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Once the Cluster had been dealt with, it was time for the gems to return to the temple. Peridot was apprehensive about this – she had gotten so used to living and working at the barn. She had asked if she could stay there on her own, but her request was denied.
"I don't think it would be good for you to be on your own," Pearl said. "You should stay with us."
"Yeah," said Amethyst. "We've gotta teach you how to be a Crystal Gem, right?"
She threw an arm around Peridot's shoulders and grinned at her. Peridot flushed dark green and averted her gaze. Steven giggled.
"That's right," said Garnet, smiling down at them. "You've still got a lot to learn."
"But where will I stay?" Peridot said. "I can't stay in the bathroom again."
"We'll figure something out," Amethyst said, her arm still draped around Peridot. "Hey, you could stay in my room!"
"In the temple?" The idea was alarming. Peridot considered the temple to be someplace very personal to the Crystal Gems and very, very private; how could she ever be allowed inside? But Pearl and Garnet were nodding in approval, and Steven was beaming.
"Yeah!" he said. "It'll be like a sleepover!"
"What's a sleepover?"
"It's when you sleep over at a friend's house!" Steven threw his arms up to express his excitement, then frowned. "Well, I guess it counts as a sleepover if it's in the same room, too."
"But gems don't need to sleep," Peridot said, still confused.
"Have you ever tried?" Amethyst asked.
"I know we're able to sleep, but –"
"So try it! It'll be fun!"
"I fail to see how sleeping could constitute fun," Peridot said.
"That settles it!" Pearl said, clapping her hands together. "Peridot will stay in Amethyst's room until we can find a more permanent solution.
"Sounds good to me!" Amethyst removed her arm from Peridot's shoulders and grinned at her. "Ready to go?"
"Yes," Peridot said. She supposed she didn't have a choice in the matter.
While the Greg human helped Steven move back into the beach house, Amethyst took Peridot's hand and led her over to the temple door. Peridot felt apprehension rise in her chest, and she wondered if it wasn't too late to back out.
"Here we are!" Amethyst said. "Let's go!"
Amethyst's gem glowed, and the corresponding circle set in the door's star glowed in response. The door opened, and Amethyst dragged Peridot in before she had a chance to prepare herself.
Amethyst's room was a mess. That much was obvious. Once the door had closed behind them, Amethyst dropped Peridot's hand and ran forward, jumping up on top of a pile of junk. "Here we are!" she said, grinning down at Peridot. "Welcome to Casa del Amethyst!"
"Welcome to what?"
"It's my room! Pretty great, isn't it?"
Peridot looked around. "It's messy," she said.
Amethyst laughed. "Sure is!"
"I take it that's intentional?"
"'Course!" Amethyst slid down off the pile, dislodging a number of things and causing a small avalanche that fell behind her. "I keep all my junk here," she said. "I'm pretty sure there's a couple of mattresses around here somewhere."
"Mattresses? Like what Steven slept on at the barn?"
"Yeah! So we can sleep!"
Peridot hesitated. Amethyst noticed this, and her smile fell from her face.
"You're okay with that, right?" she said. "I'm not gonna make you do it if you don't want to."
"Sleeping is a sign of weakness," Peridot said. "Weakness is prohibited on Homeworld. I've never slept before."
Amethyst laughed. "Well, this sure ain't Homeworld! Don't worry, Peri. It's okay to sleep here, but you don't have to."
Peridot frowned, considering her options. "What does it feel like?" she asked.
"Feels good! We don't sleep like humans do, we can wake up whenever, but the longer we sleep, the better we feel when we wake up. You dream sometimes, too."
"Dream?"
"Yeah! When you sleep, you're still thinking, but your mind gets all confused and makes a bunch of random connections that play out like a video in your head." Amethyst shrugged. "I mean, Steven tried to explain it to me once, but I don't know. It's pretty cool, though."
"It doesn't sound safe," said Peridot.
"It's safe! It's not like it hurts or anything. I do it all the time!"
"Because you sleep a lot?"
"Yep!"
Well, if it didn't hurt Amethyst, it should be safe for her. "Okay," Peridot said. "I'll try it."
"Awright!" Amethyst grinned again and ran off. "Here, I think there's a mattress over here somewhere."
Peridot followed her through the piles of junk, albeit at a slower pace. When she caught up to her, Amethyst had already found a mattress and was dragging it to a mostly-clear area on the floor.
"Here we go!" Amethyst dropped the mattress with a soft thud and brushed off her hands. "Ready for bedtime, Peri?"
"What?"
"'S a human thing." Amethyst flopped down and beckoned Peridot closer. "C'mon! Do you know how to sleep?"
"...no." Peridot sat down on the edge of the mattress. It wasn't very soft or comfortable, and there was a metal spring sticking out on Amethyst's side.
"Alright, you gotta lie down, close your eyes, and kind of..." Amethyst rolled over onto her back and closed her eyes. "...let yourself drift away."
"Drift away? What –"
Amethyst rolled on her side and pressed a finger to Peridot's lips. "Shh. C'mon, lie down with me."
Peridot's cheeks felt hot. Amethyst smiled. "You're cute, P-dot."
Peridot crossed her arms and looked away. "'Cuteness' is not a valued attribute."
"It is to me."
Peridot's cheeks were burning. She didn't want to sleep anymore, she wanted to run away and dunk her head in one of the puddles that dotted the ground.
She didn't, though. Instead, she just shook her head and lay down, facing away from Amethyst so she couldn't see how flushed her cheeks were. "What do I do now?" she asked.
"Just relax. You'll feel it when it starts happening. Remember to keep your eyes closed."
Peridot obliged, letting the tension out of her body. She hadn't even realized how tense she had been this entire time. Relaxing felt nice, but Peridot couldn't stop her mind from wandering, even as she closed her eyes.
For a while, she thought about the Crystal Gems. They seemed to like her, and Peridot supposed she liked them too. They had all made an effort to reach out to her and make her feel like she belonged on Earth, after the incident with the communicator, and they all kept telling her that she didn't have to worry about Yellow Diamond anymore.
Peridot quickly wrenched her thoughts off that track. Thinking about Yellow Diamond never led to anything enjoyable. Instead, she thought about Amethyst.
Amethyst especially seemed to enjoy spending time with her, and Peridot had to admit that the feeling was mutual. Amethyst was so carefree all the time, and Peridot appreciated that about her. She did things that weren't productive, things that on Homeworld would have been considered a waste of time, and she did them just because she enjoyed them. Just because they were fun.
Peridot wanted to be like that, too. On Homeworld, she had a purpose, but on Earth, she didn't have anything like that. She just existed because she existed. She wanted to find joy in that, like Amethyst seemed to.
And on Earth, she could, right?
Her thoughts were getting muddled, her mind drifting from one place to another. She thought about Steven, and how excited he was when telling her what a sleepover was. She thought about Garnet and their failed attempt at fusion that Garnet had insisted hadn't been a failure. She thought about Pearl, and how different she was from how she thought Pearls were supposed to act.
And she thought about Amethyst, her warm body lying next to her, and finally, Peridot fell asleep.
Peridot woke up with a smile on her first day at Camp Pining Hearts, jumping out of her bunk bed and landing on her feet on the floor, already dressed in full uniform. Nothing was odd about this.
Her bunkmate was still snoring, lying in bed with her long pale hair lying messily around her face. Peridot prodded her cheek. "Hey," she said. "Hey, Amethyst!"
Amethyst opened her eyes and grinned at her. "Hey, Peridot," she said. "Ready for today?"
"I was born ready," Peridot said, grinning at her. Internally, she recognized that something was a little bit off about this – gems were made, not born – but it didn't matter. She grabbed Amethyst's hand and the two of them ran outside to join in the three-legged race.
Except outside wasn't the camp, it was the grassy hill outside the barn, and Garnet, Pearl, and Steven were there waiting for them. "Hi Amethyst!" Steven called out. "Hi Peridot! Ready for the race?"
"Of course!" Peridot said. Amethyst started giggling for some reason.
"Okay," said Steven. "Let's go!"
Amethyst and Peridot were on one team, Pearl and Steven were on another, and Garnet was her own team. Amethyst was still giggling. Peridot was trying to remember what a three-legged race was when the race began.
Garnet, Pearl, and Steven started running. Peridot couldn't move her body forward. She sat down and watched them run off, feeling very sad all of a sudden.
"I wish I could be like that," she said.
Amethyst sat down next to her. "Like what?"
"Like..." Peridot struggled to come up with words. "Happy," she said. "Like you."
"Aw, Peri," Amethyst said. "You already are."
Peridot looked at her in surprise. "Really?"
Amethyst smiled. "I know it's tough," she said. "But you don't have to think so hard about it."
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to." Amethyst leaned in close to her. "You just have to feel."
Peridot woke up.
For a moment, she was confused – shouldn't she still be at the barn? – but then she remembered where she was, how she had gotten there, and whose arm was draped over her.
She thought Amethyst was still asleep, but when she moved, Amethyst's arm shifted and Peridot heard her say, "Good morning, P-dot."
Peridot sat up, and Amethyst took her arm away. "I think I had a dream," she said.
Amethyst snickered. "Yep," she said. "You do the same thing Pearl does!"
"I do what?" Peridot turned around to face Amethyst, who was still lying down on the mattress, a huge grin plastered on her face.
"When Pearl sleeps, she projects her dreams through her gem," Amethyst said. "You do the same thing. So I saw everything."
Saw everything – Peridot's cheeks burned, and she hid her face in her hands.
"Aw, c'mon," Amethyst said. "It wasn't that embarrassing, was it?"
"You didn't hear anything, did you?" Projections didn't usually have sound, so –
"Only a little. You talk in your sleep, too."
Oh, stars. Peridot fell back down onto the mattress, still covering her face. "I'm never sleeping again," she muttered.
"Peri..." Amethyst patted her back. "You want to be happy, huh? What did I say about that?"
"It was my dream. It wasn't really you."
"Just tell me."
"You said..." Peridot took her hands away from her face and looked down. The dream was bright and vivid in her memory, but still, she hesitated before answering. "You said I already was," she said. "But it doesn't feel like it."
"Y'know," Amethyst said, "I'm not too good at talking about feelings and stuff. But I think you're way happier here than you were before."
Peridot looked back up at Amethyst. "Do you really think so?"
"I don't know so," Amethyst said. "But I think so, yeah."
Peridot thought about this. Was she really happier than she was on Homeworld?
"You know what," she said, "I think I am."