You want to ask Rose for help." Jasper inclined her head in Pearl's direction. "That's why you wanted her here."

A beat of silence then, "Yes." Mom set down her ersatz terminal and wrung her hands, gaze turning to the pale gem opposite her. "At your own admission, Rose Quartz plans to suborn the Cluster for her own agenda. This implies she has some potential means of control available. Would that same means allow her to delay the Cluster's emergence until it can be safely extracted-" She spared Steven an apologetic look, her own face grim. "-Or neutralized?"

Pearl did her 'hands clasped, posture perfect' look of nervousness, like a very prim student trying to mask her anxiety after being called on by the teacher. "I do not know," she said after a few seconds of silence. "But I suspect... that she would be unlikely to accede to such a request."

There were cries of outrage and disbelief from the room before Jasper silenced them with a swiping motion. She gave Pearl a 'go ahead' look, though her own expression was the kind of studiously blank that meant Jasper wasn't any happier than the others.

"I once overheard Rose speaking of the subject with... another." She bowed in implicit apology for her vagueness. "Rose seemed to accept the destruction of the Earth as certain and unstoppable. If that is the case, if that is a component to her plan, then I would be surprised to see her enter into cooperation with the Crystal Gems to do otherwise."

"Then her plan sucks," growled Lapis, arms crossed and expression stormy. Behind her, visible in the moon-lit night, the surf was choppier than normal.

Pearl opened her mouth, closed her mouth, and bowed apologetically.

Mom's gaze had gone distant again, some notion pulling heavily at her attention, but she blinked and focused on Pearl. In a quiet voice she said, "Is it still your intent to return to Rose's service?"

Connie made a strangled sound, eyes wide. Her head snapped around to face Pearl, her expression the very picture of fearful suspense.

Pearl became very statue-esque, like a life-sized model made of porcelain. Then she lowered her chin, eyes downcast. "Yes," she said in a quiet voice.

"No!" The word ripped itself out of Connie's mouth and the girl was suddenly on her feet. "You can't! After all- I thought-" Connie's knees buckled and she half-sat, half-collapsed onto the metallic coffee table. "Please don't go!"

Pearl bowed so low her gemstone nearly touched the floor and the hands clutched tightly at her waist meant she couldn't dab away the tears dripping from her angular cheeks. "Please forgive this servant but I-" She didn't finish the sentence, her words caught in her throat.

"No!" said Connie, managing to get her legs under her. "No," she said again, her voice firm, an angry command. She stood there, hands clenched at her side, her power sink shifting colors with alarming speed. "No," she repeated, seeing what reality had to offer and finding it sorely lacking.

Pearl looked up, confused and tearful. "Connie?"

"The truce. I'm extending it," ordered Connie. "I'll heal Rose after the Earth is safe, not before. If you leave now then Rose will die, therefore you can't leave," she said as if reciting a logical axiom.

"But- You can't unilaterally alter our deal," insisted Pearl in a soft voice.

"I just did."

"But the bomb," said Bismuth. "White didn't come here empty-handed."

Connie looked steely-eyed at Bismuth and then turned to Pearl. "Defuse it. Or extend the timer. Do it or I won't heal Rose."

"Connie," said Steven, stepping up beside her. "[I know you want her to stay, but this isn't right. You're making her the Crystal Gems' captive,]" he signed.

"[If that's what I have to do to keep her from leaving then so be it,]" she snapped back, her gestures swift, sloppy, and forceful.

"[If you use her love of Rose against her, she'll love you less,]" he countered.

Five sets of eyes were on the pair, five polyglots unable to follow the exchange happening in front of them.

Connie wilted a little then raised her chin back up defiantly. She shook her head.

Steven looked at her with a sad but worried expression. "[She'll escape. Or break something trying to escape. She's smart. Plus, who knows what all she has in her gemstone?]"

That earned a flinch but Connie couldn't quite bring herself to answer, not by word, not by hand.

Looking very apologetic, Steven signed, "[If you do this, then we'll be the bad guys.]"

That hit Connie, the girl swooning. That's how it had all gone wrong in the first place, why Pearl and Amethyst had fled Earth angry, or at least wary of the Crystal Gems to begin with. Pearl was an extremely loyal person. If the Crystal Gems had helped her leave, or at least not attacked her, then Connie was confident they could have collaborated with Pearl, convinced her to give a cover story that would leave Homeworld disinterested. Nevermind the Cluster and how there was secretly a ticking time bomb waiting to blow. What had happened to Pearl and Amethyst was wrong. Categorically wrong. Ethically wrong and a part of the firmament of Connie's being rejected the notion of willfully repeating that offense.

That Connie's gemstone had started to glow went unnoticed only by Connie herself.

The girl crumpled, gritting her teeth around a sob, her gemstone dimming to matte. She allowed Steven to gently guide her to him so she could clutch him and shake her head in denial.

A cool, gentle touch tapped her cheek. Connie pulled away from Steven only for Pearl to delicately dab away the tears with an emerald handkerchief with yellow trim. That done, Pearl summoned an aquamarine handkerchief to dry her own face. "I understand and I'm sorry," she said in a soft voice.

The fury had leaked out of her but Connie was still not quite ready to let Pearl just... go. She couldn't keep her here, but was there some last angle, some argument that would convince her to stay?

"A Pearl doesn't choose her owner, isn't that right?" said the girl in equal parts hope and desperation, stepping clear of her boyfriend.

Pearl quirked her head to the side. "No," she said slowly. "She doesn't."

Thoughts racing, Connie said, "The gem you originally served was lost during the middle of the Rebellion. And- And you had been captured by Homeworld and placed in an interrogation device, a book, and then left there when Homeworld retreated." Connie was pacing now, Steven and Pearl stepping back to give the girl room. Connie whirled on Pearl like something out of one of the more dramatic debates held between her and Peridot. "Therefore you were ownerless by that point, weren't you? No one could lay prior claim to you as their Pearl!"

Another bird-like look of confusion and then Pearl said, abstracted, "Yes, that's true."

Connie's pacing resumed. "And if someone had kidnapped you before the war, you wouldn't have suddenly become their Pearl. You'd still have belonged to your old master, right?"

"That's correct," answered the pale gem.

"Then Citrine and Mom-" asserted Connie.

'Mom?' mouthed Bismuth while Jasper's face became studiously neutral once more. Lapis, at least, looked like she was starting to enjoy the evening's entertainment.

"-Found you and brought you back here. Then Mom gave you to me. You were mine then. You talked to me through the story you invented. And I talked to you. You were- You were my only friend when I had no friends-" and a tremor entered Connie's voice. "And I was the only person you had too. Amethyst stole you from me, I didn't give you away, so that means you're still my Pearl. You were always my Pearl and I've been your owner since before you left Earth!"

Taking a dramatic pose like something out of a courtroom drama, Connie pointed at Pearl and said, "I'm asserting my right of ownership to you now and, being the prior claimant, mine supersedes Rose's claim to the same." Connie lifted her chin and looked at Pearl with equal parts hope and pleading.

For a long second Pearl stood there like a deer caught in headlights. Then her expression softened, growing very sweet and very sad as a sincere smile spread across her face. "Oh, sweet Connie. That is where you're perfectly, wonderfully, and gloriously wrong. You were never my owner." Anticipating what was coming, she reached up and pulled a pair of unfamiliar handkerchiefs from her gemstone. "You were my Hero."

---

Jasper watched as Pearl called Connie her hero. It was touching and to a part of Jasper it sounded right, in the same way that plucky hobbits saving Middle Earth from darkness eternal resonated with her.

A sobbed wracked Connie just then, the girl herself looking surprised at the reaction. She took one of the hankies, mopping her face. "You would deny me my Companion?" she managed, tearing up.

Meanwhile, Jasper's expression had shifted from intent to confused. She glanced at the pair, then at the place of pride on Connie's bookshelf where The Tale of the Hero and the Companion was resting. Then the penny dropped and Jasper's face became stricken, as if suddenly being forced to swallow something deeply uncomfortable. Fortunately, all eyes were on the duo in the center so the secret of her complicated epiphany was her own.

That was good. She'd need time later to rethink and recontextualize a great many things.

"You wouldn't be the Hero if you forced me to stay," sobbed Pearl, "and I wouldn't be the Companion if I remained." She clutched Connie and the two wept until Pearl finally said, "We must see to Rose. She must be suffering so much. Please?"

Finally, reluctantly, Connie nodded, unable to speak. She clutched to Pearl for a little longer before tearfully batting at her face as if bludgeoning away the sad feelings, the handkerchief her cudgel.

Everyone got to their feet, the group shuffling for the warp pad save for Steven, who said that he’d promised his mom he’d head home after the ‘saving the world’ talk was over for the night. Pulling Connie and Pearl one after another into tight hugs, Steven waved goodbye to the others.

Jasper held the door open for him, then closed and locked it behind him. Drifting back, Bismuth surreptitiously whispered to the Quartz, "As soon as White leads us to Pink, we finish this."

The truce hadn't protected Rose while Pearl was visiting, something Bismuth had noticed immediately, enlisting Jasper in looking for Rose's hiding place. Sadly, they hadn't succeeded and that comparatively clean solution to their problems was off the table.

Jasper didn't agree with Bismuth but she didn't disagree with her either, offering a grunt which could mean anything or nothing.

Plus, she was still off-balance from her earlier revelation.

Everyone crowded onto the warp pad. With a sniff, Connie looked to Pearl. “Where should we go?”

And when Pearl said, “The Sanctuary,” Jasper laughed. She couldn’t help it.

The others stared at her, Bismuth was growling under her breath at another complication, but Jasper laughed. While her desire to see the threat of Rose ended was complete and unambiguous, another part of her agreed that this was shaping up to be an excellent story, which was apparently Pearl’s specialty.

---

The cold calm of the Sanctuary stole over Connie, the manifold worries and sadnesses not so much leaving as losing all of their emotive bite, allowing the girl to see them more objectively.

It's still sad but Pearl still loves me and my Light Side coach respects my decision. That means I probably didn't do anything I'll really regret, thought the girl as everyone fanned out from the warp pad, the sun shining down on them since they'd just crossed numerous time zones via warp.

In the calm clarity of the Sanctuary something else Connie had been too distracted to focus on clicked. "Pearl?" she asked, voice calmer than it would normally have been given the subject matter, the two walking a modest distance from the others. "What about the bomb? Don't you need to go to Beach City to retrieve it?"

The pale gem had been standing tall and prim, the emotional deluge of before reduced to a manageable stream. She gave Connie an apologetic smile. "Ah, the item in question wasn't a bomb per se --I never did say that it was explosive or even that it was a device-- and I made no detour when I warped to your home." She gestured to the oblong stone at her forehead. "The threat never left my gemstone, dear Connie, and I have removed it from Beach City by removing myself." She leaned in conspiratorially and said in a stage whisper, "I did promise it was very well hidden."

This earned another laugh from Jasper, a recent behavior of hers that Connie was still a little confused about.

Even in the calm of the Sanctuary, Connie was dreading what came next. "Can you bring me to Rose?"

Pearl's smile dimmed to a look of calm professionalism. She nodded once, her gemstone glowed, and then a supine figure of pink sprawling across layers of blankets stacked into a mattress appeared before them. She looked wretched, cheeks, clothes, even her bedding streaked with tears. As the Sanctuary stole over her, Rose's close-eyed expression calmed but her furrowed brows spoke of nightmares diminished but not banished.

"Rose was in your gemstone the entire time?!" A beat. "Jasper, this isn't funny!"

In the main Sanctuary grounds below, a handful of meandering corrupted gems paused and looked up at the elevated warp platform before going back to what they were doing.

"Alright then, everyone step aside," said a voice near the warp pad.

Connie and Pearl looked over, surprised as Bismuth walked casually toward her pink target.

"Bismuth?" asked Connie, a worried tone rising in her voice. "What are you doing?"

"Ending this," said the smith.

Pearl gave a cry of alarm, pained even in the Sanctuary, and leapt in front of her sleeping owner. Her gemstone flared and a destabilizer appeared in her hand, turned off but pointed in Bismuth's direction.

In the background, Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper looked surprised, shocked, and studiously neutral, respectively.

"You can't do this," challenged Connie. "Literally. We're in the Sanctuary."

Bismuth continued her unhurried advance. "Which is why I'm going to pick up Pink and warp her somewhere else." A hand tapped the Breaking Point on her hip. "Won't need more than a minute to end this invasion; I'll be back real soon."

Connie took another step in Pearl's direction. "The truce-"

Bismuth shook her head. "This is bigger than a truce, Alloy. Pink needs to go down. Waiting to do the job when she can fight back isn't honorable. It's just stupid." Gently but firmly she pushed Pearl aside, the gem helpless to deliver on her threat of destabilization.

Even in the Sanctuary, Rose was a complicated figure in Connie's thoughts. But Pearl, Pearl was much, much simpler. "No," declared Connie, striding forward.

She'd spent hours with Dr. Brooks trying to find a way to decouple the emotional trigger to summon her sword from the feelings of anger towards her family. Dr. Brooks had said that objecting to a situation you strongly disagreed with was healthy, it was the implicit blame placed on others that was problematic. During their shared session, Pearl mentioned with visible chagrin that someone could be doing something for reasons that weren't readily apparent, that they were as much caught up in events as everyone else. Dr. Brooks had smiled and gone on a short explanation of the Fundamental Attribution Error, a psychological phenomenon where we tended to judge a person rather than a person's circumstances.

Bismuth paused, only a few paces away from the supine gem and looking in Connie’s direction.

Pearl had come to Connie in good faith. She'd received a promise of safety, upheld every part of her side of the bargain, and for her good behavior she was going to have her world shattered. It was wrong. Categorically wrong. Ethically wrong and a part of the firmament of Connie's being rejected the notion.

Connie's gemstone flared with light.

Being angry at others wasn't a trigger you could invoke in the Sanctuary. This wasn't anger. Calmly, dispassionately Connie rejected this situation. Her sword was merely an extension of her thesis. It was her cutting argument.

Connie stood beside Pearl, sword out and pointed at Bismuth. "No," she repeated. "This isn't right. We can talk about it later, but this? Here? It's not happening."

Bismuth eyed the weapon and the girl wielding it appraisingly. "You can't use that here." A beat. "Can you?"

"No, but I'll follow if you take Rose away from Pearl. Then I'll be able to use it."

Bismuth's eyes narrowed.

"I think," said Lapis, "that we should give Con-con a little room to work. Plus, Peri keeps getting distracted by some nerd thoughts and I'm worried she's going to wander off a ledge."

Bismuth looked like she was going to object when Jasper said, "I'll stay." That was enough for Bismuth to relent, Lapis, Mom, and her all going back to the warp pad and vanishing in a beam of light.

Jasper remained where she was, distant but observing. She made no move to intervene.

"Thank you," Pearl said to each of them. She was crying in the Sanctuary so they had to be happy tears.

Connie smiled up at the gem... then her smile dimmed steadily, the weapon drooping in her hand. Pearl shouldn't have this truce end in abject tragedy but that didn't mean that there weren't other, larger concerns at stake. Letting the sword fall from her fingers and dissolve, Connie said, "I'm going to look at Rose’s mindscape and assess the damage."

Connie went insubstantial. She could do that for Rose here despite the gem's aversion because it was to ameliorate a much greater hurt. Rose was either aware of that or too lost to the world to summon a bubble to block her. As the sensations of the world fell away, Connie saw a 'scape in tatters and only slowly mending. It was like someone had taken a sword to a tapestry, leaving long rents across the weave. It would leave Rose's emotions an agonized mess until the pattern was healed, which would be weeks or even months of natural healing if Connie's gut assessment was correct.

Just to test, Connie reached out. She touched the base of one of the tears, nudging a small section of the halves together and willing them restored. The stuff of Rose's 'scape knit together, a tiny fraction of the damage healed.

The sensations of the world returned.

"Can you help her?" asked Pearl immediately.

"Yes," said Connie, the word heavy in her mouth.

Pearl's shoulders slumped in relief which, given her usually prim demeanor, was a huge tell.

Connie swallowed because even in a state of dispassionate calm, she was still having trouble with this. "Pearl, I can but... I won't. Not fully."

The gem's eyes went wide and her posture straightened, hands clasping in front of her. That made Connie wince more than if Pearl had shouted at her; she felt like she'd just slapped the gem.

"Bismuth wasn't entirely wrong. You heard what Mom said: the Cluster might form as early as a month from now! And Rose is going to try and stop us, you said as much, and the Earth is at stake, Pearl," Connie pleaded. "I don't know if Rose deserves to be shattered but I can't let her jeopardize something this big." Anywhere else and Connie would be fighting back tears. "I'm sorry," she said. "When we made the truce I didn't know how close the Cluster was to maturing and I know this is breaking the promise and I'm sorry but-"

A feather-weight touch ran down Connie's cheek. Pearl was standing in front of her, compassion and sadness struggling for room in her expression. "I understand. And, though this makes me a disloyal Pearl to admit it, I would much rather the Earth survive and you with it then for Rose to get everything she wanted from her mission here. Can you heal her partially? If she recovers in five weeks, then that would be time enough for you to do something about the Cluster, right?"

Connie nodded, unable to speak.

"And can you make her condition more comfortable?" pleaded Pearl. "A five-week rest rather than a continuous nightmare?"

Connie nodded again. "I'll- I'll try," she promised.

Pearl pulled Connie into a hug. "I had a very good visit. And, in the hope that we all make it out of this to meet on the other side, I'd like you to have these." Pulling back, Pearl reached up to her gemstone and retrieved four pink vials. "For you and Steven. Maybe that will help his mother rest better as well."

Jasper walked over and took the four vials of precious healing tears. She gave Pearl a curt nod and then returned to her post by the warp pad.

Finishing the hug, Connie rose and went insubstantial. Nearly half an hour later she was solid once more. "That should do it," she said, a little numb.

Rose's expression was restful if not entirely peaceful. It was sleep and, if there were nightmares, they wouldn't rage so strongly now. The large, divisive, pink woman vanished into Pearl's gemstone once more.

"Where do you need me to warp you?" asked Connie, the whole situation still feeling surreal to her.

Pearl gave a small smile. "I will see Rose and me away, actually. I imagine Bismuth is waiting for my departure to show up on the warp log so she can follow me to our next hiding space, which you warping me would allow her to do."

Connie blinked. "You have another warp bypass device? A stealthy one?!"

Pearl's smile grew into a smirk and she retrieved from her gemstone a spiky plate-sized device, a disk-shaped tangle of wires and circuits. "I do but it's rather the opposite of stealthy."

She gracefully approached the warp pad, set the object on the ground beside it, then stepped onto the crystal herself. The device was blinking, curls of heat rising off it like a skillet on the stove, and then a humming sound came from... the warp pad?

The large crystal was slowly lighting up, the humming sound growing with it. Jasper had retreated to Connie's side and a little in front as if to shelter the girl if something exploded. Sensing Jasper's concern, Connie summoned a vertical force field between them and the keening warp pad.

Pearl said something that was utterly drowned out by the noise, waved goodbye to Connie and Jasper, and then there was a beam of light spearing upward.

In her peripheral vision, Connie saw a twinkle on the horizon, then another appearing in the distance on what looked to be another island.

The hum reached a roaring crescendo, the device puffed a gout of smoke, and then the beam vanished and there was silence.

The first thing Connie heard after her ears stopped ringing was Jasper's laughter. It was deep and appreciative, the chuckle-equivalent of a cheer. Guffaws as applause.

Connie looked up at the warrior quizzically.

"That was every pad warping," said the Quartz after composing herself. "Everywhere. All at once."

Connie gasped. "Wow, that's clever!"

Jasper nodded and chuckled as she picked up the ruined device and warped the two of them home.

---

Pearl stepped delicately free of the warp pad, surveying her surroundings carefully, gem shining brightly. She was surrounded by nighttime jungle, a steady rain falling, filtered through the dense canopy overhead.

Rose had told her of this place before she'd been injured. If Rose had been unharmed it would have been one of the first places they would have gone after Pearl had finished a reliable means for the two of them to use the warp pads.

Pearl had no more warp bypass devices. Given the scraps still stored in her gemstone, it was unlikely that she'd be able to assemble another, though that wouldn't stop her from trying.

Retrieving a compass from her gemstone, Pearl oriented herself and set out. When the foliage proved annoyingly difficult to penetrate, she searched the contents of her gemstone for something helpful. Fifteen minutes later she returned the gardening shears to storage, writing off her first attempt at trailblazing as spirited but naive. Instead she reached and withdrew... the sword she'd been gifted.

An image of Connie summoning her sword at the Sanctuary, impossible and glorious, washed through Pearl. She smiled and for a sweet moment she pretended she was leading Connie on a grand adventure. She was headed for abandoned ruins, after all, though not of the gem-made variety. There was even a monster to be wary of --Rose had stressed that point-- which was so apropos and thematic!

The next half-hour of trailblazing was much more successful, though Pearl did worry about just how messy the blade was getting. Would it rust? Was this dulling the blade? Would the cutting edge get chipped?

She resolved to give the sword a thorough cleaning, oiling, and polishing when she arrived.

...After tending to Rose, of course.

She felt shame burning in her cheeks, upbraiding herself for holding a mere possession's welfare over her owner's.

There was no clearing, no grand vista for the hero and her companion to emerge into to behold the lost ruins they would be exploring. Rather, there was simply a stretch of further jungle which happened to be growing around and on top of an ancient stone structure, broad at the bottom and tapering to a point.

Pearl cleared a path and entered the ruin, looking it over with an eye for beauty and order. It was damp but at least it was out of the rain. And so Pearl set to work, losing herself in her task.

That done, she retrieved Rose from her gemstone, doing her best to see her owner comfortable. The sword came next, and Pearl lovingly tended to it until the entirety of it shone in the light of her gemstone.

And only then did Pearl allow herself to collapse into a corner, shuddering and tearful as she felt torn asunder. She felt guilty for failing Rose for Connie's sake and guilty for failing Connie for Rose's sake.

A Pearl cannot have more than one master. To attempt otherwise was folly of the most painful sort, as Pearl now too-keenly knew.

Chapter 13: Bodhisattva

The warp pad in the Beach House hummed louder and louder until a beam pierced it and then it went silent.

Peridot's ersatz terminal chimed, alerting her to a logged warp. Then it chimed again, and again, and again in a cacophony until she silenced the alert entirely.

"What just happened?" asked Bismuth, the smith waiting by the warp, ready to pursue the retreating Pearl to strike at Rose Quartz.

"I dunno," answered Lapis from where she'd flown to the rafters for cover, reaching up and wiggling a finger in one ear and then the other. "But if that's the new sound all the kids are listening to, I'll stick to my big band music, thank-you-very-much."

"Pearl somehow forced a system-wide diagnostic warp," answered Peridot, understanding blossoming within.

"Okay," answered an impatient Bismuth. "We're did she go?"

"Anywhere," answered the technician. "Nowhere. Everywhere. All warp connections were simultaneously engaged rendering my logs useless in locating her."

Bismuth growled, the gem latching and unlatching the catch on her Breaking Point holster with anxious energy. Then the warp pad chimed --normally, not with discordant resonance this time-- and her daughter and Jasper stepped off the pad.

"Pearl's gone," said the Quartz, holding out a smoking device to Peridot. Four vials were held delicately in the other.

Peridot felt the tug, something large was pulling at her intellect, a quandary in urgent need of pondering, and she had to suppress a mote of frustration. Deciding she'd been passenger to the events of the day for long enough, Peridot ignored the outstretched (and seemingly burnt up) warp bypass device and approached Connie, pulling her daughter into a hug.

"Relay anything relevant to the others, bid the Steven goodnight, and get yourself ready for bed," she ordered with the mix of affection and authority that so typified maternal interactions.

"O- Okay," stammered her daughter. "Are you going somewhere?"

Peridot marched over to the warp pad, ersatz terminal in hand and a small satchel of useful items slung over her shoulder. "Yes. To think. Please do not disturb me."

Before the others could inquire or delay her further, Peridot visualized her destination and vanished in a flash of light.

She arrived in a brightly-lit tropical evergreen forest, a profusion of lush foliage photosynthesizing around her. The omnipresent browns and greens made the magenta of Garnet's form stand out all the more where she was leaning against a distant tree.

"Why-" started Peridot, annoyed that, even warping halfway across the globe to the Indian subcontinent, she couldn't seem to find solitude from her peers.

"I'm here for after," answered the fusion. "I won't disturb you before."

Several retorts rose up within Peridot but she quashed them. They were insignificant while something genuinely important awaited her. With only a curt acknowledgement, Peridot departed, wandering into the teeming organic flora to finally be alone with her thoughts.

She wandered with no specific destination in mind, at times marveling at the panoply of life surrounding her, ecosystems within ecosystems in a marvel of emergent complexity from simple processes, at other times scarcely seeing anything save the shape of her thoughts.

Whether by choice or by chance Peridot found a large tree, wide, large roots spreading out into the soil, without so much a single trunk as hundreds of lesser trunks all growing adjacent to one another to form an impenetrable canopy of green overhead. Disabling her ersatz terminal, she placed it within the satchel and set both far out of reach. She sat down at the base of the tree.

Finally, blissfully, she thought.

About everything.

Connie. Lapis. Rose Quartz. Citrine. The Cluster. Bismuth. The Era-1 Peridot supervisor she'd labored under centuries ago. The technological cornucopia that was Era-2 Homeworld space. The enduring Era-1 tools on which much of Homeworld's infrastructure rested. The unguided but no less beautiful systems of Earth, man-made or otherwise. Her failures. Her successes. Her many, many attempts at understanding her fellow rebels and the world they stewarded. What data was present in her visor she queried. Information, distilled, curated, and abstracted, was stacked into the display of her glasses, overlay atop overlay until the very world before her was lost, trees obscured in a forest of data.

There was something there, something large, but the harder she grasped for it, the more elusive it became, like trying to snatch a leaf from the breeze.

After an unknown span she quieted all the alerts and all of the data from her glasses. And finally, blissfully, she thought.

About nothing.

Peridot's inner monologue was normally a tumult of lists and tasks and ponderings, of fears and hopes and doubts. She was a noisy gem, inside and out. But here, away from the others, she looked with eyes unclouded by data, and watched, and allowed the space within her to grow quiet, for the timeless idea within her could not be chased, only invited.

An image arose in Peridot's mind as she looked at the forest in front of her. She was sitting on a bench next to her daughter. They were shelling pecans. They were discussing the differences between Era-1 and Era-2. Thesis: Era-1 was enduring but expensive and unthinking. Antithesis: Era-2 was economical, intelligent, but fragile. It was common knowledge that the two interfered with one another, that crude measures had to be employed to literally insulate the components of one era from the components of another.

But she'd made the drill. And it had, if not saved the world then at least bought it time; prevented the immediate, certain destruction that would have come from attacking the Cluster outright.

Synthesis: Era-3 would be a blending of the two technologies into something greater.

Just as Connie had the strengths of gemkind and the flexibility of humanity, Era-3 would have potential so vast it was dizzying to contemplate.

It was a beautiful epiphany, one which could, if Peridot survived to enact it, reshape the planet and maybe even the galaxy beyond.

But it was only the surface of her thought. She hadn't grasped the leaf fluttering about, merely brushed it.

Banyan tree.

The thought rose within Peridot and she had to trace its source within her. Ah, the botanical records she'd recovered from a Rebellion gem fascinated with plants. Peridot had read them and the recollection surfaced that she was under a banyan tree.

This gem, a Rose-loyalist Kunzite, had studied the flora of the Earth and only her reports had survived the Rebellion. The gem was gone but the pattern of her understanding had persisted. It was the nature of information to be timeless even as the beings that sought it were not. But knowledge was, by itself, worthless. A book containing ultimate truths would do nothing, solve nothing if it was never read.

No, knowledge was a catalyst. Technology, that was the true engine of power. Starting with the merest tools, humanity had risen to the cusp of venturing into space, with no theoretical ceiling to their eventual achievements. Even gemkind, for all its innate power, was reliant on injectors and warp pads and FTL drives.

Jasper was perfectly formed, a paragon of what a Jasper could be. And she was mighty, but her mightiness had plateaued long ago. Lapis, for all that this planet's vast quantities of water empowered her, was limited by the same. She may have grown more skilled, as had Jasper, but neither had grown appreciably more powerful, not even in thousands of years.

Peridot... had no mighty Quartz strength or vast, elemental power. And yet she, more than any other, was instrumental in saving the Earth from a literally world-ending threat. Her limb enhancers had been destroyed but she had rebuilt. The results were crude and limited, but given time she would build further. New limb enhancers, stronger and more powerful than the ones that Rose had demolished could in time be constructed. The doom cannons could be rebuilt, enhanced, and turned into a true space-based defense against Homeworld aggression.

Technology was the true engine of power. It had no theoretical ceiling, no true limits save for the intellect and information of those wielding it. Peridot's worth did not lie in her limb enhancers, it never had, not truly. No, her worth was found in her mind, her scientific understanding, her technological acumen.

A leaf from the banyan tree drifted down, a long, lazy, circuitous path. Had she reached for it, the current of her grab would have diverted its course to the forest floor. But because she sat there, unmoving, thinking, it landed, balancing on the crown of her head, on the lip of her gemstone, on the seat of her consciousness.

Peridot sat under the banyan tree and she became enlightened, a deeper truth revealed. She wept briefly at the beauty of it.

She felt a rush, heady, as if a circuit had been connected or a channel, previously blocked, had been cleared. Ideas welled up inside her, experiments, designs, scientific inquiries she could make, each a tiny, incremental foothold gained in the infinite expanse of technological progress.

Rummaging through her satchel, she grabbed pencil and paper. She returned to her seat and she drew, designed, wrote. Time passed and she was content.

The pencil broke. She had a pen she could write with instead. Levitating up from the satchel, the metal-clad pen wafted over to her. Peridot took in this phenomenon with calm, clear-eyed acceptance.

"Excellent," she said, sweeping the broken pencil marks aside. "This will prove most helpful."

And with this latest tool at her disposal, Peridot turned back to her writing.

---

Walking back through the forest, Peridot had another, less grand but more immediately important matter to consider.

The Cluster.

"What do you think we should do instead? Ask the Cluster to bubble itself?!"

"Would that work?"

"Of course not!"

That exchange had echoed in her head but only recently had she grasped why.

Garnet was waiting for her, as she'd said she would be. "Welcome back."

Peridot nodded. It was all working out neatly. No, not neatly. Not neatly at all, but with a progression to it that felt like more than mere chance was at work. She eyed the seer thoughtfully.

"I know you were warping components to Rose and Pearl," said the enlightened technician. "Studying Pearl's initial warp bypass device confirmed it."

"You saw the items appearing in the warp log," stated the fusion.

"Not at first, but after examining the device I examined the warp logs, imposing additional granularity. You were shapeshifting smaller so as not to trip my mass alert."

Garnet offered no objection.

“And yet, these creatively terrifying devices Pearl made were just enough to allow her to come into our care, divulge useful information about Rose’s plans and the Cluster both, then slip away to some unknown corner.” Peridot’s expression was, to put it mildly, skeptical.

Silence stretched out and then Garnet said, “What amazing coincidences,” in the driest tone possible.

“You traveled to the Galaxy Warp earlier,” pressed the technician.

“The other Peridot and Amethyst had been there.” Garnet shifted her weight slightly, the light and shade dappling her features. “They escaped.” She spread her palms out in a helpless, empty-handed gesture. “Oops.”

Peridot sighed. She’d already discerned the path ahead of her, had before she’d arrived to talk with the vexingly vague seer, but she was at least mildly irked at being the second to know her own plans.

“And you haven’t chased them down because…” prompted Peridot.

“...I have no idea where they are.” Again, a tone so dry it could be packaged and used as a desiccant. “They could be anywhere. Like the Communication Hub.”

A beat and then, "Whose side are you on?!" the words tumbling out of Peridot because enlightened did not strictly mean at peace.

The fusion gestured and it took a second for Peridot to realize it wasn’t at her. Down from the bows of the trees drifted a maroon bubble. The Certified Kindergartner peered forward before recognizing the tangled conglomeration of gem fragments: a forced fusion resided within.

“Their side,” answered Garnet, simply but with a weight behind the words that had been absent before. “No one else is.”

Trust, but verify. That’s what she’d said when she’d first known Garnet wasn’t the straight-forward ally she was pretending to be. This was verification.

But... of what?

Peridot sighed. Mighty though her intellect may be, vast be her insight into truths of power and profundity, but even she could only handle so many revelations in a single twenty-four hour span.

“Thank you, I think, for the assistance you might possibly be rendering, though not necessarily exclusively, to the Crystal Gems. Your help, if that’s what it is, is appreciated, contingent on any of the aforementioned actually being true.”

There. That should cover it.

“You’re welcome,” answered Garnet, some warmth entering her voice and the hint of a smile touching her lips. “Maybe.”

Peridot nodded and walked to the warp pad. She didn’t hobble, she didn’t grit her teeth or feel ashamed at being seen as small. She was what she needed to be: that was enough. And given time and diligence, it would prove more than enough.

As the beam of light engulfed her she had one last little epiphany, smallest of all and yet inordinately weighty.

She owed Lapis a Hiddenite-sized apology.

---

It was night at the desert in which the Communication Hub resided, but the device itself gave off a glow that was further augmented by the green light of the other Peridot’s tractor beam as she rearranged pieces in the process of her ad hoc repairs.

As she’d expected, Peridot was tackled by Amethyst almost before the warp beam had faded out, a whip being used to tie her up like she was a green insect caught in a purple spider’s web.

“Got ya, you jerk!” crowed Amethyst in a mix of English and French that Peridot was able to seamlessly translate and understand.

There was metal about, she could sense that now, a novel form of proprioception that should have been bewildering in its newness but instead was the most natural thing in the world. Even tied up she wasn’t helpless and that was a comfort Peridot held tightly to.

Peridot Facet-2B2Y Cut-5XG, or P2 as Steven claimed she now self-identified, flew down from where she’d been midway up the tower. Peridot noticed that her limb enhancers weren’t quite as pristine as they’d once been, a consequence of the gem’s fugitive lifestyle and unfamiliarity with Earth, no doubt. Still a part of Peridot which had staved off the obsolescence of her limb enhancers for nearly five centuries was appalled at the rapid signs of wear.

“Good job, Amethyst,” praised P2. The gem offered a smile but it wasn’t the beaming thing Peridot would have expected. There was a haggard quality to P2 that seemed novel, an air of urgency or an undertone of hysteria that made her seem less ebullient and more manic.

Peridot could guess what the cause of that must be.

Turning from her Quartz enforcer, P2 looked at Peridot. In a haughty tone she said, “Rebel zealot Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG, what are you doing here?” A beat. “I assume it’s to thwart my attempt to contact Yellow Diamond, by the way. I merely wished to taunt you with a gloating question.”

“Taunt, taunt,” added Amethyst with a laugh, the words once more in French and it was all Peridot could do not to roll her eyes.

That Peridot was looking at a mottled version of her own hopelessly naive misbehavior, just five centuries after the fact, made her frustration toward the smirking technician rather self-directed. That this put her in the role of Citrine, however, was a mild boost to her bruised ego.

“I have come to offer you a chance for survival.” One of the coils of whip was pressing into her cheek so the words came out a little muffled, certainly not the commanding declaration she’d hoped for.

“Oh? Are the rebel remnants fleeing the colony before its inevitable destruction?” P2’s eyes lit up.

“No!” barked Peridot, struggling to lift her chin so that she didn’t have a faceful of gem-studded whip. “We wouldn’t-” She grumbled, resisting the urge to gnaw at the offending loop of purple restraint, and said instead. “We’ve drilled down to the Cluster, scanned it, and know it is too close to maturation to be destroyed. It would spontaneously form anyway, ripping apart the planet from within.”

“Oh? How did you manage the obstacles of pressure and heat damaging your scanning equipment?” asked P2, eyes bright with curiosity.

Peridot preened slightly. “Well, I invented a novel technique for coupling a chassis of Era-1 materials to an internal assembly of-”

Her words were cut off when the whip coils tightened, choking her into silence. Amethyst growled. “There’s only two noises I want to hear right now: you being squeezed until you poof or you telling me what I want to know. Pick one before I do, pebble.”

“Ah, very forcefully done,” commended P2.

Amethyst grinned. “Thanks! This one time, Holly Blue was disciplining Skinny, see, and we kept cutting power conduits until the lights went out so we could grab Skinny and run, but before we could find the right one in the ducts we heard this big, long speech of hers and it was full of stuff like that.”

“So that explains the unscheduled Deck-Five overhaul Holly Blue Agate ordered.”

Peridot cleared her throat and only partially because it was a labored effort to draw in breath.

The straps loosened marginally. “Speak, clod,” said Amethyst and now that Peridot knew to listen for it, she could hear the Agate-like mannerisms being imitated.

“We cannot stop the Cluster from emerging. However, what if the Cluster stopped itself?” pressed Peridot.

Before the others could scoff or, worse, treat her to more irreverent banter, she continued. “The Cluster is a discordant amalgam of personalities. There’s no unifying motive or goal and so it’s driven by pure, gemetic instinct: form, defend against threats, lash out. But if a very powerful and commanding personality were added to the Cluster, it could form the nucleus of an identity. With that it could govern its own behavior, forestalling the Earth’s destruction long enough for it and us to find a way to remove it from the mantle non-cataclysmically.”

P2 blinked. “But given the sheer size of the Cluster, the only gem that could even hope to sway so large a mass of gem fragments would be…” and the gem’s voice trailed off as understanding of an idea that was equal parts reverence and sacrilege blossomed within her.

“A Diamond,” finished Peridot. “Specifically, Pink Diamond. We have seventy-five percent of her shards. There is precisely one gem on this planet with the training to reassemble them with any hope of success.” Peridot waited as long as she imagined her former self would need to go from awe to naked ambition. “Would you like to be the Peridot to reassemble a Diamond?”

The look of open-mouthed yearning on the mottled gem’s face was answer enough.

Then reality reimposed itself, the bubble of fame and esteem bursting within P2. With a flurry of holograms, commands were queued up and broadcast too fast for Peridot to see from her awkward angle. Then, crouching down to her level, P2 said, “If this is some ploy, know that I have configured this tower to broadcast a dire warning to our Diamond-”

Peridot, to her shame, winced at the reaction ‘our Diamond’ elicited in her.

“-should this tower be tampered with or if my limb enhancers are ever removed from me.” The technician clutched the enhancers tightly to her chest. “You may not have my limb enhancers, rebel, under any circumstances,” and the vehemence in her voice was both uncharacteristic and poignantly sincere.

“That… won’t be a problem,” and to Peridot’s surprise, the words were entirely honest.

Amethyst cleared her throat pointedly.

“I believe we can make accommodations for you as well, Amethyst,” promised Peridot.

If nothing else, they weren’t actively using the barn anymore.

Notes:

The art of Peridot's enlightenment was from NeonJohn, who you may know from his frequent, wonderful fanart or his fic, Pink Together. Well, NeonJohn has joined the Connie Swap Team itself, planning and plotting with MJ, BurdenKing, and me while also contributing his considerable art talents. I'm pleased as punch to have him aboard!

On a related note, Peridot! This gem has been through a lot, with her largest character arc coming to a close (finally!) after 38 episodes of development. All of us on the Team have been brimming with excitement at reaching this moment. It's been in the plans since [checks the Brainstorming doc] March of 2017 and it couldn't come soon enough! Once again, a big thanks to NeonJohn for making that pivotal scene look so darn good.

And so we finally come to the conclusion of Reap What Was Sown. We'll be taking the usual week off between episodes however, depending on holidays and other real life demands, it's possible there'll be a second week off before the main fic resumes. Expect omake content to go up on the one-to-two Wednesdays in between. So, join us Wednesday, November 6th or 13th for the start of Episode 39: Shattered Dreams

P2 has agreed to help the Crystal Gems with their unorthodox solution to the Cluster. Bubbles are burst, and not just three yellow ones.

EDIT: Here's the finished Bingo tally:

Close but no bingo this time.

---

If you have a Connie Swap story burning in your soul that you want to see in our official, curated Omake collection, drop us a comment either in the Omake fic or here in the main fic and we'll get in touch.

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As usual, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments and your asks at the Connie Swap Tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Notes:

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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 38 of Connie Swap