It was quiet between us as we walked. That was fine up until we started climbing the stairs of my apartment building, when Sayaka finally recognized she was going to see where I live, but still she remained quiet. Whatever had changed between us, it felt too strange to talk about, and I certainly wasn't going to be the one to insist we try.

"Come on in - make yourself comfy," I told her as soon as we stepped through the door.

She stopped short quickly, eyes darting around the entry hall and living room as if it were a hostile environment. The trash bags lined up next to the door grabbed her attention first, then the bare living room with grocery bags and a coffee table as the only decorations. I'd only seen her apartment building from the outside, but I knew it must have been nicer than this. It probably had real furniture. It had probably been lived in for more than a few hours at a time. And it probably didn't have cardboard boxes placed seemingly at random throughout the floor.

Sayaka stood just inside the doorway, clearly unsure how to make herself comfortable, so I gestured towards the coffee table, which at least had pillows on two sides.

"Want something to eat?" I asked, already headed for the kitchen.

"Thanks," she replied softly, finally taking off her shoes and sitting at the coffee table.

The kitchen was the only room I'd bothered to keep kind of neat, although dishes filled the sink and I had the sinking suspicion I had no utensils left. I turned the water on to get hot while scrounging things together - pork ramen from a stack of twenty identical pork ramens (adjacent to three more stacks of different ramen flavors), a few convenience store sandwiches, two cheese croquettes, some pickled plum onigiri - then scrubbed my saucepan to get water started for the ramen.

"I hope you like ramen, because I can't cook anything else. Help yourself to any of the-"

"Kyouko Sakura."

The voice appeared suddenly, as that girl always seemed to. I glanced around me out of habit, but I knew she wasn't here - probably lurking ominously on some distant rooftop staring at my bedroom window as if she can actually see that far.

"What happened to Sayaka Miki?"

I blinked, returning to stabbing the ramen down into the water.

I brought her home with me. We're having food and cleaning her soul gem. What do you want? It's hard to control your tone through telepathy, but I hoped irritation was coming through more clearly than fear. With Sayaka so fragile, I wasn't sure how another attempt on her life would go.

"That's impossible. Sayaka Miki was supposed to die tonight."

Buzz off, would you?

"What did you do? It must have been you."

Her voice sounded as flat as always, but there was something else there, something earnest, something hostile. I wished I could see see her, kick her out of my head for a while.

So what? You were just going to kill her yourself - what does it matter if she lived or not to you? Huh?

The ramen was plenty soft by now, but I didn't notice. After a few seconds of silence, I said, Answer me, dammit, but no reply came.

Once I cleaned the bowls and had ramen ready, I made a few trips back and forth from the kitchen to the living room delivering all of the food to the table. Sayaka just stared at it all until I sat down across from her. I had no idea how hungry she was, so I just grabbed a croquette from the center of the table.

Sayaka still hadn't picked up her chopsticks. She said, "I'm guessing this stuff's all stolen too, right?"

I just blinked dumbly, unpleasantly surprised to see her shitty attitude re-emerge.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, saying, "Ugh, I'm sorry, please ignore me. That's not fair." There is a long quiet while she picked up her chopsticks and ate the first bite, then paused. "I . . . should have listened more when you told me about your family earlier. I'm sorry."

I shrugged, ignoring the sense of whiplash. "Whatever. I already knew you were a little dense. Just . . . eat."

We turned out attention back to our food for the time being, making small talk while she struggled to get through a bowl of ramen and I tore through most of the food I brought to the table. If she had any more remarks about the food, she saved it.

When it looked like we were done, I fished through my pockets for the grief seed I picked up earlier and dropped it on the table among the trash. "Use it," I said, "then we'll talk."

Sayaka reached across the table and picked up the grief seed, staring at it between her thumb and index finger. Her soul gem formed in her hand, but she hesitated, looking up from the seed to me, as if asking for permission.

After a lengthy pause, she said, "Today, on the subway, I met these two guys. They were shallow, sexist assholes, talking about dumping a girl. I couldn't stand to hear them talking. I couldn't bear knowing that these guys got to live when so many good people die. So I killed them. I don't even remember how, I just know they were dead when my stop came."

I was afraid of that. It wasn't exactly something I was unfamiliar with. Every magical girl I've ever known has had some standard, something in humanity they could not help but agree with witches and condemn. Days after my dad died, I saw a man in a suit beating one of the teenagers who slept in a camp not far from where I had been staying at night. I stuck his body to the wall of an underpass. I like to think of it as a rite of passage these days, but I know it wasn't that easy back then.

I swallowed and said, "And one day, we both might face judgement for what we've done. In the mean time, use it, or you'll have one more to add to your body count, yeah?"

She hesitated a moment longer, but then she nodded slowly, raising her soul gem beside the seed. The seed ripped the darkness out of gem like a starved animal, taking several seconds to draw it all out.

Sayaka gasped as her soul gem cleared, the grief seed tumbling out of her hand and back onto the table. Her eyes darted around quickly, as if waking from a nightmare only now to find herself in my apartment.

"You okay?"

"I - I think so," she said as she regained her composure. Her hand fell over her heart, as if checking to see that it was still beating.

I smiled a little at that, but only for a moment. The grief seed on the table began to glow, pulsating a gentle light.

I jumped to my feet with a, "Dammit," expecting a fight. "After just one use?"

"Well, I've had a rough couple of days I guess," Sayaka said, strangely glib. She got to her feet a few seconds later, smoothing out her skirt.

"So, you managed to save Sayaka Miki. I have to admit, I'm impressed."

I saw the shine from his eyes beyond a window a moment before he crept in from the kitchen, sitting as soon as he was in sight of us both.

"Kyubey," Sayaka murmured under her breath, as if she couldn't believe she was seeing him.

"Why does everyone keep acting like that? Why'd you warn me if you didn't want me to at least try?" My soul gem formed in my hand, but whether to fight Kyubey or the witch, I wasn't really sure.

Kyubey just stared at us with his blank eyes. Then he said, "I don't think you have enough time for complicated questions - do you?"

I glanced between the two of them, but the answer was obvious. I snatched the grief seed from the table and threw it at Kyubey, who gracefully dipped his head, bouncing it into the vessel in his back with seeming smug satisfaction.

"Go," I demanded immediately. "I don't want to see you right now. Leave us alone."

"That's a new word for you, Kyoko. 'Us.'

He didn't stay any longer despite the sass, giving a little bow before disappearing around the corner of the kitchen once again.

"I should go," Sayaka said immediately after he was gone. "You've done enough for me."

She stood hastily as if she planned to dart out the door, but froze as I turned back to her.

I said, "Look . . . you could do that. But you also just nearly died and killed some guys on the subway . . . maybe now ain't the time to be alone."

Sayaka hesitated, but before she could respond, there was a knocking at the door that startled us both. I turned towards the door, gesturing for her to stay put, and kept my soul gem in my hand in case a fight broke out. I wouldn't put it past that Homura girl to try something . . .

When I opened the door, though, I was surprised to find Sayaka's anxious, frail-looking tag-along on the other side. She held her body with her arms, rubbing her upper arms to fight the outside cold.

"Kyouko, hi. Homura said I'd find Sayaka here, is she-" despite how nervous she looked, she talked as if she and I were friends who had had a fight instead of . . . well. Whatever you'd call the friends of someone you tried to kill a few times.

"Madoka?" came Sayaka's voice from further inside.

Her eyes shot open wide, and she made a move as if to step inside, but hesitated. As soon as I stepped out of the way, she rushed inside, found Sayaka, and lunged into a hug with her. From the sound of it, she immediately started crying.

"You're here! I was so scared, Homura said-"

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Sayaka said with the steadiest voice she'd had all night. She continued, hugging her friend tight around the shoulders, "I'm really sorry for all the horrible things I said to you. I didn't mean it. I don't want you to be a magical girl, ever, I don't-"

"I know," Madoka replied as I closed the door, just standing around awkwardly.

Maybe I could get her some snacks or something to get out of the way?

"Does this mean you two are friends now?"

Sayaka and I caught each other's eye over Madoka's shoulder, prompting me to shrug. Friends? Could the two of us actually ever be friends? I had the feeling I'd wake up from this in the morning only to realize it was all a dream, that Sayaka had lost herself in the train yard, and all that would be left for me in Mitakihara would be the witches she and Mami left behind.

Finally I said, "We've got a truce, I guess. There's bigger fish to fry."

I wasn't even sure who I meant. Kyubey? Homura? Walpurgisnacht? I just didn't want to fight her anymore. I couldn't even tell why I had been so desperate to fight her in the first place.

Madoka still hadn't let go of Sayaka. "I'm so glad," she replied, rocking a little in the hug.

After a little while, Madoka agreed to spend the night, which was enough to convince Sayaka to stay as well. Sayaka did her best to hide a lot of what had happened tonight - the murder, wanting to die and all that - but I think Madoka knew anyway. I didn't really have the bedding for three people (or one, by their standards), but we managed to lay blankets and sweaters down and fall asleep. None of us knew what to expect of the coming days.

But that did not matter, because Sayaka Miki lived to see another dawn.