When we reached Garnet's apartment, I was ushered inside immediately. Before i knew it, I was sitting on a couch, wrapped in three blankets, and holding a steaming cup of tea.

Every emotion was still fresh in me, and my eyes felt dry, like I had run out of tears.

Sapphire walked over to me, a blank expression on her face. She handed my a phone, which I held to my ear. Immediately, I was bombarded by Pearl's questions.

"What happened? Are you ok? What were you thinking, going out in a blizzard?! Where are Lapis and Amethyst?" Were only a few of the questions I was hit with. I started to shake, still feeling too broken to respond to anything.

"Peridot?" Pearl's voice cracked through the phone. I tightened my grip on the teacup.

Sapphire took the phone away from me and held it to her own ear. "Peri's still too shaken to talk. From what Garnet could tell, she was running away from her mother. Last we heard, Amethyst and Lapis are still at the manor."

As Sapphire and Pearl continued to talk, Ruby came over to me and sat down on the couch. "Hey, you ok?" She said.

I pulled the blanket closer around me. "I-I wanna go home. This isn't home."

Ruby nodded, then turned to Sapphire. "She wants to go home."

Sapphire nodded and passed the information on to Pearl, who, based on the noises I heard coming from the phone, started panicking.

"I can book flight tickets back to Delmarva tonight." Said Sapphire. "Garnet can go bring Amethyst and Lapis over here to the apartment. Don't freak out."

Pearl and Sapphire continued talking for a while more, then Sapphire hung up. "Garnet, would you mind going to get Amethyst and Lapis?" She asked her very tall daughter.

"Not a problem." Was Garnet's only response as she walked back outside into the storm.

Sapphire turned to me. "You should really drink your tea. From my experience, Ruby's teas are delicious."

Ruby smiled and blushed, and I couldn't help but feel I was interrupting something.

In about half an hour, the door burst open, and Garnet, Amethyst and Lapis quicky shuffled through the threshold. My first instinct was to run up to Amethyst and embrace her, which for some reason I went with.

I caught her off guard at first, but seconds into the embrace Amethyst relaxed and hugged me back. My fingers and toes were still numb from the cold, and I imagined it was the same for Amethyst, but everything was warm in that moment.

When we finally broke apart, mostly due to everyone watching us, Amethyst wrapped her hands around mine.

I pulle Amethyst into a isolated part of the apartment, where we could be alone.

"I'm sorry...." I muttered, looking at my feet. "I'm so, so sorry...."

"No, don't be!" Amethyst shouted. "Look. If anyone is sorry it should be me. I dragged you into this."

"I don't know where to go now."

"Neither do I."

"What do you wanna do now then?"

"I don't really know what we can do.... we could go back home."

"Home sounds good. Better than this."

"Anything's better than this."

I stepped closer to Amethyst and brushed the hair out of her face.

In a moment that seemed to last forever, I kissed Amethyst. This time, I led. It was both familiar and completely new at the same time.

We broke the kiss for a moment to catch our breath, then started kissing again.

When we finally broke, I was standing over Amethyst. We stood there, awkwardly, for a few seconds, then Amethyst burst out laughing. I nervously laughed with her.

As she stood up straight, Amethyst put her hand on my shoulder.

It was around midnight when Amethyst and I finally made it back to the living room, where Lapis was already asleep on the couch.

I sat down on the couch, a distance from Lapis, and wrapped myself in a blanket. Amethyst sat down next to me and stole half my blanket, wrapping both of us in it. We fell alseep, together, in a bundle of warmth in a cold winter world.