Disclaimer, I do not own the characters featured in this story.

Maniacal quips of laughter echoed throughout the rough-hewn wood of the barn as little fingers tapped adroitly away at the gleaming screen of a tablet.

For the past few minutes Peridot had been incessantly updating her Cheep feed with the day's thoughts that currently plaguing her mind.

The little green gem had been parading about the wilderness with her device recording all her new discoveries and whatnot for the past two days, accompanied by a "pizza" that had been gifted to her, which she in the end had found no appropriate nor personal use for.

It was Peridot Time now.

When she'd returned to the barn after deciding to abandon the futile human pizza Lapis had been absent. While she'd minutely been disappointed and indirectly lamented this onto her Cheep she just as quickly realized the opportunities this brought on.

She had dug around in her storage pile until locating the red clothing article embedded with a yellow star - a "shirt" she remembered it was called - and promptly pulling it over her tetrahedral hair and onto her person. The hilarity of donning something Steven usually wore - not that she stole the shirt, or anything - ended up short-lived, and the shirt was abandoned two minutes after.

Peridot had simply resorted to lounging on the sofa in the left loft, tablet in hand. She'd been searching for something to amuse both herself and her Cheep counterparts for a bit before revelation struck and she astounded them with her new powers: moving a spoon without so much as laying a green finger on it!

She still hadn't quite gotten over the exhilaration that showing her newfound capabilities to the world gave her when the sound of old wood creaking chipped into the silence.

The gem yelped quietly to herself before leaning up quickly and shooting a glance towards the doors of the barn where she could just make out a flicker of faded evening light against a blue head.

SPEAK OF THE STARS! SHE'S BACK! Chattered Peridot into her tablet, flicking her eyes back towards the spoon she had just moved. I GOTTA SHOWER HER WHAT I- OH.

A second glance towards Lazuli revealed more than her initial look had.

She was upset. Oh.

Peridot scrambled off of the worn sofa, uncharacteristically leaving her tablet lying on the cushion and scrutinizing the blue gem further.

The shadows that dusked her features seemed to intensify the ominousness her wake bore, and her eyes were downcast as she walked further into the barn, silently, delicately, calculatingly. Peridot had no knowledge about what Lazuli had been doing for the past few hours, but her complexion alone radiated darkness and aggravation, and. . and. . desperation?

The last time she had seen Lazuli she had faired much better: granted, she was still slightly detached but peaceful nonetheless, occasionally offering an engaging comment that would startle Peridot so much she found herself stammering in their wake.

A decision was made.

Peridot rushed back towards the sofa and promptly typed I'LL BE BACK LATER! and submitting it before once again thoughtlessly leaving the device on the furniture. She bound towards the ladder and slid down, flawless until she ended up tripping on the last limb of the construct and falling forward on her gem. She quickly regained her bearings and closed in the distance between herself and Lazuli, excitedly throwing out a "hey, hey Lazuli!" before realizing her error.

The taller gem hadn't so much as flinched at Peridot's greeting, receding further into the strengthening shadows gathering at the edges of the barn. Peridot thought she could see the brief shine of Lazuli's eyes as a tense glance was shot in her direction. Even if it wasn't literal, she could still feel a pang somewhere.

She thought they had managed to move past this: the cold shoulders, the dark glares, even the somber ambiance! The past weeks of living together in the barn hadn't exactly been a joyride filled with excited chatter and unsullied socializing, per se, but it was definitely much better than their first impressions of each other. On Earth, that is.

Regardless Peridot moved forward with her confrontation. Some part of her was disturbed by the new aphotic nature Lazuli had built up but the rest of her was prompting her to seek the blue gem out and found out the problem. This had obviously stemmed from somewhere - but where? She still didn't know what her barnmate had been doing for the past day.

"Lazuli? Are you okay?" Tried Peridot. No response other than the shifting of material and the small groan of wood as the gem in question sat, back facing the other.

After being subjected to Lazuli for so long she could guess which bleak expression her barnmate was wearing. And instead of feeling flustered or annoyed by it, she was concerned. It swelled like a balloon in her chest until she was shivering with the effort of not repeating what she'd just asked for fear of retaliation. A negative one, that is.

While words didn't seem to come out her body propelled her forward. Once the distance between them was small enough that a simple reach could land her palm on Lazuli's slim shoulder she found the balloon deflating as she asked, "are you all right?"

This time she did flinch. It was obvious she hadn't been expecting Peridot to say much else, or be much say it so close to her.

The silence between them was so thick that the small gem felt it could form a fist and wrap it around her neck. Or, perhaps, that was the perplexing sensation of foreboding making her throat squeeze?

Physical contact had not really been something the two gems had tried out before. Or even experimented with, honestly. While Peridot felt comfortable enough to perform such acts with Steven, it was completely alien to find herself willing her hand in the upset gem's direction.

Just before she could cup her palm over Lazuli's shoulders in an act of unsolicited comfort wings of water quickly emerged from the drop-shaped gem on Lazuli's back and threw Peridot's open hand away.

The gem in question quickly held her hand as if burned, looking up in shock as Lazuli stood and regarded Peridot with nothing more than a chilly gaze before flying past her and out of the barn.

Peridot's face contorted with many emotions, one of which she related to what Steven had called guilt, which she'd first experienced after going "too far" with Amethyst in the Kindergarten when she had first been stranded with the Crystal Clo- Gems. The Crystal Gems.

Why was she guilty? She obviously wasn't the culprit behind Lazuli's extravagant shift in mood!

Was she?

Had she done something to offend her in the past fifty hours, running amok and discovering new things? Was she upset she had left without bringing her along? Understandable, actually, because Peridot believed that her presence could amplify the mood of a room tenfold. For the better, of course.

Despite what her instincts said, to let Lazuli be for the sake of not having her gem shattered right then and there for even considering more interaction-let alone the interrogative kind-she followed her into the evening.

It was darker than it had been previously, courtesy of the earth's rotation and its sun shifting below the horizon that signified that night-time was due soon. Rosy light spilled across the fields surrounding the barn and concentrated itself in a wild display of orange, pink, and velvet overhead.

She scrambled around the barn hoping to see Lazuli on the silo, but the gem was absent from the spherical top of the structure.

Puzzled, and with a frown that showed it, she padded away from the barn and gave the area a quick round-about.

Beach City twinkled in the distance, with the large mountain holding Steven's home a mere speck on the watery horizon. But there was no telltale sign of Lazuli anywhere in sight.

That is, until she let her eyes drift up onto the roof of the barn where she could just make out the edge of a watery wing flick swiftly out of sight.

"She's. . . on the roof," she muttered to herself. Not in distaste for Lazuli's choice of residency, no, but in bewilderment because how was she going to get up there?

Peridot was smarter than the majority of her kind! Surely, scaling a barn wall was the least challenging thing that could besiege her!

Ten minutes and numerous faceplants later, Peridot was left staring up at the edge of the barn roof helplessly. Her previous ideas had been utter failures, leaving her with a few paint cans strewn about her and her hair wild from meeting with the earth so many times.

Rubbing her chin she looked towards the hole in the barn wall which she'd created with her giant robot in her brawl with Pearl, reliving the destructive moment with a small grimace. The planks of wood that jutted out of the barn looked dangerous in the half-light, but were arranged in such a way that her mind was able to dismiss all logical dangers the messed up wood brought to light.

The small gem rushed over and experimentally placed her hands on a protruding plank. It was thrust out of place and made for a rather flimsy cleft, but a usable cleft nonetheless.

A few more careful hand-and-foot placements later and she found herself hauling her body onto the cooling metal of the barn roof by clambering up the misshapen, sideways ladder the planks made. Her eyes watered with how much strength she been expended on the activity, but she blinked away the ticklish sensation when she remembered what she was doing on the roof.

Lazuli sat feet away, staring bluntly off into the waking stars. There was no opening for Peridot to intervene, not with the way the blue gem's expression sat, still, reticent, and inapproachable.

Peridot approached anyway and ended up standing, teetering more like, on the slanted metal as she eyed Lazuli thoughtfully. Concern had found its way into her grimace, and her expression ended up loosening into something softer and more vulnerable as she folded her legs and found herself sitting exactly four feet away from the other gem.

There wasn't any interaction for a bit. Silence expanded and wrapped the two gems in its choking claws.

Surprisingly, it was Lazuli to break the quiet.

"You shouldn't be up here."

Peridot was pleasantly surprised that her tone hadn't exuded coldness as previously expected. But the brief spell of elation was stamped out when the bluntness registered. As well as the pointed emptiness.

This brought out some confidence.

"Well, I didn't want you to miss out on catching up with me!" She exclaimed in response, a wide grin settling on her face as she looked towards her barnmate. Friend? "I've been away for about two days and wanted to make up for lost time!" Surely, if Lazuli's plight involved Peridot's abandonment of the barn and, ultimately, her, offering up conversation to make up for the minutes lost to other doings was the best option!

"Forget it."

And, confidence wasted. Confidence trampled, confidence smashed; whichever appeals to your aesthetic the best.

Peridot's grin was eaten away by a disappointed flat line pulled taut.

"You're not all right, are you?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

The sardonic remark chilled Peridot and she quickly darted her eyes away, finding certainty in the terse stillness that followed. "Well, you're avoiding me and obviously you're upset over something." A pause. "I'm just trying to find out what that is and. . make it. . better? Make you better?"

She hadn't expected what her words elicited.

"I don't need you to better anything for me. I just want you to leave me alone!" Lazuli cried. She threw an accusing glance at the opposing gem, who promptly shrunk in on herself in attempts to hide herself away like she had seen that peculiar earth animal do once, with its mottled green body capsule.

She let a few moments pass. She regained her confidence again and reiterated herself.

"You don't have to be alone with this stuff, you know," the littler gem stressed, tracing circles with the tip of her finger on the barn roof. Her comment was met with another shadowy glare but it only seemed to engender Peridot and her point further. "You don't have to keep it to yourself and hope it just, goes away."

Peridot thought she could see Lazuli's willowy shoulders rise as if she were about to explode and berate Peridot for all she was worth, but as soon as they piqued they fell with a sigh that was just barely audible. "I went on a boat with Steven today."

Well, that definitely hadn't been what Peridot had anticipated. Mostly for the fact that she had no idea what a boat was. "What's a boat?"

Lazuli's head shifted towards Peridot, her expression still dull yet her eyes remarkably less so. If anything, they now shone with poignant woe. "It's a human thing. It goes out to sea. I went out to sea."

Suddenly the burden that had been affecting Lazuli was much clearer. She had known from the start of their rocky relationship that water wasn't exactly one of Lazuli's favourite things, despite what stereotypes entailed. After defusing from Malachite water had been nothing but a scolding reminder of how she was encased by the stuff for months trying to hold Malachite beneath the ocean. It was no wonder she looked so upset now, being surrounded by the same body of water that had brought her so much anguish.

"Oh."

"Oh?"

Peridot started with an raspy squeak. The ends of her hair poofed in alarm. "Yeah! I. . thought you were taking a break from water?"

Lazuli looked outwards again, taking into account the distant gleam of the ocean on the horizon the barn's height provided. "I was. I thought it would be okay to go out now, after so long."

Teeth dug into Peridot's lip as she considered the other's words. "And. . . was it?" She compelled cautiously, stealing a self-conscious glance towards the pool of water she could just make out from her perspective before snapping her eyes back to Lazuli.

Her bleak semblance seemed to break under those three words, shoulders rolling upwards and tucking around her blue hair as her eyes moved down to focus on the hands that hugged her knees to her. "No."

Peridot imitated the vulnerable position Lazuli held, tucking her chin into her knees and pasting her eyes to the horizon.

"What happened?" A risky question but a necessary risk nonetheless.

"Jasper."

Immediately Peridot startled. Her wide blew wide in shock as she focused on Lazuli, lips quirked in an awkward position as she tried to decipher whether or not the blue gem was joking or not. It was a ridiculous thought, but it was one borne from the hope that her. . friend. . wasn't going to be suffering because of an old enemy's resurfacing. Lazuli's face bore no changes.

The littler gem ended up making a small, squeaky noise to regard the reply. But then hot, scalding unease pressed against Peridot's chest and made her do a double-take. "Did she hurt you? Did she hurt Steven? Is that why he wasn't with you when you came back!"

Imagining the large Quartz gem pulverizing Steven with large orange fists and war helmet brought an unpleasantly horrible feeling. She tried again to examine Lazuli's face in the hopes of detecting anything that would tell her that their human was all right. The only change in disposition was that she had tucked her head further into the inside of her elbow.

"Steven's fine." She finally confirmed, a fragment of relief softening her otherwise bleak voice.

"Oh, thank the stars!"

Another silence followed, though this time it didn't leave Peridot grasping for anything or for any sort of power to hold herself up with to speak. "Then. . what's wrong?"

Lazuli gave her a cold look. "Did you not just hear what I said? Jasper is what's wrong! She followed me across the whole ocean and got on the boat and- she- she wanted to fuse again! How can I be okay when something like that just happened to me!" Shouted the previously indifferent gem, for the first time turning to properly face Peridot in her outrage, and for a moment there was a wind that buffeted around them and threatened to topple the green gem over the edge of the barn roof.

"I-I'm sorry!" Stammered the gem, whose nervousness was beginning to make itself very clear beneath her visor as her eyes widened and pupils shrunk. "I just thought-"

"Thought what?" Lazuli snapped. "That seeing Jasper again after Malachite would be easy?"

"No, of course not! I just wanted to know what to do to make you okay! That is to say-"

"I already said I don't need you to make me feel better."

"Well, stars forbid I actually try to help you because I care!"

There was some sort of liberation whenever Peridot spoke with Lazuli. A vocal liberation, where she felt it wasn't required to constantly put up a wall of expectation she had to scale as she did with Steven and the Crystal Gems. And with that sense of self-determination came the surge of feelings that followed to make themselves known.

Lazuli seemed surprise at the word choice, sinking back into herself. She moved her eyes away to watch the final colours of dusk be washed out by nightfall, soundless, obsolete.

Peridot watched this, crestfallen, but again tried to boot up their conversation.

"I realize I never properly apologized to you for back then."

This resulted in another glance from Lazuli. "You did."

"But it wasn't a real apology! It wasn't. . personal. Steven was present and I was trying everything he said instead of doing what I wanted to try. Granted, back then, I wasn't quite sure what to do in such a situation so I allowed Steven to help." Small green hands wrung around each other before grasping the yellow diamonds on the knees of legs. "So I'm saying it all now. I'm sorry. For everything. I did need an informant, but I still had no right to just drag you back to this cruddy planet. E-Even if we didn't expect to crash land!" Honestly, Peridot had thought that both Jasper and Lazuli would evacuate the falling vessel as she had in an escape pod. She hadn't even seen either gem until she met Lazuli at the barn with Steven for the first time.

"And for that, Lapis, I'm sorry."

She kept her eyes sealed to the pale tips of her feet for what felt like the longest time before directing her eyes back at Lapis to see that dark blue eyes were mirroring them. And surprisingly, a small smile was carved onto her face: it seemed so unreal that it took a few blinks to realize that holy smokes, Lapis Lazuli was actually smiling at her?

"You used my name," Lapis murmured, sounding amused.

Warmth promptly flooded beneath Peridot's visor as she fumbled for an answer. This seemed to amuse Lapis further as she lowered her legs and crossed them.

"I made my peace with you a little while ago. You were tinkering with that television thing and were so excited to show me - and I realized that you really weren't the same gem you were back then," she mused. Her tone wasn't elated or jubilant, but it carried in it a certain softness that made Peridot feel as if she could just melt into the roof of the barn. It wasn't an octave she'd ever heard the gem speak in, not to her, ever.

"But, thanks. For the apology."

"Y-You're welcome! It was sincere!" Peridot yelped in reply. Lapis responded with a bemused snort.

"Thanks," she murmured.

The air between them was still by no means comfortable, but it had been mollified to the extent where Peridot found herself moving closer to Lazuli.

Lapsed into quietude, the duo started absentmindedly towards the star-studded sky. The distant nebulae shone in clusters, pale and milky against the darker expanse of the rest of space. The activity was soothing until Peridot's eyes latched onto a faraway star system, recognizing the light pattern and feeling her throat clog in bittersweet nostalgia.

"Do you miss Homeworld?" She asked quietly, focusing her eyes on the distant pinpricks of light that made up their former home.

"Yes," came the lackluster answer, sounding quieter and more controlled than before, much to Peridot's secret dismay. "But I know I can never go back. It's changed. I've changed. It wouldn't feel like home anymore."

"I understand," Peridot concurred. "I feel the same way. Even though I can never go back because I called- eheh, called Yellow Diamond a clod to her face!" A delirious cackle spilled from her lips. "You never knew that, did you?"

"Knew what?"

"Well, on a mission with the Crystal Gems I led them to the Diamond Moon Base! There I stole a Yellow Diamond communicator and opened it on earth to speak to her!"

So far, Lapis looked mildly horrified.

"Oh, no, no!" Peridot gushed whilst flailing her small green hands in a pacifying fashion. "I contacted her hoping that she would stop the Cluster from destroying the planet! There's so much life here, how could she just let it die, am I right? But when she wouldn't listen to an era-two Peridot, I yelled at her for her ignorance and called her a clod!" Her signature laugh bubbled in her chest and she soon had to let it release, bringing her hand up to her visor to keep her from toppling at the slanted angle. "Nyehehe!"

She didn't bring up how she had cut the call and curled up on the ground moments later before being surrounded by the Crystal Gems who howled with joy at her betrayal of Homeworld and proclaimed her a Crystal Gem. She decided Lapis didn't need to know the grislier details.

She almost missed how the gem in question was now looking at her, the same small smile replicated on her lips as she watched her with mellowed amusement. "So you're a Crystal Gem now?"

"Wh-" She hadn't even explained the end of that endeavor! Yet she didn't deny Lapis's inquiry.

"Yes," Peridot stated simply, an embarrassed smile playing on her face followed by a small flush of colour.

Peridot found her eyes moving towards the shimmering silhouette of Beach City and the leering mountain that protected it, trying to discern details from the now shadowed structure of Steven's home. "I've learned a lot from them. But I've learned a lot on my own, too! Just the past two days I learned about bees and snakes and cars and- varying injuries aside, it was fun! I could show you them sometime!" Enthusiasm had etched itself into every aspect of her being. She now leaned forward, a hand brought thoughtfully to her chin as she beamed towards Lapis with a broad grin.

"Sounds good."

Again, an unexpected reply but instead of sending Peridot into a blushing, startled mess she simply squawked with triumph and threw a fist up into the air. The sudden motion ended up making her slide slightly down the slanted metal roof and she yelped before scrambling up beside Lazuli, grin now crooked with mortification. "You didn't see that."

One look at Lapis revealed so many things at once that Peridot was puzzled. Her shoulders were brought up, taut to her head, and her chest was bobbing as though she were sobbing, but the way her expression sat with teeth dug into her lip to stop herself from saying something implied something else. "Uhh, La-"

A laugh, soft and sweet, poured out of Lapis. It ended up eliciting the same thing out of Peridot, even if her laugh was more bewildered but even so full of glee and appreciation.

"I'd like that, I mean. If this barn is going to be home now, I guess I should know what else Earth has to offer," Lapis huffed tepidly.

"Earth has so much!" Peridot confirmed with a grin, finding with nothing less than a twitch of her lips that she'd moved until she was up right beside Lapis, less than a foot of length between them. And neither looked like they were ready to move away.

She briefly followed Lapis's gaze to find that it was attached to the same mountain she'd been scanning earlier, and an idea kindled to life, warm and bright and full of comforting memory.

When she and the Crystal Gems had been working together to create the drill she and Steven had used to go down to the Cluster, she had been astounded to see the Crystal Gems floundering about and not working on the drill. She'd brought this up to Steven, mortified by their actions before he had acknowledged that they were taking a break before breaking into song, which both she and the other gems had joined in on. It had been a melody she found herself humming throughout the construction of the drill, much to the amusement of Garnet whenever the stoic gem would catch the smaller gem murmuring to herself.

"Steven taught me a song once. I'd never heard anything like it before. But it made me realize just what earth can be all about. Wanna hear it?" Peridot asked, looking tentatively towards Lapis with a hopeful smile. Lapis replied with a small smile of her own, though it was more idle than hers. "Sure."

Peridot cleared her throat before putting on a theatrical face of performance, leaning up and wishing for a second she had that strange object Steven had sported - it sounded sweet, if sounds could be such a thing, and there wasn't anything nearby to help replicate its high melodic sounds.

"Life and death and love and birth," Peridot began, mimicking the pattern of speech Steven had first begun. She found it surprisingly easy to recall.

"And peace and war on the planet Earth. Is there anything that's worth more than peace and war on the Planet Earth?"

Her mind soared back to where Steven had prompted her to join in and sing, finding herself imitating him as she gazed expectantly at Lapis, extending her hand in a prompting motion before continuing. "Woah, come on and sing it with me?"

"Sing?"

"The words relate to the key!"

"Key?"

"If it's a pattern, if it's a pattern, then just repeat after me!" Peridot found glee in Lapis's unassuming words, biting back her laughter as she remembered her own confusion at Steven's insistence. She even had the same kind of look Peridot remembered making! Perplexed, cautious, but listening nonetheless!

"Life and death and love and birth," she pressed, signalling towards Lapis with a tilt of her head.

"Life and death and love and birth. . . " Lapis sounded uncertain.

"Yes, yes, that's it!" Peridot squeaked excitedly, fists tightening with elation as they brought themselves up to hold her chin. The next part of the song was difficult to remember but she was able to nail it somehow.

"But using mi-fa-mi-mi-fa-mi-ti-la!"

"And peace and war on the planet earth!" This was sung by both gems, both managing to have a blush crawl onto their cheeks as they sang in rhythm with one another.

"Life and death and love and birth and," sang Peridot.

"Life and death and love and birth and," echoed Lapis.

"Life and death and love and birth and peace and war on the planet earth!" They sang once again in unison.

"Is there anything that's worth more?" Began Peridot, signalling excitedly at Lapis with a happy grin.

"Is there anything that's worth more?"

Peridot spared a glance at her friend to find that she was being stared at, though Lapis's half-lidded eyes and a comfortable smile condoned the pensive look. And seeing as she had the blue gem's attention she swung her hand towards the horizon, motioning to the whole expanse of the ocean, its encompassing hills and forests, and finally the twinkling visage of Beach City in the distance before again, they finished the ballad together in harmony.

"Is there anything that's worth more than peace and love on the planet Earth?"

A.N., oh wow, hi, hello, you finished the oneshot! A wordy one, for sure, but it's been in my head for so long I was so excited to finally get it into paper as vividly as I thought about it! This was based on the official Peridot Twitter and how I think Peridot really did go to comfort Lapis after Alone at Sea. I think that's where their relationship really mended - and they began to fix the barn together, making meep-merps like the crazy aunts they are. c= I hope to write about them again soon! Something fluffier, for sure. Angst is hard to write for me. Anyways, see you again soon!