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Homura wakes up in her hospital bed and looks at the calendar. She’s done this so often, she’s forgotten which time around this is - sometimes she likes to mark it down on a notebook, but the last few times have failed so quickly that she hasn’t had time. This must be somewhere around 114 or 115, she thinks. Something like that.
She rises without second thought, untying her hair from twin braids and walking over to the windowsill, where her clothes are folded neatly. Today is the day Kaname Madoka will meet her, and today is the day Homura will have to pretend, once again, that she doesn’t know every single little thing about her. She’s gleaned Madoka’s morning routine from conversations over the last 115 months or so; she’ll wake up with the sun, because the birds outside her window sing too loudly and wake her at dawn, and then she’ll slip on clothes with static fingers (Homura remembers Madoka telling her a few times that her fingers felt heavy in the mornings). Her mother helps her with her hair, brushing it silky smooth and tying it up with ribbon. She likes candy-flavored toothpaste - the strong mint of commercial paste is unkind to her palate and she’ll complain until lunch whenever she has to use it.
Her heart pounds as she walks down the halls to the classroom, where she knows Madoka will be talking to Miki Sayaka and their other friend, a girl whose name she never bothered to learn because she wasn’t relevant to her task. If it weren’t for Madoka, she wouldn’t keep coming back; anyone who isn’t her simply falls off Homura’s radar. All eyes fall on her when the teacher calls attention to her presence and she rolls her own because she’s done this so many times and each time she hates their gasps and whispers even more. She introduces herself with a flip of her hair, and as everyone trips over themselves to speak to her, her focus is on pink hair tied up in ribbons at the back of the crowd.
Things seem promising this time, she decides a few hours later, as Madoka is chattering excitedly on the walk to town she insisted they take. She wants to show her around, she says, and Homura agrees quietly. She’s only done this a few times before.
“Kaname,” she begins as she catches sight of her companion’s favorite ice cream stand.
“You can call me Madoka, Homura-chan,” Madoka corrects her cheerily.
Homura bows her head in acquiescence. “Madoka,” she repeats. “Do you like ice cream?” She already knows the answer. Madoka loves ice cream, especially this stand; she says their strawberry is much creamier than any other she’s had before.
Five minutes later, Madoka is cheerfully licking at a cone of her favorite strawberry, while Homura was talked into purchasing a small cup of something that smells like peppermint. Madoka eagerly watches as Homura spoons some into her mouth and beams when she smiles. It’s not really that great, but Homura has learned over years to appreciate every second she spends with Madoka. She has eternity; Madoka doesn’t. She laughs, bittersweet, when her friend teases her about the peppermint concoction that has somehow ended up on the tip of her nose, and swears to herself that this will be the last time she’ll have to do this, that she’ll succeed this time, and Kaname Madoka will never know any more pain.
She’s wrong.
Tomoe Mami gets in her way again and convinces Madoka to come along with her to a labyrinth. Homura waits for hours outside, knowing that if she interrupts, something terrible may happen and the past few weeks will be added to another list of failures. Madoka is still human and can’t defend herself against witches. Mami needs to keep her focus or they’ll both be done for, so Homura waits outside, rubbing her hand where her soul gem gleams when she’s transformed. She paces, rubs, wrings her hands, pulls her hair, until the shimmer in the air ends abruptly.
Only one person walks out of the door of the abandoned factory.
Her fist is in Mami’s shirt before she knows she’s moved, and she’s cold and hard and bitter in contrast to Mami’s soft regret. She’s screaming words she didn’t know she knew and Mami is looking at the ground because she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t have to say anything, because Homura is saying it for her.
You let her die.
How dare you.
She’s just a girl.
Your selfish need to be a role model caused her to die.
You killed her.
And then Mami brushes her off with a bruised hand and walks away, and Homura lets her go, because it’s pointless. This has happened so many times. What’s one more?
What’s one more, she tells herself as she sinks down to the rough cobbles of the alley and lets herself sob.
What’s one more, she tells herself as she picks herself back up and calls for Kyubey.
What’s one more, she tells herself as she wakes up in her hospital bed and looks at the calendar.