"Homura Akemi." Hitomi stood beside the door to the medical room. Two small beds were set up, one with the unconscious Osakawa and the other with the rescued Homura. Kyoko, Sayaka, and Madoka stood around the room, paying close attention to Hitomi's words. "We were an inseparable group in high school. Madoka, Sayaka, Homura, Kyoko, and myself. We were the five Musketeers."

Madoka interrupted. "There were only three Musketeers."

Sayaka corrected her. "Well, four if you count D'Artagnan."

Kyoko raised her hand. "Hi, uh, what are Musketeers?"

Sayaka answered confidently. "They were a unit of the royal guard in France for several hundred years."

"So why were there only three?"

Sayaka was speechless, unable to answer that.

Hitomi picked up the slack. "You see, the point is, we were nigh inseparable. Homura was our friend. We grew up together, all of us. I mean... well, if you know me and Nagisa and Kyosuke, frankly I don't see how you wouldn't know Homura. She was always there."

Kyoko shrugged it off. "I never seen her before."

Sayaka nodded. "Same here. She's... oddly familiar, but I guess a distinctive look like that does that."

Madoka let out a long sigh before speaking up. "Actually... I think I remember her. I don't know where from, and I know I never met her. At least in this life."

The others were silent, just blinking at her in confusion. Kyoko raised her hand. "What do you mean 'this life'?" Sayaka shook her head rapidly. Kyoko put her hand down again. "Nevermind."

Hitomi cut back in. "But we just proved that there are multiple of you, didn't we?"

"I don't think that's quite what I mean." Madoka shook her head. "No, the version of me that you knew was just someone generated by random chance in the universe. We were identical in every way, but we were not the same person." She looked over Homura's peaceful form, her chest slowly rising and falling. "Same body, different soul. What I'm talking about is a different body and the same soul. Reincarnation. You understand?"

Hitomi sighed, shaking her head. "See... the Madoka I knew would never have bought into something like that. She loved the mystery and the wonder in the universe around her, and was always thinking of what might be, but she never believed anything until she saw it."

The atmosphere of the room changed, and Madoka quickly straightened herself out. "That was a contradictory statement. She would never have believed anything she didn't see, but she would never have believed this... regardless? I think you misjudge what she would and would not believe. After all, how is it you know I did not see it?"

Hitomi looked cornered. "Madoka, I-"

Cutting her off, Madoka turned away and changed the subject. "This girl, Homura. ...Is she going to wake up soon? Do you think it would be wise for her to see us all? Considering she may have already witnessed us dying, it may be traumatic, or perhaps it would cause her to believe it was all just a dream and she'd never really awoken from stasis until just now. So, do Kyoko, Mami, Sayaka, and myself make ourselves absent for her waking, or do we make ourselves the only ones present?"

"Doesn't matter now." Kyoko observed, as Homura's eyes slowly opened.

They all held their breath as Homura lifted her head, her eyes darting around the room. They finally fixed on Madoka. "You're... alive... Madoka, you're alive!" She jumped out of bed and immediately collapsed to the floor, her legs unable to support her. Homura landed face down at Madoka's feet, slapped the grated floor in anger, then stopped. She looked up from her low vantage point and weakly reached out and grabbed Madoka's leg. "You came back for me..."

Surprising both Madoka and Hitomi, Sayaka reached down and hauled Homura up, supporting her. Homura wobbled for a few moments before turning to look at Sayaka. The blunette smiled. "What are you talking about? We never left you."

Homura reached up and brushed her hand against Sayaka's face. "I saw you... I saw you all die. I thought I was alone."

Sayaka shook her head. "There was a malfunction. We couldn't get you out of your pod until Hitomi's ship got here." Madoka and Hitomi exchanged glances, realizing what Sayaka was doing. Kyoko shifted her weight and leaned back against the wall, still trying to work it out. Sayaka continued. "The malfunction probably caused you to have nightmares. We never died."

Taking a few gasping breaths, still trying to return her breathing to normal after the initial shock, Homura turned her head to look around the room. "You're not... dead?"

Kyoko patted herself down, as if looking for holes. "Don't think I am." She looked up and grinned at Homura. "That's right, kiddo. It was all a dream. I had a dream too. There was a horse. What was in yours?"

Homura shook her head, then seemed to focus on thinking of an answer. "There was... cake. Cake everywhere."

Kyoko stood up straight. "Dear God, the woman's been traumatized. Homu, that sounds awful."

Hitomi sighed. "Well, you're okay now. We're gonna take care of you. We're a little behind schedule, but we can get by without you for now. You need to rest here for a bit."

Homura nodded. "Rest... alright." She blinked a few times, then looked around the room. "Where's Mami?"

It was different, but still the same somehow. Mami never could have imagined feeling this way again. It was so warm. She took another sip of the coffee.

Tyrone smiled. "It's been too long since I seen that."

Mami blushed. "Seen what?"

He shrugged, then leaned in closer. "That face you make when you just had a good cup. It's exactly the way I remember."

Mami held up the cup. "The ingredients are different, but the way you make it is the same. It has the same flavor of your touch."

He casually reached up and stuffed a hash brown in his mouth. They were sitting in the otherwise empty mess hall, enjoying the quiet and each other's company. Mami was beginning to feel, being here now, that she might not want to continue the journey with Madoka. Her journey, she thought, had ended here. To her, the chains of death had been undone. Here, in the middle of the endless and suffocating void of space, her miracle had happened.

The heavy thrumming of the engine filled the room. Fukawa leaned back against the control console, breathing heavily. She looked down at her side, the red on her hand, then covered it up again quickly. It hurt bad, but didn't look life-threatening. Either way, she knew she had to get up to the sickbay. She also had to report the damage, which she grumbled to herself about. Tamahoshi was supposed to be on duty now, but he was nowhere to be seen. It was due to his neglect that Fukawa had been present when a pressure valve popped, sending the seal flying and hitting her. It had punctured her side, but near as she could tell there was no serious damage.

Pushing herself up, Fukawa stumbled her way to the door and out of the engine room. It was against her better judgement to leave it without supervision, but she had fixed the problem before tending to herself. That delay may have put her at more risk, so she found it wise to see herself fixed next.

Tamahoshi had never left the engine room. He lay under the floor grates, a bloody and torn mess, a black mass coiling around his corpse and listening to everything in the ship.

Sayaka and Kyoko walked onto the bridge. Kyosuke turned from looking out the front view port upon hearing them enter. Akamiya and Nakashima were also present, seated at their stations and keeping an eye on the space around the ship. Sayaka made her way over to the communication station, sitting down and picking up a headset. She put it on and started fiddling with the instruments in front of her. Kyoko found the captain's chair and made herself at home there instead.

Kyosuke stepped away from the window, walking over to Sayaka and sitting beside her. He tapped her shoulder, surprising her, and gently pulled the headset away from her ear. "What are you looking for? We're alone out here."

Sayaka sighed. "Just occupying myself, that's all. What's with this dial?" She pointed at a large round thing on the station, unfamiliar numbers marked around it.

He looked it over for a moment before explaining. "Hyper- and sub-sub-frequencies. Sometimes signals can get distorted by a black hole or a supernova, to the point where normal instruments can't pick them up. It's an emergency kind of thing. I don't expect to find anything."

She nodded, taking it in. "Is it directional? Like, do you have to point the antenna to pick something up?"

"Yes, which makes it even less of a thing we can use." He shrugged. "If you want to play with it, go ahead."

As soon as he'd said it, she grabbed the dial and started turning it down. Over her headset, she could hear a constant buzzing getting lower and lower until it just disappeared entirely. She stopped and pulled the headset down around her neck, turning to Kyosuke. "If it picks anything up, it'll adjust it so I can hear, right?"

"Yeah..." Kyosuke narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Sayaka shook her head. "No... just exploring. This far out, you never know what you'll find."

"Oh, well, in that case..." He grabbed the dial and turned it down as low as it could go. He grinned. "Maybe we'll hear something if we turn the antenna some."

She waited for him to put his own headset on and start working the antenna's directional controls. She had to lean back when, suddenly, he leaned across in front of her. She felt her face turn red even as the headset crackled to life. It was being close to him again, the boy she had wanted for so long. Hitomi had one here just like she had won at home, on the Earth Sayaka remembered. Among the static, Sayaka realized that she wanted one more chance.

"Madoka."

Inside the static of the stars, one word echoed through the void and found its way to Sayaka's ears. Madoka. She looked over to Kyosuke, and the look on his face told her he had heard it as well.

"Madoka!"

Kyosuke pulled his headset off and flipped a switch on the console. When the voice came again, it echoed through the bridge.

"Madoka! Stay away!"

Kyoko sat up. "That voice. It's..."

"Madoka, that creature is trying to trick you!"

Sayaka slowly put her headset down. "Creature...? That's Homura's voice. How is it... out there?"

Nakashima called over. "Computer says the signal's origin is coming from... halfway between us and Arbidium."

Kyoko stood up. "Someone show me a picture of the galaxy you came from."

Nakashima looked up in surprise. "What? Um, okay, I got it over here."

Sayaka and Kyosuke watched in confusion as Kyoko rushed over and inspected the galaxy. They exchanged an odd glance before Kyoko cried out in victory.

"It's Abel! L Abel... numbers! We're behind Abel... about six billion lightyears behind Abel! This is the place Madoka was so interested in!"

Kyosuke got up and headed for the door. "Alright, I'll go get Madoka and Hitomi. I should probably tell the Captain to come up here as well." He looked back to Sayaka as he opened the door. "Guess exploring is worth it, eh?"

Something long, black, and spiny speared through Kyosuke's chest. He choked and collapsed.