Something is happening. You’re coming back, but it’s wrong. You’re getting bigger, you’ve always been big, but even bigger than you should be-- you can’t remember what you should be. You hit the ground with a thump, and the pain starts.

It’s not just in your form. It’s in your Gem, in your thoughts. Something happened, something terrible. You failed. You’re a failure.

You snarl. Dig your claws into the stones below you. Look up. Bubbles, everywhere, with Gems inside them. Some you might recognize, dimly, but the pain and the terror is too great. Your snarls turn to howls. They rip through you, and at least the rawness in your throat distracts you from the confusion and the hurt and the failure you can’t even name.

Jasper.

You snarl again, and spin around, but no one else is in this room with you except the bubbles with the Gems inside them.

Jasper, it’s okay.

You run. It’s easy to make the leap over the small pool of lava, but you think that if you missed the jump and fell in, that’d be okay. The walls have veins of red running up and down them and you reach up to tear at them, to rip them away. You are good at destroying things.

Jasper, please, you’re in the temple and you’re safe and I’m here with you too.

It’s only because the voice in your head feels familiar that you stop. Familiar but not. Comforting but not. Angry but not.

I’m Charoite.

You don’t know a Charoite. You’re not sure you know anyone, though, so that doesn’t mean much.

I’m a fusion.

A howl rips through your form and you reach up to claw at the walls again. Fusion, you hate fusion, you hate it, you hate it, you miss it, you hate it!

Jasper!

Now you cower, hating yourself, not quite remembering that voice hurting you, hurting you, hurting you…

I’m sorry. That I-- that Lapis did that.

You tremble still.

And I’m sorry for what my-- what Steven’s mom did too.

You don’t know what the word mom means. But the voice in your head sounds sincere. If you can even remember what sincere means. If you ever knew.

But “Steven…” That word means something. Something awful.

Now you’re getting images from Charoite. A small human, a small purple Quartz, their fusion , it’s always fusion…

And… you. You think. But… you look down at your claws. Not you at all. The big orange Gem Charoite is sending you pictures of isn’t a monster.

A thought escapes from Charoite into your consciousness: I wouldn’t go that far.

There’s pressure. Like the voice is arguing with itself just outside of your hearing range.

I’m sorry. I’m back.

You quirk your head. Where is Charoite, exactly?

I’m in another room of the Temple. We’re talking inside your, uh, your mind, or your Gem. I’m not exactly sure how it works for me, or even for Steven.

That word again! Steven! You hate Steven!

Please! Try to calm down. I want to see you up close but the Gems are afraid.

What Gems? There are more?

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Peridot.

Images accompany the names. But the blue one. Where is she?

She’s here. She’s me.

This makes you pause, until you remember. Fusion.

Jasper.

You’re not Jasper. You’re a monster, and she was too. You run, claws skittering across the stones. You reach the wall on the other side of the room and you don’t stop, you just slam yourself into it. You’re dizzy now but you do it again and again. Charoite is pleading, pleading, pleading with you, but you ignore it. One of the spines on your face cracks and it hurts but it’s better than the other pain, the failure, the memories you don’t quite have.

“Jasper!"

You spin, and wish you didn’t, because you’re woozy after smashing your head against the wall. Floating there amongst the bubbles is a Gem with a physical form.

Not floating-- flying.

You try to snarl but all that comes out is a whine.

“Jasper,” the Gem says again. It lands on the other side of the lava pool. You take a step toward it and it takes a step back. The stench of fear rolling off of it is distinctly if mutedly human, and you snap your jaws, trying to inhale more of it. It feels good to make someone afraid. The Gem is speaking to you but you can’t understand it. You take another step forward.

Is this better?

You stop.

I want to talk to you. But I think this is the only way we can. For-- for now.

You sit.

I’m so angry. Lapis and Steven are angry and that means I am too. You get that, don’t you?

Charoite sits too, in a complicated tangle of their four legs. Just like, just like…

It’s so dark. Tinged with green, the occasional glowing fish or nearby bubble, but otherwise-- just black. Chains and screaming and crying and hurting. Immeasurable strength, immeasurable agony. But you remember, oh, you remember what sharing hate is like, even if you can’t remember why you hated together…

Are these your own memories or are they Charoite’s now?

It’s both. And Malachite’s too.

You can’t take it any more. You shake your physical form as if that can shake the memories out of you. Leap to your feet, bound forward, and before Charoite can do anything, you’ve thrown yourself at the small glowing pool of lava. You wait for your form to burst into dust in the molten heat.

...But all you hit is hot mud.

Charoite is flying again. Looking down on you as if they care. They did something to stop you, something to fill up the lava pool.

I guess plants plus water equals dirt.

You leap upward and just miss latching onto one of their dangling ankles with your teeth. You fall to the ground, and it slices into your paws, because the stones have been unearthed and scattered as the dirt was forced into the lava pool.

You whimper, and collapse to the ground. Can’t even die right. A failure, again. A failure, forever.

I just wanted to… talk to you. Then I’ll let you go. Back into the bubble. Would you like that?

You just don’t want to hurt anymore.

Steven can help with that. But he can only talk to you if he’s asleep, so I have to be here. For now.

The Steven word doesn’t even make you hate any more.

You remember what it was like. To share those awful feelings. How much we hated the Crystal Gems together. How much we hated each other. How much Malachite hated herself.

Charoite touches down and sits again, just out of your reach. Not that you’d try. They can fly.

You remember that too, don’t you? How great it felt to fly?

You don’t exactly have eyes but you’d glare at Charoite if you did.

Imagine, Jasper, imagine that feeling, but with… everything. Wanting to be connected to someone so tightly because being together with them feels like flying, all the time.

Impossible.

It’s called love.

Stop it.

And as angry as I am I don’t want you to never get a chance to feel it.

Stop it!

You’re what Homeworld made you. Maybe underneath all the conditioning, you’re still just a brute. But Lapis shared a mind with you for a long time. And she doesn’t think that’s true.

You roar. Charoite flinches.

Lapis could feel how sad you were about the Gems that got left behind on Earth when you retreated.

You have no voice left.

And how much guilt you feel over what happened to Pink Diamond.

You didn’t do anything to Pink Diamond. You think. Maybe that was the problem, where the bad feelings come from, that you didn’t do anything to save her.

Charoite points to you, then gestures in a circle around their face, and then points upward to the bubbles.

The Diamonds did this.

You look at your claws, still shredded from the stones. You flex them, glad for the distraction.

Jasper…

You don’t want to think about anything. The thoughts are coming out wrong, just like you did, and Charoite is in your mind, and can see them too.

I can leave.

You don’t want to be alone again.

I’ll stay here. But not in your mind. Okay?

You lick at your paw. Okay.

There is a slithery sort of pressure just beyond your senses. You think Charoite is gone. You don’t have a choice except to trust them. It is better than the choice you gave Lapis.

So it wasn’t Earth after all, that caused the Corruption. It was the Diamonds.

If you were capable, you might laugh. Except you, the perfect Quartz. You did this to yourself. Forcing the Ocean Jasper to fuse… Like you did to Lapis.

You can never fuse again.

You thought strength was enough, but now you’re not so sure. “Like flying, but all the time…”

You can never fuse again.

The Diamonds didn’t just corrupt Crystal Gems. There were Homeworld soldiers too, above you, and in the cages you had made. You blamed them… and now you are one of them.

You can never fuse again.

You wish that Charoite had been lying.

Would Pink Diamond have done this?

You wish one of the things you had forgotten was why you admired the Diamonds in the first place: they were ruthless.

You thought that was enough.

You look at Charoite. You felt their anger, but you don’t think you felt any hate (you know what hate feels like better than anything). You can tell they are ill at ease to be so close to you, but still, they radiate an inner peace, like you have never, ever known.

Like flying, but all the time.

You put your head down. Your face hurts your paws hurt your form hurts your Gem hurts. You whine.

Are you okay?

You hurt, you hurt, you hurt.

Do you want Steven to heal you?

Yes.

He’ll be right back. I promise.

Charoite untangles their legs and flies through the small doorway at the top of the room.

You’re alone again. Pathetic and alone and full of hate and full of hurt.

“Jasper?”

A small human has floated down into the room with you. You recognize him. You go to snarl, but you stop yourself, remembering. This is Rose Quartz, except Rose Quartz would never forget what she had done to Pink Diamond. This is not Rose Quartz.

Something glimmers on his hand. He takes a step toward you. You can smell the terror on him but it only makes you hurt more.

First he takes your claws in his tiny human hands, and then he presses one to your paw. The flesh reknits itself.

Then he licks his palm and takes a deep breath and wraps it around the spine on your face you had cracked.

A droplet lands on your Gem.

You’re shrinking. You think, for the first time ever, how it can feel good to be smaller.

Steven runs.

“Wait--”

It comes out as a snarl. You raise your claws-- your hands-- and feel around your face and shoulders. Spines among the hair. Half-healed. More than you deserve.

“Thank-- you,” you force out, in grunts.

Steven’s pupils go back to their normal size.

“You’re welcome?” he says.

“Lap-- is?”

Steven looks away. “She still can’t face you alone.”

You nod.

“Do you want me to... put you back in a bubble?”

You consider.

“Don’t want-- to be-- alone,” you manage.

Steven’s face brightens. “I have an idea.”

~*~

Some days are easier than others. You can’t be as close to the Centipeetles as they are to each other, not that you would let yourself get close to anyone again, after everything you’ve done.

“For now,” is all Steven says when you voice those thoughts aloud. Amethyst is often with him when he comes. She shapeshifts into whatever form you’re in and wrestles with you and that’s probably when you’re happiest.

Sometimes Charoite visits, although it’s not in person. You don’t mind. It hurts less to talk inside your head than it does to do it out loud.

Garnet and Pearl come out to the ship once. They talk to you about the war. You feel sick every time you think about what the Diamonds did.

You think about what you did a lot, too. All those awful things, in the name of the Diamonds who would have corrupted their prized Beta Quartz without regret if you hadn’t gotten off planet fast enough.

In those moments when spines bristle and break free from your skin, you think you deserve it.

The Centipeetle which is fondest of Steven likes to wrap herself around you when it happens. She clicks and gurgles in your ear.

It’s almost like music.