Homura approached Madoka after class, as usual. This was always how she did it. It was a rehearsed routine.

"Madoka Kaname, I need you to take me to the nurse's office."

Madoka looked up from her conversation with Sayaka and Hitomi. "Huh? Oh, yes, right." She stood up. "Let's go."

It was that simple. That easy. Homura allowed herself a smile as she and Madoka walked down the hall towards the nurse's office. Even if this time Madoka looked a little worried, it was still just as perfect as every other time. Maybe, she thought, she could finally save Madoka this time around.

"Oh dear. I've already forgotten..."

Homura stopped smiling. "Forgotten? Forgotten what?"

Madoka sighed, her shoulders slumping. "I've been trying to go over everything I need for our history report at the end of the month, but it's just too much. I can't remember all the things we're doing."

Homura remembered briefly catching the teacher talk about the test. It was odd that such a big test would be so early in the school year, but she hadn't paid it any mind. She'd mastered everything that she needed to do to seem normal at school. Sure, the history test was a divergent point, seeing as it had never come up before, but... Homura froze. She'd never had to deal with a history test before, so she had no idea what to do.

"M-Madoka? Do you think... d-do you think I c-can study with you?"

Madoka turned and smiled at Homura. "Well, I guess so. The teacher had us all choose partners for the presentation before you transferred in, so I think she'd let you join me and Sayaka."

So she'd have to deal with Sayaka being around all the time. Homura let out her breath. That was something she could handle. "Wait... presentation?"

"Yeah, we're supposed to do a presentation about a famous historical figure and what they would think of modern day Mitakihara."

All perspective had been lost. Homura found herself stressing out over the history presentation more than she thought possible. She knew that if Madoka worried about it too much, she would be an easy target for Kyubey. It was a new obstacle, the likes of which she'd never faced. So she sat in Madoka's bedroom, for the first time ever, trying to read history books while Sayaka was jumping up and down on the bed. They still hadn't picked a historical figure to do their presentation on.

Madoka held up the book she was looking through. "What do you know about Abraham Lincoln?"

Sayaka stopped jumping for a moment. "Okay, he was... President? Freed the slaves, and... had a wooden leg and hunted Moby Dick."

Homura cringed.

Madoka slammed her book closed. "That's Captain Ahab."

"Oh." Sayaka shrugged and continued jumping.

Homura raised her hand. "Do you guys know when Mongols invaded China?"

Hopping off the bed, Sayaka scooped a book off the floor and opened it, flipping through quickly. "Who is Socrates?" Though she horribly butchered the name.

It took all of Homura's willpower not to strangle the blunette right then and there. "This is hopeless. Why don't we just do Joan of Arc?"

There was a short pause before Madoka spoke. "Noah's wife?"

Sayaka shook her head. "Noah wasn't French. He was Jewish."

Madoka closed her book and stood up, confronting Sayaka. "What's French got to do with it?"

"Even I know Joan of Arc was French." The blunette looked smug about knowing that, for some reason.

Madoka crossed her arms. "French? Then why is the word 'of' in her name? That's not a French word!"

Homura cut in. "Okay, let's look for someone else then."

Sayaka and Madoka both sat back down and continued looking through the various books strewn about. Homura had to hide a smile behind her book. Just being here with Madoka, acting like normal schoolgirls, was a little sliver of her dream come true. Part of her wished that it would just be like this forever. Maybe Sayaka could go home, but...

Sayaka interrupted her thoughts. "Mozart was deaf, right?"

Homura sighed. "No, that's Beethoven."

"Oh, okay. That's cause he cut off his ear, isn't it?"

"No... that was Van Gogh."

"Wasn't he an automobile manufacturer?"

"What? No. He was a painter."

"Right." Sayaka nodded like she understood, then proceeded to say something totally and unbelievably stupid. "The pancreas is the one that can be removed, right?"

Putting her book down and rubbing her forehead, Homura looked to Madoka for help. "Can you explain to her that the pancreas has nothing to do with history?"

Madoka just turned the book she was reading around so the other two could see it. "Let's do this guy. He was a historical warrior named Étienne de Vignolles. That's French for real."

Sayaka nodded. "Okay, sure, we'll do that." She looked at Homura. "See how much you can get done when you're not fooling around?"

A few minutes later, all the enthusiasm they had between the three of them was gone. Sitting at Madoka's computer, they found something quite disheartening. Madoka headdesked. "There's barely any information about him at all."

Sayaka moaned. "We'll never have a presentation ready if we can't find anyone worth doing a presentation on. We are going to fail, and you know what happens then?"

Homura wasn't sure where this tangent was headed. She looked to Sayaka. "No, what happens then?"

"Alaska!" Sayaka practically shouted. "We get shipped off to boot camp in Alaska!"

Madoka sighed. "I told you, I'm pretty sure your mom was joking. She can't send you to Alaska. You don't have a passport."

"Can't she? Can't she? You don't know my mom like I do. I told her once that a pudding she'd made tasted like mud. The next pudding was actually made out of mud! Nothing is beyond her reach!"

Homura patted Sayaka on the shoulder. "I'm pretty sure mud is relatively easy to obtain." She shoved Sayaka out of the way, closing in on Madoka. "I have an idea that might be crazy, but it just might work. Let's travel back in time and get him."

Sayaka sat herself on the bed, calming down and suddenly acting rationally. "Travel back in time... and get him. That, yeah, that might work. I mean, there is the whole thing about time travel being impossible, but I'm sure we can figure something out. Yeah, I mean, we have a whole month to invent time travel. Easy."

Madoka waved her hand at Sayaka, shushing her. "How are we supposed to time travel. I don't have a phone booth or a DeLorean, and my mom will definitely not let us take the hot tub."

"What?" Homura was taken aback. "What are you talking about?" She shook her head. "No, I mean, I can time travel. We can go do it right now if- wait, you have a hot tub?"

Madoka narrowed her eyes at Homura. "Yes. What was that about time travel?"

Homura took a deep breath, and then transformed into her Magical Girl outfit. She held up her shield to show them. "This allows me to travel back through time, as well as freeze time."

Sayaka got up and leaned in close, inspecting the sand timer on the shield. "Impressive. I suppose you know it can take you back in time because you've actually used it. How far have you gone back in time."

Homura shrugged. "Just a month. Never something as much as six hundred years, but I think it should work."

Madoka smiled. "That's amazing. All Sayaka can do is heal really fast."

Sayaka grumbled, but didn't respond. She looked up at Homura instead. "Okay, so can you jump forward in time too?"

Homura felt herself starting to sweat. "I... I haven't tested that yet."

"What? Then how are we supposed to get back after we've kidnapped the guy? There's no point in travelling back in time to get him if we have to wait six hundred years to have him speak at our history presentation!" Sayaka sighed and shook her head. "Whatever. You probably can, so let's just go."

Homura felt her face heating up and turning red. "Well... I was thinking... maybe just me... and Madoka would go..."

"Screw that!" Sayaka grabbed Homura's shoulders and shook her. "I am not letting you leave me here to get an F for your failure if you guys never come back! I'd rather die in fifteenth century France than die in an Alaskan boot camp! Madoka, tell her I can go!"

But Madoka was busy watching cat videos on Youtube. Homura and Sayaka facepalmed at the same time.

Sayaka shook her head. "Just... just grab her and let's go."