Chapter Text
The ocean waters calmly rolled in against the sand before receding back. Spinel looked down at the water, watching her own reflection waver with the waves. All this time she hadn't gotten a good look at exactly how much she had changed.
Her eyes were darker, underlined with black that streaked down her cheeks like tears. Her hair was wilder and no longer looked like cute hearts. Her gemstone had flipped upside as if to scream to the world that her own heart had been shattered.
Spinel looked like a monster. A monster born from raging emotions of betrayal and revenge. Seeing that image staring back at her from the water made her only feel revulsion towards herself. Had she really made the right decision about staying on Earth? Was there any way for someone like her to fix her mistakes? The slightly tinged pink water seemed to mock her. Spinel had caused so much damage. Was that even something that she could redeem?
Her mind went back to the moment she had decided to stay on Earth, the moment that she hoped she had made the right decision.
"Let us adore you!" Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond all offered their hands down towards Spinel as they bent down in the wreckage of injector's explosion. The explosion that Spinel had caused.
Spinel turned to look at Steven. He gave her a thumbs up. "I mean, they might not be the easiest to get along with, but-" Steven gave a small shrug.
Ah. This was her chance. An opportunity to make friends for real. Ones that she hadn't messed up so completely with. They already loved her! They had a room waiting for her! The Diamonds would love her, no matter what, because she was Pink Diamond's Spinel.
But something didn't feel right. Spinel looked back at Steven's family and friends. His real friends that cared so much about him. They loved him for who he was. Not because he was Pink Diamond's son. That real care and compassion, the kind that took work, that's what Spinel wanted. Something more than just being loved with no effort put into it.
Besides, looking at the mess she had created, Spinel couldn't run away from all this. Isn't that what Pink Diamond had done? Just run away whenever things got hard? She had even left Spinel to rot in the garden rather than confront her. Spinel didn't want to be like that.
She wanted, no she needed to be worthy of friendship. And at the moment she was really far from that. It would take hard work, but she had to try. Spinel wanted to change, just like Steven. This time she was going to change for the better instead of for the worse.
"I can make a change."
"Huh?" Steven looked at her with his eyebrows lifted. "Spinel?"
Spinel turned towards the Diamonds and bowed. "I'm sorry my Diamonds, but I want to stay here on Earth."
White Diamond stood back up, shaking her head. "What? Why do you want to stay here? It's awful here. Just come with us."
Yeah, well that was her fault. But before she could say anything, Blue stood up and put a hand on White's shoulder. "We can't force her to do anything. We'll just end up pushing her away like we did with Pink Diamond."
White looked down at Spinel and sighed. "If that's what you really want, then so be it. I think we should get back to Homeworld now, actually." White scrunched her face up with obvious disgust at the planet around her.
"I'll come visit soon!" Steven shouted, grinning up at his gem family.
"Yes, please do." Blue waved at him as the three Diamonds made their way back to the spaceship.
"Wow Spinel, I thought for sure you'd want to go with them." Steven smiled at her. "What are you going to do now?"
"I'm not sure." Spinel nervously laughed. "But I think I'll start with helping you clean up this mess."
"Thanks Spinel." Steven clapped a hand on her back. "Actually, since you brought the biopoison here, do you know a better way to clean it up than me just kissing everything?"
Spinel nodded. "Yeah. Maybe we should have a meeting about this with the other gems and I'll tell you everything I know."
Spinel gathered with everyone in Little Homeworld where the majority of Beach City was gathered considering the rest of the city was uninhabitable. She felt slightly uncomfortable standing in front of all the people she had hurt, but this was the first step. She had to take responsibility for her actions.
Peridot was standing next to Lapis, tapping her foot as she looked down at her tablet. "This is bad, with the accelerated release of the biopoison, the Earth has only a few more hours before everything is destroyed!"
"Huh?" Spinel stretched her leg and snapped her body so she was standing next to Peridot. Looking at her tablet, which was just a mess of numbers, didn't really help her understand. "But I didn't bring enough biopoison to destroy the whole Earth."
"What do you mean? All my data is absolutely correct!" Peridot shook the tablet around in her hands.
"Oh, actually." Lapis put her hand on the tablet to stop it from shaking. "I think you messed up the dimensions of the Earth."
"What?" Peridot squawked. She scrolled down on her tablet, her face suddenly going flush. "Well I just got confused! There are a lot of planets and-"
"Anyway." Pearl interrupted, walking towards the center of the group with Amethyst and Garnet. "I think we should focus on cleanup efforts for now." Several citizens of Beach City all nodded in agreement. "Spinel, if you could give up any information regarding that?"
"Yes!" Spinel sprang back towards the center so she could look at everyone more directly. For some reason everyone was being rather civil towards her despite her destructive behavior, but that might just be so they could get information from her… and then they would abandon her…
No! She had to stop thinking like that. If she really wanted to change then she had to stop being so negative. Then she could start earning friendships with the others. "Alright! So the biopoison is actually water dilutable! Your er, our planet has lots of water! So we just have to wash it away!" Spinel clapped her hands with glee.
"Oh, I can help with that!" Lapis raised her hand.
"I can help with rebuilding the roads!" Bismuth flexed one of her arms with a grin.
"Yeah! I can start healing the plant life. We can do it if we all work together!" Steven pumped an arm into the air. "Let's get to work guys!"
It had been hard work, but progress was made quickly. By the next night, Lapis had managed to wipe most of the biopoison into the sea. The others had started repairing the city. Spinel was glad that the damage wasn't too permanent. Of course the water from the ocean was still dyed pink, it would take some time before it completely went away. A reminder of what she had done.
Spinel bent down and placed a hand against her wavering reflection in the water. That distorted it even further. Now that things had calmed down, she had time to think. Looking at herself made her realize she didn't even know who she wanted to be anymore. A fun happy Spinel? Like before? Could she return to that? Who even was she?
Spinel splashed the water sending drops scattering. Changing was hard work and she didn't know how to do it. Would she ever be worthy of friendship? Maybe she should have just gone with the Diamonds and pretended that was okay. Maybe…
A flapping noise made Spinel turn her head. On the beach behind her was Lapis, her water wings spread out as she landed on the sand. She gave Spinel a small smile. "Hey, let's have a chat, okay?"