III.
This timeline is different.
She does the same thing she does in every timeline. Homura sneaks out of the hospital as usual, steals from the military, makes her bombs and weapons and builds her stash. Then she starts hunting incubators.
It doesn't work very well but then it never does. She is, inevitably, a creature of habit.
She gives up and goes to school. One day there will be a timeline where she doesn't go to see Madoka's face, where she doesn't need to see her alive to remind herself of what she is fighting for.
But that day is not today.
Except it is because Madoka isn't there. She's not in class. Her desk is empty, empty but for a single flower.
Time stops before she can think better of it.
No. No no no no.
She's not dead. THis is not that timeline, Madoka is not dead. She, she can't be.