Chapter Four: Things Said, Nothing Done

Peridot stood before the ladder upwards, looking up with the changing sky and all its clouds appearing above her. From beyond the endless ocean, the sun rose to conquer back the day with an amber cloak. She had paid the many hours before now to murmuring thoughts beneath a crowd of stars, and when the day inched its way to take the starry night, she had realized that she had, truly, done nothing.

Her small hand touched cold on the first rusted step that she would take, and a sigh would be there to warm it. Don't come near me. The words, and only words, echoed, for no face was there to complete it but a gem to turn back at her. I mean it this time. And they echoed, and reverberated, and echoed, and reverberated, faceless but all the more terrifying... Her gem shook like a bottomless cave, and her eyes wandered, up to the sky and down to her hand, and stopped, and into herself.

She knew that standing there by the silo's lengthy ladder meant going against what Lazuli explicitly said that night... But what else, Peridot thought, what else could she do for her? This... vacuum between them. It was not what Steven would want, what she herself wouldn't want, and she guessed, perhaps, what Lapis wouldn't want... It was stupid, stupid that she was overthinking this once again; stupid garbage, stupid plan, stupid feelings, a grunt sounded in her gem, everything about it was stupid. She had already given her night to the mere thinking of what to do next, and yet she stood frozen at the first step. She still didn't know what to do.

There were things left unsaid. Step one. She had to say it. Step two. She sighed again, one last time, and finalized the scatter of her thoughts into one concrete form. She wanted her to feel more at home, home-home. She promised Lapis. She had already betrayed Steven once and Yellow Diamond to her yellow face. She could not find a reason to betray her own word. Her free hand clenched to a fist, and she looked back up. The end of the rusty ladder waited for her.

She had to risk it.

II

When Peridot left the last step of the ladder(without any complaining this time) and arrived to the center of the domed roof, the view of the coming sun was there to greet her. Right on top of the ocean to the distance, it smiled the vermillion of its illuminant face to the sea that was its mirror of ultramarine. But that was not what she looked for. A blue figure lay on the opposite end of this roof, her body turned to the left with her delicate hands clasped in front of her. The teardrop cut of her gem glinted winks of the faraway sunlight.

Peridot calmed herself with a quiet breath inwards. Eyes determined and not leaving, she thought of what to say, to explain herself. But it had been silent. Lapis hadn't noticed her. She was... sleeping? A brow rose. How curious. She came closer, her steps light and careful on thin metal. Peridot squinted, and indeed, the gem who had yelled at her was silent in her sleep.

She knows how to sleep? Peridot thought, and remembered. A long unstable fusion pulling her down into depths and depths of seemingly inescapable madness taught her when she finally left it. It must have been the first thing to have felt good directly after that nightmare, and... it must have surely stuck. Whatever way she learned it, it was irrelevant now. Peridot's wonder returned in on itself to the thoughts that pricked her gem.

The little green gem remained unsure, standing and tracing with her gem to find some way to tell Lapis why she had come up here when she had specifically told her not to. The longer she stood, the more difficult it became. The first winds of the day arrived from the distance, and the clouds moved to them like a fleet of marble bastions, and to Lapis's hair like strands made out of the sea itself. Peridot gulped down whatever choking feeling clutched to her throat, and said:

"Hey, Lazuli."

No response. The same response for the same words. Peridot's eyes drifted downward to the rust-patched iron that she stood on. She knew that it wasn't particularly the best first thing to say, especially for Lapis. Another heavy breath left her. Other words might work.

She walked forwards, more careful and slow in her footing so that she wouldn't slide like before or wake Lazuli. She stopped beside the ocean gem, and then sat, a sinking feeling to help pull her down. The sun approached, and inhaled life into the day with its fiery rise. Even with Lapis beside her, sound asleep, Peridot realized that she was still alone in this gazing. She pulled her eyes away from the sun's image that looked back from the sea, and shifted her green eyes to Lapis. With her face turned away from her, she could only look at her ocean-blue gem at the center of her back. It was still her.

She could see her own reflection upon its surface. "You know,", the green gem started, "if you were awake, it wouldn't be so... unproductive to watch the sun come up."

She turned back to the sun, then hugged her short knees. The wind blew and it ran a wordless whisper in her ears. Her palm felt warm on the roof's metal. So was the inside of her gem.

"Lapis," Peridot began. "I'm going to say something. You probably won't hear it or even want to hear it..." Her eyes turned towards spaces of worry, and as she spoke, every word filled them. "You were right. I'm wrong and... I'm a clod. My plan was all jumbled-up and there's some essential stuff I haven't told you. I spent all night thinking about those things, unfortunately, and wondering if... if I should tell you."

The teardrop gem stayed inanimate. Peridot aired away a grunt, her eyes turning to a side. "Look, I know that you haven't forgiven me and I understand that. I shouldn't have put my own trouble over yours. I was in over my feelings, therefore it was... unfeeling of me to even mention my broken tape recorder when the real problem was, in fact, myself."

She stammered. "And I knew that! That's why my plan failed, Lazuli. I sacrificed its sturdiness for more time. I wanted to fix that thing as quick as we could so that, so that..." The words could not continue and slapped a palm to her own face. "Ugh. Emotions are hard to work with..." Then she let her hand down, and looked at its palm as if it held a fabric of uncertainty. "I wanted more time for us to do other meaningful stuff, but I guess that's not even worth thinking about now."

The thoughts softened her words as her gem drifted into... warmth. "You just started talking to me and I thought we had something going. I thought we could finally be... pals. But I let it go too fast and I messed up. And now I'm here,", each word spiraled down, "going against what you said." A pause. "And I'm... I'm sorry."

The gem on her back was all she could look and speak to, and Peridot pictured for a moment the anger that would have met her now. A breath left her. She lay on her back, her legs together and the roof beneath her, a waking sky over her gem. Her small hands clasped on top of her own chest.

"I just want to be friends, Lazuli. I just wanted to share this new home with you. Is that really too much to ask for?" Peridot let her eyes stay to the sight above. It was like stargazing, only that there were clouds. Heh, Cloudgazing. A quiet lived like it did the night before, but it felt... different with Lazuli beside her, yet still so incomplete. If she tried, she could convince herself to stay here for a time so long she would waste her hours away to it. But she knew she that she couldn't.

"Doing nothing feels a lot better when you're aren't alone." Her voice rode on the clouds. "Wouldn't it be nice if that were the solution to all of this?"

Peridot looked to her side, and she saw what she expected, the teardrop gem whose slumbering body had its back turned at the green gem. The image of her own triangular peridot caught itself. She sighed.

"Who am I even joking?" She turned her head back to see the sky. "It wouldn't matter even if you were awake anyway..." Peridot pulled herself up, but did not stand. "I'll leave you alone now. It's... what you would want from me, right?" No response, and a sigh to assure it. With broken hesitation, the short green gem stood, her feet balanced and ready to turn back. She held one last look at the sleeping Lazuli, who remained no different from when Peridot had climbed up here.

"See ya, Lazuli..." She felt better imagining those words said with a smile, but they did not. The sun caught her sight. It would be nice to stay a bit longer. What's the point? Her gem uttered its leaving thoughts. It decided it could not be here anymore.

Then, with a bowed head and wordless lips, Peridot walked for the ladder, her light feet tapping on the metal until they had become steady vibrations on the rusty steps. They faded eventually. It was silent again.

The ladder stilled and the wind returned.

Lazuli's short hair drew lightly to it. Under their strands, her eyes stayed open and were so when Peridot began to speak, and as the short green gem delivered what she had to say, they had wandered like the breeze to her trail of thoughts, and when she left, a thoughtless calm had taken them. She knew that Peridot saw her eyes. She only ignored it. Lapis turned up and glanced at where Peridot had left to, and then stared at where she had been.

She turned away. The sky hued itself to the horizon where the sun would continue to ascend and where the sea would never cease to remind her. The waves she felt that moved in her gem clashed against one another, their heavy shadows she pictured up upon the sky. Lapis sighed and she let the view take her breath, but it only fell short. It wouldn't be so... unproductive to watch the sun come up. With each second that her eyes reflected the distant lights and the perpetual emptiness, it would only prove the words right.

Gradually, it would not be the sun that she stared to, but the thoughts clutched underneath. I don't need anyone. It snapped in her gem, but it was met with a memory. I just want to be friends. And it burned in the cold air. I don't need her to be my friend. I just want her to leave. Its echo distorted and her expression sunk with gloom and without strength. I just wanted to share this new home with you.

Lapis could not let if off her mind, for they cycled and did not stop until it dawned to her. She had begun to mirror Peridot. She felt and appeared... small. Guilty. She had hurt her. She still hadn't gotten to know Peridot in a meaningful way. She still didn't like her. And it was all because she remained, well... still.

Lazuli let a glance at the barn, the newly-made damage visible even from where she sat, the fallen pieces marring the lime-colored grass around the hole. She knew that there was something she could do than just watching this sun come up, alone. Get to know her... It repeated, to wash away a surge of uncertainty, but a clutch of reluctance still took her. What's the point of a home with nobody to share it with? That was it. It was her turn to try, but the only thing to try was, in her mind, stupid.

But what else wasn't stupid on this planet?

II

Lapis stood in front of the scattered mess that she had taken part of. Her wings withdrew, no sound to be heard as they retracted slowly. The wall that fell lay like a pieced-together board of duct tape and wood on the ground, some of its pieces stray on the grass. The lake that she drew water from was now only a sealed crater dry under the sun, its contents spilled away in a splash that the soil had already absorbed. The black tube sat forgotten by its center. A heavy cloud swirled in her gem, and she sighed to alleviate it enough to begin her next action. The hole, more broken than what it was, seemed more undaunted than she did to herself. That did not matter.

Lapis started a step forward into the tear, and they came one after another, until she reached the inside. The wood and lost hay touched warm below her feet. The dust and partial shade were already there to surround her. What the young sunlight could shine upon came from crevices on the roof and the robot-smashed hole. The shade took everything else. Meaningless items and surplus were hidden in whatever corner they could be kept in... under beams, on platforms, by ladders, against walls... boxes, chests, furniture, tools, paint cans, miscellaneous trinkets... A painting of a couple that hung on the backwall smiled timelessly in their old uniforms at all the musk-scented and cobweb-covered stuff that they've managed to hide here.

That was what she saw. What she heard did not fit in quite well. A high-pitched, pseudo-dramatic, have-mercy-on-me type of feminine voice sounded melancholy from a device... 'But I don't want to betray the Maple Leaf team! I've made so many friends... Please, I can't do this...'

'But what about us, Madeline? What about our...'

She didn't bother listening any further. From a laddered platform, different voices shot back and forth from a source too far back to be seen, and Lapis could already guess that Peridot was up there too. She followed them, walking forwards and stopping by the wooden ladder that would lead up to it. She looked up, she knew there was something she had to say, but it was like searching for words in the chaos of a hurricane. She knew that they were there, but she could not find them.

What good will this do anyway... Lapis thought, and there came a more bitter thought. What good is there to do... They came in if she would end up saying the wrong things? What if she would only cause another argument? What if they really couldn't get along no matter what? 'If that's what I really am to you, then we're just a big mistake, Patricia!', 'Then... then get out of my sight! I don't want you here!' Cold had taken her hand all of a sudden, but she had then she muzzled it with a light grip to the first dry rung. It helped warm it. The end of the dusty ladder waited for her.

She hated taking risks. But she had to take this chance.

II

When Lapis left the last step of the ladder and arrived to the surface of the wooden platform, the view of a TV screen was there to greet her. There were humans behind its screen, out in some forest, all wearing beige uniforms with armbands. And there was Peridot, hugging her knees on a couch, eyes to the glow of the screen.

Lapis let her eyes drift to one side. It was difficult seeing her as anything else than someone who was at fault, but Lapis had to shrug away that thought. Right now, she was only a little gem who had nothing else to do. She pushed back whatever reluctance she had with a sigh. Lazuli moved on and sat beside the green gem, not a word said as she did so.

The couch felt itchy, and their nearness itchier. Lapis found little comfort. She guessed Peridot, who did not so much as acknowledge her, had found the same too. They watched, a significant space in between them, and eventually, Lapis realized that she had no idea what she was watching. Humans were walking by a trail near a river, all close together and singing songs, with the camera suggesting that only one small blonde-haired female in particular visibly kept her distance away from a short-haired female.

"So,", Lapis began, her brows lowering, 'what is this?"

Peridot glanced up to the gem beside her, before returning herself to the screen. Dialog ran lines of ambiance. "It's... something humans do to waste time."

A pause. "Walking over rivers?"

"It's called a 'show'. Its sole purpose on this planet is entertainment. They're just a bunch of humans acting out scenarios that are all meant to instill some sort of reaction from the viewers. It's been quite effective so far, actually..."

"Oh. This is all just... pretend?"

"Yeah. It's absolutely pointless, but it's... addictive, to say the least." Her eyes hadn't left the screen. "It basically amounts to nothing. I don't even know why I'm rerunning the entire Camp Pining Hearts series for the third time."

Lapis pointed a light finger. "So what's this show about?"

"It's difficult to explain... A lot has happened so far, and I've seen what my droning can do to an unwilling person. We'd have to go back to very first episode if you really wanna understand it." An empty chuckle. "And I doubt if you'd want to watch this meaningless thing all the way from the start..." It faded.

Peridot had leaned against the couch's armrest, resting with her cheek against her hand. Her eyes turned away. "Time isn't really worth wasting anyway."

Lapis felt the ripples of Peridot's sinking expression when she gave a glance, and, like Peridot, her eyes strayed to one side. The TV spoke on. The chill of the words she would want to say, she would have to say all took hold of her chest. Lapis crossed her arms, and gave herself the warmth of a small smile. "No. It's fine. I want to watch it."

To this, Peridot turned to her, an eyebrow risen. "A-are you sure? I mean, it starts to get worse from season four! The episodes will drag on and the plot just completely falls apart! It'll take days for us to..." Blue eyes met her, and it would be the smirk to silence her.

"Then let's waste time. That doesn't sound so unproductive."

The green of her cheeks grew lighter. Her lips tightened. It grew quiet. "O-okay then... That sounds fine too..." She looked away and down to the ground, then got off the couch, walking with arms straightened downwards to a box by the TV.

Peridot leaned, holding on to the edge of the box, and dipped a hand inside. Its movement rustled in the cardboard. She got smaller box, and seeing that it wasn't the one, placed her short arm back inside, and pulled another box which appeared to be packaging. "Here it is." She moved on near the couch, pointing at the box with a grin. "Could you believe this?! Camping Pining Hearts Season one and two, special edition!"

"What does that mean?"

"Well, Lapis, it means that it includes certain episodes that would otherwise not be in the regular copies, like behind-the-scenes, commentaries, and fan-inspired episodes." She held it to her chest, and squealed. It caused Lapis to rise a brow. The little gem moved on to the tape player, pressed a button, got the tape inside and placed it to its own box on the ground. She took one tape from the packaging, and popped it in.

She stood, then faced Lapis. "It's provided so much closure, and it downright redeems the shameful blunder called 'season five'." A loud sound overtook the momentary quiet, and Lapis covered her ears. Peridot, already used to it, did not, and moved on to the couch, hurriedly climbing up then sitting. Music played, and an intro scene started on the screen with Peridot grinning along to every cut. "They play an extended intro after the season one finale."

She didn't know what she sat herself into, but Lapis only gave her gem a shrug, and sat tight. The first humans appeared, and they weren't at all the humans she saw when she came up to the platform. Back and forth dialog filled in the ambiance once again.

"So how long is one 'episode'?" Lapis asked.

"Averaging about twenty-four minutes. Sometimes they skip the intro for usually significant episodes, so it could be a minute longer."

"And how many episodes does one 'season' have?"

"Oh, about thirty since it's the special edition." Peridot looked at her, her familiar grin eerily... relieving. "Isn't it great?"

Lapis's eyes moved away from the TV and then to Peridot. The heaviness she felt now brightened away to... something new. She returned to the show, a smile on her face."Well, I think I'm bored already."

Peridot chuckled. "Oh, Lazuli,", she turned to the screen, "that's just how it starts." And then she smiled at the stupidity of a thought:

It wasn't so stupid to do nothing together.

AN: Welp, this road we're taking right here feels a bit fluffy. Again, thank you for the feedback :D. If there's anything that seems off in this one, please tell me and I'll make it consistent.

Thank you for reading this one! Follow, fave, review if you wanna. Criticism is appreciated!

See you guys on the next one!