Prologue
Homura Akemi was a broken husk, laying atop the bed the Incubators had made her. She had lost everything once more. She had regained Madoka, only to be forced to watch as what had replaced her came down from the sky. Forced to look upon her greatest failure. As if she hadn't been reminded about that enough inside her Labyrinth...
Madoka...I let this happen to you. I let this happen.
It was impossible to stop a spike of
rage filling her heart, as she saw one of
Walpurgisnacht's familiars pulling a chariot. Sayaka Miki and the unknown girl that-used-to-be-Charlotte were the ones driving it, down a long path with brilliant light in the distance. Light that resolved with a third blink, into the source of Homura's anguish and...and...
love. Madoka Kaname, the
real Madoka Kaname. Her long pink hair flowing behind her, white dress blowing in a nonexistent breeze to reveal stars underneath. Golden eyes, shining above a wide and gentle smile. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful being to ever grace the universe.
Homura hated her with every fiber of her being.
The pink hair should have been shorter, with pink ribbons tying it back. The ribbons in her own hair. Not these white bows. Golden eyes had replaced soft pink, that had always brought happiness to the former time-traveler. Her billowing white dress only served to remind Homura of the curse that was Madoka's wish.
She gave up everything. She became this...abomination. Madoka, you shouldn't have made that wish. I would have continued fighting to protect you!
After all, had Madoka not said that she couldn't do something like this? Take on all the worries of the world? Fight for everyone?
"You waited for me, all this time," the mockery of Madoka spoke softly as it approached. Homura hid her feelings beneath a familiar mask of apathy, while the
Goddess spoke. "I'm sorry it took so long...but I'm here now."
"Madoka," Homura whispered, despite herself. The face was wrong as were the clothes. Yet, the voice was still the same.
"Come on Homura, let's go home now. We can finally be together." The
Goddess continued, slowly reaching out her hands towards Homura's Soul Gem.
Together...yes. Together...forever.
Even as the mockery of her friend lowered herself, Homura turned her head. Violet eyes, dull and emotionless on the outside, looked anywhere but her.
"You don't have any idea...how
long I've waited."
The hands lowered towards her Soul Gem, even as a smug smile appeared on her lips.
"For
this..."
Her hands snapped up, grabbing Madoka's sharply.
"Homura?"
Deep inside her soul, Homura Akemi finally snapped. Her mind had broken, desire and obsession overtaking rational thought. She pulled Madoka towards herself, smile widening even as her Soul Gem went black. It was not a Witch. No, it was something much
darker.
I won't let you go, Madoka. I won't let you go ever again!
It filled with a million competing colors. Colors that began shooting out in whips, darkness and color alike overtaking everything around the Magical Girl and her Goddess. Resembling nothing more than the formation of a Witch, the 'whips' surrounded her and Madoka, cutting off everything else. It was only Homura and Madoka, as it always should have been. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else needed to matter.
I don't care if I become a demon. I don't care if everyone hates me. I don't even care if you hate me, Madoka. I won't let you suffer alone anymore. I won't give you up to anyone ever again. I will protect you, even from yourself.
Because all there was to Homura was Madoka. Everything else was an accessory. Everything else was pointless. Only the girl in her grip was anything worth holding onto anymore. And she would hold on until the
end. No matter
what she became in the process. Madoka was never leaving her again. She was never letting go again. The two would never be split apart again.
After years upon years of suffering, after what felt like an eternity of constant loss, Homura Akemi was
broken. She had lost the battle she had been fighting since the first day she lost Madoka. The battle for her own sanity.
"What's going on?!" Kyoko's voice rang dully in Homura's ears.
Ignoring the other girl, she spoke once more, "Now...
I've got you."
"What does she think she's doing? Homura?!"
Not even Mami's voice mattered anymore.
"Her Soul Gem! What are all those horrible colors?"
"That's not a curse..." Sayaka Miki's voice sounded terrified, "What is it? Obsession? Desire? Homura...what's happening to you?!"
Everything is happening to me, Sayaka Miki. Everything that should be happening. I no longer care what I must become. If this is obsession, so be it. I will not let Madoka leave me again. EVER.
"I don't expect you to understand," Homura finally acknowledged the others.
"This emotion is mine, and mine alone. And I've been saving it...all for her
."
The darkness grew ever larger, sweeping out around the group, forcing the other Magical Girls away. They could not be allowed to interfere. This was how things should end...Madoka with her. Homura would never let go, no matter what anyone said. No matter what it did to her. She was...not letting go!
"Homura!"
Eyes snapping back above her, the shattered girl looked into...terrified golden eyes.
"You're hurting me! I...please..."
Time stopped. The eyes above her were frozen in that terrified stare, pain clear in them. Pain that Homura was causing. Pain that she was familiar with. Pain that...should never be in Madoka Kaname's eyes.
I...
And once again, everything faded to black.
Homura's hands fell limp, her broken psyche finally realizing what it had been doing. What little rational thought she had left, was terrified of what she had done.
I was hurting Madoka. I...I swore I would protect her. Not hurt her!
"Oh, Homura…"
Madoka, ever-forgiving and all-loving, didn't even hesitate to reach her hands out again. Instead of reaching for the Soul Gem, her hands came down on Homura's. She held the pale limbs softly and gently. "You don't even know what you were doing, do you, Homura?"
"I---I knew what I was doing." Homura's voice was every bit as fractured as her soul. She couldn't, wouldn't, meet Madoka's gaze. "I was going to make you mine, Madoka. I was going to take you away."
"You didn't need to do that, silly!" Even as she said that, Madoka's voice cracked. Neither of the girls bothered looking at Sayaka running towards them. All their focus was on each other. "Are you that worried about the Incubators? We know what they're trying to do!"
Perhaps Homura could have justified it that way. She was too broken to care. "I can't stand seeing you like this. I
hate what you are. I promised to protect you, Madoka!"
There it was. Out in the open. Madoka flinched back, her golden eyes tearing up. She knew the truth now. Homura hated herself, almost more than she hated the
Goddess. She could never hate Madoka. She had always hated her wish.
"But...Homura…" Madoka flinched again, when Sayaka's hand fell on her shoulder.
The blue-haired girl shook her head. Her eyes were hard, filled with
pity when she looked at the broken shell of Homura Akemi. "Madoka, she can't accept that you
wanted to do this."
"I…" Shaking her head, the Goddess nodded. Sadness filled her entire being. "Even if I bring her with us, she'll never be happy, will she?"
"I think she wanted us to kill her in there, now that I think about it." Sayaka replied, eyes narrowed in thought.
Homura, fighting tears of her own, could only nod. "I was. Madoka, please, just let me die. I can't...I can't see you like this. If I do, I may try doing that again. I don't want to hurt you. I
can't hurt you."
It was the truth. Homura no longer trusted herself. She hated the idea of the
Goddess and she could only stop herself so many times. Even if she went with Madoka, she could never
be with her. Not in the way either of them wanted. Madoka, perhaps, realized this before anyone else. Sadness gripped her face, a soul-tearing sadness that only someone like her could ever feel. She looked down on Homura and knew. Knew that it was never going to be possible for them to be together. It hurt.
For as Madoka loved all Magical Girls, she loved Homura Akemi the most.
"Homura." Madoka whispered, shrugging herself free from Sayaka's grip. Her eyes looked over at Kyouko and Mami in the distance, before turning back to Homura. She felt her heart breaking even as she knew what must be done. "I...I can give you a home where you will never be sad. A home where you and I can be friends without any of...any of what hurts you. Do you want that?"
Sayaka pegged into what was being said quickly, her eyes widening in shock. "Madoka, you can't be--"
"Shh, Sayaka." Madoka shushed her friend, golden eyes staring down on Homura instead. "Homura, do you want that?"
The broken girl on the bed could only look up, beyond caring. "You save all Magical Girls, everywhere. Is there any world where we
can be together, Madoka? Without that?"
It was true. Madoka was a Goddess in the truest sense of the word. There was no timeline with Magical Girls where she was not. She had saved so many Sayakas and Kyoukos and Mamis. But never Homura. There was only the one Homura. And it all came back to the Goddess in the end. What Homura didn't know, however, was that Madoka did not have that influence in
every world. There were worlds where other beings like her lived, beings who had dealt with the Incubators before they could ever be a threat. Worlds where Magical Girls weren't needed. Worlds...worlds where Madoka Kaname never became a Goddess.
Homura...I will miss you. More than you could ever know.
"I can give you a home, Homura, where you can meet me again. Where you never have to worry about Witches. Just…" Madoka brought a shaky hand up to wipe away the tears in her eyes. She gave Homura a watery smile, even as she knew she was going to be cutting her own heart out to do this. "Promise me you won't hate me for this?"
Homura, despite everything, couldn't help the snort. "I could never hate you, Madoka."
And that was what it came down to.
"I guess this is goodbye, Homura." Madoka pulled up to her full height, her dress billowing around her. She held Homura's hands the entire time, pulling her up too. Madoka pulled the stick-thin girl into a crushing hug, not caring if tears were flowing now. "I can't give you happiness here. I'm so, so sorry that you suffered because of me. I...I only wanted to make everyone happy."
'But I never thought about making
you happy' went unsaid.
"I can't give you happiness here, but I can give you a home where you can finally rest. It won't be like here, there aren't any Incubators or Magical Girls. You...you won't have to fight anymore. I promise you, Homura, that you won't be sad anymore."
At this point, Madoka was just talking to herself. She was trying to paper over what this was doing to
her heart. She was giving up the thing that meant the most to her, for the sake of Homura's happiness. It was like making her Wish all over again.
Why did it hurt more this time?
"Madoka...I…" Homura tried to speak, but she was shushed by Madoka putting a finger on her lips.
"Don't, Homura. I...I need to do this." Madoka opened her eyes wide, galaxies and stars flashing in the golden light. She wasted no time in finding a new home. "I don't want to see you hurting anymore. I don't want to see anyone hurting, you know that!"
Madoka heard a multitude of voices raising up as she found the reality she had been looking for. She had seen it before, a record out of sync with her own. A place where many beings, lesser yet still powerful, held the place she did. She knew them as quiet watchers. They would do nothing to Homura, so long as she did nothing to them. They would keep her safe. And in the end, that was what mattered.
I'm sorry, Homura. I'm sorry that it came to this, I'm sorry that we couldn't be together, I'm sorry that you had to suffer so much.
"Madoka, wait!" Homura began to struggle in her arms, as she felt a tug towards another Earth. "I---Madoka! I don't want to lose you again!"
The Goddess could only smile sadly, "You never lost me, Homura. I will always be there, you know that. I hope the other me will love you like I do."
Homura fell away, screaming her name. Madoka watched and didn't bother wiping the tears from her eyes. She had thought she was beyond sadness and grief. As it turned out…
She was still human, beneath it all.
MADOKA!!!
Homura snapped up, holding a hand to her chest. Her heart pounded in her chest. The memory of golden eyes, fading back to pink as tears fell down pale cheeks, refused to leave her. She...she'd hurt Madoka
again. Because she couldn't let go. She had never been able to let go.
"I...failed again…" Homura whispered, belatedly realizing she was in her hospital bed once again. Her Soul Gem rested on her finger, completely clear. She didn't even feel a hint of corruption in it. "Madoka…"
Letting her eyes trail over the room, Homura reflected. She had lived a false life in the Labyrinth, but it had been the kind of life she'd always wanted. She had let her Witch influence her into trying to destroy Madoka. Did she deserve what Madoka had still given her? A home without Incubators or Witches? She didn't know the answer. Part of her said she didn't deserve even this much.
She resisted the urge to transform and see if she still had the bow that Madoka had given her.
"Something is wrong." Instead, Homura looked around the room. She saw a coat hanging on the chair beside her bed, and everything looked...subtly wrong. The calendar was different. Someone had moved her glasses and ribbons, to set a book next to them. She hadn't just gone back again had she---
With barely a whisper, the door to her room slid open. Homura's violet eyes snapped directly to it, her hand clutching down on her Soul Gem. A tall, American, man stood in the doorway. His shoulders were hunched down and his eyes
tired with the kind of pain Homura recognized in her own, whenever she let her mask down. He was new.
He should not be here. Who is this?
"Whoa there, you shouldn't be up yet." The man held up his hands, walking over to her bedside. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and pushed her back into her pillow.
Homura allowed it, mostly out of shock at something
new. And the fact she was still out of it from...from losing Madoka.
The man hardly seemed to notice. His dark eyes roamed over her, as if he was...was worried about her? When was the last time an
adult had worried about her? "The doctors said you were stubborn...I guess you got that from your mother. I'm guessing you don't recognize me?"
"I have no idea who you are." Homura robotically replied, curious how this man knew her mother. He had graying brown hair, over a rough-jawed face. His eyes, though, kept drawing her attention. They were wide and held something that she imagined few other than her could recognize. "Who are you?"
"Well, I guess I should have expected that. Amy never did talk to me much after she left home…" The man sighed softly, and sat down next to Homura. His hand had relocated to her own, thankfully not seeing her Soul Gem. Not that she expected he could, as he continued, "My name is Jack O'Neill. I'm your Uncle, Homura."
...what.
Electing to ignore how he
butchered the pronunciation of her name, Homura felt a cold pit in her stomach. She knew her mother wasn't an American. She knew her mother had no siblings either. Madoka…
'You'll have a home where you can be happy, Homura. A family.'
She wasn't sure if Madoka had actually talked to her, or if that was a memory. Homura was too shocked to care either way.
"Hey, you okay in there?" The man, O'Neill, frowned lightly. He seemed much more concerned than he should have been. "Must be a surprise, I guess. I haven't seen more than a picture of you since you were a baby, after all."
"Why are you here?" Homura continued to keep to clipped, short sentences. She needed answers. She needed something to latch on to.
O'Neill sighed again, "Right for the difficult questions, huh…" Squeezing Homura's hand, the man pulled a paper out from his coat pocket, and held it up before her eyes. "Amy never told me much about your health, but I wasn't expecting to get a call from a hospital in Japan. I...well. There's no easy way to say this."
The man was stumbling over his words. Homura got the feeling he wasn't used to talking to someone her own age. At least, not in a context like this. Or, perhaps, it was just because she was his long-lost 'niece'?
"While you were here, your parents died in a car crash. Amy...she left in her will that I would be the one to take care of you if anything happened." O'Neill laughed mirthlessly, letting the paper fall to the table beside the bed. He noticed how Homura's eyes widened, and shook his head sadly. "Yeah, I figured they didn't tell you. With your heart what it is…at least Amy still cared enough about me to ask me to do this."
"My parents are…" Homura knew she
should have felt sad. Maybe she would have, once upon a time. But she hadn't seen her parents in almost ten years, from her perspective.
It was only after she had seen Madoka become...
that...that she had bothered to figure out how many times she had failed. About eight years, if she wasn't wrong, and she hadn't once bothered to contact her parents in any of the timelines.
"...I had no idea. I hadn't heard from them in a long time, but I didn't know that they…"
O'Neill nodded, gently squeezing her hand again. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I got here as quickly as I could. I...well. I know it isn't easy to ask this, but I need you to come back home with me, if we're going to make this work. I've already done all of the paperwork with the hospital."
Home? He's not from here, so…
"At least you speak English pretty well." O'Neill smiled slightly, crookedly. "Good thing too, my Japanese is
horrible."
Homura belatedly realized that, yes, she
had been speaking in English. Those eight years of English classes had rubbed off on her, even if she had started more or less ignoring school after the first few loops. That belated realization was followed by panic.
Madoka!
"I--are you really who you say you are?" Homura latched onto a question that may keep her in Mitakihara.
The man who claimed to be her Uncle chuckled, though it was a weak one. "Again with the tough questions, eh? That's what the paper is. Take a look, if you don't believe me."
Reaching her free hand out, Homura picked up the paper. She quickly recognized a picture. A picture that had a man she recognized as her father. He was standing on one side of a woman who looked
like her, but also like the man across from her. A man who stood on the other side of her...her mother? In the arms of the woman, was a little baby, staring at her with haunting violet eyes.
"
That was the last time I saw Amy, before she moved to Tokyo." O'Neill sounded wistful, shaking his head slowly. A melancholic smile on it. "You were tiny back then, just like Charlie."
"Charlie?" Homura
croaked, her mind reeling with the realization that
this was what Madoka had planned.
To her surprise, O'Neill clammed up and shook his head. His face slid into a mask that she instantly recognized. It was the same expression she had worn for so many tries at saving Madoka. A mask to hide away a pain that didn't need to be seen by anyone else. Only someone who shared that pain could recognize it so easily.
"...anyway." O'Neill dodged her question, climbing to his feet. "This is pretty sudden for me too. I'm not really ready back home, but I'm sure I can get whatever you need from your old house before we head there. I'm a Colonel in the Air Force, so we can't take too long though. I...if you have anyone you want to see, we should probably do it before we leave."
Seemingly uncomfortable now, O'Neill gave one last nod to Homura, before leaving the room. Leaving her alone, with the picture and the knowledge that she had gained.
Madoka...you gave me a new family. You didn't want me to be alone. I...I don't know how to feel about that.
Homura climbed to her feet, and looked down at her Soul Gem once more. Jack O'Neill. Her 'Uncle' in a different world. She was going to live with an officer of the United States military, somewhere in America. Well. Homura knew what she needed to do first.
With a flash of purple, she transformed into her Magical Girl attire. A familiar weight on her arm telling her all she needed to know. The shield clicked once, bringing forth the grey of her timestop.
"I need to see, Madoka. If there are truly no Incubators. If you are truly here. If...if anyone I know is here." Homura looked down at her Soul Gem, one final question on her lips. "And how my Soul Gem isn't darkening at all."
She vanished from her room, her Soul Gem shining a bright purple without the slightest taint from her use of magic.
Crack is as crack does. 
No, seriously, this is going to be a fairly cracky story past the bits of seriousness. The very nature of it kind of lends itself to that. This is also something I make no promises on even semi-regular updates, considering how I write these days. It's more something that I came up with while half-asleep than anything else. Also to poke fun at all the SG stories that amount to 'Mary Sue daughter of *insert main character here* messes up the story without actually changing the plot all that much'. That a lot of ongoing SG fics are based on that idea (in SG-1 and Atlantis) gets annoying after awhile 
You can also blame Magia Record's anime on some level. That brought my attention to the fact that Madokami has timelines and places she can't actually intervene in without breaking the fabric of reality. When you toss in SG-verse having it's own multiverse, it seemed like this is a fairly logical kind of crossover. You can make the same argument for Nanoha-verse fitting into Madoka-verse fairly easily (and vice-versa). Which also has Magia Record backing
(I'm not being entirely serious, even if Nanoha and Fate and Hayate were in a Magia Record event...and now I remember I need to figure out if I want to clean up Twist of Fate or not...questions for later)
Anyhoo. This is going to be fairly cracky in general, as I said, and more of a humor fic in regards to stuff outside missions. The drama and character stuff is still there (Homura and Jack are going to poke each other's trauma buttons something fierce, as one can imagine) but it's not the primary focus. If this gets attention and my muse pokes me for more chapters, I want to write something more chill than my other fics that take a lot more out of me to write.
Oh, and Homura isn't the only Magical Girl here. As for how her Soul Gem isn't darkening despite her despair freakout and her use of magic...well. She'll figure out the answer to that eventually.
(out of universe, though...crack fic. Also, it would get real dark, real quick if Homura couldn't cleanse a darkening gem due to no Witches. It would also not be as fun(ny) if she can't time stop, so magic remains there)
