Shattered Hearts (Steven Universe)

Chapter 17

Ben opened the bag of cool ranch Doritos and put a few of the triangle shaped chips in his mouth, chewing quickly. "So," the boy said with his mouth full of food, "what's the plan, Peri?" Peridot glared at him. "I would tell you, but you're being disgusting. Swallow before you talk to me." Ben realized what was bothering her and smiled sheepishly. "Oh." He did as he was told, and then spoke again. "Sorry about that. What's your plan?" Peridot looked thoughtful, then answered. "Well, for now, we should just keep moving, and put as much distance between us and Beach City. If we do that, it'll be harder for the others to look for us." Ben nodded. "Okay. Was there a specific place you had in mind that you wanted to go to?" "Yes." Peridot cast a holographic image of a distant location in front of Ben from the gem on her forehead. "There's a place that contains ancient gem tech that I could use to build a new ship. It could take some time to get there though, what with my cracked gem and your..." She searched for a nicer word. "...humanity." Ben looked a little annoyed at this, but regained his composure, looking somewhat nervous. "Really? Um, how long do you think it could take to get there, exactly?" Peridot looked at him, puzzled by his question, and the image vanished. "A few days, most likely. Why?" After a few seconds, the problem about that hit her. "Oh...you're going to need food, aren't you?" He nodded. "I can eat these, but they're almost gone since I've been eating them at my place." When he only received a confused stare, the human sighed. "I stress eat sometimes. It's not weird. Let's just...get going and look for food as we walk, something like berries or maybe even tree bark." Peridot looked at him with confusion again. "Tree bark?" The boy shrugged. "I saw it in a movie once. It might work. I mean, animals do it sometimes." The green gem beside him made a little sound of annoyance. "Oh, you are just so..weird!" The human shrugged once more. "I've been called worse."

After a week or so, the two couldn't ignore their exhaustion. They had stopped to rest a little, but not enough. Ben had been trying to stay awake so that he could keep walking with Peridot, but his tiredness was starting to overwhelm him. His hunger didn't help either, and there had been no berries or any sort of food for miles. He was currently trying to save what was left of the Doritos for when he needed them most. He was always offering some to Peri, but she would keep declining his offers. Besides that, she kept insisting that they couldn't afford to stop, in case the Crystal Gems were close by, but even without her need for sleep or food consumption, she was becoming tired as well. At last, the couple came to a stop beside a road, under their cover of more wiry pine trees. Luckily, there was a bare spot that gave them a clear view of the dark, summer night sky, dotted with miniscule pinpoints of light. Peridot propped herself up against another tree, her fists balled up at her sides. "I'm sick of all these...tall things! They're hard to move by, and they're prickly." She shuddered. "Why does Earth have all of these stupid plants?" "Maybe you'd know why if you calmed down and looked around sometimes." He smiled faintly. "They're not stupid. They're actually really important to this planet." Peridot narrowed her eyes. "How so?" "Well, they make oxygen for the Earth and distribute it out to every living thing here. It's a complicated process, but every creature gets what it needs to survive." His smile became more real looking. "It's kind of amazing." The green gem considered this, and agreed. "Hmm...I guess it is, in some ways." She stood up and studied the darkened sky. Sounding more solemn, she started to speak again."My home is up there," she murmured. "Home world." Ben squinted to try to follow her gaze. "Okay, where is it?" "There." Peridot pointed with her fingers to a distant star that seemed to burn more brightly than the others. "That's it, the bluish colored one."
Ben looked distant then. "Oh. It's pretty. It kind of looks like Earth from here." "Yeah." Peridot sat beside Ben, and then laid down when he did. The two gazed up at the other stars. Ben pointed out some constellations, and the green gem listened with varying interest. Soon, the human's eyes started to close. Peridot prodded him, trying to keep him awake, but she soon gave in and let him fall asleep.

The gem looked up at the sky again in silence, the crickets in the forest the only sound besides her breathing. All of a sudden, she felt very alone. Peridot reached over to shake Ben's shoulder and wake him up, but he looked so peaceful that she didn't have the heart to do it. She continued to sit in silence, alternating her gaze between Ben's sleeping form and the sky. A glowing thing caught her attention then. She squinted the way the human had before. Realizing what it was, she scooted backwards in a panicked manner, then stood up and began rapidly shaking Ben, all of her polite ignorance for his human needs forgotten. The boy stirred and almost hit Peridot in the face. Blinking, he looked up at her. "Peridot, what is it? What's wrong? What'd I do now?" "Nothing. Look." She turned his head so that he could see the white orb of light that was hurtling right towards them. "It's Emerald! She's from home world, and she's coming here in a ship! She's here to get me! I'm going home!" Ben looked upset immediately. "But you can't! Peri, I need you to-" Before he could say anything else, the white thing dipped down and came closer, making them both gasp.

Author's note: Hello again, my readers! I didn't mean to take this long to update, I was just out doing things with my family for a few days and lost track of time. I'll try my hardest to update sooner now, but you really have to be patient when it comes to this type of thing. I'm a human being with a life outside of Wattpad, and sometimes stuff comes up to extend the amount of time it takes for me to write up a new chapter for you all. Okay, bye :)