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the first week in madoka’s new world isn’t that bad, all things considered. never mind that homura’s best friend is now a concept, or that she seems to be the only one in the whole world that even remembered she had existed besides her baby brother. it was a brand new universe, full of hope and life and for the first time in what felt like centuries, she finally had a future.
so that first week she tries, truly tries. for her. she does! the first day after coming back, a monday, she goes to school, actually has something new-ish to study for in class, she has lunch with mami (who, despite it all, she still cares about), and then she goes home and cries all night because there’s an empty seat in her class that shouldn’t be, and the girl that used to smile at her from it doesn’t even exist anymore.
she tries, she really does. she drags herself to school the next day, goes wraith-hunting after class with kyoko, gets home and forgets to eat dinner (not that it would matter, not that she needs to). and then mami calls, “are you okay, you seemed down today”, and homura says she’s just tired, and mami agrees in a way that tells her they’re both lying right now, but neither of them wants to call the other out, so they just end the call and homura doesn’t sleep, again, because it doesn’t matter, because she doesn’t need to, and hasn’t for years and years. she’s surprised she even has a bed in this world, and she almost curses the cruel god who did this, before remembering the god used to be her best friend.
and that’s how her first week in heaven goes. wednesday, she has her first non-perfect grade since her first hundred loops. thursday, she kills ten wraiths in what the others call a power move. friday, she ignores incubator following her, no doubt curious, and goes to sayaka’s funeral.
saturday, she’s out hunting all day. sunday, she sleeps all day, because it’s either all rest or nothing at all for her.
her doorbell rings at about midnight. she considers not opening, and stays on the floor of her white, cold house with all the lights turned off. the doorbell rings again. she stands up with the discipline of someone who can’t afford to make mistakes and drags her blanket along with her, covering her entire body because she refuses to sleep on the creepy self-making bed that she’s dead certain she didn’t have before. she opens the door just a smidge.
“hey,” kyoko waves. homura stares. “can we come in?”
“no,” she says. her voice sounds weirder than she anticipated. “what are you doing here?”
“we were waiting for you,” mami tells her. she’s brought cake. she hasn’t had mami-brand cake for at least three hundred loops. she doesn’t deserve mami-brand cake. “we were gonna hunt today, too. we thought you might not be feeling well… you’ve been acting odd all week, so maybe we’d come check on you?”
it’s awfully sweet. homura might’ve cried, in another time, but she lost the ability to be emotionally vulnerable just twenty loops in. she scowls instead. “i’m fine.”
something in her chest tightens. she tries to ignore it. “listen, homura,” kyoko is saying. “i think… whatever it is you saw the night sayaka, well, went, i think it fucked you up.” mami glares at her, but kyoko doesn’t seem to notice. “we’re worried about you.”
homura thinks about kyoko blowing herself up to stop oktavia in 87% of all loops. homura thinks about mami never making it to walpurgisnacht in 93% of all loops. homura thinks about the times she buried their bodies (9%) and the times there were no bodies to bury (53%) and she refuses to think about the rest of the time.
“i said i’m fine. ”
homura closes the door with a little too much force.
she’s making her way back to the center of her dumb house when they knock on the door again. “jesus fucking christ,” she says, turning towards the door once more. “i can’t catch a fucking break.” she opens the entrance again, squinting at them, before removing the lock and letting them in.
“wow, you actually look like shit,” kyoko says, not even bothering to remove her shoes. “i don’t think i’ve ever seen ya without three layers of magic on your face.”
homura acts like it doesn’t bother her being so blatantly called out, even if she’s heard that same insult from her about a dozen times before. mami, who is not a monster unlike someone , does take off her pumps and leaves them at the entrance before lassoing the redhead back to the entrance.
“shoes,” she scolds her. “and don’t be rude.”
homura shrugs. “i know what i look like. i was sleeping.”
she sets up some tea, the way she knows mami likes it, but nothing too bitter. kyoko will still complain, so she rummages around for the little sugar jar she rarely uses. she finds it behind the salt pot and pulls it out. mami cuts out slices of cake, and for a moment homura feels young again, like she just got saved by the bang of a shotgun and the sparkle of magic; the tightness in her chest leaves for a moment, and when mami catches her staring and smiles, homura even returns it, though it’s more of a tired grimace than a grin.
she’s so much older than mami now, she thinks, even if she’s not really sure. but once upon a time mami was her senior. everyone was her senior. even madoka. and now she feels a little silly. her entire life goal, saving madoka, is now rendered void. for the first time in her life she has no idea what she’s going to do - if she even survives that long.
madoka didn’t, she thinks. the emptiness is back.
“come on, homura,” mami nudges at her shoulder, as if knowing her turmoil. she balances the little plates expertly in her hands in the way only a magical girl can. “before kyoko gets cranky.”
kyoko, speaking of, is currently sprawled in her living room floor, right where her blanket fortress used to be. now that the room is clean it’s pretty obvious how messy it had been before they arrived, but honestly, that’s her problem, not miss kazamino’s over here. she can only wonder where the fuck her pile of assorted bedding is now. probably getting incinerated or something. who knows anymore. but nevermind her makeshift crazy-person sleeping arrangements. they sit around her little coffee table, forget the couch, let’s just drag the cushions down, and kyoko immediately starts wolfing down on the cake. she reaches for the tea that homura’s literally JUST served before she’s shoved the sugar jar in between her hands. “fair,” she muses, and dumps four spoonfuls in.
“that’s so gross,” mami comments, but there’s no ill intent behind her words.
“and what about it?”
kyoko stares at mami dead in the eye as she gulps down the cup in three seconds. homura doesn’t even react.
“so,” mami says.
“so,” homura repeats.
“let’s talk. about whatever is wrong. okay?”
“there’s nothing wrong, i already told you. i really am just okay.” and she is, isn’t she? she’s not dead. she’s not a witch, and she never will be. she doesn’t have to watch her friends die over and over again anymore. she takes a sip from her own tea. “i appreciate the concern, i really do, but this isn’t necessary.”
“and that’s why you were sleeping in your living room?”
homura glares at her. “i’ve always slept in my living room.” don’t lie, she thinks, an annoying little voice at the back of her head. she shakes it off. “you don’t need to worry about that.”
“we are worried, dumbass, that’s the whole fucking thing!” kyoko’s finished her cake. she’s looking at homura in a way that she almost didn’t remember could happen. “sorry i yelled. but even if we don’t know each other that well we still wanna help, y’know?”
homura falls silent. her tea looks very interesting out of the blue. “it was just a dream,” she tells them. “i’ll get over it.”
“do you want to talk about it?” mami reaches over, holds her hand. in this new world they haven’t known each other that long; homura only transferred over a month ago, after all. how does homura explain it to her? how does she explain that she’s known them for eternity when they don’t even know what her favorite ice cream flavor is? (she doesn’t remember, either, but she thinks it was strawberry, long ago, before the color started reminding her of things she’d rather not think about). “sometimes… just speaking about it helps. even if we can’t understand it.”
no, they never could. “will you leave it alone if i don’t?”
kyoko squints at her like she said an unfunny joke. mami just looks sad, which is fucking worse. she always hated breaking her heart.
so she takes a deep breath. sips from her cup. and she goes: “it was a scary dream. there was…,” and she tries to put it in a way that they’ll understand, a way that will make it easier, “a whole other world. just like this one, but worse. when us magical girls died, we became— horrible, horrible monsters. and we didn’t know better. there was no better.” are her hands shaking? why does she feel so small out of the sudden? why does she avoid the eyes of the friends she’s watched die over and over again? “and there was this girl,” homura forces out, because she’s no weakling, despite what her body might try to say about it, “and she was my best friend in the entire world. and then she… she died. over and over again! but she did it— she did it to save me. to save everyone.” why does she feel so horrible? she let it happen. she let it happen for thousands of years. she let her die. she let them all die. “and everyone forgot she ever existed.”
the worst part, homura thinks, though she doesn’t say this, is that it wasn’t a dream - but she can’t ever prove it. mami squeezes her hand, and kyoko reaches for the other one; she spills a little of her tea as she sets down the cup so she can freely grab kyoko’s back. “i’m sorry you had such a horrible dream,” mami tells her. “but it was just that. just a dream.”
it wasn’t. i swear it wasn’t. “it felt so real.” i can’t forget it. i won’t. “what do i do?” i miss her. “i miss her.”
“we know. but she wasn’t really there, was she?”
she let it happen. she let madoka die.
“you think she was. but she was part of the dream, wasn’t she?”
she is as real as starlight, now. she’s the wind, she’s the fire, she’s the water. she’s the cold floor beneath her feet and the softness of her blanket and she’s the ribbon wrapped around her wrist. she wasn’t a dream. but it was as good as.
“she’d do my hair,” homura whispers. “she’d braid my hair before battle. for good luck. we’d eat ice cream before our hunts. she loved drawing. she— didn’t like english too much, but she aced math. every time. she was so so brave and kind.” that kindness couldn’t be fake. it couldn’t be.
mami is looking at her, wistful. kyoko’s whole face is red.
“what?,” homura asks. her voice is trembling like a newborn, like a witch under her heel.
“you loved her,” mami tells her.
homura is very quiet. “how would i know?,” she mumbles. “she’s dead.”
“that doesn’t change the fact that, real or not, you cared about her. a lot, actually.” they scoot closer to her, lean against her, and something within her threatens to break. she tries to stay still, focus, stand strong against the tide. “and now she’s gone and you don’t know how to deal with that.” kyoko sighs.
“i don’t know anything, ” homura finally admits. “how am i supposed to live like this? i don’t want to forget - but it hurts so badly.”
“no one’s saying you forget her. but you keep going. you keep fighting. you move on.”
don’t fucking break. don’t fucking do it, homura.
“i don’t think i can do that.”
“that’s okay. we’re here.”
homura lets out a shuddery breath, a wheezy pathetic thing just like her. the girls’ embrace is warm, comforting, and she thinks about the first time she’d met them, the way they’d held her just as tightly even back then.
it’s really no surprise, then, when the dam cracks and leaks and bursts, and she’s sobbing wrapped in her blanket cape and her oldest living friends.
but it feels right, which is the scariest part. it feels right.
maybe this is what you wanted, she thinks. was it?
she huddles even closer into the hug and, when a bell tolls in the distance and it sounds like laughter, she feels like things might work out, and she might not be alone anymore, even if her heart stings all the same.