Chapter introduction:

Thanks everyone, for all the support of last chapter! Based on some of the feedback, I went back and redid the conversation on Reading Steiner in chapter 5 as I have to admit there were some problems with it. I decided to leave the old one up on this site and upoaded the new one on AO3 in case people are curious to read the differences.

I'm sure a lot of people reading this probably wonder where the hell I've been these last three months. Well, as some of you guessed, that baby referenced in earlier notes was in fact mine; our first actually. Caring for her cut my free time down from something like 4 hours per day to like 0.5 hours per day, since she simply refuses to sleep during daytime – unless we're directly holding her, which isn't ideal for writing purposes. And yeah, she does fall asleep In one of those baby-carrying contraptions in which she is suspended in front of you… but then the sound of my fingers striking the keyboard wakes her up -_- We love her to death, of course, but from a writing perspective having a baby kills your progress rate 😊

As a result, this chapter was written very, very slowly from bits and pieces of free time. It is a lot shorter than normal, but I wanted to put it out now since I didn't want to leave my readers with nothing for too long. I hope everyone will enjoy it just the same!

Disclaimer: see previous chapters.

"Well, this is it."

From the outside, 'it' wasn't much to look at, more of a rundown apartment just above the Braun Tube Workshop than anything else.

But inside were Shiina Mayuri and Hashida Itaru, if Mayuri's return message to Okabe was correct.

That meant this would be the first meeting of the first four Lab Members in this timeline.

In another worldline, she'd gone on to like Mayuri so much that she'd been willing to sacrifice herself, presumably in no small part for her. Their friendship had apparently been worth that much to her during the Alpha worldline crisis.

How did she even begin trying to re-establishing such a bond?

What if she said the wrong things and messed up?

When was the last time she'd been so nervous?

Her brain was all too helpful in answering this exact question.

'You mean, other than the anticipation of meeting dad for the first time in years, or the anxiety over having to give a lecture?' Frontal Lobe asked. 'Which were both followed up very quickly by the 'oh my god, I'm going to die' type of nervousness? And we can't forget about all the PTSD-related stress, of course, which lasted up until… oh, I don't know, TODAY?'

Kurisu sighed. Okay, fine! Maybe she'd been nervous for pretty much the entirety of her stay here in Japan. But still… she'd choose pretty much anything non-trauma related over this.

Complicated lectures on subjects concerning the current boundaries of science? She could probably do that. Even outside of her own field with sufficient prep time, probably. She'd done just that in the Alpha worldline.

Making friends with girls approximately her own age? Not so much. Sure, she'd apparently managed to do that there as well, but that was much further out of her comfort zone.

In this worldline, her circle of friends consisted of pretty much only Maho, unless you counted Amadeus as a person. But they were direct colleagues in addition to the only Japanese speaking staff at their department. Circumstances of availability and being part of a shared minority had thus made it extremely easy to bond with her.

But Mayuri and herself weren't a minority here, and the amount of time she had available was very limited.

"Kurisu? Are you okay?"

Okabe watched her from the side. His lab coat softly fluttered in the evening breeze. With his hands in his pockets, he was a textbook example of outward calm, a far cry to when they'd just left the restaurant.

…Maybe he even looked a bit cool.

Somewhat and just for a second, of course.

It must have been the lighting.

Anyway…

"Ah, it's just… I guess I'm a bit nervous about meeting Mayuri," she admitted. "What If I mess up?"

"Huh? Well… looking at it objectively, you never failed to make friends with her," he said. "I don't think you have much to worry about."

"That isn't much to go on. What if her Reading Steiner doesn't extend to memories of me? I'd like a more concrete strategy rather than taking chances. Do you have any ideas?"

"Ideas for befriending Mayuri?" He pondered it for a few moments. "Honestly, I'd say it's pretty much impossible not to get along with her. Pretty much anything not overly antagonistic will probably work."

"And what makes you say that? Are you looking at this objectively? Just because she's your childhood friend doesn't mean it will be as easy for someone else."

"Come now, assistant! Would I ever lead you astray?"

She glared at him.

"Okay, let's not answer that. In that case, what I can say is that Mayuri managed to befriend Moeka, whose personality I'd say is somewhere in between a depressed zombie and a rock." He gave her a playful smirk. "I'm pretty sure that if someone like Moeka can do it, you can too."

She sighed, partly in relief, partly in frustration. For one, that still wasn't any concrete advice, and second, there was one glaring complicating factor…

"I suppose," she said, sidestepping that issue for now.

She could feel him frowning at her, obviously knowing something was up.

"Do you want some time alone with her?" he offered, apparently deciding not to pry.

"If possible, yes."

He nodded and shifted his gaze back towards the building. "Okay. I'll find some way to keep Daru busy. And speaking of him, he's a huge pervert, but deep down he's a good person."

She chuckled. "Not that different from you, then."

That made him smile. "I love you too, assistant."

She immediately looked away. "Don't throw that around so casually! …It detracts from the experience."

"But it's only the second time, I think?"

"At least the third, unless you just decided to kiss me in the other worldline with no warning whatsoever."

"Who's to say I didn't? And it's not like telling someone you love them is a hard requirement before being able to kiss them, Christina."

"It is if you want to avoid grievous bodily harm and being sued for sexual harassment, at least when it comes to me," she countered.

He smiled. "Hm. So if you do it, I'm just supposed to take it. But If I were to do it, you feel it's justified to destroy me? That somehow doesn't seem fair."

She smirked. "You're a guy. Deal with it."

"Haha, that's the spirit, assistant! Just stick to your usual spunk and friendliness and you'll be fine."

She took a deep breath. "Right, then let's go."

The first step was the hardest, as it brought them from the shadows into full, unobstructed view from the lab's window. If anyone looked outside now, she'd be seen for sure.

Then came the second one, and-

-a hand on her shoulder pulled her back out of view.

"Wait a second, Kurisu."

Even if her their time together here had been very short, she knew him well enough to know that whenever he used her actual name, it was serious business.

He looked straight at her, his expression unreadable.

"Okabe? Is something wrong?"

"Actually… there are a few things we should discuss before going in."

"Which are?" she asked, somewhat annoyed. Couldn't they have done this anywhere else along the way?

"First, I'm honestly still not sure what to do about Daru," he began. "Mayuri, if she knows the truth, should be harmless. But him… if he decides to try hacking SERN and he somehow does get caught… is that worth the risk? What if I did overestimate him?"

Okay, maybe that was a valid concern. And it was also true that they'd had a lot to talk through, and that he'd been too busy recomposing himself for the last few minutes…

"If Hashida-san is smart enough to hack them, wouldn't he also be smart enough not to do it?" she reasoned. "Assuming you give him all the relevant knowledge, of course."

"By that same logic, shouldn't a group of teenagers smart enough to mess with time itself also be smart enough not to?" he asked in return, gazing to the windows above the store.

She blinked. "Er… well…"

"But I suppose you're right," he continued, nodding. "I'll just have to stress the importance."

"So we're good to go?"

"Not yet. A second issue is how and where we're discussing this. The future gadget lab is located on top of a store run by a SERN operative, a regional coordinator even. And since he's renting the place to us as a landlord, can we really be sure it's safe to discuss the full truth there?"

"This, coming from the person who went out of his way to point out how incompetent SERN really was?" she asked.

He didn't answer immediately and stared at the closed store, lost in thought. When it continued past the first few seconds, she took the opportunity to quickly glance at the timer on her phone, which read 22:40. That meant they'd spent the last 9 or so hours together. Somehow it felt more like weeks, if not months.

There was also one new message, from mom. Taking time zones into account, her mother would have sent that message somewhere between 3 and 4 hours after midnight. Typical, she supposed.

She opened it anyway.

Hello Curie, enjoying your last week in Tokyo? That aside, I hope there have been no worrying developments regarding your missing psychotic stalker?

She sighed and closed it, thinking of how bizarre a technically truthful response to that would be:

'Hi mom! Things are just peachy here. And yes, actually - I found him, spent most of the day with, hugged him a few times, went to lunch AND dinner with him, kissed him, discussed the natures of time and the universe with him again and I'm about to enter his sort of room at a time close to midnight. We also might technically be engaged. Oh, and I've learned time travel does exist and that all of this mess is perfectly explainable, though I can't really tell you about it because of dangers to this reality itself. Other than that, no, nothing new to report. Kkthxbye! -Kuri'

…She'd need a better story.

In retrospect, telling her mom what had happened at Radi-kan concerning Okabe had been a mistake. But there was no way she could have known that at the time, and she'd been traumatized. It had been natural to tell her mother everything in an attempt to find solace following the event.

And she had – everything from attacking her with the taser to putting her into the blood to his strange parting dialogue which she was also sure then she wasn't supposed to hear. And that parting dialogue sounded all sorts of creepy to the average outsider, such as the bit on time spent together not coming back, and that he was apparently willing to die for that. They'd never spent time together on that worldline, after all, and then there was the whole dragging her into a pool of his blood thing. It was probably only natural outsiders like the police had labelled Okabe as obsessed and insane.

Yes, he'd saved her from the attempted murder, but said person had seemingly known that was about to happen, which made it likely he'd been working either with the intended murderer or had done so until very recently. He'd also already 'attacked' her once and was on the loose out there, supposedly not too far away from her.

Considering that, it had probably been a miracle her mom had allowed her to stay. Would she have allowed her hypothetical daughter to do the same?

She supposed the fact that her 'savior' had supposedly lost critical amounts of blood and had a good chance to be dead, along with a multitude of precautions ranging from things such as accepting temporary police protection, changing the hotel, no longer attending classes at the high school she'd temporarily been assigned to, changing her phone number (just in case) and cancelling all of her other previously planned events had been enough to temporarily sway her mother. The rest had just been acting on her part, while she searched in secret.

Somewhere in the near future, she'd need to construct a flawless excuse for why her maybe boyfriend perfectly resembled the description of the guy she'd given back then. He couldn't possibly be the actual guy who'd done all those seemingly horrible things, obviously!

Maybe "Ah, it's just a coincidence that they look completely identical!" would have been less suspicious if she, you know, had actually ever dated someone else before. And this was a very odd time to start doing so - almost immediately following some quite horrible events.

She could already imagine the accusing stare piercing through all lesser subterfuge, leaving her with 'Stockholm Syndrome' as the only explanation that didn't involve exposing time travel.

And her mom had a very bad history with time travel as a subject, considering that had been what had ultimately ruined Nakabachi and consequently tore their family apart.

…The only thing other than herself, that was.

She doubted either explanation would go down well.

"…That doesn't really change the fact that we need to be careful here," Okabe finally continued, lowering his voice and drawing her back to the present. Her mom was a worry for a different time. "SERN might be incompetent and ridiculous as a whole, but if we make a careless mistake and somehow give them the idea we know how 'that' works, we could very well be forced back into Alpha worldline. That would make everything we've done pointless."

The closed, quiet building of a store selling outdated TV's really didn't scream 'EVIL HEADQUARTERS' in her humble opinion. But she supposed that was the idea of any front for any shady operation. Maybe it made sense to pick a store that dealt in things that were less likely to give you a lot of customers, so you had a lot of free time to do your actual criminal activities. Then again…

"Are you really sure this place has more than a surface connection with them?" she asked just as quietly. "I know it is what one of their regional coordinators uses as a cover for his day to day life and income, true, but that doesn't automatically mean that more of SERN's activities are somehow connected to this store, or this building for that matter. Maybe there's nothing here relating to SERN other than Tennouji himself."

"That's true, but I'd say a lingering SERN presence is still at least a plausible concern."

Fair enough.

"Okay, then how do you suppose they would be able to overhear us? By installing hidden surveillance equipment inside of the lab?" she asked.

"That's one option, yes."

She frowned. "Do you really think Tennouji is the kind of person who would install hidden microphones in the building he's renting out to a couple of teenagers, and with no prior warning whatsoever? In this timeline, you supposedly had no suspicious interactions with him."

He nodded along as she raised her doubts. "First, we can't be completely sure that Mister Braun doesn't have some affinity for Reading Steiner," he began, then shook his head. "But that's not the main issue. You're correct in that Mister Braun probably wouldn't do something like this – I'd assume he's at least too sick of 'Hououin Kyouma' to ever want to hear more of him," he continued. "However, that doesn't necessarily mean SERN itself wouldn't wiretap the building. As we discussed, they have killing their own operatives as a standard policy, as a way to remove loose ends. Wouldn't it make sense for them to keep tabs on their regional coordinators, in ways they themselves might not be aware of? Maybe he just rented us the place without knowing SERN would be listening in on us."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but anyone hearing your Kyouma persona talk for more than like fifteen seconds would be VERY hard pressed to continue this constant surveillance," she said, completely serious.

He smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment, I think. But even that won't help us here, since it only takes one reading of a serious conversation on time travel for us to lose. And who is to say they don't have automated systems scanning conversations for certain key word combinations? No amount of 'him' would turn off a computer."

"Okay... in that case, if the building was always tapped, don't you think SERN would have acted faster than they'd done in the past?" she mused.

"This isn't the same worldline, meaning what was true in the past doesn't necessarily hold up here," he countered. "And we already know SERN really likes to wait things out, considering how much time they gave us when their spy directly overheard us discussing dangerous information on them. What if they were on to us from the start and were just content to wait and see what happened? Maybe they DID actively decide to do something sooner; maybe my meeting with Moeka was much less random than I thought. If she was sent specifically at me to prey on my chuunibyou paranoia by taking pictures of me, and then intentionally using that as leverage to blackmail me into letting her into the lab, then at the very least SERN had some credible plan from the start. But they couldn't know this unless something tipped them off earlier, either with the intercepted text from the future and somehow tracking me down from that, or actual surveillance. I feel we cannot ignore the second possibility, especially since preying on my personality suggests more in depth observation."

She took a moment to consider that. It made a lot of sense, and she was suddenly much less eager to go inside. "Then what do you propose?"

He sighed. "The safest bet would be to cancel this entirely and have this discussion somewhere else. Maybe at Faris' penthouse and inviting everyone except Moeka there. That would also save us the trouble of having to do this multiple times."

It was a sensible suggestion. Logically it probably made the most sense.

…But the lab was right there…

"After coming all the way here?" she groaned. She wasn't entirely sure if she was more annoyed at him or at herself for also not thinking this through in advance. "Please tell me you have an alternate suggestion. I know planning isn't your strongest point, but if you were aware of all of this then surely you saw this issue coming? Also, we do have a deadline…"

Imposed by her, consisting of only seven days, a plane ticket and a very strict university. If that was all the time remaining here for the next x months, then even a single day was a significant time loss. Also, too much of her recent history had already been spent wallowing in fear and uncertainty. As far as she was concerned, it was time to deal with the past right now.

"There's always the roof," he suggested, shifting his gaze upwards. "It's not completely safe though, as it runs into a similar problem. What if any of the other tenants is also a SERN agent assigned specifically to watch Mister Braun, and he or she hears us talk through any of those open windows up there?"

"Isn't this taking your worries a bit far?"

"Maybe. But again, if this backfires… The stakes are extremely high."

"And the odds extremely low," she countered. "For this to happen, that hypothetical other SERN agent would first have to exist. Then, he or she'd have to have both a room in this apartment, along the top floor, have the window open and be present here at this time despite Tennouji-san not living here and being presumably at his home halfway across the district, which is at odds with the agent's hypothetical job of keeping tabs on him. Then, they would have to be both not asleep yet and hear the conversation on the roof clearly enough for it to make any sense to them."

She inspected the roof and the streets surrounding them, beginning the calculation for a risk assessment. "If we judge the distance from the center of this roof to the window to be about 30 feet, and a quiet level of conversation at 40 decibel, then by the inverse square law the sound will have lost roughly half of its strength by the time it got there, meaning it's already below whisper level."

Not a bad start, but that was still somewhat hearable, and thus theoretically still risky.

She wasn't done yet, though. Not by a long shot.

"Of course, this figure is still highly overestimating the actual strength, since that calculation assumes an uninterrupted medium of air between the source and the listener," she continued. "In reality, it would have to go through a solid concrete ceiling, making it impossible for this already weaksauce soundwave unless the sound reflected off of the building on the other side of the street first. That means it would be below 10 decibels, a level of sound even below breathing, before reaching this potential operative sitting inside the room. Basically, it would be close to impossible to hear and pretty much impossible to decipher. Thus, your worries are logically baseless."

She concluded her monologue with a triumphant smirk, daring him to object.

…And found him smiling at her.

"W-what?" she asked, breaking eye contact.

"Ah… nothing. I just keep being reminded of how nice it is to have you back."

…Unfair.

"Well if you need a more physical reminder, I could always punch you again!" she huffed, totally not embarrassed or anything.

Nope.

He flinched. "T-that won't be necessary. Talking is fine."

"Then talk. Out with it; why do you really feel this is a bad idea? As a scientist, even a second rate, less sane one, you should already know everything I just said," she continued, gratefully pressing for a different topic.

"I agree that the chances of someone overhearing us on the roof would be slim," he admitted, nodding once. "But… then again, so were the chances of us accidentally making the phonewave, then running into you, the one person realistically able to improve upon it, the lifter characteristics of the CRT TV coincidentally also available on the spot, as well as the direct line to SERN… so many unlikelihoods stacked on top of each other yet it still happened."

So he had reached the same conclusion.

"The real mother of time travel is coincidence…" she muttered.

"What was that?"

"Ah, never mind. It's something I used to think in the alpha worldline."

"Then you understand my hesitation, right?" he asked, then glanced around once. "What if time travel simply needs an excuse to exist, and it will? What if the slightest chance for it to be will be enough for it? The chances of it coming to exist as it originally did seem much lower to me than the chances of someone overhearing us, despite what calculations may tell us. And we know how it destroyed both main futures known to mankind…"

"That's mostly emotion over reasoning, just that it's you doing it this time," she said. "Didn't you say you wouldn't bow down to any kind of fate? But that's exactly what you're doing here: entertaining fatalistic ideas on par with your ramblings about things 'being the choice of Steins Gate'?"

She expected a wide array of possible responses from him, but she didn't expect him to suddenly laugh.

"What?" she asked, annoyed.

"Oh, I just find it ironic that you seemingly lost most of your important memories, yet you remember stuff like this perfectly. In this timeline, I never used that quote. The closest I came was 'the price of Steins Gate'. Is this a sign of your memories returning, or yet more proof how much you secretly enjoyed all those nonsensical talks with me?"

As promised, she punched him - in the shoulder.

It ended up being more playful than proper wasn't very effective - he only looked amused.

She then contemplated introducing his grin to the street tiles, but realized she still kind of needed him for the next phase.

"Ignoring that and trying to stay on track," she emphasized through gritted teeth," If your hypothesis is true, then it doesn't matter where or when we discuss this. Someone would overhear us anyway. Someone could have already overheard us, like fifteen minutes ago at the restaurant. Isn't what you're describing like an attractor field directly interfering on time travel's behalf? And those aren't supposed to be here. Basing your actions on this worry is essentially the same as giving into fear, going by your own words."

"Is it, though?" he wondered, serious again. "We're talking about the fate of everyone on the planet, essentially. Given that and what we know about SERN, at what point does carefulness mutate into paranoia, Kurisu? What measure of risk is acceptable?"

She didn't really have a direct counter to that. However…

"Then hedge your bets and do what you always do," she decided.

He blinked. "Which is?"

"Just 'Kyouma' it. Yes, that's a verb now."

He just stared at her. "Did I just mishear that?"

"No. Just act like a chuunibyou and be vague on the details so that any sane person who hears you immediately dismisses everything you say."

He laughed, then chuckled some more.

She didn't join in.

"Wait… you're actually serious?"

"Of course," she replied.

"Er… in that case, how exactly would this help us convince Mayuri and Daru?" he asked.

"It doesn't. But they should already know something strange is up, considering you suddenly appeared in the lab bleeding everywhere in this timeline. Also, we know Mayuri has some degree of Reading Steiner. And finally, they are your close friends, aren't they?"

Okabe smiled. "Yeah, that they are. Looking back on it, I guess I was lucky to have them."

"Then it seems to me that they'd be far more predisposed to believe you than anyone potentially listening in. So, if you want to cover for any possible uncertainty, depending on this seems like a good way to do it," she concluded.

He didn't reply. His smile slowly faded as continued watching the window. Then he sighed, hunched forward and rested his hands on his knees.

She reflexively moved to catch him again but stopped when he remained standing – barely. It didn't take being much of a genius to conclude he was somewhere way past his physical limit. What kept him up was probably only sheer stubbornness or willpower, depending on how it was defined.

Some mushier part of her, locked away deep inside behind multiple bankvaults locked with chains and separated from most of reality by any number of miniature black holes, relented at the sight.

Maybe this was too much to ask of him.

She wanted to do this now, but not everything was about her.

"Unless you're unable to," she continued. "Look… if you're not up for this yet, we can do this another time. I'd be annoyed, but seeing as to how badly you need rest, I can probably overlook your toddler-level planning this once."

"Always so mean… even when you're being nice," he said. "Do you still deny being a tsundere?"

"Do you still deny being a chuunibyou?"

He grinned, then straightened himself back up. "Okay, I can't back out after a statement like that. However…"

He paused.

"What about you, Kurisu? Are YOU sure you're up for this? We have no idea what Reading Steiner is going to do, and I suppose all of this would already be a lot to take in for just a single day."

"I'm fine. Now that I'm here, I just want to get things over with."

"But what If you have another panic attack and run off, or-?"

She cut him off with a glare. "Let's get one thing straight. I've had visual hallucinations for two months. The one time it actually made me panic was when I experienced DYING. I really don't think you have to worry about that happening. What happened this evening wasn't related to those in any way."

"Ah… sorry then, I guess," he replied, looking away. "It's just that I'd really not want you blindly running down the stairs and seriously hurt yourself by falling, or something similar. I've seen lots of people die for much sillier causes."

"Hey…" she began, before placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'm not going to run anymore. Nor am I going to stall and come back another day. I'm past that now."

Amber eyes met hers.

There was a certain vulnerability in them, but also a warmth.

He started a small, grateful smile, which in turn made her feel good about offering the gesture.

She started smiling as well.

She realized it was just about the sappiest possible way of two people feeling good about having their shields down towards each other and told her brain to shut up about it.

"Anything else before we go?" she quickly asked, when the moment started lasting just a little too long.

He looked away just as quick. "Um… well… how to put this…"

?

"Er…"

"Oh, out with it already!" she huffed.

"It's getting really late," he finally began. "If we give the full story to Daru and Mayuri and add a full tour of the lab, there's a good chance that by the time we finish, it'll be past the metro's operating hours."

She didn't really see why that made him uncomfortable. Daru and Mayuri were there too, weren't they?

"So…?"

"So… after we're done, how are you going to get back to your hotel, or wherever you're staying? Normally I'd offer to walk you home, but by the time we finish I'm not sure I'll be able to stop myself falling asleep on the spot."

It still took her a second to grasp what he was trying to say.

Wait…

She crossed her arms and carefully studied his face. "Hold on - are you suggesting that I stay here for the night? W-With you?"

Don't picture it.

Don't picture it.

That was a paradox, of course. You couldn't intentionally try not to think of something without still thinking of it.

The resulting imagery didn't really help.

Sigh.

Okay, then don't blush. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Just don't blush.

…Never mind.

Still, she could see some humor in how something this silly could throw her off. Compared to all the life and death matters they'd been through thus far, getting nervous over what was probably a platonic invitation based on genuine concern seemed a bit childish. It was a markedly different response from what she'd probably have had this morning, which would probably have involved panic and/or indignation in some way, if she'd even have a reaction at all.

All thing considered, her view of the world had changed drastically over the course of a single day.

Just like it had at Radi-Kan, but for the better this time.

"Um… well…" he continued, awkwardly scratching his head, "I-It's not what you think! It's just that it's safe here – we have locks now. You could have the couch, and I could use a chair, or the floor."

She narrowed her eyes. "Okabe Rintaro, are you REALLY sure this isn't some kind of indecent proposal?"

He let out an exasperated sigh. "Which of us is bringing up the subject of indecency here, assistant!? I'm just trying to look out for your safety! IS there even a more decent way to word what I just asked?"

He was flustered. It was really, really tempting to continue this into some sort of flirtatious remark, such as that she was disappointed because she wouldn't have been opposed to that. But it didn't seem entirely fair to abuse his weakness over something like this.

She held the accusing stare just a second longer before chuckling. "Oh, come on, Okabe. You're too easy. Thanks for the offer, and I do appreciate it, but I'll just take a taxi."

He blinked. "A… taxi?"

"Yes: 'a motor vehicle licensed to transport passengers in return for payment of a fare', for any dimwitted mad scientist who might be listening."

That made him sigh. "Be gentle."

There was a vague and somewhat familiar rush of emotions as he said it, but she couldn't quite place it. Was it another reference to some important event?

"I am," she continued, ignoring it. "And I'm pretty sure I can afford one of those, given that I've been living in a hotel for two months. Going back is a much more logical solution. It also saves you a lot of soreness."

"I… suppose."

To say he sounded reserved was an understatement.

She just crossed her arms in return, waiting for him to elaborate.

"I… have bad experiences with taxi's, and cars in general," he clarified. "Haha, I guess that says a lot about how messed up… well, everything has been. Still, isn't there any chance I could convince you to stay…?"

Ah.

She suddenly recalled he'd spoken about this hours ago, how Mayuri had been murdered next to him in a taxi during one of his failed escape attempts from the city. And he'd also mentioned something about her being ran over by cars and other vehicles multiple times.

"Again, that was because of SERN actively being on to us, supported by attractor fields. Neither of those should apply here. Those were your own words," she reasoned, ignoring the pleading ambers eyes fixated on her, which was harder than it should have been.

It didn't really work. He hesitantly altered his gaze between her and the building, remaining in the shadows. Almost as if-

"Okabe? This isn't about just being careful, is it? You're genuinely afraid," she concluded.

For a moment, he stiffened and looked as if he were about to deny it. But then…

"I… suppose that's true," he admitted. "It's just… I've chased this moment for so long: a future where everyone was safe and together again. I've tried dozens, if not hundreds of things to get here before, but they all failed. And now that I've actually gotten here, when I know everything is supposed to be fine… I can't stop worrying. Even if I keep telling myself that I'm being paranoid, part of me keeps wondering what the catch to all of this is. Am I really forgiven for my hubris? Or is all of this still going to blow up in my face?"

"And regarding SERN," he continued, "I can preach them being harmless all I want, but when it comes to following my own advice, it's hard. I know what the way forward is, but I'm hesitating to take it. Does that make me a hypocrite, Kurisu?"

"Of course not," she stated. "What you're experiencing is probably a state of continuous heightened awareness to danger, as with PTSD. Your amygdala is in a state where it perceives all passing stimuli as dangerous. Normal treatment for that takes months, Okabe; there's only so much you can achieve in a day. You can't simply decide to instantly stop being affected."

He just nodded, not surprised in the least. "If that's true… do you think they can even treat me properly? I can't tell them what really happened for any number of reasons. And even if I did, I doubt they'd believe me."

"I don't know," she admitted. "But even if they can't, there's a good chance it will still pass on its own given enough time. And… if it makes a difference to you… you did do a lot for me today."

For one, she was much more emotionally stable, and was talking to herself decidedly less often.

"Ah… likewise, assistant."

They held the other's gaze.

She felt there were a lot of things that could probably have been said at that moment. But for now, she'd just accept his genuine smile, the same way he accepted hers. These last months, there hadn't nearly been enough of that going around.

"Well? Do I look presentable?" he asked, gesturing to his face.

"Meh, I've seen worse," she replied.

"Ouch."

"What about me?"

"Acceptable at best, I suppose. For an assistant."

Kurisu looked away, smirking. "Well if you're back to your usual chuunibyou self, I say we go right now."

He nodded, following her gaze. "Together, then."

He went first this time, crossing the road, opening the door and then going up the stairs.

Her throat was dry.

Looking at it objectively, this was a monumental place in human history. The first ever time machine had been constructed here. It had been the cradle for the greatest invention ever, and she had been a large part of it herself - in a different worldline.

That knowledge filled her pride.

Yet, that same invention also had also virtually caused the destruction of the human race in all worldlines associated with both known attractor fields.

…Yeah, that did lessen the sense of accomplishment. Sure, she'd achieved something great, but it had been in the same way Oppenheimer had invented something great when he and his team had constructed the world's first nuclear warhead for the USA during world war II. Only between their inventions, hers was the far deadlier one.

Yeah. Something deadlier than a nuclear weapon – she'd built it. Supposedly assisted by only one other person, in a ramshackle amateur lab, without any special funding.

'Git Gud, Oppenheimer!' Lymbic System cheered.

'AHEM – Six BILLION people died!' Frontal Lobe scoffed.

'…Still owned?'

She shook herself out of it – none of this really mattered at the moment. Yes, once upon a time, the time machine had existed, and it had been important - important enough for a SERN strike team to cross this same hallway with far less noble intentions…

…but in this timeline, it didn't. And if it was up to her, it would stay that way. Okabe was scarred enough as it were.

She looked back and saw the last streak of night disappear behind the closing door of the apartment building down the stairs.

Just a short bit in front of her, Okabe was already approaching an otherwise unassuming door.

It felt like there really was no backing out now.

Beyond that door was Mayuri, and if she had any luck, maybe something there would also help restore her lost memories.

What would she do if this didn't work? And what if it did work? Which memories were gone and how would regaining them alter her frontal lobe's decisions in the future?

It would have made an interesting experiment if the test subject hadn't been her.

She realized she was rambling and tried to calm herself down.

Okabe's hand reached for his keys.

She suddenly had a knee-jerk impulse to stop him, a gut feeling that they were forgetting something important.

Were those also just nerves, or-?

Too late.

Light slipped through the cracks and he stepped inside.

Author's notes:

If you liked or disliked this chapter, would you mind dropping a note to tell me what worked for you and what didn't? As a writer, I'm always curious to the Reader's thoughts. It's a significant part of my motivation to keep going, and I'll thank everyone doing so in advance!

I was originally intending to continue further past this, since I'm aware a lot of people probably wanted to see Daru and especially Mayuri. Well, I'm working on that. I'm having some difficulties getting the scene of them meeting the way I want to, and for that reason and not to slow down posting anything too long I decided to put that off for the next one. It's also a way to force myself to continue forward, since I feel a sense of not wanting to keep this from readers for too long. It breaks down the remainder into more reasonable chunks and makes it less of a mental juggernaut to go up against.

How much of a juggernaut? Well, the remaining word count is what I currently estimate to be somewhere around 20000 words (excluding this chapter). I could now do it in 2 remaining chapter with 10000 words with a natural cutoff, which is much less of an offputting prospect than trying to do 27000 words in one go or 13.5 k without a natural cutoff in two. I have almost completed the remaining two chapters in script form with the next one being partially worked through, currently standing at 10 k words for the two combined. That's as clear as a progress indicator I can give atm.

On this chapter's contents, technically I could have skipped all these things. But thinking about this logically, there are some issues to work through here. Is the lab really a safe place to have the 'debriefing'? And can Okabe really put aside all fears relating to SERN just like that, following his act in chapter 3? Eventually this sort of grew past itself to where this preparation could be its own chapter and I decided to go with it.

Oh, and look! The Frontal Lobe/Lymbic System issue has some plot relevance now! Actually, I was tending to remove them entirely since I don't quite like their projected inclusions in the last few chapters as much as they were in chapter 1 and 2, but I kept them in for now. I am planning, when this is done, to do a kind of director's cut as a near copy fic which removes them from all chapters and replaces it with some new content to deal with this issue. That way, both sides can be happy.

Unrelating to all of this, I've also had some inspiration for a fic based around Suzuha from the Beta worldline. But going there would probably mean ending this definitely at the end of part 1, as was the original intent, and foregoing part 2, considering the writing time issue. Hmm…

Well, that's all from me for now. If there are any questions or comments I'll try and respond to each of them. Kind regards and until next time!

Edit: Added a small paragraph by Okabe to Kurisu following a thoughtful comment from Astrogamer, wondering if surveillance by SERN was really a valid issue consering how slowly they acted in previous worldlines.