Homura had done it so many times she really wished it was countless, but she was nearing a hundred and no single moment of the years she'd spent reliving the same month over and over ever faded away. Cycle after cycle lost to futility and hopelessness as she fought against what felt like destiny. Each time, finding herself growing further and further from the only person she cared about, the only thing anchoring her to the semblance of sanity.
But she had all of eternity to make it right, and innumerable as her failures were, she kept on. In that realization she found a beacon of hope. A single selfish cycle where she may find a glimmer of happiness, find closeness with Madoka if only for a month. She would most assuredly fail when it was over, but she could enjoy a few weeks of something better than misery, dial the clock back before she watched Madoka fall at Walpurgisnacht's hand or turn into something even more fearsome.
"Do I deserve this?" she asked herself as she climbed out of the hospital bed. And then again as she walked away from the board and sat in class. And many more times throughout the first week. Madoka made a contract, and Homura let her. Homura had long ago promised to prevent that fate as much as she could, but for the timeline to work and Madoka to be removed from despair, she had to be at her happiest. It hurt, watching Madoka's soul be pried from her body for the hundredth time, but she knew how to hide her tears by that point.
Charlotte's grief seed clattered onto the floor. Mami's head was still on her shoulders, the three girls breathless from the battle, but victorious and intact. Sayaka looked on in amazement, due to make her contract soon. Sayaka's descent into witch-hood was the common thread to all timelines, Homura found. Completely unavoidable, as the memory of Mami shakily pushing a barrel in front of her remained burned into her mind. She had engineered that exact same timeline again. Where Madoka had to kill her mentor. Misery.
Her move was planned for the space in between Charlotte and Sayaka's contract, where Madoka was still happy and the entire group believed they were heroes.
"Madoka?" she asked, as if she hadn't been walking beside the girl for a few blocks since they all went their separate ways. Her voice sounded softer, closer. She wasn't the distant, ominous girl threatening the insufferably cute giver of magic powers. She was the friendly, more experienced magical girl who positioned herself as a good ally and close friend. Polite. Maybe a bit too polite, but she was unsure a girl as sweet as Madoka could ever find somebody too polite.
"Yes, Homura?" She sounded sweet. Friendly. Upbeat. Like she hadn't helped slay the murderous, tortured soul of another human being put to malicious form. Of course, she didn't know. Madoka was a hero. A magical girl. A beacon of light in the darkness of the world. She had no reason to be shaken, or to feel anything but pride.
Homura had to learn how to steady her hand and keep from showing the truth in her eyes whenever anyone spoke about the good they were doing.
"Are you doing anything after school?" She had to keep herself from saying, "You're not doing anything after school," because she knew that Madoka wasn't, but it would have been creepy, and she needed the girl at her most comfortable. Sometimes, she had trouble remembering that she wasn't supposed to know everything already. Shown her hand to Kyubey too many times. Let too many things slip. So she asked in as friendly a voice as possible.
Madoka shook her head slowly, gripping at the hem of her skirt, as if some nervous feeling was welling up in her chest at the question. "I don't think so. Not unless we discover another witch. Why? Did you have any plans?" Homura tried not to read too much into how Madoka was reacting, because she'd given up on optimism, and assuming anything in the twisted joke she called a life had anything left in it but the need to protect Madoka.
But her eyes still lingered on the fidget. Moving upward to gauge her breathing, then to her eyes. Something was behind them, but it could have been anything. She continued on, trying her best to continue sounding and close as she spoke, having long feared her distant, cold manner of speech had become the norm amidst all the pain. "N-no." Her stammer wasn't intentional, just like the way her hands tightened to keep them firmly at her sides was completely subconscious. Her own chest was suddenly very tight as well and her head spun. Homura had faced down witches, even the most powerful one to ever live, but she couldn't properly ask a girl on a date. So shameful. "But I thought maybe we could-you and I, alone, together. I mean-no, not like that. Just." She sighed. Words failed her. She was trying to be subtle and it failed.
So she took a moment to breathe and collect herself. Madoka stopped on a dime with her, the slightest bit of pink in her cheeks as she looked at the confused girl. The aura of the cool, approachable magical girl she had cultivated in the passing days was under serious doubt. Once she had herself together, she went for honesty. "Ever since I transferred, most of our time out of school has been hunting witches with Mami. And I enjoy doing that with you, but I want to be a closer friend with you than that. If we both have a night off, why don't we do something? Just you and I."
As Homura spoke, colour slowly filled more and more into Madoka's cheek. Right past the pink of her hair to a deep cherry red, and her nervous fidgeting increased, this time with the strings of her bow. "L-like a date?" she asked, gaze pointed away from Homura, who was unable to get a read on her. Homura approached Madoka from a new direction, and while she saw the fact she was still there as a good thing, she had no idea how she would react.
"A little bit," Homura replied, really uncertain about what she was saying. Did Madoka even like girls? Oh fuck, she never even thought to check that befo-she was just about ready to transform and kick the timeline back to the beginning, depending on what Madoka did next. Of all the things she'd seen, nothing would be worse to Homura than watching Madoka run away in a panic from her.
Instead, the quick motion Madoka made was toward Homura. It lasted only an instant. The brief feeling of lips against her cheek. Of anything that wasn't tears against her cheek. Homura's knees nearly buckled as Madoka pulled away, even more nervous, unable to look Homura in the eye at all. "I'd like that," she said hurriedly. "I-I'll see you tomorrow. This is where we split up anyway."
Homura looked to the side and realized she was indeed standing in front of her house. So absorbed in her nervousness that she hadn't even noticed. But she was left standing, mouth wide open as Madoka walked away, nerves clearly pushing her quicker, but not the panicked run of a girl frightened by the idea of a date with another girl. The run of a girl whose chest suddenly felt light, who tingled all over with excitement she didn't entirely know how to process.
"Do I deserve this?" Homura asked herself as she stood in front of her home, watching Madoka walk off into the night. She'd broken so many things she held true to herself, doomed an entirely timeline, and would likely regret it once it was all over, but... Her cheek hadn't stopped tingling, and she felt so light she had to push against the ground to keep from floating away.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled. Genuinely, at least. But her sorrow-ridden face broke into the widest smile she'd ever had. She had a date, with Madoka. That was all that mattered. Not witches, not the future, not the incubators. Just Madoka. She didn't have to pretend to smile or feign ignorance about the dark secrets of their lives.
They could be heroes, just for one day.
It was hard to angst about whether or not it was deserved when she and Madoka left school, the pink-haired light of Homura's life happier than she'd been in the dozens of timelines she'd lived through. Madoka most definitely deserved it, and that was enough to shake off the guilt, at least for the evening.
"That's a lot to do," Madoka said as Homura ran down the plan for their date. So many different date things to go through in one night, because it would be the only night. Sayaka would soon make her contract, and it would all be downhill from there.
"First dates are supposed to be special," Homura said, smiling. It was the same smile she'd had since the night before; nothing could wipe it from her face. "You only ever get one with somebody, and your very first date is something you'll only have once. It should be the most special night for you."
"And you too!" she added, her hands once again nervously fiddling with things, but this time Homura knew what it meant, and gave in to the optimism of the night. She placed a hand softly on Madoka's nearer hand, and it ceased its toying with the hem of her skirt. The soft, small hand slowly found its way on the opposite side, its palm pressing into Homura's and their fingers slipping slowly together. It was an almost electric feeling, and the smile that beamed back to the time traveller made her nearly melt. Never had anything felt so right, and she had to remind herself not too hold on too tightly, because she feared she'd never let go of that hand.
"And me too," she said softly, closing her eyes and soaking in the moment. This wasn't the happy ending she'd fought for. Not yet. But it planted the seed of hope in her, strengthened her resolve. The mere feeling of Madoka's fingers slipped through hers and the smile on her face, of Madoka's feelings for her expressed in the colour of her cheeks. It gave her hope that when she won, when she found the way to defeat Walpurgisnacht with Madoka's soul intact, that they could have their happy ending.
The two set out on the town, and did everything two teenagers could possibly do in the city. They started with a movie, their hands held the whole time. Homura could barely keep her attention to the movie as she focused instead on the way that the ups and downs and dramatic moments made Madoka's grip briefly tighten in surprise, like she was holding onto her for protection. Homura's grip remained a firm comfort to Madoka, steady and protective, as the black-haired magical girl read as much as she could into everything Madoka did. Whether it was over-analyzed and wrong or not, it could be held onto and cherished. The whole night could.
Dinner followed. A simple affair, as all the nice restaurants seemed to be only by reservation. A nice lakeside sushi shop promised good deals that Homura gladly splurged on, not admitting she was funding the date with money stolen from Yakuza thugs; that would have put a bit of a damper on things. Why tell Madoka that when they could instead sit by the river, watching the sunset together as they ate their sushi. And each others' sushi. Madoka made the first push to urge her chopsticks and a piece of maki toward Homura's mouth, and she couldn't say no to that, could she? And let Madoka down? To see her smile she would have fed her every piece of sushi she had left, and she very nearly did.
Carnival games were almost trivial for the magical girls. The shooting gallery's biggest prize was the easiest game Homura had to hunt for in her whole life, her aim with the pellet gun proving so unbelievable that the shady man running the booth didn't even try to talk his way out of it as he coughed up the prize; a massive, stuffed pink bear. For Madoka, of course, and it widened her smile. Of course, it was even wider when the bear ended up in the clutching arms of the sniffling little girl whose clumsy follow-up attempts to be as cool as the teenagers ended in disappointment. Homura may have been upset about Madoka's prize being given away, but the even wider smile she had by making the child happy was too genuine and warm to not warm the embittered time traveller.
Although she did get another, smaller bear for Madoka to take home anyway.
The night was a whirlwind of things. Moments. Time with Madoka, feeling like normal girls who could have found each other exchanging hastily-written notes and blushing at each other across the classroom. It was soft and loving and real, and real was what Homura needed the most. Not the new real, where the world was a deadly, dark place and even the greatest hope in the world was itself a twisted lie. The old real, where all that mattered was the cute girl holding her hand and the giant soda cup they passed back and forth.
The night ended with them on a hill, staring eastward as orange and purple crept across the dark blue night sky. Madoka still clutched her bear and sucked at the last drops of orange soda left in the bottom of the immense and frankly a little intimidating cup. They sat tightly together, arms pushed close and entwined as once again they held hands and waited for the dawn, the official end of their date night.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Homura asked, knowing the answer already, but needing to hear it. She'd never seen Madoka quite this happy before, and already images of the blushing, smiling, excited girl began to cover up all the traumatic scenes she wished she could forget. They'd never be gone, but at long last good memories broke up the bad. "I wanted it to be special."
"It was," she replied, putting the empty cup down and turning to face Homura a little closer. "It might be the best night of my life. I'm really glad we had this moment together." Another kiss to Homura's cheek, and then a hand to brush against the opposite one. Homura turned in with the touch, and found her lips pressing against Madoka's.
The electricity of holding hands and the lingering sensation of a kiss to her cheek were both forgotten bursts of joy compared to feeling Madoka's lips against hers. Her free arm wrapped around the girl, holding her close as she felt what whole years of her life had led up to, whether she was completely honest with herself or not. All that misery for this single point in time, that only she would remember, but only she had to. It was her inspiration. Her goal.
It lasted forever. But compared to the years she spent fighting, it was so fleeting it could barely be said to have happened at all. They broke away, blushing and smiling, and Madoka saw Homura crying before Homura even realized she was.
"Why are you crying?" she asked, wiping away the girl's tears. "Are they happy tears? Please tell me they are Homura, because I don't want you to be sad right now." Her forehead leaned forward, faces close together. "Because I'm happy right now too."
"I'm glad to hear that," she said, voice cracking a little, shaking as the tears ran. The night was magical, but now the sun was coming up, and with it, she had to leave. Any longer, and she didn't trust herself to not wait the cycle out, and. No, she couldn't subject Madoka to the misery to come. "Because this night was to make you happy." That wasn't the whole truth, but it was the truth that she could convince herself to leave with. Her fingers brushed against Madoka's cheeks, and she gave her a soft peck on the lips, for once last second of bliss.
Before Madoka could process anything, Homura was no longer in her school uniform. She was transformed, and her fingers went for the massive gear contraption on her wrist. She could have told Madoka about the pain to follow. Could have said she was sparing her all the torment. But she didn't. All she said was, "I love you, Madoka Kaname," and an instant later, before she could hear her response or even see how her face registered the truest words she'd ever spoken, time froze.
Homura didn't want to hear the response. This was not a timeline she ever planned to fix, and she didn't trust herself with any more than what she'd gotten. "It's better I end it here," she whispered, holding her love close and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, "And let this timeline end with you at your happiest, than to subject you to all of the pain to follow. Maybe this next time, it can end this way for good."
And then Homura woke up in her hospital bed, tears already dripping down her cheeks and onto the plain white pillow cases. Most cycles, she hurried out of bed to begin planning, but this time, she waited until she had nothing left in her to cry with, because she realized as she pressed fingertips to her lips that she had only doomed herself further, to a still indefinite eternity of wanting.