A/N:Happy Halloween! Likely last update of the night! Enjoy my FLUFF. No pairings, unless you want them. Hope everyone had lots of sugar! Homura Best Ending from the PSP game canon. Enjoy~ Comments are appreciated!
Happiness
"Hey, you made it, you made it!"
Homura stared from her vantage point below the front porch, forcing her face to remain blank, even serene, in the mysteriousness she kept up for the sake of her own sanity. I didn't know what to expect from this kind of timeline... she thought.
Madoka frowned at her, looking disheartened. "Homura-chan, are you okay?"
But... this was not something I would ever think of.
Slowly, Homura nodded, trying to keep calm. It was not every day you saw your best friend in a witch outfit after all. That is... rather surreal.
She decided not to ask what brought this on. Kaname Junko was right there after all, and that would be rude. No matter how much she wanted to ask what prompted pink angel wings with a white dress, she wouldn't.
Madoka had always been a little bit eccentric after all, or perhaps the reference had escaped her.
"It... It looks nice on you," she finally said, trying to smile and failing with anxiety. Her voice was even shaking. God help her.
Madoka smiled and Homura relaxed. "Happy Halloween, Homura-chan!"
"Such a strange holiday."
Homura ignored the mental voice of Kyubey, instead now managing a smile of her own. "Happy Halloween, Madoka."
Six months after the defeat of Walpurghis Nacht, and Homura was still failing social conventions, as far as she was concerned. Madoka took it all with good grace, a grace Homura wondered about sometimes.
No matter now. Madoka was alive, safe, and smiling, and for Homura, that was a special happiness of its own.
She felt herself fidget, realizing Madoka was examining her outfit with nothing less than her full interest. For a moment, that blushing, flustered former self was almost in control, and Homura almost reached for a braid to fiddle with, anxiety twisting her intestines. She stopped a pale hand at the last moment, leaving her black hair to lay against her back. "Is something the matter?"
"You look cute!" Madoka declared in all her fourteen-year-old, 'it's a holiday of fun and sparkles' glory.
Now, Homura did flush. "I-I'm not certain I did anything in particular that warrants that."
Indeed, all she had done was alter her magical girl outfit (not transformed, but handmade with Tomoe-san's help, which was awkward, because the magical energy waste was not pragmatic, even by her own standards of careful use) to look a little more festive... and warm.
"But it's cute!" Madoka's insistence made her voice crack a little, and she giggled.
"My daughter's quite right, Akemi-chan," Kaname Junko added with a laugh that shouldn't sound so pleased with itself. "Very fashionable. You two will have a trail of boys the whole walk!"
Madoka turned red. "Mama!"
Homura did not want to imagine that, nope, not at all.
She could barely have friends, boys crushing on her was somewhere else on the strata of normal social life.
… No wonder Tomoe Mami had so many problems with other people.
"Akemi-chan?"
She had zoned out. That was rude. "Oh, my apologies."
"Mama, you upset her," Madoka scolded, which was profoundly entertaining because of the way she looked in a too-big witch's hat and all black against pink hair. Homura hid a smile behind her hand as Junko mussed the hat against her daughter's head. Madoka made a noise like a whine and yelp of dismay at the same time, and failed to escape.
Homura kept her composure the best she could, but it was difficult. Eventually, she started laughing, trying to hide it. She flushed now, abashed, as the Kaname mother and daughter proceeded to wear identical cat smiles that Homura had learned from multiple timelines of Kyoko to just back away from very slowly.
"That's a good look for her, neh Madoka?" Junko began, speaking in a grave voice belied by the widening smirk on her face.
Madoka winked at her, and Homura felt a sense of dread that had nothing to do with the Soul Gem on her finger. "Oh yes, Mama," she agreed. "Smiling is a very good look on Homura-chan."
"Then you know your mission, do you not, Agent Madoka?"
Madoka saluted comically, snapping to attention in her skirt and striped gloves. "Make Homura happy, Commander!"
"And do you accept this mission and all the perils that may accompany it?"
"Yes, ma'am, I do!" From the other side of the front door, small fists banged on the wood, followed by high-pitched, little boy calls.
"And," Junko added, sliding the door opening and enabling a small child dressed like a pumpkin to come waddling out. "Do you accept the assistance of Agent Tatsuya on this mission?"
"With pleasure ma'am!"
The small boy raised a chubby fist. "Pweasure!"
Junko mussed his temporarily green hair. "That's my jack-o-lantern!"
Madoka giggled and Homura tried and failed to regain composure. She settled for continuing to smile and to kneel down and greet little Tatsuya, who looked at her with big eyes and said, in a very solemn voice. "Happy day."
Homura chuckled. "Indeed. Sugar day too."
The boy cheered and Homura wistfully wanted a sibling like this, who would look at her like she was someone good, someone who mattered even though she wasn't perfect.
"Hold hand?" Tatsuya asked and Homura obliged him. She wondered if Kyoko and Sayaka would laugh. Probably not. Kyoko, for all her growling at everything motherly, loved kids. And Sayaka specifically liked this little kid. She was probably safe.
Unless Mami decided to overdose the boy with cake. Then some sort of chaos would break loose.
"All righty," Madoka chirped. "We're off, Mama! Have fun with Papa tonight!"
"Breaking out the wine!"
"Mama!~"
Madoka took the lead, making sure that Tatsuya's hand was safely in Homura's, before heading down the streetlight-warmed path to the apartment of Tomoe Mami.
"This is a strange tradition."
"Come on Kyubey!" Madoka sang, clearly in too much of a good mood to ask the creature to leave. "Halloween may not mean much here yet, but it's really fun in the West. Still not as sacred as O-bon, though."
Kyubey made a movement like a shrug, and continued to trail them from the fences of the nearby houses. Homura's hand almost twitched toward a handgun, but scaring Tatsuya was not worth the minute satisfaction.
Besides, he wasn't doing any harm... at the moment.
"Neh, Homura-chan?"
"What is it?" She glanced back, grabbing the little boy with an arm to keep him out of the street.
"Are you doing any better?" Madoka picked up her sibling with a small huff, not taking the costume into account apparently. The light changed to green. "I mean... it's been slow recently right? The fights, I mean..."
"A little bit," she agreed with reluctance, feeling a bitter bile rise in her throat. Madoka was still worrying, even though there were happy days now and she wasn't fighting. How? How did she do it?
Madoka nodded. Though, now that Homura was looking again, she didn't look unhappy or even like she wanted to cry. Rather, she seemed thoughtful, like she had been thinking about this for a long time. "I know you don't want me to contract," she began. "After everything, I still... don't have a wish anyways... but... I know... you're, all of you are very precious to me, so... I just..." She sighed. "I had the right words an hour ago... darn it." She giggled shyly and took a deep breath.
Exhaling, Madoka found the words she was trying to say, or at least it seemed that way. "I want you to just be safe, and not worry about me. You're here now... after everything that happened with Walpurghis Nacht, you're here, so... please, um... think about yourself for yourself now too, okay?"
Homura was quiet a few moments, listening to the sounds of young children chatting with their parents and swinging full bags of candy from Halloween parties. Tatsuya made little comments about the decorations of apartment windows near his sister's ear and she nodded, looking pleased at his slowly-growing vocabulary. Though she continued to follow her brother's finger wherever it pointed, she continued to glance at Homura every now and again, fidgeting.
Homura's face remained stony, but in this case, it was out of pure embarrassment. Madoka cared, she cared way, way too much. It was frightening, how perceptive she was, and how kindly she used it.
It had been six months. Six months since she had needed to loop time to the extent that she had. Six months since she had watched her only friend die countless times. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She was supposed to be better by now.
But she still couldn't smile enough, or stop her first friend from worrying about her even on the happiest days. She still was too stiff and formal and kept secrets that didn't need to be there.
"Homura-chan?"
She glanced at Madoka's crestfallen face. Tatsuya was poking at the make-up around her eyes. "Have I... have I upset you?"
Homura shook her head, instantly, incessantly. "No," she whispered firmly. "No, never. Madoka, you... I... I'm just... a bit..." Oh this was going as splendidly as her first transfer. "You are really kind. You're always worrying about me... and I don't even notice."
Madoka smiled. "We're friends, Homura-chan. It's okay for me to worry about you a little bit, since you're always thinking about me, right?"
Homura flushed. Well, when she put it that way...
Her pink-haired friend let out a giggle. "All right, let's hurry up! If Kyoko-chan eats all of the cake, we'll have to wait an hour for more!"
Homura winced at Tatsuya's happy, wordless yell before smiling. It was faint, but widened when Madoka adjusted her hands so her little brother held the two together with his little kid hands. "Yes, let's hurry."
"Sweet day!" Tatsuya announced.
"It most certainly is."