~Forward~

Installment nine of 'Souls Beyond Time'!

Well, Happy New Year everyone! I'm squeezing one last story out for you guys, just under the wire of the year. This is yet another two-parter, so expect the second chapter to be up sometime tomorrow or the day after!

We're finally getting down the wire on these. There's only two more installments of Souls Beyond Time after this, and I'm as nervous as I am excited about being done with this series. I've adored writing it so far and I'm so happy with how positive the reaction has been. Honestly, I did not see it becoming this intensive down the line. I thought it'd just be a few short stories, yet here I am contemplating turning this entire series into a friggen novel I could publish (which is more than a serious consideration at this point).

So far we've covered what's happened to just about everyone so far, but we've finally swung back to Madoka and how she's handling all of the stress built up around her. I hope the way I've approached this satisfies you, and if not, please feel free to tell me what you wished to have seen in the comments! And another fun return of Mother of the Year here!

Well, without further ado, enjoy Flash Fire!

O/o\O

Suggested Listening: "Yuugao", Yuki Yuna is a Hero OST

O/o\O

Flash Fire

"…u okay?"

Madoka blinked, her head lifting from its perch atop her palm. The cool eyes of her mother met her own, scrutinizing and concerned.

The older Kaname had aged somewhat in the last three years, a wrinkle under her eye here and a grey hair there, yet despite these early signs of wear, the woman still managed to give of a youthful exuberance that none of her peers could manage to match. This same exuberance was now weighing on the younger Kaname's shoulders as her mother continued her worried stare.

"Eh?" Madoka asked, blinking again.

"I said, 'are you okay'… though I think you've just answered my question…" Junko sighed, sipping from her brandy glass.

Reflexively Madoka looked to her own, still half full in comparison to her mother's one fifth. Late night talks like this weren't unusual between the two, though in the nights of yore Madoka had been relegated to orange juice while her mother alone was allowed to enjoy the acrid taste of alcohol. When Madoka had graduated high school and moved out, however, the older woman had finally declared that Madoka was old enough to finally hit the bottle and every time Madoka visited home afterwards she managed to wait till nightfall in order to share a crisp drink with her mother. Even now she wasn't too fond of the taste of alcohol but she had to admit there was a pleasing sensation that ebbed from the burn of liquors streaming past her palate.

But the dynamic was different now, more uncomfortable, and Madoka knew it was almost entirely on her own head. Choosing to move back home after moving out for a year, even with parents as accepting as her own, was still incredibly awkward. The pinkette was trapped, and that was only in regards to her family, not to mention the mess that her social circle had become…

Junko's face fell even more, betraying a few more years on her normally youthful face, "Come on Madoka, spit it out. Just like medicine, remember? Quicker you get it out, the quicker you get it over with…"

Madoka kept her hands folded in her lap, pinkies trapped between her squeezing thighs. With her eyes still averted, she tried to speak, but only succeeded in flapping her mouth open and closed.

The older woman drooped her head in momentary defeat. Moments like this had become commonplace over the last few weeks, after Madoka had chosen to return home. In recent days, though, it had gotten worse, to the point where the pinkette was refusing to talk at all.

"Sweetie, please, talk to me…" Junko breathed, frowning, "I'm… you're not yourself…"

Madoka was silent, jaw clenched shut. Her pigtails wiggled briefly as she shook her head in a fine, quiet motion.

For what felt like the hundredth time, Junko sighed, standing, "Maybe I should get Tomohisa… he's better with things like this…"

"No!" Madoka jolted, her eyes widening. Her mother had to resist a flinch at the outcry, giving only the subtlest of tells that she'd been taken off guard.

Junko quickly composed herself and slid back into the seat, eyeing the fidgeting girl carefully. She chose the next words carefully; inviting, but direct, "Okay then. Talk."

Madoka sucked in a breath, threading fingers into her hair with both hands. Satisfied with her own composure, she finally said her first proper words of the night, "So… I… there's something I never told you and papa about Mami and me… It's been making this all a little bit harder…"

The small girl glanced towards the staircase, almost as if she expected her father to come down and hear what she was about to say, which would have made it infinitely more difficult to speak. At Junko's supportive nod, Madoka licked her lips and continued.

"She… Mami and Me… We were… She was my girlfriend a-and I was hers… We were lovers…"

The words were saturated with anxiety and fear, laced not with any rational concern but with that of a guilty child explaining to their parent why they'd punched the other kid. Such a stutter was almost preternaturally unbecoming of Madoka, who had always been the purest of children even at her most mischievous, so she was almost entirely out of her element.

Junko raised a brow, calmly sipping down the rest of her drink. With a pleased exhale, she smiled playfully, elation bubbling from below; the root of the issue had finally started coming to light.

"So tell me something I don't know," Junko chuckled.

Madoka hopped in her seat, "W-what?"

The older woman rolled her eyes, "Tell me something I don't already know, Madoka. I knew you and Mami were together."

"Ah, wha- whe- How long have you- how?" Madoka sputtered, eyes wide as saucers.

"Hmm…Year and a half ago… when you both stayed over here for the holidays. I didn't think anything of it initially, but one too many run-ins with Mami in the hall where her hair was askew, her clothes were ruffled and her face was red started to tip me off. Add that to odd laundry loads you two pushed onto Tomo during that time… Honestly, who changes out three pairs of panties in a day unless they're on their period? Both of you were guilt of that a couple of days."

This entire spiel seemed unending to Madoka, whose face resembled a furnace more every second as Junko ticked off instances on her hand.

"But the real kicker for me was this one time when I came back in to get my phone when Tomo and I took Tatsuya for a walk. Mami was bending over to pick something up in front of you in a way that no one would in front of their hosts… and she was missing a certain pair of garments. The way you were staring at her and the way she was unusually comfortable with it was the last piece of the puzzle I needed…"

By this point Madoka's face was buried in her hands, every facet of her either a deep crimson or a bright pink. An art major could probably look at her and tell you every shade of the red spectrum represented on her body at that very moment.

"Wh-why didn't you say a-a-anything?" the girl trembled, still refusing to look her mother in the eye.

"Because you're an adult now, Madoka," Junko responded smoothly, deftly anticipating the question. "I trust you to tell me things when you're ready to tell me… Though I have to say, I didn't expect you to really wait this long… Maybe you're getting too old to confide in your poor, old mama…" the 'crone' mused, feigning tears.

"N-no!" Madoka snapped, almost too suddenly. In almost an instant, Junko was alarmed; Madoka's response had been primal, immediate and completely uncalculated. "I still need you!" the pinkette continued, "I still need you because… Mami and I… She and I… we… I broke it off…"

Junko pressed the pad of her finger against her glass' edge, gently gliding it around the lip, "I figured as much. Didn't imagine you would have moved back home if things were going swimmingly over there… but… she needs you doesn't she?" The question was asked out of concern for the older girl. The poor blonde had been through quite a lot in the last few years, in the last month especially. And with as well as she managed to care for Madoka, the mother was more than willing to show a modest amount of favorability towards Mami.

"Nm-mmm," Madoka shook her head, "Not… me. I… I found a friend for her… And Sayaka is helping her too… But I… I can't… I don't want her getting hurt anymore. Not because of me. I never want to hurt her again…" The pinkette began tearing up, droplets landing on the polished table, "And I know I've hurt her by breaking up with her already… but that's quick… that'll fade… She's strong and she can push through that, and if I'm lucky this curse around me won't hurt anyone else!"

She was trembling at this point, her fists curled on the table, head drooped. Surprised, Junko decided that Madoka's last words needed a little more evaluation.

"Curse? Honey, what 'curse'?" Junko asked.

"The one that keeps trying to take away the people I love!" Madoka cried, her voice becoming raw despite the low volume, "Remember when Tatsuya almost drowned because I was stupid and brought him into the pool? Or when I could have asked Homura to stay over for the holidays? And then Sayaka tried to drink herself to death in November when I could have asked Hitomi to… And then Mami… I… Everything… it's… it's all my fault… All of it… I could have protected all of them!"

And with that incoherent rambling, Junko finally got a clear look at the picture; survivor's guilt. Or at least, something resembling it. The older woman had experienced several similar emotional loops before, and she had to admit that it had been a struggle to push out of them. But she had always stuck to her guns and powered through, and damnit if she was going to watch her daughter suffer through the loop unguided. And the type of guiding right now was a cold bucket of wake-up call.

"No, you couldn't have," Junko stated bluntly, not bothering to dance around the issue.

Madoka sniffled and wiped at her eyes, "Wh-what?"

"You couldn't have saved them, Madoka. You can't even entertain that thought," the mother explained, purpled eyes going cool. "I'm not saying not to learn from what mistakes were made, but I am saying that you need to push that little voice in your head that blames you for everything that happened to the side and keep focusing on your own life moving forward. If you spend too much time focusing on the past you'll only make more mistakes in the present, and then you'll get sucked in focusing on those mistakes. You'll eat yourself alive."

The pinkette simply stared at her parent with rapt attention, unsure of what to say or what to do besides continue wiping at the tears dripping down her cheeks.

"But… What if I… what if I am cursed and all of these things…" Madoka stuttered.

Junko rolled her eyes, "And what if I'm the last queen of China? So long as that kind of thing remains in question, why not simply take what facts you have and build forward. Now, let's work through this, okay? When you brought Tatsuya into that pool, what did you do when you realized your mistake?"

"Uh…" she paused, "I… I got him out of the water and tried to do CPR…"

"Correct. Not too many big sisters I know who actually know how to deliver CPR to a toddler, but you kept him breathing long enough for the lifeguard to take over. Okay, and now Homura; what could you possibly have done, without knowing that plane would crash, that could have stop that from happening?"

Madoka squirmed, "I… uh… I could have asked her to stay…? I said that didn't I…?"

"And would she have stayed?"

"I… I think so…?" the pinkette replied, biting her cheek.

"Would she have been happy staying?" the mother prodded.

"Well…" the girl sighed, "No, I don't think she would have… She did really want to visit her family… but she'd alive, with us all, right now…"

The lavender woman shook her head, "You know as well as I do that there would have been other flights and other chances where something that bad was just as likely to happen. For all you knew, you'd just be delaying an inevitable flight to Germany for her and costing her precious time with her loved ones besides you. You would have come out as selfish and not as some hero."

Madoka gripped her shoulder craning her head away from her mother.

"And now Sayaka… I'll be honest, this is the first I'm hearing about anything Sayaka related, at least anything that happened a few months ago…" Junko continued, scratching her chin.

"O-oh yeah…" Madoka shuddered, "She was… you see she confessed to Kyosuke… or she tried to, and then she… uh… She got rejected, I think, and tried getting drunk… And Hitomi, she asked Kyosuke out and now they're together, but Sayaka went to this bar and was just putting down drink after drink, and she tried to confess to me and then when we all woke up in the morning Mami and me decided to let Sayaka into our relationship and-"

Junko blinked at the words spilling out of her daughter's mouth. Suddenly, her child wouldn't shut up; a complete reversal.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa Madoka, slow down! I think we're derailing here…" the woman noted. "…What was that about you and Mami letting Sayaka into your relationship?"

"Uh… yeah… that's also kinda why things have been sorta tense with Sayaka recently, too…" Madoka explained, rubbing her neck. "We… never really got it off the ground, but we were all going to be in a relationship. Together. The three of us. The more I look back on it the sillier the idea seems…"

"I don't know…" Junko replied, "I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, though I can't say I speak from experience here. It might have worked but I can hardly say that's a normal notion…"

"Yeah, I thought so too…" Madoka meeped.

Quiet fell between them as the moment drank itself in.

"So… Sayaka drinking…?" Junko started again.

"Right, right…" the girl perked, "She… Hitomi basically challenged her to confess to Kyosuke, and Sayaka tried but Kyosuke hurt her instead… It was a really messy situation…"

"Hmmm… I see…" Junko replied, "and what would you have done differently…?"

"I… well, if Sayaka had told me beforehand I could hav-."

"Op-op-op! Stop right there! Say that back to me, crystal clear for us both to hear," the mother instructed, waving a definitive finger in the air.

"'If… Sayaka had told me…'?"

"Exctamundo," Junko cheered, "That phrase, my worried daughter, is your 'get-out-of-jail-free' card for just about any emotional guilt you have."

"What?"

"Think about it; was there anything you could have done unless Sayaka told you?"

"N-no…"

"So then why are you blaming yourself for it?"

"I… I don't know…"

"Precisely," the mother explained. "When something bad happens that we can't control, we like to imagine what would have happened had we known more. It's a wonderful tool for learning lessons, but a horrible vice that sucks down the best of us when we dwell on it. But, when we're not given that info in the first place and we're unable to find it on our own, it's completely irrational to blame anyone but those who didn't inform us or who kept the information from us. They are the ones at fault, not us.

"Now, don't go thinking that this means you can blame all of your problems on other people, it's not an excuse for laziness; it's an admission of powerlessness. The clearest sign of intelligence is knowing what you do not know yet, and in the same way for wisdom is knowing when there is nothing you can do. Had Sayaka told you, things would probably have turned out differently, but the mistakes she makes are not yours and never will be."

Madoka sat in silence, soaking in the words, fingers gripping the edges of the table, knuckles bending back against the pressure she was exerting. "What… about… Mami then…?" she asked, eyes looking to her mother's for some form of confirmation.

"You blame yourself for calling her when she was in traffic, yes?" Junko summarized quickly. There had been finer nuances to the situation that her daughter had described just after the event occurred, but that blunt-force condensation rocked the majority of the truth for her educational purposes.

The pinkette opened her mouth, "If I hadn't-"

"Stop starting sentences like that," her mother interrupted, "You'll just stay stuck in the downward spiral. Besides, it was ruled a mutual fault accident, wasn't it? Meaning that both Mami and the truck driver were in the wrong. If you really want to expand that, then all three of you were in the wrong. You shouldn't have called her, she shouldn't have tried to pick up, and he shouldn't have run the red light. Now you've learned a very valuable lesson about calling people while they're driving, but besides that there's nothing else to gain from this situation for you. Don't keep steeping yourself in doubts."

The girl was silent, once again appraising her unfinished glass, the copper liquid swishing to and fro under her idling hand. Junko stood and drifted around the table, leaning over her daughter and pulling the girl's back against her in a deep embrace.

"Madoka, I'm sorry you've had to go through all of this. None of this should have happened to someone like you. But please, please don't go blaming yourself for all of these things, and please don't pull away from your friends. You're one of the brightest stars I've ever seen in this world and for some you might be the only light they ever get to see; you'll never be the bad luck charm you think you are because all I've ever seen you do is put smiles on peoples' faces," Junko pleaded, her voice soft in Madoka's hair.

Madoka leaned into the hold and wrapped her arms around her mother's, doing her best to twist and bury her face in her mother's embrace.

"I'm scared…" she muttered weakly, letting a few more tears drip loose.

"I know, baby…" her mother cooed, using their rearranged position to rub her daughter's back, "But you're strong and I know you can get back on your feet." The older woman pulled away from the hold ever so slightly, squatting so as to look Madoka in the eye She smiled, "Now tell me, what is the definition of 'courage'?"

The pinkette sniffled, wiping at her lids, "Doing something even when it scares you." Madoka smiled as well, soft and even a little bit wry, "I'm not a kid anymore mama…" To anyone else those words may have seemed ungrateful, or even indignant, but to Madoka, and to Junko, they meant something else entirely. In one little sentence Madoka had just promised her mother that she'd do what she could to heed the elder Kaname's advice and push forward, to brave the beaches of life against all odds. But most importantly, it was Madoka signaling to Junko that everything would hopefully be okay in the end.

Even when she was the comforting presence in Madoka's life, seeing the little glimpse of her daughter's confident underlying nature shine through alleviated almost every worry Junko had.

The pinkette pulled back, smiling, though with still a few scant tears dripping down her cheeks, "I think I'll talk to Sayaka tomorrow about all of this… in fact, she should still be up, let me send her a text so we can meet up…" Madoka reached for the pocket of her skirt, only to find the folds devoid of phone. She blinked, standing, "Ah, crap, I left my phone back at Homura's… I'm gonna have to go get it…"

"Language young lady," her mother chided, standing.

"I'm not a kid anymore, mama," Madoka rolled her eyes, her statement this time actually being indignant, but playful.

"Wait Homura's?" Junko paused, confused, "What were you doing at Homura's?"

"Uh, oh, well," the girl fidgeted, "since I pass it on my way to class I decided to pop in every few days to keep the place clean… You know… In case… yeah…"

The older woman almost gawked at the girl. Almost.

"You've been keeping a whole lot of secrets from me, young miss…" the shocked woman replied. She rested a hand to her chest in (mostly) feigned offense, "I was joking earlier about you being too old to talk to me, but now I'm really starting to worry…"

The girl chuckled, sashaying towards the door, a little more spring in her step than when she'd entered, "Well, you were the one that told me that 'a girl has to have her secrets'!"

"But never from me!" Junko 'shrieked', putting the back of her hand against her forehead and giving a faux faint.

Madoka smiled and laughed, pausing in the doorway to the living room. Her smiled drooped, the muscles on her face warring for direction. Her fingers clenched around the doorframe.

"Mama…" she breathed, "I still feel guilty…"

Junko kept her smile, even if it was reigned in just a bit, "I know, Madoka… but you'll get through it. Just keep on that smile for yourself and you can get through anything."

The pinkette grinned, and though a little bit strained, the most of it was genuine as she skipped towards the exit to their home.

"And don't be out too much later! You've got class tomorrow little missy!"

O/o\O

~Afterwards~

You know, it's only now I wrote this particular section in third-person (partially) omniscient point of view… I try to avoid doing that… Wonder if I've done it before without realizing it…

Well, that's all for today, keep an eye out in the next two days for the follow up!

And don't forget that I also have Commissions still open!

Catch you all on the flipside!