Chapter Text
April 22
(Continued)
The caller ID on the screen was blank. Even the number wasn't showing up.
Could be anyone. Another of the girls from the school, calling to say she'd remembered something, anything, though it would ultimately lead them nowhere. Another of the reporters, digging up private phone lines, looking for a novel way to feast on their grief. He wanted to ignore it, to block out every call that wasn't a trusted friend or one of the official contacts they knew all too well.
But. But his wife had heard from the girls' homeroom teacher last night that two more girls were missing. Absent for days in a row. No contact yet with the parents. Nobody to make a report of a vanished child, nothing yet to the story except rumors whispering down the school's glass-paneled hallways, while officers kept up a patrol on the grounds.
This could be one of the parents.
"Kaname residence, Tomohisa speaking."
A choked gasp — from a girl, not an adult — and a soft voice. "P-Papa?"
An automatic answer sprang into his mind, a reflex from the time when things were normal: not now, sweetie, I can't stay on the phone, I'm waiting for a call from the police about —
"— Madoka!"
***
Mami's phone was silver-cased and sapphire-studded in her hands. In her lap sat the pad of hotel stationary, with a neat list of points she wanted to remember. It had been a good idea: they all flew out of her head the second she heard her father's voice.
"Papa," she repeated, the tears welling up. Sayaka, who had offered to stay or go as she wanted, hugged her from behind. "I'm okay. It's me, and Sayaka's here too. Is Mama there? Tell her we escaped, and I'm okay."
"She's at work," said Papa. And oh, there was a catch in his voice that Madoka had never heard before, a palpable struggling to keep it together. She had always thought of Mama as an unshakeable pillar, but hadn't realized until this moment how much she also took her father's quiet stability for granted. "Where are you, sweetheart? Are you safe? Do you need the police? Wherever you are, they'll send as many cars as —"
"It's okay! We don't need — we're somewhere safe. I promise." She knew as the words came out that they wouldn't hold any special weight for Papa, but there was nothing more reassuring she could think of. "The police can't help. They'll only draw attention to us. If we can stay unnoticed by that person for a while, we'll be fine, okay?"
"We can catch that person. I promise, we can. If you can give a name, even an alias, or some kind of description...Your mother will track them down herself and drag them to court by the hair if she has a chance."
And Homura would either vanish before anyone got ahold of her, or shoot down whoever did. "I can't tell you. I'm sorry."
"Honey...I don't know what this person has done to you, but whatever they've convinced you they can do...."
"Nothing!" Right, this was on her list: explain the existence she had started taking for granted to someone who might have been imagining anything in its place. "They didn't hurt me. We had food, water, a shower...we couldn't leave, but other than that, they tried to take care of us. Anything you've been afraid of, whatever scary things you've been imagining...."
"The detectives traced your phone and found it in the river," said Papa weakly. "Sayaka-chan's was in a trash can outside your school! Every day I've been afraid we'd get a call saying the police had checked again and found — and found...!"
"But you didn't." Madoka felt strange as she said it — detached, somehow. Like it wasn't strange at all that she was the one doing the comforting, while her father broke down. She wasn't even crying. "You didn't. It didn't happen, so it's going to be all right."
Maybe this is the day I run out of tears.
"Nobody else is in danger. Not from this person, I mean."
"You can't know that — two more girls have been absent, you can't be sure —"
"I'm sorry, Papa. I can't explain." She leaned into Sayaka's embrace, knowing they were the right words to say but hating it all the same. Sayaka's face pressed warmly against her neck. "I'll tell you everything soon, though, okay? I promise."
"Come home and tell us now." He was all but begging. Madoka's heart ached to hear it. "Please, sweetheart, if you can't trust the police, trust your parents. Trust me and your Mama. We can make this all okay, we can protect you, if you'll just come home."
"April thirtieth."
"That's...what does that mean?"
It meant the most important item on her list. "There's going to be a...a storm. A big one. A disaster. We can't come home until after that. And you have to get away from Mitakihara before it happens, okay? Get everyone — Hitomi-chan and her family, Kamijou-kun and his, Saotome-sensei, anyone else you can — and run — It doesn't matter where. We'll find you."
Her father's answer to that was a long time coming. "Madoka...what kind of thing are you mixed up in?"
"I can't say now. But I will. If you trust me, if you do this for me, we can meet again on May first. Please, I swear, I'll tell you and Mama everything once it's May."
***
After a cascade of I-love-you's, Madoka ended the call, saying they needed to get in touch with Sayaka's parents too. She seemed to need to recover first, though, and Sayaka was willing to spoon until it happened.
"He said two more girls had been absent," said Madoka, after a few minutes of wordless embracing. "Not part of the investigation, just absent. But with Mami d-dead for more than a week, her parents would have reported her missing, wouldn't they?"
Sayaka nuzzled her forehead. "Mami...didn't exactly have parents. No close relatives, either. Maybe there's nobody to make the report."
Madoka pulled up the phone's web browser and silently searched for missing girls Mitakihara. News results from the last forty-eight hours turned up a few articles on the ongoing manhunt for Madoka's, and presumably Sayaka's, kidnapper. None had a mention of any new names.
"Two girls unofficially missing, then," said Sayaka. "Maybe Akemi got smart and decided to kidnap someone with no family this time, so they wouldn't be missed." It was supposed to be a joke. Not a great one, but still.
Madoka looped an arm around her chest and answered seriously. "I think the other missing girl is Akemi."
***
Sayaka's mother cried. Her father threatened, loudly and reassuringly, to make sure whoever had done this was locked up forever.
She said most of the things Madoka had. Admitted to starting a fight with their captor; didn't mention the gunshot wound. There was no good way to explain that she'd healed it within days.
She asked how Kyousuke was doing. They said he was as well as ever, progressing with his physical therapy, worried about her. Sayaka tried not to get upset when it turned out they hadn't actually checked in with him for at least a week — it had been her self-imposed duty, not theirs — and was relieved when her mother said Hitomi had visited him. "There was one visit, and might be more. I'm not sure — she does an awful lot of after-school activities, doesn't she? But she's made time for at least one."
"Either way, of course he can't be moved yet," said her father. "Where would he go that compares to the best paralysis unit in the country? But don't you go worrying about storms! Hospitals are full of backup systems for any emergency."
They urged her to come home. She insisted that she couldn't. The kidnapper was obsessed with Madoka, wouldn't give up until they had Madoka back, and Sayaka had to stay and protect her. No, the police couldn't do it. No, she wasn't taking too much on herself. What did they mean, "again"?
"I have to go now," she said at last. "I love you, okay? I'll call again when I can."
***
Madoka had, at Sayaka's halting request, spent the duration of the second call in the other room with the water running. Instead of showering right away, she piled her clothes in the sink and scrubbed them as best she could.
They had made it out in decent outfits. Madoka's was a frilly tank top and matching skirt in a dark rose plaid, over a long-sleeved shirt in almost the same creamy hue as their long-lost school uniforms. Sayaka had a dark shirt with red trim and a pair of white capris, not her usual style, but at least Homura had gotten them in the right sizes. Still, less than two days on the run, and she already missed having clean things to wear.
If only she had known it would be so easy. She'd planned their escape as a breakneck flight, and it turned out they could have taken a stack of clothing from their prison, taken a leisurely walk, and made it out just fine. If Madoka could do it over, knowing what she knew now....
But that was impossible, so she had to make do. The clothes hung over the shower rod to drip dry. When Sayaka knocked on the door and invited her back out, she wrapped a huge white towel around her torso and went.
Sayaka got one look at her, turned bright red, and was suddenly very interested in the phone.
"I t-told them everything on the list," she reported, sinking into the tall chair that matched the dark wood of the desk. Judging by the way her feet twisted against the carpet, it was disorienting to both of them to have a desk chair that didn't spin. "And I didn't give away anything about Akemi. You're probably right, she wouldn't hesitate to shoot anyone who came after her."
That wasn't the only reason Madoka had for protecting Homura's identity. But as long as Sayaka believed that much, it didn't matter whether she also bought the idea that Homura would still want to fight Walpurgis Night, and had to be a free agent until the battle was over. "I'm glad."
She took a seat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap, arms clamped to her sides to hold the towel in place.
"I could wash your clothes too, if you wanted," she added shyly. "That is — I mean — you could transform while they dried, so it isn't like you'd have to be...well, u-unless you wanted...."
Okay, that was enough unfinished sentences for one day. She clamped her mouth shut before she could embarrass herself any further.
"If you're offering something, you should say what you mean," said Sayaka. "Otherwise you're teasing, and it's not fair."
Madoka didn't blame her for being upset. On the other hand, she honestly didn't know what was on offer.
Not that she didn't understand what two girls did together! (A certain password-protected folder of Pretty Cure doujinshi on her hard drive had given her more than enough ideas to start with.) But she couldn't pin down how much of it she was open to, how much she was ready to try right now, where she wanted to start, whether they should even be wasting time fooling around at all when there were Mami's notebooks to study....
"Look, can we talk about this?" burst out Sayaka, now staring resolutely at her feet. "You didn't say anything about...about us, to your dad. And I didn't either!" she added quickly. "I understand why you wouldn't. There's so much else we have to make them accept, it wasn't the most important thing, not by a long shot."
"That's right," agreed Madoka. That was exactly why she hadn't put it on the list.
"So...was there any other reason?"
"What do you mean?"
"It wasn't because...well." Sayaka's fists clenched. The hotel's day curtains were drawn closed, bathing the room in a pleasantly diffused sunlight, except for one brilliant sliver coming through the center; it drew a bright line down the carpet between them, painted a yellow-white stripe across Sayaka's knuckles, made her soul gem ring gleam. "Because after this is all over, you're not sure there's going to be an 'us' anyway?"
Madoka caught her breath.
Everything else she'd been trying to plan out, and she hadn't noticed this. Hadn't realized that all the time she was thinking my girlfriend, Sayaka was thinking do you even like me like that?
"Sayaka," she said softly. "Look at me, okay?"
Sayaka did. Her stubborn, confident mask was only half in place, letting the need and vulnerability show through.
Time to finish some sentences.
"I love you," said Madoka. "I want you to be my girlfriend. And when we get back to school," which might be a while, depending on how long it took to recover from her new sense of panic in crowds, but they would get there, "I want to let everyone know it. That's what I'm offering."
Sayaka swallowed hard. "Do you really think someone like me deserves to love someone like you?"
A question that obvious didn't deserve to be honored with an answer. Instead, Madoka held out her hand. "Come here."
***
Madoka's slim, bare calves hung off the side of the bed, toes just brushing the floor. Sayaka obediently stepped in between them, and, when Madoka's hands caressed her shirt around the collar and tugged her down, bent to press their lips together.
She had just gathered the nerve to get her arms around Madoka's shoulders when Madoka let her go and slid backward across the sheets, legs pulling together just in time to preserve her modesty. "Follow me?"
Breathless, afraid to say anything lest it break the magic of what Madoka's smile was doing to her, Sayaka followed.
Madoka lowered herself onto her elbows, waited for Sayaka to climb close enough to kiss her again, then settled back onto the pillows. Her unbound hair, getting so long after weeks without even a trim, fanned out around her face in cherry-blossom waves.
On hands and knees over her, Sayaka straddled Madoka's hips and waited for more direction. She got it in the form of a touch on her waist, slipping up under her shirt, and another cupping the base of her skull through her own untidy locks to draw her down. Sayaka caught her mouth once more, then couldn't resist moving on to her cheeks, her brows, her temples, the delicate line of her jaw....
"Oh!" gasped Madoka, as Sayaka was kissing a path down her neck. "Don't stop," she added, when Sayaka did. "It was good. Keep going! Just like that."
There were more gasps, and soft, sweet noises, as Sayaka traced her way to Madoka's collarbones as far as the soft border marked by the towel. Her skin felt hypersensitized; her pulse throbbed insistently between her legs; a fresh wave of sparks ran over her when she did something that made Madoka's whole body twist beneath her. Fragile and strong, protected and protecting, shy demeanor and sharp mind, awkward slender perfect limbs — Sayaka loved everything about her, loved being able to touch her, loved the rush of making this wonderful person happy.
"Sayaka...." Madoka carded through her hair once more, twice, then slid both hands up her body and off of it. Sayaka had to recover from her own full-body shudder before raising her head.
Meeting her eyes, Madoka hooked her fingers under the edges of the towel, and tugged.
The wrapping had been done well; the top edge held together. But a diamond of bare skin opened up below it, the whole valley between her breasts, modesty only barely preserved by the white borders she had allowed to remain. "Should I...?"
"Oh god please yes," panted Sayaka.
She didn't, though, not just yet. "And if...if you want, I can...."
The sheets rustled as she shifted. Sayaka couldn't tell what was moving until something pressed up between her legs. She let out an inarticulate groan of agreement as her hips snapped forward all on their own, grinding needily against Madoka's bare thigh. "Yes please this —"
"Oh — oh good," gasped Madoka, and with one solid yank had the towel unwrapped down to her navel. Her breasts were soft and round and teacup-pert, and sure, Sayaka had seen her in a bikini last summer, but Sayaka hadn't been kissing her then. Hadn't imagined how sensitive they were, how she would cry out and writhe under Sayaka's mouth. "Oh! — do that, do that!"
Her spine arched, pressing her against Sayaka's body; she got two fistfuls of the hem of Sayaka's shirt. "Can I? I want to see you, can I...?"
"Anything," moaned Sayaka. Anything at all, whatever Madoka wanted. "Pull."
Madoka stripped her from the waist up in another smooth motion, though this one did leave Sayaka's hair a tousled mess. Sayaka sat back on Madoka's hips, knees splayed, to undo her plain black bra and toss it aside. Her chest was larger, didn't pop up so neatly unsupported, but if she had any thoughts of insecurity they were wiped away by the way Madoka glowed at the sight. "Come here, beautiful, come back down."
Because she had had a few moments to catch her breath, Sayaka could reply: "Your loyal knight obliges, Princess."
And she did.
***
the eternal present
Now
No sign of them at homes no sign at Mami's place or at Hitomi's
no other places left that they would go? she has to think
unless they ran?
if this time something took, if someone listened, then they could have run and left this cursed city far behind
but of course you didn't, your families are still here and you wouldn't leave them behind and anyway you never leave that never changes, there are things I can fix when in the right place at the right time but there are some that never change no matter what I do, Sayaka if she contracts always starts refusing grief seeds and if Mami learns the truth or loses one too many people she will die and you goddammit Madoka you never listen you stupid stupid saint I hate you I hate you I hate you I
She crumbles to the floor and nearly drops the mortar with a sob
I'm sorry
I didn't mean that
I'm sorrysorrysorrysorrysorryfor everything
(that isn't how it happens, this is where she breaks into the base and picks up AT-4s and L16s with perfect calm, as long as she can clean them out it works, at least it should, there's a time she pulls it off and blows the thing to pieces but then Madoka knows nothing of the battle meets the Incubator in the soaking wreckage makes a wish to put the city back together so she has to do it over
and she does it all the same but better has to be more perfect every time the witch keeps getting stronger there is no time in her schedule for a breakdown)
just please let me protect you this time pleasepleaseplease let this one be the time it works for good